Siege

How can I love life without loving the people in them?

The same way I have loved dance without loving the music I danced to, perhaps.

There is an ambivalence that besieges me, a desire for wholeness ever pulled two ways.

Pick Your Poison

Pick your poison, we all die anyway;
Tell that to the babe who's lived just one day,
Whose sunrise paired not with sundown, whose feet never met ground.

Tell that to the survivor who's fought hard to stay,
Whose nights shriek in anguish, which the flippant dismiss.

Tell it to the wife who's laughed for the last time,
With the one who last night, seemed just to be fine.

Now tell me it matters not which of these you are,
Blank faces which speak, never searching quite deep -
Pick your poison, they say; like it's of no worth to have
just one more day.

So I cheated. I eliminated the need for that one more word.

Ah, there  you are. It's been awhile since we've had you around; you're most welcome to stay - forever, if you may.

Recognised myself.

In just that flashing thought;
"If this is a test -and even if it isn't - I want to ace it."



Tears creeping into our voices
One of frustration, the other sorrow
Both hearts breaking
One like ceramic, the other shadow

 
As she spoke of her ambition, her dreams, her passion, it stirred something within me
Voice of one kindred spirit to another
It stirred the embers of the very same in me, soul artist and writer, needing art as a body needs the air

 
And why we both turned the other way than we first intended to go, neither one knows. We just needed to be alone with our thoughts, and the voice of a kindred spirit.



I am convinced
This is my gift
To feel for others, as they feel
If not half of it, at least
understanding the vein of it, through which runs the heat of emotion, the spark of life;
For which man truly lives who does not feel?

 
So then am I naturally equipped with that which tunes one in to the very essence of life, which is the emotionality flowing through us all? Recognisable threads, ironic differences, stark exposure, veiled intentions; have we a moment more precious than when two souls are no more, no more than a single drop in the ageless stream?


Stood still and wrote, wrote it all out before I could take another step
Here in the half dark, in the humming silence and burning cold,
in the ghostly presence of what used to be.

So much can change in a couple of weeks; how can we discount the value of a year?

Yet, consider in your heart
Just what is causing you pain?
More than that which has once brought you joy,
Is there more than wounded vanity and carelessly bartered hopes?


So these people sitting in their shells, their caves, their selves,
It may not be known to them, but some are simply waiting for a hand to reach right in and shake them, shake them and say Wake up, without ever speaking the words.

Maybe we all need people like that, if only for a season.

Not Such a Smug Lobster After All

Will this sweet cherishing never go away, grow old and fade?


It matters not where I am - on the bus facing someone's backpack, in a tower overlooking the Harbour, crossing the street double-quick...


This refocuses me
On the fact that
I want someone who makes the effort to know me, ask how my day was, what are you thinking of?


How life makes a mockery of our intentions.


You give me words to read, mull over, dream upon.

 
"I never want to leave!"
Exactly what I felt and said, by the shore.
 

The words weighed down like a stone in my heart
Though they were meant to step light there
So I swapped the tears for a fresh new start
As I took off into the air
  'til you find me.



So the day came
When I washed my hair with that shampoo
And soaped my body with that shower gel
All relics of you

Ran for it
Now the train tracks lead to you.


Object of curiosity
Stepping confidently out the cab
Like I belonged here
To this polished suburb
Where houses gleamed in muted dignity, white picket fences rose pretty from green lawns
Up to the door
And in

Feeling blisters on my toes but oh, to walk with you once more
You knew the look before I even lifted my shades



Well
It was just
Walking with you agan, standing by you
You being the right radius behind me;
Not so much stone face going on today but there you were in entirety;
All I could do was look at you and smile, because it is all so familiar and unstrange
Though we were far away from where it all began.

 
A year is a long time. I knew it then, you let me know it again now. In a year perhaps, we shall meet again
To say our goodbyes in July


Now the stations are marking the miles between us
Growing, growing
'Til once again we are on opposite sides of the globe

 
...and it was tremendously difficult to get my head (and others') around that, but I tried my best.
Maybe it killed some parts of me, but it did grow others.


There are no words right now
Nothing magical
Just warmth and gladness and cherishing, perhaps with some reassurance on top.


"I'm proud to be friends with someone who honours his girlfriend as he should - whomever she may be. And also there was always the part about me wanting you to be happy."



So that was what you meant when you said you didn't think I was the sort who needed frequent close proximity. You'd seen my independence even that early on.

 
Tonight we are asleep in the same city, but come tomorrow you will be going, going, gone back to your side of the world - the opposite side.

There, I've said it. Our city.
What do you think?



And this time you did it Aussie
The way we like it
See you later.

Still Humming

In which corner of the square did we first meet?

The maybe's, the for sure's, the knowings,

Somehow I think you will find a way to keep them alive.

The b-boys were there tonight

Maybe we are the ones to add colour to their world,

A humdrum no-pause-for-lunch, dogged can-hardly-reply-you kind of place.

I remember that day

Familiar little figure, flash in the crowd

It seems strange now

That you should have been more easily found

When I needed you most

As is more often than not, not the case

And all these old thoughts come back like the cloak of a thief,

blotting out the benign moonlight.

Heckles up

Fighting for family

But you told me, it's me you told

And I would want you fighting for me

If we were family

The funny thing is no one here knows I love earrings, and love wearing them.

The funny thing is stuff do add definition to a person, yet there is so much definition left without them.

I felt, and still feel fine being without my earrings - but it would be nice to be known in completion.

Traipsing down the Basser Steps

All by my ownty-downty self

Through the chilly night air of spring

To my warm and cosy room

The basis is contentment, but it is something more than that. A little like fulfilment, but not quite that. Like a cat curling up in its basket - satisfaction.

When a thought holds you hostage:

Toothbrush clenched between teeth, foam on the side of the mouth - writing furiously

And these things, in speaking, become less of tragic secrets no one must know about; they become proof that human nature is more accepting, more knowing than we tend to give it credit for.

It's a bit of a curious relationship

When you've loved and lost, and loved again

So that's the difference between then and now. I grew used to listening to the reasons I couldn't do what I ought to, want to, wish to.

That's not you, Nicole. The one who ran the last 3.5km refusing to give up - is you.

So give me back my caprice, my mischief, my whimsical fancies

To the winds, they fly

And so do I

Wishing my way back into yesteryear

I never tire of Sydney's beauty, and wonder if I ever will.

Suddenly the vague strains of music or voices filter through, to my heart, as the wispy sounds of azan do at dusk. A birthling longing to hear it from my neighbourhood mosque is almost like homesickness.

Lena with her lovely

sun-drenched locks

These flowers smell so sweet

As you did, love, as you did.

Some things are soft only

because they've been

broken in a

 m i l l i o n                                       p l a c e s .

Darkness Rising

"This world is only as heavy
As how we make it out to be"

                 - Jafri -

And I don't understand why it gets this way, why when I step out to fight the world beats me back, defiance versus defiance.

Is it because the fray only comes when one is armed for it, the same way the teacher arrives when the student is ready to learn?

Like how offence cannot be given if it will not be taken

and  how listening is futile if the wind only blows.

Yet it wasn't too long ago I was the voice,

I was the voice and I was the listening
And all I needed
was the in between.

feels like darkness rising.