Bare Branches

I look out to see the branches are bare

but I don't remember seeing leaves fall.

It seems we go from having it all there

seamlessly to having nothing at all.

It makes me wonder just when did they leave

and where have the vibrant times gone?

Has the sun merely had a small reprieve

or has the light permenantly moved on?

I know that there will be new leaves to grow

but there's a cold winter to endure first,

and if the branches can shake off the snow

then I can cope with old leaves being dispersed.

We've suffered the season's sudden refresh

but we can look forward to starting afresh.

Bled Colours

Primary manifestations

of secondary thoughts,

my colours all bleed into one.

Letting the sun's heat saturate

the pondering of pores

and the contrast of thought is gone.

Such is the richness of colour

I have no want to mix

but to bask in vividity.

Yet a citrus drop on my tongue

in nectar hydration

heightens my stroke's lucidity.

So I let the tool fall freely

as the waves roll in eights

and the skimmed stone ripples sixes

but then a cloud conceals the rest

and the tide's creeping in

until all my colour mixes.

Failed Form

I find your form failed;

flustered by the breeze.

Sinuous stellar strip

that seeps with apparent ease

through the open window

and the raindrops start to tease

and the sill begins to rot

and my luck begins to squeeze.

I find your form failed;

neglected by my care.

The precipitation thickens

like anvils from the air

in a desperately dark deluge

and it collects in my hair

and I lean from my open window

and I was never really there.

22°

The cirrostratus sky frames your sweet smile

as the halo envelopes the lunar orb.

The pale light is twice reflected to the sea

and within it my worries are absorbed.

For the winter's dark is broken by your light

and the days are slowly getting longer.

With each parting cloud, your parting lips

and each sunrise seen, my heart is stronger.

In the solstice's end I find my solace;

you are the antidote for my furrowed frown.

For the halo that surrounds the pale moon

reflects upon the one I find upon your crown.

And when I am softened by such a spark

it makes me almost welcome a brief dark.

Iceage

Oh how you've been clinging to those icy grips

like languishing leaves lost among litter.

The weather, it tries its best to warn you

you'd be left directionless and bitter.

That's not to say it's cold all of the time

but rather a sudden forecasted front

and what meteorologists once said;

they'd now rather not be taking that punt.

The forecast's grim; but at least not for him

who's walking around in shorts and a vest.

His happiness shows, for he really knows

he's on the cold Earth only as a guest.

And when the ice melts, he'll swim in the flood

and when he's drowning he'll say "it is good".

Wisp in Wonder

The wisp of smoke

dances towards the sky,

reaching from your dying cigarette

that litters your light fingertips

buring into the overcast troposphere,

resigned to the thickening fate

that the once dainty effluvium has.

I wonder if it is envious

of the smoke that is reserved

to be graced by the touch

of your full, fleshy lips

exhaled softly into the overcast troposphere,

dancing elegantly into the dense sky

savouring its farewell kiss.

I realise that whether by lips or fingertips

the smoke's time in your presence

is ephemeral and all smoke

must eventually join the clouds;

if I was that blissfully endowed smoke

my last action would be to hover

a halo around the crown of your hallowed head.

Words in the Breeze

Decisions made

in the tree covered shade

where lovers ease

to words

that just the breeze

had heard.

An hour's slept;

the sun has leapt

through the cracks

to peer

where the ray still lacks

but near...

Halogen Engines

The sun lay comatose on the sky's veranda, a hollow halogen for those tethered to its pull.

Soft spring songs swim through breeze like schools of fish drawn to the odor of fresh mulch.

The distant mower cuts a carpet of multifarious grass atop a pampered dirt, 

asking the Earth of its faculty, cacophonous and coughing gasoline. 

A seething and still gravel road carves through the surface of the crust, 

imparting a passageway to an island

swallowed on each side by efficient and mass distributed cathedrals of carpentry,

drafted by architects and subsumed by engineers. 

The buzzing industry of the mower has given way,

the only energy remaining is fluted by the symphony of blue jays and house finch.

Brown Bird

A swiftness of being,

with gentle sky-taps,

contrasts to the ploddy earthiness

of the ground below.

The fog had swollen,

you could chew it,

breathe it,

and squish it in your hands.

It made the sky flax-white,

refined as a leather purse,

or gentle oak-stained

glass of wine.

And with all anchors of land,

a solemn being uproots,

up, up,

and up once more.

Sentenced

The wind howls in an open corridor,

caged like a bird but singing nonetheless—

it seeks not an escape from the confines—

but to wreak terror on the terrestrial testing that trapped it there.

The clouds part and the jailer appears,

grinning sadistically, keys in hand—

the sentence is simply existence—

and the sounds can barely escape the wind through all of the seeping shade.

It has prepped its face for a death,

an unkind death, swift and stiff—

It will become as rigid as a floorboard—

and you will hear it creak at night when all the little lights go out at once.

[Nice Day]

A bed of grass amid

springtimes tender flowers

kissed by pleasing showers.

Jewelled in dew they hid.

The soil had held their shape.

Blue canvas stitched a roof

The grass still blonde in youth

softly framed her nape.

Missing the Rain

I would shun the chance at a paradise in eternal summer sun

for just one stormy September's day spent with you;

trade the idea of drinking cocktails in the sky clear

to hold your hand through the deluge.

I would drown in the dismal downpour without a frown,

endure the torrent with no qualms.

I could be sitting under any gargantuan wonder

but I would still prefer to be framed by your arms.

Written Off

The clouds are closing in

like terrible teeth from the jaws of the mountain,

clenching down onto the dour day.

A thousand little footsteps patter through the tiles

unsure of their direction,

fading away into those lowly confines

that we reserve for everything that has served its use;

buried in the ground.

Windbreak

I let the drizzle fall and form its stains.

I'll dye the rest so it can look the same.

Thinking what it would be like outside

while melted wood is running down my thighs.

And still my joints creek like weak trees

that are easily swayed by the whispering wind.

Knowing I have no time for her heavy hands

and yet I can't help but miss the moaning reprimands.

Autumn's Nostalgia

The unmistakable nostalgia of September is upon us,
the hot breeze s
                            w                 through the air,
                               e           s                              caressing magnolia petals
                                  e    p                                                                               as it dances through 

the neighbouring woods.

The only noises that penetrate the whirling air are birds singing,

leaves brushing each other, and the rustling of my book pages

whilst the smell of distant floral laundry detergent percolates

through the thick and heavy summer air,

content with imitating their natural counterparts.

Yonderly Shores

The susurrus brush of sinuous waves,

systatic with the siccaneous sand,

is soft in her sun-clad syzygy

guided by the virason's weathered hand.

The fusillade of over-turned fossils

foraminate the fool's merry frescade—

a farraginous flânerie falls short

of foaming footprints he's now forced to wade.

And so the shore laps up the shingled kiss,

an insatiable disregard for man;

insidiating with the sea to spoil

his own lecanoscopic day-dreamed plan.

And so the shore stops his saccharine kiss,

the velleites of man in ignorant bliss.

Searching for the Sun

I wake with the aching beauty

of the world. The sunlight shines a

sparrow's silhouette through my window ajar,

but it is gone before

the morning's melody is heard.

The fact that every thing is profound

takes nothing from the unique, singular

profundity of every moment, fragment

and splinter of our being.

The path is full of gravel.

I shovel the stones because

I like to hear them clatter.

I don't remember which way

the sun comes up.

I hunt for it in the mornings

then I just sit among the rocks

and pick at the weeds, thirsting

their way up, hoping for rain.

The weeds get their wish,

and I wade back in wet and worn

sighs.

The storm clears and

I'm left

still searching for the sun.

The Noise That You'll Hear...

The hollow crash of waves on sand

is behind me.

now the sun, through sand,

sears my feet callused.

from sand to stone,

from stone to grass,

and home.

My skin glows like a coal.

I can still hear the water

as sleep slowly follows.

Estuary and the Ebbing Light

Forget my thoughts floating down the river,

let the bank pick up stray reeds and algae

like an unrestrained dog owner with boundless and bundling

love. Let there be darkness,

allow the mouth to open up and pour brackish water

into a grey pool of jagged generations.

Clasp the sky's air, wiggle your dirty toes,

splash your knees, sing to the birds, tell my thoughts

to stop swimming upstream, where they might

find the source to be furiously underwhelming.

Sunshine Under Lock

The morning mist

makes way for afternoon bliss

that the month must miss.

But the early bloom

and her serotinious moon

cannot come too soon.