When I Get Lost

Child of too many worlds,
It's okay to be afraid:
Stranger things have happened to you,
                                   Remember?
Child without a single home,
It's alright to be lost,
Your feet don't have to remember
                        where to return to.
Child beneath wide skies,
You can tremble at the world,
But there is a place or person for you too
                      for you to belong.

Prayers of Fire and Fear

Being in love is like being on fire,

Stop, drop, roll,

But your brain is already on fire,

Burning, burning, burning,

All of it is burning like Troy on fire

And nothing left to hold back,

No walls left to capture or break.

Being in love is like being on fire,

Drowning me in happiness and 
Revives me to fear?

Fear of losing what I've found,

Fear of those high walls rebuilding, rebuilding

Higher, higher until they are there again 

As they were in the beginning.

I only my words to be the ivy that can grow 
Up, up, up those walls.

I only my hopes that those walls 
Will still be cracked,

When I return.

Fear reviving,

Happy tears lull me to long needed slumber,

At your side

In your arms.

Fleeting

My time is made from the seconds it takes
                                       for petals to fall;
A brief breath after a serenade's final note.
My time is made from passers by along a
                                     seaside sidewalk;
A child's laughter fading to adult whispers.
My time is the empty places in cupboards
                       between cups and glasses;
Silken touches of cold star-crossed lovers.

Away

Iced cold knife tip
- burning way through -
Following the line
down the rigid spine
searing a path.


Every step against the tide
- against the tugging -
Wrenching agony
dislocating not only limbs
but self.


Forced a-drift by circumstance
- frustrating agony -
Relieved only by the steps
taken backwards.

Speak To Me

Speak to me of stolen things,

Fallen things,

Forgotten things.

Tell me how you found my heart,

And how you hold it in your hand.

Show me how sweet life can be,

And how truth can make stars seem dull.

Talk to me of broken things,

Crumpled things,

Rusted things.

Tell me how I took your heart,

And set it back in place.

Show me how my life could be

Complete if I had not ever been with you.

My Contradiction

You're the storm and the eye of it,

The calm and the turbulence,

You're the Spielberg flick and the psalm to me.

Never knew what broken meant until you up and fixed me,

Crumbling pieces of dust and decay that sort into feelings.

You're the confusion and the sense,

The philosopher and the nihilist,

Beautifully disharmonic and complete.

Dollhouse

Carefully tailored answers so you can hear what you want,

A smile flashed at just the right time,

You know I’m meant for you.

There’s no one on this planet who loves you more than me,

Every atom of my soul is buzzing all for you.

I won’t whine or bitch or cry cos that’s not what you want,

I’ll be your girl for all these moments,

Each one an eternity

Cos that’s the way I’m wired,

Yeah, that’s the way they wired me for you.

There are Things

There are things I cannot say to you,

- because of who I am -

- because of who you are -

I've never had this before and the inexperience can be daunting,

So I hesitate, so I watch.

You've been built up and cracked too many times before,

So you're silent, so you sit.

Your walls are mortared with past and present,

Mine crumble beneath future's hopes.

And somewhere our walls intersect,

Building the foundation of a fortress perhaps,

Inside where we can maybe let go.

Where I can say things I cannot say.

I cannot say "I love you" 

because I'm scared to,

I cannot say "for always" 

because you've lost your faith in forever.

These are things I cannot say,

But maybe I do not have to.

Lash of Flames

The sunlight fills my room

With gold and oranges;

It's like fire is beating at my door,

Not so unheard of in this country

That floods like the Nile and burns like the sun.

That people live here is at first a wonder,

Then a joy.

This country falsely sunburnt in broken visions,

Living radiant in every breath of hurricane

And ever lash of flame.

Murmurs

Drift away on the wings of silence

And carry the murmurs in the palm of your hand

Like memories that you will never forget.

Wake with the morning

And dream of the sunshine in the water

And carry the murmurs in the back of your mind

Like shivers of silver and glass.

Walk with the night in the darkness

That flows around you in eddies and reflections

And carry the murmurs in the core of your soul

So that you may always remember

Who you were before.

Explosive Love

So I thought I saw you today,

We may even have talked!

Conversed is too strong a word

For worded meanderings

Between empty lovers.

Having dinner and a movie

Is just to get us through the motions:

Let’s pretend, play house.

At least we can say

That Spielberg’s done it again.

‘God I wish our sex had that

Many Explosions.’

The latter sentiment left

Unspoken.

Because we’re not ready

To suggest it.

You drove me home.

The same CD as years before,

The same words.

‘…in a brave new world…’

The same words,

Both bridge and barrier

Between empty lovers.

It’s strange though the sky blue

In the middle of night

That you love

That I’m wearing.

Or that you turn

And give me that smile

That brought me

Into Chaos.

That’s no illusion.

No explosion!

There’s still something here.

We’ve just become more careful.

I know you won’t make

The first move so

I move.

You pretend to think.

I lean in and whisper in your mind.

So you chuckle and park the car.

Lead me on.

And before long we’re trying

Our own movie stunts

The kind that’d make us blush.

Like explosions.

It gives us something to talk about,

Made happy by re-igniting the hidden flame.

Us empty lovers

Full

And once more

Content.

The Final Line

Great Muses in your golden realm,

Will not you hear my plea?

And sound a bell to end my torture

And tell me what you see?

Great Ladies you who number nine,

Can not you give me thought?

To tell me how to write and sing

And tell me tales to wrought?

Great Ones in the skies above,

Hear my cry and answer!

End this barren drought of mine,

Send to me your words and sounds

That I may write this final line!

Tributes to Roxanne

With Apologies to Sting

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

You wandered down the street again

You fixed up your hair and make-up again

Don't wear that bright red dress again.

You don't have to walk that street, my dear,

You know where it goes and where it leads

Last week you came back with a black eye,

I know you did it cos you thought you had to,

But think about it some more tonight.

You wandered down the street again

You fixed up your hair and make-up again

Don't wear that bright red dress again.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

There's always anger in your eyes and fear

You don't think you know what's coming to you,

But you stand there in rain or stars every night,

I know you don't think you can let it go,

But think about it at least some tonight.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress again tonight,

You've worn it out worn it enough for the week,

There's got to be another way another day,

Why not tonight to think things through?

You wandered down the street again

You fixed up your hair and make-up again

Don't wear that bright red dress again.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

Roxanne,

Why do you look at me like that?

Through the Enemy's Garden

We walked without direction

Through the enemy's garden,

Hand in hand through darkness.

A waking dream of endlessness;

A field of stars and flowers.

Lifted in a world of colored light

All through the enemy's garden.

Not a word nor whisper

For here no murmur may pass

To disturb the eternal sleeper

So walk without direction

Through the enemy's garden

And wander forever and on and on

Hand in hand and beyond.

An Angel's Prayer

You seek to wrong me

To take from me

That which You did freely grant me.

You wish to extinguish

This light of Heaven

This Morning Star!

I am the one that guides all others,

To light and leave the glowing sky!

And now for something petty: choice!

You would cast me out to die.

Know then, Father,

Once upon the barren stone,

I did love only Thee alone.

Where They Walk

Take me past the rivers and lakes

Of this land I know all too well,

Carry me through the sky and light

To the world beyond those stars there.

Glide through the night and through the day

Hold me in the darkness and in the light,

But do not let me fall without you.

Take me to the realm in which time

No longer matters to anyone.

Take me from these echoed whispers

That goad me and taunt me

And carry me with you always.

Take me to where the willows sing,

Take me to where the moonlight shines,

Take me to the worlds I've never seen before,

Take me to where the unicorns run,

Take me to where the dragons and angels vie

For the ruling of the bright open sky,

Take me to where they walk...

Take me to where they walk.

The Virgin's Never

Broken daylight like sand against my skin;
Rubbed raw at missing you.
'Never' seems so final,
Like Macbeth's bells of heralded death,
And while I know the bells will ring just this once,
The thought of 'never'
Is no imagined dagger but reality,
Here driven into my heart;
My virginal blood then on our sheets. 

Be Still

As the storm crashes over us,

And the winds above howl obscenities

Be still.

Be still.

As the world crases down on us

And the we fall beneath the waters deep

Be still.

Be still.

Be still for they cannot harm you,

Be still for they will not touch

They are thoughts only meant to scare

They are sounds only meant to hide

What you feel inside.

Be still.

While up above all is rendered to ash

And the stars are darkened

Be still.

Be still.

When the sun is gone down

And the moon too has faded into the sea

Be still.

Be still.

Be still for the dark won't harm you

Be still for it will only cradle

You in its arms and rock you quietly to sleep

And in the morning you will wake and there the light will shine.

But be still now,

Be still now and revel in the darkness this night brings,

Be still.

Wait Not For Me

Wait not for me

If the darkness falls

Do not tarry here for long.

Wait not for me

When dawn is come

But pass into the world beyond.

A whisper

In the wind that flows

And follows

The river to the sea.

A mystery.

Unknown song

Carried far from here

You are gone

Too far away to see

Wait not for me.

Wait not for me

If the darkness falls

Do not tarry here for long.

Wait not for me

When dawn is come

But pass into the world beyond.

Poem

So roses are red and violets are blue

But what do they matter when I know it’s true?

And daffodils grow and leaves are green,

Why point it out when it’s clearly seen?

Those clouds can rain and the stars align,

But I know that in your hands my heart will shine,

So roses can stay red and violets blue

But no poem can say how much I love you.

One of the Roses

So you have found the way through to cold verity,

You search for how to kill it in its cradle,

Hidden from eyes the iced clarity.

And when the road is ended will you still run?

A wandering fool throughout the rest of time,

It will still be a ghost you'll have become.

Your memory will not last but fade away,

Vanishing into the vast pool of Forget,

Where your thoughts will now always stay.

Say you'll never break away or fall apart

Lost forever in this darkest dream of mine

This sweet nightmare of my longing heart.

Smoke

Amber dripping soft velvet,
Reminders of silk as it tipples into the glass.
It's the taste of memory that stirs itself up,
An insomniac's hazard.
The faintest lingering of cigarette smoke,
Ephemeral,
                   like sleep tonight.
Curling tighter beneath warmth,
Banishing thoughts to the backdrop of breath,
Curing the sleepless.
The faintest lingering of cigarette smoke,
Ephemeral,
                  perpetual.

 

Confidences

"How do you love a man who doesn't love you?" she implored me incredulously.
"Easily, if he's a good man. With patience, and hope. With understanding," I reply.
"What if he's an evil man?"
"Why would I love an evil man?"
She opened her mouth to counter, but then realised what I'd said,
and silence fell between us and the words were left dead.


"How do you stand on your feet after that onslaught?" I asked her years later.
"Unsteadily, since I loved him, with help, and with pain. I move onwards." she said.
"What if there's no help to be had?"
"Why would you abandon me?"
I realised as the words left my lips, the dumb of my query 
and so then was able to laugh with her at my folly.

Kindling

February seems a long memory
Lost underneath layers of spoken words and cooled sugars
that hang like sweetened icicles from the ledges of our lives.
February seems a distant thought
to be remembered by imagery and melody
savoured till perhaps it is rekindled by a month like July.

Rage

Save words by letting go

and simply following the flow of pen's ink on paper.

Letters curling around fingers turning,

whole sentences that burn down houses

pulverise walls in your mind.

Fire soothing water:

the hardest visualisation,

like happiness.

I want keys to break down heaven's doors

and wreck all love's cathedrals.

Bring them down

Bring them down

and give me what I'm owed.

Providence

Crackling sounds of crisp snow underfoot,
Harbinger of silver linings yet unseen,
Like some broken storm:
A sparrow fallen from providence's high regard
To land gracefully all the same 
Amidst the thorns and lilies of yesterday's forgotten stories.
Haven scorned and blanched in clouded paths,
Non-yellow bricked roadways to lead people over rainbows,
Wishing wells and birds risen from ashes,
Here lie those who fell and were dead,
Will you pay the ferryman to cross our sainted river?

As It Should Be

The battle lost and upon the matted earth

covered with sullen gleaming blood,

Lie the heroes we said would save us.

They raised their lances to uphold our

Sullied honour and guide us from the falling night,

Lances that now lie splintered at our feet,

And oaths equally broken thrown to the wind forgotten.

Nothing is as it should be,

Even though our enemies lie dead and riven

Beside our own gallant warrior heroes.

Nothing is as it should be,

Tough blood was meant to buy our freedom

All that's stayed to hold to hold vigil at the side of graves

Are the colder chains of regret.

Dead Lines and Tissue Paper

              so when you said
                                     'i don't know 
                                     anymore'
what you really meant was
                                     'yes it's over now.
                                      sorry'
couldn't just have said it straight
                          out could you?
                                                     3 letters I tried to mail

                                                     2 of them I set on fire

                                                     the other I tore to scraps.                    
        had it ever occured to you
           that i thought more of it?
            that i thought more of it
                           than you did?
                                                     Part 1 says
                                                        'I miss you.'
                                                     Part 2 tells you to forget

                                                     Me and part 3 says

                                               'I wish you were here.'
                  of course you didn't
                     why should i even
                         have expected?
           cos then you'd have said
                                               'I'm sorry. I don't
                                                know if I love you
                                                anymore.
                                                I don't know what else
                                                to say.
                                                I'm sorry.'
                                                    Now I'm looking at part 4

                                                    The page is empty

                                                    And I'm stuck with the

                                                   opening line because I

                                                    don't know what to say

                                                    To make you answer your

                                                   Switched off phone.

     but you didn't say it that way
                                                    I'm running out of

                                                   murdered lines writing

                                                    'I love you
                                                    I do.'
now i'm left to choke on                and all you've left me is

                  whiskey lullabies and tissue paper  

Your Last Lover

Her arms she raised above her head,

Her eyes they glowed from sheet-strewn bed.

Her lips they breathed and her voice

                                                   it begged.

And sun it flew from my room in the depth of night,

Leaving shaded hands to grope for hidden light.

The sword it

                    fell

                in a shining arc,

A silver line cutting the golden dark.

My eyes they shadowed to that distant plain.

My heart it faltered in the molten rain.

Arresting me, Death drew the cover:

“Casanova, I am your last lover.”

In the Softer Sun

Another afternoon

Sun climbing into the sky over the mountain;

Reminders of summer on the mainland.

I can hear flies buzzing like sewing machines

against kitchen glass.

The wind through the gums recalls rushing water.

Simple wishes to sit and watch

water-hens at the dam,

ants toiling a dead fly,

Capture the light somehow as it falls against long

chopped wood that on cold nights

keeps the house warm.

Somewhere a cock crows,

it must be confused or else its overslept

and simply wishes to herald its own presence.

There is no room for impatience

the world can run its own way without us.

Here all that matters is to 

see the shadows change

while rasberries ripen

in the softer sun.

The Misguided

True: I'd love to hate you.

It's like a cloud falling:

                               silver grey yellow blue,

                               soft wet, capturing cold.

Closed around you and not my guiding light

                               not the lighthouse on a cliff

                               calling homewards to me.

More the lulling river full of suggestion

                               your constructed hopes

                               your blinded desires.

Oh yes, I'd love to hate you.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                               but it's the blind that dream so well.

But you're not my northern star in alien waters,

                               sailing these waters isn't so hard

                               You're for someone who doesn't exist.

Not my navigation or my cartographer,

                              Don't cloud the way.

You're not waiting for me.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                              when you thought my heart was dead,

                              you thought I would take a final leap.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                             like you were some knight,

                             on some imaginary stallion.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                             and only the blind dream so well

                             in the wrong direction.

True: I'd love to hate you.

So take your dreaming far from me.

Politics

Thought of light that burns the sun,
Awakening.
Fires searing softly,
Lapping like waves: an oceans solid returning.
Cliff faces born of desperate hopes
Raised against the shed tears
In the hope to devour some forgotten song.
Inclining heads in one direction
                                          Brainless
                                          Mindless
Drones dredging upwards from the forest floor;
Sparks untouched and unnurtured.

You're Not Mine

You're not mine: I share you with the world.
At first I thought you the hart
Alone and untouchable in a forest of your own,
But now I see my error:
You're the hunter and the world's the forest,
And I'm the hart accidentally strayed onto your path.
What's left is for you to shoot.

Selene and Endhymion

At  the dawn of every day

As the moonlight fades away,

From your sleeping side I go,

Eb and tides: I follow their flow.

Leaving kisses on your cheek

No means left for me to speak;

Only whispers for when you wake,

Drifting to watch the sunligh tbreak.

Open your eyes, sweet prince of light,

And wish agian for swift come night,

When to you once more I'll come,

And dancers beat and singers hum,

Carrying love throughout our song,

To you I'll always belong;

Twixt dusk and dawn its always true:

In the darkness I'm for you,

But at the dawn of every day,

I will always fade away.

The Bruised Bride

It's the way his hand falls,
                                      catching the light
                                 almost cutting in.
Rapid flashes uperceptable of light shadow light
As his hand moves in front of the desk lamp.
It's the light of a train skittering through a tunnel

dark light dark

His eyes don't move but stay steady and enraged

dark dark dark

It's when the hand lands
                                    then it stops flickering
and suddenly
                                                                  everything is clear
and hazy.

Grief

I see the shadow of the rain as its about to fall,
Gray ribbons in the air like northern lights
Strewn over my vision a mantle of my self-deception.
There are no golden fields or glassy lakes that I see,
Flashing by in half-manifested reality,
The starry starry night gone past tranquil to empty pale,
And all I see is the shadow of the rain.

Returns

No definitions and no strings

An instrumental duet between drummer and flautist:

Steady unbreaking and blending tone

filled with varying change.

Young and sometimes still childish the

curling melody believes herself free

but comes back again to the steady rhythms.

No demands and few questions

Just the lazy falconer holding his arm out and up:

Unthinking and generally calm
weighed against her skyborn temperment.
Wheeling she might stray far from him
but she knows and so does he
his arm is home unthinkingly.

Gutless Generation

TV blaring video games firing guns

and automobiles,

Cacaphony of clamors and lost coins rambling

Drowning out sermons of book or parent.

Runaway junkie daughter parked on

her corner of street,

Selling wares only the rich can keep;

But Joe Blo'll pay the eleven minutes

and she'll get her fix eventually.

Teenage bumblers hop on a bus:

Theirs is a different part of town

with shopping malls.

Shiny cars line the streets and behind

silver glass dolls display wares only they will wear but everyone buys.

The church is dead and God needs a megaphone,

Responsible adults need shotguns 

to get anywhere with the rotten core of society these days.

Ophelia Drowned

Ophelia drowned was beautiful still,
With frail palor and silken skin,
Flower guardians to shepherd her way
From ebb to flow from tide to day.
We drowned her and nothing's the same,
Lost our cause to falling tears,
Blinding aims have slain our goddess,
Doused the stars of fire
Brought the world to silence
Kills his love undoubtable,
Too much water we wept for ourselves
And for our flaws Ophelia's drown'd.

Judgement

Poetry is sometimes lost in its making,

Words lose their meanings inevitably in the despair.

Even the most plain speech fails to matter,

When all I see in your eyes,

                                  smiling so calmly,

Is the flash of the sword behind me.

First

He is coffee's aftermath,
The drowning colours of caffeine and smoke.
Butterflies storming
Washing off the desire of a bulletproof vest.
Run fingers through dark hair
Catching fragile in silk cement applied that morning.
He is the beauty of the Tarot deck.
Kiss the night of woven fingers
Beyond the violetly soft JD and coke.

Being Here

Being here makes me think
Of places I've been and might find myself
Again.
Somewhere along the way
I seem to have wandered
Off the track
To find myself not lost just
Walkabout.
If fairies live anywhere
Surely they live here in the fern gullies
Of the Tasmanian valleys?
Maybe my wandering took me too far
From you. 

Stay

Tear me open
             and from my abyss
             take my whole heart
It was yours anyways
             from the start


Rip off my wings
            cast me down from the sky
            kiss me hard
            drain me dry


Until every breath is you.


Let this be our battlefield
           the broken concourse
           of words we could not say

and stay,
             stay
                  from night into the day.

Vindicate Me

Vindicate me,
Give me my last words to say.
Cleanse my soul
And let my sins just wash away.


I am the Fallen One
At whom angels curses hurled,
Not mere dust awakened
When broken wings unfurled.


I am the one they lost,
Shattered by the weight
That carried me down
To this forsaken state.


Vindicate me,
Grant me peace within my soul.
Release me,
Renew me and make me whole.


I've been no saint
To beg redemption in the night,
Nor murdered son;
Sole saviour of humanity’s blight.


I am the one in exile,
Mastered by my fate
And until my pride’s forgiven,
On Hell's throne I will wait.


Vindicate me,
Who for choice would die.
Let me fall,
To live as I breathe and lie.


If heaven is so mighty,
Then send back my sword
And fight me.

Eden's Folly

Here these steps I’ve walked before,

This pathway through the broken grass,

                                                  trees fading:

Our road from paradise lost.

Caught quietly in forced reality,

                                                   Your smile:

I remember from before Eden’s folly.

I would rather sin than innocence

For when I choose to love you.

Your Fire

There comes a time
When I confess
That I'm holding the sun in my head.


There is some deep and raw knowledge
In the understanding of your own emotion
Felt for another outside yourself.


Some deep dark tide,
                                unfathomable
Stretching across the ocean's soul
Into the reaches of your own.


So I can say with surety,
Beyond the moon's pull
or kraken calling seabirds,
that what's here is true.


There comes a time
When I realise
That I'm trying to contain the sun in my head
And every hour there is only your fire.

From You

Seems I've wandered far
                                     from you.
In my wanderings
Through this world away
                                     from you.
No matter where I've gone
On the meandering strings
That marionette me along
I can never stray too far
                                     from you.

While I was away in Tasmania (yes, that's where I was all month in case I forgot to mention it! Sorry!), I came to realise a lot of things, and this is one of the results, written on the 25th of January, 2010.