A New Year venture awaits Begging towards taking up pen Calling projects forth from fevered mind
Dickens started it all Energising my adolescent Curiosity Shop Fanning flames that fired imagination
Great Expectations glowing with anticipation Hard Times intervened I reluctantly laid pen aside
Just as I had given up all hope Kilburn school opened an opportunity Leaning into new learning
Mastering turns of phrase Never looking back Opportunities began to beckon
Positioning myself anew Questioning old paradigms Revising tired old plans
Stimulated by fresh calling Travelling into brand new territories Unpacking stale expectations for new expectancy
Vexations aplenty Worries about untried trails Xenos of spirit hosts me through
Yearning towards completion Zephyrs urge me on.
(c) January 2026 Dennis Ryle
Our host today at dVerse – the Poet’s Pub is Laura, inviting us to try an Abecedarian and write a 26-line poem, each line starting with the next letter of the alphabet. The letter “X” is always tricky—it’s tough to go beyond X-rays and xylophones without reaching for something unusual, but I’m fond of “xenos,” a word that captures the spirit of ancient hospitality.
Dark, grey, tinted, large and ominous, the plate reads 01DRAGON, its gaze catching mine in the mirror of my headlamps. This minotaur lurks at a red light, where the chaos of the unfinished Stirling Mitchell Freeway Interchange— labyrinth or maze?— frustrates those who travel, longing for a clear path, avoiding Innaloo rat-runs, steering through roadworks, ducking Cedric Street tree-lopping. My small, battle-scarred Kia, its cracked dashboard whispering pedigree and possibility, locks eyes with its quarry. The light flips green. The beast slips away. And we surge forward into freeway freedom.
This poem seeks to respond to Dora’s dVerse challenge to write a piece in the style of Elizabeth Bishop – emulating her characteristic style of accuracy (detail), spontaneity (immediacy), and mystery (revelation)
Samuel Palmer, Sunset (ca. 1861). Yale Center for British Art. Public Domain.
Stranger Things hints at dimensions that are closer than our own breathing. The mood is dark, sinister and compelling. The world as we thought we knew it is transforming. Thin places once hinted at glorious light. Now they also open hazards, concurrently concealing and revealing the dread of the yawning abyss.
Yet another dimension, more ancient, more new, more true, invites discovery, often hiding in plain sight. It is the stance of attentiveness that receives it. Cultivating capacity for awareness fleetingly opens its portals. Our feet tread infinity. Our hearts burst with an incomprehensible passion. Our eyes are all but blinded by a light that is beyond all light.
Once, long ago, ancient astronomers traced a new star. It led to a place where this dimension burst into open and persistent perception. It continues to hide in plain sight!
Vision of glory A gum tree shining with light Evokes tears of joy
This piece was created in response to an invitation from dVerse to write a haibun on Epiphany. A haibun is a brief composition made up of several paragraphs of prose, ending with a haiku—three lines of poetry in the 5-7-5 pattern that reflect the current season.
In the days after the Bondi massacre, Australia found itself suspended between shock and solidarity. The beach, usually a symbol of ease, openness, and shared life, became a place marked by absence. Towels lay where people had fled. Flowers appeared where lives had been taken. Silence settled where laughter had been only hours before.
René Girard helps us see that moments like this are not only events of violence but events of imitation. Human beings, he says, are deeply mimetic: we catch one another’s desires, fears, and emotions. In crisis, this shared vulnerability can bind us together or turn us against one another.
Shared Fear, Shared Humanity
In Bondi’s aftermath, the first mimetic wave was fear, a fear that spread not because people were weak, but because they were connected. The community breathed together, grieved together, and tried to make sense of what had happened. Girard would say that this shared emotional resonance is the beginning of both danger and possibility.
The Temptation to Blame
Girard warns that when a community is shaken, it instinctively searches for someone to blame, a scapegoat who can carry the weight of collective anxiety. We are seeing hints of this in the public discourse: political figures positioning themselves as protectors, debates about extremism and identity, and the subtle pressure to locate the cause of the violence in a particular group or community.
The Bondi response also revealed something deeper: a refusal by many to let fear harden into hostility. Stories of courage, including those from people of diverse backgrounds, helped disrupt the mimetic pull toward scapegoating. The larger community is resisting the easy narrative that violence demands an enemy.
Rituals That Heal Instead of Harm
Girard believed that communities heal through rituals that restore unity without sacrificing someone. In Bondi, these rituals emerged almost immediately:
candlelit vigils
paddle‑outs forming circles of solidarity
moments of silence on the sand
symbols of remembrance carried gently by strangers
the many who joined the Hanukkah tradition of progressive candle-lighting
These were not acts of forgetting but acts of re‑membering — stitching the community back together through shared presence rather than shared blame.
Choosing the Non‑Violent Path
Girard often said that modern societies stand at a crossroads after violence. One path repeats the ancient pattern: fear, rivalry, scapegoating, and renewed division. The other path is harder: it requires truth, compassion, and the courage to resist mimetic hostility.
In Bondi’s aftermath, we saw a community leaning toward the second path when people chose to honour the victims, uplift the helpers, and hold space for grief without turning it into fuel for exclusion. They chose to imitate the courage of those who ran toward danger, not the violence of those who caused it.
A Community Becoming Itself Again
Girard reminds us that crises reveal who we are becoming. Bondi’s response – tender, courageous, imperfect, but deeply human – promises a community that refuses to let violence define its story. Instead, it leans to imitating the best of itself.
And perhaps that is the deepest Girardian insight here: we are always imitating someone; so let us choose to imitate those who heal.
Upon the lands where shadows long have lain, A dawn breaks forth, Isaiah’s word fulfilled; In Gaza’s grief, in Ukraine’s frozen pain, The promise shines where hearts are bruised yet stilled.
The USA, with restless striving worn, And Somalia, where hunger cries aloud, All nations wait for mercy’s tender morn, A shoot from Jesse rising through the cloud.
The wolf shall dwell beside the lamb in peace, The child shall play where once the serpent coiled; From war’s fierce hand, the strife shall find release, And earth be healed where hope was long despoiled.
So Advent sings: the world in travail groans, Yet Light has come to claim all lands as His own.
Prayer
God of Light and Peace, In Gaza, Ukraine, Somalia, the USA, and across the earth, let your dawn arise. Shine into our darkness, heal our divisions, and guide us into the way of peace. Through Christ, the Prince of Peace, we pray. Amen.
“Let’s take it for a whirl,” he said, |that rusty old ute behind the shed. Its tyres were flat, its paint was all flaked – but still, it roared when gently waked. We named it Puff, with dragon flair, and drove it laughing everywhere.
(c) Dennis Ryle November 2025
dVerse challenge – compose a quadrille – a poem of precisely 44 words – and use the word “whirl”.
Today’s dVerse invitation is to compose a dizain on any theme. The dizain is a 10-line French poetic form, traditionally composed of a single stanza. It follows a strict rhyme scheme of ABABBCCDCD and typically uses 10 syllables per line. Popularized by French poets in the 15th and 16th centuries, it has also been adapted by English writers.
I look at my desktop – all is tidy Yet analysis shows it is crowded Not surprising, as today is Friday Week’s activities displayed unshrouded Though concealed in a stack that seems clouded A book by Carter on themes ethereal A cash access submission that is serial Car registration that will soon come due Something I wrote while ministerial The list goes on and on; my how it grew!
Today’s dVerse provides a list of well-known lines from horror movies, inviting poets to be creative and build alternative stories in a form of our own choosing.
I’ve selected “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep” – Nancy Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep ‘lest ways of mammon upon you creep Stocks and profits would have their way so easy and enticing to lead astray
Why not slumber and close your eyes? There’s wealth aplenty and in disguise Waiting for those with proper thrall To nod off and forget their higher call
Forget the woke and remain a slave Sleep is your haven from being brave Pursuing the treasure within your dreams That turns to nightmares full of screams
Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep The woke see deeply what’s here to reap Alert to humanity’s deeper soul The common good that makes us whole.
Today someone accused me of being a poet. A haibun is a Japanese literary form that blends prose with haiku, creating a meditative and evocative narrative. So here goes.
Hallowe’en in an Australian suburb is mostly a commercial venture. The faux pumpkins, skeletons and witches have stood sentry with the store greeters for several weeks now. With some incongruence, Santas, reindeer, snow creatures and Christmas trees are now appearing among them. This Friday, our bowl of wrapped sweets will be ready. Our lane is off the beaten track, but “be prepared” has always been our motto. This weekend, our minds will turn to the communion of saints, which All Hallows Eve heralds. As ever, a deep subterranean stream runs beneath the froth and bubble of ringing tills and beeping point of sale terminals.
Cloud of witnesses Surrounds crazed activities Holding all in peace.
Wondering Pilgrim 