Promise

Cup empty of tea,
mind bereft of inspiration,
wind shuffling through the
new leaves of the plum tree,
branches bouncing in the sun with
spring afternoon promise.
He turns to touch her hand,
the one resting on the keyboard
waiting for the words
of her latest poem
to reach her fingers.

In Perfection

First
I
beachcomb
ocean’s gifts.
Nature’s beauty served
abundantly, softly, wildly.
Counting the sand grains sifting through my hands, I wonder…
Clanculus pharaonius fragments may have drifted to our shores, an artist's dream, then
In a perfect moment of connection nature and I coalesce, I become the colours,

patterns, korus and golden mean, ,,,,,, the nexus.

Integration

I hold you in my palms
two objects in my left,
one in the right.

i
Harsh, sharp, hot
held in the left
you glower
mandarin orange
jagged, searing, heavy
you are dominant
- change

ii
Second object flat
also in the left
you are a blue-violet plane
golf ball rubber band texture
small, flubbery, cool
inconsequential
- movement

iii
after inconsequential acquiesces
to dominance
you come together
your currency of exchange
an alteration of shape, dimension,
temperature, weight, colour
Dominance also cedes
texture and temperature
but takes a higher position
- negotiation

iv
I hold two objects in my
left hand
same size – round
one orange
one green
one up, one down
- moving forward

v
Circular, orange/green
burnished metal
A peace symbol
held in my right
ambient temperature
weight – one pound
- the right path

vi
My palms are open
facing the sky
rotating them they come
together,
three objects
merge
- union

vii
Two arcs of magenta
bisected by
a thick cobalt blue line
come to rest
alongside my heart
warmth radiates
A third eye appears
- knowing

Synesthetic Time

Reading you
fires neurones
long ago left for dead.

My mind colours
a million possibilities,
and a myriad of futures
hover between a spectrum
of clearness and light.

Time takes on
the momentum of a surf wave
with decades morphing
into the turquoise depths
of a thousand centuries.

Consciousness
remains intimately bereft
of the experience
in a parallel life.
And death is a violent splash
in the moment of a rainbow.

Ad Infinitum - In response to Heart String Theory

I
move backwards
into the future

comtemplating
previous lives
confronting choices ….considering

points,
lines, several
tangents with twists

folding
then unfolding
creating, multiplying, diminishing

expanding,
changing, collapsing,
enlightening, loving, dying

I
turn, we
exist, into infinity


To read Heart String Theory by Crunchy Weta go to:
Crunchy Weta: Heart String Theory

Bent

Her hair sweeps the carpet
as she arches her body
bending over backwards
to unravel the braiding
of your thoughts
your words.
Chinks of sunlight
shine in her tresses
while piece by final peace
an understanding flourishes.
She straightens
then stands
giddy with the loss
of blood to her head
and losses of another kind
she sits
to imagine
stroking your suede cheek.

Many of you

i
You didn’t come
locked away
in your room of dreams
to heal a body and mind
lost in the wanting
of a man who is no longer there.

ii
It was a party
of some couples
and a couple of hopefuls
An array of humanity…

iii
Your gift, your bone carving
is a thing of much beauty
of some significance and lost hope.
I watch you polish it with pride
your gnarled 50’ish year old hands
holding it away from your
mick jagger eyes, so you can see.
I want to say thank you
for it, the time, your sentiment,
your cooking, but you have left.

iv
It was great to see you all again
Five years of shared intimacy
faded by days of work and parenting
jaded by break ups and death.
Lifted and lightened also though,
life balanced by joy
and the play of our children.
I enjoyed sharing the sauvignan blanc
and there were no after effects from
whitebait fritters tonight.

v
Poets, two of them
accomplished in my eyes
clever.
Shy, how could you be?
You could rule the universe
with your poetry’s
universal rules.
Oh how I wish you would recite.
I imagine you up at the microphone
strong poetry, strong imagery..
(maybe after a strong coffee?)
Wait until my wedding day
you will be asked!

Twilight Time

Will I remember
the sting of your stories,
the whip of your words?

In the miasma
of muddled meanings
I fall asleep
to catch snatches
and echoes

Voices
from the endarkened
cupboards of my mind

Fee

It is great
to hear you talk,
our voices tripping over,
playing chasey
as we chat.
I swore I’d ring you soon
a year ago,
but life ran away with time.

Parenting

I greet you
with arms I wish
were covered
with velvet,
to soften the blows
of a hundred
misfortunes.

When I help
to pick up
the pieces
I hold them gently,
privately acknowledging
the part they
play in making
you strong.

Autumn sun - Haiku

Though it is autumn
sun shines through the cabbage tree
imbuing its warmth.

May Haiku

Under dark storm clouds
The deep emerald sea churns
Passing gulls cry out

Kina

Photo I based my painting on

Marking Time

While it
has been
a gradual week
there have been moments of punctuation.
Question marks around the unknown,
times when the brief pause of a comma was required,
a period of full-stops,
and events of exclamation mark proportions.

Haiku 06

Earth sighs and drinks up
Spent leaves float atop puddles
Sorrows last seasons

Naive Simplicity

Your brother is born
while you sift the incredible
from the yeti and bigfoot
pages on the internet.
You whistle the theme tune
from the X-files, and become
transfixed with the facts
of science fiction.
Your brother is born and
you look for lost marbles,
your eight year old mind
missing the miracle by a mile.

It's a kiwi thing

While the radio talked to itself
about the day’s news
we woke up and made love.
Then in the time it took for our
shadows to do a one-eighty
you had flown away to
the island of snow,
towards the mourning sounds
of mutton birders.

Draining

To save us from drowning
in a cityside pool of sky tears
you don cardboard clothes
caked in the mud of yesterday
to dig a trench around our souls

Ether-reality

Whispers,
ethereal visitations,
your sojourn a frolic of frivolities.
Muse for a moment
on your beneficence, your abilities...
Under some daylight
tree out there you too may turn your
hand to a poem

Emotional Ephemera

It is slippery today
forcing it causes falseness
and failure
Better left to its own devices
devilish vices
devilish voices.
Minds wander to
places best left unvisited.

Yet yesterday
it was sunny side up
running...
outstretched arms
against the mirth
of the southerly wind
on a west coast beach
where the gods were
thrashing about in the water.
Eating mangoes to the
going down of the sun.

Threads

Old habits die hard.
Adjusting to change
I wait three phases of lights
before choosing my green.
Your unmet daughter
is born and starts school.
Visitors must come
in the back door
and leave by the front
so there is no opportunity
to bump into recognised sorrows.
Rommel’s cave was tidier
than I expected.
Window wipers
make small change
of the leaves
on the windscreen.
Light sees its opportunity.
Is that why all the pastry is yellow?

Do you know who you are?

We have not met in two decades
and as synchronicity would have it
we still haven’t.
I imagine what those years
and too many indulgent vices
have rendered.
You were never good at self care.
I remember your bedroom....
sad love poems
bursting out of draws
and your naked pillow
exposing its stains
from the perspiration
of sleepless nights

First Day of School

The five year old climbs
the stile with her mother
and walks across the school field
towards where
the microphone man
talks to the children at lunchtime.
She has heard his electric voice echo
over the fence for months
and looks forward
to seeing his face
with excited anticipation.
Today is her day.

Under her new white shoes
is the moist autumn grass
with the dew of the day
hanging in feathery clutches
amongst the tiny spider web homes.
It is a long way across the field.
She counts 126 spider web homes
before her mind flits to the sky.
She looks at the clouds
with the secret knowledge
that they are the bones
of dead animals, and she
sees the spine of a dinosaur.

Shadows and silhouettes

Face lies on pillow
creases will be imprinted
on cheek for visitors to see
if any would come.

She is more concerned
with opening and closing
her eyes
one at a time
repeatedly
one at a time
and watching how
the long gray shadow
of the doorway moves
up
and down
up
and down
quickly and slowly
depending on
the speed of opening
her eyes
one at a time.

In the flicker
of alternate eye closing
and opening
She can see
the silhouette
of her nose.
Her father would be proud,
She is winking
without moving her mouth.

Ineffability

There
have been
no written words

nor
any words
that speak adequately

of
an emotion
so profoundly whole.

I
search for
non existent words

What
I seek
remains sacred, nameless

Scars on the Heart (for Clarence Moss, aka Papa Steve)

You were a telegram boy, then
a machine gunner in the war
when you saw and did things that
would have left scars on your heart
(and we complain about the weather)

You married your first wife’s sister
you were a father to four boys
two of whom were not yours
you would have had scars on your heart
(and we mither about the traffic)

The telegram boy saw technological changes
in a lifetime that went from
the horse drawn carriage to email
A writer and a dreamer
a gentle loving man,
and no scars were overtly apparent.
Your diary now forms a part of the war exhibition,
“Scars on the Heart”

Dreams

I meet old school friends
in a house owned by a collector of rocks
The house is familiar
and I know I have been there before.

I am driving down a country road
in the summer looking
for a shop
that sells dogs.

I am at the top of wooden stairs
watching a dark haired little girl
with the whitest of teeth
and the reddest of dresses walk towards me.

I am in a boat
with an ex boyfriend
sailing in the darkness
towards a party in the forest.

Needs

A maddening thirst
for knowledge,
…enlightenment

All encompassing hunger
for food,
…love

A beleaguering urge
to write,
…create

An aching desire
for sex,
… you

Gentle obsessions

A seventy eight year old lady,
Daphne lived in a state house in St Johns.
She would go shopping
only on a Tuesday.
The food was fresher
on a Tuesday she said
and the taxi driver she liked
was on duty.
She was meticulous
when she chose her vegetables.
The kumara had to be the right shape
so she could hold it
in her small hand to peel.
It had to be smooth, no bumps
so the peeler would slide over it.
Her kitchen cupboards
were scrupulously organised.
She would obsessively nest
her precious china from big to small,
like shape in like shape,
less chance of chipping she said.
Her wardrobe was similarly ordered.
The coat hangers were all the same,
covered in cream satin over foam and
every fifth one had a tiny sachet
of lavender hanging from it.
Dresses, skirts, and blouses were all
sorted according to colour,
her shoes sat neatly on shoe trees,
and her handbags were
lined up by size
on the top shelf.
I hear Daphne died.

Another day

An old green Vauxhall velox with its
bonnet of orange and its boot tied down with string
veers off the northwestern motorway
its wannabe hippy driver not sure of where he’s going

An 8 year old blonde boy
big for his age, stubs his toe
as his ‘friend’ teases him for being fat
He swears at his teacher and cries

An old small stooped lady
halts the Auckland peak hour traffic
with her hand as she crosses the road
20 feet away from a pedestrian crossing

A young woman clasps herself with delight
when she is rung and invited for an interview
for a job in a company
where her boyfriend works

An old oak tree which has stood for 130 years
divests itself of one of its four branches
in the dark of the night
while no one is watching

God

Morning arrives
I return from the bathroom
after washing off yesterday
and pull up the Holland blind
that you used as a canvas
for painting god
He spins around the roller
then I put on my makeup
get into my office clothes
and step into today

Fauxhemian Ways

To fit in socially you:
wear a pair of ripped jeans;
affect a “don’t give a toss” air;
pay for a small tattoo;
buy drugs from the cute guy at work;
dye your hair in odd colours;
start reading beat poetry;
and consider purchasing
a parrot for your shoulder.

Paice Ave Expats

Listening to blues on black vinyl,
playing bass on the bed.
Flatmates philosophising
and meaningfully organising
blue meany mushroom party posters
to glue to any city flat surface.
Kittens and cats clambered couches
and lentil stews simmered slowly.
We shared beds, plants, trips, cars,
angst, anxiety, laughs, love and life.
We were free, frivolous and flatting.

Winter holiday

The sunny season is winding up,
the evenings are drawing in.
The sound of Jack Johnson
meanders through the open window
while you weed
and trade chat about plans
for summer holidays in winter.
I dream of a translucent warm sea
with a surfeit of tropical fish.

You pull out our agapanthus,
no more will its bent seedheads
bob in the evening’s humidity.
Even the vibrancy of the calla lilies
are consigned to wither
in the heat of the compost.
Like these flowers will in days,
Jack’s song fades as we
envision warmth in winter.

Megan

It seems
like just
the other day
when you would sit
in your jewel
coloured silk scarves
on your blue
cushion covered sofa
and chat to me,
your granddaughter,
about the news,
art, poetry
travel and love
with your sparkling
alive vibrancy
and gesticulations
that so piqued my
curiosity.
Your colourful home
overflowed with
secretive little
draws and cupboards
filled with ivory
treasures and
objects with her stories
and histories
gathered on trips
and life's other journeys.
Original paintings
and family photos
were crookedly
hung on
every spare piece
of wall,
shelves with books
on every subject
took up every other
space; tidiness was
never one of
your priorities.
Bright, scented
lilies sat in
blue and purple vases
on tables whose
legs stood on
exotic persian rugs.
Your life was full.

I visited you
yesterday on your
85th birthday.
You wore
pastel coloured
synthetic clothing
that someone else
had bought.
You sat still
while your hands
picked obsessively
at a non-existent
piece of fluff
on a pale
pink chair
against
insipid walls
hanging faded copies
of someone elses
bad artwork.
Your available reading
material was
Readers Digest
Condensed books
or outdated womens
magazines.
Fake pallid flowers
filled a white vase
on your immaculately
tidy white dresser
that sat
on the beige carpet.
Your eyes
are still bright,
your smile
still beautiful,
but you are now unable
to complete a sentence
and I can see how hard
you are trying to
retrieve those
slippery memories
of who I am
and who you are.

Sometimes

a
cache of
pleasure moments is

required so I
can retrieve
them

Growing up too fast

I watch you
as your drunken mother
staggers amongst
the crowd of
rock music diehards.
Her tired shoes
which you
clutch in your hand
are the least
of your burden.
Your ten year old body
bends with the weight
of anxiety
and the backpack
carrying promises
and food.
Your eyes dart
with embarrassment
as she weaves
back and forth.
Your plea
of desperation
"can we please go home"
not heard
over the crowd,
the music and her
oblivion.

Alone

As he moves
he bundles it up -
the flotsam, jetsam
of thoughts, letters,
photos, and the sleeve
from the t-shirt of a
good lover.
Old jewellery
and some gold jewellery
gets tangled up
amongst itself
He is reluctant
to relinquish
the bundles and tangles
scared that in doing
so a piece of himself
might also go missing
Like others, he seeks
someone who
will finally look, really see,
truly know, wholly love
what he has been,
what he is carrying,
who he is now,
and will accept and cherish
the bundles and tangles.
Turning the corner
along the street of
aloneness he
finally recognises
who that person is.
In the reflection
in the glass
on the other side
of the road
is a man
with a bundle of tangles

Change of Heart

She reached premises
based on promises
made when love
was in bloom

life changing moves
were then effected
and then he
changes his tune

How can she dance
to this new song?
Listening to lyrics that
hurt heart and sear soul.

Holiday Weekend

The water flows in
and flows out
washing the plastics,
and glass from city
boatie’s picnics
to this night’s tideline.

The island's seaweed
heaves and sighs
while in the distance
phosphorescence glistens
in the enlightening evening.

I also sigh
as the gibbous moon
droops over the sea
pointing towards a return
to the throng
of the metropolis.
This is the last night
of a perfect island
summer holiday retreat.

New School

I
made a
decision in May

basing
your future
on my current

dreams.
My hopes
beget your change.

Changes

Memories hang
among cobwebs
while tuis
play in the
growing pohutukawas
of your youth's
garden of kisses.

I move treasures
gathered from
the beach
of your past,
to dust
the shelves.
I rearrange the shells,
beginning
to make
my mark.
I can hear
the southwest wind
as it whips up
its whitecaps
on the deep
veridian hauraki gulf
carrying the future
to the clay cliff
doorsteps
of your heart's home

On the bench

You are spent now
your years of youthful charisma
and man about town popularity
wearied by age and tan suits.

To go with the tan suit
you wear a garish red necktie
(who dressed you this morning?)
trying to collar the power
that your charm
once proffered.
Not grasping the
fashion of the day,
another symptom
of loss.

In your day you strutted
and women did a double take
then swooned
in discordant competition.
(At least you think they did)

Today you sit
melancholic on a bench
during corporate lunchtime
while sexy young things
walk past
no heads swivelling
except yours

Cool grass

She
eschews shoes,
feet baring witness

Dissonance

You
scope out
the social landscape

calibrating
interaction's risk
with paranoia's perception

Hakanoa Street

When
living northern
hemisphere winter afternoons

I
would recall
Hakanoa Street summers

offering
shade sheltering
Plane tree leaves

to
the suburban
heat's asylum seekers

Moving on?

I have returned home
to my childhood's street
to the rhythm of youth
and my concrete cast feet

Where a penny lies
just a few houses away
in my grandmother's garage
where I used to play

I wanted

to
tear down
the nigrescent sky

totally
pulverise the
love song radio

drown
in duplicity's
legacy of longing

I
wanted to
rake your heart

Exploration

Digging deep into
the mind's abyss
you will find
a lot amiss

red and bloody
cut and run
amputations
just for fun

barbed wire neckbrace
glass shard wrecks
pain and ecstasy
insane sex

Extremes

Beauty
is a
catalyst for reaction

Raising
desires of
nakedness and immersion

a
longing to
subsume and consume

To satisfy I
want to
bathe

naked in the
musselbeds of
Wednesday

and eat my
aged thesaurus
immediately

Longing

I want you

to make love

to me today

preferably in the kumara pits

so we can include the sun.

Deep fuck me

You know the one...

the slow... so slow...

deep... so deep

fuck

which reaches

that inner ache

of exquisiteness,

transcending

order and chaos,

...that nirvana moment

Sweetness

You
get up
to open cupboards

Searching
for fleeting
fixes of sweetness

I
seek belatedly,
to find emptiness

Wrappers,
offering absolutely
nothing at all


I
love your
obsession for chocolate

Remembering

My mind rotates
eyes crying
onto the old arm chair

Peeling paint
frames my memories

Spoon clicking
motor bike riding
jeans rubbing
tattoos destroyed
the smell of pub pies

Then the stiletto glare of a light bulb
cracks my thoughts

More Anger '83

Stuck at home
looking at the leaves
scattered on the floor
The clock ticks
I flick the flies from my arm
and seethe

Another life

No more nights
spent wandering the streets in the rain
searching for soul and maturity
spirituality and sanity

You are nearly forgotten now
Just a bad taste in my mouth
I was over your Cyprus reminiscing
and your red indian ramblings

Your cavalry cap has been dumped
your steel strings and guitar gone
The originals must stink now
like the memory of sunglasses, incense and red lights

Say goodbye to the mother and father
and hurray to the cream concrete walls
the wire wove mattress won't scream in agony,
as you toss and turn, anymore

Go home to your roots
where the bikes are companions
but don't forget to send the
25 bucks I lent you

Thursday

Lonely moon
hovering fully above the bridge
of the turquoise harbour
And the city speeds on
while its citizens
argue over the pinot gris
and the pinot noir

Jehovah's Witnesses

Here’s to you
your future’s planned
on your elitist world
in a fool’s paradise land

Addendum to Crashing Recognition

I feel extremely lucky
it wasn’t quite our time
but the injury I’ve got
is to make my poems rhyme

This ode is plainly hideous
but I really can’t be fussed
taste has left the building
and I must be quite concussed

Crashing Recognition

Driving up the northern
at sixty miles an hour
stopping for the roadworks
changing down the power

Bang, my head gets thrown back
foot stays hard on brake
eyes fly up to mirror
hands, legs begin to shake

You lost concentration
rammed your vehicle into mine
you rush to give your details
your license on the line

I get your registration
nose to tail, you are at fault
my head feels less than normal
after such a violent jolt

I recognised your face
when we swapped names today
you won Best Actress prize
from Feltex for a play

Rakino sojourn

Four,
you two, we two.
Like the wind,
from different directions,
blowing over our paths.
Together,
briefly.
Becoming familiar,
intimate.
Lives interweaving
during a Rakino sojourn.

Intimate offering

Take me down
into the heaves and rushes
of your tumultuous ponderances,
and I will, with willowed stick,
begone those noisome addlenigs.

Koru

Slivery and silvery,
tiny seashell pebbles
slip into my footprints
as I walk to the water,
where I bend to wash
the green of my pounamu
blessing it
and the meaning behind
our partnership that
it encapsulates.
The roar of the sea
sends the whip to my heart,
which pauses briefly,
fleetingly quiet
allowing the ache of our love
to return and return

Nicholas - 1

You are wet from school
I lift my ironing tired arms
to tousle your hair

Happy Birthday Duncan (apologies to Glenn)

It’s a city sun saturated dawn.
Paice Ave flatmates either
scatter to their roles
or stay in their holes,
depending on the after effects
of an evening of everything.

A trip to the fridge results in
a yoghurt breakfast
and a trip of another sort,
leading to the garden of sheds
and nylon couches amongst
the washing pegged to the line
patiently waiting for yet another day.

Mackerel clouds sit in the sky,
camouflage kit
your trademark clothing of choice.
As sentences from a Burroughs novel
spill from our mouths and
become dissected to the sounds
of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit,
my eyes get stuck
on the blades of grass
which my feet have melted into
and I am reminded
that you wear glasses.

87/88 summer time past time

It’s a city sun saturated dawn.
Paice Ave flatmates either
scatter to their roles
or stay in their holes,
depending on the after effects
of an evening of everything.

A trip to the fridge results in
a yoghurt breakfast
and a trip of another sort,
leading to the garden of sheds
and nylon couches amongst
the washing pegged to the line
patiently waiting for yet another day.

Mackerel clouds sit in the sky,
gold dressing gown of paisley
your trademark clothing of choice.
As sentences from a Burroughs novel
spill from our mouths and
become dissected to the sounds
of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit,
my eyes get stuck
on the blades of grass
which my feet have melted into
and I am reminded
that your name has two ‘n’s.

Morning

I lie alone on the bed, our bed
and slide over to your side
where the slats are set to heavy
and the warm still resides.

You’ve abandoned these sheets of white
for the drone of the sunrise traffic
and the call of a long black
on the way to your work.

I doze off to a place not unlike reality
where the three princes of serendip
have bestowed good fortune on me
by introducing me to you in a crowd

I wake to the jangling of my phone
It is you, and my fortune remains good
and my heart and my body ache for you
as I listen to your sweet whispered nothings

Saturday and Sunday in Auckland

Thin rain falls on us
in the warm
as we step into an
evening at the
Auckland Philharmonia

She sits upright
pony tail hair
falling loosely down
that ramrod spine
not quite touching the back
of the chair of steel
thighs open as her
legs clad in black
straddle the cello
arms and hands
instruments of passion
as they move
intent on the rhythm
……stilleto sophistication


Glaring midday sun
favours us
as we beat our feet
in an affair with exercise
on our real estate walk

He sits upright
In a faded van of grey
parked on an anonymous
suburban street
silvered hair greasy
left arm leaning hard
against the grimy
ripped vinyl of the drivers seat
withered bicep wrapped
with black tight tourniquet
fist clenched in expectation
right hand delivering
the needle of delight
as his dog hangs hungry
from the rear window
… heroin hallelujah

Title fight

Polarised disguise
which frame your eyes
analgesics for dulling the pain
The blood - it drips
from nose to lips
Big money to get punch drunk again

Banjo

It was ‘83
I remember the ritual rolling up
down shotgun alley
before the live poetry readings
at the Globe
the drug taking is vivid
the details subsequent to those rituals
fade into the haze of illucidity
I can’t recall if we went on Tuesdays
or Thursdays, but it was a ‘T’ day
then after the poetry
it was afters at Just Desserts,
and after the afters
we are back in the flat
where I listen to
your live poetry before bed
“Put a little sugar
on your eyeballs baby
and look at me
sweet like you do”

Purple Haze

We played at
preciousness
with that purple
weed we smoked
while sitting
in those 70's lounge suites
in the 80's backyard
amongst the overgrown grass
on those languid summer days

That was Me

You were one and twenty
as I remember you.
Perched on the paint peeled stairs
outside,
with your book balanced
on those slim brown legs.
Writing poetry
while listening to Dylan
and learning to
alliterate your lines.

Sleeplessness '83

Murmers in the distance
silence from the street
ticking of the timekeeper
disallowing sleep

Drums of rain off rooftop’s tin
creeping into mind
trying desperately to rest
but peace is hard to find

In this noisy, but silent, lonely room
the plants feed off the light
which you fixed so easily
.... I wish you could fix the night

Rakino sunset

Rakino

I thought of you this morning as I got up and looked at the sky
the wintry greyness awaiting its recycling by the night
Imagined you both in the dinghy over the reef
Hauling in fish if you were lucky and seaweed if you weren't

Trudging back up the hill that always leaves us breathless
with your catch (because you are lucky) and the rods and the fishing bag
I was wondering who would go up first,
the man or the boy, as you share your life's time.

Tears

Standing tall

head upright in pride.

But you cry

when no-one is looking.

tears of clear

wipe them gently from

your face of light

Lament on Lifts

Wanting to clutch the naked walls
you stand desperately
eyeing the fluorescent roof
of silence
in this haven of solitude in the crowd
insecurities bouncing unspoken
from mouth to mouth
in screaming quietness

Eating me for dinner

What are you going to do with me?
Fry my brains?
Stew my thoughts?
And then slice me,
piece by piece
for dessert?

Integrity Blues

Your spring sky blue eyes
sear intently
into the chaos of my character
searching out the truths
coaxing me to become whole
preventing me from splitting
into a myriad of pieces.
Stare...
the blueness becomes you
and helps me to become me

You...

If you could hear yourself as I hear you

You’d be listening to the colourful jewels, of your wit, your words…

their priceless ability to tease and entice my laughter

(a sound I was becoming unfamiliar with).

If you could see your eyes through mine

You’d see a blue alive with light.

If you could see your body as I do

You’d see yourself move with a gentle might.

You whirl and twirl me with ease

and a rhythm that pleasures me

as I answer to your soul’s movements.

My back pressed to your front..

Your warm hands pressed on my naked skin..

guiding me.. sliding over me..

Sleight of Mind

I wonder where
you are now?
My muse for a moment
until the drugs
and the drink
and your sleight of mind
threw me to the wall

Checking In

The sunlight soaks
my bedroom curtains
when I wake
I check my mind
like a mother checks her child
How are we today?