Army of Ink Salute .
It is these inky things that stand me up when I slip up back. Show me forward into places I wouldn’t go all by myself. Write the wrongs through poems and songs. Create picture books of what I can’t tell. Hold me in a silent vigil when I bump and stop. Slow a world too big ad fast into moments precious and still.
It is these inky things that turn the deep end into a puddle I can jump over. Fear into something I can see. Anger into rock the boat defiance (like a wee rabbit thumping its foot). Shift loneliness into along wrapped in a nice warm blanket. Shrink pain to a hurt more my size. Make difference and smallness fell like a snug old fit. Every knock a trip to somewhere new.
And when night arrives … they snuggle beneath my pillow soft like a hidden treat. Riding the rise and fall of a slumbering breath. Catching sweet dreams and soft sounds that awaken a brand new day.
(Reposted from 2010. See also, ‘Peacemakers Plot’, ‘Once Upon A Dark Time‘. All Army of Ink here. In Clunk & Jam book, 2019. Original handwriting by Mags, with a chook feather from Ruth’s farm in Yallingup, Western Australia for handmade book, ‘Rock The Boat’, 2009.)
What if being different meant you’d never be alone again ?
Imagine…if those of us who felt different could be strengthened in our difference through the sharing of stories….which wouldn’t mean we’d all become the same ….but we might feel less alone in our difference….
(Art by Stormie Mills. ‘Clunk & Jam’ book – a collection of art and stories championing diversity and difference.)
(Ash Browne).
The Crossing .
One day I will swim out to the seaweed. And I swam for the longest time to know the place where I now rest. But let me not forget to look far back into the distance. Cast the mind before the deep unknown. Feel the fear in every stroke as I made that crossing. As I make it still each day.
(Clunk & Jam book, 2019. Pictured, Hansel & Gretel).
Clunk & Jam .
Through the clunks and jams and carriage returns of the dusty old beast that rides my desk, I slap silence with letters on waving arms, clunking out truth on a black rubber roll, as jams slow the rush and errors have a say.
Footnote: ‘Clunk & Jam’ is the title of the book. The book was typed on an old manual typewriter – Clunk & Jam being the sound of the typing and also the above poem about the process.
(Making Clunk & Jam second edition, 2019)
Occasionally she lost sight of hope.
(Clunk & Jam, 2019 book).
Art by George Frederic Watts (1886). Original in colour.
Martin Luther King Jr based his 1959 sermon, ‘Shattered Dreams’, on the theme of a 1886 painting called, ‘Hope’.
Excerpt:
‘We must determine how we live in a world where our highest hopes are not fulfilled. What does one do under such circumstances?
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The Artist Crime of The Century .
Imagine … sitting in the waiting room of a dentist surgery, flipping through a newspaper. You spot a sketch of the proposed Twin Tower buildings in New York. In that moment you decide, upon completion of the buildings, you will (illegally) string a tightrope wire between the towers (450 metres high) and attempt the impossible. And you do it. Not once, but you dance (and kneel and lay) along the wire, crossing back and forth 8 times. Philippe Petite devoted years to making his dream a reality -along with loyal supporters. A friend told me this story and recommended the movie ‘Man on Wire’. I return to it time and time again for inspiration and strength – and the message that we must prepare our steps well but also be prepared to step back from the wire when those steps don’t feel right to take.
Find in Clunk & Jam book. See ‘Man on Wire’ documentary film, 2008).
