Quiet corner
Gravelly throat of river
Intimate audience
Gulls, cormorants
Bathers bake
Swish of waves syncopate
Gently touching
Fronds of iridescent
Sea grass vagrants
Soaking in sun
Lament time is done
Rock pools sip sea
Shimmy on gentle
Puff on breeze
One eyed Jim
Sails up river
Engine thrum
Echoes and undertones
Bass beat drum
Low tide blues
Turquoise and aqua
Clear lucid pools
Toddler fish train
For open water
One day soon
There's only a sandbar
Between shallow salty feet
The big wide deep
There's only a weekend
Between work weeks
But a sliver of time
Between ok and not quite
I send along my proxy
My happiest self
To see you
While the rest of me
Self-soothes with music
Curled in the car
By the park
I cannot be a life buoy
But show you how to swim
When to float on Spring tide
To catch the next wave in
I'll make quick work of sunrise
Point you to due East
By night you'll sail across the stars
The farthest lands to greet
The undersea mere curiosity
Of shadows lurking, cold
Shudder off the thought of it
Just keep your head afloat
Beauty of holding
Breath expelled
Quick succession
Balloon fills its girth
Hearts beat like hooves
On cup day
Tension mounts
Truth like a pin prick
Bursts as flaccid pieces
Fall gently at four feet
Questions at ease
Posed so handsomely
Hold hands and jump
Into a sea of soliloquy
Knowing who one wants to be
Wayfaring strangers are we
How to play the long game
With someone well versed
In flash fiction?
Do I promise to love their every lover?
Desire drives the narrative on.
How to salvage a life come undone?
When moving parts are irreplacably human
Healing work is painful and long
Until two bodies borrow, become one.
Time wears down
Toughest
Ancient lines
Layers, pillars
Crumble
Force of waves
Cold infiltrates
Slightest grain
Marine fossils
Tonnes tumble
Return to sea
Once again
Hesitant
Tentative
When the hurt is all you had left
Step into grove of golden flowers
Tread the path that leads
To roaring waves defending sea
Hear the words fall upon soft ground
Mingling with memories of another
Gently lapping morning tide
Safe harbour sunlit, teeming with new life
Steer your own way out
Return to me, steady turn of rudder
Double back if your heart is sore
Come alongside save rocky shore.
Something more than
Daily chores
Paralysis upon waking
People, places, beings
Something in the way
Of feelings
Daily trifles melt like jelly
Vast continents, time and space
Forces crushing, melting, drifting it all away
Temporary angst
A sense of wonder remains
In the kindness of strangers
Yet marvel at how a best friend, lover, partner
Can become less than a stranger
In a day
Some people collect people
I collect shells
Beach treasures are beautiful
Even when we don't know what they are.
People are beautiful even when we don't know who they are.
I find it hard to know who is a friend
Until they show me
One way or another
Still, I believe in them
Even when they don't show up.
I believe I need to believe in me before I place so much belief in another.
If mine is the heart in whom I trust.
How can one treasure
Empty rooms, plates, faces?
We prefer them filled.
Yet attune space with nothingness.
It is teeming with invisible life.
Things we don't see nor understand.
We require something to magnify it.
How well we occupy
Vast spaces of ocean crescent moon beaches
Even the desert is densely populated.
With hardiest plants and creatures.
Content in their remote obscurity.
Venture into spaces as yet unknown.
Capture its essence like tintype.
Still, it seems, though ponderous.
Hushed waves from afar burst onto shore.
Roaring white noise as foam
Between toes, tickling.
Wherever you go to seek space
Bring it back, as a treasured poem
To dwell inside for all of life.
Count the stars of heaven 