here in the little wee hours
on the night so cold
my toes ache
i sit pondering
life and such
by the light
of fire and tablet

wrapped in blanket
threaded with memories
i think nonsense and ingenuity
and watch cinders fly

on the hearth the dog and cat slumber
wrapped around each other pretzel-like
defying with casual snores,
both physics and laws of natural enmity.
there is an ease to their bromance
that both confounds and humours me

behind me spreading on the couch
like slow(very slow) moving lava is
the surf god, encased in flannel and ugg
he gargles breathe like an old Harley
soon I will escort him to bed and leave
him to the embrace of his new lover
Madame Cpap...and they can share
a night of slumber in a wind tunnel
then in the morning , he is mine once more

the golden boy sleeps elsewhere tonight
having come into the season of sleepovers
he resides in a tent,  in a bedroom
half a suburb away ,oblivious to
the sound of stretching apron strings
he too shall return to me tomorrow
older and with new cultural references
to share with his increasingly
dim witted parents

for now, in the wee hours
i stare at the cinders
and see the old man as younger
and the boy as babe
as my toes ache
and my eyes leak
just a tad....

paul kelly telling yarns
in the background,
harmonica and guitar

vista: spring hopeful
as a large butterfly
scads on by

temperature a perfect mix
of balmy and zephyr breeze

on that breeze the salt and coconut
foretelling summertime glories

condensation pearls, then rolls gently
down the glass of my g&t

the remnants of a crab and prawn roll
lay on the indgo blue plate, like art abstract

a single tear slides down my cheek
as I acknowledge it is one more year

happy birthday ....dear departed you

miles mean nothing to a heart that is pure
words penned in grace, sent to ether
give heartease to the overstretched
sowing stiches of understanding
in tapestry threadbare

little suns and stars
shining bright in love and hope
from face unseen and adirondack chair
gives strength to one down, from down under
allows grief, the words needed the abilty to care
for these simple gifts, no payment required
from the heart open to care...

age screams
not so silently
back, carrying
burdens
have caused
muscle to seize

every step
measured
every movement
silent movie slow

inflamed muscles
hiss and growl
as I inch to and fro

yearn,
to be
horizontal,
alone
to
realign
but
no
off to
work
I go
......
heat pack
my solace
time my foe

you are the last of
this years frangipani bloom's
the wide green leaves
of your tree,  are already curling
grey brown upon themselves
to drop dry and rattling to the path
leaving the wrinkle of dead man's fingers
to winter alone

but you are the tree's
final salutation, one last hurrah
waxed cream and butter beauties
that you are....

summers kiss, happiness in
one bloom,  your esscense
fills the room with sunshine and grace.

now you scant few are the last
of the frangipani bliss
you are as the night grows cold.
as the days grow shorter
the last zephyrs  of  fragrance
whispering fond farewells

you are summer's last kiss
one of  gentle memories
blown about by summer's breathe

~for better days for the poet betterdays~

mournful tunes play silently, but still too often,
eyes wet but in corners kept, recurring then the
memories, keepsakes, letters, books, small trinkets,
not dusty, but dusky, resting on in-between ledge of a
mountain-sized twilight of well lit shadowy haziness,
edgy dark brilliance, a comprehensible contrast non-comprehendible

tunes that bless with equal measures of grief,
comforting, by memorable card flashes of good relief,
a dividing line, hazy and frequented crossed, a sort of path,
with no destination signaled, as if the path itself was an end,
to a meaning, a solution, with no clarity divined, a division
of sight and insight, providing an ill fitting reconciliation

mourning is electric, morning is electric,
letters, words bottled up in evaporating perfume bottles,
seeking the comfort of dissipation unto a larger atmosphere,
the scent in everything tangible, stronger still yet, in intangibles
that can erode but never ever fail to return instantly when voked,
by vision, odor, a particular child’s smile, line in a poem volunteered

recovered, uncovered, a post first writ to be written, discovered,
when time and place coincidentally breathe together, at last,
beckoning you to places where memory serves only as a pleasuring,
upright mind marker, decorated in chains perpetual reforging,
absent pain, gleaming dreamings full-replacing longings for pasts,
new verses composed, passing, a grand addition to a child’s legacy

he stood leaning against the frame
neither in or out but on the threshold
partly in shadow, partly in relief
like a masters painting
all angles and shade