The Lost Years

Years I have dwelt
Under earth
Tread over head
Magnetic anomaly
Compass bearing bend

Nights I have glowed
Channelling fury
Fire of echoes
Into soft light
For lantern show

Days I have lain
Wounded in pain
Watching seasons stroll by
Blossoms, fruit and leaves
Butterly arms surround
To soften, to sleep

Till axis shifts away
Leaning toward you
I am compass
I am moth
I am fruit
Sleep finds me now
Wishing and wanting
Dreams evade
The breadth of years
Laid waste

Likro dror

When you let go - that little bird
Into the wild, unrelenting sky
One must be willing to never see her again
To be free means no burden of expectation

They say, there are other birds in the sky
The blackened birds that awaken me each morn
Alight upon suburban fenceline
Sing their well-known song

There is no one like the one you so loved
Love tended and fed, doted upon
The one who recognised your voice as you arrived
Felt the silence once gone
Until the caged perch to which it clung
Felt nothing like love at all
Long Beach Sandy Bay, Tasmania

Castaways

Reminiscent rising sun
Resplendent moon
Vast world undersea
Forest songs swoon

Affectatious orchid tongue
Pungent earth
Fungi throne
Faeries peeping through

What can one do?
When one love elevated
As a mountain peak high
Eyes clear blue sky

Hungry for taste
Salt licked face
Ocean spray
Ride her wave

Never to reach shores
Castaways
Lindisfarne Bay, Hobart Tasmania

Apparition

Daily grind is right
Darkness falls and rises
Out of percolator
Into belly stuck on ache
Work tracks play repeat
Commute, beat wild heat
Rising to neck ignored
Cool all the way home.

A rinse cycle of aqua
Barely cleanses racing
Rabbit thoughts chased
By greyhounds the second
Head hits pillow
Worst-case first out the gate.

All my defences lie
In gentle apparition
Hovers above me
Her curls fall on face
Limbs wriggle
Flashes of teeth, eyes
Giggles, legs, hands, waist.

As long as she's alive
Hope thrives disparagingly
Mocking my love life-raft
Drops of memory
Onto tongue like a hack
Apothecary of mind
Brain cells a bee hive
Craving honey
Burning the fears, Dark Mofo, Hobart Tasmania

Passenger

In all my sweet thoughts
Of riding shotgun
Words caught on tongue
Music at your fingertips

Where shall we go from here?
To the coast, surely?
The mountains, sublime
Some cabin where we can hide

Gather imaginary adventures
Cast them on the wind
Like a flock of shorebirds
Headed to the North Pole

The only passenger, am I
Is one of time
We have journeyed years
Apart, words odometer of miles
Sunrise sky over Bruny Island Tasmania

B flat blues

Birthday blues
comes after you
The coldest day
with longest night

Soft blue sky
won't clear the air
of sullen gloom
When loved ones are
so far and few

To those so close
A silent toast
Poignant message
Like a ghost

The fault to bear
Is mine to groan
For, I'd rather spend
This day alone

But when I do
A quiet knock
Of heart does wonder
Where all went?

Then, blink of eye
The day is spent!
Sunrise at Bellerive on midwinter’s day