
Crooks n Nannies
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Shedding skin
Reluctantly
Knowing it will never
Fit me again
Revealing tender
Glistening within
Looking at a part of me
Not discarded
Treasured outlived
My happy place
My mind returns
When it protected me
From falls from grace
More significant
Placeholder no need for you
To reciprocate
Tending to
Small hands
Hair flicking wide
Glinting eyes
Blinking love
Up to me
Head hovering
Under door frame
Burly gentle voice
Giant young hand
Filling holes
In roles of family
Tending always
My secret garden
Inside
Giant limbs and roots
Of memories
To swing on
In the dark hours
Back and forth
Soothing
Tender to
End of work
Ache between
My bones
Echoes of words
From a whole world
Of intimate meetings
Human voice evokes
Cure for hurt
Tending all
Cut stems
New roots
Shoots and leaves
Evergreen
Expanding
Untouched by
Frost or heat
Enclosed glasshouse
Weighted by reality
Preserved by families
Tenderqueer
Sharing spectrum
Kaleidescope
Of fondness
Love me tender
Sensitive receive
Touch of air
Words breathing
Responds anything
Unflinching
Appealing
Secret smiles
Unspoken words
Tenderly recalling
Time together
Fleeting
My heart sings out
Every morning
Trying on
Different melody
Not to drown out
In synchrony
With droning
Whirring life
All around me
Unknown songs
Respond saying
Who is it
You are calling?
Waiting for like echo
Chamber music
Of a heart
Fearful storm of lightning
unaccompanied
by rain or thunder
Flashes
singularly vivid
showing plainly
rugged outline
Wild landscape
from rocky fortress
witnessed
Hot weather parched
herbage of plain
to perfect dryness
A flash
more tremendous
suddenly set it
a blaze
Alarmed
in the tenement
occupied
Shortly relieved
from apprehensions
copious shower
extinguishing the flame
Erasure poem – ‘On Christmas Rock, 1840’ – from JE Calder, 1849, Some account of the country lying between Lake St Clair and Macquarie Harbour, Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, 3:415-429.
Blue neon sign turns pink
Behind dark eyelids
Recalling a time when
I was blind to indifference
Rose coloured lens
Filtered all beautiful
Things said
Honed in like magnifying
Glass tipping rose
In my Hawaiian dreams
Pina colada parties
On edge of Princes Wharf
A mexican tall ship party
I gravitated to casino
Where you spin me round
Playing chance with me
Tattooed lady dance
Heart on my sleeve
Blue light revealing
Everything inside
Like a neon sign
Saying pick me
Sometimes heroes
Take aim at heart
Strike an arrow
Throw a dart
Just to know
You're alive
Wearing capes
Overrated
Fantasy world
Real or imagined
Whenever I call
She comes
No need to wonder
Why or how
Empty bluestone vessels
Walls laden with ancient paint
A sociological observation
In contrast our lives full of whole
Bodies vibrant with first touch of spring
Blessing to exist in these times
Legitimate love
Handed down by generations
Of queer folk missing
In aisles of pews
Meeting in coffee booths
And under apple trees
Unseen walls of tapestries
Growing in knowledge
Of the extent of love
Found within and without
Needing a place to quieten
Suspend all judgement
Fall into arms of lover
All other notions
Idealised
Idea lies
I'd hear lies
A gift of the person
Placed before me
The spirituality of
A healthy dose of wonderment
Watching uncertainties
Ebb and flow
As warm cool currents
Change their mind
All year round
Receiving gifts
Too generous
For what we are
Suspended
Weightless
Insides heavy
Protest at lack of substance
Washed up grounded
Gasping crawling
Back to shoal
Do it all again