Windmills keep turning

Six years ago I wrote a blog on here, dated 29 December 2013, and titled Tilting at Windmills. This morning I had planned on taking a train ride down to Helensvale at Gold Coast and have a wander through the shops, except when I logged into Whacksworks it distracted me. Now I don’t think I’ll go to Helensvale today because I’ve found stuff to write about. And that wasn’t the only reason I would have gone!

Tilting at Windmills, which I’d written four months before my stroke, says a lot of what I still feel. In my blog I only wrote 8 during 2013 – my worst year ever. Okay, so that applies now to 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and still thinking through 2019, because they all seem to be worse than last year. There were 61 blogs in 2016, but back down to 11 in 2019. I don’t know why they rose and dropped. Perhaps I need to have a goal – 104 this year! That would be two a week, which is the least I should be doing. Or should it be 52, just one a week? Hmmm…

 

When I started this blog I wrote of politics: they frustrated me so much, after LNP took over. I wrote a poem intended for Tony Abbott, but I can’t find out if I’d ever posted it. I used it, re-addressed to Malcolm Turnbull, at a Logan Library poetry competition. Now I’ve posted it here, this time addressed to Scott Morrison. They’re all LNP, no different…

Dear Prime Minister…

Don’t tell me not to protest,

I’m going to speak my mind.

I’m mad as hell at where we’re at,

the course that you’ve defined.

You know that what you’re doing’s wrong,

you can lie but you can’t hide

the devastation you leave behind –

what happened to your pride?

You do not have a mandate,

regardless of what you think…

are there no depths left

to which you will not sink?

We used to have a country

of which we could be proud

but your climate change denial

is leaving a big dust cloud.

You’re killing the Reef, the trees, the earth,

you’ve all but lost the plot.

Our heritage, our future,

to you don’t mean a jot.

You’ve taken from the poor,

the gap widens in every way

but it’s not the poor who’ve got us

to the state we’re in today.

You’ve no shred of humanity

to care for refugees,

could you survive in the appalling conditions

your minister decrees?

We’re moving backwards far too fast,

the Lucky Country no more -

we lost that title well and truly

when you got your foot in the door.

The NBN, NDIS,

environmental care,

Gonski, Holden, stop the boats –

you don’t want them here.

You spouted big before the vote –

you promised no surprise -

yet all you’ve done since taking office

is prove you’re full of lies.

We’re tired of you Prime Minister,

you don’t say what you mean.

We’re waiting for the day

when you will finally come clean.

Now it’s time to tell the truth –

what are your plans for us?

Not that we’d believe you

when all you say is suss.

You’ve had your fun, you’ve sowed the seeds,

Murdoch can now reap…

this country is Australia,

that you sold down the drain too cheap.

I still like that.

Some blogs included my statements which I feel pretty good about, like:

“Deny, continue to deny, and eventually people believe you rather than the factual evidence.” – Words can hurt, 13 April 2014

Other blogs spoke about my ‘friends’ before I lost them, like I’m out there, 2 August 2014. Had they walked away from me or did I leave them? Why? Any readers who were my friends, I invite you to contact me and we can start again.

I recently closed my two websites, It’s Okay to be Angry and Reibus. After 6 years I felt that I can’t really afford them now, but I would love to put Reibus back up – it has many of my poems, my short stories, my music memories and quotes I put on a painting or photo or design which I liked. I spent a lot of time doing this stuff – why don’t I still do it? I think that writing this will not give me the initiative to restart Reibus – I will forget it when I post this blog.

Still, as long as I can keep writing blogs then maybe I can start thinking about the new future for Reibus – and me.

Thank you for reading.