Conspiracy

The fluid muscular flex against a powerless manipulation.
They are choking in a senseless oblivion,
The dark pall a granite fist closing in upon a core that is rapidly losing breath.

Position held in action,
Decision kept from democracy,
A people cry victim
“They didn’t tell us! They lied! They lied!”
And in a generous oratorical vomit the people gift all power to the enemy.

Identity cannot heal.
Bloodless and benign is denial.
Self pity a rancid infection and those bearing decision kneel in adoration to the powerful stench of the self proclaimed injured.
Do.
Do.
Crying, shrieking, weeping, moaning, hollering, praying, sobbing, pleading, begging, hoping…
Powerless.
Do something. Do anything.
Stand up. Flex.
Power’s delusion anxiously dissolves beneath the soft acid onslaught of true strength.
Bring change.

Melissa Hocking 2010

Little Moppet's Battle

(A little girl’s battle with leukaemia)


The temple is sweating toxicity,
Blood, Discourage.
The foundation leeches the ache of mistrust.
From another’s word a tiny body disintegrates,
Power is pillaged,
Decisions absconded.

Strength falls in segments,
Petals of innocent trust scattered beneath the weighty footfall of ignorance.
Contorted in spasm, agony in control
Hysterical,
the system shrieks coarse tones
Of despair, twisting amid the
Choices structured in humiliation,

Foundation in regret...
She reaches for relief.
A haunted gaze,
The silver sheen of transparent flesh,
The cherry stain of blood departing...

Wisdom discarded in the misconception of uneducated youth.
Shattered breath,
Wasted hearts withering.
The temple whimpers.
One deep breath before ascension
Her eyes open and grasp at the gaze of he who loves most...

Wisdom is lost eternally as one final tear crashes upon the earth.

I love you, Moppet. I thank you.

Melissa Hocking 2009

Colby Cuddles Beautiful Girl

For her birthday she wants her own special alarm clock. The reason will be nothing anticipated. Predictable she is not.
The physicality of her expression is a dance unlike any other.
She is drama without knowing what drama is,
for to her it is life.
No conversation is dull nor is it short.
She is built-in entertainment

She is all heart.

Rose bud lips part and a singing voice pervades the atmosphere, slipping into the ear as silk and drawing sweet tear upon your heart...until she recognises someone is listening.
Upon the stage she is inspiring, courageous and rich, well beyond her years.
Others look to her. All look upward.
Entering the stage she looks down,
her eyes shaded as she searches audience beneath the footlights for her mother... at each performance.

She is all heart.

She has embraced from the womb, snuggling, nuzzling, holding and cuddling,
going without falter or fear to the stranger in the room, the space, the airport, that needs attention, needs embracing the most.
She gives. She gives wholly.
She hurts completely.
Intelligent, emotionally articulate, verbally entrancing, seeming much older than her years.
She is beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful from within.

She is all heart.

And it shows.

She is Colby Cuddles Beautiful Girl.
And I am her blessed mother.

Melissa Hocking 2010

Footnote:

Colby Alexandra Hocking is indeed my sweet, incredibly clever and talented daughter. And I am indeed her awestruck and inspired mother. Never a dull moment is spent with Col. Presently 8 years old, she has already been in a number of professional theatre productions (somewhere I would never have imagined us!) in the past two years. As talented, clever and beautiful as she is, she knows no guise or ego with it. She truly is all heart.

To make great change one needs to enter the opportunity to make it.

To make greater change, one enters with integrity.

To sustain such change, one holds with compassion.

Melissa Hocking

ANZAC

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." Winston Churchill

In 1915, on April 25, World War I, a campaign strategy set into place by Winston Churchill sent the allied forces, the ANZACS, into the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Armed Forces, landing upon the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.

Information had been leaked, mistakes had been made... the soldiers met fierce resistance, sitting ducks under enfilade fire from the Turkish Army, infantrymen in the water they suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. It was a bloody massacre.

Beautiful men that could never hope to have had any idea what was to strike them were lost that day, and in the eight month campaign that followed. They knew a fear, a courage, a love, a hate, that most of us are fortunate enough to never have to know. The cold, the blood, the rats, the smell of death, decomposing bodies metres fromt hem, rounds and shrapnel whizzing past their ears... the earthly thump of a propelled metal round tearing into human flesh.

Today, April 25, 2010, ANZAC Day in Australia, the media, social media networks and many forums are filled with rudimentary "Lest We Forgets". (ANZAC is an acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps). A day of rememberance, as many countries have across the globe, I am looking upon these spat out "Lest'"s and wondering just how much is an uneducated, but socially applauded lip service?

Do people really understand ANZAC day anymore? All the "lest we forget"s...do they even know what to remember?

I'm a member of the RSL, (Returned & Servicemen's League) being, of course, ex-military and having seen active service. Having done Officer Training at Royal Military College, Duntroon, in the Australian Army, my work in the military was extreme and I saw...a lot. Probably far too much. Perhaps, in fact one would assume, my perspective may be far different. But it seems quite simple and perhaps, people do know what it is they are being asked to never forget...I sincerely hope we do.

Above all else "Lest we forget ...our GRATITUDE"

For we are free.

Melissa Hocking 2010

See Jack...see him truly

An excess mirror was placed by the front door recently, leaning against the wall in a distinct about-to-be-discarded manner (it had earned this status being of some Luna Park genetic line: it reflected a lumpy, ten-kilos-heavier form. No, I haven't suddenly put on that much weight! It was the bloody mirror.).

Racing about the house in my usual frantic manner, phone calls, and questions and work, I overheard Jack quietly chatting to someone...

"And this is how I play Wii Sports Resort Sword Play...like this..." I'd hear him expelling breath unevenly for a few moments, "..and like this.." More effort was being spent.

Glancing about the corner, my son had positioned his wheelchair right in front of the defective mirror.

Jack has spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He acquired a brain injury as an infant and this is the life sentence he now lives with. Unlike a standard quadriplegic (whatever that is) Jack's entire body, head, neck and face too, is affected. For the most part, Jack fights what is known as "reactive tone": he will make the decision to move, his body will then spasm and fight it, and he then re-makes the decision and uses multiple times more energy to then move that limb. And this battle is undertaken for everything: eating, breathing, swallowing, let alone standing, rolling, etc. 24/7.

A very intelligent boy, my son is trapped inside this non-compliant body for this life.

His sweet voice, quiet and focused, was now holding my attention...

"Jack can do this. Watch now..." and again I would hear his quiet, resolute efforts in action. I darted another look around the corner...

Slowly, deliberately he was moving his arms, fighting more truly than I've ever seen before in his life the fierce spasticity that traumatises his body at the merest suggestion of movement. Watching himself intensely, he was guiding his moves as deliberately as he could, counting each centimetre of success, perusing the process of movement.... then suddenly, no warning, his body would defy him, throwing his musculature into a spasm, contorting his action, defying his will... his face showed the betrayal.

He'd then calm his physiology and take a deep, saddened breath... Stealing another look around the corner, Jack's head had dropped and he gazed soulfully at his feet for a few moments.
Another deep intake of air was heard as he lifted his head, his eyes meeting his own in the mirror again...

"And this is how I play Skydiving on the Wii..." never taking his eyes from his actions, he moved as though timed in a Chi rhythm, "Like this...and I go this way," changing direction, his body flew into spasm again, shredding his form, robbing his journey...

His process of recovery undertaken again, his disappointment in his retaliating system was devastating. No tears. No complaints. No cries of "It's not fair!", even though it isn't.

In the intake of air as he lifted his head again were barely audible words, "Try again Jack."

And again he met his eyes in the reflection.

"This is Skydiving..."

As I type, unable to leave, mesmerised by this unfolding, my mother heart aching, aching,

Jack continues his reflective journey before the mirror...he's been going for 47 minutes.

My beautiful, patient, resolute son is the most courageous of people.





Melissa Hocking 2010