Letters not sent
Words untouched by hands,
There is no softer gaze,
Opening radiant ways
With rapid pulse of breaths,
In spoken sentences.
The invisible margin of lost attention.

I saw unsettling light,
The sun glinting on the window,
An ordinary building across the street
And an elusive, surreal reflection
Of a blurred sphere, not giving warmth.

I stare at this distorted image,
Wanting to endure it directly,
Longer than I could bear,
In a motionless pause
The side effects of this manifestation.

My eyes were slightly closed
To hug the contours of an unclear shape.
The luminosity from a distance
Safely stays at a fragile layer,
So as not to freeze and not to burn
Before the piercing, conclusive truth.

Being for so long and perfectly alone.
So many hours punished by the silence,
The long days in tamed anger,
Waiting for relief,
All those good wishes in letters were never sent.

The gleams turned in the blunt, painful light.
Just two living spheres and a clear, cold glass
In the ocean of rigid duties,
A star’s slow implosion,
Reshaped colorful memories, grasping at remains.

The vivid balloon with the air gone—
No longer flying above our heads.
Nothing else, just indifference that forgot
How it used to cry.

On the last Friday of each month, the poets gather  
not in one room, but in the hush between screens,
the glow of shared breath and blinking cursors.

They come with verses tucked in sleeves,
with metaphors still warm from the pan,
with hearts half-rhymed and stanzas that ache to be heard.

This month, the theme is Equinox!
balance, breath, the tilt of light.
Some write of harvest moons,
others of lovers crossing hemispheres,
some of grief that splits the day clean as shadow.

One speaks of sugar levels and sunrise.
Another, of church bells and glucose meters.
Someone reads a mirrored poem that turns
at the solstice line and walks back through itself.

There is laughter -
the kind that lifts like foam.
There is silence -
the kind that listens.

And when the last poem lands,
when the final line finds its echo,
they linger,
not to critique,
but to hold the weight of each word
like a mug of something warm.

The meeting ends,
but the poems keep orbiting,
little equinoxes of thought,
balancing dark
and light
in the inbox of the soul.

Stacked green crates by the futon,
records quiet as buried letters,
each sleeve longing
to be drawn out into daylight
by her small, thoughtful hands.

I just want to play that Nick Cave again
teenager’s resolve in her voice,
she drops the needle on "Tupelo",
traces Peter Murphy with her thumb,
holds Kate Bush to the light
like stained glass.

She laughs
at the ****** box on the speaker.
I tell her it’s never going to happen.
She grins, unbothered,
says she only came for the vinyl.

I watch her tilt each sleeve,
never touching the grooves,
brush the dust,
lay the needle like a secret,
slide the disc back without a wrinkle.
Each time I’m surprised
by her precision.
It’s the third time
she’s dropped by.

She makes mixtapes.
Pressing pause, pressing record,
stitching songs into a spine of hiss.
Once, to me, or to herself,
she said her father wanted a tape.
She’d mail it when he had
somewhere to send it.

She follows me across the bridge,
talking about her brother,
an ex-best friend,
mimicking her professor,
how he wags his tongue
when he writes on the chalkboard.

I haul a duffel:
apron, uniform, boots heavy with grease.
She skips in the rain,
strumming cables, humming
the last song played, still floating.

I unlock the door,
steeped in garlic and kitchen sweat,
boots leaving grime on the boards.
She isn’t there-
only the crates, stacked neater,
jackets squared, spines aligned,
as if her care was meant for me.
The room settles with her absence,
yet holds me upright
in its small, thoughtful hands.

(for Joy Bernadette Spavins, née Moss)
16/06/1958 - 22/04/2023

She passed in peace,
in sleep, in grace—
a whisper of Saturday morning light
on April’s quiet breath.

Loving wife.
Devoted mother.
Ten grandchildren held in her laughter,
five children cradled in her strength.

She danced before diagnosis,
and after.
She told stories that
stitched us back together.

We called her Joy—
not just a name,
but a way of being:
cheeky smile,
BIG!!! cuddle,
a welcome that felt like home.

She put others first,
even when her body asked for rest.
She gave without ledger,
loved without condition.

We kissed her goodbye
at New Springs Church,
but she’s still here—
in every echo of kindness,
every laugh that tastes like memory.

Joy to the world,
we said.
And meant it.
Amen

In apparent silence,
Raindrops play their music.
I look at the strings of stretched water
Before they touch the soft, damp ground.

Fog has covered the distant hills.
The Spirit of those Mountains
Existed only in the past chants
Of those who, without bodies,
Return to their abandoned homes
As a breath on a wet glass.

I don't know their language,
But I hear their words:
The fog,
The rain,
The hills
And memories
Hidden in the soothingly cold rocks
And streams of clear water.

I cut out a piece of earth and sky
I've always been sad to leave that place.
I stay a few moments longer,
Before walking ahead
I drink the peace,  
I eat the rustle of the wind,
Absorbing the steady pattern of raindrops.

I long to be invisible
A drawing of the unearthly landscape
And come back here endlessly
After long absences.
In the green valley,
Immersed in the rain
Where I leave and find myself
Again,
Again,
Again…

From our teens through life we
play the waiting game, seeking
perhaps longing for that one very
special someone that will fulfill
our dreams and desires, a soulmate
extraordinaire.

Few of us are fortunate enough to
find and actually hold close that
special person, where love comes
easy and somehow lasts forever,
an anomaly of the highest order.

Lots of living creatures' mate for
life, beavers, swans, penguins,
albatrosses, even wolves, but
for most of we humans, it seems
we are not that committedly inclined.

So, what is the formula for that
so elusive of goals, of finding that
special person and everlasting love?

Frankly my friends other than dogged
perseverance and serendipitous, good
fortune, I have no earthly clue.