some moments are perfect

brief, bright points of languid

amidst the raucous

amidst the unnerving

like hot black coffee

in the cool bright sun

a bitterness once hated

now perfectly married to a life

sweet enough to bleed into it

no need for sugar these days

as the street’s symphonic noise

waits to be understood

here i am
right here
write now
wherever you are
i am here
we are speaking

a b i d i n g

together
son, daughter,
wife, brother
sister, mother
grandchild, friend
descendent

in these binding words
that run through the you
that run through the me
here we are in silence

look for me
in these dark corners
between the lines
and you will find
i am the soft whisper
of quiet thought
hiding in your mind
embracing you

here

now

forever.

Sometimes artists channel truth even when they do not contain it within themselves.

This is how even the ugliest of people can communicate beauty when they least expect it.

sometimes i need to rip out my heart
so i can know that it’s still there;
that it still beats hot in my dead hand
telling me that there is life left yet
to be wrung like ink from a cloth
into the deskside jar
that i stab with my pen

come goddess of endorphin
and mainline me to another world
where my mind is carbon fiber
and filled with honeyed thoughts
of us by the black sand salty sea
where the carving wind threatened
to send you tumbling toward me

i was dreaming
in the midst of the screaming
of a post-tribal time
where i don’t give a fuck
who you are or where you’re from
where i will stand in wonder
at the myriad and the marvel
beneath this life-giving sun
and sing with a newer voice

but for now
there is just the screaming
and the hope for a different song

there at the crossroads
where story and experience meet
emotion is born and rises up unique

angry, sad, happy, anxious
a dark wraith or bright spirit
depends on its inheritance
depends on time of day
depends on place in life

it’s a capricious satyr
that dances with you
that dances upon you
at the crossroads

this city embraces you
it holds you close to keep you warm
and plunges a knife into your back
to cut out your liver as it laughs

this city cries with you
when you languish in your isolation
and it laughs at you
when you seek to crawl from shadow

this city is a knife edge
between furious possibility
and a plunge to the dagger rocks below
while we walk the centre-line
between a life and a death

this city that would love you
like you were one of its own
and just as soon tie you in a sack
and throw you to the cold, dark waters

this city is insane –
infected by the leaking minds
of the swollen multitude
trying to fever-burn us away
weeping all the while

and i,
i can feel its bones
in the granite and the asphalt
out of which we will shape our caskets
that we might be buried beneath her skin
forever together

so long
so long a reign
my whole life
my children’s too
and most of mum’s
more than 70 years
on my money
periodically
on my mind
so long this heart beat;
stability through tumult
a quiet ever-presence
so long we’d thought,
it would never end…we’d thought
God save the Queen
were words we would sing
now instead will echo
God save the King
as Charles does ascend
Elizabeth we commend
to that rest we all receive
so long, so short, now gone
so long…