Category: Musings & Personal

Finals football at the ‘G’

The ‘G’. The ground that draws a crowd.

This is the time of the year when everyone’s attention turns to football – in Australia at least. In the US they broadcast the game we love and created at 3am when you are all in  bed sound asleep but there are a few of you I know who are ardent followers of our great game.

Australian Rules Football (AFL) started as a sideshow, for cricketers to play in the off-season to keep themselves fit for the summer. The game sprouted from its fledgling beginnings in and around the suburbs of Melbourne, our second largest city, and home of ‘Aussie Rules’.

To begin with there were two sides, one from Melbourne itself and another from a nearby town called Geelong. In those early days there was one thing that surprised more than anything else – the game’s popularity.

That was 1859.

This weekend, over 91,000 people turned out to watch those two clubs (Melbourne and Geelong) fight out a tough elimination final. The night before, over 91,000 people attended the other elimination final. The first time in the history of the game that over 90,000 people had attended finals matches back to back.

You have to experience the game to understand it and even then it’s best to throw the rule book away and simply watch the game that is the definition of entertainment with the pleasure and excitement it engenders in us all.

In the US, the Superbowl is played at various stadiums around the country. In Australia we play the Grand Final, as we call it, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) – note the connection to cricket here, each and every year.

Superbowl XIV attracted 103,985 people to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the highest ever attended Superbowl. The 1970 AFL/VFL Grand Final between Collingwood and Carlton holds the record for any sporting event in terms of crowd attendance held anywhere in Australia. Today, the ground holds an official capacity of 100,024, so it’s unlikely this record will ever be broken.

The game was played between two of the ‘heavy-hitters in AFL history and at half-time it saw Collingwood ahead by 42 points. Game over.

Not so fast.

Carlton came back to win by 10 points. As explained by Wikipedia

Late in the last quarter, with Carlton leading by less than a goal, Alex Jesaulenko snatched the ball on the half forward line and sent a left foot kick bouncing towards goal. With no one guarding the goals, the ball bounced through for a goal, sealing the game for Carlton, [who] completed a recovery, to triumph by 10 points, 17.9 (111) to 14.17 (101).

That day, the MCG attracted 121,696 banner-waving, crowd-pleasing, cheering fans.

The ground has only ever seen one event surpass this in terms of crowd attendance and that was for a 1959 evangelical tour by the late Billy Graham when more than 130,000 people turned out to listen to the crowd-pleasing evangelist . One fellow, quoted by the ABC, in an article on ABC.net.au who was there that day, says;

I felt God speaking to me

So it took God himself to surpass a record that will never be broken. Go figure!

To experience the excitement of the last four minutes of that game, go to YouTube

And to finish, I must include my own experiences at AFL Grand Finals, having been twice, the most recent attendance being in 2010, on 25th September, when I was one of the 100,016 people that saw Collingwood and St.Kilda play out…

a draw!

A week later I was in hospital when the two teams went round again for a replay of the Grand Final to finally try and split them apart. And split them apart they did, with Collingwood victorious on a day when I was only semi-conscious.

Ahh, what a great game it is. I hope you get to experience it some day and enjoy a spectacle that is beyond words.

On By sensualism in poetryIn ...and other things, Blogging, Current events, Musings & PersonalLeave a comment

Wild days

Oh but for those wild days

Where the yardarm greets the sun

I could abate the little bird

And be the only one

 

Who stands upon a portal

And sings upon a rock

Who nestles in the silent night

Walking to the expanse of the dock

 

Why jump; one thinks and ponders

Why not; one thinks again

Happenstance sits over yonder

But serendipity, she sends

 

A message – in a bottle –

Coming from the heart

Entice the ‘castle’, built on sandy coast

And thought of, like a cart

 

That travails in her journey

To and from her homestead land

Ending bi-coastal adventures

That reflect a supple hand

 

That leads to ebbs and flows

In the ocean they call life

A choice of vice or virtue

In the afternoon’s delight

 

Does light shine upon you

Or does darkness build a hole

Where innocence is lost

And guilt, from pride, will take its toll

 

If we mislay our innocence

And find our fault-line again

Will uncertainty be censured

And life’s hypothesis be sent

 

To a man who sits, enraptured

Reading knowledge, cast as thought

And understands the notion

That wisdom can’t be bought

 

Yet on the ‘castle’ stands a King

Looking out upon the stone

Where the man sits viewing sunsets

From what he terms his ‘throne’

 

And throughout the night he ponders

And wonders at the world

His smile – captivated –

His life is now  unfurled.

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Creative writing, Fiction & Poetry, Life, Musings & Personal, philosophy, PoetryLeave a comment

More than myself

Can I create more than myself
And if I can, must I?
Is livelihood (like solitude)
About to pass me by?

At times we associate
With a view  – a sight to see
A sense of fatal curfew –
Of our own mortality

Can I build a house to share –
Must I share it once it’s built?
As accidental as a romance
That is driving by me still

Still as can be, in situ –
What situation is
Movement denies my sense of self –
Of soft and supple bliss

Where did she go –
Where is she now?
Is one’s life a curse
To spend it without paying forward –
Could anything be worse

For time will never stay at rest –
It waits for no man – sure, not I
Hasten, hustle, hurry –
Catch up!
Before I die.

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Creative writing, Fiction & Poetry, Life, Musings & Personal, philosophy, PoetryLeave a comment

I think of thought…

What do I think of thought

Or can I only feel

A touch as tender as the breeze

Or hard as bovine –

‘fore the veal

What do I think of thought

What does she think of me

As hard to the touch as a scab

Or soft and supple

Alike thee

Bereft of kindness –

Or genteel

Like an edelweiss to me

She sees the sun

And makes it real

Glistening – delights the sea

Gravitate to Earth without a force

Magic sensed and written on

Below – the park – a round-a-bout

A tree, with branches

Bark and frond

That listen to the overt mood

The cumbersome-ness of the room

They hear disorderly array

And come to right things very soon

What do I think of thought

What does she think of me

A touch so tender as my mood

So precious as the sea

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Fiction & Poetry, Life, Musings & Personal, philosophy, PoetryLeave a comment

Camellia

He walked amongst the many
and came across the one –
the one who made him feel
like he was walking on a cloud.

Wearing Leopard-spotted ‘happy shoes’
she was a slim little thing, five foot six at most,
wearing black, skin-tight yoga pants
that hugged her legs,
and a silky beige shirt hanging out over her hips
that showed her bare back when she bent down
to check for a book
on the shelf below her.

Her hair was black, long,
drooping over the nape of her neck
and resting half-way down
her slender back.

She rested her hands on her legs
lifted herself up from the crouching position
she’d maintained for a moment,
and as she stood up
she threw her hair over her left shoulder
and turned to face him.

When she walked her shirt slipped open at the front
to reveal her belly.
her soft, supple skin was like a baby’s bottom.
her face silky smooth, surely gentle to the touch,

She wore no make-up,
for there was no need to improve on perfection.
she had a gold stud in her lip,
but even that small admonishment
to her beauty only seemed to add to it

He felt his body changing
in ways over which he had no control.
he felt short of breath.
he was entering a place, a feeling, he was uncomfortable with.

Yet the feeling made him aware he was alive,
physically – mentally,
and able to appreciate the finer things.
he knew not whether to feel awakened and welcomed
to a brave new world
or whether he should feel aggrieved
by having been shut out of that very same world.

Had this girl awakened a sleeping spirit
or had she provided a teaser to something,
like a rainbow, that was just beyond his reach?

One girl – once. He had found his ‘camellia,’
blooming sweetly in the Spring.

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Creative writing, Life, Love, Musings & Personal, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

busy-ness

Been busy shading under a tree while this same-sex marriage survey blows over.

But in fact I’ve been trying my hand at greeting card writing. For those writers of you out there it might go against the grain, so to speak – probably flies in the face of what ‘real’ writing is all about.

See! I’m already using cliches – “go against the grain”, “flies in the face of”.

So be it – but if you’re writing a novel you might want to ‘steer clear’ of such lazy writing.

Maybe I should keep to poetry. For the reading pleasure of some, I’ve included a piece below, entitled ‘the symphony’

 

The Symphony

…then I heard a sound

Was it a harpsichord I heard

Or a piano, played to please

Accompanied by violin

With horse’s hair to serve as strings

And cello at an octave low

Than viola in the symphony

So that the music streams and flows

And leaves them with an inner glow

That lasts through courtship –

So that – when – asked to wed

She says; “Of course –

I love you more than you could know”

As the symphony strikes up a chord.

 

 

 

 

 

On By sensualism in poetryIn ...and other things, Blogging, Love, Musings & Personal, Poetry, Writing & BloggingLeave a comment

Are these the words?

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Creative writing, Fiction & Poetry, Musings & Personal, Poetry, Religion, WritingLeave a comment

Are these the words I needn’t say?

You say them for me when you pray

You kneel upon a wooden floor

Sit on a bench they call a pew

And talk to those who cannot share

 

Your presence in the holy room –

Who sacrificed so you could live

And care for those who cannot give

What they receive to those they love –

 

Who treat them like a waveless shore –

They cannot see you anymore

But where they go there will be care

And one day they will see you there

 

Yet now, the congregation flows

Singing hymns we all would know

From the hymn sheet given them

 

And once done, in sight, the choir sings

A hum is heard from those ahead

Then the scriptures will be read

By the Reverend that fine day

 

And if a Bible you don’t have

No need for you to worry, so –

One will sure be given you

 

And inside that holy room

Where words are said for me through prayer

I wonder whether I could share

The sentiment being written there.

Old Sydney Town

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Creative writing, Fiction & Poetry, Musings & Personal, nature, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

Built from nothing but botany and earth

A harbour fore, deliverance be true.

Now the best there is, anywhere on earth

Harks of a persona harking back to you.

 

My family come from Melbourne, don’t you know?

The only one born and bred in town!

When we moved south I had no say at all –

A two-year old, in back seat, bears a frown.

 

On our return, my smile fast appeared –

Ahhh, the wattle, the humidity and sand.

A blow-up pool in our backyard of cheer

Was where you would find me and my fans.

 

As years past, Sydney grew to adulthood –

A child that had, now, come of age.

A life of love, forgiveness – yes, I could

Be that man standing on the players’ stage.

 

I sat there on the House’s stairs, watching them drink –

Vodka looked like water to the naked eye,

Donating funds for those left on the brink –

I fixed my eyes on the harbour’s night-time sky.

 

I looked from my balcony at night

And saw fireworks – New Year’s still far away –

A picture perfect backyard scene of light

That drew me nearer Southern Cross each day.

 

Old Sydney Town, I love you with my heart –

My family belong there with the Bridge.

I may move north for a brand new start

But you stay with me – in hindsight, you are it.

 

I missed you every day I was away,

Frustrated at decisiveness to move.

My mother brought me to your world to stay

And trickling water fountains would disprove

 

That Old Sydney Town left slow-coaches behind

Only one speed here – fast or you were dead

But your city’s splendour, elsewhere I couldn’t find –

Secluded beaches ‘round the foreshore’s sand I tread.

 

Under the Bridge I lay, gazing in her eyes

My hand pressed to her palm as we embraced.

Where else is there a park beneath constructed site?

Yet my main attraction was her suntanned face.

 

The caterpillar and the crane – far away

And the dust gave blue sky a dirty hue.

Please keep the beaches open – don’t betray

The places, splendid, we can all walk to.

 

Old Sydney Town, I love you now you’re grown

And the waning winter weather waits the sun.

Raise your head with pride at amalgamation’s show –

Out of many we live life as one.

Dance

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Creative writing, Fiction & Poetry, Life, Love, Musings & Personal, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

Dance the dance that gives a chance

To come again before the end

Build the build that holds a choice

To feel, to fawn, via the voice

That speaks to you and speaks to me

As I look through glazed window to the sea

That trickles in reflected moon

A place I’ll tend to very soon

Before the store can empty, new

Be one of them, the very few

That sort out disorganised array

And drift so far, a world away

Before they stop and turn and come again

To touch, to tremble, now and then

‘Cos every heart beats faster still

When faced with someone that until

Just recently they never thought

The one true thing that they had sought

Would hold their hand in life’s romance

And walk the walk

And dance the dance.

The Cotton Dress

On By sensualism in poetryIn Blogging, Creative writing, Fiction & Poetry, Life, Love, Musings & Personal, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

He slunked down to the ground

He saw a shadow, not his own

“Where have you been?”

She asked him with surprise.

 

“I’ve been here getting shade

From the baking morning sun.”

The park was empty

But for their huon cries.

 

“You left me,” she said, scolding him.

“You wanted time alone. Besides,

I wasn’t meant to be there

But by chance.”

 

“I’m not allowed up to your bedroom –

Remember what happened once before.

It was half past midday,

When she ended our romance…”

 

“But you left me,” she said a second time,

Forgetting what she really meant to say

Her sleeveless cotton dress

Was on her mind.

 

She flicked her brown hair past her shoulder

And tilting her head to one side

Her strap fell to her upper arm,

Beside.

 

He moved ever closer

Sitting on the grass under the tree

His eyes no longer shaded

In the sun

 

Had he ever stopped believing?

Was his mind attuned to hers?

Did he think she was, of all the girls,

The one?

 

The noonday sun was getting stronger

Than the morning ever had

They came to share the romance of a kiss

 

Not since first date memories

Parking by the lakeside in the night

Had he felt something, anything, like this.

 

May the cotton-dressed brunette

With hair waving in the breeze

Desirous, yearning, wanting him some more

 

Walk with him from the park

Their eyes set on the light, left on inside

Her apartment, near the pillow

By the window, past the door

 

He put his finger to his mouth

And told her so quietly to ‘shush’

They spoke a language known only

Ever, unto them.

 

They spoke a language, reminiscent

Of the first date they’d ever had

They were a blooming flower

Lightly watered, from the stem.