h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry about this page. I've got all this poetry I want to put up on the web, but I can't be bothered making a web site, so here's every poem I've every written in one big wodge.
I'm sure I'll do something more interesting with this page soonish so hang tight....

There's a story behind pretty much all this thingies, so I'll write 'em down in brackets in the beginning [like this].

WARNING!: Gratuitous bias towards French Horns and French Horn playing contained here. Becuase I play one

Not sure what's here really, got some bad poems, and some worse prose, so Share and enjoy

DISCLAIMER: Characters depicted in this article are fictional. Resemblance to actual people, real or imaginary, is completely coincidental and if you don't get psychiatric help for that problem of yours right now, I'll have you committed.

Have a nice day.

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[I did a writting course in Y12, and also an art class, and here is the emalgamation of the two subjects]

Sky

A painters brush dipped in azure
Glides across a painted canvas
Dipped in white, the sponges are
Dabbed against the blue

Washed over with indigo ink
And a stencil is peeled away
To reveal a white speckled circle
A toothbrush is dipped in silver
And spattered, in glittering galaxies

A brush is soaked in muted pink
And another one, in apricot
Two-tone bands streak across the horizon
Sponges in white are laced with lilac and violet
The top of the canvas is blended with blue
And on the horizon, a brilliant golden half circle
Blazing against the sky.

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[First in the series of "Dream" poems. Wrote this one after feeling blue one day, and somewhat in apprehension for failing my big audition at the end of the year for the School of Music. Funny how a lot of my works seem to manifest themselves.]

Death of the Dream

I spin around on my heel
In time to see the glass sphere
Buffeted by some unseen hand
Nearing the ground at light speed
And yet somehow taking an eternity
Before cleft into fragments
In an explosion of light

I cradle a large piece
Of my shattered dreams
In my hand
And the sharp edges
Slice my fingertips.
Picking up the pieces one by one
I try to fit them together
But I cannot
They are shattered beyond repair
Refusing to rejoin each other
Gone, gone
Like castles built in the sky,
So fragile, so frail
All I thought was real,
All I had lived for

And here I stand in a world with no light
Alone

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[based on a similar poem I wrote in Y10]

School bag

Battle torn from days gone by
Tattered and filled with holes
Spattered with paint and dirt
Mouth gaping, jaws wide
Eagerly you swallow my books
Churning inside you,
Maths books rise to the top,
Squashed lunches sink to the bottom.
And notices enter a temporal warp
Never to be heard from again.
My wallet is hidden from me
Sunken in the deepest corner
Of the infested pit of your belly
Coins conveniently fall out of the hole
In your underside

Wrestling each other
I fight for ownership of my wallet
Books flying around the room
Until you playfully surrender
You feed on the pens that I seem
To be continually replacing
But emancipate yourself by
Mysteriously producing five-dollar notes.
Work sheets squashed into tiny balls
Lining your underside as a soft bed.

I empty you out
To discover four half-empty drink-bottles
That you seem to have been hoarding
And a sheet for an essay, due in two days.
You carry all that I own in your stomach,
And much that I never remember seeing
The pelican of school existence
You hold so much in so small a space.

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[poem I wrote while there on holiday. This poem is in the format of a Indonesian Pantoum. Enjoy]

Surfer’s Paradise

Ocean breeze in my hair
Gaze out across the horizon
Sunrise sky apricot and pale rose
Hot sunshine radiant gold

Gaze out across the horizon
Scantily clad burnished locals
Hot sunshine radiant gold
Brilliant neon and hoards of people

Scantily clad burnished locals
Crystalline sapphire waves lapping
Brilliant neon and hoards of people
Sunset ruby and amethyst jewels

Crystalline sapphire waves lapping
Sunrise sky apricot and pale rose
Sunset ruby and amethyst jewels
Ocean breeze in my hair.

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[Basically, feeling bad about leaving at the end of Y12 and moving on the adulthood.]

Free

Cold and leaden
Grey and uniformed
All the same

I am trapped
Inside a grey box
A cage
For torture
Drilling into my skull
Word, words
Inside there are
Shadowed figures
All alike
Dressed alike
Clones, huddled over
Cold grey desks
Studying
In silence

Outside through
A cool clear window
The sound of laughter
Children playing
Running, jumping
And above
Blue sky
White clouds
Moving slowly
Through the breeze
Swirling
Changing
Evolving
A white dove
Flaps its wings
And soars off
Into eternity
Caged in cold metal

Outside freedom
Inside nothing
Chained
Beaten
Broken
Trapped.

A donkey can be trained
By being beaten with a stick.
But sometimes the trainer beats
Too hard, too often
And the stick becomes all
The donkey believes in.

After
Twelve hard years
Tramping in lines
Chains fall away
Rusted and old
They clatter to the ground.
You are shoved out
Into the freedom
“You are free”
Tamed like an animal
Caged and hand fed
Groomed and moulded
By human hands

The eagle is set free
But it doesn’t know how
To fly
Wings out stretched
You fall
And stumble
And don’t know
Where to go
Or what to do

The freedom becomes
Huge and endless
Cold and uncaring
If you cannot survive
You die.
The cage

The stick
It nurtured you
It is familiar
The eagle turns
The cold grey walls
Seem safe
From the growing fear
But they turn you away
“You are free”

They taught you
Everything
Except how
To fly
Free now
Cold
Alone
You spread your wings
And look into
Blue infinity
Empty
Nothing
Alone

The stick was bad
But without it,
You have lost all
You have ever known.

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[Feeling renewed confidence and desire to get back all those who doubted my capabilities. Second in the "Dream" series ]

Resurrection

According to Arabian legend, the phoenix consumes itself by fire every 500 years and a new young phoenix flies from its ashes...

I stood, stiff and straight, my eyes unfocused and staring at a point somewhere to the side of his mouth. He was talking, telling me how to stand, how to play, but I couldn’t concentrate on the words. My mind kept wandering; I could hear the sound of a dog barking, a bird chirping, distant car. The trees outside swayed in the breeze, beckoning for me to come and join them.
Focus.
Left foot placed forward, I tried again. It hadn’t always been like this. I remember when it had been fun, games. I remember when it had all been so easy to get better day by day. But the road of progress became steep, and I got discouraged to practise. They had warned me, It wouldn’t be easy. This is no romantic job. If you want to have fun, go do something else. It would be hard work. Are you sure you still want to do this?
Sometimes I wondered why I still continued when the fun had gone. When it was too much trouble to practise. When I felt too tired to continue. I nearly gave up. I nearly decided to do something else.
I got sick of it all. Trying hard and never getting anywhere. Constant mistakes. Reaching for a goal that moved further away as I got close to it. Striving for unreachable perfection. Memorising. Sequences. It was almost too much.

I remember a time not long ago when I couldn’t play. Oh, I could do the notes on the page, but there was no music. No expression, just empty sounds, no dynamics. Not much difference between loud and soft. I was afraid. Afraid to speak out, afraid of being actually heard. I couldn’t play more than eighteen notes. I was afraid of myself.
Standing there.
Exposed.
Alone
Everyone staring.
Sounds fumbled.
Spluttered.
Never getting better.
Never right.
Every once and a while they’d get their old “Have you been practising?” faces out of a drawer and look at me with slitted eyes. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” they’d ask, as if they thought I’d never be good enough to make it. “Do you practise enough?” “Where you want to go at the end of year 12?” And I would answer timidly; afraid that it was the wrong answer and that they would say I would never make it. Faces looking at me, disapproving, as if I didn’t try, as if I didn’t want it bad enough.
And I didn’t.

And then I was saved.


Someone finally taught me not to be afraid of myself, to play out, to speak and not care about what people think. Taught me how to have confidence in myself and in the skills I have. I was a good player and that I had every right to prove it to everyone else.

When I played for the first time, solo, in front of people. I was terrified. But someone lent down to my ear and said, These people have come here to hear you play. Don’t be afraid. If you make some mistakes, who cares?
And so when yet another person said that I was no good, that I wouldn’t make it. Told me that I would never be any good. Found fault in everything I did and criticised. Inside me, something clicked. A spark flickered in my soul: a spark that was sick of everyone telling me I was no good, a spark that was sick of people repeatedly asking me where I wanted to go after Year 12? What happens if I don’t make it in music?
A spark, that was sick of people doubting me and having no confidence in me.
And the spark came alight in my soul. Burning, glowing, it flamed into a roaring fire, incinerating the fear in my heart, setting the dry tinder ablaze and dissolving it into dust.

And I opened my mouth.
Fire poured out of my heart and out of my mouth, lighting up my soul, lifting me up into the sky, the shattered phoenix, reborn.

Are you a Horn Player?
You are motivated, enthusiastic, and committed.
You want the drive of a Symphony career.
You want a prestigious Chamber Music career.
You want to be an outstanding performance virtuoso and teacher.
You want to be the best.
You need to feel inspired.
Left foot forward, I tried again, but this time, it was good.
Phoenix danced across the sky, huge flaming tails whipping out behind, and a new fledgling joins them in the sun.

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[stuff]

Autumn

If the year was a day
Then autumn would be Sunset
The first hints of the new season,
The leaves turning brightest yellow
Through to citrine amber
Orange and gold
Soon the wind will howl
A fierce tempest shaking the trees
The leaves floating nonchalantly
Down to the ground
The leaves turn to red and crimson
The ground, a carpet of leaves,
Of brilliant precious gems
Vivid, glowing colours
The last leaves to fall
Turn purple and violet
So deep and dark,
They are the darkness
Left behind, as the last
Rays of the sun fade.

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[more stuff]

Winter

Wisps and clouds drift away
Breathing out in the cold.
The emerald grass frozen
With a layer of frosty white
As though the stars had
Fallen during the night
And were resting on the grass

The trees silent, in respite
Grey clouds overhead
The sun sleepily rising
For a new day that simply
Isn’t worth the effort
A string of crystal beads
Hangs on a silvery spider’s web

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[A tribute to my grandfather's dog, based on the poem that comes next]

Michael

Nestled in his bed for the last time
We held a mirror to his muzzle
It clouded, but the breath of life was dissipating
And his stomach rose and fell less often
His eyes, half closed and looking at us
Looking at him.

He blinked at me
And a slow smile spread
Across his old muzzle
He looked at us all
Awkwardly standing around his bed
And he thumped his tail
And closed his eyes.

We held the mirror to his muzzle
It was clear.
I stared at him, curled in his bed
As though he had not gone
Still there, wagging and laughing
As though he sleeping

Sometimes I look out
Of the door
And see his laughing face
Wagging in the window
Waiting to be let in

I didn’t say goodbye
He was still there in my eyes.
I didn’t see him leave
I only saw him stop
And he still is lying
Under the ground he dug
So many times himself
Merely sleeping.

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[wrote this one in Y6 when my dog Misty died, so bear with me folks]

Misty

Misty was a dog of mine
Faithful, loyal and true
I loved her very dearly
I loved through and through
Her spotted back, her soft brown eyes
Now those things are gone
No more wagging tail
Now I am alone
There’s a brand new dog in heaven now
Spotted white and black
She was a gift from heaven to earth
And now they’ve taken her back.

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[still more stuff]

Clear day

It should have been raining
The wind howling
Icy shafts of water
Spiking down from the sky

The clouds heavy
Black and grey
The world shrouded
In darkness

It should have been raining
It was raining in my heart
The cold wind blowing
My tears flowing
The droplets forming puddles
On the ground

But the sun was shining
Not a cloud in
The clear blue sky
The birds were singing
Smiles on the faces
Of people walking by
Every happy sound,
A dagger in my heart

It should have been raining
The day you left
But the sun was shining
Everywhere
But in my heart

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[I felt a bit whacked out this day. Make what you will of it]

Would the last person to leave
Please turn off the lights?

Standing
I look around me
Darkness

A sheet of black
In front of my eyes
Room once familiar
Now plunged into
A void
A black-hole
Of nothingness
Distances unseen
And indeterminable

Would the last person to leave
Please turn off the air conditioning?

Silence
Now the air is still
Half in my mind
It has been sucked out
Completely
And around me
A vacuum
I stand
Motionless
And the room around me
Seems threatening

Alone
I reach out
And feel nothing
The air settles
And becomes
A stagnant blanket
Smothering my
Breathing

Would the last person to leave
Please close the door?

‘Click’
Last portal
To freedom
Gone
Shut
Sealed
I am alone
In black
Total
Darkness
Smothered
Chocking
Gasping
At air
That isn’t there
Alone
Forgotten
The last person
To leave
Gone

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[secret message to Terence: Terence, If you're reading this, then don't. This is not going to be pretty and you'll probably have a very good idea when I wrote this and what the reference is to.]

Uncertainty

Is this the sunrise or the sunset?
The beginning or the end
Is this the east horizon or the west?
Day break or dusk

Is that the morning or the evening star?
The clouds not quite sunrise pink
Nor sunset apricot
Are those street lights just turning on
Or turning off?

Now is a moment frozen in time
Poised on the brink of indecision
Here, no time passes
To see if the sun is rising
Or setting
On the edge halfway between
Light and dark

Is this the sunrise or the sunset?
The beginning or the end
Dying embers of a fire extinguished
Or the spark of a fire burning again?

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[Saw my old friend from high school at the bus stop. Didn't have the courage to say hi]

Old Friend

You were sitting at the bus stop today
I sat down next to you and smiled.
And in your eyes I saw
Someone I didn’t know.

How long has it been? I asked
Too long to remember

Remember how it was?
Remember then?
But time passed
And as the road of life
Became a fork
You chose your path
And I chose mine.

Now I’m sitting at the bus stop
Next to a stranger
Living in the body
Of someone I knew
A long time ago

We smiled politely
And chatted about nothing
She got on the bus
And we went our separate ways

It’s too late now, stranger
I don’t know you

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[romantic drivel]

Awaken

We’re complete opposites but so perfect for each other. It feels so good when he’s around. We’re like the sun and moon, completely different and somehow alike, we dance across the sky, some times together sometimes apart, but when we get really close to each other we create the most beautiful and completely unique event in the universe, a solar eclipse.

I dreamt I was a beautiful bird with rainbow coloured feathers. And when you came along a wash of warmth came over me and changed my wings to silver and my tail to gold.

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[third poem in the "dream' sequence This is after my "little chat" with my tutor after not getting into CSM]

Making the Commitment

My God.”

I stared down at my hands. I watched them open and close, fascinated in the simple yet amazingly complex movement. These were my hands. I could understand them.
Everything was changing. Too fast, too soon.
My body seemed to be shutting down. My mind had packed a few bags and gone on holiday. I couldn’t say anything, my mouth just opening and shutting. I searched for words, but the English language failed me.
I looked into his eyes and I knew. I could read his thoughts.
You’ve got it.
You’ve got the gift.
I know you can do it, but do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost you?
I can help. I will help. But can you help yourself?

I could see myself, surrounded by black walls, solid and immovable. The only way out is up.

Do you have any idea how much you are going to have to sacrifice?
Everything

“You simply don’t have the time.”
“I’ll make time”
“It’s too late, you’re committed to school now. It will take up a lot of time. Passing those subjects should be your main priority.”
“I don’t care.”
“Is there anything at all you could do supposing you don’t make it? Supposing you don’t have time?”
“This is my life, my whole world. If I did anything else, I wouldn’t be me. I can’t do anything else.”
“I just hope you know what you’re in for.”
“Not really, no.”
“I just hope the sacrifice is worth it.”
“Me too.”

This is not a game.

I said goodbye. I cut off all ties. I made the commitment.
I chose.

Lying on the couch, pressed up against the cushions, I was shivering. My head was splitting, but I didn’t have a headache. I didn’t have indigestion, but my heart was in agony. Blacking out. I can’t see. My ears are ringing. I want to, but I can’t cry. I can’t scream.
“Is it worth it?”
“Is it worth this?”
“You’ll never see your friends again.”
“The people you care most about.”
“They won’t have time to call you.”
“How can you throw them away?”
“As if they meant nothing to you.”
“For a chance? A possibility?”
“What if you don’t make it?”
“What if you regret it all?”
“What then?”


“I’ll never regret following my dream.”

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{Fourth in the "dream" sequence. This is when I was getting depressed from working so hard and getting nowhere]

Grasping the Dream

When a horn player solos
In the woods
And there’s no one there to hear it
Was it still any good?

It’s working.
I’m getting better, every day
I used to say that’s all that matters

There they go,
Soaring comets of fire
Speeding towards the heavens
Reaching the stars
Ones I used to call “friend”
Should envy make me this bitter?

Should I be happy when I try so hard
And get nothing
Compared with those who do nothing
And get glory
And fame
And gratuitous praise

When I am squashed into the ground
Trod on, stepped over
Eyes turned away,
Ears deaf to me.

When all the while
Those who are greedy
Obnoxious rude and sly
Those who cheat and lie
And steal what little I have
Reach for the stars and make it
And tarnish the shine with
The loss of morality and decenty
And I say, I have integrety, I will
Win out in the end

But I do not.
I swirl and dance
And show my colours
But to no avail,
When young upstarts
With no skill
No flair
And overbearing arrogance
Take over my parts
And ruin them, fail the music
To the soothing sounds of
Sympathy
The parts are not “high”
Nor “difficult”
Not for me

My efforts lost
My passion, my love
For you, my music
Who hears me?

There is not a sound in the wood
No laughter, no whisper
No praise or applause
Not one single sound to indicate
A presence
Of a listener
Or any sound at all

Save one lonely horn call
Drifting away through empty woodland
The sound of sobbing
And the wind blowing through the trees.

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[Weird. I wrote this in y12 for no reason at all and then in manifested (sort of)]

Mergence of Reality, Memory and Fiction

Together they walked out to the native bushland behind the campground. They walked over the hills in the twilight of the setting sun. All the time she thought, “Why is he doing this? Why is he treating me like a princess?” She suspected that this was his attempt to woo her. It was strange how old fashioned that sounded. They sat down behind a small hill, out of sight of anyone who would come looking for them.
She looked up at the sky as he whispered to her. Somehow, she wasn’t sure. She had loved someone else before all this started. She had had a fiery passion for him, she desired him with all her heart. It just wasn’t like that with Michael. They would sit, just like now, and chat, politely, and laugh. But she never burned, without the ferocious fire of before. The passion that she felt for Simon hadn’t made any difference. When he found out about her feelings, he had expressed quite plainly that he did not feel that same way. She had been shattered. Her world had fallen out from beneath her feet. Her internal fire extinguished.
Michael and Simon were completely different. Simon was passionate and extroverted. Michael was mellow, softer. He didn’t have the sharp, defined edge to his character that Simon had. He wasn’t over exuberant and permanently ecstatic. He was more melancholy, more introverted. He was a lot less exciting to be around. She stared at his face lit up by the moonlight. He’d taken her hiking and they’d gone to the waterfall. Now he was here, just spending time with her. Simon never had time to devote to her alone… The stars glittered above her. They had been there for hours now, and it was long after sunset. Her heart, broken by Simon, lifted up into the infinite emptiness of space. Out here in the wilderness, for the first time in ages, she felt good. Michael looked over and noticed her expression. She smiled as he took her hand in his and leaned over to kiss her.

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[Feeling bummed. I think I'll write something morbid ]

Confessions and Rejection

I stared at his face, disbelieving. In my mind, I stared down at my chest. Glass shards protruded from my clothes, the golden blood of devotion slipping away from between my fingers. Knives came flying through the air at me. Stabbed, and stabbed again, repeatedly hacked at. Slashed, sliced and pierced. A fine fissure formed in the glass shell of my heart. In a single moment that lasted for an eternity, it exploded, shattering into a billion pieces. I looked up at his face as I toppled to the ground, choking, coughing up the golden blood and curling up on the ground. My mouth opened, but words swam freely in my head, a million things wanted to be said, but none would come out. I stared into his eyes, as my life force slipped away from me and uttered but one word with my last breath; “Why?”
And he had simply walked away. I felt cheated. Betrayed. He cared nothing for the crumpled heap that my stricken carcass lay in. Empty and alone I walked to the balcony and looked out at the world, once again searching for comfort for my soul in the endless distances of space, and finding none.

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[secret message to Terence: I wrote this ages ago so shut up.]

Love

Where did spring go? I remember putting it down somewhere. I got sick of the pain it was causing me and resigned my self to an eternal winter. Into a place for reflection. I thought I should live with winter, in case it would never be spring again. I live through June, July and August. And now… The sunshine has been gone for so long. I had separated my self from all connections to spring and now I miss it. I miss the flowers and the sunshine. I miss the laughter and that feeling, some special feeling. Oh I can pretend, but it just isn’t the same. Where did spring go? I wish the sun would shine again. Even if it does give me sunburn.

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{self explanitory]

My favourite colour

Just after the sun sets, look up directly above you. The sky. Electric blue, that’s my favourite colour. Deep and penetrating, it still has the brilliance of day suffused with the mystery of night. The transitionary stage, the line of termination. When the sun is gone and the moon is out but the light from the sun can still be seen streaming over the horizon. When shadows are so long they extend up into the air, when the last golden rays touch the heavens tinting them deepest blue, and the evening star chases the sun to distant lands in the west; this is my favourite time of day. The currawong’s soft, sweet warblings call their family into bed. The air changes from warm and thick to soft and cool. The traffic lights turn on, even though there is still enough soft light from the distant sun to see by, and they twinkle like stars resting on the ground.
Somewhere else, wallabies will be coming out to feed and play, galahs will have already tucked in for the night and the world will turn on, the sun will plod continually westward. The briefest moment, a magical time, only lasting but a half-hour or so, will be over just as soon as it came.

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[ditto]

Autumn arrives in Canberra.

I saw autumn for the first time today. I watched it hanging outside the School of Music door. It had turned the leaves of the trees brown and left them delicately fallen on the ground, some green leaves still hanging there with tenaciousness. There was the coolness in the air that was not there before and a breeze, almost, but not quite
feigning a bluster.

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Gentle winds
Crisp air
Waters calm
Whispering trees

Shadowy wood-grove
Peaceful and still
Soft moss ground
Waterfall well

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[secret message: Yeah...]

Soft breath
Soft words
So little
Means so much

Normality settles
Yet with vivid tensions
Some strange surrealistic
The drama plays.

Winding down
Into something usual
Yet delightfully new
Every time.

Dark eyes
Soft hands
Solid real
Surreal

I am home
Yet moving
Forward
Going somewhere

Strange new…
Yet…

Something inside me weeps when you are gone
And soars when you are near
Something inside craves for you to be closer still
Something makes everything springtime
And vivid technicolour
Sliver wings and strange unusual magical things
Never heard of before.

Words refuse to come out
The english language fails me
I had no command
In matters such as these

All I can do
Is do
And feel.
I cannot speak
Only show.

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