Afternoon
(At Botany Town Centre)

I remember you and me,

holding hands, swinging our arms,

walking the mall. You said to her

that I enjoyed that afternoon very much.

We all went again the next day.

There was a weight,

a responsibility of another chance.

We marveled at nanoseconds

and where they went, arriving

at something an afternoon

couldn't hold.

Before we knew it,

we were standing in front of a store,

not going in, not leaving.

I wanted to talk about the time

you flicked falling hair

from my shoulders

but this was not the place.

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The Strange Insularity of Thought

The ever widening leaps

we forget matter...

What we talk about

we need to talk about.

I still want to take you

under the night sky

and point out (almost to myself)

the constellations I cannot name

because I never know such things.

I think I know what you mean

when you say, in the middle

of this laughing ease,

that you want to weigh the stars.

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Compartmental

I could take away

the compartments of a day:

the waking, the moving,

the ever lengthening edginess.

To sense continuities

and not let them

amaze me

like the strings I tied yesterday.

I hope the curve of my spine

doesn't mean it is tired

of this constant

traffic of meanings.

I am content to lie down

on the centreline

and feel the cars passing.

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"Glassworks" at Te Tuhi - The Mark

previously published in The Smell of Oranges (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 2003)

Light falls

drunk, wintry

through a blue window.

Here in darkness,

slide presentation

going, warmth

tumbles headfirst

down the stairs.

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