Adventurer, my adventurling,
Wandering the wild woods of newness,
Fern fresh. Smells unknown
To a nose
That knows nothing of wet leaves
And undergrowth,
Mulch that dampens in the rain,
Mossed rock soppy and soaked
With age.
Novice to the backpack, outback,
Untracked tracks on unspoiled paths.
****** to the bluest eyes
Cut softly, gently, waterly
By lakes of mountains,
Lakes of skies.
Mirror to the heavens
The untrodden, barren, open wasteland full of light.
Touch toes to ancient rocks,
Reach hands to ancient stars
And know, that as old and wandered
As you are,
They will always be new.

I loved his hands
Not too big
Not too small
Just right
And fitted on my hip
That splendorous press
In the small of my back
When he wanted me close

I loved his eyes
That darkly gaze of
Auborn
All full up with the passion
And persuasion
That could make me
Doing anything
The toe tingling
Look or heat
When he turned
That gaze
To mine.

I loved his lips
Rough
And wicked
On my skin.
That purse
Of soft sinfulness
That pressed my
Own to part with sighs

I loved his laugh
Husky happiness
Unrestraind and deep
That moved me to smile
Brightest.
Joined in joyous
Inside jokes
That lingered dimply
In his cheeks.

I loved his heart
The steady thrum
When pressed ear
To his chest
That secret space
Of blood and ache
That he gave me access to
I loved it all


But I
did not
love him.

Are we the same
Souls similarly soaked with sadness
Weighted down with woes and worries
Whittled away to outlines
Ill defined
Against a back drop of finality

Leave me lover,
Like autumn leaves
The trees that have
Burnt for its beauty,
Blind to their
Nakedness
When all the fires
Have burnt out.

Always there;
Spun silver on peach,
Leaking little agonies
That even with the itching
Never heal.

Bless you, beautiful
How can you not
know your namesake?
Shaken by throw away words
From those
Who do not know your worth.

She could blow away,
Burnt to blurry ashen pieces
Of limbs cindered to smoke,
Bespoke pain for a
Place of her own making.

She could sink behind the skyline,
Bleeding death to
A time when she was solid,
And she and the sky
Were definitively separate.
That time when she could cry
And clouds could rain.

But now their tears fall the same
And she is blown away.

The air always smelled like cigarettes
And burnt denim,
Ripped and frayed
sitting on sharp hips
Tipped with attitude.

Our palms, always the color of dirt
Pressed against green glass
As we tipped,
laughed throatily at
The burn in our chests.

Our smiles always shined
Glossed lips turned up
With naive knowing
Sure shoulder shrugs
To hide the blush
Of falling behind.

Our voices were always loud
Looong syllables
Sang with solemn vows
Of seeing all our promises
Through to the end
Never bending
Against the break of the world.

Our sight was always far
Squinting at the sun-soaked unseen
Flicking cigarette butts
With perfect aim,
Watching the red smoulder
Flippant with the thought
That we would be the same,
never going out.

Have you ever heard
Burnt words
Blown away?
Those merry syllables
Smoke the air
And they're everywhere.

Those, those are the truths
Heaven bound and unused
Settling in the clouds
Just to bleed
Out and drown
All the fools
That were deaf to
Their sound.

'But I can't fly'
Said the
Buttetfly-to-be.
'Oh my dear,
One day you will
And you'll do it
Beautifully'.

I fear the finality
Of everything.
So nothing
Ever begins.

Forgive me.
The world is busy,
stormed with shards of uncertainty
that razor at the ropes of sanity,
till only frays remain, stumped at my thumb,
light in my grip.
Its times like these that I sink;
Kind faces become blurry blobs of expectation,
Waiting hands are impatient in their skin,
Opening and closing with the clasping closeness that feels choking.
I am smothered by the too much
and bury my head beneath the deluge.
The quagmire blots my ears,
Muffles the movements
All the sounds of all the somethings
going about the day.
In the ignorance I remain saved,
Every thought just about intelligible
Every feeling a negligible waver on this frequency.
Forgive me, hold me accountable for the hurt that I cause.
But the world is busy
And all I crave is quiet.

I love those lines that whisper happiness
That speak of dimpled cheeks
And all the time you've passed
Loving and laughing
With me.

What line can
I draw
Where I dont want
You anymore
Let me stand behind it
Because missing you
Is too painful
To endure.

He had the echo of the wind about him
Wild with the freeness of never
Being tethered to anything.
He disturbed the calm trees
Bustled about their leaves
With some restless frenzy
That knocked their white blossoms
And trod them in the earth.
He knew nothing of the hurt
All the hopeless bareness of their branches
Split and splintered before chance
Could have them grow and splay
Into shoots,
new and green with a
Respectable pride to their name.
How their babes would wail the loneliness
As he breezed on,
Head never turned
And never concerned with going back
The way hed gone.

The path is the same;
Same crisscross of black
And churned up river bed,
The crash of the trees
And distant symphonies
Of trains, of traffic,
As I take each step.

Booted feet shine with dew
And I think of you.

Was it here? This patch?
This green and yellow halo
Shines dully, idly
And I think I can see that night.
Not like its clear
Or that you're here,
A mirage of some other you
Some other me.

They're echoes,
They shout beneath the bridge
Scream up at the bricks
And let it echo
Echo.

That other me
Stranger in this suit of now
Did love and laugh
And cling,
Every little thing was kept
Even worthless poetry,
Those naive ode's to love.

I remember it was cold
And I was slimmer, thinner,
Cut away and wispy
In the chill.
And you,
Were you.
I probably don't know you now
And never will.
Our worlds are fleeting
Changing like seasons
And in cliche frays get
Blown into non-existance.

A stranger promised
And clung
And wept.

But I am now
Fitted and anchored
Not melancholy
And melodramatic,
Whimsical of a time
That I rhymed
In a desperate attempt
At the nostalgic.

That was then
And I'm not yours.
Not anymore.

My epiphanies never last
Rising and popping like bubbles in a glass
Frequently falling flat
No real form for all their fizz.

Everything is small today
Closed in
And choking.
Walls are built
From judging gazes
And doors
Are fumbled to lock
Through fear.
My fear
The only certainty I
Own today
It is the spaces of my mind
Is the beat in my chest
The twist in my gut
And all the dust that settles
On the stuff
I no longer think I love.
I cant look at them
Happier in their times of health
I feel like a ***** among them
Stranger bent and twisted
They wonder why i visited
At all
If i cannot stand to smile.
What is that
My lips are downturned hurt
And muscles ache
With the strain
Of keeping it together
If i should loosen my hold
Just for one toothy lie,
The i should fly apart
Around the sadness
Then who would clean up
That mess?

Glassy morn
Glimmer at me
Fill my lungs
Aftesh
With freshest air
Delightful and dewy
Mark me with your
Cold sun
And breathe
My breath
To clouds.

Heard her heart through the screen
And all the tabloids deemed
Worth enough to smear beneath her name.
Headlined and underlined,
Saw that sadness in her eyes
Long before it wore away her smile

Grace is freely gifted
To those good enough to find her
And though they tried their hardest
I fear they never spied her.

I see the world horizontally,
Soft sheets all stuffy
With potential hardly realised.
My eyes, heavy and unhappy,
Are blinded by the muted sunshine
Mocking me through the blinds.
The hum of life,
Doing fine just outside the window,
I feel its energy,
Almost laugh at its impossibility.

Because I bear the world brutally,
Confined and coffin-ed
In an ache that leaves no stain.
Lady Macbeth,
My crime is wept on evidence of
unliving,
Those shrines of *******
Laid to rest around the head
Of this tomb effigy,
Chronically enshrined in invisible agony
While the world just carries on.

It doesnt fit
Theres an itch,
like a wrong suit and I'm pulling at the sleeves
To relieve the wrong ness,
Because it shouldn't hurt this much.
It shouldn't look like hand me downs and disaster,
like patches and a picked at lack-lustre lie
But it is, and I sit in it like the youngest.
Not my style, not my choice
Not my face or how I feel
This unrealness is someone else's.
The pattern is loud, proud of its garish
Flambouyance, as it shows off the ache
The geometric shape of my sharpness
Against the soft of sad
How it frames the sag around my shoulders.
If only I were older,
And time could take in the waist
Sew the hems and make
Me fit
Somehow this is my skin
How am I supposed to wear it?

You're no longer here
But my footsteps
Ring with your laughter
And all the things
I wanted to say
After you'd gone.

She wanted to travel
Unravel the world
Like famous explorers
Who's wandering was all the will to ask
If there was anything beyond the horizon
That they could see.

Now shes everywhere -

Frozen stare, pigtails and grey red uniform,
Tie needling south with the straightness of a compass
And shes lost.

Where is she?
Everywhere anyone turns
Trapped in the undergrowth
Where cans and cat **** go to pasture
Her wrinkled smile
Is caked onto the branches
Paper machet - ed and as brittle
As an old map.
She breaks apart like bread crumbs
That will never lead her home.

Have you seen her?
Not tumble weeding her news
Across the m2
Or pinned to a lamppost
Weeping her ink into the missing
like a watercolour.

Have you spied her?
Not tied with weak ribbon
to brown stalks who's little
Notes speak of hope
And other things, like Angel's and innocence,
The innocence shes frozen in.

Can you find her?
Not hopefully
Flying her flag of the forgotten
On the tv
Budget crew
Remaking her last seen
With shaking cameras
And discount queens of the smaller screen
Hoping for Hollywood.

Is there a tangible
Left to her name
Thrown as it has been across
State lines, and small places
That only the locals know.
She has Columbus - ed the globe
And she only left home
Walked down her drive
And disappeared.

Every hurt has its hopes;
Drops of sun
That soak
Through the raindrops.

How the earth forgets;
Muddy trench bled to green,
Blood bloomed to blossoms
Fragrant with dreams,
Deaf to screams and unaccustomed
To the sudden end -
Theirs is the slow droopy sleep
Of going away,
Settling on graves of bedded leaves
And mossy softness,
No scars or sharpness,
No squeals and sirens and sadness.
Their grief bittersweet, as lovely as willows weep.

How the earth forgets
Turns wincingly from the messy madness
That dug with gnarly fingers
And crushed with heavy blows.
All exposed and bleeding
Roots cut like tendons and teeming life
Extinguished
How it let's it leak away,
a slow tomorrow always softening the soil,
Always knitting at the wounds
Till the abused and beaten
Rises in the aftermath
And no trace remains,
No stain
Only the beautiful shaking off of yesterday
And all of its mistakes

Could we convince our scars
That the world isn't sharp,
That it means no harm?

The wrong, as always, was the right for us,
tainted trust stained with the blood
of our previous victims;
those whims of wondering what loving touch could feel like.
It burnt us, softened us to smoke,
that floated quiet out the door before dawn could break the news
and break the illusion.

We were loners,
Devoted to laying the stones of our own path,
Never held back tangles of commitment.
Without them we were untethered dreams
that broke into reality and made ourselves the monarchs
of our lowley, lonely kingdoms.

Look what those whims
have done to our crowns;
Rusty and bent they fall hapless
on our heads as we stand before
crowds of shadows cast by our egos.

There are no romances, no capes,
Princes or heroes in this land of the leftovers.
Only us
The wrong adorned as right
The deniers of the light of love
(That weakness of giving in and giving all).
How cold it all becomes when our dreams are big
but hearts are empty.

I see the ones
who don't see anyone.
Their skin is as fragile as the pages in an old book
and they look at me with eyes that have read it all,
seen it all
and are still scared.
I know their loved ones;
the worried fingers
that lace and unlace
as they stare a hole in the space between their shoes,
unused to the barriers,
fighting every instinct just to keep dear ones safe.
When I grace their bedside,
adjust the pillows behind their heads, I think;
every touch is their touch -
the ones that can't be close -
reaching through closed doors.
Every look is their look.
Every word of comfort are words those loved ones would say.
I hope they know,
and I pray they are
no longer alone.

In every sense I'm a spirit
Slipped of human substance,
Settled like dust
On all this that must
Have once given me life.

I miss you
In the way lovers used to love
- Urgent, daring,
Desiring more than
Just touch.

She was the moonlight
Pewter sprite that tiptoed the world
And never made an impression.
Lunar and light,
Dappling, dreamily across the surface
Never sinking, always glittering and glorious.
Though the sea roared
Monstrous and mean, jaggedly reaching
Greedily for her feet,
She was out of reach,
Lovingly lifted to where
she was always meant to be.

You made me soft;
A Marshmallow drop that melted sweetness,
and tasted like nostalgia on your tongue
In that place where camps fires smoked and we smouldered,
Orange with a glow
that crackled envy,
I saw forever in those flames.
Just a little tiny taste of eternity
Reaching for me, as I reached for you.
I curled and crisped,
Dribbled into that abyss
and bubbled up in the heat.

The tang tastes of fright
Coppery like the penny-worth
Of thoughts from those that spy us
Leering long looks
At the guts and gleeful guzzling
Of poor beast that was beating
The earth with free hoofs
And eyes large, white-ringed brown;
That sight that had us
hunkering and chuckling.

Beneath the ****** rueful moon
We must look a site,
High and dizzy with that leaking
Lifeforce that warms the cold away.
Blue with the rays
And red with the crime,
Caught shame faced as it dribbles
Down our chin and into the dirt.

"You look different,"
He said.
"Oh that,"
Knowing smile,
Taunting tip of head,
"It's because I'm happy."

Assume what you will of me
Stooped readily to clear your debris
Palms redly scoured of identity
Dipped in and out of buckets
Craggy with pervasive patterns
That spell the same words
Uninteresting,
Invisible
No more than the sum of a bubble
Popped into nothingness.
Wiped off, wiped away from thought
As easy as I remove stains.

See what you will in me;
Waste of ability,
All paralysed potential
Settling lazily
Into that dreary pit of existance.
There will be no insistance for judgement
On my part.
My essence remains in my chest,
Treasured yet and shone
For those who care to value it.
For their delicate hands it will always open
Because it has never been locked.

Every miniscule molecule
I make mine
Meanders from,
Mightily moving mountains,
To meekly maintaining mounds.
From harmlessly heeding horizons,
To heroically holding off hounds.

Perfumed bedsheets,
Canvas the colour of her smile;
They'd become a cliche,
But he found
Even that
Was a masterpiece.

Clay baked, brown, red and white
In white hot heat
Points to sky, raincloud free
And sinking off into the hills
It goes on and high.
Weak legs on strong lines
Chalked toes and dry mouths,
Breaking their belief
Shattering the smitherins into the atmosphere
In hope the gods will weep.

Words sear a trails down my spine
Wet lipped, rose buds ready to bloom
With the shivering reality
Of how much I want her.
One sweet kiss and I'm gone
Head tipped back
Her name rasps through my throat
A chorus of adoration,
A raw of exultation that commands
Her not to stop.
But shes cheeky smiled
And glint eyed.
Gazes meeting across my body
And I'm flushed with feeling
Too exquisite to explain.
My thighs quiver
And she sinks between them,
And spells I love you
With her tongue.
I'm gone
Screaming yes
Because I could never say no
To her.

New name
He speaks it like a new taste
Repetitive,
Reflective,
And I lean in close
To taste it with him.
All our differences,
Nuances,
This is just the same
A carbon copy
Of previous behaviour
But it all feels so new.
Like we were the first,
Threw old names in the dirt
And sheltered under
Our idea of love
Of all it took
To be enough for another.
Me a Mrs
You a Mr
All proud and puffed
With the transition
That was as simple as donning a suit
And stepping out of a dress

I know all about oblivion
Have weaved it into my soul
Made myself whole
With all of its holes

It was a hell of a day
Sun and shade
Chequered your face chess board
And I was checked,
Heady between sips of beer and silent
like the smoke rising from your cigarette.
It burnt ruby, and I thought of jewels
And all the beautiful foolish things
I would buy you,
If we weren't here on a tuesday -
Mid-morning.
The awning weeps weary drops
From the drain that hasn't been cleaned since the place opened.
It has the colour of dark ale,
I stare at the pale in my pint glass,
think of the half a dozen things
responsibilities and togetherness
That could be part of us -
But are sadly too vast for these shoulders.

You hold out the yellowed filter tip
Lined red with the colour on your lips
Messily smeared - like it was done
The night before -
But I'd watch you adorn that ****
With shaking fingers,
Wobbly with all the worries of nothing
And everything.
You shift restless, pale arms stretched
Across flaking bits of bench,
drenched a weak grey by years and years of rain.
I rearrange the ashtray
And you smile at me, gap toothed and tired
Vacant as the breeze just dancing through.

'I'm bored' your voice slurs,
Like the thin trail of wine down your glass,
The redness settles and colours the stem
Colours your teeth.
It'll taste sour if I kiss you,
But I won't. I smoke.
Exhale the burn, blast it to
The clouds that creep across the sky
Lazy like each blink.
The world fades,
Black then bright.
Black the bright.
I think there might be an epiphany in my lungs
That song of something exciting.
It dances with possibility and makes
Me fidget in my seat
Maybe
Might be
Could be
Possibly.
Expectation makes me shrink into my sweater all holes and broken stitches, that itch as I pass you the last bit.
You smoke it, flick it
And all the potential goes with it
'Do you want another drink?'

It all lay in amber
Frozen in its golden heart
lingering lost in the garden -
Sentinel that had stood for all the good
And all the bad of knowing.
He hissed his holy hopes for her
As red and rosy and sweet to taste
As she remembered, sticky on her fingers
And as naked as the day that she was born
From breath.
Tempter and temptress looked one last time
Eyes in line, he among the deadened leaves
Of a deitys dream, she at the gates
Wondered at each others mistakes,
All encased in amber.

Eventually,
It all comes down to pieces,
Bits of people pottery
Left behind in flowerbeds
And dug up
When rough fingers
Work the soil.
Pastly and willowed
Water and war marked
How did you come to break?
What rough egdes met
To wear you to point the blame
Cut and quick to judge,
Vessel that filled with hate
And quickly spent its uselessness
Upon the slabs.

Or did aged shakes
Dislodge you from
Weakened fingers
And bitter tears wash you away
With all the memories
Centuries from the sky?

Perhaps, playfully
You were pinched
Sticky fingers
Stealing childish treaures
Carried from domestic shores
To mystic lands
Of imagination.
Were you blamefully broken
Innocence ending
For the journey back
Indoors?
Press ear to shard
And I can still hear the call

Eventually it all
Comes down to pieces.

Would anybody
Want me
With these wounds
Would they
Find proof of
Life
From the quiet
Beat of my
Blood?

Every jumble of parts that fell together,
all puzzled at their place, are us;
the infintismal small stuff
of dreams and nightmares,
repeated till they've driven us mad
and had us searching for the impossible,
the drifty philosophical queries
of life living and existing.

Ribbons of rainbows tie us in knots,
connect our dots to the gold within us,
mined and shined to shimmer the normality
of community,
as we live and love it with little homes,
picketed and known only to us.
Those green manicured lawns
Where we raise our young and aspire
To be the corner stone or corner piece
The bit that makes up their sky,
So we can do down in history
Without going dusty in a box
Forgotten or lost
As most puzzle pieces are.

Im quixsotically sick
Pining for my pick of the nostalgic.
Ruined stone upon ruined stone
With their merest mutterings
hold more splendour
Than the present,
So absent I become,
Distracted and whimsical
In my love for all I will never see

Palm pressed
To the glassy impression
Of you who would
Steal my likeness.

I may have loved you
In another life
Known eyes bedfellow blue
Vibrant against white sheets
Sapphire
Sparkling
With the afterglow

I may have known you
At another time
Weary hands wrapped
In comfort round
Your cup
As you supped steam
And casual
Dreams that tasted
Like coffee beans
And sugar cubes

I may have lost you
At another place
The lace of our lives
Untying as we pulled apart
No longer heart
To heart
And soul to soul
Two wholes, alone
That once were the full
Of each other

I may have had you
In another life
Let you lightly love me
As I lightly love
The thought
Of us across the past
Whimsical
Wonderful
And always too fragile
To ever last
Forever.