Minotaur : a suite of poems

mindshare recipients of Arts SA’s Strategic Community Partnership : Community Grant for 2014 working with the Media Resource Centre and Access 2 Arts. As part of this project mindshare invited poets, writers and individuals with lived experience of a mental health issue to submit poetry to a competition called When words come to life.
Our judge Jude Aqulina then selected 8 poems from a diverse range of applicants which were then turned into digital stories during a workshop run by the Media Resource Centre.
Danijela Hlis was one of the selected poets with her poem ‘Minotaur : a suite of poems’, this is her story.

M I N O T A U R by Danijela Hlis
( SUITE OF POEMS )

CHILD IN LOW TIDE
From a deep crevasse in her mind a butterfly with clipped wings stills
the girl’s fear deeper into the mud. Surfacing like crabs in low tide
are seeping wounds of an abandoned child: how to hide?

GIRL IN HIGH TIDE
Courage, smile, determination, painted lips, made up face
to mask the scars, let rising tide over bandaged sorrows.
High on painkillers, wine, poetry and prose
a gleeful malevolent ghost of life in a cemetery of regrets.
Behind dark purdah of fear and loss, her hidden corals in a monster tide.

THE THUNDERSTORM OF A MINOTAUR (*)
Breadcrumbs of hope shattered, imprisoned in the labyrinth of monsters.
Her husband’s limbs under an electric train,
her mother dying on the floor of a nursing home.
The woman childless womb a slice of stale bread. Storms in her heart.
But life goes on. Defiantly like a dandelion pushing out of snow fields
the woman keeps crawling, climbing, walking. Tides keep changing.

OLD WOMAN AND THE RAINBOW
Glorious oblivion, a touch of self acceptance, the woman leaps life’s obstacles.
A cormorant in the hand of the creator, preparing for another dive.
It is not what she can forget but that which she never knew
that she regrets:
the gallop of Equus,*** consuming passion & obsession, total abandon.
Sun is painting shadows her love for life grows,
the fabric of her existence a kaleidoscope of bucket lists.
Moving forward always forward , there is power in persistence.
Riding rainbows of hope and faith, in the wisdom of content.

by Danijela Hlis
Part of When words come to life competition 2014