Do you see the mire?

Not dark nor black
nor anything at all in truth


I swirl toward you with stolen
mouths of pleading between my fingers

Brazen
the caress of oil slickened skin

For a moment
you attempt to introduce reality into the equation

Complex structures of
human endeavour
sour the tainted
skin surface of our lake

Do not crack the scum
do not make a sound
lest ripples shudder
and take us apart
disparate surface tensions
arcing away from combining
once again.

Evelyn wakes alone


She turns her face towards the window out through the creeping rose vine
clawed across the latticed frame, the petals casting soft red hue over a grey horizon.

She can hear old Mick barking at the morning, the throaty yapping familiar as it is annoying,
and she pictures the dog straining against the links of chain, muscles tensed eyes wide, biting clouds in half.

From down the hall, she hears Calin stir, his small feet hitting the bare floor boards
with that thumping enthusiasm, and then a pattering tread as he comes to wake her.
She closes her eyes and tucks her smile away, for this is the same game they always play
and Calin loves to think she is a sleepy head still abed as he calls it.

A bundle of warm woollen panama’s leaps upon her and giggled instructions to wake up
are uttered. She wraps her arms around him and draws his shaggy hair against her cheek,
he struggles and grumbles but hugs her back.

Later, as they sit munching slightly burnt toast from the toaster that never quite gets it right,
Calin asks her what they should do today. Evelyn shakes her head slightly and tells
him the world is their oyster to which he replies "How disgusting, oysters are so slimy"

He decides to call Deacon, and after the usual to and fro of who and where, leaves to go over for a play.

Evelyn tells him to behave, and catches the soft edges of his laughter as it trails after him down the road.

She dresses to the music of Sarah Mclachlan, allowing the sad tones to soap her body in foamed
sighs, the water running down her face in streams of cadence. She cries a little, but only a little.


To be continued.....

I'm cutting the price tag off freedom tonight


Rub the grit from my eyes
ease the ache
the forsaken Saturday
bleeding and broken
on the back seat
amongst the candy bar wrappers.

Stacking children in
on top of the crap
strapping em down
to teach them young

Listen up kiddies,
we are all strapped down from
an early age

But they will not listen
for they are seeking destiny
with glowing skin and eyes alight
with a desire to seek out the truth

They are youth
and dreams
woven from the threads of all we know

And I will smile as they grow beyond my reckoning


But I will recall
my naked days
when scent flowed water
across my senses
and touch was a taste
not to be wasted

I oiled my skin in defiance
till I gleamed
and out shone the sun

Your tongue was rough
against the ripple of muscle
barely contained beneath

Worship
is sight of us as we are/were

Collecting moments
and placing them on the bare
skin of your arm

A daisy chain of luck

A borderline of us
between incredible perfection
and where all others reside

By Burning Moon from a conversation with Never :)



Triplicate



As for the third,
try not to anticipate
which face of fortune's cube
will tumble next.

Spectres of memory flicker
from windows and mirrors as you pass,
slide over chrome bumpers and door handles.
Glimpses of what was, or what may be.

Kiss the hem of her gown
and future will glide into fresh
and reassuring patterns.

Something to awaken the moon,
fragmented shells of half-formed wishes
moulded into an orb where all your past
coalesces into the birth of now.

Tie me to your wrist
with a paper kiss.

Elation

the taste of parchment

Wet ink
Indian blue
flowing through

The morning

is burning holes in history
wisping smoke
a coiling pause in conversation

When do you think?

Watching the words leave you
butterfly wing
fragile beating
lifting them into the bright of a
stunning day
to dip and sway
over daisies

lifting above
standard roses winding
in non-standard ways

And I honestly don't know
so I let resistance go
and watch you tie off
the kisses on my wrist.

You pull the two sides tight

the cut

runs into
around
within
and without.

Skin parting beneath
your gentle pressure

Letting the sun in.

I'm not sure

I can survive on a diet
of Bill Hicks
for much longer


My political ethos
is bend all outta shape babe,
the ends have curled up
and sometimes I can see smoke
rising from the center of it
like a little forest fire
in a cartographers first draft

I can reasses I guess


Tell you what

you take the bullshit out of belief for me

pull all those double standards out
wriggling maggot white
shying from the light

Take away that stale adrenalin taste

the moment after you felt alive

the stomach stills

and your mouth dies

Remove the stains
from the pristine best intentions


and I'll come along for the ride.

The cold has numbed
even the distance
from here to tomorrows grieving ache


Crows
caw in unison
weaving a black blanket
across the sky

Alternating echoed insistence

they are feathered in shadow

Cloak the day
in omen

The weight
of ululating cry's
suffocate the sun

We run a parallel course
of disparity

I will watch you create
indentations in the human psyche

and you will blithely ignore me

And for all the
empty words we will not throw
at each over

The quiet

will deafen and distort

Reverberations
rattling windows down
through the ages

We strove,

for red gold links of perfection.

Your words rose

on a thermal's gentle lift

to glide over my bare feet

resting lightly on the dirty street

we called home.

I am the voice

broken on the implacable ridge of difference

Yes

and I

the face averted

to avoid further complications.

Yet we strove,

our metaphors

woven on belief in

unity and a shared breath

exhaling into a mornings soft light.

I am the division

between utterly alone

and the scrawled line in the dirt

you balance upon

Yes and I

the one who slips between

you lips and a pause

in the conversation

The Dream of Comprehension

In the ocean of the sky

she glyphs

the Southern Cross

Gacrux

falls into eyes

Acrux caresses

open mouths

Hadar

burns skin

sinks in

to guide the way

Destination

Oh falling Star

a thought sent

received

To break upon you

Surging tsunami

consumes

Within the deluge

You are drowned

and I

diminished.

Consummation

Flagrant

the taste is naked

curled upon

smoothing wavelets

Your breath

sends spindrift

leaping pale coral skin

salt spiced

dancing whitecaps

break dishevelled between

and within.

Awareness.

The scent

of sea

thick with gulls cry

Shallow

water

warm

To curl

recede

over dry rock

Leave dead star ash

in fading embers

for memories

A gift of us
I bring to you


All the days
I have had tucked beneath
my salacious grin
are yours to

disavow

There are not enough words left


to describe the contorted convolutions
we should be

Wind around us
your history
in all its sad eyed
dog eared pages

I will bring
a weeping man

and you will bring

redemption

I will gather your bones to my chest

hold you close
and listen to the whispers they will unleash

It pleases me
to want this much
to coil within the splash of your desire
and unwind
one complexity at a time

Bring forth the bursting flesh
supine divinity
spread across the sparsely
inhabited plains of my mouth

Gilt in skin
we bronze
and glimmer

All the time in the world

was never long enough

I was given the skill

but not the eternity
I would need to perfect it.

Now
sunset comes
a satin sheet rippling
scarlet folds
to fall upon my silhouette.

I'm hiding secrets daily

death and denial
beneath
socks and underwear
pushing them deep into the
old explorers I never wore because
they were too thick.

You will not find them
because you never thought to look

or perhaps
you just assumed I'd tell you

Goodbye is
the scent of shaving cream
on the collar of a shirt

The feel of an old woollen pullover
when you drag it out of moth balls
to cry on

The photo's
which really aren’t all that good
but when they become all you have
take on the stunning light and shade
of a Monet
the colors blending into
a glorious garden
painted just
to make you weep

I would not wish this
absence on you love

Gather the children
and hold them tight
draw warmth
comfort

Look into their eyes
and see me sometimes

Watch them laugh
and hear me sometimes

I will finish this rush of words

and leave a
poem on the table

for you to find tomorrow

It is 8am,
and the light is shifting
finally.

He would dance in dark corners
a mere shadow's flitting distraction.

Moving in time
to a teardrop
tremor.

Don’t hold back
don’t hold back

And she didn’t,
she tore out handfuls of hair
and wove him a cup.

But he would not drink

He was a mere distraction,
a movement
in the corner of her eye.

Standing still
till rock dissolved,
sand liquefied,
water hissed into history,
the earth laid waste,
and still he stood.

Don’t hold back
don’t hold back

Her cry
echoed across vast
wasted days
and sought new ways to ask
the same questions

Answers,
lost in shifting light.

I am writing this
to find completion to at least
just one thought/thing/event


No loose ends are tied off for me,
they hang with the tips
blood coated and sacred

I swing on the threads of today

Yes, I know your dying
you told me with that voice you use
when you are seeking a neutral tone
but the octaves are scattering from your throat
and splattering against the spotless surface of our relationship

No matter how hard we try to wipe away the residue
it stains our hands ochre
our clothing bleaches out color
and dry empty of verve.

Life is brittle

don’t fucking tell me that

but I know now if I touch you
you will break away in my hands

Bones dry to burn

Skin kindling the flames of farewell

I have pressed my mouth to your tears
and tried to pray you back from the brink

And all the time
you still work and smile
and while away weekends watching the game
and saying things will always be the same

You lie to all of us

You lie to the sky
and try to find the smile you lost last year


I lie to myself at night
when the sweat comes
the gritted teeth of no where to run
grinds my eyes into shards

I have become sand
blowing onto the trunk of your car
so you must always push me away
before you can pack up your things and go.

You will not leave tonight
or perhaps tomorrow

You know I will consume the sweet nectars
of sorrows tart tang
and drown
for all time.

Don't tell me not to worry

I was born to carry the song you never gave voice

I was told to make sure the Universe
would clearly state the brief flare of your life
in a falling stars arcing random journey

And when you look at me
I can see the failing light
gathering dusk behind
the grey of eyes
accepting
while rejecting my inability
to deal

And resolution for us
will be a sod of earth
thrown down the throat of Gods whimsy

And the incredible silence

where once you filled part of me

I wonder where

your writing now

Alone but
encircled by the agitated
mewling of a tabby cat
insatiable hunger
a fur whirlwind
winding up your legs
to purr throb in
the crook of your arms.

Your gaze
slipping easily between
new curtains
and the rotting windowsill
paint peeling to reveal
the secret of timber
in raw perfection

Seek the breeze kid
a caress
barely registers
when it comes
on the gust of change

I wonder why

your writing now

The how of course
a honed pencil
cleaving grey lead creases
of stunning imagery
neatly pleated through
colored light
and sharply defined sound

But why?

the reasons are
caught in your throat
unarticulated
forced back down
to circulate a little longer

You will covet
the title
alone
perhaps
for a time
till the urge to speak
graces those lips once again

And then your voice
will rebound from the cloud
shrouded Mountains
echoing longing
and a half remembered song
hummed
strummed within
and then left to resonate
against the sleekness
of rebirth
you wear
braided into your hair.

In the quiet,

we rise.

Above the misted earth

the pale frost grass

the cobwebs

speckled quicksilver dew.

The air

a cool caress

against bare legs

arms

torso

Your face

embossed into clouds

We trade night

for first light

And dance

the morning alive.

As a child
I died and was raised up once again

On the gasp of northerlies
pressing air into lungs
too shocked to inhale

I lay amongst the tussock
and dreamt the sky would stop
flashing past
the clouds scudding into the dip of the ocean swell

only to sink
regardless of my hands beseeching

I tried to catch the sky
and wrap it in the warmth
of a wind cheaters clutch

So many things
my fingers could not grip

the day

the
layers
of time
I was supposed to care for
and nurture
into the proper contours

Each thing
will follow its course
but I stood outside the flow
and build sand dams to hold the future

There was a cypress pine
I called sanctuary

Beneath a canopy of dry sweet
cakes
and golden dark tea stains
that spoke of goblins
and capricious spirits


I was hewn
from the open wound
of cut wood

The chips flying
ripping awareness into eyes
lowered and averted

The bark stripped away
to expose pulped
belief

We knew wrong
all of us
who resided within
the gnarled branches

We saw it
clearly in the bleeding sap and
the brittle leaves turned
brown with death

He knew
turning his face away
would release the Doves
nesting within.

They had rested there for years,
occasionally taking flight,
to split the sky
a blaze of white.

Please
seemed too small a word
to implore.

Beg
was never enough.

Ask and ye shall receive,
a red gold thread,
woven through the palms of his hands.

The Dove's coo,
echoing in the cold air
of sea spray shorelines
jagged with the knowledge
nothing ever changes.

If only,
the two words
he let fall from pursed lips.

But the Doves would return,
time and again covering him
in bright white comfort
rustle wing softness of
depthless resonance.

They flew wild in his face,
till he became an empty place,
filling slowly,
with lost,
forgotten feathers.

When no one
was watching

he opened the sealed container.

The rest of a life

not lived

folded neatly within.

Taking the first page

between thumb and forefinger

he blows softly.

The words

scattering

rising up

to engulf him.

He plucks one at random

Fear

nods acceptance

swallows it whole

Takes another

Elation

this one bursts into flame

scorching fingertips

his arm

glows witch fire blue

the tiny conflagration

eating flesh and bone

with hungry purpose

The sensation

akin to pain

but so enticingly alive.

The next page

has only one word written

over its creased surface

Accept

and he does

finally

in the moment

he ceases to exist

his resurrection

is assured.