Is tamed wildness
And manufactured wilderness-
A plastic world
All my young son will know?

I have known gritty gravel roads
And sunburnt savanah veldt.
Swam and splashed
in muddy dams and reservoirs.
I have sat high above,
in mountain peaks studying clustered clouds
close enough to reach out and run my fingers through by day,
and I have counted the dancing stars above
in vast dark nights.
I have discovered treasures in the misty valleys on early mornings
And seen sun streak through
heavy storm clouds
to colour a grey sky with radiant rainbows.
I have seen surreal snow fall
And slowly erase the world around us.
I have seen majestic beasts truly free-
Wildebeests, various buck and cautious rhinos,
Zebras that danced and played
Around an elephant that loomed high above them,
And elegant wings that whispered
upon westerly winds.

And it has all left me marked,
these magical moments  tattooed in
my south african soul-
And I am more for it - filled.
what will feed their sould now?

We were, almost, inseparable
They thought us twins
Before I went off to school
Leaving you behind

We had adventures
Wondering wild
All around our tiny home town.
We farmed monster *****
We carted around
Building them dams
In someone's muddy back yard.
You put the garden fork
Right through your foot
And ran all the way home
On your own.
I wonder if there is still a mark there.
I'd ask if we still spoke
Of anything other
than the weather like adults.

I'd ask
If you remember
The creature in the dam
That roared up out of the dark water
But turned into the quivering old bull
Who fell in.
He was still magical
And caught us that fat fish
we took home
And cooked up for supper
Hoofprint and all.

There are many unseen dragons that torment me in this life

There is a tiny dark creature
with a vicious forked tongue  
Who crawls behind my ear
and twists a barbed tail around my neck.
It whispers bitter words and
noxious notions that dissolve
my sense of self-
That make me believe
I am nothing
Unwanted
worthless,
Talentless
and pointless.


There is the sleek silver beast
Which laughs as
Sharp blooded claws and rapier teeth
cut and rip at my flesh
Guided by my own hand

There is the fiery flash
That ravages my mind to rage
And fight
And destroy those close to me
And the things I hold dear

There is the red heart eater
Who eyes glow brighter
As it steals the joy
And the pleasure
From the things I do
And from the magic moments in life

There is the grotesque malformed nightmare,
That drips sickly slime
And pumps putrid poison into the air
As it breathes heavily on me
And whittles away my will,
Drains all my energy
Until I can barely breathe
Or get out of bed

Then there is the great beast,
Of whom I only know eyes
Darker than the blackest night,
A despair that seeks the quickest end
That teaches my surrendering soul
To long for the final sleep

There is nothing particular,
   Nothing that stands out
     About tonight.

Its just another evening
   We are drifting through.
       Just more time
                       passing
          And more moments slowly being    
                               lost
   Full of potential
      slowly worn away
           by the mundane

We need to
Break
The silent cycle
And Discover
              Create
        Or Steal
Some moments of magic

Yes,
the pendulum swings up
But always returns
to the lowest point-
the bitter path
and we must carry on,

one foot in front of the other,
plodding forward,
unseeing
and in agony,
stepping in the shattered shards
of our broken soul.

Longing for hope and joy to shine
again
but each burst of light
Is shorter,
And the darker days longer.

And knowing that
Poisons the light.

These small mandalas
of intricate shapes  
and colours  
that wind
and twirl,
and bind
my scattered
and easily flustered
mind
into focus-
And into a calmer state,
settling my soul
just enough,
just for tonight,
just to get through
another day

Awake, I listen to the wind run her fingers through the curtains,
as they twist and tremble,
and feel the cold tendrils of her breath brush my tired sleepless eyes.

There is a taste of rain on the edge of it.

Rain that will wash away
yesterday,
today and tomorrow.

Rain that is infinite- particles recycled over and over again.

A taste of centuries,
the tendrils of time
retelling the same stories;
our long breaths of sorrow,
our short gasps of joy-
all set on repeat
to cycle around
again and again..

Have we felt this same despair
for eons?
Will we still dance
with this same darkness
for eons to come?

Will we still ask the same
unanswerable
questions about life
only for the rain
once again
to come and wash them away
with our falling tears- infinite particles
passing through
our finite
momentary
lives.

Her large eyes stare out
into the darkening red sky,
glowing emerald orbs that
reflect the white hot sparks
that leap off
her quickened breath.

Her mighty form
pauses upon the cliff edge,
her power restrained, for now,
in tight muscles beneath
glistening golden scales.
She is motionless,
But for the rhythm
of her rising chest
and the irritated twitch,
back and forth,
of her tail.

Her sharp, night black talons
****** deep into the dry earth
which desperately drinks in
the few drops of blue blood
that fall from superficial scratches
along her impenetrable hide.

Battered ****** shields
and shattered silver swords
litter the charred ground below her,
among cast aside corpses
of cruel hunters
that thought themselves
mighty, wise and brave.

Who come to prove
themselves
against the wildest of creatures,
but always fail,
underestimating
the mighty mind
behind those immortal eyes.

Life is too bitter, cold and full
of poisonous thorns
to survive
without help,
without something
to light the dark paths.

Without spells
to ward off the black abyss,
Spells
  to keep
the dragons of despair
   away.

But Magic
Is something
We must choose
to
Make
To create,

something
we must
struggle
and fight
everyday
to ignite.

And when
we do
manage
to light
the sparks,
we need other fires
to keep
ours bright.

We need
to keep
other magicians
close by,
to protect us
and to lend us their spells
when ours are lost
And hidden.

And if only I knew
how to keep
a handful of happiness
in my pocket
on demand,
instead of running short
of her company
far too often.

The scritching and scratching of bristles on canvas,
The whispering of dancing paint strokes upon it,
Meeting and mingling with each other
And attempting to reflect
the ethereal dreams drifting deep
Within the misty maze of my mind.

This is the magician's minute.

A rare moment
Outside the construct
of time,
That escapes the grasp
of ticking hands.

Deconstructed
  (Between
     Breathing out
  And
Breathing in.)

Where it is
   not quite
yesterday,
   anymore,
And
not quite
tomorrow,
    not yet.

And it is here
Where creativity bursts
Like fireworks in the dark night,
And ideas spark
Into existence,
And drift
above the chasm
Of dreamy sleep.

Moments of potential
that dance
on the horizon
of a destructive black hole.

How many great masterpieces
Are lost here?
Fallen amidst the cracks
In time

(Left for the morning
And forgotten)

In the inelegant entwined paths
Of my minstrel mind
You have wondered in
And curled up
Like a stray cat
Finding a soft, sacred spot in the sun
Purring profoundly
And vibrating through
My thoughts
Much too often

And yet
you are a still a stranger to me

I want to pull
The blankets
Over my head
And block out
The world for good

I want to go
To sleep
And never
Wake again

I have had
Enough
And have
No strength
Left inside

Im empty
And lost
In poisoned darkness

And ıt makes me angry
And mean
And I cant help ıt.

I want ıt all to stop
To stay away
Beyond
My bubble
Under
Here

Alone

Regret
Bitter
Bites tonight.
It rips at the edges
Of my manic mind,
A blunt knife.
Rusted
It leaves slivers of itself behind
Poisoning me from within

We try to connect
beyond our small lonely selves
But we are only playing
connect the dots
with uncountable grains of shifting sand
And light years of bleak black empty space
                    between them..

You think you hear me.
You think we speak the same language.
But we never do get it right
It is always a debilitating mess.

Our unique experiences
make our interpretations ours alone,
and nobody else can understand anything
in exactly the same way.

Every word paints a million meanings,
And carries an infinite infantry of feelings
And abstract associations.

And it so seldom
really
has absolutely anything
to do
With the moment we are in
Here
And
Now.

She stands at the edge,
The cold breeze, unfelt,
Breathing behind her,
Calling her back.

The bright, lonely moon,
Braving the dark night,
Lights upon the waves
As they shatter on the shore,
One after the other.

She longs for the dark depths
Out beyond the white horses
Racing to their doom,
Longs for the icy embrace
That will numb away
Her many
heavy pains,
She longs to lose
Her falling tears in the salty swell
As it takes away
her ragged breaths
In a final kiss.

She steps
   slowly
        away from life.

A flutter of feathered wings,
A blink of a blur of bright colours
at the edge of my sight.
I turn quick to catch it,
A gasp of beauty
glimpsed for a mere moment.
But such is life- we are
Only here and alive
For a very short time,
Here only for barely one breath of the enduring earth

It is raining tonight-
mostly softly
But harder now and then.

It is distracting.
But not enough.
My mood still hovers-
A grey fog,
   heavy,
      turning,
thoughts rolling in like a storm
And darkening.

I'm finding it hard to see the joy,
The love and the smiles
That grow around me.

I'm finding it hard to remember
to breathe out
Then in
And out
again.

I'm crying tonight-
mostly softly
But harder now and then.

My bleak bitterness, my uneasy disease.

Science will tell you
More sleep will help
   Happiness
And make it easier to see the positive

However
How do I tell science
   Unhappiness
Does not help sleep
It is too easy to see the negatives
      By dark

The past
The future
Now
What is time really-
You can't put your finger on it
Its never constant
Slow
Steady
Speeding
It does what it wants
Whether you waste it
Or savour it
Or try make it work for you.
It is all the same,
and yet
never quite.

I'd like to write
A quick little poem
tonight.
But desperately trying,
as hard as I might,
Those few perfect words
refuse to bite..

My smile is an empty mask..
My soul shadowed with darkness
I struggle each day
To face
A world of happy people..
But perhaps
Their smiles too
are only masks
And we all face the shadows
Together
Alone

You drift into my mind
Like the smell of chocolate cake
Freshly baking and
Dancing in the night air,
Warm and comforting.
It made me smile sweetly
Even though
life was bleak and bitter today.