Every speck of colour
Flying past my eyes
Arouses great fascination
Friend or foe?
Local or blow-in?
Show me your colours
I will let thee live
For everyone of you
Everywhere reminds me
Of love for all things
All at once
αγάπη για όλα τα πράγματα

Every speck of colour
Flying past my eyes
Arouses great fascination
Friend or foe?
Local or blow-in?
Show me your colours
I will let thee live
For everyone of you
Everywhere reminds me
Of love for all things
All at once
αγάπη για όλα τα πράγματα

Tell me, dear friend
Cool lover
So full
Of us and potential
Do you only love
For what you might
Obtain from such
A warm and generous
Soul denying
Herself?
A sacrificial kind
You will humbly assist
With their purpose
In life?
No greater love
Than one who
Forsakes (you for)
Oneself?

Sweet nothingness
Grieves me today
Bound up in a pitcher
Of happiness
A contagion
Evoked by image
She gave
Meditating
As if sleeping
A surreal dream
Her absence filled
By the allure
Of elixir
Imagining
The time I had
With you

Looking up to you
Taking time to realise
We all revolve
Around one another
All drawing each other
Inwards and collisions
Unavoidable
It took a while
Of sitting in
The darkness
Taking time to realise
How bright you are
How steady and constant
While eyes are distracted
By satellites
And falling stars
Mesmerising centuries
Defying human theories
The seat of source
Of all things
Green on earth
Stardust fingers
Billions of years wide
Hold us all our lives

Deciding upon
What to adorn
My walls
To keep me content
In case we need to
stay in again
Thick oak-look frame
Appearance is everything
Sandstone smiles
In the shade
Sun behind
Holding up a glorious
Bouquet of natives
Flannel flower power
Blue gum leaves
My own arrangement
By request
Selected anything
With white bloom
Tea tree in season
Looking like
A big cauliflower
Dried nicely
In my room
I remember
The next a mirror
Painted frame
Like retro glam
Gold and silver
Telling me
Look at you
-How you've weathered
So nicely
In the stormy seas-
Looking at me
Another gold
Circular seal
With purple
For royalty
A lineage
When born again
Not feeling it
In fact it tells me
Yes you studied
Greek among men
Not so different
From the halls
Of Plato
Ecumenicum
Blending in
With other
Women
Carry a Grecian
Jug on my head
So as not to attract
Attention
A bold shot of blue
Spread from end to end
Covered in blossoms
From a shaky hand
Eyes near blind
World inside
The mind of Monet
My dear almond blossom
Friend
Telling me it's time
To leave these walls
Behind
Remember the branch
Severed at one end
Can bloom and grow
Again

Pure delight
Little fingers find
Feathery treasure
Waving its finery
We shed parts
Of ourselves
For friends keep
To admire
In sharing
They grow
Lighter
Fly higher
Lament
Those of us
Left behind


She sits enthroned
Her head of stone
Arms incapable
Of waving royally
Disempowered
For her beauty
Strength, immortality
Divine femme
No king of beasts
Can protect her
From iconoclasm
Cult postmodern
Mother to all
Yet none to rest
On her thighs
Soothed by breast
A body erect
All that remains
Of love

~John Elliott Classics Museum, University of Tasmania.