Poem

Nothing seems real     yet I’m willing
to play ‘the real’ game for ones I love
and when I’m sick I go get pills
but more and more hovering above it I’m

June 22

And many happy returns of the day to Cyndi Lauper, 65,
once said to ‘dress funny’ and her voice likened to ‘rat’ (or ‘rat’s’),

You wouldn’t think to look twice: no high fence
crowned with broken glass, no security guard
heavy with boredom and a lanyard of keys.

Watching others love
        is something
many do, I guess –
not so much a pastime
        as a mode

He seldom spoke, even when well, and when he did it was misterioso, brief,
a gnomic shorthand, often only a grunt,
but his musicians got it, Nellie, Boo-Boo, and Sphere III too.
Nowadays next to nothing More

‘You’ve seen the hands of statues that men have set by gateways.’

Lucretius

Tell me how they move
for the light and I will gather wild orchids
for you and five species
of cockle shells
and leave them by your window ...

I want to climb back
into the cave of bliss
to be with you
the way you make me feel
strong arms to hold
wise words to listen ...

a spirit into splinters    or a night
into day    the quavers levitating
just the same    see a kind of orangeness
tinge the wrenched event    & head falls More

He went down to the shed to look for a chook
a particular one he’d seen earlier that morning
one he realised he’d never seen before, and
that seemed to have disappeared. It was brown
with white More