With coarsest sackecloth cloath my naked soule;
     Construct for me a throne of ashes blacke;
Place on my lying lipps a liuing coal;
     Cast me asea inside a sackcloth sacke;
I am a rocke of great offence, a rocke
As stonie-hearted as a stvmbling blocke.

Not any man hath greater loue than this,
     That hee should for his friend laye downe his life;
But I betray'd my friend without a kisse
     And stabb'd into his backe a butter knife;
And hee who loues his life his life shall lose,
And I, by louing life, my death did chuse.

When I was a little girl my favourite film was Peter Pan.
I so desperately wanted to go to Neverland.
So much so that I often thought about becoming lost.
Just run out of my home one night and never look back. Peter would find me and fly me away to Never Neverland, where all the lost boys and lost girls were.

What if I did run away?
What if I'm still lost?
What if my body is still here but my soul, my being is gone?
Never to find its way back.
What if I found Neverland.
Only somewhere in the depths of my mind never to return.

Only my shadow remains.

Forever a Shadow.

In the night
Memories drift like the hair of a drowned man
The waves a callous lullaby
curling around the body of his sleeping wife
the unburdened curve of her hip against the moonlight
The drift of her breath in the dark
Coursing to match the sea wind
That sings across the lake’s dark mirror.
Her black hair spills across his hands
Ensnared, he pulls her in
To the harbor of his great shoulders—
It is the same
As it was on their first night
she is warm, small,
still smelling of the almond blossoms
she gathered in twilight.
But tonight, his impetuous heart is awake
Moving between the woman in his arms
And the messiah in the next room
the love he bears both
At once consuming
And unbinding,
his heart a stone
On which they both
rest.

There once was a ponderous piper Peter,
Whose arm burned off in a heater.
It's now hard to fit pipe,
But he doesn't gripe.
He's got one arm, a mouth, and his peter.

after "The Walkers" by John Glenday


In those final moments,
I walked with them
unattached,
no longer one with what is,

a sudden finality ****** upon me,
like so many waves of fire
lapping at a paper boat;

I would never cross this river.

I stop at the bank,
to weigh my worth
and wait,

just downstream of a soldier
flicking his cigarette,
directionless,
one final hiss,
in surrender to the stream.

He couldn't see us
but knew his role,
and a shiver sent him packing
all the same.

I wait,
watching the walkers
gradual dissipation,
each ebbing more
slowly
than the last.

I see them fly
far above the tallest peaks,
lost to my vision
and the insatiable sky,
their light -
scarce as it is,
consumed by the silent stars.

I hear their final cries,
the longing hopeful,
the needy and desperate,
the triumphant and the downtrodden,

I listen to their pleas,
their anguish
and their resolve,
that we might yet heal the world.

Still, I wait
without grief,
and ask only of this humbling river,
how to mend something
that was never whole?

Dear darling my one and only
You make my heart flatter in ways l cant explain
How could someone make me feel this way
The feeling is unexplainable but it brings joy to my innerself
I never understood the power of love until l met you
Oh my darling sweetheart
My heart has chosen you
You have found a perfect spot in my heart
You now have the only thing l swore l wouldn't give anyone
You have my heart now keep it safe
My precious darling

They said you have to
    be a man.
Tell me,
    did you ever feel small
    driving your motorcar
        to that bank?
                ~
We came from the clouds
    but not for you.
Still,
    we hope you saw
    your children
        fly

How is it that
after all of this
I still find myself dreaming
that you would come back?

Perhaps if I looked
like your tamed beauty
you would have stayed
here with me.

Hiraeth creeps up on you
once more
and lulls you to sleep
with tears in your eyes.

And in your dreams
you are once again
in the land you loved
so dearly.

And you see me,
the ingénue who
you loved
more than anything

The faeries sing
their melodic tintinnabulation.
This inexplicable moment
has gifted the mute with voices

The rain has ended.
The storm has passed.
And the world is new,
coated with petrichor.

And I wonder
if you’ll join me,
and I wonder if you also think
that you and I are sempiternal.

With you and me
here in the woods,
would you agree
to one last dance?

I would hold on tight
and refuse to let you go.
I won’t ever let
that happen again.

But then you would inevitably wake
with that dainty beauty beside you,
with wrinkles on your fingers,
and with a wringing in your heart.

And when morning comes
you will arise from your tear-stained bed
and remind yourself
that you can never come back.

Do you regret leaving me?

But I would die happily
if I were able
to live that ineffable moment
with you.