Spectre of once ago celebration
Shadows slither on pages, marked
Silence syncopated fonts mêlée
Scream for a song now similarly lost
Where within these words will
Soul's centre be again found?

Deep within you
lay a sea-poem 
of long ago; 

where air is fresh 
but blusters wildly 
when southerlies blow, 

slick and slimy silt,
mud between the toes- 
mangrove's brackish home. 

White-caps dance 
in the open channel 
close to where corals grow. 

But further than the distance 
of childhood recollection, 
where starfish-lined parades 
demanded retrospection: 

Gone are those carefree days 
along with sands, white as snow; 
somewhere deep within you 
lay a coastal tale of long ago.*





_ _ __ ✏
●○
°

'

faceless number 
screen flicker 
thermal print out 
fades in summer

walk the line 
find some time 
primal scream 
stuccoed spring 

mudprint carpet 
trigger finger 
curdled milk 
forgotten winter 

stadium heckler 
prison clatter 
barred existence 
cushions the fall




____✒
○●
°

'


Steely, piercing gaze 
steady and calculated 
scorn-etched lips, pout 
scathed grains discolour 

pearly teeth bared 
proudly held chin, gloats 
pencilled thoughts 
permanently carve this soul 

crafty words sliver 
carefully orchestrated chaos 
cornering all resolution 
creased yesterdays wither




____✒
○●
°

Secrets are secret
Truth cannot expound
Everything is vanity
No comfort to be found

Truth is relative
or so it is, they say
Life for us is short
no time to dry the hay

What Truth will illumine
Lies would then conceal
with ebony tusks uncover
wounds that would not heal

When it's pitch black in the mind

Seeking.

Looking for something?
You're afraid of something, I know so.
It's the one thing I always know,
People's greatest fears:

Yours is that no one will ever believe in you.
And worst of all, you're afraid 
you'll never know why.

Why you? Why were you chosen
to be like this?
Everything you wanted to know,
in this little box.

Why did you end up like this,
unseen?
Unable to reach out to anyone?
You want the answers so badly
you want to grab them
and fly off with them
But you are afraid:

Afraid of what they will think
Afraid of disappointing them
But ease your mind about one thing
they will never accept you, not really
after all, you are not one of them.

You don't know what I am!
Of course I do.
You make a mess wherever you go.
Why, you're doing it right now.
What did you do?
More to the point, Jack,
What did you do!?


Disbelieving.

I thought this might happen
they never really believed in you.
I was just trying to show you that.
But I understand.
You don't understand anything!
No!? I don't understand 
what it's like to be outcast?
to not be believed in?
to long for a family?

All those years in the shadows, I thought
no one else knows what this feels like.
But now I see I was wrong
You don't have to be alone.
I believe in you and
I know children will too
Look what together we can do.

No! That's not what I want!
And for the last time,
Leave me alone!

Very well, you want
to be left alone.
Done! But first, - - -*




●○
°

I have inquired of God
Where is it?

still couldn't find it

where they were looking
I looked as well

only to ask God again

I found bread and wine
and again plead for clarity

later asked myself, why?

then in silent supplication
an after image formed

compliant compunction

a human stave fades into
a rolled stone and sheets

teleportation and roaring wind

the answer lay in what
the eye could not see

in #what the mind could not grasp

from the heart, I sought
and from the spirit,  I received*





_ _ __ ✒
●○
°

In the shadow that our hearts cast,
hatred blooms, a stubborn ****
where once grew a garden of trust.

Words, once tender,
shatter like glass,
a bridge collapsing under weight,
echoes of apologies falling into silent abyss.

We deceive ourselves,
clutching memories like
fragments of a broken mirror,
forgetting the faces we wore,
the warmth that once held us close,
burying the past in shallow graves.

A vast network unfurls,
circuitry of disconnection,
new bridges rise on the horizon,
but the arteries lie severed,
thoroughfares overgrown,
forgotten paths leading nowhere.

We navigate this labyrinth,
the ghosts of what was
whispering in the dark,
reminding us
that healing is a slow tide,
and some wounds
never truly mend.

'


revolutions of the second hand 
are innumerable to the watchful eye, 
which has not comforted this bruising *

...shame 

nor can heart's run far enough away 
from pulsing, cancerous gangrene; 
and off to the darkest mile it treads* 

...softly *

in the cooling of a fading day, 
a gentle crushing blow fixes completely 
the drowning, despondent smiles 

...of yesterday 

as wafting wavelets wail forlornly, 
while whispering affections now silent; 
hearkening back to more innocent times 

...found wanting *



____✒
○●
°

cease turning my green to grey
with wilful acts of nature
your heart is found in theirs
providing for this urgency
to lose love's indifference,
redeem that part of self
that feels only for you

sea shells
she sells
salty Susie
on the seashore
her sure shalls
storm spells
such will be’s
shan’t be seen
on shifting sands

listless, lost in thought,
aimlessly observing all
surveying every nothing
poised in readiness yet
nestled in half a slouch
glowing palm, deft digits
caress a screen lit, only
momentarily quick with
each changing scene

toy soldier,
all for her
steadfast,

forever--

except for
one glaring
clerical error:

her tin heart
beats for another
toying; callous

sends him off

to slaughter; a
battler with no
shield or armour.



●○
•

brioche mornings
bright, sunny
fluffy moorings

cast away

off sun kissed
horizon, ne'er set
dreams astray



●○
•

what I know
I breathe, I speak
no dissuading
no breath-holding
no otherwise

persuade

there upon
a ******* heap
a bloom emerges
its fragrance
perfumes life's stench



○●
°

turn your chin
lift your gaze
peer through the haze
nowhere to drop a pin

turn down the din
***** out the blaze
cheer through the craze
everywhere you look is spin



●○
°

in our giving of thanks
we find intrinsic value
much more than places
in both directions of
that decimal point ●

a sequined moment
etched in time's fickle
precipice, caught only
with intention and at

times a whole lot of

personal courage and
swallowing of pride;
we've really nothing
to hide from each other

● except maybe the odd
awkward embarrassment
that harasses the mind
while the carving knife
lifts and catches light○*



●○
°

Once prismatic brilliance;
brilliant only through borrowed light.

Alone again in darkness, gleaming; glum, instant companion of night -

blind to grief and deaf to joy,
save by song on lone-ward height.

Ever calling, feline caterwauling;
In distant horizon, burning bright.

That sparkle in the eye is rekindled; Fully renewed, at dawn made right.

it has finally arrived
the belly of night
no longer offers
dark mysteries
or mortal dread

and these million
scurrying thoughts
scour through my mind
with a deafening march
that leaves me blind*




●○
°

a dollop of selsun blue
brought back memories of you
as did the last drops of clairol essence
bring back herbal scents on nanna's hair
water washes clean stray thoughts
and even with its ebbing, fading moon
late night, this year is still new

You aren't ready for the day until you've visited the bathroom and spruced up, groomed up, and psyched up.


Mirrors.

Mirrors are not my favourite bathroom fixture....or anywhere else. I must have been somewhat scarred as a school child to feel this way about something as silly as a mirror. 'Mirror, mirror on the wall....' so goes a wonderful phrase in a familiar children's story. Is it not logical to have handy a magical mirror?

The only time a mirror finds any usefulness to me is when I need to keep my hair in place or pick out some zit or the occasional comedo. Otherwise it is, I find, something best ignored or avoided.

Weighing Scales.

Weighing scales are another bathroom item that give me that slightest flutter in the tummy of a morning. Having always been just a hair under the average height and weight has given me a momentary dread of using the scales. The school nurse would queue us up and then take our vital statistics and that was by far one of the cruellest and most excruciating of annual reality checks. Scales..... comparisons... mirrors.... horrors.....

Denial is far more comfortable a choice.

unsleep now; keep still
unwakened dreams

a sun shall set
a moon will rise
a star falls, shooting
kissing dirt, no small
earthbound consolation

even in shadows, evening
dancers pave paths into dark
bear upon themselves, yearnings  

bare feet, tip-toe-ing into
slivers of this moonlit night

angels dare not wander off
deft fingers drift among
slumbering, fragrant blooms

here, where fireflies
have up and flown
please, please, promise
not rouse the dream*




●○
°

our countdown now begins
hear its relentless ticking
a stuffed rabbit hurtles
it heckles at mocking tocks
'round a beaten racing track

come, let's rise and stop
'second hand from orbit
circumnavigated trips on
Picasso's addled clock, let
no moss inhabit our rock

arms close in
to entwine, as
two faces fade
one into the other
washing away

all care; on fire
two voices meld
one into the other
valiant crier
all truth rings pure

clear, in the dark
of night's embrace
no longer wrong
no longer right
erases day's fright*




_ _ __ ✏
●○
°

when we walk together
and in the one shadow
twin coffees and plates
purchases and invites
rec leave and tickets too;
bite sized chunks of life for two

'


uneasy presence 
of someone 
once known 
even loved - 

the space 
however 
gaping wide: 
cloying, 

suffocating; 
treacle bath 
easily sealing 
claustrophobic 
asphyxiation



_ _ ✒
○●
°

'There are some wonderful
poetic lines that flow here,' they said;
'but if it's meaning eludes you,
then mark this poem on form alone, and say:

"a lot of modern poets jumble words together
leaving out much of meaning, without
allowing the poem to be read, and understood  
by the readers' searching minds."'

how contrary to other poems--
to be read and understood without
challenge or mystery or fun, meaning
just falls open like your daily news broadcast


let us then consider the difference
between biology and romance
whose meaning lay hidden
within the myriad of applied sugar
as with the case biology in contrast with romance;
if poems where to fall open 'wearing its meaning
on its proverbial sleeve, ' at every instance, then
we'd all best summarily dismiss, on the basis of
'word jumbling' and 'lack of meaning,' denigrating
of 'modern poems' as inadequate to explain or resolve
the issue of not having understood a piece of verse;

there are distinct moments when verse necessitates
more than a standard run of the mill 'fair go' for
it's splendour and depth to unfurl and take wing.

get in and get out
of bed: morning, night,
in and out --- again
breath in, breath out
all day long --- strong

          until (we remember)

reminders to self; whether
winter must be so much colder
for those with no warm memories,
and how, in our embraces we've
already mimed awaited spring*




_ _ __ ✒
●○
°

°

sometimes indecisiveness
is just the wrongest decision
for anyone to ever make

sometimes we just have
to dive in and go with our gut
embracing whatever may result;

sometimes, apologies are enough
when things don't go your way
because it's time to do it mine

sometimes, getting first time right
is not what your life has shown
so, it's okay for me to have another go

it's only taken forty years for you
to realise you love me and be proud
perhaps another forty'll make you really care

your boomer ways are so busted
they don't work here and now
perhaps I need to find my own way

it won't break your ego to be supportive
respect is not earned but extended
perhaps you only need to trust & believe;

every time my child's heart breaks
a memory jolts this scathing parody
perhaps this curse can be broken still:

it doesn't take much to make it right




_ _ __ ✒
●○
°

Deep within me
lay a poem of the sea
from a long while ago;

where air is fresh
but blusters wildly
when southerlies blow,

slick and slimy
mud between each toe-
mangrove's brackish home.

Whitecaps dance
in the open channel
close to where corals grow.

But further than fond distance
of childhood recollection,
where starfish-lined parades
demanded retrospection:

Gone are those carefree days
along with sands, white as snow;
somewhere deep within me
lay a coastal tale of long ago.

Sing, through the flowing tears,
And laugh though it aches,
ask again for love in rejection's face
into the sun's first brilliant rays

Peer into that song and hear its heart
take along these raindrops' prisms
let them glow in the dark of night
its tune your comfort and companion

Hold your friend deep within your soul,
journey into the promise tomorrow holds,
fear fades with the passing of the storms,
the clouds disperse in the breath of hope.

Sleep softly, gently sing your lullaby
Wipe those tears that no one spies.
For sure your smile glows bright gold
in the sun's fading glory at twilight's dawn.

Into the distant shimmering sea
let dreams sail into the misty dusk
fond thoughts and dewdrop wishes
cared for by the twinkle of starry nights.

seek to be bold,
extend kindness,
on the other side
of whatever this

may be; out there
someone loves you
it's soppier than
honey or gloop

but yours alone
and you flick the
switch at night
every lights-out