Bedroom Fireplace

Thank you to Gina of, Singledust, for introducing me to a Pantun, style of poetry this morning.

Pantun :

In its most basic form the pantun consists of a quatrain which employs an abab rhyme scheme. A pantun is traditionally recited according to a fixed rhythm and as a rule of thumb, in order not to deviate from the rhythm, every line should contain between eight and 12 syllables. “The pantun is a four-lined verse consisting of alternating, roughly rhyming lines. The first and second lines sometimes appear completely disconnected in meaning from the third and fourth, but there is almost invariably a link of some sort. Whether it be a mere association of ideas, or of feeling, expressed through assonance or through the faintest nuance of a thought, it is nearly always traceable” (Sim)

I’m not quite sure whether I’ve written the format correctly, but here is my first Pantun. I think I’m a bit light on in the syllable count.

Featured Image: Above, Jing’an Sculpture Park.

 

Bedroom Fireplace

 

Oh wondrous lounge-room fire-place

Your winter-time sparkling crackle

Glows upon our old desire’s embrace

Reciting words of lust, beyond our burnt shackles

 

Oh wondrous bed-room fire-place

Your winter-time warming flame

Narrates tales of our revere and grace

Flickering words of love, beyond our given time

 

Spark Of The Heart lyrics, Redgum

Album: Frontline

It’s a harsh dry land, breaks your back and scars and gnarls your hands
Now carcasses rot in the sun and dusk silts up the dams
Sacked two men when the postie poked those bluies through the fly screen door
The welfare state dried up ten years before

Its Hobson’s choice, they run this plane flocks melt into bone
You can drove the stock routes for a year and cripple life at home
Still look forward to every day but every days the same
You Wake in a sweat dream of the smell of rain

But a river runs solid runs deep
I work this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul

My great grandfather pushed his luck beyond the Goutre Line
Now all that’s left are new cloud shears and a gravestone walked with lime
In tribute I still use his Swiss barometer in vain
Lake be damned, the weather hasn’t changed

Fifty miles by river land this pasture fenced and sprayed
Profit margins [chime] and graphed at boardrooms in LA
Absenting landlords meet to match their smiles and fake suntans
In three years they’ll have bleached the soil to sand

But a river runs solid runs deep
I work this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul

Jocie searches salt bush where rain once ran its course
It’s a shock to see a child of twelve grow old upon a horse
The glory box lies locked with memories silent as the phone
Even in the shadows it’s our home
Government relief just might keep breeding stock alive
The agents jump the cost of feed and the export markets dive
And if it rains I’m still in debt until I’m ninety-eight
Will the last one out please shut the bloody gate

On the news it seems unreal
Floods in Cairns the cities just can’t feel
Survivals a story untold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul

But a river runs solid runs deep I love this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul

 

Ivor Steven (c)  2018