Eve

Won't you meet me
On New Year's Eve
At Nine O'Clock
At the compass rose

Tell me things
About your past
Lead me to wherever
You're going

Take us away
From place of Princes
Down the green
To the waters edge

Where sun and moon
Both kiss the water
As they rise
To greet you
Battery Point, lutruwita / Tasmania

Book Fetish

Under covers 
Slide between sheets
Fingers fondle
Turn a new leaf

Entering into
Worlds unseen
Stars in eyes
Hold and breathe

Drama unfolding
Pushing bounds
Reality dissolves
Dreams are found

Singers bellow
Dancers twirl
Look no further
Bookish girls

Inner space

It's too easy to erase
The space an other takes
No place to call home
No favourite dates

Though in absentia
Loved ones grow
Disproportionate to
Size in life

Taking up thought waves
Morning and night
Sitting snugly beside
On a Saturday night

Saving a seat next to
Chair held by arm
As if waiting for you
To return from the bar

Favourite moments play
Like a love song on repeat
Willing me to believe
Wholeheartedly

Despite not seeing
Feeling or holding
Perfume drifting
Evoking sense bodily

Love is real
“Attic Red Figure Lekythos, 480-470BC. Ceramic container for perfume or oil. Nike (Victory) with a vase, a prize for a contest.

John Elliot Museum, University of Tasmania.

Southern Cross

To bear
Not to blame
Open the gates
Running away
Pointing star
Toward the void
Seemingly endless
Space between us
In the silence
Flag flying
Falls and furls
To the ground
Fences down
She crosses over
Settlers land
Like she always did
On Bruny Island
Feet tread lightly
Lately leaders
Learn to follow
Across fallow fields
On her heels
Cotton wool covering
Envelopes the sky
Carpeted canopy
Of green lay over
Caress of waves lap
At the edges
This is her land
Forever

Clear felling

Life abounds left untouched
For decades rooming in
Nesting, burrowing, preening, pruning
Delighting in bush tucker

With no prior warning
Clear felling takes usunder
Genocide of species
No tree left unturned

Burned to oblivion
Black scar spurned
Picked over by predators
Fossicking through ferns

Determined to rebound
Fungi lost and found
Micro beasts set to work
Turning the earth

Vacant lot staring up sky
No export market to comply
Left in capable hands
Nature covers over land

Blanketing beautifully
Eventually dew drops in
Visitors feel no borders
Spreading seeds at whim

Miniature florist fills
Forest floor with more
Delicious delicacies
Eyes to explore

Flying ducks and frills
Tongues, spots and stars
Undercurrent flowing through
Streams of life here found

Humble paws and pouches
Habitable homely holes
Decide upon return
Once grand statured poles

Neighbourly relations
Diverse as land is wide
Chatter friendly company
Muster side by side
Wombat at Bonorong Wildlife Rescue, lutruwita / Tasmania, Australia.

Bane of indifference

Apathy betrays me on regular bases
So long steaming upriver
Now tidal flow pushes back
Downstream to ocean
Where were we going
Into heart of darkness?
Comrades join in singing
Whistling through evergreen
Sleepy villages lie
Smoking signals
Green leaf envy
Flying high the sos
Invisible by night
Jungle hearth glows bright
Still no competing
With our cumulative
Night lights
No spreading of anything
When living beyond
The fringe of existence
Life abounds on the edges
A catalyst for hiding minds
To grow and light fires
Just to stay alive
This is the way to meditate
With a flicker in the eye