But I don’t watch too many movies and certainly don’t read magazines… any suggestions on who/what I can dress up as?

PS. Yes it’s been a while. The second half of 2008 is going to be less busy than the first half. I’m gonna get me some Mel time.

The Love Poetry Hate Racism night recently at The Globe exceeded expectations. A friend who came along said it was the best night out she’d had in a long time. She also said that she’d been writing some words since that night and even her “inner dialogue” was poetry. How beautiful!

The space for the audience at The Globe is a sloped carpeted floor, with room to chill out and even lie down. It matched the relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.

The night was proof that poetry is far from its reputation of being dull and boring; it is full of life, passion and fun. The Brisbane poetry scene is particularly exciting at the moment with lots of stuff going on and so open to new people on the scene.

I was enthralled by the use of the music and poetry, and it got me into Brissie band The Golden Virtues. A fun and inspirational night; can’t wait for next year’s Love Poetry Hate Racism.

Here’s the poem I read during the open mic section (that I wrote that day!):

RACE FOR LIFE

What race are you?
What defines the race you belong to?
Is it the shape of your nose
Or the colour of your skin,
Your hair
There’s no DNA difference there.

The only race I know
Is the human race.

So don’t let others fool you
Into believing the stories about other races -
The arms race
Drugs race
Race for oil
And now
The race for water and for food.

They’re all just races
Designed to dominate
And people’s inability
To appreciate
To accept
To take action
To understand
That not everyone
Belongs to the same
Lowest common denominator
As themselves.

So many issues get reduced to race,
Creating wars
And
Racism -
Highlighting the differences between you and me
And what could be
A sweet relationship
Among members of Earth’s race…

Instead it’s become
An ‘us’ and ‘them’
And who are we
To be party of reality
When all we want is the imaginary world of
Peace, not war.

Well I’m going to choose my lines
While I fight with words
Because
I Love Poetry, and Hate Racism.

Because I rarely watch TV, I can’t join the lengthy discussions on which character is doing what on TV programs.

I wonder what people would choose to talk about if these things didn’t concern them?

Have they ever wondered what they would do or what they could achieve if these things didn’t fill so much of their daily schedule?

You know the thin plastic trays that packets of biscuits and the like come in to stop the bikkies from breaking? Well did you know they can (generally) be recycled?? Look closely to see if there is a recycle symbol imprinted on the plastic (you know the triangle with arrows). If it has one of those triangle thingys, it can be recycled!

Yay, less going into general rubbish! (But boo for all the stuff I’ve been putting in the rubbish instead of the recycling all this time…) Don’t forget though, as well as recycling, we need to be aiming to “close the loop” (I’m yet to figure out how we can affect this one).

More info on the little numbers inside the triangle on TreeHugger.