I don't need to taste the salt
to know it is bitter. Restless
rings on emaciated fingers,
                  jungle foliage in
          increasing shapes of
                                   doing.

What am I doing?

Thousands of words
            are written on every
single day. Millions
           of sentences spoken
in a million different
            ways. Still nothing
sticks like glue to
              the fabrication of
                         supposing.

I am one dot on a
       blank piece of paper,
one mark in a
                jangled box of
                   wasted sand.

Underneath my feet
       lies the grovelling ground.
Above my head the
             lives the growling sky.
Between the two, that
                is where I surround
myself with the gauze
    of mischief and malignancy.

I do stand, but only roughly.

Swaying branches open like
                falling stars and so I
keep the green light
      blinking. One day, maybe
even tomorrow, I can taste
             the salt and comment
on how sweet it has become.

Oh my love, how I miss your morning smile,
That once so pleasured my tedious long day.
Each word spoken by you a pleasant style,
Of twittering grace and luminous sway.
In all the words we spoke to the other,
None pleased such as words spoken for our love.
Each word so gentle, one after another,
Which caressed me as soft as silken glove.
But these are just shaking old memories,
Of visions so easily pushed aside.
Images that seek warm affinity,
Of other words which denied our divide.

These are my steady pictures of your eyes
Which held me focused on you as my prize.

I walked naked into a cloud
That floated playfully upon the hill.
I was alone, there was not a crowd,
Upon the place of emptiness unfulfilled.
In silence I placed my wandering feet
Firmly upon the ground of defeat.

The waves of voices were far away,
For I could not hear them in this place.
I was content to be isolated in this way,
Perfectly alone without one angry face.
In solitude I opened my thoughts
To memories of pain that was brought.

I see now with mind so absolutely clear
The pattern of twilight that played so free;
The lost passion for life once held so dear.
I shivered with open eyes in winter breeze,
On this hill where the cloud surrounded me.
For this place was now where I would be.

I let the air perfectly entrap my mind,
My naked heart open in the pain it caught.
I will flee the hurt that has been defined,
And rush uncertainly into prisms of thought.
I walked naked into a cloud
Where whatever I wanted was allowed.

The boy dreamt of his father,

Between boys and men such
impossible expectations,
joyful boys with rumpled
hair crying for attention
Heart bursting to be
            the little man.

'Daddy, look at me, I am just like you'

Men slipping away their emotional
core, resisting temptation to display
the love they have for their boys.
Holding fast to important things,
to work and career, making money
and cutting the grass. Taking care
                       of things, like a man.

'Daddy, look at me, I am just like you'


Such distance between boys and men,
flowers grow faster than emotions.
Expectations and demands, alliances
and situations to be addressed.
Locker room jokes, tenderly
pretending feelings are for
'sissies'. Rugged role playing,
modelling behaviour of the
       tipped arrow of society.

'Daddy, look at me, I am just like you'

Things have changed, they will tell you.
Men can feel now. But we men, we
know the truth. The stereotype is
      still pervasive and controlling.

A man must be strong.
A man must be brave.
A man must not love unless
                    he is getting laid.

'Daddy, look at me, I am just like you'

'Daddy, were you ever scared and alone like me? '