Because I like writing, but I can't seem to bring myself to write fanfiction. Anyways, I figured since I was using Thinking of Tasmania as my avatar anyways, I might as well put up the poem that was inspired by it.


Thinking of Tasmania by Ted Ramsay

Thinking of Tasmania
by Dr. Demento

Little lights,
flicker out the window,
teasing my eyes,
drawing them past dull walls and limp curtains,
to the not—too—real world beyond the glass.
Where my eyes can wander,
and play among the colors.

Little lights peaking through leaves that aren’t there,
on trees that are long gone,
in a meadow that probably never existed.
It is a brighter world,
Vivid.
Green fills the vista.
Framed by the humble, almost brown button grass below
And the triumphant, deep emerald of the Mountain Ash above.
In-between, a rainbow scattered,
From a god-child’s paintbrush:
Blue gum, guinea flower, paperdaisy, Back-Eyed-Susan—
A Grey Currawong surveys the meadow with golden eye
Silhouetted by his saber beak, waiting
for the crimson breast of the Wattlebird,
or the silken black of a Devil.

By now the ears have joined the eyes.
Hear the lilting melody of a scubtit’s song,
anchored by the rhythmic grunt of the nativehen’s cluck.
The robust, deep scent of the ancient Huon lures the nose in
and soon my body is lost in the world beyond the window.

With good grace my mind follows,
shepparding the senses here and there.
To the easy creak of a worn rope swing,
the burning, spicy taste of smoke near a fire
the reviving smell of salt from a sea breeze
the beat of cold rain on raw skin that says:
“You are alive”


Scenes melt together as memory fades.
Adventures become stories,
stories become images,
and the mind drifts back to the now
drawing reluctant senses with it.
A blink of the eyes and its gone,
locked away and set aside,
where we keep those happy memories
that reason finds impractical.
So we can move on with our—real—lives

Until the eyes can wonder again.

I'm really bad at evaluating poetry. I can tell you what I liked though: probably never existed. That's good. Like, I like the who-gives-a-****-ness of it.

Nice obscure bird/flower names. That makes you sound like an old British man. There are worse things one could sound like.

One could hardly write a poem called "Thinking of Tasmania" without only including native Tasmanian flaura and fauna.

I mean maybe. If I wrote a poem about my town it'd probably just talk about how people are stuck-up asshats. I probably wouldn't feel the need to mention the glorious thistles and plentiful turkey vultures. To each his own though. Tasmania has cooler fauna. Or at least it used to.