Without shoes on

I spent my childhood without shoes on. Only when I laced up my black clodhoppers for school did I feel the studious weight of leather and lace dragging me down, and my mood sinking with it.

As I dragged weary limbs towards class – my holiday elevation plummeted into those ungainly soles.

Struggling sharp edges of grass, determinedly heaving up through the concrete paths made my feet itch inside their off-white cotton socks. I would run my hands through the wild long grass that pushed through the school fence, at lunch time; grass cuts crisscrossing my dry hands.

The bubblers would cool the stinging, and quench my thirst, from the shimmering Queensland noon heat. I never have dealt well with extremes; I still don’t.

Light

This strangely beautiful quality of light. Magnificent and sudden – surreal, the rolling thunder – slice of lightening. The lime green of trees, once olive shaded. The rain picks up, momentum gathers. Pelts down upon the tin roof, ricocheting on my face and breast, as I lean out the window in abandoned delight.
For now, my worries leave me and I feel calm and free and filled with kinetic energy. And then, I shut the window. But light still pours in, so I shut the blinds. I can still hear the thunder, so I shut my ears. Last, I close my mind. And now the sky is pink with violence.

Gossip

The sticky words
Will come pouring out of me as vomit
For you to chew on like cud, tasting different,
with every person whose ears they pollute.

Caught in the tumble

Thinking, thinking –
I’m filled with thoughts
bubbling up – secretly.
They find me – hiding – under tables
smiling, at nothing, much.

They find me – posed – ready to jump
in to my bowl of cereal
to morosely float on a slice of
banana.

They control my spoon
Swirl and twirl – on banana.

As I spin, I catch glimpses
Of what could be – each whirl of
milk shows another possibility.

I lack the capacity to choose –
caught - as I am in the tumble.

Into the blue of you

It’s just one of those things, which creep up on you slowly, slowly, out of the blue. It’s a moment of panic and pandering for excuses, information – anything to make sense of it all. A reason for why the world - which seemed stable, only a moment before, all of a sudden - is now laid confusingly anew.

And you, at the epicentre of it all, you are the cause of my demise, my fall, into the blue of you. My concentration shattered, shorn of its useful bubble, a buffer to hold back the tide of oncoming strangeness.

My breathing, it quickens - my senses are shot - my feelings are jumbled. I can’t make out a thought, but the anxiety, breed by my experience of you. Only you.

Brief moments

Life is transient
brief moments
I’ve worked hard
But it can mean nothing
In the face of another
adversity, set to slap me
Across the face.

Yet, I will not fail
In my slowly stunted way
Scratching with red raw hands
and broken bent back nails
To the surface

A determined ant
That slowly marches to the top
of the hill, and collapses
And walks again
I will put one foot in front
of the other and walk
My troubles away.

Inhale, Rock N' Exhale

I want my own rock god
Dressed-up and sexed-up rock and
Roll, baby this is real life.
1,2,3,4 now I want you even more

Crush me up against the wall, I just want to
Breathe you in, that smoke and alcohol haze
In my face, croon to me your enigmatic lyrics.

Squat and inhale, just before you exhale
Bellow out your black demands, crazy eyes
On the stage; lapping up the night sky.

Sing to me of yellow skies over blue goodbyes
Need to hear you, tied up in the world of i-deas
Reading in between thin lines; without rhythme.

See the world, twist and twirl, I’m your girl
Roll, baby this is real life.
Cut through, with a knife
Watch, we’re going to cause some strife.