Poetry

June – Relationships: Friends

June – Relationships: Friends

Friends On the riverbank, close to the source we met, the dawn still fresh and the river clear We clung to each other like otters as we moved through childhood waters As we grew, we all took different streams and now when the currents return […]

June – Relationships: Self

June – Relationships: Self

Self Every day you walk past my house the one you notice from the curb, nestled near the park in the quiet hush of the stoic gum tree, you admire the curated garden and the golden glow that the windows throw into the violet sunset […]

June – Relationships: Family

June – Relationships: Family

Family As a small child I made a big promise, never to leave my family, my town my country or my faith I abandoned them all and flew away to roles I had never imagined in places I learnt of at school My generation sipped […]

June – Relationships: Lost

June – Relationships: Lost

Lost It’s not that you are lost it’s that I am gone The way you made me laugh now floats somewhere over the lonely ocean It’s not that you are lost it’s just that I no longer see the moon the way I used to […]

May – Addictions: Craving

May – Addictions: Craving

Craving We’re all looking for the hit, maybe sugar or alcohol, or the glowing end of a cigarette between lonely lips millions of hands disconnected from their hearts, awaken reach first for their phones, and scroll through lives of the other searching online for the […]

May – Addictions: People

May – Addictions: People

People I waited on the wire while the others leapt down to this planet, they went before me I didn’t want to come, here, to this place, where hearts get bruised and beauty is burnt and destroyed to make something that will be thrown away […]

May – Addictions: Habits

May – Addictions: Habits

Habits I have a few addictions Italian food, Prosecco, and window seats on airplanes going anywhere I have a few addictions books stacked on every possible shelf and thin china cups that hold strong tea with milk I am addicted to violins drums and the […]

May – Addictions: Lifelong

May – Addictions: Lifelong

Lifelong I’ve been addicted to words since I formed my first one, the shape of them, the way they roll around our mouths, connect us and create meaning The magic they can create, an image of red umbrellas against a grey sky and in the […]

April – Elements: Fire

April – Elements: Fire

Fire In the beginning you gathered the wood these tiny bits of consciousness, data that would later build the pyre little tidbits stories And then came the match the Flint the spark that ignited the truth and started the fire Sacred it burns Gathers the […]

April – Elements: Earth

April – Elements: Earth

Earth The earth knows no religion only pallid bones and dense flesh all the same under skin tones that differ The earth knows no boundaries only places where the land ends where the ocean starts where the mountains hover and where all look up to […]

April – Elements: Water

April – Elements: Water

Water I followed the others to the Women’s Baths this place, exclusive for women, to dip into the ocean, to float in the salt, the water that heals I followed the others all of us chatting about the day that had us immersed in the […]

April – Elements: Air

April – Elements: Air

Air When the dark waters of complexity churn and pull you under in a rip of thoughts dragging you out to sea and spinning you in a washing machine cycle of dreads yesterday’s wrongs on repeat cycle It’s time for air The invisible, pulled into […]

March – Daily Routines: Rising

March – Daily Routines: Rising

Rising There is tenderness in rising every morning just as the sun rises consistently, it never crawls under the covers and hides even when the day has been broken by terror or loss or grief There is vulnerability in rising every morning knowing you cannot […]

March – Daily Routines: Little Rituals

March – Daily Routines: Little Rituals

Little Rituals I prefer setting intentions of goodness to lingering in the dread of bad things to come I prefer wearing black and seeing internal kaleidescopes to wearing colours and living in darkness in my mind I prefer the sound of Gregorian chanting to the […]

March – Daily Routines: Daily Routines

March – Daily Routines: Daily Routines

Daily Routines The showerhead will gush as it does every morning spilling warm water on my daily thoughts as I shampoo prayers of love on a world that continues to turn The dog will allow the sun to fall on the spot where she chooses […]

March – Daily Routines: Reading

March – Daily Routines: Reading

Reading You will find me between the covers of a book wandering around in worlds I’ve never lived in, back in a tunnel of time, you, Mr Darcy and me, well, whomever I feel like being You will find me on a page lost between […]

March – Daily Routines: Tea

March – Daily Routines: Tea

Tea The world is crumbling, life has gone insane, something must be done It looks like nothing this rising, walking to the sink, hands held firmly on the kettle as the heaviness fills the jug The switch flicked water simmers then boils the kettle vibrates […]

February – Solitude: Quiet

February – Solitude: Quiet

Quiet You came to observe the things others cannot see but it’s only in the hush that your eyes will adjust to your personal light In the noise of seeing your heart may go astray and you will filter the sky through colours that are […]

February – Solitude: Silence

February – Solitude: Silence

This week’s poem is “Silence” in the monthly theme of “Solitude”. Next week’s word is “Quiet”. Silence The head chairs meetings voices creep with feedback, ‘not good enough’ they stalk and circle ‘you could have been better’ The heart needs quiet to connect to pillars […]

February – Solitude: Peace

February – Solitude: Peace

February’s theme in the #monthlymusings is “Solitude”. This week’s word is “Peace” Peace The calling will come it will arrive on the wind, perhaps, screaming your name as trees bend to add to the beckoning Or not It might take a stroll arrive on a […]

February – Solitude: Alone

February – Solitude: Alone

February’s theme in the #monthlymusungs is “Solitude”. This week’s word is “Alone”. Alone Alone is one of my favourite words, it has no echoes of loneliness, it speaks of endless possibilities of skies that stretch for blue miles and canopies of green cover as trees […]

January – Reflections: Musing

January – Reflections: Musing

Musing My favourite thoughts are simple in their complexity What if the most beautiful rose ever formed bloomed in the garden of a dying woman and no one saw it? Would it still be the most beautiful rose to ever have flowered? What if its […]

January – Reflections: Echoes

January – Reflections: Echoes

Echoes Standing on familiar soil I see the echoes of a time that used to be, time when this soil was all I knew, time when small town dirt beneath my nails, broke the boundary of where I started and the land began Now I […]

January – Reflections: Mirror

January – Reflections: Mirror

In the #monthlymusings series of the #52words52weeks collection, we are in January with the focus on “Reflections”. This week’s word is “Mirror”. Mirror Give up looking in the mirror, hardened glass of expectations Give up judging your own reflection, the flat version of yourself, the […]

January – Reflections: Sky

January – Reflections: Sky

January is the month of “Reflections”. The first word in the set is “Sky” Sky The sky sighed, breathed above a land adored, and when night set in, punctured holes within its heart and called them stars instead of scars to still give light The […]

Week 52: Epilogue

Week 52: Epilogue

Epilogue The clock does not know it will continue ticking but we will be gone; the garden will remain in velvety verdance and someone else will tend the plants and trim their wild ambitions; the birds will arrive at dawn waiting for the whistling woman […]