“I was waiting for you birthday”,
He took off his ring…and walked away,
Well,
Dramatic!
Well planned,
Touche!
I wouldn’t invite you anyway!
It’s all about you,
What you want,
What you own,
I guess I’ve always been alone.
BLCostello©2025

His list is long— as he pauses on life
and Mount Wellington's shadows shift.
Those stealing life's song out of young shoots
breathe the longest
while his beloved dies young.

Scars bleed droplets, not gushing
like Cataract Gorge
when scratched, or touched afresh;
not given space—
how he was stung is remembered.

He tries to be the sunrise
over Bruny Island,
but redback spiders imbibe shadows
lying dormant
assessing risk, ready to strike.

Wounds murmur in the Tamar River
objecting, having heard it all,
wearing down joy's clouded lightness.
Rasping scrubwrens warn
while falsity sharpens its spike.

Flattery's forked tongue is honeyed
as leatherwood, but synthetic—
He resists its bait, casting it past the Derwent;
his skin crawling at false charm.
He retains his grounded sense of self.

Time doesn't wipe it all clean to heal—
it calcifies into chilled stone
like Cradle Mountain's fissured misted face
with sticks of pine trees burnt
while eucalypt gums regenerate, partially blind.

His garden grows wild now
through rambling cracks
as grasses from a cemetery head-piece
sport defiant blooms
of an unaccepted genus.

Memory is a compass
pointing due north
past Port Arthur's harried walls
and Antarctic gales
as tales of unfinished lives see, and wait—

begin this life in a wordy
but wordly habit, daily,
father-gifted, though different,
in form and language selected,
‘tis the one and ‘tis the same

tally, a counting combination
of all that has been done, for both
better & worse, blessing/curse,
the key: revamp review reset
this day upcoming and welcome
all the major tasks, minor miracles,
that one can effect,  select, elect!
by choice, a freedom so great it
tenderly rips joy thoroughly into
and from my cells, and my body
is enlightened, uplifted in this,
now a preposition, a conjugation, a

state of composition,

for the tasks given, the granted,
those that must be taken, those most
difficult, when knowing their choice,
entails pain, untempered, and
requires establishing a two edged
position of composure…

this is a hard and an easy
new proposition I create,
hard for I write on a tiny
phone screen, in letters so
small. it keeps me humbled,
a reminder of having
lived a span well
beyond belief,
for one took\gave body a
careless comfort,
giving little
of the differring
kind of nutrition in order
to live life, well and purposed

hard too, for my body has wept,
a steady stream of silent tears.
unceasing as I scribe,
making vision difficult, the
insight salty but clear and the
words contained within them,
flood for easy laying-down

for this AM workout of counting,
lists up and down, so many items,
of differring nature, even now
noticing for the very fitting first time,
the subtle hint within
differring,
for it possesses a doubling
of the enormity, the division
of what has been already
accumulated and what yet,
needs accomplishing, the tally
needy for resolving looking past,
for seeing with yet more tears
fast-as-you-can-forward

the tally never ends, paused only
for a quick question/happy deletion
of, and a resolute immediate, moving on:

Where do I stand,
what is my position?

keep on keeping on,
tallying has no finale,
no sunning/summing up,
for another day
will yet follow,
for you, and
your own
tallying must
goes on, on
and
not even,
nor even,
odd,
when mine,
mine no long,
and the
and yets,
no longer
commence

When God wrote me, she didn't write a cog —
as I was knit together in the womb —
a brass serrated wheel, escarpment tooth,
or part of the machine that moves the wealth,
of poor exploited people to the rich.

She did not see a lever in the church
a fulcrum in doctrinal power play:
preside at Masses - tick; play nicely- tock;
and lead the parish council meetings- clunk;
then grow the paying congregation – thunk.

She painted me a seed, organic, whole,
to grow in a lush forest, green and tall,
a tree to crack the strong foundation stone:
I'll smash the rock and sow a Kingdom’s germ.