Rapping at my window,
Tracking in mud —
Allowing a draft to enter
My four walls.
Who is that knocking on my door?
A wordless whisper accompanies your sightless gaze
With a ***** essence following.
Who let you in?

I'll tell you all about it when you awake —
How the brilliant bees buzzed as they rested on your
Birds of paradise and hummed a happy tune alongside
The brightly shining beams of radiance,
And the scent of sweetness resonating from
Your hive which filled my nostrils.
I'll make sure to tell you all of it —
And I won't skip a single detail.

But I cannot remember the last time
Mine had come true.

I met a woman at a bus stop once.
She sat next to me, which I, being a teenage boy in a school uniform, found peculiar
As that sort of image usually acts as a repellent for kind-looking individuals.
Though, I was glad, and promptly shuffled over.
As she sat, she began to speak to me, and her lips pursed and carefully let out each syllable with such care,
As though every sound she produced meant something special - something beyond the confines of the English language.
I recall her introduction, as she looked to me and smiled;
'Hi, I'm Joanne, and you?'
Without thinking, I shook her hand and we began chatting.
At this point, the bus was probably thirty minutes away, and we knew this conversation had an obvious expiry date.
Joanne then spoke of her husband, who had recently lost a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer,
And made what I initially thought to be a mundane passing comment, as she noted that I resembled him —
Though, I had no reason to inquire as I was hardly in a position to request information about a strangers deceased husband.
As she continued, she repeated a phrase which she said her husband used to often ramble:
'Another day in paradise', and smiled each time.
At the time, I never understood the four words she had said again and again, and I questioned what she had meant by it.
Even now, writing this, I struggle to comprehend what one could infer from such a vague phrase.
Though, the answer seemed much clearer as our conversation approached its inevitable end,
And Joanne once more commented on how my hair fell to the side much like her husband's.
As the bus sluggishly made its way to the stop in front of me,
Joanne stood, with the blinding sun above illuminating her and the blackest black shadow below her,
As she said farewell, echoed the phrase one last time, and walked to the
Bus stop across the road, and took a seat.

A room full of amber is new to me.
So is the presence of another —
For I feel o so out of place here;
Wherever here may be.
But an air of unfamiliarity is nothing new
To one as old as I —
A traveler of face and place.
A thousand patricians sing a song of Old World fame with lips wide.
Still, I am unaware of this place and nameless face I bear.
I am evidently not from around here - or so I'm told, as strangers watch on
With glazed eyes and indistinguishable faces that silently scream, begging for my removal.
An unwelcome guest to a backwards land of the final ring.
To which I submit.

An emerald stretch of well-trimmed lawn survives amongst the surrounding hill side.
Despite an evident contrast of greens and the dreary wheat-coloured plains,
The self-contained lawn remains indifferent.

What causes this?
Arguably the greatest tragedy one can observe —
Amidst cigarettes, grog and gum sits a bouquet of
Freesias intertwined with blossoming buttercups which illuminate the murky can.
But why?
The scent of faeces now stains the bright bunch of flora,
As the once shining ribbon of gold takes on the foul sheen of the ramshackle can,
And now, I ponder how one can do this.
I ponder how you could do this —
To me.