"tasmania" poems
Thylacinus Cynocephalus.
Tasmanian Tiger, Tasmanian Wolf,
A crepuscular hunting nocturnal beast,
Carnivore by nature, feasted upon wallaby,wombats and roos,
Caught by female of the species,
Was he a feline or a lupine beast, hyena perhaps,
No, this strange creature now probably extinct was marsupial with pouch,
Female with pouch to grow her young, male had pouch of his own,
Protected his crown jewels within a scrotal pouch,
Appearance of a stripy dog,
Looked rather like a tiger,
Had amber eyes filled with fire,
This diamorphic beast, (Means the chap was larger)
Had four toes on hind feet and rigid tail of kangaroo,
It's gait was rather odd,
Could move like kangaroo, if it so desired,
Strange call, a guttural sound, alerted his family when he was abound,
Shy secretive little creature,
Kept himself locked out of sight,
For in the late 188os, early 1900s these creatures had a bounty on their heads,
The bounty hunters had such fun, left our world with nearly none,
Last beast in the wild as noted,shot by gun by Mr Batty,
1936 the last captive creature died in Hobart Zoo,
Reported name was Benjamin,
Book called The Djin-jum Man, said man, Batty man maybe, was cursed for killing the last of their kin,
Poor things,
Living legacy remains,
On Tasmania's coat of arms, two of these fine beasts support the islands emblem,
Probably gone but never overlooked,
Still being sought but never found!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
This was really difficult, hope its quite accurate!
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 4:33 PM UTC
TASMANIA, The Apple Isle,
rooted in conquest, convicts
and cannibalism.
Into this desolate paradise,
suffering, starving Englishmen,
dreaming of home, planted
row upon row of small neat
cottages, graciously adorned
by native English roses.
Convicted felons, shunned
from polite English society,
became her upstanding citizens,
and like her fuel-laden forests,
she smouldered, a daughter of
mother England, steeped in
her heritage like a lauded
*** of Earl Grey.
For two centuries, England
grew, a wild sunflower,
with London's sprawling
population sprouting from
1m seedlings, to over 8m
at the peak of her growth.
And somehow, somewhere,
something broke inside.
Today, proud Englishmen
mourn a loss of the spirit
and freedom of their forebears,
still proud, yet yearning
for the simple, honest
existence of a yesteryear
long lost, and not forgotten.
In Tasmania, time drifted
lazily, as outposts sprawled
into small towns, small towns
into small cities, like miniatures
mimicking the motherland
her pioneers had left behind.
But unlike her proud parent,
Tasmania remained true to
the spirit that raised her
from the ashes of convict
settlements, and a fledgling
society intent on defending
the spirit that put England
at the heart of an empire
flourished.
I am an Englishman, proud
to be born and raised in
her heartlands, and prouder
still, to have found that most
distant corner of our once
great empire that embodies still
the spirit of hard work,
fair play and decency that
is found within the beating heart
of every true Englishman.
Feb 14, 2017
Feb 14, 2017 at 9:50 AM UTC
Greetings David,
I am employed by Fletchers Construction to be the Plant Coordinator at the Wellconnected Waterview Twin tunnel project underway beneath Sandringham in Auckland.
My wife is a hardworking Senior Nurse @ Ascot hospital in Greenlane.
For sanity, about six years ago, my wife and I bought a lifestyle block butting on to Egmont National Park @ 1250’ elevation. We built a beautiful alpine lodge, cut tracks down the heavily wooded escarpments, built bridges across two streams, reticulated roof water between tanks to a boulder built fishpond then to a shallow, stone rimmed lake which empties down an escarpment to the stream.
We have planted hundreds of trees and shrubs on this property, rhododendrons of beautiful form and colour, magnolias, a forest of silver birch, oaks, tulip trees and acers.
The property is a wonder of swooping hills and dips which, from it’s elevation, looks out over the grey Tasman sea toward Tasmania. Egmont looms in it’s white, pristine splendour over our left shoulder and the close, dark Puhakai range rears abruptly, spectacularly, betwixt the volcano and us.
Growth here is slow because of the climate, the 300 inches of annual rainfall, the short summers and the depleted volcanic ash soil.
I am 70 years old, my darling wife considerably younger….we both want to see our plantings grow to significance within our lifetime…
Thus my request for access to your wonderful fish fertilizer.
Respectfully
M.
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
The bar-tailed godwit
caught birddom by surprise
When word got out
just how far this bird flies
A juvenile Limosa lapponica,
satellite tag 2-3-4-6-8-4
flew nonstop from Alaska
to the Tasmanian shore!
13,560 kilometers nonstop,
eleven days and nights
A new world record for
marathon bird flights
“From Alaska to Tasmania?
The devil, you say!”
cried ravens and crows,
“Every bird knows
Claiming to fly 8400 miles
To the Tasmanian isles—
is the height of audacity!
No bird has the capacity
We protest with pugnacity
Demanding veracity!”
The godwits conveyed
a very chill groove
They had, after all
nothing to prove
having set the prior
world records in ‘20 and ‘21
A controversy was brewing
Would their achievements
be undone?
A commission was appointed
for a bird’s-eye review
into the facts of the matter
the truth to pursue
Wise owls were chosen
to adjudicate this claim
To settle once and for all
who deserved the acclaim
First item considered
had scientific backing
Since satellite data
Allowed accurate tracking
Of the tagged young bird’s
ultramarathon flights
The facts indisputable
No need for bird fights,
ending investigation into
this migration gyration
Bar-tailed godwits awarded
the Oiseau de Plume
for being the farthest nonstop
flying bird in the room
The Arctic terns too
received acclamation
For flying the farthest
In their migration—pole to pole,
24,000 miles each year
causing most birds present to
stand up and cheer
in spontaneous applause—
But not all birds were willing
To concede their cause
Displaying proclivity
to resist the festivity
The crows and ravens
As they stormed out the door
vowed in unison, wings clenched,
“Nevermore!”
Mark Toney © 2022
Based on a true story with poetic license added for spice.
When was the last time you flew 8400 miles nonstop? A bar-tailed godwit flew nonstop over 8400 miles from Alaska to Tasmania from October 13 through 24, 2022, setting a new world record for nonstop bird flight.
Oct 29, 2022
Oct 29, 2022 at 10:21 PM UTC
I was sitting on a train
I didn’t have my headphones so
I was listening to the announcements
The woman’s voice is butter light but
A little bit patronising:
“If you have an Opal card, please remember to tap-off”
Because what else am I going to do to get through the turnstile?
I’m too short to jump it
And I am not a ghost
And then I start thinking of her,
The woman who gave her voice to a train
If she can still use it anymore
If it annoys her when she hears it on her way to work
If she’s changed it like an embarrassing name or
Moved to a different state?
And do they have different voices in
Melbourne or Brisbane or Tasmania?
And what about the bloke
Who gave his voice to the station?
“Please be advised, smoking is not permitted on the platform”
Which is a ****** ‘cos I could really do with a smoke.
But then again what if
Train Woman and Station Man aren’t real?
What if they were made by a computer program?
And if so,
Did someone have to give their voice to a computer?
But that’s just crazy –
It would mean the robots are coming and
We’d all be gonskies
If they ever learn to think what we don’t tell them.
But they kind of already do, right?
Don’t know the science of it really but
I think therefore I am
Someone in history says this, but they’re wrong
I am therefore I think
Or I am, but don’t think, but am anyway
And Train Woman’s voice is here, right?
It’s speaking to us, but is a thing that is intangible
Still a thing?
And this is why I need to remember headphones –
I’ve missed my stop.
Mar 5, 2016
Mar 5, 2016 at 5:06 AM UTC