This will hurt me...

Table Cape farmland #1. Table Cape, North West Tasmania. April 2013. Theme Thursday ? Yeah, one of those days. Table Cape farmland #2. Table Cape, North West Tasmania. April 2013. A good day for DREAMS.

This is the bloke who can eat his own weight in berries. [ He has form. ]

Green lines (don't do it). Table Cape, Tasmania's North West. February 2012. Tuesday Q and A which normally means theft from Sunday Stealing. This week, The OC 25 Meme ! 1. What is your origin of your first name? What about any nicknames? My actual name is a shocker. Apparently it was quite a common male name in Scandinavia, as Kristen is the Danish and Norwegian form of Christian . Unfortunately, around about the time of the late-1970s (funny that) it emerged in English-speaking countries as a female name. Yes, it caused me no end of frustration through my formative years. As for nicknames, well, my surname is McCracken , so what do you reckon they called me? Bitter, Moi ? 2. Have you any claims to fame? None that I am aware of. Perhaps one day one of my children will make a splash! 3. If you were famous, how would you introduce yourself to someone who had never heard of you? If they'd never heard of me, obviously I am not famous enough! 4. Which of your country's ach...

Straight lines. Table Cape, Tasmania's North West. February 2012. Emily Dickinson makes her first appearance and the boys and I wonder what we are going to do this weekend while Jen is out and about in Melbourne... Pain - has an element of blank (650) , Emily Dickinson Pain - has an element of blank - It cannot recollect When it began - or if there was A time when it was not - It has no future - but itself - Its infinite realms contain Its past - enlightened to perceive New periods - of pain.

The onion field. Table Cape, Tasmania’s North West Coast. February 2012. This Watery Wednesday I reflect on the fact that pretty much everywhere I have live, an expanse of water has been nearby. By nearby, I mean within sight . I’m not sure what the psychological effect is, but I am reasonably certain that if denied that precious view of H²O, I’d struggle!

Sunrise. The Burnie-Ridgley area, Tasmania's North West. February. Is rap/hip hip-hop a modern form of performance poetry? I believe that it is. Proof? This! Baby Got Back , Sir Mix-a-Lot I like big butts and I can not lie You other brothers can't deny That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist And a round thing in your face You get sprung, wanna pull out your tough 'Cause you notice that butt was stuffed Deep in the jeans she's wearing I'm hooked and I can't stop staring Oh baby, I wanna get with you And take your picture My homeboys tried to warn me But that butt you got makes me so horny Ooh, Rump-o'-smooth-skin You say you wanna get in my Benz? Well, use me, use me 'Cause you ain't that average groupie I've seen them dancin' To hell with romancin' She's sweat, wet, Got it goin' like a turbo 'Vette I'm tired of magazines Sayin' flat butts are the thing Take the average black man and ask him that She gotta pa...

The wild North West. Somewhere between Elizabeth Town and Deloraine. February 2012. Grammar has a way of attacking one... A Valediction Forbidding Mourning , Adrienne Rich My swirling wants. Your frozen lips. The grammar turned and attacked me. Themes, written under duress. Emptiness of the notations. They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds. I want you to see this before I leave: the experience of repetition as death the failure of criticism to locate the pain the poster in the bus that said: my bleeding is under control A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths. A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor. These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight. When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time. When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever. I could say: those mountains have a meaning but further than that I could not say. To do something very common, in my own way.

Poppy fields. Table Cape, Tasmania's North West Coast. February 2012. All of the running about up in the north west of Tasmania constrained my reading time this week, hence only one book was finished this week. It was the very interesting epistle from the past that is Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata , which was first published in 1889 but promptly censored by the Russian authorities. The book itself represents an argument for the ideal of sexual abstinence and a thorough first-person description of jealousy. This is a tricky little book. It stresses Tolstoy's rather unique view on human sexuality, one which physical desire is perceived as a barrier to ‘proper’ relations between men and women and a route to tragedy. I cannot say that I am convinced of Tolstoy’s viewpoint, but do recognise the power of his storytelling. The narrative itself is a powerful one – as sex and murder tales usually are – but my conclusion is somewhat different from that of central character Pozdnyshev...

Sheep on a hill. Clifton Beach. November 2011. Blogger seems to have buggered up the header (again). Fingers crossed that it will correct itself without any need for me to lift a finger (again). A very special Sunday Top Five today, with the now annual Top Five NINE Books That I've Read This Year ! The rationale is pretty straightforward, it doesn't have to be a new book, just something that I've read this year. The nine were decided from the marking system I've been using on Goodreads (a handy tool for tracking your reading habits). All of these books received the illustrious Five Stars . If you click the link, you can read the review. I generally avoid giving spoilers. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively Animal Farm by George Orwell The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene Götz and Meyer by David Albahari The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald One Day in the Life of...

Fields filled with growing somethingorthers [potatoes? leeks? cabbages? onions? swedes? any ideas?] in Ridgley, just outside of Burnie. I do like the morning light on crops. This photo leads me into today's poem, from one of Australia's favourites, Judith Wright. Woman To Man , Judith Wright The eyeless labourer in the night, the selfless, shapeless seed I hold, builds for its resurrection day--- silent and swift and deep from sight foresees the unimagined light. This is no child with a child's face; this has no name to name it by; yet you and I have known it well. This is our hunter and our chase, the third who lay in our embrace. This is the strength that your arm knows, the arc of flesh that is my breast, the precise crystals of our eyes. This is the blood's wild tree that grows the intricate and folded rose. This is the maker and the made; this is the question and reply; the blind head butting at the dark, the blaze of light along the blade. Oh hold me, for I am af...

When were were up on the coast earlier this month, Henry turned his hand to refitting long-discarded farm equipment. Here you can see an old plough that he fiddled with for a bit and got it up and going and we tilled a couple of acres before morning tea!

It is Monday morning and I find myself back at work after a few weeks out. I am not happy about it. Just last week I was residing at a quiet little farmhouse - converted barn, to be precise - gazing at the sheep nibbling away at the grass out of the kitchen window. It's a good thing that I took this photograph then, I can spend the morning gazing at it instead! A poor substitute, I might add...