Beauty is beheld
On breezy shores
Stranger smiles
Open doors
Strings course
Over fragile skin
Time is worn
Borne within

Beauty is beheld
On breezy shores
Stranger smiles
Open doors
Strings course
Over fragile skin
Time is worn
Borne within

Wholly unbroken
The line between the time
You told me all your stories
To now
I write them out
Though not mine to tell
Story keeper, holding closely
Treasuring artwork on cigarette packets
In New Orleans
Erecting tents on byways of Canada
Evading bears
A sense of place is important
Venturing out beyond all civilisation
Loved ones' names in acknowledgements
On all the field papers
I fade and fall rather than reach for such stardom
The earth and all its impact
Wakes me from timestamped memories
With beers in gaudy bars
Canadian moosehead overlooking
That look, watching waiting, startled -
Only to flee into the wilderness again

Blustery spring
Rattles my windows
Within
Batten down the lids
Promises of snow drift
Footprints on photos
Places I never go
Lift my mood somewhat
All I know
Is to write my heart out
Send wishes on the wind
That is all I can do
When the wind
Whips through me

Dancing in waves
Clifftop winds
Faeries on parade
While I trip down
Sandstone path
To the place where
Minutiae of death
Washes ashore
In shells and stones
A place where love lived
A childhood once before

We leave
And let leave
All the ones
We ever loved
We cannot keep
So let them sail
Out past horizon
On winds of change
And do the same

Horizon begs me to come
Envious of all other
Lines I draw in my life
Its endless encore
Whispered in the waves
Come to me
I'll save you

I am attracted to the same old
Playlists, meditative serenades
Stretching from 80s to last year's hits
To clip my nails to
Leading me down the long and winding road
To where your row of hedges
Meet the letterbox
As far as it goes.
Conjuring ideas of monologues
A tribute to intangible
Feelings dribble all over the page.
Ones that never make it out of the envelope
Perhaps it's better this way.
Better than burned unceremonious
In the back paddock of my hey days
Better than buried by the bedroom door crawling with miniscule dust mites
Sidled up to last decades yellow pages
Better to be read and real
Than devoured by silverfish
Keep putting it out there
So Tracy Chapman says,
How I wish
Someone like her
Would sing so much
For one like me.
Enough rhythm in pounding heart beats
Substantial originality
To fuse a lyric or two to it
I want to write a song
It’s how I'll know
Whether she'll be -
Muse or siren?
Found in time or sea?
Call me...

Library woman
Where are you?
Hidden between etymology
And French architecture
Eating a cream bun?
Licking tips of fingers
Before each page flick
Looking busy on covert
Sweet craving break
One Friday afternoon...
Longing for weekend
Slipped between sheets
Frolicking tales
Ensconced in dreams

A tattoo
On my face
It gets me in
To some places
While others
Thrown out
Walking the streets
Some stare obligingly
Others look away

Just look upon the face
Of the one you love
Whether warm, soft, kissable
A cold screen digital
Or black and white frame
Tell me how
In many ways
Over seemingly endless days
Though memory, pixels, ink
Lost or faded
Throb of the heart only grows
Stronger each day

Climbing Sundew, Drosera planchonii, the bridal rainbow.