A slippery notion

A sense no one can live without 
Yet barely speak its name
Some spurn the thought and shrink within
Though chase it all the same

A slippery notion thrives among
The family gathered round
As babes all supple on its milk
As grown, some never found

As fickle as the Autumn sun
Like lucid alpine tarn
Its sweaty pounding heart drawns in
Only to cool you down

Extremes of sentiment poures out
Yet ambivalence within
Shouts of joy, tears in vain
Rally cry and sing

There's really no escaping it
(The hermit never tells)
Longing pulls us back in time
'Fore fears can knock us down

If unsure, simply pour
More courage in your glass
Take your eyes off the book
Don't let their next glance pass
The Gardens, Bay of Fires Tasmania

Castles of the mind

I've never found a cure for love
Though 't soothes so many ills
Loneliness to bitterness
All ailments of the will

For all it cures it does induce
Deleterious effects
Slow-acting apoplexy as
One's reasoning defects

A fortitude of countenance
Can barely ever endure
The fantasies that dreams beset
One taste a craving sure

Every line and curvature
In castles of the mind
Desire an outlet in the world
A lover sure to find

Aside from scouring oyster bars
Or ogling over beer
Apply the plight of sailor's blight
For one platonic year

While soaring new horizons
On verge of a career
Turn around, you've surely found
A love to hold so dear

For crafty is the nature
Of this love, as sly as fox
It's when your back is turned
That one appears in handsome locks

A warning for the jaded and bereaved
More than a few
If love's laid down left of plumb
Here's my advice for you

Consider all the perils, ills and falls
You fought as one
Imagine future troubles
Are they double, or undone?

For just as castles of the mind
Prepare us for our fate
So surely they will teach us
By the gash left in our wake

With clearest mind and soundest heart
One's path is laid post-haste
Though time is short, one's life is nought
Lest swiftly be embraced
Boronia Beach, Tasmania

Safe Ashore

This Old Love, seafaring ship
Of finest wood &
Craftsmanship
Its maiden voyage
Some four years hence
When feral seas drove us West
I've sailed her all around the world
Docked in places ne'er afore found
Secure at anchor, I'd explore
Wonders of the world unfold
Through rocky isles and coral reefs
Its bow has turned me safe to keep
All precious cargo
Fit and well
Squabbling over fine ship's bell
The final storm, the wrecking one
Wind whipped sail and broached hull
She turned us in to sheltered bay
The weight of shore broke her away
We battled through torrential rain
Huddled in the bow all day
Then clear, still morn
Sun did arise
All our crew woke in surprise
Old Love was gone to seabed reef
For seals and manta rays to sleep
We walked ashore and carried on
Mountains climbed, beaches swum
Though many tales I have to tell
Of Old Love's ventures riding swell
A ghost ship now
No one believes
Such vessels are imaginary
I tip my hat, to one who'll come
To sail away into the sun
For tinker, sailor, Captain be
This Old Love was made by me
Skeleton Bay, Bay of Fires Tasmania

Watershed

More so than
The breaking of bread
It's the gentle tap of rain on tin roof
That turns into a gale
While two souls gently unfurl
Tummies full of soup
Grateful for gables to collect drops
As hopes, fears and dreams swim in the air.

Steamy plunge of tannins
Soaking in tea cups
Stories waft like mist
On cold winter mornings
As moody songs fill the silent space between two beings.

Wild wings of wind pick up frothy tips of waves and cast them off in spray.
Wow, we proclaim.
Shed our outer skin to soak in deep ocean.
No words needed.
A watershed moment.

Some Other Soul

Save me not
From this world
Shop of horrors

One who will
Save me yet
From myself

Perpetual
Broken heartedness
Self imposed abandon

Whose presence
Has gravity
Of the kind kind

Holds up a mirror
Says, I like your flaws
They match your expectations

Then we hold hands
Into the wide blue
Sky, sea and yonder

Once it turns
Red, orange, pink
Sit in wonder

Till sleep befalls
Stars unnumbered
Past light future wish

Some other soul
Like mine

Mountains

Altitude enlivens
Yet fear of falling
Thin air breathlessness
Is what I'm feeling
Upon a happenstance
Of sauntering past
All the minutiae
Of words, stories
Desires burning
Within you
Shared with my ears
But once in time
Rose in my core
So now I explore
The great mountain
Of remembering
What we were
View from kunanyi / Mount Wellington Tasmania