Archive for the ‘Hidden Capacity’ Category

Doors closing…

Posted in Books, Hidden Capacity, Love, Poetry, Romance, Writing, tagged ComfortZone, DoorsClosing, Frances Macaulay Forde, LovePoems, poetry, romance, WA Writers on August 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I learnt an embarrassing lesson yesterday; don’t rush!

I hit the ‘publish’ button like I would the ‘enter’ button – big mistake! Unconcerned, I thought I’d just correct and ‘Update’ which, of course, I did in seconds.

Embarrassingly the preview of the blog post (goes everywhere!) stayed as the original un-edited version although when ‘read more’ was clicked, the corrected version appeared!

Lesson well and truly learnt! Writing and posting when you’re tired or in a rush – just don’t do it! I do sincerely apologize.

Hopefully I can make amends with a poem written before love returned to my life.

DOORS CLOSING

How often has the door closed on opportunity for me?

And how many times have I shut it?

‘Well, open it again.’ You say. Not so easy

when it is wedged with prejudice.

Locked with lies about your femininity

and jammed with judicial errors.

I am an opportunist and I do believe

as one door closes, another… you know.

But sometimes, for my sanity, I take

the easy way out. My heart’s the same.

I’m not brave in letting that door stand ajar.

The solid barrier protecting my comfort zone.

A jack-hammer wouldn’t be heard now!

I’m deaf to desire and numb to need.

The woolen blanket around my feelings keeps me warm.

I lock the door, pocket the key, work and love in secret.

#FrancesMacaulayForde #Poem #LovePoem #Poetry #Romance #ComfortZone #Desire #DoorsClosing #Lessons

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Sunrise driving…

Posted in Books, Hidden Capacity, Poetry, WA Writers, Writing, tagged BOOK: Hidden Capacity, Frances Macaulay Forde, Hidden Capacity, poetry on August 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Artwork © Jessica McCallum

ROAD RIBBONS TO FOREVER

still cold the orb lay low

quick glimpse then hidden

motor climbing to drown

crow’s haunting early wake-up call

blades of light chop dust and dirt

wheels trundle

bodies bounce

over troughs and ridges

silent stands of hewn wood

strangled by checked metal string

strung as divided zones

of labour or fields of food

for slow-moving wool-balls

unaffected by those

who pass once in a changing

between ghost gums

wind-dancing

don’t press the soft start

for raucous interruption

no technological intrusion

to spoil the quietness

of morning impressions

but watch silently

anticipating adventure

time seems to slumber

in camera shots

too fast moving past

before fully absorbed

an erect neck now tired

of turning back with regret

high sun and heat

decreasing

petrol gauge as low horizon

never nearer not revealing

road ribbons to forever

our slumberous gazes

glazed with scenes

of shadows lit

by white-moon shafts

squinting at the yellow

twin-tunnelled path

flexing muscles cramped

shivering with want

the first new glimpse

of home

Frances Macaulay Forde @ 1999

1st published ‘Hidden Capacity ~ a poet’s journey’, Ireland, 2003.

#FrancesMacaulayForde #Poem #Poetry #WesternAustralia #SunsetDriving #HiddenCapacity

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‘My Car’ video

Posted in Hidden Capacity, KINDLE Books, Poetry, Video Poems, Writing, tagged Frances Macaulay Forde, Hidden Capacity, POEM:AllStops, POEM:MyCar, poetry in Western Australia on June 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Do you ego-search on the net? You should. It’s amazing what you find.

Just put your name like this: “Sarah Smith” into Google search and check where your name appears on the World Wide Web.

I’ve just discovered this reading of ‘My Car’ from ‘Hidden Capacity ~ a poet’s journey’ done some time ago which I had completely forgotten about.

I also discovered that Poemhunter.com seems to be doing really well out of the 52 poems I uploaded there years ago.

My poems seem to get a reasonable number of visitors and the site haven’t missed a trick in using them without formal permission.

Although perhaps their Terms & Conditions when I uploaded them originally, covered that – and who reads them properly?

Without my consent, there’s an e-book of the poems available for free.

Now that I’m selling my own e-books, it sort of clashes and makes me wonder if I should leave the poems on there for the publicity or take them down.

I decided to add the link to my KINDLE books on each page instead and hope it brings some sales.

Also each has been converted to a (questionable) ‘video’ some with automated voices reading the poems. Here’s their version of my ‘All Stops’.

Amazing what you find…

#francesmacaulayforde #VideoPoems #VideoReadings

P.S. I’ve just realized I started the month with this poem…

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Inspiration

Posted in Africa, Books, Hidden Capacity, Writing, tagged Africa, Frances Macaulay Forde, Hidden Capacity, Inspiration, writing on June 5, 2014| 6 Comments »

So I’m speaking here, directly from my heart, remembering my childhood in Africa and the struggles of my dearest Mum and Dad who died many years ago, who would have been so proud to see my words in print.

I’ve arrived at a time in my life where I’ve finally allowed myself to be utterly selfish.

My children had grown after my divorce into balanced, well-educated adults living their own lives, so I took myself to university.

It was my time to put myself first, my needs first, my dreams, soul and heart first, to follow my bliss.

I finally published the book in Ireland for them and for my brothers, children and extended family, just as much as for myself.

Inspiration

Why do I now prefer writing in my bedroom when I have a perfectly good study – a space cleared for thought?

I feel inspired to dream while I’m awake in here – not there.

Is it because I’ve just coated the room and everything in it a lilac pink?

Is that the colour of my inspiration?

Or does it illicit forgotten memories from my childhood?

The baby-pink bedroom of my spoiled youth, the dear faces of my parents still missed after so many years.

I’ve been through so many colours since then.

But perhaps I need to visit them once again, in my imagination.

Maybe this shade is my mood-connection to the past.

I’m alone now, responsible for the world I live in and my painted walls.

Or could it be something to do with the womb – a protective colour – a safe haven for my dreams.

Help that I need in a harsh world, often too over-whelming for someone totally unprepared or never expecting to be the ‘Bottom Line’.

This softness, which evokes feelings and comfort, allows my mind to wander and explore, knowing I’m enclosed and private, separated from others who see too much.

Or is it the large mirror with its elaborate edge reflecting my thoughts surrounded by soft, gentle, allowing colour?

I look at myself in the frame and from the ‘truth’ of distance – an inner truth?

Is that what empowers my exposure?

Is distance enabling me to write such secret, forgotten feelings in my journal?

My teenage bedroom was a similar pink – total colour – enshrining girlishness and innocence… protection, before adulthood and reality hit me.

#francesmacaulayforde #HiddenCapacity #Inspiration

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‘Call Waiting’

Posted in Books, Hidden Capacity, Poetry, Writing, tagged Frances Macaulay Forde, Hidden Capacity, Jessica McCallum, Poem, POEM: Call Waiting, poems, poetry, poetry in Western Australia, words, writer, writing on June 3, 2014| 2 Comments »

‘Pauline’: Jessica McCallum 2002 #jessicamccallum #francesmacaulayforde

Call Waiting

I killed you!

I took away your power to insult.

Never again will your strident, insistent beeping
intrude on intimacies between friends.

No. I struck you off.

I pressed the buttons that devoured you.

I ended your reign of terror.

Then Pauline rang
‘A new baby? Wond….’

Beep – Beep! Beep – Beep!

You didn’t die!

From happy jubilation
brain switches,
buttons pressed,
retreating “Call me back.”

I lost the war.

I don’t blame Pauline.

Rudeness is forgiven under pressure
from the mighty “I wonder who it is?”

Someday I’ll explain
and continue my campaign
for courtesy.

I died a little.

Aren’t I important too?

(Another from my book “Hidden Capacity ~ a poet’s journey”. )

#HiddenCapacity #francesmacaulayforde

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“My Car”

Posted in Books, Hidden Capacity, Poetry, Writing, tagged Frances Macaulay Forde, Hidden Capacity, Poem: My Car, poems, poetry, words, writer, writing on June 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Cover ‘Hidden Capacity ~ a poet’s journey’ #francesmacaulayforde #HiddenCapacity

One from my book: ‘Hidden Capacity ~ a poets journey’, Pub. 2003, Ireland.

My Car

Red used to be my favourite colour.

I’d just get Tinkerbell (my 1983 Mitsubishi Colt)

cruising nicely at sixty kilometres an hour

then red.

I’d have to slow down.

Pump the brakes.

Change gears gingerly in case her clutch drops out….

An old girl now, she needs TLC…

takes her time to build up speed,

then I see red. (Or orange.)

Bugger!

But, once she’s there (sixty K.’s) she sings like a bird.

I think it reminds her of her youth.

I’ve tried dressing her up (covering the rust).

The silvers don’t match and I know she feels the shame.

The petrol pump makes her feel better.

Once I insert that nozzle,

she almost smiles.

Her seat greets me tenderly

and we smoothly swing away,

high on fumes.

Yesterday,

a young man washed her windows.

She sparkled and purred.

Yes. Red used to be my favourite colour.

Now mottled shades of silver have loyal appeal!

#HiddenCapacity #francesmacaulayforde

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Cockatoo Chorus

Posted in Animals, Children's stories, Hidden Capacity, nature, Poetry, WA Writers, tagged birds, Carnaby's Black Cockatoo, Fauna, Frances Macaulay Forde, Hidden Capacity ~ a poet's journey, nature, Peace & Freedom Magaine, Poem, poetry in Western Australia, Western Asutralia, words, writing on March 30, 2014| 5 Comments »

Although actually written at university and included in my chapbook ‘Return of Rainbows’, this poem was first published in ‘Peace & Freedom’ Magazine, in London, 2001 with my daughter’s artwork.

Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos are a highly endangered species of native birds only found in Western Australia. Because of us, these noisy birds who possibly mate for life and can live 40 – 50 years, are in great danger.

Later the poem was included in my first book ‘Hidden Capacity ~ a poet’s journey’ published in Cork, Ireland in 2003.

COCKATOO CHORUS

“We’ll meet in the eucalypts down by the lake.

Discussion is needed – you have to partake!”

Black clouds flew from the oval, park and golf club

to raucously weigh down trees out in the scrub.

“Juicy larvae and insects prove harder to find

all the spraying and logging – ground being mined

has taken our homes, our gathering sites.

Together, in numbers we’ll fly up for our rights.”

From once sacred ground now suburbs, they flew.

From gum-tree nesting hollows, so precious and few

hundreds gathered early, in loud morning debate –

the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo parrot’s fate.

Discussed at great length in the eucalypt trees

for young; less food, meant less ability to feed.

“Stop clearing, spraying – playing with our lives!

If we die, what hope have you got, to survive?”

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“Is this the point…”

Posted in Hidden Capacity, Love, Poetry, Romance, Writing, tagged Frances Macaulay Forde, Perth City Skyline, Poem, poems, poetry in Western Australia, South Per, WA, Western Australia, words, writer, writing on March 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Perth Skyline, taken from the Mend St Jetty across the fiver in South Perth.

Thought I’d share another poem from my first book written during my on-line courtship, specifically what a poetry editor in Ireland deemed a ‘quirky’ title, to see what you think.

“Is this the point where you tell me

you’ve been bulls*itting all along?”

This comment, at 12.33pm on messenger,

stopped me in my tracks – I had to

question you…

Why say that? Is this where you are?

Role research? Experimenting on me?

I have opened the door for you once more.

You are the love of my life returned

to my room…

‘cos of who you are, who you’ve been.

And who I’ve been – where I’ve been.

My labels are cheap, used and tattered.

Yours exciting, money new, and ‘out there’.

Can you ignore…

appreciate the journey, walk the same road

remembering why I react from memories.

How did this happen and why now?

The director knows the outcome,

my script done…

Nuances of assistance from higher hands…

mysterious determined effort for lasting love.

If the future wanes – dumping my heart…

When I prove not to be what you want…

If my love…

can’t match your carefully constructed,

mental and emotional picture of me today…

Rejection! A resounding slap in the face.

Eternal damnation of idealism – romance.

Proving …

my impossible dreams have no right

to insert themselves into my reality.

I will still love you – hate you first but

eventually settle back to loving you again,

sub-consciously….

I will treasure always you careful words,

your considered approach – all the ‘bulls*it’!

From my 1st book of poems ‘Hidden Capacity ~ a poet’s journey’ Published in Cork, Ireland, 2003.

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Courting On-Line

Posted in Hidden Capacity, Poetry, Romance, Writing, tagged Frances Macaulay Forde, Poem, poetry in Western Australia, Returned Love, romance, words, writer, writing on March 4, 2014| 2 Comments »

A photo taken by my daughter at Hillary’s Boat Harbor to show my returned love what I looked like after 28 years (very, very hard to do).

When my returned-love found my name on the net after so long, the computer was both my friend and my enemy, forming a safe barrier to hide behind until I found the courage to step into love again.

Computer Messenger

Banter that backfired because

literal interpretations got lost

in considered connotations,

(re-read a thousand times)

of what went way-back-when…

Juxtaposition of judgements.

Hastily harnessed how-comes?

Stopping me still, seriously!

Making me question us both.

My passionate banshee tears

initiated by tactile responses