Eulogy at sea
When a treeis felled,there's one tree lessfor shelter, shade,the holding of a bird's nest.
Now there are too manyrooms and conversationsto which you cannot add.The way you moved and talkedare recalled,but our gestures and inflectionsare secondhand.
Lens and shutterframe moments — clothes worn,places visited,your repertoire of gazes,but no onecan be fully known.
You were born,you were alive,directed by more thanthe compass of your senses.
Let us not forgetour sometimes amazementat living —to have lain in summer grass,aloneor with another,looking up at the night sky,trying to understandgalaxy after galaxy,where each starissues then bequeathsits light.
Your body,rendered into ashes,can be heldin one cupped hand.Marvel at this tooas the wind and seatake youaway fromour mortal reach.
Some observations and a wishfor Ron Padgett
Time is lost more often than it's found.Be wary of having too many intentions.Make the rut you're in as uncomfortable as possible.Don't dwell in dark places unless it's to gain empathyfor those who dwell in dark places.No one is born with a conscience.One person's misbehaviour is another person's missed behaviour.Real progress will occur once we've turned dandruff into a fuel.During your life the speed at which you remove your clothes may vary.If pigs could fly, there'd be less bacon.To ants, a twig is a battering ram.May your mind resist the impulse to be a closed fist.
The next time you've got writer's block
Take a running scrawl atwhat's in the roomor cornered in your heart.
Notethe veins of a leaf, the bank teller's fingernails,what the people seated at the next café tableare saying with their clothes, gestures and mouths.
Remember that you've got a vocabulary.So have dictionaries, billboards, headlines and traffic policemen.Words are in one era and out the other,hiding in ambush amongst Scrabble tiles and crossword clues.Let a few wander onto a black page.See whether they react to each other.If not audition some more.
Return to the circus arenaof being playful and daring,balancing words on the tip of your noseas you jump through flaming hoopsin rehearsalfor opening night in a new town,far from where you've written before.
Peter Bakowski was born in Melbourne in 1954 to Polish-German parents. He writes his poems on an Apple MacBook and sometimes by hand on postcard-sized index cards. When doing so keeps in mind the following three quotes: 'Use ordinary words to say extraordinary things' (Arthur Schopenhauer); 'Writing is painting' (Charles Bukowski); 'Make your next poem different from your last' (attributed to Robert Frost).