Run

There's not a lot
That makes me smile
Anymore
And something's switched off
In the things that use to
Now I have to wonder
Why a walk along the shore
Is just a walk and little more
When once it had the power
To enlighten and inspire
And just lately
I find that your company 
Makes me feel lonelier than I do 
When I'm alone
Don't take it to heart
It's not you
I need to escape
But I've been running all my life
It seems I'm not a place I can run away from

Wounded

You said she isn't wounded
But that's because you are
And only broken people
Can heal one another

Transformation

I walk through the grey
My rite of passage
You burden me with generous gifts along this path
And though these gifts I did request
I am not prepared to receive them
Or slay the demons that lurk between the old and new 
But I haven't forgotten how
To place my reluctant foot before the other
This I do know
And the new is nearing now

Feast of Fear

They served up her dreams on a plate
And tied a bib around her neck
But when the fork approached her mouth
She shut it tight
Refusing to bite
Turning away with a scowl
The revelation and the horror
That she preferred to hear her stomach growl

Kind of Ugly

She may be beautiful

She doesn't know

Don't bother trying to convince her so 

She thinks she's hideous in fact

The kind of hideous that will only turn the ugly heads

With appetites

That will only be satisfied by her brand of beauty

She'll never be the kind of pretty that your kind of ugly 

Is looking for

The Lightening

I slipped through a gap in the curtain of perception
And saw my reflection there
Then time and pain fell away
The meagre crop of hindsight and anticipation
And now, I have now
Nothing but this now
And my light flickers bright
Once again
Once again
It is me that I see
With eyes like flints of onyx aflame
And nothing
Nothing will ever extinguish this light again

Instalife

Roses and cupcakes
And honey-skinned girls in bikinis
All the things you devour 
Between chores in your reality
All that you desire
Is just a dance floor for your index finger
Puppies and fiddle leaf figs
Cerulean skies over turquoise water
Hammocks strung between palm trees
And the perfect shade of a greasy red 
Smears the rim of a vintage cocktail glass
Moments spill into days 
of forgetting where we are 
Cluttered by reminders of who we should be

Not that Crazy

I'm afraid
I have to say goodbye
I can't be a friend to one 
Who is crazier than I

Heat Seeker

I am coiled
Beneath a thousand furs
I am spread
Across the hottest rock
I am naked
By a cracking bonfire
Lo 
I still shiver
Away from your heart

11.14pm

I'm sipping Sauvignon 
You're snoring on the couch
The days are getting shorter
My hair is getting longer
The cat's back from the vet
Minus three molars
Wish I could sleep so soundly
In the pike position

Evanescence

Something very sad did happen
To a lively child of five
Too quickly she grew
Turning wild in her youth
Then one April day
When all of twenty-four
She found herself bound, force-fed
With heaped spoons of conformity
Restrained, stored, forgotten
In a tapestry loomed from threads of her waning audacity
Now frayed and worn
My sweet child
I remember you well
You thought stars became daisies in the day
At night you lie beside your window
Gazing at the midnight sky
With wonderous eyes
That knew nothing of tomorrow

We Always Do

I'm watching silly, old music videos
Set in the future
2016
It's a grey day
But the light is stark
And last night's rain clings to blades of zealous grass and clover
It's been a lazy week
My bones have softened 
And my feet have shrunk
I can slip into my size nine boots 
Without the usual battle
They're covered in glitter
They don't leave a trail
I might wear them tonight
If we go somewhere nice
I'll over-dress
I always do 
We'll talk about the kids
We always do
You'll drink wine
I'll purse my lips
You'll notice
You'll shrug your shoulders
Then we'll talk about something else

Butterflies and Birds

There are no butterflies here
Only wretched birds
That dart from perch to perch
In straight lines
Swinging back and forth with a jolt
Once here, now there
Growing weary quickly
Of this view and that
They know not what they want
Never resting for long

But the butterflies
Oh how I miss the butterflies
And how they hover
Above carefully chosen flowers
Descending upon delicate petals
With tender feet
Fluttering in circles delightful
A little here, a little there
Kissing pollen, remembering fondly every flower
Then returning for more

Keeping Stillness

I feel the current of life
Fingering my naked skin
With a rhythmic and tireless tongue
And I see
The unstuck
Glistening in rows of nods that delight
A relentless stream of progression
An unstoppable procession
Of marching ambition
I envy them only
For the sights they do not pause to see
And that, alas, the error that fated me

Overstayed

I suppose you'd like to hear about
The ghosts of us
And how they've set up house
In the valley of my mind

Would you like to know 
That I can hear them chuckling
As they share a private joke
And how he's always chasing her
Around the garden
When she's trying to hang out the washing

Sometimes I can hear them breathing 
Heavily in my ears
But they make the most noise
When I can't hear a single thing

And it's then
When I wish
They'd spend some time
In your mind

Warm Chill

Summer's thaw is ending
Your blood clots with the chill
Sloshing through heavy limbs
Cold mornings still surrender to balmy days
Baking smiles 
But they're only being polite
For now
The sun knows it will soon 
Need to make some room
For frosty winds that arrive like unannounced guests
And make no apologies for the inconvenience 
And you'll put away your t-shirts and dresses
There's that blue one with the loose strap that slipped off your golden shoulder
Though you didn't seem to mind
And you remember
How his tender hand reached over
And brushed your warm skin mid-sentence
No you didn't mind 
The chill that time

White Shadows

White Shadows
Fill the empty chairs in waiting rooms
And stand patiently in shopping queues
They lie beside me
In bed when you're not there
And stand behind me in the mirror
When I'm brushing my hair
I see the White Shadows
They wait until you're gone
Then make themselves at home
They always pin me down
But on the sunniest of mornings
When we're smiling over breakfast
They're gone
I expect them when the clouds roll in
I'll roll out the welcome mat
And sure enough they come a-knocking
My pretty White Shadows
Never knock twice

Post You

Subconsciously
I'm burying the body
I had at that time
I'm delicately padding
My bony hips
My empty bosom
I will become
Unrecognisable
To you or I
At last there's no need to handle with care
I'm not that fragile package
Wrapped in a brown paper heart

Saturday Child

Saturday
I am your child
I run along your dappled paths
I detect the tips of lizard tails
Vanishing in brittle foliage
My cat's ears 
Hear the rustles of small life enlarged
And a blind eye is turned
To a scary world
A promised future
In a big girl costume
But the only part of her I want 
Is the sparkle and the colours

Frame of Mind

I tucked in the sheets with hospital corners
Tucked away the desire to make a mess of it all
I can slip in carefully tonight 
Without disturbing dreams
And barely a crest will rise
As I lie still
And still my mind as it tosses and turns 
My head's a mess
But the bed's a straight jacket
And I close my eyes

Chalk

Each day begins with a clean slate
So they say
And I am filled with hope and high expectation
But then I see
When I look closely
Yesterday's scribble
Faint yet still legible
And fresh, white lines
Scribed with careful intent
Cannot conceal
The faded chalk of old memories

Prickly

I'm losing my fur
And sprouting quills
So sorry
I'm not so soft and cuddly
Anymore
But you can love me from a safe distance
'cause this new look is growing on me

Musings

He's packed up and left
My muse
The sock drawer's empty
There's suddenly more room in the medicine cabinet
And in my head
I can do some rearranging 
In the meantime
And spend lonely hours sighing
And crossing out words
It's quality control

Silver

Did you see the fronds catching silver dew drops
And weighing down webs at dawn?
Perhaps you missed the silver trickle of the stream
Tickling pebbles and water dragons
Slipping from silver stones?
Silver abounds
Filtering through branches and from my spirit
Pooling in my eye and on my forehead
Emerging from scalps and flaking, scaly shins
Silver begins with waxy newborn skins
And ends beneath our crepey flesh
A silver blue
Our stifled blood
A greyish hue
And beyond what eyes do see
The silver light that waits for me

Hole

There's a hole
Where my soul should be
Someone stole it from me
I don't know when exactly
Sometimes it feels like
This hole is growing
And I wonder
If my lost soul
Will still fit
Into it

Never ending

Wine trembles atop my glass
A red dome pegged rim round
So too the nagging madness in my mind
Melancholy picked and fermented 
Swirled about
Inhaled
Spat out
Sweetness savoured 

Mania intoxicating
Hip hoorays of light infuse my vacant veins
And I am lord of word
And doubts become my stepping stones
Up I climb pillars of fear
And so, the toil unending
And hope will surrender 
Long before my wretched bones

Regret

He has chosen
And so she too
To sail with horizon
Always in view
They've not the gall 
To face the sea
It's calm embrace
It's treachery 
Their ships will bob
On waves subdued
A life curtailed
Love unpursued

Prodigal Sun

When I saw the full moon 
Fade with the light
I recall yesterday's sun
As I bid him goodnight 
And now he returns 
I'd no doubt that he could
Probing warm fingers
Through shivering wood

The Limits

There that endless horizon
Does it draw near?
Is there a limit to possibilities?
Do ideas run dry?
How high is the sky?
He asks with limited sight
He hesitates
With limited faith
He stumbles and falls
Over obstacles he himself
So carefully laid 
On a path through the clouds

Weightless

She's tossing away that heavy, old hide
That crumpled carcass
Her new self
Soft-bellied, exposed
Metallic green and golds
Shining in the light
She's looking for a new audience
Dedicated fans
Acknowledged
Respected
Not merely admired
No, enough admiration 
It's time to love
To be loved
The weight of it
Slows her down
To an unbearable shuffle
To love
Is to fly 
Nothing will lure her
Back to rocky ground
She flies over blue lagoons
And emerald forests
Yes
This is her heavenly destiny

Vessels and Vehicles

A silver fog seeps into the black
Like water snaking through a thirsty river bed
Blood red
And the gaping cracks in my soul are quenched
Mouths stretched open
Fighting for a meagre morsel

Life
Going for a ride in a runaway vehicle 
Trapped in a body immobile
The city, the sea 
Wherever its taking me
Not fussy
Though I should be...
Days become nights become years 
I take the wheel 

Vessels and vehicles
Going somewhere 
Going nowhere
It's my where 
Mud or dust
I've no time to admire the landscape
Not lost
Just making up for lost time
My time

The End of The End

She is the hot dust 
Of a bustling highway 
Left to settle on charred eucalypts 

She is the barren vine
Of a muscat grape 
Left to languish at the end of her yield 

She is the vacant web
Of a Golden Orb
Left to battle a lonely war against the winds

Foretold You So

The clairvoyant is telling me things we all want to hear

My mind joins reluctant dots

Coerced to form unlikely connections

But one cannot argue with a well-armed soul

Reckless, relentless

With nothing to lose

Except denial

Hairy Soup

The faintest trace of garlic lingers from his fingers

Reaching for a stray lock of hair

Falling across my mouth

And I am suddenly deaf to words that spill from his

Until the short of his kitchen capers plays out its final scene

In my mind

And silence falls as he waits for an answer

To what I wonder turning red

And I ask instead what he cooked last night

'Minestrone' he said

The Safest Place

She wants to lie in his arms and bury her face in the cave of his warm neck

And have him kiss her forehead like a child

And at that moment, even if this world began to crumble like an old sandcastle 

And every cosy home turned upside down and shaken

So that every remnant, object and evidence of human existence

Was erased from earth's memory

She would not be afraid

No, she would not

Edited

Yesterday's winds

Sweet and warm

Sweep me away to the hours of innocence

Back to the sticks, back to the stones

To crooked smiles

And dripping cones

Sneaky crank calls on summer nights

Healing knees lumpy with mosquito bites

Dusty cheeks turned to mud

Skipping ropes and silly rhymes

Edited

Tomorrow's storms 

Bitter and cold

Sweep us away to the hours of delinquency

To clenched teeth

And dripping coats

Sudden invasions on winter mornings

Brought to our knees after countless warnings

Hairy cheeks turned to blood

Shouting vengeance and silly rhymes

Edited

Forgotten Pleasures Forgotten

I once relied on these things

That promised pleasure

But what of late?

These things remain unchanged

Yet I have not

Where are her buttons and strings?

Where are her trigger things?

The giggles

Those painful belly wiggles?

Now a passive chuckle

Forced, polite

A light tap of the mallet 

No swings, no 'ring-a-ding-dings'

The carnival, silent and still

And somewhere the echo

Faded and faint

The music

Too familiar 

Dance of the Heart

My heart is like the sea grass sprouting 

along the dappled ocean bed

The current its desire

Always taking lead

A gentle waltz

A brutal tango

Where secrets find refuge amongst her wavering blades

They cannot remain concealed

Against a relentless force

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Yesterday was but a shuffle

In scruffy, floral slippers 

With old gum on the sole

I want to stamp now 

Stamp on the snow

Stamp on the dust

Stamp on the grass 

And nurture my callouses with quiet pride

The unsightly evidence of an adventure had

Tomorrow is for skipping

Skip away young heart

Skip away

The Old and the New

She wants to escape the familiar

And accept a stranger's hand

Where he'll lead her blindfolded

To a never-before-seen land

All the morsels sampled there

exotic and obscure

And timid creatures materialise

Drawn by her allure

While all her abandoned senses

Return like the fold at twilight

And bitter memories are hastily snuffed 

Locked, cast away, dead and finite

Alas, this wonder wonder

Will too one day become

A lacklustre mosaic

Well-studied and humdrum

Out of Reach

The rope

The branch

The proof

His hand

Stability

The wave

The dawn

The sign

His scent

Contentment 

The time

The itch

The word

His surrender

Relief

The Second Death

She is the grey

From the swipe of an oily rag

Across colours

Forced to play

Like stubborn children

Meeting for the first time

And any evidence

Of harmony

Surviving her angry smudge

Will be smothered

The View from You

Stay where you lay

Let me take your hands

I want to explore

Your mysterious lands

As I trek your terrain

Refrain your dissent

Guide me instead

As I make my ascent 

I find corners lurking

With secrets hidden

And dreams lying dormant 

With desires forbidden

Your tide is high now

Love, let me dive inside

Let me find dry ground

Your fertile soils

Your highest peaks

Your untapped oils

I shall pursue 

Without relent 

Without eschew

All this I plan

All this I'll do

Until I reach

The view from you

Surplus

She's hoarding love

In stacks tied up with boot string and shreds of lace

Her tender kisses stored away in boxes

Stacked in cupboards filled with longing

And in the drawers you'll find embraces

That flee like marbles escaping

From velvet pouches loosely drawn

Foreboding Joy

Her eyes were vacant

Like a beach house in the middle

Of a blistering winter 

Her mind silent

Like a stadium pre-dawn

No speed

No sound

But a gradual slowing down

Of necessity and urgency

And a delicate joy

Stirs from a slumber

And rises like a vapour

Across her skies

Personal not Business

I can't sell your lies

Don't make me

I'll spit them out like rotting teeth

I can't pull your wool

You couldn't fool me

I don't have the capacity

I'm not a puppeteering puppet

I'll dance when I want to

It's my choreography

My stage

My play

I won't even play dumb

There's no self betrayal

Or apology

I don't care what you think of me

It's none of my business 

Anyway

Intensive Care

Can't stop

The thought tsunami

When will it end

The slow rush of debris?

Destroying all that was me

Soul thieves

Leave no precious stone 

Steal my sparkle

All my remarkable 

What is left to love

Of these remains?

Nothing

And what to give?

To give?

Everything

Always

Always

Fine Tuning

Wrap me

In my blanket of despair

My tears don't absorb in the cosy mohair

Nothing's wrong

I like sitting here 

Just me

Humming some made-up tune

Sounding better

Than whatever

I heard on the radio

Not long ago

Love Sick

He is my salt

He is my salve

He is my vault 

He is my valve 

On the Mend

She was hoping

He would mend

Her broken wing

But all he did

Was break the other one