My Poetry

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"We speak"


After the storm
we speak
small words.
A delicate dance
skirting the issues
that lie too deep
to convey.

So we say
not what
we really think
but just enough
for comfort to resume.
Our silence
speaks instead.

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"Heart's ice"


Your words make me cry -
they cut like fire, like ice.

Chill my heart's core,
frozen to a solid piece.

I blink away tears,
they crash frozen to the floor.

Dust motes waft on aimless journeys
around this contorted room.

My heart's peace,
fresh awoken to break anew.

Bleed warm tears, feels like blood
between the cracks in the boards.

The long wait of good not great.
Crave that soul-mate.

The quiet desperation in every life,
pain echoes through the ages.

Seeking warmth and comfort -
ease by the fire.

Only I watch my frozen heart.
Ice melts, and my blood runs solid.

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"In the grass"


Your tongue drips honey from my secret hollow,
my nectared pleasure domes...

On golden haunches poised -
soft sweet-tipped breasts sweep the clouds

Warm gentle breeze eddies, wafts -
caresses my grass-etched skin.

We roll together and worlds collide
Smooth contractions, fierce ablutions.

The sun lights starbursts in my eyes -
I cry ecstasy as the birds wheel above,

and I suck the scent of grass,
fresh pressed by firm flesh -

We roll honey-dewed in pleasure,
coupled in the grass.

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"Stardust"


My heart was wrenched from its place
in the firmament of my chest,
then I floated aimlessly
in the sea of your remembrance.

You came, to heal me
You came, to open me
You came, to shore me up

Now I hold these lessons, like stars
and must turn away, face the dust
with your stars in my hands,
and your wind at my back.

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"Blog Poem"


In the small of the mornings
I wake - cock small arrows
of consciousness aimed at the day,
penetrated words then play out
their trajectory in the way
uncontrived constellations might
fall from the sky - reflected
floating driftwood of meanings
on the sea of my imaginings,
and wash up on a string of days
on this my shore:
Old Yellow Moon.

Threaded torn pieces
of my mind's tissue-material
bagged, tagged and categorised.
These passing emotions
drawn bow to target,
fired and dropped to the page.
Piecemeal lurkings and snippets
of collected imaginings,
dreams or fantasies.
Realities perhaps
succinct and distilled...
A muffled collated
rendering of my world.

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"Insomnia"


I have lain awake
sucking at the roots
of slumber, greedy for
oblivion's sweet draught,
seeking a dream.

Instead, memories
cascade shadows
across my soul
in the dark, they flash
entreaty or retreat.

Emotions burn and wheel
in demented concert,
reality is not oblivion
but grasping at
some ideal.

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"Shades of black"


Is night's darkness
a shadow deeper than
a heart lorn of love,
rib-cage entombed?

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"Fold me in 2"


I dream... I am as fragile
and as malleable
as a piece of origami paper.
Fold me neatly, tear me in 2.

The blue moon smiles
and the cat's shadow leaps
across the wall,
as darkness falls into night.

Take one half:
Copy these hyperbolic words.
Fold carefully into a paper crane
and launch, fly free across the sea.

Leave half behind:
Fold into a plain paper plane
to follow flight paths ordained
across familiar skies.

The cat's whisker
is a hair's breadth out of synch
between a whisper and a whistle 2
call the dogs of night.

On paper cranes, or paper planes
draw an ellipse - your breaths and mine
across the blue silhouette
of that crazy moon.

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"Next morning"


Morning light falls softly
across her cheek,
a wisp of hair
follows the curve of her mouth,
soft now in sleep.

None of the vitriol of last night
when bottles smashed
and hearts were pierced.

The yellow glow
suffuses her olive skin
- she rolls in her dream.

Quite suddenly she blinks awake
- a crow caws harshly
in the garden.

A shadow passes across her face
as she remembers the slamming
of the house door
and the car door
and the roar as he left.

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"Unfinished business"


You slide back into my world
subtly, as if you never left.
I live and walk a waking dream -
Did all those years mean nothing?

We were nothing, really,
just words which leapt off the page.
Yet these words burn fresh
in my subtext, always.

A life half-lived, or a safe bet.
Unknown blessings from shared fruits
Soul's connection cannot sustain -
I need your presence, so I can feel you.

Worlds apart, we whisper bandwidth
with hearts' echoes down the years
All that we have is ephemeral,
and our lives' responsibilities hem us in.

Creativity stifled, we fall on our swords.
Words are wings, fly me to you -
Minds' connection, soul shards, moon harvested,
yet gifts of flesh not exchanged.

My lover of words, my muse, my bard,
Can we wait a lifetime
or like moths to a flame,
fall exhausted, for want of a better dance?

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"Smoke screens"


I would come to you in the old, high way of love,
take your hands in mine,
Run my fingers, trace the arches of your brow,
I would stretch the smile lines concertinaed at your eyes.

I would look deep into the pool of your soul -
its slowly turning, softly spinning, precious depths.
I would kiss you on the lips and taste love's touch,
Find the truth in our connection, years' embrace in one.

Together we'd merge gracefully,
as wind sways the trees,
as our breaths expel hot urgent
smoke screens on the sky.

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"The heap"


A heap of sand.
Granular trickles eddy down its slopes.
The wind meanders over the restless sea.
Foam falls in wet patches,
sucked back into the flow.

The tide creeps up,
runnels of salt water
encroach upon and undermine
the heap's foundations.

A larger wave rolls up -
rapidly engulfs it.
The heap dissolves abruptly,
revealing blue-white fingers
slightly curled, and beckoning.

Red nails.
A shock of blood to the head...
But no blood.
It's all washed away with the heap.

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"Dipping your wick"


You've been dipping your wick in some other slick,
so I'll just have to give you the flick.

And I crane my neck to see that old moon,
but I just get a crick.

Don't hit me with your rhythm stick,
because I'm not listening anymore.

So you can just wash up on that damn shore,
because our love, it had no core.

No piece, no heart, no rest.
Glad I've got all this off my chest.

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"The girl from Moldova"


She was just a girl from Moldova.
Spinning tricks on a dime.
Her thoughts and dreams
broken it seemed, for all time.

They promised her good work.
Passports, money, transfer to London.
Hugged her mother goodbye,
dropped tears in the dust.

Just a girl from Moldova
trying to make it.
One less mouth to feed.
She didn't know she'd bleed.

Took a ride to the airport
with the man in the van.
Many flat miles ran past
and the rain ran down fast.

Just a girl from Moldova.
He drove her to a house, latched the gate.
The door slammed, sealed her fate.
Men on sofa chairs, stare - staring.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Life spins on a dime.
They really have her over.

They take her passport, ticket, money.
Where's the airport?
What is this place?
Let me go! They do not.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Strip her, put her with some other girls.
Against the wall they hold her.
Take turns and break her.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Life spins on a dime.
They really have her over.

Shut in a room, the clock turns
the hours, the days, the years.
Men come, and come and come.
She claws the wall, the floor, the door.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Life spins on a dime.
They really have her over.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Dreams dust, clouds obscure the moon.
Her eyes trace the carpet's pattern
as it rolls again - another man's tune.

Sick from misuse, broken doll.
They drive her down a track
in the forest,  way out back,
and drop her crooked in a rut.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Life spins on a dime.
They really have her over.

Just a girl from Moldova.
A woodsman picks her up.
Takes her to a hospital.
Her story isn't over.

Months pass, she hardens.
Plans, nursing her hate -
 snake coils under her heart.
Claws back strength, dream's new.

Just a girl from Moldova.
All the details, etched in her mind.
Sees her plans clear through hate's lens.
Snapped open, no longer blind.

Now she heads up
La Strada International.
Every tormentor, she finds.
Saves her sisters from these animals.

Just a girl from Moldova.
She bites back at those that bit her.
Puts them in jail ... cages for ages.
She really has them over.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Life spins on a dime.
She really has them over.

Just a girl from Moldova.
Life spins on a dime.
She really has them over.

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"Sail"


A sea inside,
an ocean without.

Breasting the waves
of life
as they break
one by one
upon my shore.

They surge,
I sail!

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"Passion play"


Let's not taste the dangerous
blood-dark cocktail
of anger and love.

Let's plunge burgundy depths -
suck the sweetness
from every encounter.

I want to flow down the sides -
follow the curves,
dive with you -
shiraz sky breathless.

Let our senses lap at the shore
between sleep and wake,
and deep in the wash, we'll flow.

No jarred complaining
or truculent truculence.

We'll swim in confluence...
entwined in a floating dance -
embraced in warm ruby waters.

I want to be subsumed in heat -
warm blood of passion, of love,
in a desire that cannot be tamed.

We'll board the boat of dreams.
I'll cup your chin to taste salt kisses,
share gifts of flesh.

Leave the red orange fireworks
that burst from flare-ups.
Anger burns out:
ashes to ashes - just dust.

Bury myself then,
in your scarlet kiss -
we'll come up gasping,
yet replete.

I want the carmine river:
ardour's intensity -
which flows from our words...

Lit by our eyes,
ignited by our souls,
powered by our hearts...

This heat will incubate our beginning,
warm the centre of our years,
and fire our sunset.

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"Torn banner"


fading out
blending in
a shadow
in the wind

torn banner
i am
the nothing
and the no-one

stumble in the clutch
of fears' embrace -
cannot
let go

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"Outside"


I wish I was outside today.
It is still and sunny - 
Not a cloud in the sky.
I wish I could wander out 
with all the time in the world
in a long, cotton, flowing skirt,
and lie with a book in the grass in the sun,
and drink its aroma.

Mixed with time and memories,
Of schoolgirls lined up along the cement wall,
at play-lunch eating oranges
Out of the baskets,
And sunning our legs above the white socks,
to compete for tan.

With our minds all fuzzy from the effects of the sun,
Concentration on formulae is like
staring at the green blackboard
Without glasses on -
at indefinite chalk characters,
which look like worms
scrolling their way across grass - 
and dropping on to the carpet,
and out of consciousness.

The only consciousness that makes sense
is the fresh breeze which wafts
the scent of Spring
through the opened windows,
along with apple blossom and bird call.

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"Love long distance"


Swaying tendrils of earthly plants
reach their yet unopened buds toward the glowing orb of the moon.
Our shared moon – image of our reflected souls.
Yearning – to see, to touch, to know.

Dearest friend of mine, as yet you are intermittent.
Your presence envelops me yet does not.
You are not here. I am not there.
Does it matter which?
We are not together and we are yet to be. Defined.

Our souls search for each other in the light of dreams,
Our words pool in each other’s hearts,
Creating a special home, an abode of dreams, wishes, belief.
In love. We hold to hope, because in love, we are strong.
Our words, being wings, fly us to each other,
on the ether of our dreams.

Crossing distance and space, running across the
studded milkiness of the night sky,
Our souls free their bonds and mingle for a brief embrace
under the soft, blue, thoughtful eye of the moon.
She cares, feeds our brief freedom,
before her light fades in the encroaching stark glow
of the morning sun.

Stark because my spirit flees the harsh morning light
to re-enter and restore my mind to jumbled dreams
before I awake, alone, almost surprised,
that having felt so close to you when asleep,
Why are you not still here in the circle of my arms?

Shake my head, the feeling is gone. Disquiet.
You visited me in the ether of my dreams?
Perhaps … I yearn to know you…
Is it all a dream?

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"A river"


Water brings reflection
In its surface, patterns form and dissolve,
the mind wanders in tangents
Floating shapes, wet spaces,
thoughts of the past and future...
like the currents, they flow.

Feelings are more tangible, looking at water.
Loneliness presses on my heart,
the water draws me...
images of restful peace in its depths.

Quiet, another time, another place
Me in an alternate reality...
the ideas, wishes, and dreams eddy and flow
away, away.

I am left with reality - loneliness beside a river.

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"Negative thinking"


Negative thoughts
can trap you
as effectively
as fish in a net.

They cast a grey film
over the day -
spilled oil on dirty water.

Joyful moments
dissolve too fast
in the iridescent slick.

Yet, thoughts
can set you free.
You have peace,
when you make it with yourself.

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"Bridging time"


Lights spanning a bridge,
stretching their spangles over the blackness of a grey sky.
The eternal waters running shining and golden,
rippling underneath currents of change.

The future … let it be and live in the present.
Footsore and weary I will find my home
in another’s heart.
I will hold to this hope,
my dream of happiness …
I must be strong and chase it.
Only by losing myself, will I find myself.

Can you see me? Can you catch me?
I’ll carry you, you’ll carry me.
This is how it could be.

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"Branch etchwork"


The etchwork of branches of trees seen
pasted on the sky,
imprint themselves on the lid of my inner eye.
Dark stick-patterns in the space of black
under closed eyes.
The underside of light.

But now the sun returns.
I look across a green expanse,
through hair which shines red in the breeze.
Colours of my mood.

The external, the internal.
Etchings of branches,
pathways on the inner eye.
Can I see to follow,
or does the bracken close in too deep?

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"This Thing"


We took this Thing we’d made
out of its box -
this tempting enchanting Thing,
played with it awhile.
We did,
Played, we did.

But it got too big for us -
started to writhe and grow,
have Wants and Needs.
It did,
Grow, it did.

And so it came to pass
that we were distracted,
in thrall, addicted.
Strayed too close to its licking flames.
Enjoyed the heat a bit too much.
We did,
Strayed, we did.

But smoke stung our eyes
and we could not see
to kiss the stars
and universe goodnight.
It hurt.
It did,
Hurt, it did.

So we fought this Thing, our Thing -
thrust it back in its box,
struggled to close the lid.
We did.
Struggled, we did.

This we did to save the others
and perhaps to save ourselves.
We did this Thing.
We did,
Save, we did.

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"This Thing - the end."


This Thing, it devoured us -
in the end.
It did.
Devoured, it did.

Got too big, escaped its box,
writhed away from our grip -
twisted, whirled - swallowed our souls.
It did.
Swallowed, it did.

Dove into the fire pit - it did...
Gorged, glutted - gratified.
It was.
Gorged, it was.

Paradigm exploded -
scattered flames, soot and smoke
across the universe, and over the night.
The night.

Obscured the stars,
darkened the eye of the moon.
The moon.
The eye, the moon.

Our eyes stung, watered as
in the ash and soot, bent
under smoke's entrails,
we chewed on scraps of love...
We did.
Love, we did.

All that remained of our fire
from this time out of time, and out of place,
when we lost our senses, in a sense...
We did.
Lost, we did.

Danced for a while
under the moon, we did,
singing the allegory
of the campfire.
We did.
Sing, we did.

Danced for a while,
under the moon.
We did.
Dance, we did.

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"Live deeply"


Bring me your heart,
I'll serve it on a platter.
Show me your wings,
I'll pluck your feathers

Lift the cover off your soul,
I'll help you soar.

Smile at me in the dark,
I won't see you.
Share with me your pain.
I'll watch you slice it open.

Give me your words,
let them flow.
Give me your hand,
show me your heart.

Lift the cover off your soul,
I'll help you soar.

Listen to my words,
let them flow.
Drip juice from honeyed lips.
Kiss me golden in the sun.

You can't know the Shades,
writhe forth from darkness.
Savour the moment's marrow
with every sense.

Lift the cover off your soul,
I'll help you soar.

Grave this moment
in your memory,
for when it's gone,
it's gone.

Lift the cover off your soul,
I'll help you soar.

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"Golden velvet"


A streak of sun parts
the monotonous grey clouds,
and I rush outside
like an addict needing a fix,
my skin matte and thirsty
for a libation of rays...
I lift my face to their warm
penetrative embrace.

Pulsing and insistent,
golden velvet soaks into my pores,
enters me thickly,
like the finest amber liquor.
Cold ache pervading my bones
only a memory...
as I succumb to sweet union
with the sun, like a lover.

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"Heartbreak"


Heartbreak is a funny thing.
It touches the soul, which is
supposed to be
untouchable.

With pain, which keens
like a sword, double-edged.
The knife, cuts sharp, and glitters
as it drops to the floor,
clatters on the tiles.

Another broken dream.
Where is the happiness I crave?

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"PMT or TNT"


Maybe I have PMT.

Went for a run.
It started to hurt.

I ran and ran
to obliterate
the hurt in my heart.

I needed to bleed...
Tears-blood-sweat.
Sweat-blood-tears.

I needed to run
Away. Home.

Home of my heart
is not here.

Maybe I need TNT.

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"Dawn"


Maybe I had to be broken down
these years, to truly open up.
To fully grasp what's real
and what's important.

To know truth
and accept that
all that dwells inside
is all that matters.

There is truth in a kiss,
in the pools of eyes,
the gentle caress.
There, lies cannot hide.

So, burdened and weary,
we will lay down our loads,
with gladness on our souls -
and face a new dawn.

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"Anymore"


I drift at the edges of true interaction.
I am here, but I am not here.
My heart doesn't live here,
anymore.
My heart has moved away
and left me, a shell, behind.

I'm trying to grab the precious moments
as they fall like stars, into my lap.
But they feel like someone else's.
I don't want to be here.
I don't want to behave,
anymore.

I can't do it, this Thing. This act of normalcy
in a place I feel I no longer fit,
anymore.
So I wander without direction
without true joy, as a shadow
seeking its owner.

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"Whining"


I know I'm whining.
Need to just suck it up -
get on with life as I know it.
Why ask for more when I've got so much?

But there is this ache in me -
a gap that just won't close...
Even if I squeeze my eyes tight
until the fireworks burst.

If I will it, try to force it -
to forget, move on...
walk looking down, not up -
I cannot shut the fuckin' door.

Maybe this will get easier.
I'll be able to hold the two
halves of my heart in my hand,
and feel resolved.

But now there's no comfort,
no peace, and no perks!
So just suck it up, Princess
and get on with it. Whatever.

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"Sunday Spring"


On this Sunday in Basel in Spring,
The city wears an aspect of mellow freshness.
The wind carries a hint of promise.
The buildings shine a warm yellow as if wanting
to reach you – your inner heart,
the warmth like a fireside
when all is right.

Spires of a cathedral punctuating the slanting evening sun.
Lapping of water against forgotten wooden posts,
and weathered stone.
The voices of fishers on the shore
carry disjointedly in gusts on the breeze.

My bare feet nestled on granite and moss
taste the breeze as if drinking that promise,
and in song of churchbells, a new time is heralded.

Passers-by and lovers in that known embrace
glance down quizzically at my writings and smile,
before turning their attentions to each other
as how it should be.

Tonight my heart is lonely.
it feels the breeze,
it feels the promise,
It is like a thirst only partly slaked
because no other can partake.
and I wish you were here with me.
I wish you could.

Then in the magic of the moment,
the moment would be complete,
And my heart would sing to the yellow cobbles,
sing to the slanting sun,
sing to the lapping water,
and they would answer me in soft whisperings,
wafted in spring-blossom, and lapped with water.

Understanding is simple,
when you are a part of
the fullness of life,
When you can feel each stone,
When you can wave in the breeze like the grasses,
with seeds in their heads,
Or flow fast like the currents of melted snow,
and know the bird’s song.

This is what it means to love:
The unity of being.

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"Dreams are for dreamers"


I was big there, for a while.
Open, wide, engaged, and engaging.
Enjoying life's richness
like a creamy pavlova.

Now I must fall back.
I am not really big enough
for the weight
of your expectations.

Become small again.
Not expecting much,
and tasting only the crumbs
as I find them.

Time to put the big toys away
and go back to being little.
Little needs, little hopes, little wants, little life.
Dreams are for dreamers.

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"Migraine"


Slow spinning trails of dullness
churn in my brain.

Dull ache spreads,
sharp pressing fingers encroach.
The world stutters and wavers -
fogbound I curl.

Pain slices through my vision
and my thoughts,
concertinas this throbbing corner
of my mind.

Thunder and lightning flash
as synapses fail.
I writhe,
hands pressing into temples.

Darkness draws me,
sounds splinter in my head.
I crave to crawl into a black hole,
hibernate, nurse this pain.

Days on, I open my eyes clear to the world.
Cautiously I make my way into the day.
The day is fresh and new, and I am free of pain.
Joyful in normalcy.

How quickly I forget its grip.

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"Tears"


Teardrops glisten on the shiny surface of nothingness.
Tears fall but drop like rain into a void.
Tears are supposed to serve a purpose.
But when they drop, and no-one hears,
there is no reason – just puddles of damp on the floor.

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"Crepuscule"


Times past, I've looked at the idea of death.
 Is the cumulation of a life just dust to dust,
only a dark and sordid stain remaining,
or does the soul in apotheosis rise to afterlife?

Death might whisper and creep slowly in the night,
 perhaps toy with you like little waves against the shore,
or snatch you unwittingly, in an instant.
It is appointed to men once to die,
but after this be the Judgement.

Which souls may descend with mortal fear,
facing enduring punishment to their level,
one of the nine loathsome circles of Hades,
and which dance lightly as a feather,
to idyllic Heavenly realms?

Will my life stand analysis,
when I am naked and trembling?
The answer is simple:
Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta.

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"Plane"


Arc of plane sweeping through white and blue space,
Plummeting to the earth,
Following the earth’s curve,
Extending a trail of white foam,
Dividing the sky into equal halves,
Like a split peach.

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"We'll be fine"


The great heart wind
has blown its course.
Lost Elysium Isles,
and all that.

Once a moon, cold soot eddies
from the furnace which once
housed the heat of our hearts
and blew smoke screens on the sky.

Covered in Southern garden ash
moonburned and thirsty,
no longer can we see
to kiss the stars
and universe goodnight.

This is the tale
that ate its snake.
So, dust off the pages
and move on.
We'll be fine.

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"Carnal blessing"


In the late watches of the night
your tongue languidly
traces my contours
in carnal blessing.
Wet goosebump tracks gleam
in moonlight's dim emergent glow
- we gain momentum -
a boat on a roiling sea.

Dance dark shadow-plays on the wall,
sweat rivulets through dusted
moonlit tongue-tracks
over skins' smooth terrain -
seeking surrender in my cleft
- sweet sacrifice -
Benediction to a god
of carnal desire.

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"Bereft"


We connected
you left
lost a friend
to sea and sky.

Feel the gap
you left
my friend
vessel is drained.

Feed memories
like birds
we swallow
pale renditions.

Rich gravy
has gone
we sup
empty words.

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"Work"


The grind of every day.
The knowledge of what is to come.
Drooped faces turning slowly
to look at the patterns cast by the grey
faceless, numbers of suits drawn
in an unwilling flow to the waiting,
grey portals of The City –

Where numbers are crunched,
words are written,
and phone lines buzz –
with the endless rounds of
Information
which is supposed to fuel the modern
Workings of the world, and Progress.

Progressing in the same grey daze
in which I stumbled to work,
I sit in a steamy bus, trapped –
if I am lucky, between glass
and the plaid of a jacket sleeve.

The slipperiness of a many-handled pole
is my last contact before I
face the cycle of work in the
Modern World –
Again. Again. Again.

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"Love"


Love echoes through our senses,
Love crusades down the timeless arcades of centuries,
Love endures the driest plain, the most parched landscape,
Love shines eternal like the beacon of hope,
Which tells us we are not alone.

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"Lost lyrics"


Finally started to sing your song
But now our lyrics run off different pages
And it has taken me this long…
You occupied my mind for ages.

Perhaps it’s time to let it go
We dreamed uniquely for a while
But working just to spin the wheels…
Not enough, we’re ground down low.

Our words met and danced upon the air,
We shared our lives, explored our scars
But there’s a word I know: “untenable”…
Because you’re no longer really there.

One pair of hands cannot maintain the grip
On that old beacon flashing
Potential for probability…
And I think now, we’ve had our trip.

Our light wavered in the gloom
Writing into the void, is
Something surely to avoid…
Time now perhaps, to make some room.

________________________________



"Benevolent eye"


A benevolent eye serenely views the travails of man
Lights the earth with a spectral sheen
Imagine, one glow over all the peoples.

Your moon is my moon, we are one
All differences skin deep, the moon casts its glow over all.
Different starscapes wheel in cacophony above us.

Yet the moon is our constant, reminds us of permanence, immortality
Let her welcoming glow enter our hearts and teach acceptance
Love is a glow, let her in.

________________________________



"Decisions"


I
Words are so powerful
they can rip the stars
from the firmament -
get all tangled up
and glitter there, lost
among our heartstrings.

II
Kicking the leaves
down the pavement
I question everything.
We are older now.
17 years older.
We are old, yet new.

III
Have I really lived -
grabbed everything
that came my way...
having once felt
the insistent breath
of death against my cheek?

IV
Is there an intoxicating flavour
of happiness
I will likely never taste
without you,
and I will crave it?
Is this love selfish?
Would fundamental structures
break inside us, if we leapt?

V
I raise my face
to the icy wind
dry latent tears
behind my eyelids.
So much to gain,
a separate life to lose.

VI
I was never one to cast my dice to chance.
My gut and heart clench with certainty
yet my head rationalises, and thoughts
circle like birds on the sky.
I clench my teeth and my fists
on a decade's frustration.

________________________________



"Fire and ice"


Her eyes spear daggers, slice your heart.
Her heart beats a mercurial rhythm
Cotton candy lips, snake's smile.

Danger lurks in the folds of her clothing,
thinly veiled platitudes drip from her mouth.
She is a guttersnipe dressed as spring lamb.

Her contradictions sway you, curiosity leans closer
but you're not worthy, you're gone.
She'll cut your heart out as soon as look at you.

Cold disdainful stare, beauty in a glance, unreachable,
but pierce the surface, you'll see the lava flow.
Her fire burns hot within yet she's frozen without.

You can't save her, you can only watch as she
Consumes herself, her fever rising inside out.
Fire and ice burning rivulets from her damaged past.

________________________________



"Sleepless"


I lie awake in my bed
straight, like an arrow or a dart.
Hoping to spear sleep
through its soft white underbelly.
Yet thoughts keep circling
like restless swallows
through my troubled mind.

I hear a train rumble like thunder
along the tracks in the distance
and pierce the night with its shriek.
City-bound bodies face the tracks in the morning,
and so do the hurt souls in the night.
Now that the West Gate Bridge is fenced,
the desperate instead catch the front of passing trains.

These thoughts will not help me sleep, so
I seek solace in breathing in time
to the breath of my other, as he slumbers
this night, deeply and peacefully.
A calmness settles, as I listen to the night birds awaken
become morning birds,
and sing me into the day.

________________________________



"Norge shore"


Mountains punctuate their expression to the sky,
with runnels of snow which channel in rivulets and cascades.
In waterfalls through precipices and past forests of birch and pine,
to dip their toes in the endless blue.

A blanket of ripples washes over pebbles and yellowy weed
along the shoreline, with red wooden huts
like exclamation marks nestled in the lee of rock and tree.

Birds of prey dip and swoop … to rise with heron,
also hung like tired kites on weathered drying racks in the sun.

Sea and sky of seamless blue, mountain, endless magic.
Water so blue you can see through.

A man on the shore calls to his friend sanding his boat.
His voice echoes and reverberates off the slopes 
of the mountains, never far away,
carried along with the voice of the wind and the flying gulls.

The expression of the unity of life.

________________________________



"Mire of misbegotten belief"


Darkness seeps into the night of my soul,
like fingers,
Which squeeze the breath
out of little things.

Stealth –
the steps which are hardly heard
but which you know are there,
coming to take you
into the pool
of Despair.

________________________________



"Moon"


The milky moon shines brightly
as does the eternal Goddess.
Giving, lighting – 
pale luminescence to the souls of men.

Gliding above the clouds with sweet majesty.
A watchful orb – 
delineating the temper of the skies.

Serene above the passing clouds,
Shining cold blue rays of steel
to the dark and shapeless forms
laid out below.
Earth, dusk, dank, dark.

Look up – light, purity, hope, revelation.
Serenity, eternity - 
The moon, Goddess of Light.
Font of love, maker of tides.

________________________________



"Heart-beaten"


We fell into a sea of heartbreak...
So much to say, so much left unsaid.
Your words circled like birds inside my head.

Our words collided on the sky
and through our souls a heart-wind blew.
Yet our lands and choices divided us.

Hung up on you, you floated
like a dream through my life
as smoke wafts above a fire.

But this heart-heated kindling
grew too hot, and we had to turn away
from the licking flames.

We managed to cauterise this pain.
We did -  but it still hurts - it pulls.
Like a scar, it'll always be there.

With the cold wind at our backs,
we faced a different future,
in the winter of our discontent.

But now we can walk forward,
without looking so often back,
to the land of could, or should've been.

Logic has no place in our shadow-play -
and I feel that familiar soul-ache
more rarely as I drift through each day.

An ocean within and an ocean without.
Words without touch are a sunset
shrouded in fog, or a touch of frost.

________________________________



"Westfälische landschaft"


Patchwork fields of vibrant yellow
shouting at the glowering sky
“Look at me!!
I do not reflect you as the dull water of the river there.
I have a life of my own – my own accord…”
The sky answered not.
It looked darkly back, and withheld the rain.
“I will make that field think again” –
thought the sky,
And glowered darkly on into the night.

________________________________



"Castle ruins"


Nestled ruins perched high on a craggy rock,
wheeling and circling birds around the turrets,
lichen clinging to the worn arrow slots,
the stillness of the surrounding lake.
The wind, always the wind,
and gathering cloud.
Once the tramp of many feet,
and the enclosed frustrations of the court ladies.
Now only bird calls and wind blowing across the hills.

________________________________



"Backpacking in Scotland"


Blustering clouds above purple peaks,
wind driven rain
Pushing the heath into a springy mass.
The slosh of boots
in search of the hairy Coo – 
or members of the McBlueCoo clan.

Many a beer shared in quaint pubs,
castles perched on impossible cliffs,
ever sentry against the gathering seas.
Peat and heather, changeable weather – 
the essence of Scotland.

________________________________



"Hold in your heart…"


I love you... We will be together.
Keep the magic coal alight in your heart,
thus when co-joined our hearts will ignite
in fire and passion.
Through the undying love which binds us so firmly
across the constellations of distance, time –
And the myriad streams of humanity.

________________________________



"Time"


Time drags like the hem
of a draggled velvet skirt
on the floor.

It seeps up between the floorboards
with a stale, forgotten smell.
It dusts a fine covering over
porcelain statuettes.

Large wooden clocks in hallways
mete out its rhythm.
The trees grow tired, droop, and drop their leaves.
People grow older, and greyer.
Memories of events lose their lustre.
Cracks appear.

Time wafts and degenerates
matter and the animate,
slowly encroaching.

Constant renewal is necessary
for time to appear
as though it is not there,
that it is not moving forward.
Just because everything else
completes a cycle,
and comes again.

But inexorably, it creeps.
Encroaching upon the domain
of the living,
who fool themselves
they are not living
on borrowed time.

And it is borrowed –
every moment of it.
A precious thing.
Because one day
you look in a mirror

and the laughing girl
with a button nose,
and brown hair
sees though faded brown eyes
a face looking seriously back,
fanned by wisps of grey hair.

And the clock in the hallway
ticks inexorably on.

________________________________



"One making"


You came in the night,
pulsing.
Like a panther in the sun
Haunches raised,
poised above me.
Energy potential.
The touch …
filled by you,
enclosing you,
shouting your name to the heavens,
in glorious ecstasy.

________________________________



"Fireworks of the senses"


Entwined in strands of darkest night,
dipping with lips and organs, fiery red,
Hot mouths gasping in pleasure and exclamation,
sensuous curves,
sliding against,
taut and hard,
thrusting.

A point of light, deepening to a focus of tension.
Building, building,
I can’t hold-it-longer-
Sweet explosion of colour and feeling,
fireworks of the senses,
amazing beauty.
This is the meaning and the truth,
This is the why.

________________________________



"They seek"


All on individual crusades, they seek.
Seeking is akin to yearning.
Looking to quell this, comes the search.
Some seek for love, others to spend their lust.
Some want to connect.
Some hunger for satiety.

Journey to escape or run to be free?
Some seek, and find, yet fail to keep.
Looking for beauty?
Beauty is a pearl in the depths.
The mirror's surface reflects vanity or truth.
Seek not more, for there lies disappointment.

Some search for the meaning of life.
Some seek to perfect, but nothing's perfect.
Some leave their search to others - hitch a ride.
Oblivion claims some.
Some look for the dark of the cave,
and others seek to dance in the moonlight.

Some look for safety or a place to hide.
Seek to repeat or renew - hindsight to correct?
Seeking is constant because once they find what
they thought we were looking for - the
satisfaction slips through clenched fingers,
and they journey, seek again.

The goalposts shift across the sands of time.
Battered and weary, seekers travel land, sea, time -
collecting lessons and scoring scars,
looking forward, while looking back.
Some seek repose, solace, or simply peace.
Seekers search to their final resting place. RIP.

________________________________



"Point of pleasure"


My reason
                       for being, now
                                   is the point
                                            of pleasure
                                                          reached
                                                                              in the orgasm
                                                                    of fireworks – 
                                                  Nothing else
                                        really matters
                    to me 
                    in that moment.
Except there is true love
between we who create it.

________________________________



"The embrace"


I would like to lie a long time in your arms,
to become almost as one,
breathing you in,
absorbing your long-forgotten scent,
As if memories by osmosis could enter my skin,
and fuse the fabric of my being.

You and me, me and you,
entwined in an endless litany,
giving to each other in a breath
the warmth of our souls.
Our eyes speak our magic,
a magic that is understood.

The smooth warmth of our skins pressed close,
our hearts beating together, unison.
The darkness does not encroach.
We are soft, like it,
coloured of moonshade
slanting across our nakedness,
naked but safe, enclosed by you.

Fathomless depths in a look,
a picture, a thousand words.
In your eyes I can see your soul.
It shines for me and my being lifts,
and marvels at the wonder
that is you, and me,
entwined in a lingering embrace.

I need to feel you once again,
the reassurance of your arms,
Your warm breath, breathing me in.
Like a drug you are addictive,
I cannot get enough of you.

________________________________



"Connecting dreams"


A moment of electricity.
Time slithers through space.
Touch of minds across vast reaches
of neural connection.
Man and woman,
infinitely, intimately, different.
Connecting, understanding in an instant.

But the meaning gets warped
in the ripples of time.
Needs and wants clamouring
like the grasp of someone drowning,
but clutching too late, at the shards of time…
Electric dreams.

The course of possible destiny
altered by a turning away.
Where are the connectors?
Electrodes dulled,
no stimulus, rewired.

The path turns and snakes,
a current on the road to space,
toward the stars and magic…
Connection is reality.
Electric dreams.

________________________________



"Let me in"


The years have gathered like collected sheaves of wheat at harvest.
A dusky golden sunset tinges the memories.
You have loosed the hold on your mind and dropped the guard
of walls the surround you, built up through years of feeling the outsider..

Walls within and walls without,
stone by stone I have felt my way along
for the opening to your door.
Lichens have mossed here, thick and dripping.
Hints of moisture and time,
so long has it been since you let someone in.

Yet through a chink in that guard,
I saw your heart
secretly beating, encased in red velvet.

The love the sea gives the shoreline – repeatedly touching,
tenderly, harshly, sometimes violent – the clamour of waves
crashing through your reserve, your hesitance, your fear.
Love that caresses then pushes
toward the aperture in your heart which wants to give and to love,
but has lost the knowledge of how.

But repeated reassurance from me like the waves stroking the shore
coaxed your heart from the confines of your fortress,
so strong you had almost forgotten how to leave
even though you wanted to.

Because now I stroke you, you have opened the door, and you have let me in
by the fire your heart beats warm, your head in my lap,
enclosed by me.
These years on we have learnt how to give and what we need.

________________________________



"Painted in light"


Shards of light on the bedroom floor,
Patterns of diamonds glint on your naked back.
So smooth, my hand traces their sharp edges
across the contours of your skin.

You roll to your side slowly, languidly.
Diamonds of light move across your body
like the far-flung colours from a spinning disco ball.
They stop as you raise yourself on one elbow.

Painted in light, I see through your camouflage.
You open your eyes and regard me
with wonder and fast-fading disbelief.
Yes, I am here, I am finally here.

You want to touch me – am I real?
This girl caught up in diamonds of sunlight.

________________________________



"Wasteland"


The wind rattles a can across the sparse ground,
no birds sing, there are no trees.
A merciless sky arches above.
Empty above, barren below
Sand blows in eddies and gusts
down the sad dry riverbed.
Pointless and dull,
the eye sees nothing,
no colour, no life,
just heat and quiet,
and an ugly introduced sound:
metal on rock.
What have we wrought?

________________________________



"Transience"


Rainbows and light,
and sparkly water droplets.
Steam rising off roads,
a laugh at a joke.
A glance at someone’s face in the street,
water in my glass.
Ripples on a pond,
transience.

________________________________



"Hearts and hands"


You lead me through fields
of flowers and dreams,
through the purple night
where scents waft,
and our voices entwine on the breeze.

We fall together on the soft soil
beneath the flowers,
where I sing to you
with my heart and my hands,
telling of my love for you.

In repose beneath the stars,
under the purple night sky,
in a drifting dream
of hearts and hands.

You answer deeply
with your heart and your hands,
speaking of the happiness
we find together.

In repose beneath the flowers,
under the purple night sky,
in a drifting dream
of hearts and hands.

You lead me through fields
of flowers and dreams,
under the purple night sky,
in a drifting dream
of hearts and hands.

________________________________



"Outward manifestations"


What is it about that bright red Ferrari?
It is a sign to the world that you are a great success.
You want us all to know
that you move in circles above us.
You are untouched by misfortune,
you want us all to know
that you are confident, that you are proud.

I see you in that car but I don’t understand you.
What are you trying to prove?
Is it simply that you just want to hear the best engine
there is rev under your foot?
You just want to feel power and the wind whistling past your ears?

My guess is that it is a combination of things.
You are moving to Toorak and it will be expected of you,
that you have a Ferrari to drive.
You will meet new and expensive friends,
and you will live in a new and expensive house.

You must keep up with a whole new circle of Joneses.

________________________________



"The opera"


At the opera I sit alone.
Chance conversations with the grey teacher.
Flutes like water drip into my ears.
My heart reaches out – 
remembering the finer things,
thinks of you in Melbourne.

Strange that this nice lady: Pharmacist, Teacher.
also came up to Brisbane from Melbourne
for her husband’s job.

How many women follow and adapt
around another life.
Is it because life flows from them – 
forming others, they also sew their nest
with others, always intertwined?

Forgetting the wild, bare, strong experimental self.
for the lull of the familiar – 
The safe enclave of family,
hearth and home.
But the deeper self lies buried,
unnoticed, unacknowledged,
except for brief flashes of memory and feelings. 

A flute in my ear at the opera,
memories of a date to see Tosca in Melbourne,
and you said my stockings looked scruffy,
but the night was magic.

________________________________



"View from a hospital window"


In the frame of my limited view, four floors up,
lines of scudded clouds lie banked above suburban ordinariness.
Segments of palest blue sky peep through like a promise, like hope.
The early sun is strong, piercing the latent clouds, edges tinged with gold,
and four hot air balloons draw my tired eyes upward, following their graceful path.

Apart from the sky, a single Norfolk pine occupies my view,
birds perch proudly among the tallest branches, fluttering and chatting.
A plane arcs its silver trajectory across the sky,
while three white birds in triangular formation cross its trail.

My eyelids flutter shut, yet the scene has drawn my attention
away from the painful indignity of the drip
humming balefully on its five-wheeled stand,
which bleeps loudly if occluded, or its plump suspended bag of saline
or medicine is depleted, as it measures drop by drop
its contents into the vein in the crook of my arm.

A trip to the toilet involves dragging the ungainly drip on its stubborn wheels.
I feel pain, guilt, sadness and confusion, that I'm here again,
putting people out of the comfortable ordinariness of their lives.
The dull ache continues, punctuated sometimes by sharp pain.
The cat scan results inconclusive, a low fever persists, at times,
and I must suffer on and struggle on through the days.

I've had enough.
I want to go home and lie in the sun, and breathe the scent of banked purple flowers.
In just half an hour the clouds have already been burnt away by the sun.
Another hot, stinking day it seems,
as the garbage truck on the street below bleeps in time with my occluded drip.

________________________________



"Ode to a cape gooseberry"


Slowly peel open the papery case...
reveal the shiny golden bauble nestled inside.
Firm skin, the crunch bursts quick juice and tiny seeds.
Amazing that one small bauble can transport you...
Juicy flavour - like sunshine, like Summer, like Passion.

________________________________



"Spring in the Netherworld"


Strange fruits bluster forth, busy in ripeness
Cotton clouds waft, the moth-winged horse-snail soars.
Sentinel-moths emerge slowly from fronded chrysalis pods...
But watch! Hunger-pointing, the Indian-bird awaits.

Feathered words fly arrow-sharp across the skies
Quill-swinging Spring - feathers and ferns twist and spiral -
fluttering down into moist opulence.
Beetle-black horns spear juicy selections for ready jaws.

Thistles bloom, flowers burst, and pods crackle into fruit.
All encroaches, corpulent abundance.
By Pumpkin constellation - over the mountains, across the valleys -
the Neddy watches, and waits...
... for Alice.

________________________________



"My demons"


Unable to stop myself,
I slowly roll up the black door
... cut by foreboding ...
like the scent of old death,
newly discovered.

Here they all are, my demons,
ranged darkly against the walls,
dangling crookedly,
or crouched blackly in corners.
They leer and cackle, creak to life.

Abject terror makes my knees jelly,
and my heart pumps futile denial
All the world's pain and suffering...

The stain spreads, subsumes me.
I swoon in decay's embrace,
as my familiars take hold -

Sucking greedily at the teat of my soul.
Privately, we dance.
Privately, I die.

________________________________



"Friends remembered"


You crash into my consciousness like a tidal wave.
Not to be denied.
Slow years of low eddies and hidden currents
Boom! The jolt awakes, lightning flashes!
Silver strands span oceans' breadth...
Land and seas heave and roll,
reflected in cascading droplets,
to meet in sweet solace,
to sink in the easeful depths
of my remembering.

________________________________



"Serious illness"


In suffering serious illness, your boundaries transmogrify,
uncomfortable in fragile permeability.
Fear skitters down the hallways of your mind,
hides chuckling manically, in dark corners -
encased in crackling transparency.

Your breath shudders shallowly as you stare
at your pale limp hand upon the sheet.
Your eyes close and disjointed imaginings dance
their scenes under your lids.

Time passes slowly, almost in stupor,
as curtains waft in the breeze.
Pain marks the minutes and the hours.
Fever draws hot rank sweat -
nausea, shivering, clutching, retching
for days and days and days and days.

Intense suffering realigns your being, redefines you.
Visions of you in health, running along the beach,
wind behind you, fade into the reality:
a crouched shadow, desperately clinging to hope for a cure.
Depression mounts with reserves of positivity spent, and fear reigns.

Once finally well enough, you find the illness has shaped you -
in some ways stronger, in some ways weaker.
But the message is clear, and the lesson learnt:
Life is short, make and give whatever you can -
carpe diem.

________________________________



"Sick of pain"


They told me two weeks,
but then I was back in hospital.
Now they say four to six weeks.
All I know is that if I move too much in a day
then pain grabs me through the night.

My husband is frustrated,
sick of me.
I'm sick of me.
I know the lesson now, learned it well,
etched by pain's experience.

If you're ok, then participate -
Join in everything.
Don't be boring.
I don't want to be boring, anymore.
I want another chance.
I will no longer disappoint.

Lying here in the dark,
getting depressed,
trying to give my body
opportunities to heal...
So I can then participate
fully and without restraint
in the offerings of life.

________________________________



"Confluence"


I want to just take you by the hand
and walk with you down grassy ways,
through peerless climes, and lie together
with knowing, on a blanket in the shade.

Let us take this precious day,
and hold it nestled in our hands,
pass the moments gently to and fro...
Let's have this one, this holiday from our lives.

Let's meet in a field together, gold and wheat,
free from pain, with joy, and clear of guilt.
Look free into eyes finally met, out of time and place,
in this dreamland, where our shared pulse arrests the sun's path.

So that we can drink the liquor
that drips from the low-hanging fruit
along the bough, as night-birds sing,
and prepare their roosts, peaceful and secure.

We must gather the dropped sheaves
of our short and winnowed experience,
parcel them up tenderly, then place them gently
in our secret box of desires, and close the lid.

Wend our way then, and carefully,
slowly, trace the path of the moon,
and watch as the track of the sun
ticks and tocks our last minutes
over memory's horizon.

________________________________



"Realities"


You can love someone in your way,
but your way can only go so far
along the way, and the wheels start to fall off
A screw here, a cog there, a puncture.
You get tired, become stuck in a rut.

You need a way out, but the funnel's blocked
You reach out, and grasp empty space
You bang your head, but there's brick
You ask, you plead, you seek assurance
You get a glib promise, slowly eroded.

Trust fades, you go through the days' careworn emotions
You chase, he walks away, connections crumble.
He leads, you follow, you try and he doesn't see.
Your heart stays true, but the cost is erosive.
You try and try and try, and it improves for a time.

But where in life can it all just flow?
Do our lives' responsibilities preclude us from true happiness?
Are we marching blind to our decrepitude?
What is it all for?
Seeking a little magic, a little hope, and love's bliss.

________________________________



"Frosted glass"


I see your breath as it frosts my window -
your words snake like water droplets
down the back of my neck.

I look around, but I cannot see you
out there in the dark, skulking in my yard.

Thoughts like copper coins occupy my mind,
spin in the lamp's light, burnished they cascade
and disappear forever, like water droplets in the sun.

Dream tendrils in the night sway, the world's shared breaths.
I breathe out, another breathes in, mingled on the winds.

You have gone now and I see clearly the stars
winking instead, and frosting my window.
I stand strangely connected, through a glass darkly.

________________________________



"Suspended animation"


Creativity stifled and a life compartmentalised...
Wife, friend, mother, sister, employee, and lover.

The face we turn to the world
reflects what we want them to see.
The hidden depths carouse deep
in our veins' pulse, or otherwise if negated,
sink unused to sluggish murky depths
as one drifts through commonalities and banalities,
without spark and without light,
half asleep and living a waking dream.

There is beauty, when viewed unshielded, is blinding.
I knew that, have I forgotten? Am I only half awake?

________________________________



"Disconnected"


They circle around me,
a dance of particulate matter -
solid and comfortable,
an easy symphony of like-minded interaction.

I am like the gaps between raindrops,
I occupy the spaces-between -
tolerated but not understood,
I am an unpopular electric eel in a bowl of goldfish.

I waft like a ghost along the sidelines -
apart from the main game, a bereft observer.
This concert of which I am not a part -
I am apart, and this concert is not mine,
has never been mine.

Intrinsic connection is a rainbow across the seas,
in thoughts and words-touch.
Marking time, some semblance of comfort
but not really my reality, still to be considered.
What would be our reality?
What would it be?

________________________________



"Your cloak"


Like thieves in the night
your words permeate
my boundaries and
seep into my pores - skin deep,
and like a cloak of love,
they shield my soul.
Then in the late watches of the night,
when my barriers are down,
your word-cloak surrounds me
with colour and light,
like a dancing veil
in the soul-full desert
and you move like a spirit
through the frames of my dreams.
I can't touch you
but your presence
is so firm and strong
that when finally awake,
I am almost confused,
as if between waking
and dreaming,
we are really together.

________________________________



"Finding context"


A window opens, worlds collide...
The moon tilts on its axis
and our connection sparks
on the space-time continuum.

Spun out of our words,
we burst into reality
to place flesh on the bones
of our parallel contexts.

I always had a dear friend
but our meaning has deepened
contextually on this nexus -
perspectives framed and referenced.

The interlocking portion of our Venn diagram
shall all too soon be wrenched apart
as our internal worlds click back like cogs -
to regular positions in parallel contexts.

________________________________



"Days like beads of tears"


The days pass like beads
along a necklace of tears
I am as driftwood floating
on humanity's aimless tide,
rise pale and naked,
washed, scoured by tears.

Heart's a solid piece,
eyes see only stones and crows.
No playful symphony of birds,
only soughing of wind in pines.
A lonely cavity couched in emptiness,
words drip and ripples expand.

After a momentous day,
the ensuing days
follow one another sheepishly
in pale comparison
to the extraordinary events
of that incredible day.

Whether I look back
in wonder and delight
or creep haltingly,
counting days or stitches,
I founder in the return
to routine and normalcy.

Days drip slowly like tears,
a string of rosary beads
and I question that once
having tasted Heaven or Hell,
can I stomach banality
and paste a smile?

________________________________



"Cry freedom"


Claw at the fabric of time
Rail at the passing years

Rend the shards of time and place
Tear asunder tradition and circumstance

Throw history aside
Be as nothing, as no-one

Rise phoenix from the ashes
Of past existence

Naked, washed and open
Play freely in the world.

________________________________



"Tokyo dreaming"


Blossom horizon
Snow dust clouds tip Mount Fuji
Clear crisp ice sake
Pink roe Ikura Gunkan
Tokyo dreaming paper crane

________________________________



"Desert rain"


Your kisses
fall like rain
over the parched terrain
of my body -
I part blushed
like a desert bloom.
My lake fills -
cleft ravine
becomes a torrent,
a storm under your flow.
You dive blue sky breathless
into the depths -
come up gasping, yet replete -
a fish between your jaws.

________________________________



"I wait"


There is a tightness
in my chest.

Spirit collapses -
a paper bird.

Feel the crush of it
and gasp.

Words explode
Friends evaporate.

Trapped in my
storming mind.

I seek
and do not find.

I need and you
come up wanting.

I cannot go back
I cannot go forward.

So I lie and wait
For what?

________________________________



"Dreamer's lament"


The idea of a man is sometimes greater
than the man himself.
Once tasted, the fruit easily sours.
Without food for the soul - connection if you will,
COME.

Petty squabbles, constrained endeavours
Pressures and different aims
Tyranny of distance,
missed opportunities.

A smile and scheduled conversation
is not enough to sustain
the careful feeding of regret
or dreams, or the old yellow moon -
compared to youth's golden intensity.

Death star dreams
radiate no longer
All serve to blow soot
on the ideal.
MAN.

Absorbed into the minutae
of daily existence,
awake, alert
and how boring.

When the dreamer
yearns to just drift
in a warm night river
along the milky way
of myriad constellations.

Just floating, and holding hands
gently swept along in the current.
Life is a party we were brought to uninvited,
but being here, I suppose we can at least try to
DANCE.

________________________________



"Ink stains"


My pen leaks
black ink
on my fingers,
my pillow.

A spreading stain.
I spit on a tissue
and rub at it,
but the stain remains.

Dark thoughts come
spinning the wheels
in the night,
trying to gain traction.

Part of me enjoying
the dark complexity
I have made -
asked for perhaps.

Was it enough?

Part of me lost
and searching.
I lean at the edge
of the abyss, and peer.

Was it enough?

Faded ink stain a map to nowhere
on hands already etched
with the journeys taken
over the span of my years -
a life's tableaux.

Was it enough?

________________________________



"Words"


You fill a gap in me
that's words
that's a way of looking
at things.
There is a space between,
an ache
when your words
are absent.

Part of me is lost
or lonely.
The alive part
lies sleeping
like a giant begging
release from a fable.

Words, unlike food
sustain the soul.
Food's for the body.
Try to fill the gap
in your soul
with food?
Never enough.
You'll just get fat.

Words can reach
your depths
your soul -
calm,
save.
Save me!

________________________________



"Passing clouds"


Our words met
before we ever did.
Now you are distant
these words reach out -
passing clouds instead.

Your words glisten
like pearls in shells
scattered on the shore
of my week.

I thread them
like beads of tears,
and one by one
they fall with
evening's light
along this string,
close to my heart.

I watch the moon toss -
a ghostly galleon
in cloudy seas,
pulling the tide
to you, this night.

________________________________



"Darkness falls"


At the dying of the day
darkness falls
suffuses my mood.

Turn away from that old moon
Its glow wavers, falters
an uncertain light.

My path twists in the shadows
I stumble.
No fireflies to guide me.

A turning back -
choices from years ago
before I knew who I was.

Some memories
cannot be rooted out like weeds
no matter how much I will it.

I loved him once, I love him still
Perhaps I rarely could
Perhaps I always will.

School my heart - unruly thing
against these feelings
Recover the riches before me.

The trees sway -
I disappear
into the darkness.

________________________________



"After sunset"


We lie on a blanket after sunset.
The night falls softly
in gathered folds -
a gown of richest velvet.

We watch as stars
are spun out upon it -
scattered diamonds
in vast array.

Out of the dark,
outside our comprehension,
in enormity and complexity -
galaxies wheel and turn.

You turn to me now -
seal the moment with a kiss
and I am grounded,
rooted in your earth.

________________________________



"A blessing and a curse"


I am feeling while trying not to feel.
Everything just feels like a prelude -
as if all that has gone before
was not really real...
That like a flower only partially opened,
I need you to truly bloom.
A blessing and a curse.

________________________________



"Island of sun and sensation"


We are a fantasy parade...
You wear those shoes
and I will wear the Delpy dress.
Board our ship of dreams
under a vermillion sky,
bound for the the island
of sun and sensation.

Frolic in soft white sands
before a gentle sea.
Couched in the arms
of our dreams we will dance
'Heart of Gold' -
a lingering embrace
under swaying palms,
in the moonlight.

________________________________



"Unbalanced"


I lost my head,
I lost my heart.

I found true love...
in the moonlight.

I lost my equilibrium
trying to hold onto a wish.

I added more time...
and I had a dream,
you kissed me.

Is your light my light?

Or just a beacon flashing
potential for probability?

Who says opportunity doesn't knock twice?

And if it does, do we let it in,
or turn away and close the door?

If we wait too long, the cold North wind
may invite itself in, instead.

Who are we fooling?

________________________________



"Force a space"


Force a space
between
so the gap
between
wanting
and reality
becomes
a distance
our soul shards
don't pierce.

Rehabituate instead.

Space to forget
our hearts beat
synchronicity in
different lives.
Time marks moments
find our measure
still our wanting
time to focus
seek peace
in the space
between.

Who says I'm on your timeline?

________________________________



"We shook the sky"


We collided, you and I.
Together, we soared so high.
I have never known such a ride.
Like rockets, we shook the sky.

We launched ourselves
into space and out of sight -
amazing, incredible -
you blew my mind.

Like fireworks, rockets live bright -
fly so high, light up the night.
Yet fuel's beautiful explosion
blows out too quick...

All too soon, thwarted
by circumstances beyond our control,
our rocket burned out too fast -
floated aimless in the firmament.

Like a supernova - we were luminous
for a while, but in the end
our flame flickered
burned low, guttered and died.

Our hearts contracted
from the moon’s pull -
illuminated our path no more.
No longer were we in its thrall.

We turned away, lesson learnt.
Can’t expect fireworks
when the fuel’s all spent.
No fanfare, no fire, no heat, no eruption.

We chewed on scraps of love -
with just a sprinkle of ash and soot,
fed our lungs with fire and smoke,
in the dusted remains of our passion.

We launched ourselves
into space and out of sight.
Our story ends not with fire or fanfare -
but just a burned out candle in the wind.

Like rockets, we shook the sky
out of sight and into space -
you blew my mind,
once upon a time.

________________________________



"Perspective"


Sometimes I feel I am melting.
That I have no boundaries.
That in the vast symphony
of space and sky I am
smaller than a dust mote
floating in the ether.

We humans ascribe so much
importance to ourselves.
But all this posturing is futile
against the ravages of time
and the turn of the planets,
ad infinitum.

________________________________



"In the dark"


Sometimes I feel like I'm in the dark,
even when I am sitting in a sunny park.

Trying to find my voice in the clutter of my mind,
I seek soul's solace, yet do not find.

Sometimes I feel as though my breath is
sucked away by a thousand other inhalations.

Feels like shouting silently across a crowded mall,
words echo down my mind - that harlequin hall.

Wrapped up alone in my soul's shawl,
every day I feel I'm gonna fall.

Everything I once held dear
I no longer hold so near.

I let it drip like blood between my fingers,
slip from my grasp, but my ennui lingers.

I feel only now I'm finding my voice,
and you can't sing the songs of my choice.

One day I might wake into who I truly am - with you, or without you.
Until then, I stay down. With my demons.

________________________________



"Hypnos"


I am older now, but none the wiser.
I was half asleep, head down,
walking a path of bored contentment.

You slid right back under my skin,
and precious fool that I am,
I let you straight back in.

There is no balm, to soothe soul-ache.
Exquisite tung-kuai tendrils
curl through our days, and invade our nights.

We tried to fight it, we could not.
Fuck. We swim in Kokytos
underwater, with our demons.

I reasoned 'till I'm blue in the face.
Now I'm awake I still can't see.
Logic in this shadow-play has no place.

Being young and shy - undefined - I made a safe choice...
Now my highs are lower, and my lows not so.
I walk endlessly Ennui's dry and distant plateau.

Would you not take the leap,
if you had a second chance at truest romance,
even though the gap's a chasm, it's grown so deep?

We have everything against us,
yet our conviction fuels us...
My heart holds encased a great regret.

Tried to sink in Lethe,
but I floated up, into life.
So I cannot forget, put what's past aside.

So then, we'll embark on a long wait of good not great,
though the fit's 'square peg, round hole' -
be the best that we can be, try our best to make it.

Enduring the heat that sears,
our souls fly nightly, like owls
on the wings of our words still, all these years.

Until eventually, we'll lay this Thing to rest,
finally lie face to face, breath to breath,
chest to breast. Definitely not a race.

We dare to shake the tree of life - twice.
Its leaves fly a long distance, for a long time...
tempted by its nameless fruit, let's be soul-drunk blind.

Open our eyes to our truth - take the leap, fulfil our destiny.
Do we deserve this, or is this just fantasy,
caught in a landslide - our escape from reality?

________________________________



"At the gates of Heaven"


Bless you, my child,
for I know that you tried.

You gave your all,
though you regularly dropped the ball.

You didn't know what it was you had to know?
Never mind that now, you put on a good show!

You learned some songs and passed them on.
But now alas, your time is gone.

You still don't know why you are here?
You are here to learn, my Dear.

It's very noisy down there - phones and iPods - we need more of us.
We want you to come join the Holy Chorus...

So welcome to Heaven, come right in...
We'll start you right off easy, cleaning out that bin.

________________________________



"Chemical restraint"


He lies there - bony,
wasted - a shell of himself.
Confined in his shell -
a prison not of his making..
His listless eyes stare, hung in their sockets.

Chemical restraint was easier
for them, for the staff,
as he became anxious
in his slow descent into Hell:
Alzheimer's then Dementia.

These strange arms, these people
pulling at him - his clothes, his arms..
He's trying to fight them off -
not understanding.
They're trying to shower him

For convenience...
without constraint
they injected:
"Chemical Restraint".

Because its easier...
to force the arm of
a person reduced
to a vegetable,
for amenity...
into a shirt-sleeve.

The drugs caused him to suffer a stroke.
This is quite common
among the unknowing, unwilling
unchampioned recipients
of chemical restraint.

So much suffering he wears
for this administered convenience.
on his emaciated visage,
for the ease of the staff.

His only pleasure
was to waft aimlessly
along the corridors
of the nursing home,
picking up things, fiddling,
putting them down.

Underpaid and overworked -
the choice to drug patients
for ease of care
is the burden of guilt
they choose to wear.
How can they sleep?

His eyes on visits speak
a brief connection
and then gaze past as if
he want to leaves here,
this Earth, this horror -
confined in his contorted body
in a bed, on wheels...

He lies locked
in the demented plaques of his mind...
He feels pain and fear and hunger
yet cannot speak his need.

Let him fly free in death,
and leave this place he never chose,
never asked for.

Let him fly now to the next place,
or to the peaceful arms of oblivion -
anything better
than his semi-starved living Hell.

My father, how you suffer.
Your bed on wheels is the prison
that houses the prison
of your mind, your body.

You didn't ask for this.
How could you even speak?
No one should endure this daily hell
they inflicted upon you.

You - my father...
who made me,
and made me
a catapault to shoot at the birds that
ate the fruit on our trees.

Made halters for my horse,
constructed me a boat,
made fences, gates, repaired anything -
intricate metal, and works of leather -
kangaroo skin boots for winter,
a stringybark hut,
biltong hanging in the shade.

You, my father - an international rowing champion
reduced to two nappies a day because
that's all the allowance allowed
by Governmnent Aged Care Facilities.

You who so tenderly stroked my back
and spoke to me softly as a child,
taught me the types of birds and trees
and to listen to the bush.

You did not deserve this.
No-one deserves to be trapped first
in the cage of their mind and then in
the cage of their body.
You pay daily for a convenience of administration.
I am sorry, and I cry for you, my father.

________________________________



"Blocked"


The phone occupies a small corner of my bed -
yet you occupy all the corners in my head.

I lie awake, wait for your call -
reduced to apathy, is this all?

Another waking dream, so real, so true -
all I can dream of is you, is you.

I cannot go forward, cannot go back -
I should give up on you, go and pack.

Instead I lie in wait, for what?
I ache to give us one last shot.

If you don't call -
I think I'll bawl.

________________________________



"Puzzle pieces"


It's done, finished.
The pieces pieced,
piece by piece
back together.

But I've missed a piece,
because you were
my completeness.

It may be complete,
but my heart is missing
the piece where

you fit,
you fitted,
and now I don't fit
my life.

________________________________



"Like a rubber band"


Like a rubber band
You came into my life,
stretched me like a rubber band.
Extended my boundaries,
tested my limits
And I liked it...

I wanted to know about you,
all about you
and I liked you...
Yes, I liked you very much...
I think I loved you...
I wanted you to love me too
So I let you pull me...

I bent over backward
to show you treasures within...
Oh, yes - you just reached in.
Took what you wanted...
And I liked it
I liked you pulling me...
We were two.

You pulled, I pushed.
I stretched, you didn't.
You had me on your line.
And for you it was just fine...

Pushed me to my limit
but I didn't snap.
I was taut, stretched tight
in your grip...
And I liked it!
Your pull on me - 
You pulled on me  -
I liked it there..
I did, you gave me more - 
'till I was sore...

I was stretched taut but I didn't snap -
Not then, not yet.
I stretched up so far,
but I couldn't reach your bar.
It kept moving higher
but I didn't snap -
Not then, not yet...

I extended out
to meet your desires
and fit the shape of your wishes...
You pulled me this way,
and teased me that.

My edges started to fray,
because I started to think
that it was all for you
only for you...
I was stretched so thin
I was out on a line...
I couldn't see me,
and it was not fine.

I'd pulled myself all out of shape
for you, for you, all for you.
So far to reach your moving bar...

Pushed me to my limit
but I didn't snap.
I was taut, stretched tight
in your grip...
And I liked it!
Your pull on me - 
You pulled on me  -
I liked it there..
I did, you gave me more
'till I was sore...

I woke up one day, to find
I could not extend any more -
not one little bit..
Malleable no more,
I no longer had any core.
You just let go when you saw
I couldn't go that far.

I didn't snap at the release
of your weight, your control,
but bent out of shape
I was, worn and frayed
and I realised that I
should not have stayed
in your thrall, so long.

I made myself small, for you.
I made myself big, for you.
I described circles in the air, for you
and you didn't see.
You couldn't really see
ME.

Pushed me to my limit
but I didn't snap.
I was taut, stretched tight
in your grip...
And I liked it!
Your pull on me - 
You pulled on me  -
I liked it there..
I did, you gave me more
'till I was sore...

So I didn't snap, I wouldn't snap.
I snapped back
and I flew. You see.
You knew, deep in your heart,
you knew.
I flew because of you.

You stretched me to my limit
but I slipped off your finger -
Oh, so gently, but I took off
with such power.
Not your puppet any more...

And I flew
through the wind ... it blew me free.
And where I went, you couldn't follow.
And the view was great!

I put everything out along my line for you,
looking for some kind of sign
that you loved me,
that you really loved me....

You stretched me to my limit
but I snapped off with such power.
Not your puppet any more...
And I flew
through the wind ... it lifted me free.
And where I soared, you couldn't follow.
For us there was no tomorrow.

Pushed me to my limit
but I didn't snap.
I was taut, stretched tight
in your grip...
And I liked it!
Your pull on me - 
You pulled on me  -
I liked it there..
I did, you gave me more
'till I was sore...

________________________________




"Fuck you"


Once you shared your dreaming with me.
We'd fly up and steal the shine off the stars.
Our words would dance in the wind
like dewdrops on spiderwebs in the mist.

But your well is dry, you've sold your soul.
Good for you - you suck, you've given up.
I cannot get past you, though I've tried so hard.
Like pushing a bogged car through sticky mud.

I've walked through a vale of tears,
sheets of icy cold burning my soul
and I cannot leave you and feel whole.
This is my story and I will tell it till it's gone.

I'll tell it until I feel your presence drop away.
I will sing your song - our song - my song
until the moon turns a thousand times
and my lament echoes the howl of the wolves.

We've ached for each other a quarter of a lifetime - 
etched furrows in our hearts and across our brows.
We tried to fight it and yet we cannot beat this Thing.
You've let yourself go - live in denial - on your track.

Sometimes I regret moves made long since 
when young and unsure and unformed.
Now we clutch shards of time unwilling or unable 
to see that time has made of us a laughing-stock.

So fuck you. I want more than there is or ever was to give, 
so let's just get back to whatever it is we both do.
Fuck you, and fuck you again. Fuck you.
You cannot be who I need you to be.

________________________________



"Necessary"


Occasionally,
I allow myself to feel

You're the broken person
necessary for my completeness

You're part of my core
Required reading

for the integrity
of my soul.

So break open,
I'll join you.

________________________________



"Half asleep"


There comes a time
when poetry comes,

and there comes a time
when poetry goes.

It's beyond my control
if it doesn’t want to stay.

It stays crouched inside,
because to allow it out

means the feelings come,
and the feelings bring pain.

And life when half asleep,
is comfortable.

________________________________



"Ease"


You are gone now.
In darkness
winter disappeared
into comfort
into peace
not thinking
being inside
Deep.
Apart
from the one
who made you feel.
For a time
you were broad
and carried
the weight of the world
upon your shoulders
with ease.
Ease is slippery
like time
If it passes comfortably
it's anaesthesia,
sometimes welcome.
And have you really lived?

________________________________


"Hankering"


Equal parts confusion and frustration.
A measure of sadness
The sands of time drift
My sands drift, sometimes content, sometimes spent.

Yearning. 
Grasping. 
Hankering. 

Is there more?
Why can’t my wanderlust be contained?
There’s a lot to be said for:

Fat, dumb and happy.

________________________________


"Square peg, round hole"


My life has been 
square peg, 
round hole.

Accommodating others, 
sucking it up.

An empty shell
cannot give.

And after all is done,
I need to come home,
to your heart.

________________________________


"Torrent"


I was a parched river bed,
cracks across the surface.
So fuckin’ dried out,
going through the motions.

By degrees, I’d grown
silent as the stones.
My waters, still deep,
run submerged.

You came to me
like water, like rain.
And our words
are a torrent.

________________________________


"Back, Mac"


Something has been knocking
at the door of my mind, trying to get out.
Not really a poem, not really prose.
I propose, I suppose.

Sometimes I feel like a piece of flotsam
washed along on humanity's tide.
As if a clever bit of writing will save me.
Fuck that.

If you're lucky in love you'll diverge
in a few glorious eddies
Oh, but caught up in kissing
drop Charon's coin.

So many different people, so many different lives.
I want to snatch a piece of what they're having.
Maybe I'm greedy.
Maybe I'm starved.

I'm a fan of experience.
I experienced forceps,
forcibly forced
into the world before my time.

I seek to go back
pick up those lessons I missed
so I can go forward
and not fall.

Watch me, see me?
Monitor me
hanging off this open door
while you eat your Apple, Mac.

Now watch me fall, forwards
fall for you...
Catch me,
are you ready?

What if you know you're in the wrong place
and time's made of you a laughing-stock?
Life's a waiting game.
Games are fun?

Feels like I've been asleep
100 years waiting on
Prince Charming's kiss.
I want-can't-wait to feel it.

Careering around corners
windows down, trying not to feel.
Wicker basket,
fried chicken in the back.

________________________________

"A sea inside"


Gripping shower stall top
water slaps my face
eyes closed, I see you -
a moment of grace.

The water tracks
blurred lines, our future
our history, a mystery
It paints me opaque.

My contours blur
in a waterfall cascade
watery paths run
urgent to the sea.

My tide washes out -
there is a sea inside.

________________________________

"Sleepwalking"


Last night I went to sleep
walking through darkness,
a gloomy forest hemming me in.

My sleeping eyes
could barely make out
the shapes of the trunks
under their grotesque
massy foliage.

Suddenly, in stumbling, 
I raised my eyes 
to see a rounded clearing,
the moonlight shining mistily
across soft swathes of grass
and there in the middle you stood,
your hands held out to me.

I ran into your embrace
and felt your living breath
as it rose and fell
through the fabric of your shirt.
You held me tightly
and my fears fell away.

Under the moon,
under the starry sky,
you are my rock, my support,
 my inspiration,
 my earth, my joy.

Before you colours were muted,
but the true colours of love
lie within your arms,
in a forest glade
under a gamboge moon.

________________________________

"The Massage"


I gently trace the contours of your face,
run my fingers smoothly through your rich dark hair,
then follow the curve of your shoulders with my palms.

 I describe concentric circles lightly
with my nails and fingertips over your back
until you're almost in a trance,
your consciousness reduced
to following the intense points of touch
as they move masterfully over your body.

Slowly I start to press harder
as my hands begin to move strongly
over your prostrate form,
firmly moulding your flesh until it relaxes
beneath the pressure I exert.

Involuntarily you release a deep sigh, almost a moan,
as the accumulated stressors of your life dissolve away
beneath my sure movements, like the snow in spring.
I mould your buttocks like bread dough
and you feel yourself stiffen as I work above you. 
As I slide my spread fingertips up your inner thighs
to lightly feel the curve of your swollen balls,
you can stand the pressure no longer, you roll over
and your proud cock immediately asserts in a full stand.

As I watch the beat of your heart pulsate in the head of your cock 
I can bear it no longer, I hold your arms flat above your head
as I lower my warm slippery pussy gently over your entire shaft,
gradually increasing my motions until our movements merge
in a glorious explosion of pent-up emotions, and a luxurious release.

Languorously I roll off you and we gently kiss,
looking into the pools of each other's eyes,
knowing we are merged - heart, body and mind.


________________________________


"String theory"


Everyone else is a cardboard cut-out -
their intimidatory iterations now fail.

An invisible draw-string gathers
our heart-strings ever closer.

In my innermost places you fit -
distances most intimate.

Infinite intimate iterations -
my-into-mate, mate-into-me. Ha!

Our intimacy in its infancy, yet -
our heart-strings entwine intimately,

through intermittent iterations -
strung forth into infinite horizons.

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