POETRY CORNER
– 03/01/17
Hosted by Kathabela Wilson
A gathering in Brisbane, Australia (Photo – Judith Pascoe).
Judith Pascoe
cattle dogs
roundup
the last straggler
a reluctant immigrant
escorted to the borderround and round
and sucked down the rabbit hole
logic spirals
out of control
you will never win
Judith Pascoe is a retired schoolteacher who lives in the Queensland bush at the foot of Mt. Tamborine, Austtralia. She says: “I am referring to the present situation in the States now, with illegal migrants being inhumanly rounded up like cattle, and Muslim refugees not welcome. I am Australian, thus the reference to the famous Aussie cattle dog, who are trained to round up livestock. However, this is a world problem too. Australia is not innocent in its handling of refugees, and camps on Manus Island are not humanitarian by any means.” Of her second tanka she says: “Best not to get involved with a narcissist as it is an impossible situation. A narcissist always has to win, and facts are always alternative ones!”.
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Round Up and bees (Photo – Ambika Talwar).
Ambika Talwar
save the honey bees
these vast killing fields
some pockets grow heavy
but our hearts heavier
get rid of roundup…
Ambika Talwar makes her home in Los Angeles and New Delhi, where she writes and facilitates healing workshops. She says: “There is no substitute for real bees. It saddens me deeply what ignorance and greed are doing to our environs. With the loss of bees, we lose our diverse vegetation, our food supply, and Nature’s abundance. Mechanical robot bees cannot replace the music and wonder that arise in Nature. RoundUp is a killer chemical.
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Created by bgcallahan.
Kath Abela Wilson
you who live let
the lasso of life be
loosened
by love rounded up
to a thousand embraces
Kathabela Wilson hosts the Poetry Corner here in Pasadena, California, at ColoradoBlvd.net. Her publisher asked her to please add her tanka specifically to this theme. She says: “Life has its own lasso, and it is best to let it be loosened. Kindness provides us with the opening to achieve a better life for us all, and love gives a way ’rounding up’ rather than a stifled, diminishing and exacting demand. A ‘thousand’ embraces the best estimate.”
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♣ We welcome and encourage your response especially in the form of short poems. You may reply by leaving a comment below.
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