Poems
Toast
Fill this crystal amphorae
Golden wine
Pastiche
Champagne
Tones of gold,
With toast upon the nose
Pinot with
One third of chardonnay
The touch of mernier
And curvee’s elegance…
“Champagne” he cried
Glass three she’s mine
Sham pain damn shame
Drink I’ll show you drunk
Disgorgement
Touché
Muselage, Recherché
Drink as lover might
With passion, yeast and spice,
The pinprick beads of life
Gentle mousse for love,
Wisdom Humour and with arrogance…
Because you can
For this wine
Bids its measure taken, gladly,
Breaks down possibilities’ and compromise
Send waves of time cascading
Forges darkness into light
Opens vintner’s doors
Brings joy no child can dream
And happiness no poet describe
“Champagne” he cried
Sham pain damn shame
Third glass she’s mine
Drink
I’ll show you drunk
Disgorgement
Touché
Muselage, Recherché
So raise your glass
Liquid creature and wine savant
Tomorrow’s cellars bon vivant
With grape, vignette and promise…
And harvest yesterday
As today your lives may be waylaid
TIFFANY & MICHAEL
Somewhere across the horizon they met
Two backpackers hauled from airport to the wharf
From one destination into next then back
Him carrying man stuff, her stuff the feminine version
Between dodgy backpackers and semi romantic two star digs,
They swagged, camped, the rough, the tumble,
Chilled beer devoured each other, pizza and words
Soothing the aches and fortifying the courage
Two backpackers met as friends
As closeness moved towards,
The most travelled destination,
The one we all call love.
From different points on the spread flat compass they came,
Making sense, attraction and connection.
Two accents meeting on the awkward plane of life
God took note and smiled in one of those telling ways
He knew, what they’d not noticed
Bruised shoulders thick with travel tales
They glanced into each other’s eyes
The fleeting becomes the long
As longest becomes that smile of their love.
Making sense of something new,
Two souls upon a counterpoint point of trust
They kissed, not as friends as they had been
A kiss of lovers, that blew dust of Aussie red and blue and spangled stars.
From global corner point, from Oz to USA,
That happenchance of travel as two souls’ searched, collided into one
As friendship told her story, that his love would soon revere
Bruised shoulders thick with travel tales
They glanced into each other’s eyes
The fleeting becomes the long
As longest becomes the smile of their love
Two backpackers met as friend
As closeness moved towards,
That most travelled destination,
The one we all call love.
ESSAY ON LOVE
Love is more than
Yesterday’s motive
The idealised bronze statue of Adonis
A bas relief of Shiva
Unloved love
A spent cartridge
An exploding grenade
Love is a form, a shape, a motion
Gathering momentum in minds of the audience who
wait for the words and the kiss
Love is
The defaced bas relief of Shiva
The tarnished bronze statue of Adonis
The unloved moments
The spent cartridges found
The pin slipped back into the grenade
The relearned in form, shape and motion
The commercial packet of last year’s seeds
BY CHANCE WE MET
By chance we met
He will stay until you love him
He will roll his swag upon the uncut grass
beyond her front door
He will build sign posts at her fence to
notify the world of his love for her
He will pitch his tent while proclaiming to the world
this is his new Taj Mahal for her
He will picket her front terrace with poets and lovers
until she gently kisses his torn and ragged lips
He will throw knotted scarves by ships anchor
and climb Rapunzel like upon her balcony tower
He will sing Romeo and Juliet in chest voice
until he see’s a flash of teal blue cyan from her eyes
He will irrigate her withering garden
with tears of redemption as forgiveness grows her plants
He will remake her garden without reward
until it grows the shape of her heart
He will kiss her womanhood until stars fall from her eyes
He will butterfly her centre until her daughter’s laughter
snuggles between her breasts
He will call upon the moon to beam him bedside to her
as he kneels professing his love
He will stand with adoration before the lectern of life
as he calls her name in poetic stanza
He will back her back as Clyde to Bonnie
and wrap shields of rock hard strength around her fragrant soul
He will spread throw overs of passion
reminding her there can be more than one true love
By chance we met
He will stay until you love him
Her Valentine
He will blaze her name into the tree with his chainsaw
He will make her laughter speak his name
He will chisel her name into stone to last forever
He will stencil her name onto the longest stretch
Of white unblemished beach sand
He will write her name skyward with crayons of cloud
He will burn her name into his arm, as skin art, burnt to soul
He will tune guitar and pitch her name by strum
He will grow tomatoes into the shape of her heart
He will bonsai her name to the arms of a Japanese maple
He will arrange blocks of granite to bear her name
He will command his heeler to bark her name
He will arrange the flowers on her dresser in her name
He will hang her jeans and the briefs in her name to dry
He will scribe her name on her mirror in her favourite lip gloss
He will kiss that gloss as thought it were her lips
He will watermark her love with tears on tracing paper
He will smudge greasy hands on work shirt in her name
He will whittle her name to wheel of a eucalypt trunk
His olive tree will bear her name as he prunes
Her laughter will speak his name
He will blaze her name to the tree with his chainsaw.
Isle of Wight
All about, Fifteen nautical miles to stern
To leeward, set sail to where the fair breeze calls
Lord Tennyson words to the windward shore
or we’ll miss the isle of Wight
Captain with respect, Methinks we missed Miss Wight
The siren’s soporific whispers from the lips of an ancient roman goddess’
All about you’ll see standing off the southern tip
Clad in naked organsa, her white complexion enough to drive the sirens back to sea
Overt your eyes my hearties
Her ovaline eyes filled with color from the channel depths on a pallid borealis summer
Stand to, wax in ears, silk scarves to eyes
No glimpse to catch or death to the sickness of love My hearties.
He stood firm threw wax to sea to seal the sperm whales gape
He saw her standing caved from an obelisk of ambergris.
Her delicate beauty, her ancient face, the sublime curves that only a man knows
And a back of graciousness more lovelier
That Boadicea’s last cry of love on the blood rich fields of life.
A pardon form the queen my captain, If I shall be the one
to kiss those lips and turn form from ambergris to golden flesh
to taste the scent and drink her tears from my grail of love.
My captain begging your permission sir,
Her white sail filled with the wightness of her eyes, the wightness of silk.
Into the valley of wightness he called
half a league my captain
With 600 eyes he rode in to her eyes
Lost in the valley, lost in the valley
600 eyes
All about, Fifteen nautical miles to stern
to leeward, set sail to where the fair breeze calls
Lord Tennyson words to the windward shore
or we’ll miss the isle of Wight
Captain with respect, Methinks we missed Miss Wight
“It only takes one moment, to make one difference, to one person in one day, to realize that one possibility can change
one’s attitude to life”