I hung on

Your every word
Tossed about gently
Like lost garments
In the night
On the deck
Of a ship at storm
Trip hazard
But loved once worn
In the daylight
As the anchor
Finds safe habour
Among living creatures
Seeking safety
Searching sea bottom
For friends and tidbits
Till bottomless glass
Tilts no more
I set sail again
Longing horizon
Begs me for more
Elizabeth Pier, nipaluna / Hobart, lutruwita / Tasmania

One of my turns

A dance in jest
Most compromising
Steps two back
One forward

Tete a tete
Longing looks
She is leading
Backwards reel

To the lightfoot
Sound of five eight
Skip hop akin to
Bounding over rocks

Fit as a fiddle
Keeping in step
Plying me with
Stout and chips

Surrendered only
To the trip
Heart ticking
In time to a lover

If anything goes
Not you, nor yet?
She marches in time
To another
Parliament Lawns, nipaluna / Hobart, lutruwita / Tasmania

Art of imagination

Blank canvas
So tragically
Uninspired

Make a mark
So daringly
Invented

Happen upon
A feather
To conjure up
Full plumage

Light upon
Beached hull
To envisage
Wooden ships

Pluck remnant of
Blue white shard
To dine at
Ancestral table

Treasure cover
Ancient amulet
Embark adventure
Neverending

Seed on breeze
Now sown
Imagine the tree
Full grown

Gaze a smile
Short story
To enter your
Worlds unknown
Junction cabin kunanyi / Mt Wellington, lutruwita / Tasmania

Beside myself

How many ways I'll tell
Lengths and miles I'd go
To prove what you
Already know

I'd win Master chef
Learn to cook
World's best

Find tea of Ceylon
Brew delicious
Breakfast cup

Kick start business
Buy your dream
Beach house

Licence to fly
Drop you in
Western Wilds

Sail boat to ride
Marine exploring
Ocean tide

I'll take you all
These places
On our imagination

But only time
And place I have
Right here and now
Beside
Kettering, lutruwita / Tasmania

Ode to M

Held on tightly
To mournful delightful
Words shedding down
A certain slant of light

Carried me onward
Into my enlightening
Years oft slighted
Hands held tightened

Let go realise
I never knew who
Bold and bright
She was me in spite of

Centuries between
Longing look at frond
A delicate hand
Responds to us not

Forget blue floral
Tongue tied knot
Unraveling over endless
Sails swept away

As long as the storm
Brews on horizon
Grip is tight
Bow turned windward

Fears stilled inward
At first sight
Of love
D’entrecasteux Channel, lutruwita / Tasmania

Introspection

Pay attention
Naval gazing
To the heart
Inward looking

Realising
Affect affords
Little openings
Where thoughts

Seeping in
Under skin
Elevating
Heart making

Every day
Tiny delights
Intermingled
With spice

Grounded
Deeply rooted
Interconnected
Signs of life

When I look within
It's you I find

On the bow

Her face rides out front
Body carved by artisan
Not a live one steps foot
Lest to say farewell
Till return to homeland
Her likeness revealing
The love of artist heart
Like a woman of dreaming
Unreal onboard
Writing home to her
Every single day
Or some piece to hold onto
As tide carries me away
Carved wooden piece from Svenor’s figurehead, wrecked Newcastle 1914. Donor Alistair Gibson. ~ Maritime Museum of Tasmania