How long have I loved you?
One lifetime
Many
I see us
In my dreams
Drifting
In a haze of loving
The outside world
Did not disturb
Our rapture
I wake
Alone
Not sad
For I know
Tonight
You will return to me
My dreams
Another night
Of loving

There's money to be made
from love
Give me a rose
wine me and dine me
I will be your valentine
There's money to be made
from love
Slip me a hundred
I will be yours
skin on skin
whisper sweet nothings
in your ear
desperate for worship
There's money to be made
from the fantasy
of what you think love is
A commodity
to trade
the right price
at the right time
There's money to be made
from love
I'll take it from you
and walk away
leaving you
and the fable in your head
of what love is

a Hills Hoist
holds aloft
singlet's blue
and a small child's dreams
on a quarter acre in Preston

Translate this she said
My heart started to race as the sheet of paper
drifted silently to the table
Letters jumbled together
like the confusion in my head
Am I supposed to speak Spanish?
I did this for the challenge
I am challenged
I can feel it crawling around under my skin
somewhere between pleasure and panic

Looking at you
Looking at me
Wondering if
It could ever be

It was late
    four am
I wheeled around
when I heard a sound
    clear as the night
your finger on the trigger
    my lover
…..…..and my killer

You just disappeared
      not a word about where
or why
The sound of your absent footprints
                echo along the empty hallway
         I find comfort in the memory
of how a stray strand of your hair
used to fall gently
              across that beautiful oval face
                                always open to the world
even in its darkest moments

Lifting the veil and exposing the heart of the matter
I can see you forgot who you were for a moment
And exposed the person you were meant to be

In how many ways can we be lost?
My pen is missing
it's not where I thought it was left
on the table
beside the bed
where it was tossed
I am lost in your words
beyond comprehension
when you talk
I don't follow
Perplexed
bewildered
confused
till you pause
begin again
I ought to have done it differently
you warned
A squandered opportunity
not used to my advantage
to be transformed
I am lost beyond reach
though we talked for hours
you roared
The debate was lost
the battle
the war
Now I cannot find my way
beyond recovery
redemption
flawed
Our language our custom
no longer known
lost
mourned
Have I lost my mind?
Or am I simply lost
in thought?

The earth keeps tuning
And so does my yearning
For something new
A beginning
A dream

To be inspired
To be desired
An inspiration
A holy grail

You hid well in your disguise
The love that she denies
But in the end you could not satisfy
From the other side of goodbye

We walked to Sealers Bay, four of us, all women
Bleeding Madonnas on a pilgrimage in the rain, together yet alone
each to her own journey
Moving like the floods of 2011, ready to take out any obstruction
Mud ******* at our feet, rainforest leeches suckling our blood like desperate children
The rhythm of my feet set off a reverie of how I lost my mind just a moment ago.
I found it again, blood pumping in my ears, heart pounding like thunder
The sweat running down my neck made me think of you…wondering where, how, who?  
A futile fancy
Still the rainforest clings to me, my feet echoing on the boardwalk,
the sound of running water filled with tannins
emotions of the forest flowing beneath my feet to Sealers Bay
A beach once stained with the blood of whales lies calm and blue, deceptive
A moment of sunshine found me sprawled on the sand, waves of exertion washed over me
The repose was fleeting.
Nature interrupted sending a shower, and a chill up my spine
A journey is rarely one way and retracing my steps is like retracing a lifetime
…would it have been better if?..
Eventually I turn my mind skyward to a flock of black cockatoos screeching like banshees at the women trudging one foot in front of the other in a winter forest
Nineteen kilometres of contemplation can quieten a busy mind, it is the number of surrender and endurance
The feeling of my toenail lifting in my boot is strangely cathartic
like a mistress, how pain focuses thoughts on the detail
I see tiny red Correas, the *** organs of plants, there for the pleasure of others
My buttocks and calves scream as the incline of the hill steepens, spurring me on
pleasure in pain makes you forget yourself, and the forest
there's just breathe and movement and rhythm

the day after you died
I looked for you
the dead linger like mist on a river
people gather like flowers
to bring solace
float on busyness
I feel you walk with me to your grave
funerals are full
the next day and the one after
empty
once the sun warms you disperse on the wind
gone but for the lingering scent on your pillow

moments of stillness between the notes of a melody
speak volumes across the space to your vacant stare
in a distant field winters knife cuts icicles from frozen trees
while you cut words from cloths made of steel
throwing them like daggers into a crowded room
demons wear party hats sewn by your own shaking hand
dancing like embers from the heart of your womb
and the problem of truthfulness cannot touch your heart
as you gather your goslings in the face of a gale
beautiful and dangerous combine in a ***
and the masquerade of normalcy erupts to the moon
but knights seldom travel without squires
and one turn of the carousel finds me standing by your side
like a bidder at an auction I point out silence in a distant field
where nature pours balm on a troubled soul
cogitation and abstraction combine through a glassy prism
until your existence is no longer left in doubt

I walk these woods
watch suns rise and rains fall
the hound at my heel is friendlier than I
she greets others as long lost
time and again
I soak up her joy
a nose touched
a bow made
at leash ends
humans smile and nod
or exclaim
at birds songs
the river’s rush
a canine confidant
tomorrow we will meet again

A girl stood on a stage with an old suitcase open
airing the ***** laundry of generations
An old woman turned in her grave
If only she could rise up
she would put the world to rights
create order from the chaos the girl embraced
put everyone back in their place
The audience cringed
and cackled
someone else's stuff is so much more palatable than your own
the crumbs of life swept under the carpet where elephants live
A family watched on
divided
filled with pride, and prejudice
A girl stood on the stage
changing the terms and conditions to suit the beat of her own drum