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at 18:16

Dinner for One or C'ena Pa Una

Dinner for One

Carol Jenkins

Lost my key to your door

Lost my sense of style

don’t go out no more

Its seems that I’m a bore

Cry in my sleep

Wake up slow

Close the blinds to the sun

doze til noon and it’s

Dinner for one

What a fix I’ve got me in

My ex best friend says you’re a cheat

And she should know

Lost my sense of style

I don’t go out no more

Lost my key to your door.

Dancing with shadows

Talking with thieves

Who should I believe?

And it’s dinner for one.

My ex best friend says you’re a cheat

And she should know

She should know

and it’s Dinner for one.

Walking down King street

I just stare

at other people’s shoes

going out in pairs

and it’s dinner for one.

Cry in my sleep

Wake up slow

Close the blinds to the sun

doze til noon and it’s

Dinner for one

Dinner for One

Window seat please

With a paperback romance

I pretend to read

having dinner for one.

I wrote this Dinner for One song for my friend Janet Swain, who has written some nifty music for it and added in the great line "dinner for one". It had quite a few drafts. Her glamorous muso daughter Lila Swain translated it into Spanish -'C'ena Pa Una'.

NB The photo is from as a series which features this stick-man (made of rocket stems and a piece of chicken gristle) running off from a dinner plate.

Dinner for One Carol Jenkins Lost my key to your door Lost my sense of style don’t go out no more Its seems that I’m a bore Cry in ...

at 17:28

The Expanding Universe - Written for Sing! 2011

My friend Mark Walsmely (who you can find at Demo Doctor) asked if I could write lyrics for a science theme song as a candidate for Sing! the ABCs primary schools song book. It sounded tricky and I thought I would cheat and adapt a poem I'd written about fossil fish but the first line of this appeared while I was making minestrone and viola! Mark W. set it brilliantly to music, so it feels like we are listening to Albert E. playing the accordian in a Weimer Republic caberet in 1930.

Note: The photo may look like Tiny Tots stuck together but it really is a large gluon which was found in our kitchen, showing how adaptable to domesticity physics really is.

The Expanding Universe

Apples, cheese and fleas

Verse 1

Given gravity’s a form of stretchy glue

so apples fall down, instead of up to you

there’s also something larger and mysterious

that pushes things apart, that’s big and serious.

Einstein did not like it but allowed it might be true…

chorus

The dark parts of the universe

the cosmologic stuffing,

you can’t see or feel it

but it’s definitely not nothing,

more mysterious than cheese

far more discreet than fleas

darker than the dark side of the moon

and it’s right here, right now,

streaming through this room.

Verse 2

It’s dark energy that keeps us from imploding

it’s dark matters which prove to be consoling

it isn’t energy or matter as we know it

it’s hard to hold and harder to throw it

Verse 3

Since the Big Bang we’ve been getting faster

we’re speeding up but it’s hardly a disaster

oh the fun of being in an accelerating universe

without the dark side things would be much worse.

My friend Mark Walsmely (who you can find at Demo Doctor ) asked if I could write lyrics for a science theme song as a candidate for Sing...

at 16:33

In the Lyric Mode - The Mood Museum Notebook for No-One

From time to time I write song lyrics, mostly because friends ask and then it's as if I am hypnotised; straight away lyrics start scrolling in, as if I am really an automaton. I wrote this song for a girl or boy band. It's about resilience, and toenail polish.

Johny Jay

Johny Jay Dalway Medway

paints her toenails in the winter sun,

writes down the feeling in her Mood Museum

Notebook for No-One but J J Dalway Medway

Johny Jay Dalway Medway

shops for her Nana at the IGA

Black and Gold butter, Cadbury’s Roses

thinks about the boy with air guitar

at her morning bus stop.

bridge

She’s whistling Coldplay, eyes half closed

waiting for the 448, smiles and blinks

‘hope springs eternal’ thinks Johny Jay.

Johny Jay s got 99 photos

blu-tacked to her bedroom wall

sends a message to her sister’s phone

‘sending failed, check details’, she’s on her own.

It’s disconnecting, it’s disconnecting.

Johny Jay keeps the P-plate

in her chest of drawers, nobody at school

talks about it anymore.

It’s disconnected, it’s disconnected.

Johny Jay Dalway Medway

starts to know grief’s forever,

smiles and blinks, writes down the feeling

in her Mood Museum Notebook for No-One

but J J Dalway Medway.

From time to time I write song lyrics, mostly because friends ask and then it's as if I am hypnotised; straight away lyrics start scrol...

at 12:38

Collected Works , Poetry & Ideas Bookshop, Blogspot & Ezine

The wonderful Melbourne bookshop Collected Works, Poetry & Ideas had some scary moments late last year when it seemed it might go down the fiscal gurgler. But a call for help has seen a rush of punters buying books, readings, browsings and a general renaissance of what must be the best poetry bookshop in the world. If you can't get to Melbourne, for a chat, a new book and the latest literary news, the next best thing is to visit tKris Hemensley's Collected Works blog which includes the ezine The Merri Creek, where I've got a new poem in the December issue on the vicarious joy of the post. PS If you are wondering what the crinum and soy sauce fish image has to do with Collected Works, I can safely say I don't know.

The wonderful Melbourne bookshop Collected Works, Poetry & Ideas had some scary moments late last year when it seemed it might go do...

at 16:44

Keirle Park, 13 September, 2010, Skate side

The skate park seems to be inhabited by figures from a seventies architectural drawing, perhaps it's the heavy handed black brush strokes that invite this comparison.That strange calligraphic daub above the 'R' is the remnants of someone taking off into the bowl. 13 September 2010

The skate park seems to be inhabited by figures from a seventies architectural drawing, perhaps it's the heavy handed black brush stroke...

at 11:36

Keirle Park, September, 2010, Coloured Pencils

The trees edging the park on this September afternoon might have existed simply as a support structure for clouds. These mottled, almost sunset clouds, appeared to melt into ach other. The coloured pencils made this sketch, even the paper, seem like primary school art. 20 September 2010

The trees edging the park on this September afternoon might have existed simply as a support structure for clouds. These mottled, almost s...

at 21:50

Keirle Park, September 2010 - Cheap Black Ink

In July I'd stayed for a short time at Bundanon, working with a team of people from Macau Uni, headed up by Kit Kelen, getting some of my poems translated into Chinese (yipppee- that is Mandarin for excited) . Kit and Carol Archer were great fun to sit and draw with & Kit introduced me to what he describes as cheap black ink. This sketch is slapped on with ink, foregrounded with the ubiquitous trashed water bottle and entirely out of whack perspective-wise. Naturally I spilt a deal of ink in the car. It dried to a brown-blue iridescent stain. 6 September 2010

PS Check out the excellent Macau -Elsewhere Project Blog , which blogs some of the art work being produced in the collaborative Macau-Elsewhere postcard project initiated by Carol Archer.

In July I'd stayed for a short time at Bundanon, working with a team of people from Macau Uni, headed up by Kit Kelen, getting some of ...

at 23:05

Keirle Park, August , 2010 - Back to Square One

Seemingly by accident I've sketched the tree where I started off. Same but different. 30 August 2010

at 21:13

Keirle Park, August, 2010 - Inside Out

What is it about the car? Though I am reluctant to say it here the car, my very shabby BMW, is both lounge room and cocoon, an aperture to the world and a scene in itself. The odd perspective here is looking up and out from the driver's seat , through both the passenger window and the sun roof. Night falls all over the place (again)- as they say in a certain book. 9 August 2010

What is it about the car? Though I am reluctant to say it here the car, my very shabby BMW, is both lounge room and cocoon, an aperture to t...

at 19:14

Keirle Park, 2 August, 2010

One person out trying their foot at kicking a few goals, it must have been getting dark because all the colour has leaked out and the trees are silhouettes. The Norfolk pine steals the scene. 2 August 2010.

One person out trying their foot at kicking a few goals, it must have been getting dark because all the colour has leaked out and the trees ...

at 18:49

Keirle Park, August, 2010

This is the game with the pointy ball, perhaps this is why it involves a lot of pointing. It seems it rained all of July and most of May so this is the was the first time back at Keirle Park after an absence. 6 August 2010

This is the game with the pointy ball, perhaps this is why it involves a lot of pointing. It seems it rained all of July and most of May so ...

at 18:34

Keirle Park, May, 2010

Back from school holidays. I was parked facing towards Pittwater Road and Lagoon Park, so that is how the moving cars got in, the other things were seen in the rear view mirror. The No Signs-ing sign may have something to do with the Brunhilda-esque skateboarder, each being modifications of the moment. 5 May 2010

Back from school holidays. I was parked facing towards Pittwater Road and Lagoon Park, so that is how the moving cars got in, the other thin...

at 18:20

Keirle Park, 29 March, 2010

Why did I imagine an irregular, tennis racquet island with high cliffs and high seas pounding in from the east? An island with varied terrain, that if hit by an oversize tennis ball would bounce it back into orbit, or at least out to sea? Hard to say, but put it down to Idle Folly and being close to the Tennis Courts. 29 March 2010.

Why did I imagine an irregular, tennis racquet island with high cliffs and high seas pounding in from the east? An island with varied terr...

at 12:23

Keirle Park, 22 March, 2010

This was looking straight up, out of my car sunroof, into the Norfolk pine. Drawing things directly above one's head is literally a pain in the neck. The lines in the back were the power lines though they look remarkably like mistakes. It was tempting to paint this later at home, to make it work better, or so I imagined. 22 March 2010.

This was looking straight up, out of my car sunroof, into the Norfolk pine. Drawing things directly above one's head is literally a pain...

at 12:15

Keirle Park, March, 2010

This seems remarkably wooden, even for a tree. Something went wrong with the leaves, but I kept digging the hole. It seems to have come out out of bad 1950's commemorative dinner set. 12 March 2010.

This seems remarkably wooden, even for a tree. Something went wrong with the leaves, but I kept digging the hole. It seems to have come out ...

at 12:08

Keirle Park, 15 February, 2010

Various qualities of this Norfolk Pine, how it seems to soak up light or emit darkness, the pattern of its fronds, the texture of the bark, is something I find fascinating. 15 February 2010

Various qualities of this Norfolk Pine, how it seems to soak up light or emit darkness, the pattern of its fronds, the texture of the bark, ...

at 12:03

Keirle Park, February, 2010

This fellow and another were living out of a van and had just made dinner, nothing too fancy either. They lent the park an air of domesticity that I liked, sitting out in the late afternoon, eating and watching a group kick a ball around.

8 February 2010

This fellow and another were living out of a van and had just made dinner, nothing too fancy either. They lent the park an air of domestic...

at 22:27

Keirle Park, December, 2009

This was touch footie, where the players have tags the opposing players

can rip off, whereas in normal footie it's usually skin or a body part.

This was one of the few games where there was on-lookers. 7 December 2009

This was touch footie, where the players have tags the opposing players can rip off, whereas in normal footie it's usually skin or a ...

at 22:59

Keirle Park, 30 June, 2009

This was a kendo group, an elegant set of master and students, going through their forms. This was the only time i saw them in the park. 30 June 2009

This was a kendo group, an elegant set of master and students, going through their forms. This was the only time i saw them in the park. 30...

at 22:36

Keirle Park, August, 2009

I was sitting in my car in the Keirle Park carpoark when this enormous four wheel drive thing pulled up next to me.It reminded me of the giant front-end loader machines I saw when i was doing some consultancy work in a nickel mine , Mt Keith, in the Wheat Belt. It was a fly in- fly out place, and as the shift started at 6am i flew in the day before and had some time to look around, at the plants and machinery. This car is monumentally stupid.

I was sitting in my car in the Keirle Park carpoark when this enormous four wheel drive thing pulled up next to me.It reminded me of the g...

at 22:34

Keirle Park, June, 2009

This is a favourite, not sure why i had this stamp in my kit but it seemed postcard right for the pencil and text sketch of the Norfok pine. It must have been getting dark very quickly for me to race through this and jot down the time.

This is a favourite, not sure why i had this stamp in my kit but it seemed postcard right for the pencil and text sketch of the Norfok pin...

at 22:01

Keirle Park, May , 2009

Why did it take so long for me to draw to the edge of what I could see? In May the light fades early and here there is that lovely effect of how shadowed things lose colour first. 11 May 2009

Why did it take so long for me to draw to the edge of what I could see? In May the light fades early and here there is that lovely effect o...

at 21:53

Keirle Park, April, 2009

The skaters and the touch footie crowd, not sure why they are in different colours. 9 April 2009

at 17:28

Keirle Park, April, 2009

!st April, 2009. I've got a new packet of textas with brush tips.

The text reads ( well, I am guessing a bit here):

A part of the park

hides in the sedan

pine branches, grass

a serried line of trunks,

a street lamp just edging in.

!st April, 2009. I've got a new packet of textas with brush tips. The text reads ( well, I am guessing a bit here): A part of the pa...

at 17:18

Keirle Park, February, 2009

Whoa, pretty dizzy on the perspective, and it seems all I had was a green pen and 3 minutes.

at 17:05

Keirle Park, November 2008

This one is odd, I am still tending to draw what is inside the car, like my left arm, but I've also scribbled quick sketches of two figures. 3 November 2008

This one is odd, I am still tending to draw what is inside the car, like my left arm, but I've also scribbled quick sketches of two figu...

at 16:58

Keirle Park, October 2008

I picked this stem of lancelote leaves with small white flowers from the tree, might be a peppermint gum but is a member of the Myrtacaea family, through the sun-roof of my car. 27 October 2008

I picked this stem of lancelote leaves with small white flowers from the tree, might be a peppermint gum but is a member of the Myrtacaea fa...

at 16:35

Keirle Park, July 2008

The car in winter, thermos o'tea.

at 16:29

Monday Afternoons, Keirle Park

Introduction

Most every Monday afternoon during the school term I take Theo to his tennis lesson at Keirle Park and occupy myself in some way for an hour. Mostly I walk around the lagoon and along the beach promenade or take some work and edit it sitting in the car, or both. Two and a half years ago, on the 25th August 2008, I started making a quick sketch while I was waiting. Series of things, poems and drawings, always interest me, in the way they progress and build up complexity. While the art work here is rough and hasty, my rule is to sketch quickly, so I have time for other things, and leave the drawing once I drive home, it is observing what is happening, or how my attention changes over time which is what interests me.

This is the first drawing, 25 August 2008.

Introduction Most every Monday afternoon during the school term I take Theo to his tennis lesson at Keirle Park and occupy myself in som...

at 21:26

When Years Take the Stars Away

If you’re reading this in one-hundred-million,

two-thousand and seven AD, that is, after all the stars

have inched away, taking their tails of light with them,

far off to where the universe strikes a light against

what, at the time of writing, has no dimension, the timeless

place that time is coming to, I want to tell you

that here – right now – the sky is prinked

with nebulae in clusters and symposium,

the light is mostly white, so you get the true idea of blackness

and the abundance is such that it presses infinities

into the foreheads of children lying safe in their beds at night,

and those who can get out from the cities

and take the time to sit outside, make up elaborate

stories, concerning these embroideries of starlight, and if

a meteorite rushes, burning, into the earth’s air,

wonderment bubbles up, into this strange satisfaction

which might be happiness. I want you to know, as you sit

reading this on your black and starless planet

that you should not find that blank

blanket of night a reason to believe that stars do not exist,

the galaxies, the Milky Ways and the jewel of Magellan’s Clouds,

still shine and burn abundant in distant orbits.

This is one of the poems that often gets a run when I am invited to give a reading. Of course, while it is ostensibly about the expanding universe, it is a love poem.

If you’re reading this in one-hundred-million, two-thousand and seven AD, that is, after all the stars have inched away, taking their t...

at 22:44

Four Scenes from Room 4221

The Sato sign that builds

triangles of green neon

nearly diverts from the grey

bank of rain darkening

Tokyo: 18⁰C, 17:36.

Two blocks away, twenty floors

of fish scale lights shimmer

oscillating like starlight,

a blue diamond

at the upper left, a blur of red

and white to the right – illegible.

Red points blink on, on,

on each of tallest blocks

Tokyo Tower ascends

into dark cloud, hiding

six of its bright red eyes.

The blue around the brother

sign, sighs out, in, cascades,

segments, inverts, reverses,

rolls out, blue as an acid drop.

Four Scenes from Room 4221 The Sato sign that builds triangles of green neon nearly diverts from the grey bank of rain darkening Toky...

at 22:40

Umbrellas Day: The spoke’n world

Clear plastic, odd florals, patterns, solid

colours, checks, one royal satin red, bring along

their cargo of jeans, suits and gumboots, running

with rain, topped with bamboo, metal

or wood, a world of edged parabolas,

one clear with pink spots,

black for salary men.

I see the same umbrella twice –

good luck.

Clear plastic, odd florals, patterns, solid colours, checks, one royal satin red, bring along their cargo of jeans, suits and gumboots, ...

at 22:34

Myogadani Subway Station, Maramouchi Line

The embankment, concrete diamonds

edged with moss, slopes down

to the platform.

Theo’s eyes, flick, flick,

watching sleep coming,

he falls asleep, elbows

resting on knees, chin

resting on one palm, umbrella

held loose in the other,

The embankment, concrete diamonds edged with moss, slopes down to the platform. Theo’s eyes, flick, flick, watching sleep coming, he f...

at 21:53

Coffee Shop selling vintage railway paraphernalia

Kyoto, on Shinmozen Dori, with my husband

drinking coffee from Noritake

cups matched to the beans,

a donut packet’s counsel –

Enjoy the rich taste

which

has been loved –

grows slowly more profound.

Kyoto, on Shinmozen Dori, with my husband drinking coffee from Noritake cups matched to the beans, a donut packet’s counse...

at 21:02

Seeded Hearts Club

After a little time the Stephanotis seeds blossomed into this shape.Viola!

at 18:10

...and in my hand a perfume lies asleep.

Yesterday I picked out a cone of stephanotis seeds, a perfect fibonacci sequence of overlapping seeds. The thick seed case, about the size and shape of a mango, had dried, fading into a yellowish green and split open. The cone is held together by nothing but geometry and soon startd to slip apart revealing the cypselas - their tales tightly packed like skeins of crimped silk, slowly releasing into hemispheres of thousands of thousands of fine filaments. This image is from a series watching the seeds unfurl.

The title borrows and corrupts a line from Muriel Stuart's poem The Seed Shop.

Yesterday I picked out a cone of stephanotis seeds, a perfect fibonacci sequence of overlapping seeds. The thick seed case, about the size ...

at 16:42

Fishing in the Devonian

Launched in September 2008 -

Judith Beveridge lists it as her pick of the poetry crop in ABR's Best Books of 2008 saying" I am singling out Carol Jenkins's Fishing in the Devonian ( Puncher & Wattmann) for its brilliant use of scientific themes and for its imaginative and linguistic panache. This book is both a joy and a revelation .."

Launched in September 2008 - Judith Beveridge lists it as her pick of the poetry crop in ABR's Best Books of 2008 saying" I am s...

at 23:18

Potato blossom time

This is Kipler potato- cross and longitudinal section printing using beetroot juice, some water colour paint and a little drawing pen.

at 21:16

Reversals of removed fortunes

Three images from a series about change and constancy, perception and removal .

& Blossom time in Sydney.

What it takes to be the same, duplication and colour

in black and white.

Three images from a series about change and constancy, perception and removal . & Blossom time in Sydney. What it takes to be the same, ...

at 14:06

Invitation to the Launch of Fishing in the Devonian

Show Me the Treasure readers are cordially invited to the launch of my first book Fishing in the Devonian.

The book will be launched by Robin Williams from Radio National’s The Science Show on Thursday 18th September 2008 at the Mosman Community Centre, at 6.30 for 7pm. The Mosman Community Centre is on the corner of Short Street ( also called Art Gallery Way) and Myahgah Place. All the details are set out in the attached invitation.

As a pre-quel to the launch, ABC Radio National’s Poetica program will be featuring some of the science based poems as part of National Science Week. This program will be broadcast on the 16th August 2008 at 3.05 pm, and again on 21st August at 3.05 pm. If you miss it, you can listen to it later online.

yours cheerfully

carol jenkins

Show Me the Treasure readers are cordially invited to the launch of my first book Fishing in the Devonian. The book will be launched by Ro...

at 12:46

Poetica - Fishing in the Devonian on Radio National

Radio National are featuring my science-based poems in their Poetica program of as part National Science Week. The program went to air at 3pm Saturday 16th August 2008 and will be replayed 3.05pm Thursday 21st August. You can also listen online at Poetica.

The program is a very cool kind of pre-quel to the launch of my book Fishing in the Devonian, which will be published in September this year by Puncher and Wattmann.

My thanks and appreciation to Producer Anna Messariti , Presenter Mike Ladd, Actors Penny Hackforth-Jones, Peter Kovitz and Daniel Smith, and Sound Engineers Judy Rapley and Andrei Shabunov.

Thanks to a whole load of musicians for the sound track, in particular Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupuynu whose incredibly beautiful voice and music can be heard in the song Djarrimirri which introduces the poem Kulin Seasons.

Radio National are featuring my science-based poems in their Poetica program of as part National Science Week. The program went to air at...

at 12:11

Quay to Mosman

37 gulls halo
the Opera House.
The ferry engine thuds in, laying
the water black blue black,
it laps against the yellow light
of Denison; to the south the green stairs
of the Boulevard, lights phosphoresce, a salt crust
sparking the South-East head, diesel perfume
and the prop’s peristalsis.
North’s a scattering red and white -
a US navy duck, unlit, like a pause,
thwacks past – a dark gap blacks the East
intensifies the metal’s clang and rattle,
the pump gags brine back to the sea.
Wind-blow and bluster
chill my body homeward from the fine
harbour of this night.

37 gulls halo the Opera House. The ferry engine thuds in, laying the water black blue black, it laps against the yellow light of Denison; to...

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