Perth Words... exploring possibilities.

The Mule, BBC 1, BBC iPlayer, Writer Nick Schenk, Director Clint Eastwood. — odonnellgrunting

August 26, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0019n5y/the-mule Based on a true story (kinda, but not really). An article in The New York Times reported that Earl Stone, aged 90, had been convicted for transporting drugs for a Mexican cartel. If Earl Stone had been aged 30 or 40, or even 50, there’d be no story. The story is in his age. […]
The Mule, BBC 1, BBC iPlayer, Writer Nick Schenk, Director Clint Eastwood. — odonnellgrunting

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August 25, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

*‘The Sweater Shop’ Doolin, near Cliffs of Moher, Ireland sketched by Frances Macaulay Forde© 2003.*

In 2002, the man I loved 28 years before in Africa, found my name on the net. After running away to Oz, two beautiful children, a bitter divorce and 17 years on my own, he sent a Valentine's greeting. I knew I was in trouble...   (From my chapbook "Exploring Possibilities...")

My Knight

in the afternoon of my life
settled
content and comfortable 
in my aloneness 

you question me!

you destroy 
my strong defences 
obliterate 
my sense and reason 
to let you in

for my heart 
bow wave of confusion 
tense terror times 
of doubt and fear 

unknown
risk everything 
my ordered now 
the colours of my life 
changing to a
different hue

you terrify me 
wanting - needing 
arms that enclose 
a broken heart 

make it whole again!

Frances Macaulay Forde © 2003

#POEM:MyKnight  #ExploringPossibilities  #SketchingInIreland  #LoveStory #PoemsAboutLove #RediscoveringLove #Reunited #Romance #Poetry

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POEM: Milk Money Door

August 21, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

Artwork:  Frances Macaulay Forde © 2022

Milk-Money Door					
	
bright daffodil day 
embarrassed matures
redundancy stamped 
stand Dole-Queue silent 
in the happy sunshine

teleworkers gathering
gaze in compensation 

young things pout
into hidden mobiles 
hand held to ear   
stomach-bared
vogue on one leg
 
doesn’t open till ten 
on no-job-yet Tuesday

pushy prams queue 
harassed singles 
loose children ram
legs poised on steps 
to milk-money door

this doesn’t seem 
to be a happy event

there’s fetid foam
squashing through 
smashed windows
rusted frames rot
ugliness everywhere

still… it’s the most 
popular place in town.


Frances Macaulay Forde © 2003

#POEM:MilkMoneyDoor #ArtIsTheSpark #FMFArtwork #MyIrishPoems #WrittenInIreland #ExploringPossibilities #SketchingInIreland #Poetry #DoleQueue

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The Uncanny Magic of Illustrators

August 12, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

There should be a LOVE button! Loved every word of this, Meg. Thank you again for your wonderful story and Karen’s insightful illustrations.

Meg McKinlay

There are so many things I love about working with illustrators.

Firstly, and entirely self-servingly, having a co-creator gives me an easy way to accept praise about the book without resorting to my usual impulse to shrink away muttering, Oh, it’s nothing. It could have been better. Eh, it’s just a thing I did. Having an illustrator, and their inevitably glorious work, to deflect compliments onto makes my life a great deal easier.

That reason comes first only in this idiosyncratically ordered list though, because really it’s the least important of all the things I love about working with an illustrator.

One of the questions I’m often asked about picture books is, “But what happens if the illustrations aren’t how you imagined them in your head?” For the longest time I answered this in a kind of bewildered, half-stumbling way, without really understanding where the questioner was coming from. Because…

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The Politics of Doors — O at the Edges

August 12, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

The Politics of Doors With every doorway, decisions. Accept, deny. Turn. How to resist the ajar, the barely closed? Is what emerges expelled or escaped, free or released? Resistant as always, I swivel, pause to inhale.
The Politics of Doors — O at the Edges

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#tanka publication: “Over the River to Grandmother’s House We Go” — Elizabeth Gauffreau

August 7, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

I’m pleased to share that my tanka, “Over the River to Grandmother’s House We Go,” has been published in the July 2022 issue of First Literary Review-East. Like “Candia, New Hampshire, 1926: Velma,” this poem was published without its companion piece: Our Other Grandmother who is this person never leaves her chair black maid welcomes […]
#tanka publication: “Over the River to Grandmother’s House We Go” — Elizabeth Gauffreau

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Mary Poppins and Folks Boppin’ at Maryborough Festival

August 6, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

Looks like lots of fun!

Thoughts Become Words

Here is my pictorial of the Mary Poppins Festival 2022 in Maryborough, Queensland, where Helen Lyndon Goff (better known as Pamela Lyndon Travers) grew up with no inkling of her wonderful life ahead as an author and creator of a children’s literary icon.

https://www.maryboroughwhistlestop.org.au/

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https://thoughtsbecomewords.com/2022/07/09/mary-poppins-and-five-years-of-blogging/

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Ella Emerges from the Rubble

August 3, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

I love hearing about how a story goes from 1st thought to end product – so inspiring, Meg…

Meg McKinlay

In my last post, I referred to “the glorious rubble” that was the process of excavating and clearing out my childhood home. And that, on account of me being me, that rubble fed inevitably into the creative well, setting all sorts of things in motion.

Today, I want to talk about the first of those things, which has turned into a gorgeous little picture book called Ella and the Useless Day. As is the case for a lot of my work, this is something I started working on many years ago, which has had a long and bumpy ride to publication. When I first wrote Ella, back in 2005, it was the story of a little girl and her father who have a big cleanout and take all the useless things they don’t want any more to the local tip. There, where the bulk of the story’s action…

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On Creativity, Crap, and the Clearing Away of Childhood

July 26, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

Received my copy today and absolutely loved “Ella and the Useless Day”! I know my grandie will too. I am taking it to him next week. Thank you, Meg and well done, yet again!

Meg McKinlay

Firstly, thank you: for your kind and enthusiastic and kindly enthusiastic responses to my last post. I am particularly heartened that people seem to like my scribbled poetry notes. These little fragments are where I feel most at home creatively and I look forward to rambling about them at length in the future.

For now, though, I’ve been thinking about the long, slow process of cleaning out my childhood home, which took place over the last couple of years – firstly in a big, focused burst, and then in dribs and drabs and trickles and whimpers. It was full of sadness and joy and reminiscence and teeth-grinding and head-shaking and many more things besides. We moved around a lot in the first few years of my life and I have blurry memories of that time, but the year I turned five, my parents bought the one and only house they…

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Insta-Inspires: HAIKU:To A Raven…

July 25, 2022 by Frances Macaulay Forde

Once again I am inspired by my brother’s wonderful close-up photography…

HAIKU:  To a Raven…

Mr. Raven, why  
the frown? The sun is shining... 
What have you found? 

Frances Macaulay Forde © 2022

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfbLY4Khos8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

#Insta-Inspires:Haiku:ToARaven #ozbushbytes #WABirdlife #Inspiration #Instagram #Poetry #POETRY:Haiku #WestAustralianBirds #NatureInspires #HaikuPoems