Tag: poet

poetry

Passion for Poetry

James Arthur Warren AKA Thundercloud Repairian

I could certainly do with with a couple of hundred thousand dollars, half a million….. better….. a million…..? That would really allow me to celebrate poetry in a big way.

Small poetry

Has

IMPACT

small words whack!

Over the last nearly three years I have been working on one of the most important cultural heritage/art/literature projects in modern Australia. In the 24th of March 2020, at the beginning of the Australian COVID19 lockdown I opened the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra’s Arcadia Theatre.

https://www.australianpoetryhalloffame.com.au/

It hasn’t been easy. It was always going to be a challenge and a lot of work but I always knew it was going to work. Now we hold a weekly poetry open mic, Wednesday Words and I also do a VidCast or PoetCast every Tuesday which you can see on the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame YouTube channel. I have nurtured and inspired new poets. I have inspired the adult children of dead poets to publish deceased elders poetry.

Plus there is the day to day running of the Australian poetry Hall of Fame which includes pretty much everything. Then I still find time to write poetry and create art, meditate, do yoga, swim, and have time to myself (actually I have little time to myself and when I do, it’s really valued)

So here I am on a Saturday night writing a blog post that I began 6 months ago. One of the wonderful things that has happened in the past week was that I regained control of my hacked facebook account. This meant that I could copy and paste my entire anthology of 2022 poetry into one document. It turns out that I also managed to write over 52 thousand words of poetry on 2022 so I am going to share a few of the poems below. The first is “The Colour of Poetry” and “I spoke with a thousand dead poets”

If poetry were a colour,

it would be a multifaceted rainbow

Red sunsets of beauty and anger,

Pristine white as falling snow

Orange of the desert plains,

Yellow like the sunflowers

Changing hues of fiery flames

Grey clouds bringing showers

Magenta like a summer rose

Ochre like the land and sand

Peacock tails when they pose

Emerald green forest stand

Azure blue as a clear sky

Turquoise of a tropical sea

Eucalyptus blueish green

Changing coloured maple tree

Pink of the cherry blossoms

Pinkish orange of a peach

Tea stains on tea cup bottoms

A golden sandy beach

The browns of nightingales

Soft purple lavender hues

Blues of the blue whales

Wisteria and burnt bamboo

Pastel green and also mint

The liquid black of writing ink

Don’t forget baby pink

Poetry is a rainbow to make you think.

The next poem was inspired by all the dead poets. There are times where I am working so late that I just unroll my yoga mat in the Poetry Hall of Fame, lay down with a blanket and fall asleep surrounded by all the poet portraits that I have drawn for the “hall of fame”, the result is the following poem:

I spoke with a plethora of deceased poets

You know! Poets that are dead

I asked a question of a thousand poets

And this is what they all said

We support you but we are not alive

You need to do what you must do

Tell the world about us and you’ll thrive

A thousand dead poets said this is true

I thanked the dead poets for their poetry

And the people like me inspired

By planting a seed and growing a poet tree

Poets words remain after they’ve retired

A thousand dead poets surround me

Their poetry archived and preserved

Packets of seeds to grow poet trees

A thousand future poets I have served.

Every April there is a Facebook poetry group called “The Dirty Thirty” and the challenge is to write one poem per day for the month of April and also write to the prompt. I always find it really interesting to see what other poets come up with. The following is one that I wrote for day six of the dirty thirty 2022, I’m not too sure what the prompt was but this is what happened.

#thedirtythirty2022 #DAY6

Planting a Poet Tree

Poet trees have good wood

Planting the seeds of future poets is the goal

Watching the poet trees grow

I ran a forestry nursery

1998 planting one seed at a time

20 years later I can show you the forests

Seeds need opportunity for growth and ideal conditions

Seeds plus Soil plus Moisture equals trees

Hence a forestry nursery results in forests.

The Earth becomes greener and little birds  have a forest home

Poet trees need opportunity for growth

People plus inspiration plus opportunity to read /write/ perform poetry.

Hence the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra results in more poet tree forests

Hence #thedirtythirty results in more poet tree forests.

And Poet trees have good wood.

Nuff said

Almost. Just one more thing. “Don’t Get a Cat”

One of my latest poems based on a Buddhist story. “Don’t get a cat”

You can support me to keep on producing poetry and content or just Buy Me a Coffee

You can also buy my books Love in Nimbin or Lust in Nimbin or Poetry to End Prohibition

You can also buy the iconic Thundercloud DISOBEY image on T-Shirts and more at the webstore

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poetry, writing

A Poetry Dump

James Arthur Warren AKA Thundercloud Repairian

Just last night as I was going to bed, sitting there meditating I had a flash of an idea. I just remembered it so here goes.

Its a Poetry Dump

Wind chill factor

There’s no point yelling at the wind There’s no point crying about the rain The humidity, the heat or cold All weather comes again

The wind will blow on all of us Sometime in life we all have pain Rise to challenges don’t make a fuss You need to scrub to remove a stain

Cold exposure makes you stronger Wind, hail, rain and snowy weather Attitude determines who lives longer Loving souls memories live for ever

Light in dark and dark in light Without fear without frustration Sunrise and sets the day and night Gratitude for all situations

As one ends another cycle begins Nothing resting, vibrations and flow Yin Yang reflect fraternal twins It’s always cold when there’s snow

I won’t cry that the black swans fly Droughts break when it rains Snow comes in black clouds in the sky There are times you must unblock drains

6 Sigma

“Strength has flexibility, power, agility and speed. Fleas bit dinosaurs on the nose, eyes and knees If you’re dedicated, consistent, take an extra step each day Make adjustments and improvements in every single way Delayed gratification to achieve a long term goal and plan Of Personal development to become a six sigma man”

Non-Sense

“Sometimes you have to be prepared to say THAT’S NONSENSE and then just walk away” Thundercloud Quotes

Passion for Poetry

I have developed a passion for poetry. Each word written is a seed Sowed in a forest of minds growing trees

Awake and asleep I fashion my poetry Affecting those who read Prose, some meter, and rhymes flow free

The poets of the past all speak to me Metaphor that heal or bleed Graphic depiction of crimes historically

Cathartic affecting all emotionally Unshackled truth becomes freed Prophetic, grammatical, syntactic poetry

I’m just a poet bird in a big poet tree Into my head poetry I feed I defecate poetry and piss poetry

Cook it in my mind, consume poetry Poetry I love, crave and need Poetry is a healthy obsession for me

A Kick

On the National Register of Unremarkable People There’s men named John, Paul, Steve, Jim, Peter Women named Jessie , Chrissy, Shelly, Kate, Sharon Barbara, Mary, Sarah, Kate and of course Karen

Every night the Unremarkable People all get pissed When they pass away we celebrate they are not missed With Unremarkable lives they contribute a little bit But mostly leech off others, watch TV, smartphones or sit.

The Unremarkable People have all been heaven sent As example how not to live and how life shouldn’t be spent Hedonistic drifters without plans in self dug holes As opposed to planned success and achieving goals

But you can be remarkable if you take some action Proactive plans with goals and passion always makes traction With a definite purpose you’ll be successful and achieve Anything you imagine with action and self belief.

Interesting

“Life is a set of ( brackets) within an infinite soul, growth of spirit is the goal. Life is an adventure not to be missed. Ascending spirits pass through peace, joy and bliss. Life can be boring or interesting. It’s all your a free choice and that’s the best thing. ” Thundercloud Quotes

Cho-Zen

“The world can make you laugh or the world can make you cry, Feed you, and nurture you, the world can make you die You can be a boy, girl, man, woman, other, cat, monkey, hen Do you let the world affect you or wash over you, be zen.” Thundercloud quotes

Beware of the Goat

I went for a ride on my trike tonight There were so many different animals in flight

Oh goodness me, SH. T and F#CK I just got hit by a low flying duck

Next thing I know, yes it’s true I got hit by a flying goose too

After that I thought they were gone. When I rode into a flying black swan

At the last moment from the corner of my eye I ducked as along came a Magpie

Next thing, I don’t know how, I got hit by a swooping cow

Things got crazy and rather big When I got hit by a flying pregnant pig

Then a flying hippopotamus, a flying rhinoceros Then the rain fell down and washed away the lot of us

From the sky fell a million green frogs After that it was raining cats and dogs

Animals were raining everywhere Falling from the sky into my hair

An idea flashed, I knew what to do, I put a fence up and built a zoo

You’re welcome to visit if you like I’ll take you for a tour on my trike

But please be very careful in the zoo Not to tread in elephant poo.

One last thing, bring a rain coat He doesn’t swoop but there’s a pissing flying goat

This is my trike
poetry, writing

Enjoy writing- moments

James Arthur Warren AKA Thundercloud Repairian

Listening to a music for writing playlist. A tray full of pumpkin, onion and tomatoes roasts in preparation for the next round of pumpkin soup to warm the core. Inspired to take moments away from other more pressing and productive chores and creative pursuits. It is autumn, 13 degrees Celcius outside and drizzly intermittent showers blow in and out. This is not the kind of weather that I would like to be a stockman on a horse.

I am now listening to a beautiful piece of classical music by Litvinovsky – Pelléas and Mélisande: I. Ils étaient comme des enfants. In English that translates to “They were like children,” and that reminds me what I am doing-writing.

For the time is often filled with trivialities and chores so in order to write, one must make writing opportunities. I live where I work, an old theatre one called the “Arcadia Theatre” but now home to the “Australian Poetry Hall in Fame” in Guyra, Banbai/Kamilaroi country. Living where I work and working where I live has both positive and negative aspects. One of the negatives is that it’s easy to fill the time with work and drudgery. The positive is that I have at hand a whole space in which to follow creative pursuits, a big child’s garden, in which to nurture the soul and the spirit and remind oneself that life is for enjoyment not suffering.

One of the simplest pleasures is writing. That’s why it is worth creating opportunities to write. Have a note book handy, write on a smart phone write on a computer to create a piece of literary art which echoes down through the eons for future readers to unearth nuggets of gold. Writing is not everyone’s cup of tea but for me it is a well drawn cup of Barry’s Irish tea with a dash of milk and the teabag left in.

Two hours after I began writing this piece the last third of a mug of tea is lukewarm but still strong tasty and drinkable, the pumpkin soup is blended and ready to serve and numerous interruptions have passed. These interruptions include Mediterranean field mushroom cups, avocado on toast, three glasses of fresh pressed juice and a delivery of an old radio, record player and a slide projector. The rain has definitely set in and I still do not envy the stockman Clancy of the Overflow on his horse in the rain.

Simple pleasures are life’s treasures like classical music on a rainy day

Simple pleasures are beyond measure, no price can be put upon play

Simple pleasures are diamonds of leisure, in a warm room writing away

Earlier this week I wrote a piece of poetry about a man who does all the enjoyable things twice but if it causes him pain then he goes and does something which he enjoys. The poem is simple titled “Double Dan”

Double Dan

There is a happy man who does everything twice

If it brings him joy and makes him feel nice

But if it makes him sad, feel horrible and mad

He doesn’t repeat it, he does things that make him feel glad.

He skied down a hill and skied down a hill again

Then he parachuted once and a second time my friend

He swam with a crocodile and a great white shark

Then he went and danced at a festival in a park

He rode a camel across a desert and then he rode it back

Twice took a submarine into a deep ocean floor crack

Then then he watched a horror movie and couldn’t crack a smile

So he played a game football with his friends for a while

If it makes him feel good he’ll do it one more time

He climbed a mountain twice to feel twice sublime

But he’ll only do it once if he shits his pants

Then to feel better he’ll play football or dance

There is a man named Double Dan, who’s a happy man

He does the fun things twice just because he can

But he’s no twit and if it makes him feel like shit

He’ll change what he’s doing and never repeat it.

There is a lot that I could write about doing the things that you love and not repeating unpleasant or harmful experiences. However time is limited. It is now 3:30pm and I have been writing this piece of content for over 5 hours. There are days where I want to write more than I have time for and when I have not written anything for a few days I start to get concerned that I am not being productive enough as a writer. The fact is that it’s not the writing that I don’t do enough of, it’s the publishing. It’s the part of the creative process where nothing new is written and the formatting, editing, uploading to Amazon etc. and it all seems like too much work. So I procrastinate, avoid and do the easier, simpler things like cook pumpkin soup or write a poem.

This week is the second birthday of the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra, a place to celebrate poets past, present and emerging. There is always something to do and much more to be done so it is easy to be distracted and forget to write. However, April is the month of #TheDirtyThirty challenge on facebook. This is where we are challenged every day with a prompt to write a piece of poetry. I am looking forward to it as there is nothing as rewarding as creating a piece of random poetry from a random prompt.

animals, Life lessons, poetry

Question Everything Critically

James Arthur Warren AKA Thundercloud Repairian

Believe what you want. I am nobody to tell you what to believe but be aware that most of what you believe has been told to you by someone else who never questioned the source nor sough any extra information to back up their belief.

There are four main ways of “knowing. These are: facts, opinions, beliefs and prejudice. Somewhere along the continuum lies “faith” Faith is where we believe something exists without proof. The following 3 pieces of poetry have been written over the past few years as I ponder and meditate on life about beliefs that serve and beliefs that don’t serve.

Facts

I am about to destroy everything that you know

Please read this very carefully and slow

Is it a fact that you tell me, my friend?

Or is it a belief, that serves no proper end?

Is it a scientific factual truth that serves you,

Or preprogrammed belief that isn’t quite true?

How did you come that opinion my friend?

What information brought you to this end?

This belief that you speak about seems to cause grief,

Are you sure your opinion is not just a belief?

Have you researched the truth, critically looked at the fact,

or is this just a belief about how you learnt to react?

Have you researched and analysed all information?

Is this just a belief that’s causing you frustration?

I know that you only know what you know

So I will spell it out carefully and slow

There are things that you know you don’t know

And things that you don’t know that you don’t know

Things that are programmed that you can let go

Beliefs have no facts that you can show

A fact can be verified with real evidence

Providing support for assertion of arguments

Opinions are judgements based on facts

Opinions can be changed on how you interpret the facts

Beliefs are convictions based on personal faith

with no evidence or facts they are based on faith

Prejudices are reflections of narrow minds

having no place in argument at any time

Beliefs are based on values or morality

Cannot be tested with logic or rationality

Prejudices come from friends, family and media

Prejudice is when another plants a seed in ya

Acting on fears and pessimistic predictions

like that you need to get vaccinations

Believing that negative outcomes will get you

so you need to be prepared in case predictions are true

A belief is acceptance of something without proof

without empirical evidence to prove the truth

Is it a fact, opinion, prejudice or belief?

Only facts truely serve us and the rest cause us grief.

Only facts are factual and they are verifiable.

Linguistically this fact is undeniable. “be careful of bad spirits, they could harm you”

This is an example of a belief that’s not true.

Why am I even writing about this stuff?

Because of prejudice and beliefs, I’ve had enough

Beliefs are the foundation of our lives and our habits

Like chocolate eggs come from bunny rabbits

And if you believe in the Lord you’ll have eternal life

Religious beliefs cause much pain, war and strife

Like the prejudice that we need a nationality

is nonfactual and not based in rationality

Belief are for people who want to conform

It takes courage to go against the norm

Now hold your tongue and be careful what you say

Reassess your beliefs and have a lovely day

Please consider just what I have said

And turn the world upside down on its head, DISOBEY

Self affirming beliefs

A belief, and a value, opinion is just that. Beliefs are built in your imagination and not based on fact.

A belief is an explanation made in your brain to justify something you cannot explain

All beliefs are false and made up in your head not by looking at the facts, beliefs are the words that you said.

Made up from your programming fed into your mind, hypnotised by reinforced beliefs all the time.

You could believe in a god that there is no proof exists just because your mum, dad, a preacher and as an old book insist.

But beliefs are just purely abstracted nouns so you can drop all your beliefs and just walk around.

So you take control of your life ask what will I create and you drop your limiting beliefs then plan and then make living in the now and create a new plan to be famous world wide as the unlimited man

There is one more thing, believe in yourself to take control of your life, your destiny and health

I believe there are no beliefs to stop us achieve, every single goal that we write, plan and we believe

I have finished being a limited man and from now I’ll take action to do every dream, goal and plan.

The indoctrinated man

He believed everything the Bible ever said, read it and re-read it ingrained into his head

His beliefs were so outdated and morals very low, when he closed the Bible his mind became free though.

But it was not his fault, his indoctrination because the Christian missionaries colonised his nation.

Once upon a time he supported it, but now he’s homophobic like a hypocrite

If you’re spouting hate and lies, judgement and bigotry, whether Jewish, Christian Muslim, your mind is never free

If you take your cue from and old outdated book, you’d beat your slave and rape your wife, and sacrifice a chook (“chook” is Australian slang for chicken)

And take away the freedom of the people who you love, indoctrinated by an imaginary friend called “God” above

An imaginary God with human traits imposed, if god really existed there’d be no judgement I’d suppose

But you don’t have to keep the faith and blindly believe. Free will is what you have, you have the choice to leave

Behind the lies and fear of religious indoctrination. Think for yourself and change your mind and change the situation.

When he left behind the outdated book of fear, started being kind and admitted being Queer,

Poor little Rael was messed up in the head, believing that he would go to hell after he was dead. There is one more thing, “Be here now” and a photo for the Hindus of a big sacred cow.

The Big Cow at Yandina, Queensland, Australia

change, poetry, poetry

Data Harvesting

James Arthur Warren AKA Thundercloud Repairian

Data, the new oil

We’re going sequence every living thing on earth.

We’re going to sequence everybody in the world.

Are you being robbed?

Are you missing out?

Are you being paid?

Vapour trails in the ether

Location tracking

Date and time stamped.

Tracked by an Apple

Tracked by an Android

Ones and zeros obscuring dollar signs.

Facebook builds a history of….

Pop up advertising

Cross reference credit history, income statements and location

Providing a seamless experience in the metaverse

Data privacy and consent

There’s a lot of money in your data

Fitbit, heart rate

The price of Free

Your personal data is an asset to you

Or Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft

and what ever government or corporation decided to harvest

Your data

Your oil

Your energy

We’re living in a time when big companies want to exploit the information we’ve given them for free.

Market value per user

The privacy crisis

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Software and big data

The internet of things

Terms and conditions

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