These days

Posted on September 5, 2025 by aperture

Do I need to say out loud
That you are the closest
I ever came to my person
If only you didn't
Have so many already

A brilliant and kind friend
Is worth more than
A golden ring inset
With diamonds marking
Decades of compromise 

The most memorable and moving stories
May be untranslatable
Missed by your average listener 
Unless they can read body language

Since the unspeakable time
One in 100 year devastation 
I grow accustomed to sitting
In a crowded room surrounded by
Empty seats of friends 
I've never forgotten

An artist captures the essence of my heartache
Blue china bathed statue
Raving about earl gray
Other pleasantries
In politest company

*Handle with Care* inspired by Jooyun’s story, 2024. Displayed at Tasmania Museum and Art Gallery exhibit re/JOY. Artist Vipoo Srivilasa.

Cures for love list

Posted on September 1, 2025 by aperture

In the vein of Ovid's Remedia Amoris

Don't let me near a bumblebee 
A lizard, owl or slimy leech
No butterflies or hilltop scree
Invertebrates nor anemone
Away with bells of pink or white
Dangling in the dappled light
No trudging through the crunchy snow
Or campstove fires in cabins glow
Pandani, fagus, kangaroo grass
If you want to air the grief 
Far away from nature's best
Put this cure-all to the test 
Nature lover, wandering free
One never forgets an ecologist!

Stairway to heaven at Freycinet National Park

Little boxes

Posted on September 1, 2025 by aperture

Humanity divided
By shade and hue
If only so inspired
What art we could do

This Old Love

Posted on August 31, 2025 by aperture

Only comes out
On coldest days
Wild wind snaps
My face into shape.
Any passing stranger
Notices cool change
Friends embrace 
Challengers turn tail.
It holds space
Though never filled 
Gravitates to places
Where eyes first locked
Pockets turned inside out
Lint was spilled.
Gaze darts from butterflies 
To fleeting smiles
Peering through the aisles
Of best sellers.
Silent goodbyes
Are all that linger now.

View of snowy kunanyi / Mt Wellington from The Afterword Cafe.

Healing shore

Posted on August 24, 2025 by aperture

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.

Foreword

Posted on August 17, 2025 by aperture

Who knows what
Tomorrow will hold

All the while
These hands 
Strive to let go
Past is behind 

Empty hands
Listening heart
Brave as the deep
Incline is steep

Willingly foreword 
The answer in mind

Take heed

Posted on August 14, 2025 by aperture

Do not grow too content
With being alone

Empty seats beside
Roll eyes as party behind
Chatter happily 

Warily evading suggestions
Of a match maker
Relishing breadth of one in bed.

Sprawling diagonal
Clutching hot water bottle 
Catching clouds racing
Through the mind.

Know this
There is one somewhere
Who exudes sunshine

Their gaze radiates
Over skin and lips
Eyes ablaze

Tense pain of shoulders
Eases, deeper breath
Healing
This is the test.

Does their presence 
Feel like a Sunday evening?

Tea in the Atrium – a suite of ice cream spoons. By Sophie Carnell

Something in the way

Posted on August 12, 2025 by aperture

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

Signs of life

Posted on August 11, 2025 by aperture

Shivers
Run the course of river
Tributaries of nervous system 
Down my spine at night

Rocky outcrop
Showing black line of ash
Extinction, though not quite
Disappearing of past life

Seagrass
Luminescent pink through to stout browny black
Traces the lines of tide
Beneath soft cake mounds of sand

Deciduous 
Shedding of old life
Happens annually above our collective minds
Imagine the life force stagnant
In tributaries of its truncated spine.

Know that we and they flow in seasons 
We are not immune in our glass hothouses
Cold buries deep till last sight of snow
First signs of new life
Mere bud or daring flower show.

*Epacris impressa* at Freycinet National Park.

Middle ground

Posted on August 7, 2025 by aperture

First time I kissed you
By accident, on cheek
I whispered, "see you soon"
Ablaze, I stepped onto river's edge
- once where we met -
Time and again
To cool my thoughts.

Last time we hugged
It was all you 
A friendly pat around broad shoulders 
As I stooped down
Like a medal winner
Empty handed

I could not throw my arms around 
. It was orchestrated by another 
.. my arms were loaded with jackets and books wrapped in cotton
... I knew it would be the last.

Since then, how carefully the silence is conducted through an orchestra of friends.

While I write lyrics to music I can only imagine.