Those were the stars
that taught me to write
and filled me with poetry

Full silence of a blue space above
Heavy earth and stilled sky
Glittered rays of the Pacific under me
Gentle green curves of nature

A rusty metal drawing, a slow inkblot on a cold sky canvas

Hurls slowly in circles, carving itself into negative space

A copper ore is the blood moon

I’m sitting at the side of the Seymour River,
watching the water
blast by
and I can’t help
but picture the feeling of
being ripped by the flow,
smashing into stones.

Suddenly a fallen leaf floating like a feather on the surface flits by, drifting in
and out of
my vision,
and I think that a thousand careless leaves must ride the river’s current
every day.

On my best days, I let my fetters
float
on
by
me,
but at my worst, the river of my experience
pushes me back into the flow
and I fight the current
and I always
lose.

If I could take your hair on a loom
and weave the strands
into fine golden wool
to spin out a blanket,
I would melt down
into sleep
I think

an ocean of words
wants to flow through
my throat and
pour out of my lips
into you

I sit silently
chipping at my stone heart wall;
water greets my floor

i have composed another song
that will not be sung

dusty velvet flowers next to bed
petals wither inward
gentle note of papery death
still reaching toward window light
water brown under through stem
alive as clear vase
in forgotten corner

Shakespeare says his love is greater than a
summer's day,
but my love is deeper than
the stillness of a
cloudless winter's night:
I feel my love in a heartfelt apology.

My love is not a flower, wilting.
She's a symphony,
turning and twisting.
A throb of chords,
shocking and free.

My love is not a dog from hell.
She's a river,
carving herself on the earth
as she makes her way to the sea.

My love is not an infinite ache.
She's the warmth of the sun on my skin,
or, in autumn, a sip of fresh tea.

A boy sits under an oak tree with an empty heart.

Far away, forest green wolves howl
Small foxes crawl under fallen logs

The boy cries, lost in thought, strange new feelings

He walks on a frayed tightrope.

Far away, a blue eyed girl walks
hand in hand with her mother,
they laugh, they pass a store,
they look inside the windows.

The boy feels his back on the tree.
The crying stops.
He hears soft haunting music.
He hears a distant animal.

He leaves.

It’s with great care
and humble hands
that I rebuild myself.

Gratitude by gratitude
I enter the light
of the living,
building a ladder
from hell to home.

i have one eye in this world
one eye in another
not an if-world
but a spilled space
that rips itself apart,
an otherwise world
where be-languages
fall apart in boundlessness
and do-languages melt.
i have no mouth there
where i sleep and fall into the lake
and i don’t float.
i don’t know how to swim
in there
but i know how to weave
and dig up my walls.
boundary walker, where is your wolf?

From the great depths
words bubble up,
breaching the surface gently
with a silent puff.

Seaweed sentences drift up also,
through saltwater spaces,
from darkness to light.

Thoughts float like blue whales
riding a current,
they moan and whistle
against the massive distance,
looking for another.

My ocean mind is calm now,
shimmering at the surface,
but giving harbour
to poems I sharpen,
seen from above.

we were on a beach
you wore purple
i wore blue
the water was warm and salty

you yelped in pain
and i pushed through the water
because you stepped on a sea urchin
so i kissed you better
but i yelped in pain
i stepped on it too
so you kissed me better
then we went to a diver
and he reassured us
so we laughed

i smell wet forest floor and see my reflection is not still

i understand now that the world cries too

“Reflect on that, and tell me what comes to mind.”

I pause - what should I say?
My thoughts are a jumbled ball of string
and reflecting might cut it apart.

My therapist wants me to set
the sections of string
in a sequence,
and observe them from above, but
every cutting I take makes the ball
a little smaller.

Instead, I want to
take the mess
and dye it purple
and use it to fly a kite
and watch it unravel as I push it down a staircase.
I want to weave it into a delicate blanket
and fasten a portrait with it,
and use it as floss,
and make it a violin bow.

But I reckon I shouldn’t let it grow.
So I set off enough to make my therapist smile,
and I keep the rest in a messy pile
and I learn how to use it to sew.

I’m well, vivid, here.
I can breathe crisp fresh air now
and see bright sun’s light.

There's something to be said
for a sunlit room,
for the shimmer of the sea,
for a lit salt lamp.

But there's value too
in the meditative moonlight
of a mountainside
above the dark city

I’m pressing, pushing paranoia
away
as I lie in my ocean of bed.
And I lie (in my ocean of bed) when I
say
“I’m a warrior.”
I’m a worrier, a bundle of contradictions,
a language-lover who will never be able to speak my mind, my
split + mind.
(****** + phrenia)

Sentences slip through like a sea through a sieve.
Language was not invented or
intended for
my babbling brain, bursting
with deathly images,
lacking in logic.
Pressing, pushing paranoia knocks on my mind’s door,

I’m away.

Pale faces stared from street side
parked cars crammed
like bullets.

Barely looking where, I drove wide,
brakes were slammed,
I mistook their

impact for existence. Soul-fried,
I made unplanned
turns and twists.

Sometimes when eyes misguide,
leave the psychotic holy land:
senses err.

the pool quivered silver
rain running down her
hair continuous.

face in reverse reflection,
the water her azure
abode and sheet of
her bedroom window

silver her home quivered,
olive branch knocking at
door, rain running down
her cheek

her pool a lacuna,
rain livery slippery sadlessness
laugh at superimposition and
the surface stops its scintillation
and is still and there she is again,
porcelain and ageless as the moon