First inhabited in 5000 BC
Important city before Damascus
Taken over by Alexander The Great.
Stabilised by the Romans.
Conquered by Muslims who replaced churches
with
mosques.
Besieged but not conquered by Crusaders.
Overpowered by Mongols and Turks in 1400 -
a
tower with 20,000 skulls built.
In 1516, a trading centre, part of the
Ottoman Empire
and
the Silk Road.
Critically referred to by Shakespeare in
Macbeth
and
Othello.
Part of newly-established nation, Syria,
after
the
First World War.
Annexed by Turkey after War of Independence.
French declare state of Aleppo in 1920.
Union with Iraq, 1948.
Union with Egypt, 1956.
Syrian Civil War outbreak, 2011.
Car bombed by whoever wants to.
Air bombed by Russia and their associates.
Air bombed by USA and their associates.
7000 years of indiscriminate fighting and
rivalry.
Who would take a holiday or a one-way trip to Aleppo?
And we wonder why does the world have
refugees?
© Phil Harper
 |
| Cathy Weaver |
A Message To A Bully
Why do you tease and hurt me,
emotionally and physically?
Would you, the bully, like to be
treated that way?
Would you like to be called nasty names?
Would you like to see nasty messages
about you posted on the internet?
Would you like to live in fear
of getting beaten up on the way
to or from school?
I
have feelings.
I
have rights.
A right to feel safe
and to live my life without fear
or emotional torment.
Just because I’m different
doesn’t give you the right
to make my life a misery.
So please leave me alone
and let me be.
© Cathy Weaver
 |
| Photo montage, Skaters, Joe Lake |
You Stood There
You stood there, in front of us, at the
lectern.
Dressed in your Gucci suit.
You smelt of French scent.
You spoke academic English as you
Gesticulated your ideas about how
To save the starving Third World children.
I
feel my stomach churn;
I want to scream out at you:
What would a person like you
know
about poverty and deprivation?
Have you ever been a single parent
And not been able to give your children
McDonald’s or take them to the movies?
Because you and your ilk would only eat
luxury
food
And your children would go to a private
school.
During the interval of your lecture,
I sat alone, out of boredom.
I reluctantly picked up a book from a coffee
table.
On its cover, I see blue-eyed Caucasian
emaciated
children
And superimposed over these images
is
your photograph
And I read that you were
Born in the Ukraine during the Stalin era,
That your parents were taken to Siberia
-
never to be seen again
And that your eight siblings died from
starvation.
Further, that you witnessed cannibalism
there.
You came to Australia as a refugee.
After the interval, when your lecture
continued,
I listened in awe.
I had judged a person by their clothes.
© Judy Brumby-Lake 2005
 |
| Collage Figure Skaters, Joe Lake |
Patterns
Patterns - where do they begin -
And where do they end?
Are they meant to please, tease, amuse,
or
puzzle us?
Only the creator, the artist and God
Would ever know.
The artist dabs and sweeps his brush
this
way and that,
Creating a mood - the swirl of colours
Patterning his work to please himself and us.
The writer strings words together -
Single pearls to create a verbal necklace
And patterns and plots evolve -
Subterfuge to tease us -
Who will live and who will die?
And will there be a happy ending?
Intricate patterns in marble, in stone,
In mosaic glass and tile, in wood,
In precious gems, lace and wool,
In earth, sea, sand and sky -
Intricate patterns in life itself -
Threads of experience and emotion woven
and
intertwined
In complicated and exquisite colour -
Sadly though a beautiful beginning often
belies
A faded, rough end!
© June Maureen Hitchcock
No One Knows What Tomorrow Holds
She came from overseas to Melbourne,
There she met her future husband
I knew the family very well.
After 22 years of marriage, he died.
Every Wednesday and Sunday I visited them,
My family adored them.
So sad, so very sad.
This dear friend of mine has Alzheimer’s
And husband dies while wife so very ill.
Moral: Treat everyone with respect
while
they are alive.
Perform kind deeds
For no one knows what tomorrow holds.
© Yvonne Matheson
So
the new year is with us. Hooray for 2017! Now we can move on, make a fresh
start. Forget about 2016 and pretend it never happened!
It’s
all too easy to gloss over the year past, the good and the bad. Live for the
now! Don’t ever look back. Don’t pause for a moment and think what might have
been, what could have been. No, none of that. Just keep going along, safe in
the confines of our little-unit lives.
This
writer can’t do that. Not stuck in the past, not mourning over lost fragments
of time, not crying “Woe is me!”
Remembering
instead this woman’s long struggle against all the odds, who made her mark on
2016 and will never ever be forgotten. The woman who could smile through
ongoing pain, who survived more than most of us could have endured and who held
the next day precious, if despondent, on what could not be driven away with
scudding clouds.
Death
waited at her shoulder. She may have known this but others around her did not.
This writer looked to every passing second with hope, blind to the prospect of
there being an end. This writer implored “Don’t die” and this woman replied
“I’ll try not to.”
Last
roll of the dice on that Sunday, when the black crows flew close by the house
in two circling movements. The Sign! The portent of something being very wrong,
very final.
This
woman had died - and died alone, utterly alone! No comfort of an encircling
arm, no cooling against a warm body. Just the last gasping breath and then
chill until that chill became very cold. All was so still.
Oblivion
- or maybe something better. This woman believed.
I
cry for what could have been, what might have been, but most of all, I cry for
myself and what I have lost.
I
won’t forget 2016 and all the many years before. I won’t forget Barbara.
Cruel
And Gentle
I
heard the cry above
the
scream of death,
It
echoed and lingered
on
summer’s breeze,
Cruel
and gentle,
Inviting
the sun
to
puncture clear blue
in
a frenzy of black,
A
cry of pure agony
that
begged another gasp,
Death
eager and loud,
Consuming
every mundane hope,
Nothing
to hear
but
the fury of oblivion,
Dark
time descends, vengeful,
upon
ghost days
that
beg forgiveness
for
the breath of a second,
In
the maelstrom
that
definitively challenges
one
shard of fragile morning,
Dark
time calling
from
the sun’s grave
where
every light
is
captive in eternity.
The
rage of starlings
silent
now in perpetuity.
Eyes
are not delighted
in
the blindness.
I
heard the cry
through
parchment lips,
And
the din of dying
sucked
blue to black.
Black
took it all.
I
could swear I heard
a
cry above the scream of death.
© Michael Garrad
Reality
From out my window, through the sea of air,
I see the shadows on the grass below.
The roses paint their red with compliment to
the green.
The grass was cut and packed into plastic
wheels.
The breeze strokes gently at the eucalypts
As bottle brushes wait for birds to feed.
I hear the television in the other room
As Judy gives a rare and instant laugh
On something someone must have said
From out the screen.
The laptop that creates the symbols I type,
Hums gently with its fan to cool the CPU.
Judy is about to feed the whining dog
Who has been fed by me.
Summer has arrived,
I don’t need the woollen jacket anymore.
Outside my window the lime and the orange
trees
Have flowers to invite the bees
And then, next winter, I will peel and eat.
The camera sits patiently next to me,
Containing images and views suspended
As in memory but accessible.
My left hand has a slight attack of future
pain
As in old age disease sneaks in unseen
But I have lived and I have, overall, lived
well.
© Joe Lake
Bill’s Life Of Adventure
A short-short story by Joe Lake
Bill’s mind had been drifting even as they
took their nightly walk against the homeward-moving traffic. His wife, Gerda,
walked a few steps behind him and his ‘walker’ as he shuffled along the
footpath. Gerda had been distracted by a red rose in one of the gardens and had
stopped to smell it. Bill had continued his hobble. An old dog, a terrier,
Sniff, who normally hung around the old-people’s home, trotted just in front of
Bill. On the other side of the busy road, Bill noticed Martha, a lady whose
terrier was pulling on its leash, barking angrily at Sniff, who had stopped
with his ears up and tail rigid.
Then,
for whatever reason, the dog’s rheumatic limbs rushed him recklessly into the
traffic to get at the terrier. Bill’s reaction was automatic; he staggered
after Sniff into the middle of the road. Gerda looked up from her rose and saw
what was going on. With eyes focused on Bill, she didn’t see the car heading
towards her that screeched to a halt but alas, the SUV had hit Gerda and
smashed her head into the bitumen. Bill stood dazed, staring at Gerda’s form
until the ambulance came then someone took him back to the home.
Months
passed. In his Alzheimer’s-foggy mind, he had survived the funeral and was made
to exercise. Supported by his ‘walker’, he hobbled around the yard of the home
until someone left the gate open and Bill proceeded onto the busy road. He was
nearly killed and his ‘walker’ was destroyed. The management of the home
decided that he was not, ever, to leave and had to exercise in the secure part
of the home.
He
escaped another couple of times, each time the cars were able to brake and Bill
survived.
Nothing
happened for a few months, then Bill got out with just his walking stick. He
was determined, in his Alzheimer’s mind, to find Gerda. The traffic was heavy
as he stepped into it, then someone grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. ‘No
Bill, you must remain on the footpath. Listen to your guardian angel.’
 |
| Joe Lake |
 |
| Judy Brumby-Lake (Joe Lake's wife) |
 |
| June Maureen Hitchcock |
 |
| Michael Garrad |
