A is for Aggregate

(formed by the conjunction or collection of particulars 
into a whole mass or sum; any hard material added 
to cement to make concrete; to bring together, 
collect into one sum, mass or body)

So far the pieces don't match.
Diary entries leave out the dramas.
Letters carefully tailor those same
life-altering events. There is often
much ado about nothing. All
we need is love.
Most of the poems are angry.

The drawings are of another world
even the sketches of frangipani trees,
women with babies on backs.
They're all about women, they are
not about women, the head-shrinks
would say they're about me.
I study them now for hints.

They clearly demanded intense
pressure on the coloured pencils
- the Derwents - the pressure
of living and working in foreign
community, needing a new
language. I put the humour
into brief stories, short fiction.

I laid out the beauty in acid-free
photo albums from Creative Memories.
All memory being creative, I search
and research what's gone,  the sum
of parts assembled, the hard stuff
added to delete, repair, review
make whole a phase of life anew.

Off the Cuff 23: Exhausted & Earth's Problem

APAD 23     prompt: exhaustion

Exhausted just thinking about it.
Can Poetry Save the Planet?

Sparking a lively debate:
How many words will that take?
How many activists? How many
books can you not make? 

Exhausted talking it through.
What, after all, can we do
that hasn't been tried? How
many, in trying, have died?

Save the Planet for what?
And from whom? Are we
saying there's just not enough
room? Or something is wrong?

On the rapids we're carried along.
The Kiwi brings light to the gloom.
We agree there's no answer, happily.
Exhausted just being with doom.

We exit to find
the next chat-room.


Earth's Problem

I love the way you spit and sputter
no doubt if I listened
I'd hear you mutter

about being third from the Sun
and the only one
who has to put up with our clutter.

You grumble and spew -
yes, nothing is new -
it's all recycled matter.

You break rock down to soil
bring lava to the boil
but never get thinner or fatter.

In hail, snow, plain rain
you go green again - but
you don't care if parts of you
fry

for unless there is news
or at least some more clues
you're still on your own, wet or dry.

NaPoWriMo  23