Let it be, pause, step away
Abandon all expectations,
beliefs of how it should be.
Inhale.
Let there be space, observe
See yourself being moved,
grooves of the subconscious.
Exhale.
Release, flow into the moment
Detach from the, it has to be,
step into the field of possibility.
Listen.
To the wisdom of your breath
the calm ebb and flow of life
bold heartbeats of presence.
Tuesday
A gully slopes down
from a raised hip bone,
rises toward the ridge
of a resting arm.
Fingers brush across
mythical piano keys,
curving along a cheek.
The brown savannah
of your back,
seduce my senses,
with a promise.
Stay beyond tomorrow.
I blanket your body
with my aching limbs,
drawing my strength
from a well of acceptance.
Acknowledging that,
following the Monday of staying,
arrives a Tuesday of leaving.
A While
Wait here with me a while, in silence
Speak only with eyes that cannot lie
Let joy extend its way up your spine
Peace make a home alongside mine
Stay here with me a while, in love
Speak only with hands that cannot lie
Let joy wrap itself around your heart
Peace still the stormy gusts of fear
Lay here with me a while, in gratitude
Speak only with lips that cannot lie
Let joy cast a light on dark shadows
Peace wipe the last tear from your eye
Humanity
Paint in the colour of sweat falling
from the toiling labour on the field
Tell me of the colour of cold tears
wailing the suffering of a child lost
Speak the colour of gushing blood
from wounds inflicted by brothers
Recount for me the colour of eyes
holding the gaze of faith and hope
Recite for me the words of fathers
to sons off to the slaughter of war
Sing for me a song of resurrection
from this stone tablet of your god
Laugh in the familial happy voices
rising from the broken bread tables
Write to me about paradoxes of love
on the old white skins of fallen trees
Feel me in the embracing kindness
of the newly awakened friendships
Life Memoirs
Life pens its memoirs in the fine lines
of a contented but decaying body.
Each stroke an epitaph to a chapter
and a manifestation profoundly lived.
Crafting deep passages on moments
full of authentic friendship and love.
Purple ink transforming crude judgment
into the embrace of a shared humanity.
Drafting a final chapter on the gratitude
of being invited back home, to ourselves.
Gift
There is a gentle peace that emanates
from the things not wanted but needed
from the fortunes not sought but found.
There is a simplicity that is curled up
in moments not expected but offered
in intimacy not earned but bestowed.
There is a contented joy that gleams
in the bleak places where love grows
in hollow shadows filled with grace.
There is an unpretentious acceptance
of wisdom contained in a conundrum
of the sanctuary crafted in letting go.
Become
I am becoming what I am, what I was
Concealed in distractions of my being
Let those who have eyes to see, see
Let those who hear reveal themselves
Speak, so that I might recognise you
Share your light that we might be one
Sit with me and with my tutelary deity
In the silence of that slow untethering
In the undoing of those who never were
I am hidden in the salvation of sacrifice
Oblivious to all but those who bring life
Umbrella
The brooding sky opens up its wings.
Expelling a heavy heart in teardrops,
splattering across filthy black lanes.
Leaving humans scattering for cover,
not noticing the salvation given them.
Do not shelter me from these torrents,
allow me to embrace a surging sorrow.
Let the cleansing sky tears cover me.
Hand your umbrella to the stranger,
and bestow your kisses to the night.
The Pink Cot
Always arriving at every word ever spoken
Bambi and the pink cot stand as a testimony.
The testimony to long summer Sundys.
Filled with the cries of cicadas,
cicadas and the wrath of whiskey and pain.
Hush now my child; no one is coming.
Your pastel prison of broken and futile dreams
will not arrest this brutal hurricane.
Raging through the dusty African Savannah.
You, the symbol of a last hope destroyed.
A creature never meant to be this.
Cicada sirens, the palpitating heartbeat,
echoing grief for what is invariably lost.
You, predestined to wander the earth,
tearing at the fabric of life.
Oh, misplaced soul always arriving,
but not belonging, somewhere.
Bound
How must I disfigure my words
Conform endless unbound ideas
into tiny boxes of acceptance
How must I contort my essence
Submit the free-running child
to the shackles of conformity
How must I restrain my fiends
Imprison giants of creativity
in dark gaols of deliverances
How must I subdue my epiphany
Contour the remarkable enigma
into blasé shams of the known
Deliver my feet to the melody
Stretch out for me a universe
of open and magical unknowing