Happy New Year!

Sociabilities May Be Alarming

However, it was a jolly Christmas and I hope everyone else had a good Christmas or at least an OK one.

This year I emailed several Christmas cards. 

For local friends I got some bright cards with a tree very cheap from the Indian Everything Shop in Surrey Hills. I was on the lookout for things to add to the collections of angels, gods, goddesses, heros and feng shui animals. (My place isn't as crowded as the collections suggest because it's a large place with ledges and picture rails.)

A good statue of a well known hero caught my eye. It was out of my budget, but having read about such flights of humanic vision in many ways since childhood, I decided to peek inside the neat little card that was titled Greek Hero ($89). Somehow someone must have got a little mixed up. It was a small and excellently crafted statue of Moses, MichaelAngelo's Moses.

My lost sister would have loved it. She collected statues.

These cards (10 for $2.85) only said Merry Christmas inside them so when I got ready to give them out, I copied one of my poems for the text. It is a poem I wrote ages ago when I lived in the box over the road, and things got mixed up in storage and I ripped the poem out of the notebook to read to someone, (one doesn't have much forethought in moving times, in illness times) and the rest of it is still hopefully the box it was in when I borrowed those pages back then whichever box that was:

And let my own words now sing song,

make music roll forth all day long.

May my words embrace the soul,

do this to make an old world whole.

May singing bless, may good words ring,

may poetry cause our hearts to sing,

be in our bones and in our blood,

make goodness come in righteous flood.

The poem came from a dream.

Slowly I thread through the phases of those older times when my possessions became debris. I need filing folders. There may be some somewhere but I can't find them. Easier to work with folders on the computer, easier to find things here, even though I can get my titles mixed up if I'm not careful. 

Recently I've noticed that when I emerge from the screen or page or move around the weeds, that there have been several days of such divine warm sparkle after a bracing Southerly Buster that I can't imagine being unable to dip my body in water or feast my eyes on the loveliness of the sea. 

(Mind you the storms frequently leap in response to a stinking weary fuming hot day when all you want to do is go to the pub).

There have also been many lovely balmy days, not so many returns to iciness as there was a few weeks ago. On a warm fresh day I recall the days of childhood and young adultry when we were always tuned to the beach.

When himself and myself lived at Bondi, we were just up the cliff from the ocean which was then a part of our every moment. I began a series of poems because there was inspiration afoot.

Poetry is amends for the future. On a crystalline day following a stormy night, I found myself yearning for a taste of the ocean on a perfect ocean day, so I hunted for the Bondi poem which illustrated the storms which stomp regularly around Sydney's summer and Christmas Season suburb by suburb and sometimes in one place out of the blue.

Although I found many poems from the Bondi Seasons Suite had been transcribed onto the computer from a variety of note books and an edit of some of the collection last year when I was going for competitions, the precise long ago Summer Storm which was ringing its words at me wasn't there.

To breathe the breath of the ocean after a storm is a good thing.

Change.

A veil of rain

thrown over the sea

from this morning’s storms

is lifted by the sun

as the surface of the ocean

gleams in light.

The Ocean From Mark’s Park.

The green waves flow,

the horizon a moist mist blue.

The flats are struggling down the cliff, climbing over

to catch the view, the glimpse of blue.

Torn by the weather,

The sea opens its heart

And mist rises

Above the surface of the water.

Those Stranger Times

The recent poem about the experience of Domestic Violence is now in print.

It's a declamation of woe and protest and astonishment. Maybe it’s a part of a larger script.

How does one write poetry about such painful events?

It's not pity that I'm chasing here, nor is it despair because I always was curious about experiences and learning to choose survival.

I am writing about these matters because I require and desire Justice in this once much more FAIR land of Australia!!!

I write here and in my poetry of things which should have been private and the subject of therapy, counselling and maybe support, but the story was picked over with an inordinate amount of clumsy stupidity and a barrel load of that sort of rubbish began an avalanche which later would involve a concerted bullying by many Government Departments, even when I was homeless and especially after I finally found paid work which was taken away from me...

I'm not a hater, but I hate such processes.

The Editor of the Magazine who published my poem said most people didn't write or talk about the subject of violence in the home or in offices such as those of Bureaucrats because there were and are still petrified with fear.

Oh yes, I had my time of terror also and I didn't think I scared that easy.

I hesitate to call Himself The Perpetrator, Him who I frequently loved so much before his greed and selfishness over money matters drove us apart.

I still have compassion for Himself because he saw violence happening next to him when he was but a Baby and I know now that that toxic sort of thing can twist perceptions. Forever.

At least I was an adult when it happened to me. I'd moved a long way away from him the first time he confiscated the first money I earned since I lost that last job and even more so after he first ridiculed me in public.

We shared the same dwelling because we started out so fond of each other and initially and for a long time afterwards we were interested in each other's work.

I thought if I stayed as far away as possible, if we mostly slept apart, we left a clear path and made clear plans, then all would be well in the end.

I know now that he told sob stories with a bent brain to that wretched Medical Clinic we'd both attended and also I know now that he's had a pattern of turning against those folks he gets close to who end up loving him.

How could he not when someone close did whatever it is lies hidden behind the warpings that are eventually intrinsic to violent attitudes.

Well, DH Lawrence did just that thing of writing a poem about Domestic Violence and that poem told me for the first time in my teens that those kinds of things could happen. The Ash Tree, his Mother thrown outside, locked outside one cold night and finding pollen from a lily on her face.

DH Lawrence was an adult by the time he wrote that poem and the events were long past by then although apparently dinner parties at the Lawrence's could be difficult much later once the plates began to fly.

I was an adult when Domestic Violence happened to me, and even so, although I continued to keep a journal when things were at their worst, I hadn’t known how to talk about it all, or even yet comprehend it. Sometimes there was a blunt description, at other times I repeated and tried to focus on my belief that things would heal.

When I got thrown out, it was in the heat of Christmas when Himself at the time of year when the family had been called to account, felt like a failure and blamed me.... on my face and on my reputation there was nothing but his self hatred which was thrown at me to deadly effect. It made me consider certain mysteries of misunderstanding within my own family because I was diagnosed as Autistic when young and a lot of things went way above my head.

Most frustrating with Himself was that the whole business then was something I couldn’t wrap my mind around. No such thing had ever happened to me in any how excepting maybe for literature or the very occasional intimation.

There was this Doctor. She was angry with me because I refused antidepressants and hormones and she was also angry because I denied that I was depressed.

(To be sad, worried or even despairing isn't the same thing as depression and when things were getting dangerous I thought it best to keep my wits about me.)

I told this former Doctor that in the past, I'd experienced pretty bad dentistry (which still affects my health and probably my immune system). I told her that sometimes when I get very stressed, I lose my appetite and sometimes also my temper when under duress. I told her Acupuncture had helped me with my appetite problems for many years and that those treatments probably stopped me from being depressed. Soon afterwards, admittedly with her initial help, I began to regularly see an Acupuncturist in that Clinic and it helped me keep going although it also hid the symptoms of the Worst Abscess.

(Oh I have that X-Ray still. That thumb print sized hollow in the bone of my face. Everyone should know that I was not only probably an angry part of that first serious incident but that I was then not well enough for the ordeals to come less than a year after the bone was scraped!)

In those years, the only expectation for treatments from the ex Doctor was certificates when I couldn't meet obligations because of colds or flu.

And...oh yes, she did once treat me for earwax which is when when the arguments about depression began, excepting for that one serious incident further down the track.

At first I'd said to her, OK, I am depressed.

Then I said No, my dear sister is dying, I can't find work, my relationship is bad, I hate being broke. I am not depressed, I am miserable and I have bloody good reason, OK?

Looking back, above all, when an event approaching real violence occurs, I believe that confidentiality must be assumed. If a person in shortened circumstances finds it hard to escape such a situation then they should NOT be endangered.

The incident of the bruising push concerned the time, the one time back then when his tantrums got physical. Thankfully, he'd spent much of the year touring, and that one time, he came home in a filthy mood and pushed me against a bookcase after smashing up my study.

Those smashups I had hated but they weren't too frequent thankfully.

My Acupuncturist would say if I appeared in the surgery trembling and stressed,

'Oh he's being Artistic Again, is he?'

You see my Acupuncturist had become a dear friend, she GAVE me books about the subject to study and I never once mentioned to her, my closest friend back then, what was going on at home!

Better to laugh I thought at first, until that one time when it hit my person.

It was in case it got worse I went to that dire Doctor.

And I showed her those bruises in case the whole thing got worse.

What got worse of course that she told a hostile Lawyer about it as the only comment on my health matters, thinking no doubt as many people do that if a person cops violence it's a slur on their character and their own stupid fault.

(Hardly one's fault if one has no comprehension of the same!!!)

So there I am, as I wrote a few posts ago, just as I thought I'd be off Benefits, with a part time job and the worst of the Dentistry done and I get dragged through that Tribunal crap and the 'victim of violence' crap was my only allowable defense!

It's a Solicitor by then, a Solicitor who was even dumber than myself about violence and they wouldn't talk about these Acupuncture treatments which I'd been receiving ever since I'd read about ex-President Nixon's Doctor being CURED of peritonitus, (techniques studied for millennia and applicaple to Martial arts and much much more!)

(The Martial Arts aspect would save my life much later when Himself tried to kill me after taking Valium and Vodka after reading That Fatally Lying Tribunal Finding. Sure I got that eye blackened and my nose was poring blood, but I knocked him off balance and since he'd already smashed the place up, he fell on the smashed things and got bruised and later told folks I'd attacked HIM!)

(Next day my friend says, 'My God, what happened to You?' I says, 'You should see the other guy!' Was meant as a joke, but I trembled for months and had to drop a lot of work things which is another story, how much that all cost me.)

They shouldn't call Acupuncture a 'New Age Thing' should they? From my studies, it looks like something like seven millennia has gone into that field f research.

'Modern' Medicine after all is only a few hundred years old.

So this doctor said that despite the fact that I'd told her of the scary dentals and the appetite and the stress problems, that I had no health problems, but that the Lawyer should know that I'd once been to see her and I was bruised and in some distress.

(Isn't there somewhere in the Doctor's Code about Confidentiality?)

(Isn't there something in a Lawyer's code about Confidentiality and Endangerment?)


As to 'violence', me and my sisters had been frequently belted as kids of the Fifties, and smacked very hard on the back of the legs or the buttocks.

(Later, when my gal friends danced to Madonna’s old spanking song and swatted their own posteriors, I found it horrifying.)

I’d hated the smacks, the beltings and so on and I‘d a tendency to go rigid and glare at my mother when it was happening. That didn’t help because it infuriated her. The last time some idiot swatted my posterior in so called fun, I belted him round the head with the newspaper I was carrying which is maybe the second most violent thing I ever did in my life.

I knew that a folded Newspaper wasn’t going to hurt but I had to show my utter outrage. How people can enjoy that sort of thing is beyond my comprehension!

I didn't want to go through with those stupid cases at all and the Welfare Rights people said I had to.

They didn't even tell me it would different Tribunal the second time. They didn't say I'd be in an actual Court Room all day facing a Rigid Army Type Bitch who'd apparently concluded ahead of time that I was a liar. She even slandered my Mother!!!!

For the record, my Muma had a tough time in her life, was a teacher famous for her work and she tried alcohol a few times and didn't like it. That that finding called my Ex a bruiser, myself a liar and my mother an Alcoholic...well you know how stupid people get caught in cliches.. I am not going to forgive this crap you know, and I think I can guess who began the crap and I'll need a Lawyer by then...

And it has to be said here that it was our wonderful Federal Education Department under those face pulling sneering Liberals who wasted $30,000 of tax payer's money to put me through that 'Case' simply so I now understand, to prevent me from becoming the Tax Payer I had been before I went to the horror Dentist in the first place.

Rather than being the hard eyed level headed Defender of Injustice we see on the television sets, my so-called Solicitor fluttered apoplectically and apologetically all over the place.

She'd been to all those Preliminary Hearings without briefing me and without even knowing anything about me, except that she seemingly agreed that I should be punished for liking Acupuncture.

It must be said here that ambition and especially achievement CAN be considered as a crime in Australia. We can be slavish about our trivialised Cultural 'heros', but if an ordinary person, Heaven Help us, if a 'Dole Bludger', shows Ambition, even the ambition to get beyond Benefits, why then they are 'Up Themselves!!!!

In point of fact I hadn't wanted to be 'On The Dole' at all and only coped by doing immense amounts of Voluntary Work, some of which includes a much larger number of Essays than I ever presented at Conferences. I believed that at least while I worked, having been involved with Media, I was still 'out there'.

I could have meetings and coffee with former colleagues, talk about my projects, keep my CV updated etc etc.

The Dental Situation which had caused an instant health fall out before I had to attend a cheaper dentist as I was minus income, wasn't the only thing that had prevented me finding paid work in the Nineties. It was also a Tragic Truth that all my old Work Places had been absorbed and reorganised and positions were lost and people my age were being made redundant everywhere.

It was depressing applying for jobs but I kept doing so until the abscess hit the bone of my face and incurred a whalloping health crisis. OK, I hate the Dental Hospital & had been going to a cheap Dentist who didn't X-Ray. There wasn't much money after the part time voice work dried up.

During that particular crisis, the level of general physical pain was acute. I couldn't then (and can't now), walk very far. Maybe thats partly because I overdid it during the months when I tried to stay off the Dole. Walking from Bondi to Kings Cross and back for the job interview certainly roused those old sports injuries and the bad operation on the foot had me grounded for a week following.

I knew that any blessed part time job would be fine, but it was apparent even back then that I'd be better off working from home and maybe doing some part time things outside home.

The old time Employment Agency, the CES agreed. I attended every meeting with them and they only ever sent me after one job.

Eventually, I had to drop my Private Medical Benefits and I bought a Fax Machine, and after cashing in my Superannuation, I bought a Computer, my first Macintosh, now with most of the leads lost in the eventual process of homelessness.

With the Fax, the Phone and the Computer however, I organised quite a few Shows for Himself and spent a lot of time with Arts Lawyers hammering out the rights for all the people who gave us their time. Seventeen people contributed to our Music Project about The Last Of The Irish Bards.

As well as the Music work, there were several publications and one Seminar to the Graduate Literature Class at Sydney University.

There were a couple of Recording Deals too. I enjoyed negotiations although when stresses of Himself's awful work built up, I was hampered by the awfulness and tensions of the home situations. (And by the fact that some people became greedy about the project and began to harass me by telephone!)

The important thing I discovered was that like Writers, Musicians have to do a lot of Voluntary Work, and Work is the important thing. Maybe a person may find themselves without a job, but they should never stop working, whether it's study, Caring for other people or Voluntary Projects such as Bush Regeneration, even House Work such as can be managed despite various official and unofficial SmashUps, Work Is The Important Thing.

My study of Cultures continued and I was fascinated to discover Feng Shui, the Ancient Study of Time and Space which involves rituals in regard to the damaged areas of One's life. It's no Good Luck Charm. Luck is like the Life Force, it's called Chi and it can help even in the worst times because when one becomes helpless, there are still rituals and ways of making sense. I'd already investigated Taoism back in the Seventies not long before I discovered Acupuncture and I was fascinated to discover the similarities in the essential rules.

Well, Himself after the disaster which followed that second Tribunal case was apt to say that he'd 'supported' me all along.

Well, I've still got the bags and bags of receipts from all I paid from those times and I would dispute that claim from an exhausted and overly defensive mind. In fact his work expected him to go on the Dole for half the year when not working, which he hated so much that my Dole became our sole income when he was at home composing because I thought that by those means I was saving that much grief.

In all that time his former Boss ridiculed him for laziness. He certainly wasn't lazy. During the off periods when there was no paid work he rehearsed and composed at least ten hours a day. Those phases were good. I could get on with my writing and study.

I admired his work very much, but the Laziness accusations bit deep and eventually to my amazement, he accused ME of 'Laziness' and would say so even when I'd worked myself to the point of exhaustion.

At the AAT Hearing, during which none of these realities were ever raised, when I mentioned that it would be more productive to be at home improving my essay on Australian Rivers for the first International Conference I'd been asked to participate in, the 'Lawyer' jumped up and explained the statement away by saying I have a 'Personality Disorder'.

In fact I have Asperger's Syndrome.

I was speaking of my Seventh Conference Paper, still not yet read and the deadline for submission had been absorbed over the days waiting for the promised calls from the Lawyer who claimed to be conducting the preliminary business of The Case.

So eventually they found me guilty of maliciously missing three Appointments one time back in 1997 when my paper work had been hurled about and after the CES had written to tell me that I'd have no obligations that month.

Well Himself had cracked up, hadn't he and it was very bad. Did I say I have a tendency to forget dates and times when stressed? I do.

If my paper work is chucked about, how would I know about appointments? They were very obviously out to get me, and if that very fact is a breach of Tribunal Law, noone noticed.

Acupuncture, Depression, I mean, what was going on there?

Yes I did crack up myself eventually. It's awful to be homeless. Awful and I hope I inocculate myself against repeating such a pattern by these means.

You see, the real violence occurred after himself read the exaggerated lying Findings from the Tribunal and concluded that I'd exaggerated. I hadn't.

What had gone on was that my only allowable Defence was the one instance the Doctor leaked and they used my Work History to ridicule me as if I was a liar.

O Boy. Thus the poem.

Someone should explain to the Tribunal that Domestic Violence isn't simply the Lot of those they see as Losers!

Funny about this economic downturn. The recent American and Australian Governments spent an awful lot of money persecuting individuals solely for the purpose of whipping up paranoias.

They say I'd have to get to the High Court for justice. Qe?