Rise from the prayer mat
Leave the cold church stones to their obstinate disgust
Forgo the supplications
Dispense with the incense and the miserly begging bowl
Let the flowers remain uncut in the fields
And breathe
You are good enough


Stand solitary and unguarded in the bruised velvet night
Drenched in shadow
And looking up at the splendour
Allow the stars to burn their cosmic recipes into your tired sedated soul
Then smash your heart’s fragile casing and watch its gleaming centre hemorrhage all over the rest of your life
And breathe
You are good enough



Make music on a gentle day
And on those swamped by tempests add the passion
Dance without once looking at your feet
Grow careless with happiness
Grow carefree with pain
Swim naked
Burn the masks
And breathe
You are good enough

Take risks without thinking
Love ardently where love falls
Be it seconds or epochs
Be it willing or wrenched
Erupt with laughter when they taunt you
Be your power
And breathe
You are good enough




Shatter the mottled looking glass
And adorn yourself in comfort
As furtive fractious glances crave your happy easy toes
Demand of none complete devotion
Destroy the ticking timepiece
Embrace mortality with welcome
And breathe
You are good enough

(mish 2017)

Dance with me
When everyone has gone
When the musicians have wearied
And the pantomime’s faded
Dance with me then

Dance with me
To a remembered melody
In a stillness without silence
With a touch lacking virtue
Dance with me

Dance with me
Barefoot
On dew-kissed grass
No burdening glances
No judgments with their feet of clay

Dance with me
With a step so light
That we glide the water’s surface
Doing a better job of it than Jesus
Dance with me so

Dance with me
When all the words have dried up
When the next step heralds the abyss
When the next breath
Shall vanish memory
As swiftly as a fading cloud
Dance with me
When the moon is complete
Dance with me…
Dance with me now

(mish 2016)

Here is a riddle to be woven into dreams:
Why do blossoms hold their perfume
Now that love has lost its bearing
And fear dons its corona at the helm of all we’ve lost?
Why do birds compose new melodies to acclaim the toil of tempests that make dragon roars seem nothing more than flickers in the wind?
Why do stars still dance fandangos as the world erupts in anguish?
Why do crickets hum their lullabies despite Hiroshima rains?
Why do dawns insist on painting skies the colours of Matisse?
Why does music hold the key to any magic that remains?
For you and I my love
For you and I
For you and I

(mish 2017)

I dreamed a dream of glory
That I’d reached the mountain’s summit
With the fears of the ignorant a fading, threadbare backdrop

And I rested with the hush of innocence
Basking in the garden of Hesperides reborn
In harmony with the nymphs of sunset

The atmosphere was steeped in a fragrant peace
And Ladon the dragon was sincerity and sound embrace

Reaching warily, I plucked a golden apple from a blushing perfumed branch
Its juice was tangy, its flesh sweet radiance
My eyes saw clearly and my heart filled with joy
And my mind awakened and I did not die
The tree of knowledge had laid bare its timeless secret: god is a liar.

(mish 2017)

I want to laugh at the funeral
I want to sing liberty songs instead of hymns and feel the relief
Feel the release
From worry
From pain
From rules

I want also to cry at the loss of the pleasures
That too would hold permit

But they were only momentary wisps
Fleeting, succulent diversions

The pain was the constant
The heartache...
The fear, unrelenting

The love was magnificent

The risk...
The taboos were the sweetest
What we got away with together!

The love was magnificent

I want to cry with laughter
I want to miss you like breath
I want no-one to replace you

The love was magnificent

(mish 2018)

I sit to write a poem of you
Yet today such an undertaking seems pointless
Seems beyond words
For here you are warm and true and broken with pain most days yet still able to make me laugh
Here you are with strength enough to bandage me between your arms and whisper ‘don’t fret…it will be OK’
Murmured with such loving conviction that I believe you
You tell me ‘One heart…you and me…one heart’ and I fall innocently into an aged sleep and wake again to the unplumbed sparkle of your eyes and the realization that my heart does not hurt anymore
Here you are the brimming evidence of simple human kindness
Here you are the poem beyond words

(mish 2017)

I said ‘I love, I do’ with hand on heart and limpid distant gaze
‘It’s true’
She said ‘Then go collect the waters of the oceans and the rivers and all the clouds that ever were and ever are to be
And all the tears
(Just say that can be done, said she)
And pour them on hell’s bonfire till every cruel flame is quenched
And with your magic salve in hand anoint the burns of all the wretched souls so callously imprisoned there
And friendly shake the Devil’s hand devoid of every fear and welcome him with warmth to tea
Then tell me that you love and I’ll believe you’
(mish 2016)

Tell me again about your memories of us
Of the loveliness-es and the honour and the courage
Of how you found me
And how I found you
Tell me now
So it will be branded like hot toffee on the skin
Painful and scalding and sweet
And never to be forgotten


Tell me of what you offered me
Of what I offered you
Of our first shy kiss
Of the warriors we fought
Of the battles we endured and won
Tell me again how all water is the first water
How all rocks are the beginning of creation


Tell me as you hold me like the first time we embraced
Tell me again about your memories of us
Tell me
Because the world is closing in and I’m afraid

(mish 2017)

The morning had been icy. People spoke of an uncommon cold snap and I imagined a large wedge of ice had broken from a distant glacier and was heading our way. The wind agreed.

I found the egg nestled in a pile of steaming leaf debris. Gathering it to me it felt warm and tender, delicate and fragile and easily broken like a curious promise, like a heartbeat before a heartbeat, like love before love.

As I cradled it shyly my rough and work worn hand felt like the finest of silken cushions resting upon which was every real and imagined wonder of the world. And I marveled that on an icy day I’d been granted the task of gifting such a miracle to you.

(mish 2017)

We waited beneath verdant forest veils for the owl to make its entrance
We believed the owl was a sign of wisdom
We believed we were wise for waiting
The others mocked our folly
Saying the owl was a portend of doom
They believed they were wise for warning
We poised our eyes like stealth missiles awaiting target
Attuned our hearing to bat-like frequency
They plugged their ears and slammed their eyes shut loudly like angry lovers making statements
Then came the beating breeze
Then came the rush of feathers
Then came the genius of the oracle’s wisdom
‘Hoot-hoot-hoot’
We reveled in it
They missed it … how sad!

(mish 2016)

Things that I hold dear:
A small silver bell to tie to my tongue in emergencies
A smooth round skipping stone that leads to quiet streams
Yellow galoshes with coin studded soles that click watery rhythms on rainy afternoons
A set of keys without doors
An out-sized faded beach umbrella found abandoned on a vacant lot miles from any ocean and worlds away from golden sands yet with strength enough remaining  to ferry several Mary
Poppins-es, with pockets full of sugar, to their varied destinations.
Lost rivers
Calendars that only predict numbers
A quiet pen
Vanishing cream
You
You
You

(mish 2018)