You cut a dashing figure
between em and en and
oh, by the way

Your abbreviated smile
has me wondering what
it stands for

as I place my finger on
your ellipsis … you lead me on,
there is no doubt
I feel left out

But as we track and kern
our forms, ascending,
make ligatures to avoid
an overlap of strokes

a diphthong doth emerge
o’er our line o’ type
and what was once

paragraphed into separateness,
our thoughts juxtaposed

begins to merge
(bind in parentheses)
you’n’me make syncope

and, once the story forms,
the digraphs make shapes
with our mouths.

When I look at you I see your beauty
But when I close my eyes I see what you mean

Many things die with death
including uncertainty

All that time spent wanting to be found
means it was liberating to be lost

The world is neither with nor against you
It's simply what you make it

It’s easy to make hatred from a distance
It’s easy to make friendship in person

You can change behaviour by shouting
You can change a heart by listening

An invalid argument is valid
if enough people believe it.

The truth gets me excited
Lies make me sad.

The truth is cool and scary, like the ocean
vast, intense, buoyant and salvation
Lies fall like stone,
brittle-sounding, metallic and rusting

The truth holds up a piece of me,
pronounces, ‘it is,’ then
nothing further needs to be said.
Lies are speaking of the greater good
but heaven knows I’m the only one of matter

The truth elbows its way into the room,
boisterous and convinced and mothering,
Lies are squeezed and sullen, pushed to the back row,
suckling on comfort food

The truth is a jagged edge, untidy around a greater surface,
enmeshed with its surroundings and judgement.
Lies are like paper cuts, slow to mend,
and apparent even when they’re not noticed.

Even if I don't say it, or pray it,
or admit it to myself
there is no other home for me,
No sidestep apart from that which separates me.

See that grave-plot? Therein lies the truth,
that residual part
when all the rot and decay have left my heart.

What I am will outlive me,
the truth be told.

I live and breathe and think in this space

Work in this space

Pray and eat in this space

until you come along—you and your arms-wide space

heading to overlap me, drawing Venn diagrams around us, two

mapped inside a certain intersection,


almond-shaped, like your eyes

always looking upward—at me, or her, or the stars,
Eyes like mirror *****,
illuminating the world’s dance floor

Steps bounding enough to motivate us both.

I am charged with your leap of faith,

opposites attracted and drawn across decades,
I invite you in, believing wholly in me

Knowing I can never make this space

big enough for two

Yet after the party we sit here in silence,

as only friends do.

Neither are you here nor done
having slipped so quietly into the
great not knowing,
small strands of you still tied to my belly
the rest now illusory

although misleading
might be a better word for something that
draws such compelling lines to an
indefinite space.

If a lifeline holds me here, what do
I call the lines to you?
The paradox is, the death-line holds
me here just as much

Perhaps it binds me so securely to the nothingness
that I am held still,
safe, here, then

A short life, waiting to dissolve to meet you
A greater life, rested in your impression
A happier life, to have known you
only gone because you would be here to begin.

Through pain and prayer I emerge 

**** breath for the first time 

and though I see not you, but a blur

I know you from the inside

hand held, I am walked with care 

over linoleum and playground 

and altar, to grow into myself, 

cheek wiped. And then you let go

as all mothers must. But never leaving, 

even when, ungrateful, my brittle ego 

takes me far from you, pretending I can 

find a space more sacred on my own

You gave me that dream.

And everything else—for you gave me life.

And although I must, trying to improve
on that is futile.

It’s getting harder to realise

the need to be driven

I want to be where the earth is

in a void, but always held

Stillness is the moments when the

crow and grevillea find me

Holding release, I think of you

in my bed and am flush warm

And I remember beauty, as if

it were there all along

Putting down my thoughts for a while

I pause, to let your memory catch up.

Wouldn’t it be better to be deconstructed
blow apart those held-together pieces

seen as all those same parts,
spent of needs and dependency
each is worth its own weight,
bringing their gift to the whole

wouldn’t they make sense on their own,
more than all the sense I make together?

Everything has its place, and time. Some things, sometimes,
don’t want to be put away, they want to be visible and present,
so that when you are ready to notice them they will be there,
waiting patiently for your awareness.

The unwashed teacup is simply resting, until such time
as you offer the caress of your hands in a warm bath
of cleansing. There is no judgement from the cup, just
patience and contentment in its wholeness.

The open magazine, folded back on itself since
last February, has merely been spending time catching up
on missed readings, enjoying the imprint page and readers’ selfies
that are generally not given the time.

The ***** laundry on the tiled bathroom floor has a
real opportunity to co-mingle in ways
that a sorted chest of drawers or double-rack hang space
would never allow—so they too are grateful.

All waits patiently until such time as you,
sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly,
are unburdened enough, attentive enough,
accepting enough, to respect each thing in turn,
and help each to find its place with you.

All these negative thoughts have a lasting effect,

can the same be said for positives? Is it any wonder

the self-help industry is booming, the power of

positive thinking, the creation of new neural pathways

that we can walk, hand-in-hand, to our deaths

two negatives don’t make a positive

but they can make a short-circuit, bypass a whole

section of brain, invert it and turn it on myself—

“you’ll never know. Hah!”

When did this happen? What was the turning point,

the one I didn’t notice, the moment the potential flicked from

positive to negative? Perhaps it coincided with the toast

popping up from its slot, a subtle but sudden noise that

masked the trip of my internal psyche switch

so by the time I reached for the the crust—

far darker than usual, although not quite burnt,

my inattention has led to the 

Catastrophe of singed sourdough,  

casting a pall over breakfast

And it’s all my fault. No other explanation, even the

slightest error haunts me—he, magically having borne

these butterfly wings, whose flutter can upset the peace talks

on the other side of the world. Well, that's a bonus, isn't it?

To have that power after all these months out of control.

Taking control, he looked at himself in the mirror,  
his eyes tracing the lines and hairs and circles.

He sat and gazed out the window for a time, noticed the street signs and the birds.

He listened to the noises coming past the open door
He stood and walked through the day until he sat, on a bus,  
or next to a tree, or beside a homeless woman.  
He chose not to act or speak but simply to be.

He found a quiet place to wonder  
how the tips of his fingers could move a pencil with such minute rhythm  
above a line of awareness, connecting him to everyone  
who ever read  
or died.

He travelled in and out of consciousness, to the stars and back,  
and all his journeys made experiences,  
but his awareness made wisdom.

He thought of love, and this thought became  
his breath, and the sky,  
and the day ahead was a clean sheet to write upon,  
to be continued,  
to start for the first time.

We are the poets of your narrative
Come to take you again on your necessary journey
Through a landscape of overbearing and darkness
Steep rocky pathways and failing bridges where
there may be a glimmer of light we shine, like a torch lit by fear
Through the fallacious delusions and salacious contusions
you will follow us inevitably, because
You have not yet understood that you can stay
seated, under the tree of wisdom you planted aeons ago
before we came and saw you, looking for all the world
like you needed a story much bigger than
That simplistic dream you had
of your own life.
But what could we say, other than Yes, we will lend you all our hours and abundance of adjectives and bandages.
You seemed so lonely to us—the poets of your narrative—
sitting there, with just your small verb to be.

How can I tell you  
that what I had is gone?

if all these consonants and vowels  
put flesh on the bones of my thought
  
then how do I express less  
in the substance of syllables?

Surely there can be no way but silence  
to say what you are now

No noise nor rhyme
no vowel nor diphthong,
no metre at last  
no making of sense

no prose, no poem,  
not the heresy of song  
not an imperfect past  
no future, tense

I cannot rephrase you  
to what you are not

I can only reckon,
only wonder,

that what I had is gone.

Nothing washes tears away but more tears  
nothing bruises pain away but more blood.

And one day the clouds will part,  
perhaps with an even smaller patch of blue  
than my heart has become

And when that sunlight breaks,  
will I be ready?

Will I have packed my lunch and  
handkerchief and  
notebook  
again, prepared  
to slip through that opened gate  
and into my neighbour's yard.

When I think of you  
you seem so close  
Just another part of me,  
your hopes spilling over  
into my heart

Shared memories flood in,  
I hold the shape of your spirit  
in me, we are  
more complete  
less alone

And if you stay  
I believe we both grow bigger.

What would happen if I reached forward  
and put my hand on your shoulder—  
Would it comfort, or cajole?  
Would you be angry? Alert?  
Because I know you're not expecting this attention.

Would you feel a shock of excitement, or fear  
brought suddenly into this moment  
by a memory  
that you never expected would meet me?  
Would confusion be a blessing in a thoughtless certain day,  
would you remember the last time this happened  
vision dusty and hairs raised  
wondering if I could like to know you, learn to know you,  
make time that's only past when we're passed in it

How can it be?  
Time, measured just in body-lengths and breathlessness—  
spaces in between growing infinite lengths of nothingness.

Will I reveal myself?  
Will I know how to, after years of longing  
Shall I lay down my mother's picnic rug—a space to hold a place for us  
Brushed against your sway,  
is it right that longing and belonging are so far apart,  
or should we capitulate, know that one is just a lesser part,  
go this separate way.

All it would take is for me to reach out in front and touch you on the shoulder  
for you to turn  
and exhale with me  
to change this day.

i

Summer heat
a skin like warmed milk
temperature rising beneath
air ****** in from above

If I skim off the surface
in continuous brushes, pure,
roiling, fatty liquid
brings fever to my brow

When emotion cools
another skin is formed,
coagulated past
atop a beating heart.

ii

Walking together to the edge of the land and sky filled blue
making friendship seem like liquid we swim in
crashing against each other without bruising
happy to roar or stay silent in our skins
never as separate as our bodies pretend, sliding, floating, surfing our lives.

What will we think when the straw men are frayed
Pushed them aside, with their crow-eating ways
Shall we cease seeking a more perfect us, then
Shall we be talking of honesty, darkened

Take sunshine, and whether
this night or forever—
The stars in our darkness
will paint all our days.

Driving through this journey
All those numbers skating past
like advisory signs around each bend,
perhaps telling me to slow down, on average,
And I mostly taking them twenty percent faster, because I can

Yet as this heart beats slower
it's as if all the rest of the world is speeding up around me

Only to mean—  
I'll see a lot more from here on in.