Dear DaVinci I have touched a Cloud

Another poem from my lost poetry book of zen like meditations, this one upon the repetition of life, reincarnation and the motivation behind it. It asks such questions of gnosis, about its meaning threaded though life's continued palimpsest, the framework of dejavu and its ability to calm the waters of karma...

Soul

photo from unknown source)

After a grumpy, blocked, not-liking-my-new-boring-work attack (editors attack! ahh!). I turned to the joy of finding an older poetry book lost at friends place (gathering kids drawing and such). And so re-inspired, I bring you a new-old poem from it called, "soul". What I remember most is the peace I felt as I wrote this. As if the spirits of Basho, Ryokan and Du Fu and their muse were smiling at me somewhere in a forrest glade. For it is a poetry more akin to the zen art of buddhist quietude and wisdom, a place ever respectful, powerful in brevity grace and it's clear poetic dissemination, where life moments and parataxis fly..  

Road Across the Void

By Jason B.R. Maxwell

Curtin University

16072794

 Mixed Vignetted Memoir. Some parts are fiction and names have been changed to protect individuals. Medium length read 5026 words.

I

Why does this have to be a cold spring day? Really, why? Does mother-nature want to mock me? Or is it just the power of those bloody men? Forget about it, my mantra will keep me warm, my mantra will open up the path ahead, my mantra will keep me from screaming; “it had to be this way, there was no choice!” And the truth is so strange. Pulling through the gum arcs onto our local dirt road in Kinglake, once it was like breathing, but this feels so strange. Like a charged electric knife is separating each change of gear or turn of the road. My confidence; I am doing this. I’ve always wanted to do this ever since my holiday to Cairns, Mission Beach, Port Douglas, Atheton table lands. This country beholds a kind of comfort in tension and wonder. How can I keep my wings contained in this box? A prison really, and we’ve been building it with such friction, resentment and torment. The shed was fun, when it started, but now? Like fucking wake up man! The concrete truck is here! But our homes thick earthen walls are behind me and I am resolved now. I will see this country, feel it in my spirit, I will not turn back.  And why should I? My family is with me, my family is my two excited kids taping their legs on my Hiace’s engine wall, tapping to the rhythm of Dead Can Dance blaring from my tape deck.  They are five and eight years old, they can change, adapt. Imagine if I did this when they were seven or ten? How would I explain it to them? Explain that, as I pull out onto Maroondah highway, that their future is now safe, expanding, drug free, free of madness, my madness, their father’s madness. Explain that nights of broken mirrors, tears, broken noses, more tears, will never happen again. We will never feel like that again. And I like to think that they know why I’m doing this. They were there weren’t they?  They just have to know how the pulse of that huge, red, mud slab house we once built and called home, can never be the same again, not for us. Not now. Yes… of course they know why I had just broken our damaged heart like some weird contemporary art piece.  For freedom. For sanctity. For love. No one else was going to do it. How can any love breathe through the smoke of that much dope, the fire of that much cocaine or the poison of that much acid? Change. No choice. I am gypsy, I am the wind, I have not seen this country, my country. The way it once pulsed; my best friend, my lover, my best friend, my lover, I will not turn back.

II

Wow, really? Is she serious? No school!? Holidays! And look what a holiday mum is planning Sharp Tail! Look at all this camping gear she’s even got a fridge in here! We are soo lucky Peter’s going to be soo jealous, looks like we’re off to see the world Sharp Tail! And all Peter’s teddies get to do is sit on his bed. What do you know about Bundagen Sharp Tail? It’s meant to be amazing, a huge forrest to explore, kids that shoot bows and arrows, ooo an festivals too! I soo love festivals. That’s where we can make our music that can lead the world. Me, you, my brother Aiam and his band of teddies, we can make it all a better place. Mum even said my friend Danny’s going to be there, I wonder if he has any Lego? I can’t believe mum wouldn’t let me take my Lego! I mean she did say we were going to live there for a little while didn’t she? Maybe dad can send it in the mail.  Gee it was weird saying good bye to dad. He squeezed me so hard. I think he even cried a little bit. I thought he’d be happy that we’re going on holiday. Means he’ll get to sleep in without all that noise that we make. He gets so grumpy sometimes. I’ll still miss him of course. Even if he does get grumpy and fight with mum, he tells the best bed time stories. I know mum tells some good bedtime stories, but dad is soo the best! He lets me stay up later too.  We get two or three chapters sometimes. It’s not like we’ll stay away for ever is it? And what was all that stuff mum was saying? How I’ve got a choice to stay here with dad or go with her? What did she think I was going to choose? Staying here and going to school? Ha!

III

Aiam knew he was going further away from his dad. Unlike his older brother, who had been to school and been on many holidays, Aiam only knew the tears of the night before, the shouting of the night before that. He wondered why he didn’t cry when they fought, why he didn’t cry like Ben did. He thought that crying might be the key to being happy, because right now his older brother seemed happy. All that Aiam felt now was an empty sadness. Aiam had just started seeing more of his dad, meaning that Vinny was actually beginning to notice him. Vinny lived just down the path in the shed. He would air brush dragons and fairies on Aiams arms with stencils. And he was teaching him how to shoot a bow and arrow. On top of that they were meant to build a cubby house, a huge dome cubby house out the back.  How could they do that living in Bundagen? Would dad come up on holidays? As the Hiace revved by the roundabout in the centre of town, he put his hand on the window and said goodbye. His feet were still.

IV

Homeland festival. What can I say? I am free. I have travelled three days straight, crossing river after river and passing the oyster farms and the salmon farms that were settled amidst some of the lushest forrest I could dream of. Arriving was like descending on a hidden paradise, a Shangri la in a valley. Four square acres of tipi circles, stages, markets, random statues of huge dolphins, and dreaded, smelly, yet beautiful people wondering around talking and loving things everywhere. I could see it all spread out like some moving, transcendental Tibetan mandala. For three days I will let my spirit fly far away from Kinglake, far away from the little two storey boxes and all the box human dramas we made. And after setting up camp and a dip in the river, I felt like I had finally arrived home, my home. The cool, mineral sparkling waters just dissolved the electric buzz of the road away. I was invited to a cup of chai and a tarot reading by a short lady called Ruby. She had the most beautiful long big black dreadlocks and a friendly, earthy rounded face. I was worried about my kids, they were tired and hungry but she said not to worry, that they had some rice and lentils as well. Her tipi was huge, a 20 footer from fire pit to crown. As I pulled the tower card in the reading, a card signifying a rightful collapse of illusion, I just had to smile. As the kids dug into the food like hungry dingos, me and Ruby just talked and talked. Different people came in and out of the beautiful round space, time and the people I knew just grew and grew into this expansive vortex of acceptance and love. Later on as Ruby got the fire going, my tall blond friend Marie dipped her friendly smile beneath the rounded door, and with her dutch-honey-butter accent said “ello…” with just the biggest smile of recognition. It was as if she knew that I had returned to my path, to our path, to the path of the free. It was always as if we both had specially tuned magnets on our feet and in our hearts. She had escaped a homemade Kinglake box herself, a year or so earlier than me, with similar intensity, yet with alcohol instead of drugs.  It was her courage and freedom that I admired. She had been whisked away by this tall older white bearded man named Osho who followed Zen Buddhism and looked like a lanky father Christmas. O that hug Marie gave me, it was enough to shatter any chalice of doubt I held in an instant, leaving my spirit free floating and limitless. She and her boyfriend were silk weavers and she had on this most amazingly beautiful Indian silk dress. As night set in and the music stage began to boom out its mic tests, Marie invited me back to her tipi to try on dresses that she had just made. Of course, I chose this beautiful earthy coloured silk number that just hugged every curve I had.

V

“So how’s that sexy Italian boy working out for you miss goddess? I thought he’d come with you…” “Ha! Yeah one would think so hey… Nah, turns out I can’t really trust him, he just can’t do the honourable thing for some reason, he’d be trying to get down your pants as soon as look at you. And he’s turning into a hermit, there was a glimmer of hope for us when we went on holiday to Cairns, but things got ugly and even uglier when we got back. To tell you the truth I’ve had it with both of those men in that little box, I just want to be free Marie, I’m sick of living in nowhere land Kinglake, arguing about building regulations and heavy dealers coming round to the house all the time, I mean I know it’s beautiful, the mountain ash, the mist, the fires in winter, but I want to travel, to see this country Marie…  All my quote ‘boyfriend’ wants to do is fuck girls from the local market and sit in his lounge room smoking joints and being paranoid about the world, expecting me to be absolutely fine with it all… And he’s lazy, especially when it comes to building the house. Menzy can’t stand it, although he won’t say it. At times it doesn’t seem like Vinny will even look at Aiam… You know he pissed off for five months just as he was born? Didn’t even want to see his own son, he never really wanted to be a dad…” Half of Marie had been listening, taking in all the truth in its horrid detail, yet half of her already knew all this stuff as their eyes had met … So Marie went up to Kat as she was tensing and flaring out her karma frustrations, put her finger on her lips, and with a look of true fire, led her out the door. Latter on as the music kicked in and their bodies moved to rhythms deeper than doubt and fear could ever be, Marie turned to Kat and said the words Kat had been searching for ever since she left; “so, do you wanna stay at my house, you know, after the festival?”     

Vi

Jeeze it was so good to see Danny again hey Sharp Tail? Him and Tanya there by that massive metal dragonfly, freaked them out big time. They almost jumped up into that things mouth! And then that big water slide into the river, how awesome was that! Like, spaceship quick… And then we even built a jump-ramp on it, we launched soo high! I even winded myself one time, couldn’t breathe for like ages… Danny just laughed and laughed, said I looked like a spastic monkey trying to fly! I guess it was pretty funny. He then got me a job, like, imagine that! I’m only eight and I’ve already had my first job. Working at a corn stall finding and collecting bamboo leaves. We got fed free corn and garlic butter in payment, ooo it was so good. And you’ll never believe it Sharp Tail, we went into the forrest this one time looking for leaves and we saw two people, and they were hugging and naked Sharp Tail, naked! Now I know we’ve seen heaps of people naked, but they were doing things Sharp Tail! Probably trying to make babies I guess. It was pretty far away but jeeze they looked like they were having fun. We didn’t stay long because we thought the guy might get angry if he saw us, bring out a gun or something. But it got me wondering, and you must know Sharp Tail, considering you are the king of like, the entire world, why would anyone wanna make more babies? Isn’t there enough of them around?

VII

Aiam was trying not to be afraid of the dark. But it wasn’t easy. Especially not really knowing where they were all going in the winding paths through the forrest. All because Danny and Ben were swapping scary stories under the mosquito net, and couldn’t leave ‘taddle tales’ behind.  “Ya gotta see this one!” said Danny, “you can see the full moon and we’ll see if we can hunt down a real werewolf!” They had all sharpened sticks and were hitting things as they went. As they walked they also talked about flying spiders and drop bears. And Aiam had seen some pretty big mosquitos and had heard some pretty scary growls out there. Without walls it was way too easy to sneak out in their bamboo bedroom, especially when all the adults were being so loud playing music and smoking their cigarettes. Angel was there with them though, so Aiam held her hand. He liked Angel. Angel was alittle older than Aiam, tall for six years of age, old for six years of age too, brave even. She always made him feel safe, like the world would slow its hectic pace, a pace that he couldn’t stand. When they got to the platform the moon was as so big that he thought, just for a second, that it might be falling to earth. Falling slowly of course, yet still falling. They were alone for a little while and when Aiam told Angel his thought about the moon, she kissed him. It was his first kiss. He had seen his brother do this to a girl behind the water tank at school, but he never thought he would do it one day. It was like a moth that cried on his lips…

VI

“O my god can you believe this Marie?” Kat was reading The Age, the one Kinglake tradition that she never lost. “What Kat?” Marie was slowly sipping a coffee while nursing a hangover, eclipsed by large black sunglasses. “Three dead babies in various states of decay were found in the Bundagel river today after the Police followed reports of poisoned water killing local oysters…”

VII

I can’t stay. Not really. Bundagen is nice, I love the sweat lodges, the drumming circles on the beach, and I absolutely love Marie and her cooking. But ever since I heard that story about the babies, it’s like a massive cloud has come over my energy here. I really can’t stand washing my dishes in the river, or the dampness, or the mozzies that maul me like a pack of wolves every night. Kinda like the eyes of almost every male I seem to come across.  Why can’t they just leave me alone? Might be nice if I actually liked any of them, but they all seem either drug fucked or sleazy as snake oil. They all know IT, ‘man,’ know the ‘real Zen’ or the ‘REAL truth’ of the Kabbalah. Not really the best kinda energy for my kids to be around. Anyway, communes have issues if you stay too long. You have to start working and making commitments to the group and I want to move. I have had my fill of building houses. And I definitely wasn’t going to do it with a bunch of strangers. The empty door of the road is calling me. I dreamed of an aboriginal with a yellow spear and yellow ochre body paint running in front of the car as we travelled on the highway.  He turned around and began floating in front of the car at 120 km’s an hour. His eyes, they looked at me as a lightning bolt hit his hand, and he pointed at me, not with any bone or anything, but as if he was calling me…

VIII

I got worried today Sharp Tail. I dreamed about a cave, there was a dragon in there, a dragon or a dog of some sort, its growl was soo deep. It wanted to kill me Sharp Tail, it wanted me to go there and face it. And I wanted to go there Sharp Tail. I wanted to make it stop. It wants to stop us making our music that can save the world. When I woke up, the car had stopped and on the horizon there was a mountain, THE mountain, the one in my dream. Mum said she wouldn’t stop because it was ‘men’s country’ but she had stopped anyway.  Why did she stop? Mum was standing over there under a tree, Aiam was asleep. She was just so still, swaying in the strong wind… I walked out there and her face, it was so sad Sharp Tail, soo sad, tears and the whole world… I grabbed her hand and brought her back, but what will happen if she goes out there again? You’ll wake me up won’t you Sharp Tail?

IX

Aiam saw it long before it hit the cars window, the rainbow lorikeet. He wanted to yell out to tell mum to swerve, but all he could manage was “Mum!” and it was too late. He was frustrated at how old and slow mum was. He had seen it like slow motion, why hadn’t she? Aiam knew mum cared, she had said that they should care for all things from nature, for we were all apart of mother-nature and we were all brothers and sisters, even with the snakes and owls. She called the wings and snake skins, the skulls and the claws that were strewn all through the car, ‘gifts’ from our brothers and sisters. She said that we should never waste life once it had been given. “So why does it have to die mum?!” Aiam shouted. Aiam was crying, his voice was like a broken piece of glass, and the bird’s chest was breathing like a turbulent sea.  Kat just raised the sledge hammer, as Ben put his hand over Aiam’s eyes…  

X

I made it. Don’t know how, but I made it to Byron. And there I met a woman named Georgie, she said there was a commune called the Snake pit out at Nimbin and it was having a party and we could go and stay there, so why not? Georgie needed a lift and she had money which I needed for my fuel tank. So off we went that day. Driving through that country was like the most natural yet intense roller coaster one could imagine, as we approached Nimbin, huge spires of rock just lifted out of the green sea, they were like giants that seemed to welcome us. I felt like I was somewhere in an Asian postcard with the rough roads to boot. And when I arrived in Nimbin, wow, it was as if rainbows had built themselves into a street, it was so colourful. There were vee dub micro buses with statues of hippies coming out of the wall, there were murals of the rainforest with pixies and elves, there were beautiful wooden buildings, chalk paintings on the footpath and busking aboriginals that played the most powerful didge music I had ever heard, it seemed the energy was just alive with sunshine. We stopped there for some supplies at a health food store that just swam in organic smells, earth, ginger and freshly made peanut butter. Then we headed out to the snake pit. Approaching the gate was like going through a tunnel of tree and plants (mostly lantana which is a prolific bushy weed). The gate was rusty, almost falling off its hinges, but there was a beautiful sign with mountains and a rainbow snake that said “Welcome to the snake pit!” we drove up the winding path to a sky blue weatherboard house on stilts in a clearing.  A huge man was there in the doorway, tanned, bald, big belly and nothing but shorts and a smile. “That’s god” said Georgie. “What?” I asked, not being quite sure if she was really quite serious or not.  “They call him god, he’s the owner of this place, it’s a good omen, looks like he’s here to meet you…” we parked and he approached Georgie with those big arms outstretched and with a big boom said “ahhh and what has Krishna brought to me today? Two beautiful goddesses hey?” And Georgie was just awash with giggles. Me? I felt shy, my eyes down caste but with an infected smile non-the-less. He turned to me and said with a comic bow, the type where a flourishing hand trampolines off his forehead; “hello, and welcome, some people know me as god, this here is my little paradise circle of friends and gypsies, Georgie here tells me you’d like to stay?” I had to laugh, “Yeah, wow, this place is amazing man, I’d love to” I said looking at the massive mountain ridge that just seemed to lift the very forrest into the sky. “I’ve got some little ones too, there back there, don’t know for how long I’ll be staying but hey, maybe a week or two?” “Ha! Beautiful… yes! You know time is an illusion right? Stay as long as you like here, only price is a conversation or two round my table and of course the natural currency; smiles! The gypsies all camp down there, all down there at the tipi circle, a communal kitchen with hot water is here at my house, or there are cold water sinks down there at the sheds where you’ll find drop toilets and a magic river… And it really is magic… Shartan pulled this smoky quartz out of it the other day that was the size of an orange!  There truly is a powerful resonance here and you my friends are welcome…” I didn’t know what to say, I could truly feel what he was talking about, as if a new clarity and power had met the sunshine I felt back at Nimbin… All I could do was smile and look into his eyes which seemed vaguely familiar.  Then he broke my trance; “go on, go, set up, you must be tired, enjoy! Looks like the local radio station is calling for my eminent wisdom at the moment, so I’ll see you round the campfire.” Apparently, the party Georgie had invited me to was a constant one, it was the snake pit party.

 

 XI

So much is here Sharp Tail. The flickering fires, the music, the kids, the crazy adults, there’s things to do every day, just like mum said. Shooting bows and arrows, playing games, I just love the forrest, but the best thing about this place? Floating down the river. This is what I want to do with my life Sharp Tail. Does the river end? No, it just turns into the sea, turns into clouds and then turns into the river again. Does it have to end? I know this river here turns dangerous, that it speeds up and digs into my back at this one spot when the bend straightens out… But I can always go back around the bend and float again… I did that for hours today Sharp Tail. Hours. I think I believe what that man said, it is a magic river. I felt a sort of peace I haven’t felt like, ever. I could just let things float away. Sometimes I think I miss my friends, my dad, even playing Lego and the computer at school. But it’s only a thought. All that drifted away when I was in that river. Surely there’s a river somewhere that just flows and flows forever?

XII

Aiam really believed they were going to cook him. They were in that big man’s smoky house, there were feral people everywhere, laying around, standing on their heads, sitting on kitchen benches. This one man who was bald apart from two dreads that were spiralled up into horns, had picked him up and they were all yelling “eat him, yes, eat him!” as a group. Aiam was really scared, he began shouting “no, no, put me down!” and banging on the man’s back as hard as he could. Aiam was crying underneath his voice, tears were streaming out the sides of his eyes. But he wanted to be tough, so he wouldn’t break. Ben was trying to save him, he had a stick and was beating the man with it as the strange devil opened the oven and bent down laughing hysterically. Ben then put one foot right on the oven door, looked him in the eye and commanded with his finger pointed straight at his forehead; “put my brother down NOW devil!”

XIII

 Jeeze god is such a wanker. I have to laugh, but o my god! Every woman who comes across his table and his joints, he is just all over. Maybe it’s just the marijuana that gives him that ego, but what do all those women see in him? They ALL play along. It’s just weird, sure he has some interesting things to say about Rajneesh and the Hindu philosophy on sex, and I mean I love the community vibe at the tipi circle, things are great down there. But after Lucy had been with God and freaked out on blue moony mushrooms, I mean really freaked out, not coming back freaked out, talking to goblins in the wall for days, talking to herself about certain trees that have branches in other dimensions, coming up right up close by staring you down and then stealing food right of your mouth, I suddenly realised.  And it was like some illusionary veil was ripped from my eyes. All that I can see now is this strong rancid patriarchy that exists in that house. It’s just, just, well, vomit. I mean I KNOW the guru Rajneesh, I’ve been to India, seen hundreds of temples and spoken to heaps of people about Krishna and the purity of mind in that sexual philosophy, and so when I venture an opinion, I know what I’m on about. But he just always sharply states that I am wrong, or changes the subject, no matter what I say. I thought he said he wanted conversation. Only from the men it seems. With any man he would go on and on, but when he was challenged by any woman… gone, dismissed. So when I heard about another commune called Om Shalom I made the decision; I’m gunna jump. And driving back into town now is like one huge reality check, especially coming back to the main street of Nimbin. And so I decide that it’s time; Ben has to go back to school and back to his father. His holidays have ended a week ago and it is just not right for him to be around so many unstable people without learning anything. So I go and do that, with a tinge of sadness, because somehow it seems like reality has now taken hold and is dragging me back to the men of Kinglake. But I also have this mission now in Om Shalom. Tipis. I want a Tipi. Almost all these amazing people have one thing in common. They all own a Tipi. And in every one I always feel at home. I have learned their lore, I have seen how they spiral community within them and how the rocks of the fire, they place a family in the harmonic sequence of the seasons, with mother-natures circle of life. I love that. I have heard that there are iron bark poles, the perfect tipi poles, there for the harvest at Om Shalom. So after I make this journey south to the nearest airport, I will return to the snake pit to get Carrol. Carrol said she would be happy to make another shared-fuel journey out there.  So, yeah that’s what I’ll do. Jeeze reality ain’t that bad after all.

XIV

Mums taking me home Sharp Tail! “Yeah, so?” Hang on buddy, what do you mean ‘so’? Isn’t that exciting? “You always say your excited, but how do we really feel about that?” Ahhh… yeah I’m not really sure now that I think about it. I mean, I know it’s exciting that I’ll get to go home and see my dad. But I know I’ll have to go back to school and, and I’ll miss my mum, and my brother won’t be there, he’s not coming. I have no idea why he isn’t coming. I mean I know Vinny is Aiam’s dad and Menzy is my dad, but can’t Menzy be Aiam’s dad too? –Look, Sharp Tail, don’t be angry, we’ll see them again. I know I will, mums got the white belly black snake under control with that magic car of hers. Yeah, I’ll see them again.

XV

In the forrest behind the town hall Aiam and Ben had jumped in this strange metal cart that was connected, firefoxed to a metal cable that stretched off through the trees. It looked safe, it looked solid. It was abit bigger than a shopping cart, room enough for both of them. Kat was dancing. All her emotions that she had felt over the last few months were pouring out in sweat and smiling, closed eyes. She wasn’t there to stop them. She trusted in Ben. The music in the hall was amazing. So the cart crept along with Aiam and Ben inside. This was fun. Awesome in fact. It was this feeling that they had no idea where they were going, that it was cheeky and naughty and their own little adventure that no one else in the world knew about. Surely it would lead to somewhere amazing, a new playground, or a cubby house perhaps. But they weren’t ready for what happened next. The ground beneath them began dropping away. As the trees ended their blindness, Aiam and Ben both jumped in surprise and by jumping the cart bounced and shook from side to side. They were about fifty metres in the air above a raging river. Aiam was truly panicking and he rocked when he panicked, and that made things even worse. “We’re gunna fall Ben, we’re gunna fall!” “Just breathe Aiam… We’ll make it to the other side of this, you just have to be calm, just breathe…” 

Works Cited

White, Kat. Interview with Kat White. Int. Jason B.R. Maxwell. 25^th Aug.         2014. Recording.

Trinity and Other Poems

Since I've finished my very first bachelor in Professional Writing and Publishing at Curtin University, I thought I might celebrate by releasing my latest chapbook for a free and easy download from smashwords. This work encompasses the freedom of love, the wisdom of heartbreak, and the powers of protest and fire. The title piece is inspired by the master poet W.B.Yeats, namely his work "The Second Coming" which foretells the transition from a Christianity and/or Capitalist ruled world to a naturalist and/or post-apocalyptic one. My work represents the peace and harmony possible after this time of chaos has ended... So go on, click on the link, follow the dancing steps and enjoy my friends!

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jsun27

No Horse

(excerpt from "No Horse" Youtube)

After reading Luke Davies work "Candy," a book exploring the nature of heroin, lust and love, my art and creativity course at Curtin had me making a short 2 minute animation. The result? This short hand-made animation exploring the time waste of addiction, heart break and the cycle breaking revelation one can find...

Visions of India; A Short Biographical Memoir…

(photo from very thankable unknown source)

By Jason B.R. Maxwell

Curtin University

1607279

Reader’s note; Names in this story have been changed to protect individuals. Yet all events are true…

Prelude

Gina Mercuzio looked like the dark free gypsy Sam White admired. Sitting cross legged with a perfect posture on a Turkish pillow in the St. Andrews market chai tent, her long braided black hair was dancing as her deep true laughter took Sam’s attention like moth wings have gravity. She had such earthy skin and a long yet elegantly rounded face which changed so much with all the flow of her conversation. But it was her eyes, that dark certain something beyond, opal born of some inner calm yet with sparks of fire. So when her friend went to get another cup of chai and she started rolling what obviously looked like a joint, Sam took her chance. “Hey do I know you from somewhere?” Sam said with a smooth smile. “Hey maybe, I was told I have an old soul so it’s entirely possible” - the fire had been sparked. Sam and Gina talked and talked as easy as breezes play with gum leaves, swirling great cosmic subjects into experiences of destiny and past lives and then switching to gems and the resonances of certain stones.  Yet as Gina mentioned a party, some deep continental part of Sam started to move. She had heard of de’ja’vu, but this was it, she had been here before. It was the spokes of the sun streaming past the rainbow canvas of the tent, just like that, it was the tribal tattoos reaching a joint towards her, just like that, it was the way Gina blurred the rest of the world, became so immensely focussed, so intensely high definition…. It was 1979 and the purple smoky haze of the sixties had settled in all the right pathways, valleys and oasis’s of existence in Australia. Yet for Sam, the adventure of other existences was stirring, waiting for their wings to open…

I

“Are you an artist Sam?” – the live mandolin and djembe music was loud, Sam’s back was turned -talking to poet friends she had met before- yet she heard Gina’s voice even though it was barely a whisper... “Yeah I guess, how’d you know?” “Well, it’s the jewellery you wear, its beautiful and so unique, especially this piece…you make it yourself don’t you?”  -Gina’s heavily jewelled arm graced up to touch her ear ring, a black oval of varnished blackwood with a silver snake dancing through the space.  

III

After the tarot cards were scattered, after the dancing spinning fires, after the DMT with the bent psychologists, the goldfish-stall-owner and the unemployed, the cyclone of that nights party brought existence home again. And Sam was excited. In the dawn crystal air, as she drove the Kinglake tractor across the red clayish dirt of the spud fields, there was a new purpose, an intuition, an electricity in her dreamings. It was India. That rich, vibrantly entrancing word. India.  Gina had offered a free ticket and accommodation as part of a business trip, delivering jewellery and buying gems and clothing whole sale from Ragisthan. “Delivering Jewellery?” Her boyfriend puffed, “to India? Sounds abit suss to me Sam…” “well, I don’t know… , Darion said she’s legit, she’s got connections...she goes over all the time, she’s coming here to buy a few ounces, we can trust her, we’ll ask her about it if your that paranoid, but its India Mark! A free ticket to India, I’ll get a chance to see the Taj Mahal, see Bagwan Ragnish, I’ll find myself Mark… and get some real materials to work with, imagine if we didn’t have to work on the farm anymore, imagine if I earn enough to get a studio...”  

IV.

In Delhi it had just finished raining.  The monsoon rains had started to brew its thick intoxicating soup in the air. Yet for now it was not yet putrid, not yet mature, and as the plane doors opened the heat hit her like a fresh steaming wall. Fredricko, the short stocky ‘other traveller’ who Gina had twirled into her ideas of the gemstone trade, pushed past with a smile. “Wow… warm like a womb Sam!” and it was, the womb of the eastern culture laying out the way to her new life.  Gina greeted a tall man in a long black Turkish tunic who laughed down into his beard. She spoke a few Indian words to him and she gave him all our bags and they jumped in his beat up three wheeled car to get to the Motel.  After they settled in, a night of smoking and revelry began. Sam and Fredricko were told to not worry about their luggage. That the jewellery was delivered and the customers were happy. This gave them a sense of pride. A slightly edgy unsure pride, considering they didn’t even see what was in their ‘luggage,’ but it was a pride none-the-less.  They were smoking hashish, strong bloody hashish, unlike any hash Sam had ever smoked, why question? The slithering smoke relaxed her more than anything she had ever experienced. The world blurred again, but this time Gina wasn’t there, no one was, the world had disappeared and she was warm, content in herself, her own Indian universe. The next day they got train tickets to Ragisthan where they would buy gems. While Sam was waiting at the train station she experienced her first form of culture shock. It was a muddy naked man, a sadhu, or holy man, who was just standing there, still as a statue. What shocked Sam further was that everyone was just walking past him, women, children, just walking past as if he really was a statue. The next day they arrived in Ragisthan and then it was on to a hotel called the Ever Green. Once they got to the hotel Gina met a small, toothy-crooked-smiling boy called Suja who was the most polite and well-spoken little man Sam had ever known.. “Guud afternoon maadem … you stay with me -no problem - I will translate for you hapilly…” Suja was Nepalese. There was a light in his eyes, a dawn light, all of a sudden the blur that was in Sam’s head stopped. The next day Gina took Sam and Fredricko shopping. A glimmer of the warm friendship they all shared back in Australia appeared as amethysts, star rubies, agates, tigers eyes, quartz, and all manner of lush nuggets and perfectly facetted stones dropped into their hands at the cheap, lavish Bazaars. They had done it, they had made their creative fortune in India.

V

“Hey mem saab look…” the light was a lucid golden sunset, Suja was in the Ever Green courtyard under a tree spinning a rope… No, spinning a snake, no, a rope… Yes, definitely a rope…

VI

The blur wasn’t gone for long. The blur returned as they smoked again and again, ‘celebrating’ their sudden fortune in long, silent starings and music. But where was Gina in this comfy haze, this new Hotel womb? She kept disappearing, crossing over a cultural bridge that over time, Sam and Fredricko began to mistrust. “What were in those bags we carried Sam? Have you seen those people she’s been hanging out with?” “I don’t know Freddy, it’s Gina, you know, the mystic? Quite frankly I don’t want to know. I’m happy in my karma that way… And hey, just because they look shady doesn’t mean they are.” It started getting hot. Really hot. The thing about Ragisthan is that it’s in the middle of the desert, the hot staring middle eye of India. 40 to 45 degree Australian days don’t come close to the baking, brain frying Ragisthanian heat.  Drowsy sleep came easy. Sam’s new life was constant as a mirage. Yet as the heat rose, Sam vaguely became aware of a tension between Fredricko and Gina. From time to time she heard them arguing, and it sounded like the shoutings from some distant desert war. Then one day, as Sam came back from the pool, she saw Fredricko, forehead against the Hotel room wall with a mango lassi in each hand, mumbling to himself… “The golden haze … can’t escape the fire… the gold… the golden trail of blood… mara and the gold it kills….the haze of gold it kills!” And then he dropped the milk drinks which gashed onto the floor like thick, yellow blood. The next day the mad yet handsome sunburnt Italian was gone. Now the Motel was a lonely oven. Gina was barely anywhere to be seen.

VII

“O by the way, can I have another ten thousand rupee for the opium err I mean hashish, you’ve been smoking?” -like a monster in the darkness, Sam realized she had been smoking opium.  But she reasoned, monsters weren’t real now, were they? “Sure…” she said weakly, handing over the notes. From that moment onward, the monster had control. Gina made sure that only dreams and the hookah’s nozzle kept her company as the money kept leaving Sam’s wallet.  And yet in that hot oven, they were magical dreams, dreams of kaleidoscopic, multi-armed gods and goddesses telling her things, showing her great rainbow visions with whispers. And then walking through rainbow archways, rooms where floating spheres of light came through the eyes of lion headed men and women…  Sam woke one morning and the blur receded in that same way it receded the day she had met Suja.  The sun streamed through the white dancing curtains, and there was Suja, smiling, yet staring at Sam from the corner of the room with fiercely piercing eyes. Suddenly the ticking clock, the noises from the next room, the flicking curtains all slowed and another world came to her, Suja held up his arm, comically jutted out a finger and said “mem sab… I’m going to show you something…” and then he rose, cross legged, rose three foot clear from the floor.

VIII

From there things began to sink into darkness. Because of the monsoon floods, she heard rumours of a break out of cholera in Ragisthan and Sam was sick; conjunctivitis, dysentery, the nauseous blur it seemed, was never going away. After a heavy smoking session to numb her pain and nausea, she fell into a drug induced coma and experienced the height of a near opium overdose, she knew it was so because she had felt herself leave her body, and yet she didn’t think it was her body, when she looked down, it was someone else in the bed.. When the drug left her, out of mercy or a sudden lack of interest from Gina or both, she had been in that bed for two weeks. She suddenly decided she needed to go to the toilet since that’s what normal people did, wasn’t it? She collapsed from the effort... When she finally made it to the mirror she got a major shock, the person on that bed WAS her. When Sam first went to India, she weighed eight stone and yet now, from a period of three months, she was five and a half.  After this revelation, reason came back to her. She told herself, it was time. She couldn’t stay in the hotel with a money hungry parasite feeding her opium…  

IX

As Sam left to go to Bombay by train, she felt lighter, as if she was leaving an old part of herself behind. On the way, the train stopped after the rain at sunset. The smell in the air was alive. It was all alive. Sam feared the floods had swept away the tracks. But as she looked out she saw everything was fine. Suddenly she saw the snake charmers, fully tribal and proud, walking across the tracks from one endless sand horizon to the other, their oxen and their curved swords at their sides. She realised then that that was power, for true power comes with freedom, even the trains were transfixed…

X

 “O no sorry mem sab, all we have today is daal, japarti and rice, nothing but daal and rice, O an chai yes, we have chai, it is very nice chai, yes very nice…” with daal, japarti and chai in front of her and her blurry Bombay world, a cow stuck its head through the window a few foot away from where she was. She gasped, but then she also felt blessed, she knew these creatures were considered blessed animals and she could suddenly see the peace in its large all seeing eyes. Unfortunately in the confusion, her new silver bracelet had been stolen. She reasoned that she probably fed someone’s family for a few days, so it wasn’t all bad. Even in her state she knew she was still a fairly wealthy westerner. Every day she saw slums and filth, how could she complain? After this experience she slowly wondered out onto the street and for the first time she started feeling happy, still sick, still blurry, but happy. Street performers, a husband and wife were building a huge clay dome over the husbands head. A dome nearly a full foot thick over him as he was laying down. When she went back three days later, he was still there, head in a clay bell in fifty degree temperature, with no air holes in sight. It was then she reasoned it was time to call her boyfriend. She was no street performer, she was sick. Without any health services she felt she could rely on, she needed advice… “Go see Gensi Lansing, he’ll look after you…” This was Marks friend who was a Buddhist priest. He had an ashram, a holy place, in Bombay. She was saved. It was like a palace, an artist’s white marble palace, with pillars and wide open windows where cool breezes whispered about compassion. The happiness she felt as she left the restaurant unfolded now like a lotus. They had the antibiotics, they had the food, the water, it was all kindness, totally free and safe from the snakes poison that was chasing her on the street. So the blurry world started receding, making sense. Yet she knew she had found the place for her wings to rest, and there was a way home…

Epilogue

After a quick trip to get her Gems back from Ragisthan with Gina nowhere to be found, the Federal police interviewed Sam at the airport. Gina Mercuzio was a drug runner and they were hot on her trail. She had been importing blocks of hash to Australia, hash made to look like bits of wood fixed behind doctor’s golden name plaques. They went through Sam’s suitcases, her handbag, her everything. They weren’t going to let Sam get on the plane, not until the very last minute. But all she could say was what she knew, that she had no idea where she was, who she was, she was invisible in that culture. But all Sam craved now was her own culture. Where things were known to her and monsters were visible at the very least. On a stopover in Indonesia they gave Sam special medicine for malnutrition. When she arrived back in Australia, Mark walked straight past her because he didn’t recognise the body that was now wondering in a new spiritual happiness. She had glimpsed at power. She had realised that her spirit was changed at a fundamental level and there was now truly more to this world than what was seen or talked about in books or reason.  That with freedom, we could do things that defied logic, that skipped the A+ B that always equalled C and reached into a deeper area of the human psyche. A psyche that led beyond a segregated mentality, a world where the true artist existed, and with a pocket full of gems...

Works Cited

White, Sam. Interview on India. Interviewer; Jason B.R. Maxwell, 2014. Recording.

Get out of the Box!

photo from unknown source... thank you!

Samsara or the inherit nature of embodied consciousness, described by  Thanissaro Bhikkhu as literally meaning "wandering on," is the creation and recreation of worlds to move into and learn about the separation of self. Thus in this ode I give you my new video poem "get out of the box" which, with fire, prompts the creativity and unique essence of your individual being while escaping the burning pain and suffering with enlightenment.  Enjoy my friends and Amitābha ...

Message to Xanadu

(susan seddon boulet via moonwoman)

From the Koori Dreamtime to Platos Perfection of Forms to William Blakes ideas of Jerusalem, the idea of the immortal world pervades. This poem reaches out in ode to that concept most electric in our sparking arcing minds, that there is a holy city where humanity is realized and it motivates and guides us always....

In Order to Bloom...

(photo from unknown source)

I write to alight the world, to craft the reworded one word universe. I write because I cut wood before after and during enlightenment. I write for the rights of the left so we can all return to the centre. I write because the sunset on loves heart will once be set. I write because you haven’t met the real me yet. I write because this life will hunt me to death and these footprints will never be washed away by the hunters waving gun. I write because the moon can only meet the sun in the past inscription-ink of one impossibly strobed out and wild electron. I write because my proton and neutron spirit listens to the higgs boson of my heart beat.

I write because of the fire that my friends bring to my fire as we burn it down in the art of conversation, made in time with the owl and cicada in the shadowless shadows. I write because I howled with Allen Ginsberg, was on the road with Kerouac, was silently smiling with Tenzin Gyotso and felt the hum of the machinery in the stars of Stephen Hawking’s mind.  I write because my father read the hobbit to my magic sight-full eyes, and the war ended three times hence. I write because the meaning of life is 42 and I hitchhiked on a shoe shaped ship powered by the drive of infinity and a cup of tea.  I write because I’ve seen festivals retuned to the pirate ship of the psychic.

I write because I’ve heard the Akashic record of the multiversal lung sent through the lips of my daughters. I write because I’ve felt all our cultures true deity gliding over the nape of a neck and planted in a garden in rich red soulful soil.  I write because a girl broke my heart in teenage earthquakes that still echo footy ground smoking spot embraces. I write because I love to perform to the bohemian café temple that sells the best beer in my home town. And we are the organic computer that will find the question to the one now and so answer bunjils blessings. I write because my mother did the same thing. I write because there is no question, we ARE the family of imaginations that are attempting the impossible fix of all in their hermitage, in their 3 pm shadow of thought-torturous-Atlas-moan, feeling the full rage of time, the chronic bipolar-schizophrenic-Alzheimer’s-catatonic-obsessive-compulsive-ADHD-meglomania of our collective advanced embodiment. I write because quantum mechanics has proven that we are all connected to our evolution and if you disagree, bring your evidence and I’ll laugh in our new connection.

I write because my great grandfather wrote and I have his ancient golden pen which I now hope to absolve of its heritage of sin. I write because the indigenous taught me how to begin on the pathway to become indigenous, to respect all dream times and skill lines to destiny amongst the permanence of tribal way. I write because Julia Cameron taught me to be kind to the inner child I know lives on the inside of everyone. I write to catch the fleeting shadow not meant to be shadow, but meant to be the molten silver on the gum leaves at the end of a hard tired day. I write because three pages of journal everyday teaches me chaos like 39 and a half teeth brushings leading to a car crash. I write because the very essence of order said we’re meant to be alive, somehow, impossibly sown in an adjective of love-verb.  I write because there’s always a few words left to bloom back to the gods…

On Three Portraits, the Young Poet, the Politician, the Old Philosopher…

(photo from unknown light source)

By Jason B.R. Maxwell,

29^th March 2013.

Bachelor of Art student,

Curtin University.

Abstract:

“…its group mind, it’s one of the means that’s available to us of attaining group mind and there’s a lot I think in there that’s akin to a religion, there’s a religious dimension to this…”

(Di’Stephano, Poetic Interview 27.4.13)

The Young Poet:

If Tigga, Mr. Happy and Raa Raa the Lion were all one character in a series made for some childishly

strange hippy reality TV network, the poet I know as Ben Andrews or ‘tigs’ would be him. A smiling

yet gentle and charismatic gentleman-hippy of the Belgrave poetry and performing arts scene, it can

truly be said that people and auric sunshine seem to exude from the very space around him. This of

course, for a poet like me, an urchin, dark-eyed and hermit like, hardly able to remember a friends

name let alone how to truly smile without obscene paranoia , makes me jealous as…

But of course, as poetry is always a civilized, social game, it’s quite natural and easy to forgive him.

Especially since anyone offering easy, associative barrel-fire-on-the-street type friendships are like

gold mines of paranoia break free, both essential and human…. Even before I round the cold-day –

ghost screaming corner, I know he’ll be there at the door, short and kid-like, his old special jeans

lent against the café, champion ruby roll drifting smoke into the wind, old top hat casually held out

to collect the door fee, those huge signature blond woolly lamb-chop-cheeks bending with each free

smile, waiting for the poets to come from their dark corners...

 It seems, no matter how strange, how completely wild or weird, he welcomes them all

and knows them all. With an easy few words, a few easy hugs, he’s excited as a bounce about any

topic, protest, world reincarnation, permaculture (especially permaculture) even weather boredom

and sharp barb wire subjects like ‘whether one should even bother voting in a capitalistic age such as

 ours’ never drops, for there truly is a tapestry of every moment about him, weaving and weaving

the hacky sack of each conversation around the circles that gather in the crisp fog breath air. 

As the milling and the flow of feet take us to the warmer bar and he stays behind smoking with a few

friends, it’s a little obvious I’m torn between conversation and poetic duty to perform first, but we

finish up an impossibly large concept of a borderless world with an ease that is ever so slightly

astonishing in its synchronicity “thank god poetry has no borders” and I can only smile at the insane

truth of it and join the crazy Salvadore Dali ant march down the eighties gloss white stairwell, too

bright, too quiet again. When I see him again, he’s like some high school rebel, fashionably late, the

convenor has to call him, assuming with comedic value, the teachers role “tigs, your on man!” And

he bounds down the stairs with a red-cheeked puff-goof-pause on the landing, everyone including

me laughs when he says with a big open cheese “hi…” and it’s obviously as a butterfly on a bears

face, he’s well known by everyone here. 

It shows in the start to his poetry too. No stuttered mumbling awkward introductions or grand-

standing his place in any world, no useless droning monologues about his day spent lounging at the

café shop laughing at tourists, just casually flicking back his shoulder length fringe and straight into

it. Poetry about Lego, about the art of play, about life…

The Politician…

Rest? What is this rest you speak of? This, I imagine, is the motto of Local Councillor Samantha Dunn.

Searching for her titled name brings up 37,300 results by Bing Australia and 39,000 by Yahoo

Australia (Bing, 2013, Yahoo, 2013). Taking out the white noise from these searches, it is

clear from almost any of them that her name keeps finding itself in all the right places.  In the local

hip “Burrinja Arts Centre” website (Burrinja, 2013) for instance, under the section

labelled ‘Committee,’ her generous biography firmly entrenches her character in the lush

Dandenong Ranges.  Lived in the area “since she was eight” she has been elected councillor for

Lyster Ward 2 terms running and it is clear that she “feels a profound connection with the area”

(Burrinja, 2013).

Especially since she has so many positions within this vibrant community; chairperson of the Eastern

Transport Coalition since 2009, chairperson of the President of the Victorian Local Governance

Association since 2011, she’s also the council’s face for the Monbulk Aquatic Centre Project, the now

complete Sherbrooke Children and Family Centre Project, Monbulk Soccer Project, Flora and Fauna

Strategy, Municipal Emergency Management Planning Committee, Graffiti Advisory Group and the

Shire's Advocacy Group, clearly, a passionate woman! (Burrinja, 2013)

On her blog she promises to better public transport, make more pathways for walking and cycling,

build a new community hub for Belgrave, make more funding available to tackle weeds, make safer

streets and roads, and encouraging business and innovation and to make peace on earth with

whatever aspect of herself she has left (Dunn, 2013). On her recent election to

the VLGA, federal Greens member Jo Tenner said “Samantha has the skills and energy to provide a

strong voice for the people of Eastern Victoria” (The Greens, 2013).

Of her politics, Cr. Dunn believes like many that “people are tired of the old parties and their broken

promises, the Greens represent honest hard working democracy and a just transition to a

sustainable future for us all,” (The Greens, 2013)  And honest hard working

democracy runs thick in her blood.  In her work with the “No Maccas in Tecoma” group for instance,

against an inappropriate VCAT approved planning permit to build in the local town of Tecoma, she is

a most vehement force of nature in opposing the build along-side other councillors, who also

opposed the build unanimously  (Dunn, 2013). 

Yet her campaign against the McDonalds intrusive build is not just an enactment of Greens inspired

Democratic process, there is a practical side as well. On her blog for instance, she mentions a whole

range of planning problems with the project, not least of which is the intense traffic and road

planning on Burwood Hwy that is “a recipe for disaster if you ask me, however as VicRoads have

signed off on it and they are the roads authority there is no avenue to overturn this”

(Dunn, 2013). 

However, while big business have the lawyers and the money, her vehement attention to detail,

incredible powers of initiative and go get ‘em attitude, Cr. Samantha Dunn is clearly force to be

reckoned with and any company seeking to further thwart the democratic process on her watch will

have a fight on their hands that’s for sure. For if I’ve learnt anything from my research into this

woman, it seems Cr. Dunn for the sake of peace, promises to never let rest enter her vocabulary, not

even once…

The Old Philosopher…

There was an eerie barking quietness about the start to my Interview with Zen-full, Osteopathic

healer and scholar of poetry Vince De’Stephano.  Almost an aura of fear expressed in a young

dog that punctuated, fear of a stranger in his big open house about to unleash a storm of

deep psyche in his owner. A storm that turned out to be a wise, hard earned poetic philosophy

juxtaposed with a painful and passionate Sicilian family history.

Yet the dog calmed down eventually and we then went into the largely wooden kitchen where we

set up the equipment. My first question was aimed at framing how he was introduced to poetry, to

which he casually replies “by an older fellow [Peter] when I was asked to paint a church where he

lived … I was amazed by his ability and vast store house of poetic phrases drawn from great

poets that he would drop into our conversation all the time” and this story clearly brings up a

warmth within him as he smiles and leans back, almost punctuating my visions with his stares. 

While I listen to him talking of this man who was also a man working with disabled youth, I get a

poetic vision of them, mighty warrior-medics on the battle field of life, fighting to save troubled

youths in careless, cold institutions.  Yet as he further explains his humanity in philosophy, it is clear

that poetry and healing seem intimately linked.  For he reflects from 30 years of clinical practice,

that it has “brought me face to face with the truth of human suffering, [that] scratch any life and it

bleeds, but it’s only close, patient, caring contact with people where truth is revealed”.

From there the interview takes a rather darker turn with a question of family influences, a turn

towards his own human sufferings through anger, dissatisfaction and a yin and yang polarity

between his father and mother. He describes with stoic expression, how his father spent two years

carrying a machine gun in North Africa and spent four years in a Scottish war camp. In comparison

his mother had always dreamed of joining a convent and was a softer “spiritual woman” whom was

shocked by the reality of his father, a man that “totally shook her existential foundations in a way

that I don’t think she really came back from…” for she died suddenly from a stroke after they moved

to Australia from Sicily.

As I listen I see not only the visible pain in his expressions, but the visionary experience that Vince

pours out from the sudden nature of her death. For he describes how, shortly after her death, his

father read to his family for the first time ever from a Bible, the psalms of David; “as though he was

recounting and retelling the story we had already lived and that we were to live more fully” and how

it was “completely beyond linear time where the images, the sounds, the tones were all familiar …

like a old Lama performing death rights”. After this painful moment in their lives he told how his

father softened and mourned for months if not years, but “there was [still] a core of anger and that

core was never really dissipated. And that was related to the un-satisfactoriness that he felt and at

the core of that anger.” And from that lesson I believe there is this statement: “I suppose what

prompted me at the time [to write and perform poetry] was a sense of mortality and by mortality I

mean that sense of what is it that we leave behind”

…. And then the storm was over…

Reference List:

Bing. (2013). Search results: Cr. Samantha Dunn, accessed 28th April 2013:

http://www.bing.com/search q=Cr.+Samantha+Dunn&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt=all&pq=cr.+samantha+dunn&sc=1-17&sp=-1&sk=.

Burrinja. (2013). Burrinja Committee: Cr. Samantha Dunn, accessed 28th April 2013:

 http://www.burrinja.org.au/index.php/about/committee.

 Dunn, Samantha Cr. (2013). The official Blog of Cr. Samantha Dunn shire of Yarra Ranges, Accessed          28th April 2013: http://crdunn.blogspot.com.au. 

The Greens. (2013). Country Greens Victoria Network, accessed 28th April 2013:                 http://cgn.org.au/dp/SamanthaDunn. 

Yahoo. (2013). Search results: Cr. Samantha Dunn, accessed 28th April 2013:                      http://au.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGkmWxZINRtR4A5XsL5gt.?p=Cr.+Samantha+Du                  nn&fr2=sb-top&fr=yfp-t-501&type_param=&rd=r2