The canvas on my balcony

Oh careful heart that rumbles

Like a belly once forgot

Are you cut like a vein

Bleeding out across the floor?

Or broke like a bone dropped from a branch?

Many a thing you seem to mirror

If it is only to beat a drum in perfect time

Over to over and over again

Why is it that you ache

like a cold winters night for the sun to kiss across the horizon?

Shall it be that I never know the sweep of wings that make you flutter?

Will I ever be sure that my own song is pretty enough to sing?

And if you stop pumping

Reliable yet not reluctant

Then will I feel you outside these chambered walls?

Drawing me in with your power your precision

Will I dismantle each rib and build a ladder

to reach into the dreams

we whispered to each other of a night?

Will we then be capable of verse

To share the lonely afternoon
Spread our arms around each other’s past.

Careful heart

Cut you out I won’t

Oh careful heart
Like a belly
like a vein
A bone

A mirror

A drum and the poets canvas

You are safe with your crown
There within my balconies.

Love is Increasing

Love is increasing

Love is remembering.

Love changes.

It changes its course, 

its skin,

Its country,

its flavour, 

its reasons, 

it changes its needs. 

Love changes its language. 

The one thing love can’t do, 

Is forget.

Love remembers. 

It never forgets 

The completely unexplainable

It shows the best bits 

like a video on repeat. 

Love gives & gives.

 Even if the gifts are long gone. 

Love changes our worlds. 

When we know

 how to grow 

love inside ourselves, 

the compost of all the love gatherings, 

love throw – aways,

Love hurts, love trash, love -errrs, 

love lessons & love lightnings

When we know

 how to grow 

love inside ourselves, 

the rich diggings that nourish

 a never ending reap

for our love filled life.

Infinite beliefs

I wish the universe could understand

That even though we aren’t all asking

We are all indeed in need of being heard

Can there just be the shitty shift from fear into the brightest of love between us all in a blink of an eye?

For those still stuck in greed & game playing

For those still hurting the sentient sharers of this earth.

For those engaged in battles with the core of this planet, for those controlling the weather stations and the SpaceForce … for anyone trying to bleed on the outside of this internally destructive time

For those losing their sacred ground – universe can we please speed this up?

To a silent day when the shrill call of the wild hums in our hearts and we feel the soaking under our skin of the crystal rains while our toes dance in the ancient dirt while listening in on conversations between trees and mycelium love affairs.

Let our arms reach for each other and hold on

through the darkest of nights

as the wise cultures slowly share their fire stories

with the faces of those

losing power

& their ability to tweet toward a new download.

Let our faces be silent as we learn to respond to the skies.

to rewild our soils, our souls and sanctuaries.

Let us be more like you

Universe.

More awe filled in the flicker of time.

More infinite in our design than we have ever before believed.

Might be too late

When the disclaimer asks
if you’re affected
Do you need guidance
Have you ever considered?
Call this number
Contact someone who cares.
Let me disclaim
That since I learned step truths
About being the shunned
About being the judged
I claimed myself back.
I stepped into new truths
Found I was being a child
Longing for her father
His approval
His pride
His joy
Not his wife’s conversations
Not his step daughters love
Longing
For something real to start
When all the steps fell apart
Trauma we went through together
Understanding will never come
Why
pretend it never happened.
Why
Talk of other peoples lives
Never our own.
This sacrifice of heart
To look like you have it all together
Why
Pretend it’s all ok
Water beneath a bridge
I know I’m meant to see
See it all go
Watery dancing fluid
I stand there – rigid
often
& breath
Like an adult
I wait
Like an adult
Waiting for
Jumper leads
start
Me
up
So I won’t be late
Like an adult with it all together
Will there be holly water
At your funeral
Will you be glad
To not invite us
to your very own wake
For the steps to come full circle
To lead us all back to that
Broken moment
Her funeral
Your daughter
Hung
Dead
and
Gone

I am affected
I do need guidance
I use to consider Suicide
I used to vomit instead
I used to obliterate myself
I used to avoid realty
With everything outside my head
your daughter long gone
Do you wish it were me instead
me that looks like my mother
Do you wish I didn’t act like her
Her that crushed your heart
Because you didn’t know how to love her.
Scold her all you like
Scathe her still when old hurts alight
I am here
I am your daughter too.
I am an adult
I am that 4yo still
You should have got to know me.
I came back from London
To your wife that hated me
I wanted to be seen by you
Instead each wrong doing was notched
Each tough time judged
You were judged by them all too.
You still are.
Because of me
Because of Your son
The one you don’t know how to be proud of
The one you let grown men belittle
The one you guided with loveless arms
I wonder if we will be late
To your funeral
I wonder why the Christians
Can’t forgive
I wonder now
As an adult
I wonder why they pretend that Suicide is just a call away from forgiveness
Someone should call
Because we might be late

Spider

Out there with the dark

The twinkle glitters of

love

along the web

Our families sticky,

spidery web

Holding us all together

As each of us swing in the breeze

Drops of dew

dance mysteries

Weaving intricacies

like snow flakes

Darkness comes too soon

Light feels

Can’t you see

It’s everywhere?

I see you

You feel it from me

Like a hand in the hall

Long & dark

Tickling the back of your neck

Quickening your steps

My hand brings the light

A warm hold to bring you in

Lessening the tap

Tap

Tap

Of fear

Fears from dark

From loneliness & hurt

Darkness gifts you light awaiting

Look to the edge of our web

You’ll see light

On the horizon

Reaching out for you.

It Rips

LOVE

It takes everything you ever owned

It rummages through every thought you have

It races across your heart

Stampedes into your routine

Lifts you higher than you can see

Dances into all the loneliest places

Colours the walls of your heart

With thick and gooey feels

It gives and gives and gives

And reminds you that there is nothing but honesty in those words dripping into pillows

Everything that scares you now pulls you from the seat

Throws you into the ring and shoots at your feet

You’ll dance and dance until the circus empties

You’ll call and cry into the stars

And wonder why you never saw it coming

The burn that strips away your essence

The fear that mounts in the throat

You can’t swallow it away

You can’t wash it down

It sticks

It rips

It repeats all the fuck ups you wished could be wiped

There will be tears that never end

There will be questions never answered

There will be armies of friends to you hold up

There will be all the sunny days of your beautiful soul

Dancing all on its own

Perfect & stunning

Strong & proud

Gifting you the power greater than before

Then

Like a warm Spring breeze

It

Something

will come

showing you it’s time to try again

And you will

You will forget what you own

You will let

butterfly’s dance across the delicate sand of your heart

The ripples of their wings

making your stomach empty

and eyes crave.

Longing

Relentless longing

For the lover to return

Blink

It kisses

Soft & humming

Like moonlight through a window

Like sunrise across an ocean

It holds

Firm & beating

Like drums in the distance

Like fists upon my chest

It trembles

Weak & subtle

Like fearful children on war torn streets

Like autumn leaves freeing their grip

It seeks

Relentless & repetitive

Like strangers at nights end

Like dolphins in cool blue seas

It screams

Open & howling

Like a widow dyeing inside

Like the wind through crevices

Like a first kiss on your heavy lips

An arm reaching from your new lover

Like the first time

Wanting the words to be true

Yet knowing it will end

Aching for no change

Only the moment to play over

& over

& over

Hold my colour

Body of you
Sleeping far from me
Limbs longing
Like a climbing dawn
Into the sky
To hold our colour
Not fade
Nor dissolve
Don’t weaken now
Body of you
Holding me in your mind
Nights void of sleep
Starless skies creep
Into morning bird song
I hear the whisper of your heart
Distant at my bench
The kettle stops
The dog whimpers
Tears at my eyes
Another day without you at my side

Guest post

Our wrinkles and sags.
Our drooping.
Our dropping.
Pulling us to the Earth.
Cell by cell.
Drawing us down, close enough to grow roots.
Close enough to become One.

We are women.
Knowing creatures.
Created from a wrinkle
In the One Who Knows hips.

We are preserving female tradition.
We stand in the mundane,
While we dance with spirit manifest.
Our ears prick to the sounds of the future.
Our eyes flicker to the sight of our ancient past.
One foot in the world and one foot the psychic land.
All while rocking a baby upon our hips.

As we look in the mirror
And we pour upon our own milky eyes,
We must see that we have given birth to an infant universe.
We are the thread of humankind.
We may throw on many costumes
We may take on many guises.
But when we decide to finally remove our veils,
We must remember that our dress-up box is the story of our life.

We can call ourselves by any name.
High name.
Low name.
New name.
Ancient name.
We remain what we are.
Woman.
The tradition of the feminine.
Walking in these bones.
Becoming.

From Maiden to Crone.
Our right of passage.
An unparalleled journey.
Our most deepest honour.

WINTER W I S H E S

She wishes to kiss his chin
Climb up into his arms

Fall back into love

She wishes that they kissed
He has flown to another town

To climb into ‘the’ bachelor life

She will fall into ‘the’ routine

He has said goodbye …. again
She feels promise in her veins

As the night wraps around her

The damp air sticks to where

She wishes he were
He is the love of her life

The one who made her a mama

The one whom certainly fell from

Any expectation held

He is her moment to moment

& Every second in between

He is the pause before she inhales

The dragging silence as she breaths out, out, out.

She wants to fall again

Fall into him again

Fall in love all over again

To sit in sunshine and then

Kiss amongst the breeze.

Sit under trees, to watch the tide leave.

Saturated they could be

With all the glances easily missed.

Weight me down winter blankets

This season’s sure to hurt

My bones that ache for you.