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from the book: Upside Drowning

27... Two poems for the one I love by Cameron Semmens

Cam memorialising in a poem the very first time he heard a poem spoken in Persian back in late 2019 ... it was shared by a fascinating, arty woman he'd just met ... she goes by the name of Ramak! 'The Spring and The Forest'  by Cameron Semmens. Music : ‘Love her and she will watch over you’ by Luke Pittman. Poem in Farsi in the background: 'Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season’ by Forough Farrokhzad.

from the book 'Upside Drowning

Curious fragments of memory... a poem from the book Upside Drowning - poems from the edge of the ocean by Cameron Semmens.

Like a wave veiled with spray... recorded live by the beach, 2021 From the book Upside Drowning – poems by edge of the ocean by Cameron Semmens

Poem: Rapid 'I' Movement Towards You. Initial sound-effect: Spike Mason. Background organ: Jared Haschek. Orchestral piece beneath the poem: Luke Pittman.

Shards - 21 - Petalled Pillows And Thorny Sheets (Parts 1 And 2) Thank you to Spike Mason for the new title sound effects. Thank you Rod Gear for the background tracks to the poems.

In The Mountains ... by Cameron Semmens

by Cameron Semmens

Poem by Cameron Semmens Translation by Ramak Bamzar Music by Jared Haschek

Poem by Cameron Semmens Translation by Ramak Bamzar ... also check out: The Persian and The Poet for more of the like! Theme music : Jared Haschek Poem music : Spike Mason

Trees and The Taste of Shadow When a tree falls how can its shadow stand? And yet in the forest behind our eyes shadows stretch far into the future. Even when the tree has long since fallen and rotted and returned to the fecund, hungry soil of history; even when the sun, with its golden tongue, is licking the ridges of mountains memories are longer than shadows. And the taste of darkness is a sharp, metallic tang that can, with enough swings, cut right through the most deep-rooted loves and thick-trunked family. In shadow, bare dirt pushes back the greener grass. In shadow, consoling moss softens the edges. But what does this mean for the forest behind our eyes? You tell me for once! I’m sick of walking these paths, pulling answers from trees like cicada shells. Tell me – this shadow these trees what does it all mean?

Today I take my hunchbacked heart for a walk in cathedrals of trees. And each step off-road, off-grid, on dirt, returns me to an earlier me – to a memory of milk teeth smiles and always look up. And with each step, on this day (I wish it always felt like this), my thoughts become more like dragonflies; and my muscles more like winter bees; and slowly the skin of my civilised self hardens and sheds – a cicada shell; and suddenly, from the outside, I can see the useless husk it was – so fragile and constrictive. And as I keep walking further into the forest all my straight lines begin to warp and twist like wattle branches; and all my black-and-whites are softened into shades of green; and all my human grandness shrivels and cowers beneath a towering grove of mountain ashes. Fecund, meandering, I grow into my youth like a tree re-entering the seed. I am simpled; trimmed back to a beautiful potential. I know, in many ways, this cannot last; but I also know this moment is growing roots; this moment is digging in deep; this moment is going to sprout words and flower into poetry – I can see the lines, like leaves, already forming: Today I take my hunchbacked heart for a walk in cathedrals of trees...

wait un-fisted with all your openness seeded with hope and joy will visit like a finch from the dark understory and joy will return with a sudden flit and flash of colour no matter what sadly you will be unhappy at times and all those around you and all those you love will be unhappy at times but equally no matter what joy will visit fleeting fine-feathered it will swoop in from the corner of your vision arrive when you least expect did you know the finch can only flourish with access to dense undergrowth? perhaps all the thorny tangled mess of unhappiness in this world is just a frame a shield a home for this flighty little bird no matter what joy will visit joy will return but it can’t stay it can’t stay if you grasp for it and try to hold onto it it’ll be gone even before your fingers unfurl so just be still and joy will at some point arrive at your side ‘til then wait un-fisted with all your openness seeded with hope

Suddenly it twigs! Fear is a stick insect hiding in the branches of my thinking; eating away at my budding dreams; nibbling out holes in the leaves of my beliefs. I see it now! I see it!

Before we enter knowing we are always spinning there’s an astronomy in us all that speaks more of space than light and we are spun through in-betweens until caught in the gravity of that single question that black hole at galaxy’s centre that mystery so heavy and pivotal everything revolves around it – everything – and the closer we get to this ultimate horizon (this final event) the more we are bathed in answers illuminations that stretch us beyond our capacity to comprehend until finally we enter into the ultimate infinite intimate embrace

Shards - 10 - Thankfullness Is A Team Of Huskies by Cameron Semmens

Give melodies to everything you say, new life must be sung into this world. Let your arms be a lush valley. With syrupy stares sway like a grove of maples in a gentle breeze. Watch their eyes. Whisper ‘open sesame’. Keep watching. Study the red river deltas on their eyelids; and in your mind, follow these tiny rivulets to their surging source. Keep watching. Blow gently on the bouquet of dandelions that is their face. Stoke their downy hair as if it were the ermine fringe of a sovereign’s crown. Smell them like you would a new-blooming rose, aware that thriving comes with fertilising – the scent of poo, itself a miracle. Be the librarian. This soft-covered story with blank-page eyes shelved on your forearms needs your shushing. Quick, sharp shushes for boisterous visitors. Soft, slow shushes for lulling and loving. Let your sighs be fairy floss; let your hums be jester plums. Surrender your vocab and fill your mouth with colourful marbles. This warm body in the corona of your love carries heat passed on through generations; it is the hot tip of an iceberg – the cold bodies of a myriad humans the submerged mass of traits and immunities and adaptations. Hold this vital, restless tip carefully, prayerfully, it can burn through flesh and future.

Shards - 04 - You Bring The Story I Bring The Coffee by Cameron Semmens