At the last CI staff meeting

It’s CI’s birthday! Two.

How would you live without us? Let us know! Congratulate us.

Conditions of congratulating us:

1. No hate bloggers

2. No nasty comments about those pro or anti the swimming pool

3. No free trips to the Maryborough Highland Society club in Maryborough to play pokies

4. No calling the editor so deluded it is almost funny/a leftist agitator who does a pretty poor impersonation of a journo/asking him just WHO he is and WHAT planet he is from/that he uses weary old tools of the leftist and points the Nazi finger of shame/saying he has a juvenile and sarcastic manner/an idiot

5. No saying the editor’s sophistry is breathtaking. Sophistication – yes, sophistry – no.

6. No saying Far from being independent and un-biased, the author still favours left/green articles and continues to take swipes at Howard, Bush and other captains of capitalism.

7. No saying CI will suit local self-styled artists and pseudo intelligentsia. Some discretion should be used if allowing minors to visit it as offensive language is contained in some articles.

8. No calling CI a litany of self indulgent shite/not only inflamatory but also pathetic/truly awful, biased and disenfranchised piece of garbage/grubby little ploy … nothing short of disgusting

9. NO THREATENING US in capital letters. No threatening us in little letters. Neither law suits nor fish in the letter box.

10. No threats to inter CI staff at the Olde Gaol (at least if you’re planning it, MAKE IT A SURPRISE)

11. Take out a paid ad with us!

12. Contribute!

Dream Day: Kiss it goodbye

By Jeremiah Ganicoche*

You know when you’re facebook-stalking your ex and you find out that she’s married and your fucken world falls apart? Well, that just happened to me.

The Bitch.

She swore she would love me forever! And she didn’t say it out the side of her mouth or when she was drunk or any damn thing like that. She said it all the time on many and differing occasions. I fucken believed her, I really did.

But that’s all in the past. She broke my heart and made it so that now all I want to do is take revenge on all females on the planet. Her and her fucken interloping mum. All was forgiven.

Until the bitch got married.

I mean, we’ve had a rough time and she moved away to England and it’s been 10 years but we could work through it, right? You hand someone your heart for the first time and that’s it – together forever like swans, yeah?

The fuck it is. The Bitch got married.

I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!

I hate her! I hate her mum! I hate the beautiful fucken island they got married on! I hate the fucken douchebag cocksucker that married her! He’s obviously rich. It was a very decent wedding. But that’s it! She only married him because he can take her to a fucken island somewhere and get married.

That is the only possible reason she got married to someone else because she said she would love me forever!

That’s the deal. That’s the First True Love Deal! I read it in books! I saw it in the Disney film! The fucken swans!

Oh well. Fuck ‘em. The first bite out of the apple is always best right? That guy is now just married to the obviously rotten core and pips. And their fucken mum! That bitch! Good luck to them.

I gotta get started on this three day bender.

Oh God. My life.

* Jeremiah Ganicoche is a 30 year old who has drifted aimlessly from occupation to occupation until he completed a Creative Writing course at the CAE, taught by Jodi Gallagher. Having been reminded of what he is supposed to be doing on this planet, he has just finished his first semester of Professional Writing and Editing with Victoria University. He blogs. Read his other stories on CI.

The pathway finally opened
When my heart came to rule
in the world of love,
it was freed
from both belief
and from disbelief.

On this journey,
I found the problem
to be myself.

When I went beyond myself,
the pathway finally opened.

Mahsati Ganjavi (also written Ganja’i or Ganjevi) lived during the 12th century, born in Ganje, Azerbaijan. Her poetry was a strong voice against prejudice and hypocrisy and patriarchy, while upholding love – both human and divine.

She was celebrated at the court of Sultan Sanjar for her rubaiyat (quatrains), but later persecuted for her courageous stand against overly dogmatic religion and arbitrary male dominance.

Heberto Padilla

By Heberto Padilla
Translated by Andrew McKenna

I live in Cuba. I’ve always
lived in Cuba. Those years of wandering
the world that people have spoken of so much,
are my lies, my fakes.

Because I’ve always been in Cuba.

And it is true
there were days of Revolution
the island might burst between the waves;
but at airports
in places
I felt
I was being called
by name
and answering
I was already on this shore
sweating,
walking,
in shirt sleeves,
the wind and foliage were drunk
when the sun and the sea climb up to the terraces
and sing the Hallelujah.

~

Yo vivo en Cuba. Siempre
he vivido en Cuba. Esos años de vagar
por el mundo de que tanto han hablado,
son mis mentiras, mis falsificaciones.

Porque yo siempre he estado en Cuba.

Y es cierto
que hubo días de la Revolución
en que la Isla pudo estallar entre las olas;
pero en los aeropuertos,
en los sitios que estuve
sentí
que me gritaban
por mi nombre
y al responder
ya estaba en esta orilla
sudando,
andando,
en mangas de camisa,
ebrio de viento y de follaje,
cuando el sol y el mar trepan a las terrazas
y cantan su aleluya.

Heberto Padilla (20 January, 1932 – 24 September, 2000) was a Cuban poet. The Padilla Affair was named after him. He was born in Puerta de Golpe, Pinar del Río, Cuba. His first book of poetry, Las rosas audaces (The Audacious Roses), was published in 1948. After a failed first marriage and three children, he married Belkis Cuza Malé in 1972. This marriage also ended in divorce.

Although Padilla initially supported the revolution led by Fidel Castro, by the late 1960s he began to criticise it openly. A worldwide controversy was sparked when Padilla was placed under house arrest for his award-winning 1968 anthology Fuera del Juego (Out Of the Game) that expressed dissatisfaction with the Castro regime. The book was then taken out of circulation. In 1971, Padilla was imprisoned by the regime. His son, Ernesto Padilla, was born in 1972.

Like tangled hair,
The circular delusion
Of beginning and end,
When straightened out,
A dream no longer.

Dogen, sometimes respectfully referred to as Dogen Zenji, was a key figure in the development of Japanese Zen practice and the founder of the Soto Zen sect.

Dogen was born about 1200 in Kyoto, Japan. At the age of 17, he was formally ordained as a Buddhist monk. Considering the Japaanese Buddhism of the time to be corrupt and influenced by secular power struggles, Dogen traveled to China to discover the heart of the Dharma by studying Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism at several ancient monasteries.

Much of the Ch’an Buddhism he explored utilized koans and “encounter dialogues” to startle the consciousness into enlightenment, but Dogen was critical of this practice. Instead, he was drawn to the teachings of silent meditation.

Dogen returned to Japan in 1236. He left the politicized environment of Kyoto, and settled in the mountains and snow country of remote Echizen Province, where he established his own school of Zen, the Soto school.

While he proved to be a talented writer and poet, the core of Dogen’s teaching was to transcend the mind’s addiction to language and form in order to become fully present and recognize one’s inherent enlightenment.

Ten years later he had risen to the rank of pasha, and was set over the very pashalik where his father lived. On his way to his post, the new pasha stopped at a place twenty miles off, and said to the Bashi-Bazouks of his guard: ‘Ride to such and such a village, seize so and so, and bring him to me.’

The Bashi-Bazouks arrived at night, dragged the sick old man out of bed, and took him to the pasha. The pasha stretched himself to his full height, and, ordering the old man to look him in the face, said: ‘Do you know me?’

The old man fixed his gaze on the pasha, and cried: ‘Ah, pasha! you are surely my son.’ ‘Did you not tell me in my boyhood that I should never come to any good? Now look at me,’ and the pasha pointed to his epaulets.

‘Well, was I wrong? You are no man, but only a pasha. What man worthy the name would send for his father in the way you have done? I repeat it, you have gained the rank of pasha, but you have not become a good man.’

Heberto Padilla

By Heberto Padilla (1932-2000) From Out of the Game
Translated by Andrew McKenna

Cuban poets dream no more
(even at night).

They’ll close the door to write alone
when the wood suddenly creaks;
the wind pushes them all to hell;
hands catch them by the shoulders,
throw them,
put them face to face with other faces
(sunk in swamps, burning in napalm)
and the world around their mouths flows
and the eye has to see, see, see.

~

Los poetas cubanos ya no sueñan
(ni siquiera en la noche).

Van a cerrar la puerta para escribir a solas
cuando cruje, de pronto, la madera;
el viento los empuja al garete;
unas manos los cogen por los hombros,
los voltean,
los ponen frente a frente a otras caras
(hundidas en pantanos, ardiendo en el napalm)
y el mundo encima de sus bocas fluye
y está obligado el ojo a ver, a ver, a ver.

Heberto Padilla (20 January, 1932 – 24 September, 2000) was a Cuban poet. The Padilla Affair was named after him. He was born in Puerta de Golpe, Pinar del Río, Cuba. His first book of poetry, Las rosas audaces (The Audacious Roses), was published in 1948. After a failed first marriage and three children, he married Belkis Cuza Malé in 1972. This marriage also ended in divorce.

Although Padilla initially supported the revolution led by Fidel Castro, by the late 1960s he began to criticise it openly. A worldwide controversy was sparked when Padilla was placed under house arrest for his award-winning 1968 anthology Fuera del Juego (Out Of the Game) that expressed dissatisfaction with the Castro regime. The book was then taken out of circulation. In 1971, Padilla was imprisoned by the regime. His son, Ernesto Padilla, was born in 1972.

My words are tied in one
With the great mountains,
With the great rocks,
With the great trees,
In one with my body
And my heart.
Do you all help me
With supernatural power,
And you, Day,
And you, Night,
All of you see me
One with the world!

Attributing this to the 19th century is a guess. The source book did not estimate the date of composition.

The Yakut are a Native American tribe of California.

It had been a short, hectic day and I was glad it was over. There were some reports I had not gotten around to but that my manager said were “Time Sensitive” and of the “Utmost Importance.”

With her, everything was like that. Everything was of the utmost importance and everything was time sensitive. Nothing was ever under control, nothing was ever due when I got round to it and she never ever spoke in plain English like a human being.

I was considering why this would be as I got on the elevator and headed down and out.

On the 15th floor Jesus Christ got on and midway passed the 14th floor the elevator stopped. ? Jesus Christ was 6 foot 1, had Greek features, hazel eyes, a beard that was cut so short that it looked more like a three-day growth except for a goatee that grew an inch or two off the chin and he was well groomed.

“Oh man.” Jesus said as he fingered the G button impatiently.

“It’s stuck,” I said.

Jesus stopped hammering the button and dropped his hand to his thigh. He mumbled something under his breath which I’m pretty sure was, “Why me, God?”

Jesus didn’t look at me but swivelled his head around scanning the inside of the lift, looking for a fault, I assumed.

Then he started to jump up and down on the spot, landing heavily every time, trying to knock the lift loose.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he said as he jumped.

“Whoa, man. Hey. It’s broke, and to begin with I don’t want to get stuck in a falling lift.”

“It’s just 14 floors,” Jesus said.

“Maybe to you, it’s a little more than that to me.” I sat down on the floor in case the lift came unstuck suddenly.

Jesus continued to jump.

“That’s not gonna help, man,” I said wishing he’d stop.

“God. That’s not gonna help, God.” Jesus stopped jumping and stepped toward the door, intending to pry them apart.

I grabbed his arms and tried to ease him away from the door. His arms were tanned and knotted up with the type of muscles you only got from hard, manual labour.

“Jesus, man. We won’t be here for very long. What would you do once you got them open, anyway? Christ, just take it easy.”

Jesus let the doors go and started to move away but came back suddenly once I had gotten out of the way.

“What are you doing? You’re just gonna open these doors into an elevator shaft. We’re in a box in a tube. Opening these doors won’t help.”

Jesus stopped forcing the doors and leaned against the back wall with a thud.

“Whatever,” he said.

“Now that’s more like it,” I said relaxing a little but still standing between him and the door.

“Let’s just relax for a bit.”

Jesus looked at me with tremendous disdain and said, “Relax.”

“Yeah. Relax. Take it easy. Hang out,” I said, trying to calm him

“Christ,” he muttered and let out a deep breath.

We stood in silence for a moment. I watched him and he watched the ceiling – not interested in me at all.

I noticed his shirt, which was white and had something written on it which I couldn’t make out. I came around to the front of him to make out what it said. As I did so, Jesus looked down at me.

“What’s your problem?” he asked.

“Your shirt, I was reading it.” I could see it now and I read it out loud, “Religious Tolerance. It must be important to you,” I said, making small talk.

“It’s an oxy-moron. It’s got nothing to do with me.” he said finally.

I rolled my eyes and exhaled a lungful through puckered lips. “So…” I rolled back on my heels and cracked my knuckles in front of me.

Jesus pursed his lips and turned away, giving me the cold shoulder.

“What were you doing in this building, anyway?” I asked still trying to make conversation.

“There’s a real stubborn prick up on the 25th. He’s withholding some old lady’s pension,” he said.

“Did you talk it out with him?”

“No.” Jesus seemed more impatient than angry.

“Is she gonna get her pension?”

“He will when frogs start flying out of his butt.”

“Is that just a saying or is that really gonna happen?”

Jesus didn’t answer.

“Oh,” I said. “Is that how things are done? With the state the world’s in, you help old ladies with their pension?” I asked. Wouldn’t God have bigger fish to fry?

“She prayed. The old and the desperate are the only ones We hear from anymore,” Jesus explained, bored.

“I come down to sort her out and figured I might to take my body for a spin – you know, for a laugh – I’m on my way home and next thing you know I get stuck in this lift.”

I could tell he wanted to say, “With you,” but stopped himself.

As Jesus spoke he turned a little to face me and I noticed the slogan on his Tshirt had changed. It no longer read Religious Tolerance but now God Is My CoPilot.

“Where’d you get the Tshirt?” I asked pointing at the slogan.

“Heaven,” he said rudely.

I shook my head. “You aren’t exactly like they made you out to be.”

“What, from what you’ve seen in movies?” he asked, mocking me.

“From the Bible.” I retorted.

“Listen – ”  He paused abruptly then continued, “ that book was written a long time ago and I doubt you’ve read it”.

I squinted my eyes and pointed at him.

“You don’t know my name do you?” I asked, offended.

“Look, Mac, when I’m in this body, this damn meatsack, my motion is a little … limited.”

“So you don’t know my name.”

“So I have to catch the bus, so I get stuck in lifts, so I don’t know your name,” Jesus explained, then he added, “excuse me if I don’t ask for your damn autograph”.

We stood in silence for a minute.

His Tshirt changed again to: 6.4 Billion Miracles is Enough

“Can you do any miracles?” I asked sheepishly.

Jesus tensed up and said through gritted teeth, “Do you think I’d be stuck here if I could?”

“What about back in the day – with the pyramids and Christmas and stuff?” I asked him.

“What about it?” Jesus looked puzzled for a moment then quickly looked exasperated, crossed his arms and turned away.

I wasn’t sure what his problem was at all.

Jesus restlessly turned back to the buttons on the lift and started hammering at them again. This time he noticed an emergency button and held it down.

A voice came from a tiny hole in under the number display, above the floor buttons.

“Lift assistance. What is the problem?”

“This lift is stuck,” Jesus said simply.

“It’s showing operational on my board,” the female voice replied.

“Then your board is broken like this lift. Can you get someone to come and fix it, please?” Jesus said with contrived patience.

I saw Jesus’s shirt had changed again. This time to: What Would I Do?

“I can’t send anyone out there to have a look until someone reports a fault.”

“What do you think we are doing?” Jesus clenched his hands into fists.

“From the building’s management. We don’t accept reports from just anyone who pushes a button in a lift,” she replied matter of factly.

It made a certain sense to me. There’s a lot of clowns out there pushing buttons.

Jesus squinted his eyes. “Are you gonna send someone down here or not?”

“Not until we get a call from your building’s management. You should call them,” the female voice concluded.

Jesus pointed his finger at the little black dot where the voice was coming from. “Do you know who I am?”

“Are you building management?” The voice didn’t skip a beat.

“No. I’m – ”

I shook my head and mouthed the word No, at him. Jesus stopped abruptly, his shoulders drooped a little.

The female voice was not interested in who we were.

“Call building management. Good day.”

And with that there was a three-note ring that let us know this conversation was over.

Jesus stood there with his hands on his hips and looked at me, “Where’s your phone?”

“Where’s yours?” I asked defensively.

“What would I need a phone for?” Jesus asked.

“To call building management,” we said together.

“Very funny,” Jesus said. “Where’s your phone?” he asked again.

“I left it at home,” I said.

Jesus curled up into a little ball on the lift floor.

“Those things give you radiation,” I explained.

“You can’t carry them around every single day of your life.”

Jesus remained on the floor in the fetal position with his eyes closed, hands cupped under his chin.

“Jesus?” I ventured.

“What?” he said into the elevator’s polished tile floor.

“What’s the point of it all?” I asked.

“The meaning of life?” Jesus opened his eyes and watched the floor.

“Yeah.”

“What do you care?” Jesus said and closed his eyes again.

“I don’t. It’s never really bothered me but I hear a lot of people ask and I figured I would be able to tell them the next time it came up,” I explained.

“Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God,” he recited.

“Seriously,” I pressed.

“That’s the point.”

“C’mon,” I insisted.

Jesus sat up. “There isn’t any real point. That sack of meat you’re in doesn’t last very long at all – do you really think We’d attach any importance to it or anything you could do while in it?”

I didn’t understand.

Jesus’s shirt now read: Your Religion Offends Me.

“But what about all the Christians and preachers on TV? They seem to think there’s something to do,” I asked, still puzzled.

“You haven’t heard them. Christianity today is looking more like gangster rap – it’s – all about the bling.”

“Shouldn’t you look after your followers?” I got this not at all.

“They’re not my followers. And you bastards crucified me when I was trying to look out for you. Why should I give any of you a new car? Why do you want a new car?” Jesus asked the wall of the lift. He seemed just as puzzled as I was.

“Just to recap – nothing we do really matters because we’re just passing through – ” Jesus nodded, “and you’re not interested in your followers these days at all”.

Jesus nodded again.

“That’s about right, is it?”

“We still listen to prayer,” Jesus added.

“Old ladies and their pensions,” I remembered. Jesus nodded and let his shoulders droop a little.

“What’s going on, here?” I wondered out loud to myself.

“You tell me,” Jesus said.

The lift lurched back into life. Jesus stood up. The elevator descended to the ground floor and without saying goodbye we each went our separate ways.

* Jeremiah Ganicoche is a 30 year old who has drifted aimlessly from occupation to occupation until he completed a Creative Writing course at the CAE, taught by Jodi Gallagher. Having been reminded of what he is supposed to be doing on this planet, he has just finished his first semester of Professional Writing and Editing with Victoria University. See more of his work on CI. He blogs.

Let us see, is this real,
Let us see, is this real,
Let us see, is this real,
This life I am living?
Ye gods, who dwell everywhere,
Let us see, is this real,
This life I am living?

Free will: go anywhere you want

By Jeremiah Ganicoche*

How did it get like this?

Tired of the way things are turning out? Do you think something is wrong but not sure what? Want to do something but aren’t sure if you can accomplish anything?

Do you feel guilty about your part in the machine? Does your skin colour identify you as part of the problem?

Are you smart enough to strike the right balance between your ideal and your ideal compromise?

What can you do?  How many people do you know? What can as many people as you know do? Would they all want the same thing as you?

Why haven’t they fixed it? Why haven’t they figured out a way? Why haven’t you and them figured out a way? Two heads are better than one, right? And a few hundred heads are better than two, aren’t they? Why haven’t we done anything?

What good can we do? What good can I do? What good can you do?

What if we do nothing? Aren’t we doing nothing now? What if we do less?

Could we do less?

What if we bought less food? What if we went hungry for a day? What if we went on a hunger strike? Is it just all about food?

What if we buy less? Do we really need that? What if we buy nothing today? Would we die?

What if we didn’t go anywhere? Would we need to fill the tank? What if we stayed at home with the family?

What if we switched the power off for that day? What if we switched the water off for that day?

Aren’t you free to do that? How long do you reckon you could keep it up for?

Once a year?

Once a month?

Once a week?

Would you get bored? Would you get tired? Would do it until you saw yourself on the TV?

Or would you keep it up until something changed?

* Jeremiah Ganicoche is a 30 year old who has drifted aimlessly from occupation to occupation until he completed a Creative Writing course at the CAE, taught by Jodi Gallagher. Having been reminded of what he is supposed to be doing on this planet, he has just finished his first semester of Professional Writing and Editing with Victoria University. He blogs.

The Lord is in Me
The Lord is in me, and the Lord is in you,
As life is hidden in every seed.
So rubble your pride, my friend,
And look for Him within you.

When I sit in the heart of His world
A million suns blaze with light,
A burning blue sea spreads across the sky,
Life’s turmoil falls quiet,
All the stains of suffering wash away.

Listen to the unstruck bells and drums!
Love is here; plunge into its rapture!
Rains pour down without water;
Rivers are streams of light.

How could I ever express
How blessed I feel
To revel in such vast ecstasy
In my own body?

This is the music
Of soul and soul meeting.
Of the forgetting of all grief.
This is the music
That transcends all coming and going.

Kabir is not easily categorised as a Sufi or a Yogi — he is all of these. He is revered by Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. He stands as a unique, saintly, yet very human, bridge between the great traditions that live in India. Kabir says of himself that he is, “at once the child of Allah and Ram.”

He was born in Varanasi (Benares), India, probably around the year 1440 (though other accounts place his birth as early as 1398), to Muslim parents. But early in his life Kabir became a disciple of the Hindu bhakti saint Ramananda. It was unusual for a Hindu teacher to accept a Muslim student, but tradition says the young Kabir found a creative way to overcome all objections.

There’s a hidden history at Castlemaine. It’s where the political action that led to the Eureka Stockade began. Today the site is a sloping paddock beside the road to Melbourne, a natural amphitheatre strewn with wattles. It’s flanked by two creeks, Forest and Wattle Creek, which meet in the gully below. Here on this crotch of land, each year on 15December, the Castlemaine locals meet to make speeches, sing songs, and commemorate the 1851 Monster Meeting of Diggers.

On that day 15,000 diggers occupied this hillside to defy the Victorian Government’s Gold Licence – and won. It was the first in a series of events that climaxed with over thirty-five deaths at The Eureka Stockade, Ballarat, in 1854, and in 2010 our annual commemoration, caught the eye of U.K. television presenter, Tony Robinson (Worst Jobs in History, Time Team, Blackadder).

His visit will soon be screened internationally on the History Channel, and the Monster Meeting story has also featured in a series of audio tours I’ve produced, Living Stories of the Victorian Goldfields, and in my show for schools, Gold in the Heart. In 2010 we ran the Monster Meeting Song Award, and received thirty-eight Monster Meeting songs – from folk and art music to heavy metal.  So the story is growing, and here is a mud-map of this under-recognised event, along with a short account of the Bendigo Red Ribbon Agitation that followed, both preceding the bloodshed at Eureka.

* * *

David Watson, Tim Heath, Angus Read-Hill at a recent re-enactment

Before the gold diggers, came the graziers who’d taken up land ‘discovered’ by Major Mitchell’s 1836 expedition to the area. The land they took was Jaara land, and for thousands of years the Jaara people had let the gold be. But they called gold Kara Kara, and recently Jaara elder Brien Nelson told me a story of Kara Kara:

The first white people who came here were farmers, and one day a Jaara kid and a white shepherd boy were having a chat, and the Jaara kid picked up a lump of gold.

      The shepherd thought, “That’s gold.”

      The Jaara kid said, “See those crows, I bet I can hit ‘em.”

      And the shepherd said, “But wait, don’t throw it away, that’s gold!”

      “No good to me,” said the Jaara kid, and he threw the nugget at the crows. “Got him!” 

      “Don’t you want that gold?” asked the shepherd.

       “It’s too soft for a spear point and tomahawk, and it’s too heavy to carry. So I leave it. Just rubbish.”

      “Can I have it?” asked the shepherd.

      “Sure,” said the Jaara kid.

      So the shepherd ran and picked up the gold. Later he showed it to his master, the landowner, and the landowner said, ”Put it away.”

At that time, the late 1840’s, there were about one thousand landowners in Victoria – the squatters. Only they could vote for parliament, and none of them wanted a gold rush on their estates.

The big landowner in the Castlemaine area was Dr Barker – Castlemaine’s main street is named after him – and he had ‘Barker’s Run’ a few miles north of the present town. When his shepherd, John Worley, began panning gold from the creek, Barker insisted it was ‘fools gold’. When Worley continued panning, Barker ran him off the land. But the shepherd was an articulate lad, and wrote to the Melbourne paper, The Argus.

Dear Sir,

      I wish to publish these few lines, that the public may know that there is gold found in these ranges, about four miles from Dr Barker’s home station, and about a mile from the Melbourne road, at the southernmost point of Mt Alexander…

John Worley

1 September, 1851

Three men on a dray

Before the Tullamarine Freeway, the main road out of Melbourne to Central Victoria was Mt Alexander Road, created by the diggers who followed Worley’s instructions and walked to the goldfield – Mt Alexander being the dominant landmark in the country.

Initially known as the Mt Alexander gold rush, the focus shifted to nearby Forest Creek and became the Forest Creek rush. There was more alluvial – surface – gold to be found here than anywhere else on earth, ever, and within three months of Worley’s letter there were 25,000 diggers camped along the creeks.

The cacophony of their picking and shovelling and the rhythmic rattle and scrape of their cradles could be heard for miles around. A new digger entering the scene would behold a world turned upside down, a land that looked like a graveyard with all graves open, dotted with the white calico tents and campfires.

But Melbourne was deserted. There were only two policemen left in town, as the constabulary had joined the thousands who left their jobs and deserted farms for self-employment on the diggings. Harvesting the wheat crop was in jeopardy. Governor La Trobe, poor sod, couldn’t find a labourer to chop his wood.

To control the rush and keep people in their jobs, the Government imposed a Gold Licence, where each man on the diggings had to pay a tax of thirty shillings a month, whether he earned a penny or not.

But with 25,000 diggers on Forest Creek and more arriving every day, the Gold Licence obviously wasn’t working. So in early December, 1851, the Victorian Government announced a doubling of the tax to three pounds a month, saying the increase was necessary to keep law and order on the goldfields. That would increase the Government’s take from roughly 37,500 pounds to over 70,000 pounds per month – from Forest Creek alone.

That’s when the notices went up on the few trees the gold diggers had left standing:

The intelligence has just arrived that the government is to double the license fee. Will you tamely submit to the imposition or assert your rights like men?

You are called upon to pay a tax imposed by your legislators for the purpose of detaining you in their workshops, in their stable yards, and by the flocks and herds.

Ye are Britons! Will you submit to oppression and injustice?

Meet – agitate – be unanimous – and if there is justice in the land, they will, they must abolish the imposition.

The Victorian government builds no bridges and makes no roads. They have one single idea – Taxation – and all they can get. 

Will you be ridden over with an iron hand to please the wishes of the squatters, or any other class?

Will you tamely submit to have your hard earnings torn from your grasp, to enrich the pockets of a few?

Or will you come forward like men, and maintain your rights?

The notice also said that

…remember, that union is strength, that though the single twig may be bent or broken, a bundle of them tied together yields not, nor breaks…

and the image of the bundle of sticks (taken from the Roman faggots, later adopted by the Fascists) became part of the Diggers Flag at the Monster Meeting.

Along with a bundle of sticks, tied together as a symbol of their unity, the flag displayed a pick and shovel for the diggers’ labour, the scales of justice (possibly with a double entendre for the scales to weigh gold), and a kangaroo and emu, symbols of the diggers identification with their new land – long before the Australian coat of arms – and also two animals who cannot take a backward step. With the flag overhead various speakers addressed the crowd from a dray. 

At our annual commemoration we have a crowd of about one hundred and fifty, and we use a PA. So how did the speakers of 1851 broadcast to one hundred times that number? Our best guess is that the speakers were yelling, and that the people up front passed the message back.

We know what was said from the reports in The Argus where the speeches, thousands of words long, were printed in full. But I also wonder how the reporters got it all down without any recording devices? Make rough notes and fill in immediately after? Employ assistant scribes? Prodigious memories?  Whichever way they took it down, they then had to ride furiously or catch a coach to Melbourne with the news.  Whatever the method, here’s an edit of the diggers’ speeches, beginning with the one thought to have called the meeting, Laurence Potts:

Brother Diggers and Fellow Citizens…before me I see some 15,000 men, which any country in the world might be proud to own as her sons, the very cream of Victoria, and the sinews of her strength.

Now, my friends, let it be seen this day whether you intend to be slaves or Britons? Whether you will basely lay down your neck to the yoke, or whether, like true men, you will support your rights?

On these diggings are collected some 25,000, who have united in the bonds of friendship, discarded all distinction of nations and creeds, and lived like brothers.

Now, my brothers, why should the labouring man be skinned alive? This is the first chance the labouring classes have had to do good. Why should we bear a grievous imposition?

We are willing to pay a small tax, but there is no reason why a body of men such as I now address, should accede to such extortion as a tax of three pounds a month, whether we find any gold or not. 

It was such taxation that lost Great Britain, America. I hope brother diggers, as a Briton, such unjust taxation will not be the cause of separating these splendid Colonies from the Mother Country.

There are few here who advocate separation; few who do not feel themselves free! And none, I trust, who will be slaves!

Now will you pay the three-pound license? We are willing to pay a little, but skinned alive we will not be!

I call upon you once more to pledge yourselves to support one another – not only against taxation, but against disorder. We will see to one another. A digger, in distress, shall raise a thousand brother-diggers, to support him.

I will now read you the first resolution:

“That this meeting deprecates as unjust, illegal, and impolitic, the attempt to increase the License Fee from Thirty Shillings to Three Pounds.”

The resolution was carried unanimously, and the speech, which according to The Argus was rapturously received, contained a cocktail of ideas: a pride in every man’s worth no matter what his station, and a strong sense of what we now call ‘human rights’; a fierce pride in being British, rather than any republican sentiments; a very early championing of what we now call ‘multi-cultural Australia’; a sense of breaking free from the old despotic European traditions; and possibly a germ of many Australian’s antipathy to new taxes. This was a heady mix in the days of Empire, before democracy.

Some of these themes were reinforced by the next speaker – Captain Harrison, a one-armed digger, previously a sea captain, who’d ridden to the meeting from Bendigo:

My fellow diggers! I feel proud to have it in my power to stand before a noble set of men – men who will protect themselves against the oppression of our unjust Government.

Why has Government made this change? They say it is to pay for the expenses of protecting us, but I say, men, they are false pretences. We might have out throats cut, our tents robbed or fired for all the protection the Government affords us.

What then are we paying for?

There is now a surplus of 13,000 pounds, which has been screwed out of the sinews of the gold-diggers, and what is to be done with it? They say it’s for the Queen. Has the Queen not got enough or does she want to buy pinafores for the children? They will tell you her salary is small. I wish to God I had one twentieth for mine.

They talk of doubling the fee; let them reduce it to one half of its present charge instead of doubling, or they will find, like the fable of the golden egg, that in grasping all, they will get nothing.

But let us, my friends, unite as one people, without respect to creed or country, and victory will crown our efforts.

I propose that this meeting, while deprecating the use of physical force, and pledging itself not to resort to it except in the case of self-defence, at the same time, pledges to relieve or       release any diggers, that on account of non-payment of the three pound license may be fined or confined by Government orders, should the Government proceed to such illegal lengths.

This motion was also carried unanimously, with its pledge of peace and the threat of violence in self-defence; the fire in the blood and steel in the eye would in three years characterise the diggers at Eureka. Also, in comparison to the first speaker, Harrison, with his derision of royalty, may be more inclined to Republicanism.

Another to speak was a Mr Booley, an activist of his day, with a theme of ‘class warfare’:

Fellow diggers! – There are few people who understand what a Government is, and what it ought to be. It should be the chosen servants of a free people, and to be just they ought to be right- minded people.

I dare say you have seen a picture resembling a being with scales in one hand, and a sword in the other: the scales represent justice, and the sword represents the power of maintaining it. Such should be a Government.

A criminal, when brought to justice, hangs down his head and trembles: but the innocent man stands erect, he asks no favour, and as equal men in estate we ask for Justice!

We have been told that the poor man is starving, that work is scarce, and they have nothing. Now the scale may be turned. The poor man may be elevated, the independency so much desired is within his grasp.

Is it not as fair to give the poor man a chance, as is the squatter? Why should so much favour be shown the squatter? What attention have the squatters paid to the comforts of their men – bad huts, bad food, and often, bad treatment, while the squatters are lolling in their mansions.

Let the poor man get the value of his labour. If the rich would not give it, Providence, in its wisdom, has thought fit to do so. Let them make good use of it, and let them act on the great principals – morality, justice and truth.

Now my friends, make up your minds: if you find a man who does pay three pounds for his license, although he obtain fifty pounds of gold per day, surround his hole and prevent him working.

You my friends, make up your minds you will not pay: you may, if united, defy all power. I wish distinctly and earnestly to beg of you not to let anything divide you; carry out your purpose. I       trust you never, never will be slaves.

And in saying that government should be the chosen servants of a free people Booley is calling for something that didn’t exist at the time -democracy.

As well as the speakers there was a brass band playing at the Monster Meeting. The next day a delegation went to Melbourne, to inform La Trobe and the Victorian Government that they would not pay, and the Government backed down. The Gold Licence stayed at thirty shillings a month.

Here are the lyrics of the song that won the Monster Meeting Song Award, Thirty Shillings A Month, written by Baynton farmer, Martin McKenna:

Thirty shillings a month to dig for gold

In the dust and the heat and the rain and the cold.

While the squatter pays, I understand,

Around the same for a swag of land.

For ten quid a year they give him a vote

He has a say in what we have to pay                                              

And they lock up the land from folks such as us                            

Time to stand up for what’s right and what’s just.

Some diggers strike riches, but most strike it tough                             

Now the government claims that we don’t pay enough                                                         

So they’ll double the fee, it’s easy you see                                                                                                                 

To keep us in chains while the squatter rides free.

When we came to this land we hoped we’d find                               

Old servant and master roles left far behind.                                  

But the gentry and crown are eager to see                                       

Us kept in our place. So they’ll double the fee.

So come gather boys, at Forest Creek.

Time to be bold, there’s no place for the meek.

We’ll rally for justice and what is our right.

Victory is ours if we diggers unite.

Thirty shillings a month to dig for gold

In the dust and the heat and the rain and the cold.

While the squatter pays, I understand,

Around the same for a swag of land.

So round one, the 1851 Monster Meeting, was a victory to the diggers. Next was the 1853 Red Ribbon Agitation in Bendigo, and that story will wait for another day, but briefly:

The Bendigo diggers continued the opposition to the Gold Licence. Added to their woes was a particularly cruel set of police who would chain resisters to trees and leave them all day in the sun.

Inspired by the Monster Meeting, the Bendigo miners collected a petition of 30,000 signatures from all the Victorian goldfields. It was thirty metres long and addressed the same issues: a tax, whether you earned any money or not, imposed by a government who would not allow you to vote.

But Governor La Trobe virtually ignored the Bendigo Petition, and so many diggers, anticipating that they’d have to fight for their rights, converted the lead lining of their tea chests into bullets.

However at a meeting in August 1853, attended by 10,000 diggers – with the Digger’s Flag from the Monster Meeting front and centre – instead of violence the diggers decided to simply not pay the Gold Licence. Henceforth all the diggers wore a red ribbon as a symbol of their unity. The movement against the Gold Licence was now called the ‘Red Ribbon Agitation’, and every man, woman, tent, shop door and dog in Bendigo wore a red ribbon.

Historian Robyn Annear told me that the material often came from the men’s underpants, which were usually made of red cloth. So with their undies crowning their heads the diggers held firm, and only four hundred diggers paid the license fee.

It was impossible to jail them all, so instead La Trobe introduced a sliding scale: one pound for one month; two pounds for three months; four pounds for six months; and eight pound for twelve months.

But the ‘digger hunts’ continued, and when Governor Hotham replaced La Trobe in the middle of 1854, they increased to thrice weekly. The traps were ordered to collect the fees at all costs, and the story is well known of how in late 1854 on the Ballarat goldfield, the issues that began with the Monster Meeting boiled over into bloodshed at the Eureka Stockade.

At dawn on the fourth of December, 1854, a digger and a trap look each other in the eye. The trap, a good soldier, is here on Government orders. For the digger, it’s freedom, or die. It’s the Sabbath, and usually they would have been resting, or preparing for church. Under their flag, the Southern Cross, those diggers that had licences, have burnt them, and on bended knee, prayer like, they have together sworn an oath:

“We swear by the Southern Cross

to stand truly by each other

and fight to defend our rights and liberties.”

The diggers take arms. Twenty minutes after dawn, thirty-five diggers and six troopers are bayoneted or shot, dead at the Eureka Stockade.

And it began with the 1851 Monster Meeting of Diggers, outside Castlemaine.

Photo: John Ellis

The modern commemorations of the Monster Meeting began in 1995, when locals, led by well-known political activist and occasional Greens candidate, Doug Ralph, took up the Monster Meeting story as a vehicle to protest the Victorian Government’s amalgamation of local government councils.

Since that time the annual gatherings have waxed and waned, but in 2010, with the Monster Meeting Song Award and the appearance of the world famous Tony Robinson – ‘Baldrick is coming to the Monster Meeting!’ – the commemorations took off. We had a big lunch addressed by historian Weston Bates, and one hundred and fifty people came to hear local actors perform the speeches of 1851 and listen to musicians sing songs composed in the last year.

It’s just a pretty hillside, the Monster Meeting site. There’s nothing there, but grass and wattles, and an old pine tree. A shepherd’s hut once stood on the rise, now gone, swallowed by the dirt. And the diggers boot prints and pick marks, also gone, washed into five generations of rain, or flown with the dust. There’s nothing to show us that once 15,000 stood there and demanded their rights. Nothing, except a story that we keep alive by meeting there each year, and putting that story back onto that land. A story of how some diggers lived the idea that Australia could be a home for people of every creed and colour on earth, an idea that’s still a work in progress. And a story of how they envisaged democracy in Australia, unyoked from the old-world tyrannies, something we now take for granted.

As I write people in the Middle East are dying for that idea. Is that comparable to what flowed from the Monster Meeting to Eureka? In scale, of course not, but in principle, yes. In both cases a government is shooting citizens who demand democratic rights.

Jan ‘Yarn’ Wositzky is a storyteller, writer, musician and performer.

Edgar Allan Poe

By Edgar Allan Poe

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture — a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded — with what caution — with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night about midnight I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern all closed, closed so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this? And then when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously — oh, so cautiously — cautiously (for the hinges creaked), I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights, every night just at midnight, but I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed , to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was opening the door little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back — but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening , and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out, “Who’s there?”

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed, listening; just as I have done night after night hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief — oh, no! It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself, “It is nothing but the wind in the chimney, it is only a mouse crossing the floor,” or, “It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.” Yes he has been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions ; but he had found all in vain. ALL IN VAIN, because Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time very patiently without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little — a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it — you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily — until at length a single dim ray like the thread of the spider shot out from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.

It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness — all a dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones, but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.

And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder, every instant. The old man’s terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! — do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me — the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man’s hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once — once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence.

I took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly so cunningly, that no human eye — not even his — could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out — no stain of any kind — no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that.

When I had made an end of these labours, it was four o’clock — still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, — for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, — for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search — search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My MANNER had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears; but still they sat, and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct : I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness — until, at length, I found that the noise was NOT within my ears.

No doubt I now grew VERY pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased — and what could I do? It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND — MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! what COULD I do? I foamed — I raved — I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder — louder — louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly , and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! — no, no? They heard! — they suspected! — they KNEW! — they were making a mockery of my horror! — this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! — and now — again — hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! –

“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!”

On this summer night
All the household lies asleep,
And in the doorway,
For once open after dark,
Stands the moon, brilliant, cloudless.

Brock Lesnar: Rhodes Scholar

By Jeremiah Ganicoche*

I’ve never played Cluedo but if you were ever dealt my card that is what it would say.

It’s a killer hand.

They don’t tell you this when they give it to you but marijuana is a homicidal maniac. You smoke it in a joint or rip it in a bong and in 72 hours you will have to pay the piper.

That’s not so bad?

The pied piper stole your kids, played them into a cave, then imploded the cave with your kids inside.

He killed your babies then went home and slept like one.

It is what it does.

Tough times call for tough action. If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.

It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times.

Nothing was working.

You’re gonna get hit

You’re gonna get knocked out

You’re gonna feel it

This is the ultimate

How can you sing along to that? Who the hell wants to get hit? Who wants to watch someone getting hit?

Sometimes you hit, sometimes you get hit. If you aren’t about something and you get hit then you are nothing. You have no will and when there is no harm, there is no foul.

If you are about something then you expect to get hit and when you do get hit you hit back.

How can you give up you when you haven’t even started?  You haven’t failed because you have never tried. You can’t blame anyone because no one has done you any wrong.

No one has gotten in your way because you were never going anywhere.

O stony grey soil of Monaghan
The laugh from my love you thieved
You took the gay child of my passion
And gave me your clod-conceived.

You clogged the feet of my boyhood
and I believed that my stumble
Had the poise and stride of Apollo
And his voice my thick-tongued mumble.

You told me the plough was immortal
O green-life-conquering plough!
Your mandril strained, your coulter blunted
In the smooth lea-field of my brow.

You sang on steaming dunghills
A song of cowards’ brood,
You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,
You fed me on swinish food.

You flung a ditch on my vision
Of beauty love and truth.
O stony grey soil of Monaghan
You burgled my bank of youth!

Lost the long hours of pleasure
All the women that love young men
O can I still stroke the monster’s back
Or write with unpoisioned pen

His name in these lonely verses
Or mention the dark fields where
The first gay flight of my lyric
Got caught in a peasant’s prayer.

Mullahinsha, Drummeril, Black Shanco–
Wherever I turn I see
In the stony grey soil of Monaghan
Dead loves that were born for me.

The Tweet Files

A month of writing, distilled from a Twitter diary.

We tweet in 140 characters – including spaces and punctuation.

Such focus. Such discipline for the

unruly mind.

It is the haiku of our time.

Monday morn.

Weekend trippers return to Melbourne.

It’s just me, the rabbits and ‘roos

…and the story. Always the story.

Starting writing: walking

to the end of the jetty in mid-winter and

jumping in to the freezing ocean.

Some scenes come clearly.

You write them immediately from within. Others,

it takes time to clear the crap from your mind to find the voice.

There are times when we hide our true selves

behind the masquerade of a story.

The story we tell is a shadow of the truth we dare not tell.

But when we do write our truth it’s like what Hopkins found.

It half hurls earth for us off under our feet.

There is no going back.

I step into the story not knowing where it takes me.

Arriving, I know the place. There is no new story,

only the constant stream of story.

There are moments in writing when something

we do not recognise

speaks through us.

Once it has happened we hunger after it again and again.

Speaking of film as story. Editor Bill Russo quotes Ezra Pound,

‘The only thing that endures is emotion.’

Find the story’s emotional path.

Refocusing a movie story: like defusing a bomb!

It cld blow up in my face. I’ll cut this red wire

…or was it the green one?

I got a story problem in Act 3.

I bet I’ll find it began in Act 1 and has only just surfaced.

Like life, really.

There’s no such thing as writing: there’s only rewriting.

Unlike life.

Wrangling story ideas is sometimes

like teaching cats synchronised swimming.

Your poetry issues of its own accord

when you & the object have become one.

Basho 1690

Reading Basho, a black cat purrs on my lap.

In the creek the sound of night frogs.

Josie, 2011