'

Mother, Mother
are you crying?
Come and look,
the roses are dying.

Mother, Mother
I am hungry.
Come and see,
the dishes are piling.

Mother, Mother
I am lonely.
Come and hear,
My heart's key is snapping.

Mother, Mother
are you sleeping?
Come and run,
Let's play in the sun once more.



_ _ ✒
○●
°

Some things weigh more than verse, it’s true,
Like a baby’s cry or a dog’s need to chew.
A kettle’s loud whistle, talk shows that fight,
TikTok trends fading into the night.

Our days are a mix of both bright and the bland,
With meals that we savour and dawn’s gentle hand.
Viral clips flicker, then quickly they fade,
Yet in simple moments, our memories are made.

Through ups and through downs, life’s a wild ride,
With heartbeats and laughter right by our side.
In acts that are simple, our stories unfold,
With love in our lives, the best tales are told.

you'll suffer anything for it,
suffer everything because of it

guitar frets, waiting
no one ever comes around
concert-hall daydreams

talk sick mask
you'll in it bleed
in turn all miss
originally strung
together speaks
well of ill-formed
blossoms in make-
shift flower beds
and never mindful
of implements or
their wielders' hands

it's when you looked my way
and first took notice of me...
that is how I came to be.

Hear, here!
to the part of you
that no longer feels

that secret place
where a rainbow peels;
each colour fading out

then glowing in--
a time and place
where time stands still*



●○
°

when they can't tell
you from a soap bar
yet expect you to be
their defining relationship
that's when you know
you're in a messy affair

quiet rain-kissed bed
dewy blooms of verse caress
tempest shatters peace

poet on the run
pulls a Bachman manoeuvre
forgets all, save self

dawn's early light breaks
ever silently reveals
hope of reunion

would they be 
any less -dead-
if you spelt it D-E-D?




●○
°

a walk down flaming paths
fueled by spawning oceans
dulls bioluminescent sparkles,
momentarily eclipses senses;
waiting for veils to rise up
as breezes begin to blow

“The Cleaving at Devil’s Kitchen”


In Tasman’s throat where the dolerite yawns,
A cleft like a curse, where the sea’s teeth gnaw—
The Devil’s Kitchen, carved by wrath,
Where salt and sorrow share a path.


They say the cliffs remember screams,
Of seals and sharks in tangled dreams,
Of pirates’ bones and devils fed,
Of shrieks that echo from the dead.


The Southern Ocean stirs the ***,
A spectral broth in basalt caught,
Each wave a ladle, each gust a spell,
Each echo tolling like a bell.


Some say the cliffs were cleaved by kin,
Of lines once lost, now drawn within,
And here, where nature rends the stone,
The lore of rupture finds its throne.


A trench of memory, deep and wide,
Where ancestors and ghosts collide,
The wind recites a generation’s name,
Then hurls it back from whence it came.


So if you walk the cliffside track,
And feel the sea wind at your back,
Know this chasm holds more than foam—
It’s where the broken find their home.







.

The street moves beneath us,
shifting without command,
we say we walk freely,
but the road has already been carved.
Someone chose its shape
long before our steps left their weight.

A voice rises, measured, cautious,
another shouts before listening—
the argument swells, ripples outward,
each side gripping their claim
like dry earth clinging to rain.

What if the road is neither theirs nor ours?
What if we pull too hard,
and the thread between us frays?

This world tilts in fractions,
some lean into history,
others push toward tomorrow—
the balance flickers,
a candle resisting the wind.

580 may be a random number
meaning less to you than
to the keeper of our data
yet to one who easily bruises
beneath its title every line
reveals secrets of a greater plan

specified number
syllabicated wonder
naturally sweet

Into a new dark age we go,
Marching with voices loud and clear,
The terrain shifts, our minds untrained,
Pioneers of a vast unexplored,
Where challenges hide in the unseen,
And bright lights beckon, waiting for us.

The condition of our hearts has changed,
As we careen through shadows and light,
Year upon year, we seek to define
The darknesses that loom on our horizon,
Searching for meaning in the dark expanse,
To harness what we’ve yet to understand.

Yet, in this vastness, a spark ignites,
A whetted appetite for tomorrows,
We march into the unknown, drawn near
To whispers of hope, where the brave may tread.
Into itself, beyond vast darkness,
The lights beckon, urging us to explore.

“Foment in the Firmament”


There is a stirring above the stillness,
a slow‑brewed unrest
braiding itself into the blue.

Cloud‑veins thicken,
their edges bruised with light,
and the air tastes of iron and distance.

Somewhere, a wind rehearses its entrance,
curling through the rafters of the sky,
its breath warm with the scent of rain not yet born.

Birds wheel lower,
their wings cutting arcs in the charged flush,
as if tracing the script of what is coming.

The sun, half‑veiled,
becomes a coin passed from palm to palm
in a game no one admits to playing.

And I stand beneath it all,
feeling the pulse of that high conspiracy —
the foment in the firmament —
gathering its syllables,
ready to speak in thunder.




.

from misty stupor
faceless sentinels are roused
absinthian rev'ries