something like the quiet, quiet

in my case, mother,

the perpetual stain of 

smoke in my clothes

belongs to a life lived as lover

to the wild

she draws me into her belly and

keeps me soft.

I go in.

within 24hrs I am whole.

the fire starts on a single match.

my veins run with the river’s blood. 

the forest offers dinner with outstretched limbs.

inhale. exhale. song. 

the flames crackle quietly as night falls.

I have walked barefoot,

my hair is curled wet,

the days remind me of my insignificance.

and I am content. 

truly there is nothing more I want

than the being-ness of this. 

aniwaniwa

I love that the rules change 

so I may survey every atom of you 

when we’re bony bare-skinned 

and three days deep in the forest

you, all day, reciting my name 

me, the night, an offering of affection

as if 

you’re my only lover 

in the whole wired world

in truth, I know,

our fingertips

never’ll meet again 

damp beard and charred hair

a soft-and-sharp scent from the nook next to your ribs

the river walks us downstream 

hand in hand

shivering

you talk about avoiding war whilst falling into conquest 

she should have known better

but you were young and hungry

as you are now

totally infatuated

and me, with life 

I guide your hand over and inside

pull your neck down to my chest 

in the morning, it’s easier, more delicious,

complete 

you feed me peanut butter on a chopstick 

and though we’ve had not two hours sleep —

I feel alive

I feel like royalty. 

the beech trees bow their branches in approval

a sister kisses my feet before we leave 

and the man I’d rather have held

gently presses his lips to my forehead,

not before asking if he may —

I love him. 

Of course I accept. 

Every atom of me loves this place. 

clay people pt II

clearly conceived is the future, 
and presently visions materialize

a twin, an equal
a hybrid of 2 + 40
the irises of insight
the darker corners of a generous smile

as if the dead ends and death were holding patterns
to keep me here
keep me where,
until
just as when I 

and here I was:
"how can polarities exist in the same global body?"
of course they do, it is I, libran utopia
its name is balance,
the dance I desire

and I love being stung
myself, the air on fire
rushing down the river
some reminder I am
flesh and blood,
water and stone

it is all right here, as summer blooms
the world is on fire

eyes piercing through the atoms of my ecstasy
we will never have to sleep again

all you have to do is ask

manopubbhangama dhamma
manosettha manomaya

clay people

as soon as I’m courageous enough

to be foolish

I fall in love

immediately — 

totally inebriated 

by the world proliferating

beyond the threshold

of their faces

I want to reach inside

and touch every inch of them

we could lie down and never get up again,

traverse the valleys and mountains of 

the world between the membranes

of our skin

and I’d feel satisfied 

november nostalgia

legs up the wall reading poetry
as in twenty fifteen
except
I am sober
and less licentious

winter, sick as anything,
Pōneke, carving shapes into bodies
the composer, brilliant and
grossly underpaid

there was always
"success" 
and then
a dead end

start again, start 
again
this week, how the bills ?
dumpster dive and sublet
I didn't need anything
just a body beneath me, now and then

I miss the volatility of it
I miss dreaming and dancing it into being
I miss ___________

but I do not miss
smoky eyes, volcanic skin, asphyxiated lungs
I do not miss
the volatility of my own head

karakariki

and suddenly it all
makes sense again:
head under rushing water,
gentle wander through woods --

I remember the reason
why my feet should walk this earth

I couldn't tell you what it is, but
(it is being)
I relocate it within me

and it is all like this:
wither, incubate, bloom
forever and forever
and ever (even) beyond death

cannon

your goodbyes awkward as his
and all everything, the same --
half a decade of subtle memories
sitting in a boy's body-mane

we go up
                \ the falls
(who held and hid me
mid-winter)

and I go back in time

The Universe and Everything
some weird pang of nostalgia
for a future never visioned

i can be
with /
         out it,

my only complaint is
i can't --
              feel --
                         
the water on my skin:
a decade demands modesty
though reversed, it's couture:
I could be with 42, the Answer to the Ultimate.

and my only other complaint is:
Slow ! Down !
there's no time to breathe or be
are you afraid of the stillness,
where we see and are seen ?

still, I like flying
let me get high with you
prayers answered on a rooftop
and he lived in the spare room

we go up up and up

I'm wise enough to know now
it's hormones and spinning seas

they churn 'em out bright these days
smart as phones and fearless worldly

I remember that
before the blood
and my heart on his sleeves

when I still manoeuvred magick
and whispered to the trees 

(each moon I crawl back into myself,
get reborn and come out kinder)

he told me I was selfish
but he doesn't have to bleed

tuuaahu tears

semi-permanently
are my eyes now

worn red
with life's heartache

Every
Thing
Feels like a Mis-Take:

the solitude I so 
desperately desire

enforced, rather than chosen

December '23:
I had no
idea

(no-one can see you crying

if it's pissing down with rain
if you've all got your

eyes 

closed, ohm)

my eyes
swollen like
my womb
the puncturing of which
began the tears

(this banshee comes out
only under the cover of bush)

swiping at the deadwood
as if it was his fault

grief festering in
my left lung.

unsurprisingly,
I'm sick

I'm ageing,
I'm dying

ngaaruawaahia in autumn

 I know where the words went ! -- oh,
     they were lost in
     not enough time 
     Spent Alone,
too little Timelessness --
     they dissolved into
     schedules, stimulus & strategies

-- nothing to do with
     inhale, exhale
 or
   creative sap
   running dry...

making love
    might bring them back.
hibernation, contemplation, full moon dreaming
    ... yes.

It's the shape & sound
    of a warm bed with an 
    old lover
this autumnal, transitional air

yes -- it smells like the majick I remember --

except --
      I am All Here. 
No smoke, 
      no mirrors
I still find myself in desire
      but I see it, quickly,
      easily. 

Visions -- Capital "V" Visions 
      can ride on the back of me,
      for sure --

it's City Energy
      in the dead still 
      of small town / middle of nowhere

this time, I will 
       Not Abort --
visions can and will and MUST
Descend to Earth. 

This I promise You:
We Will. 

Space will be carved out /
The most important thing
       done first. 

ropar, punjab

 i.
all in a rush
       the words return.
perhaps the rest, the reading or the bleeding
       drew them out. 
perhaps the heart unfurled
       as life was put on pause
       and purpose.
... whichever, they're here.

ii.
when I marry,
       I will marry a whole world.
what I love,
       what I have always loved,
       is the whole universe -- 
the sprawling branched limbs
       of a being
       suspended in dependent origin,
no part isolated
       nor whole in its own right,
and yet --
       imperfectly complete
       in perfect complexity.

iii.
there's little else to say,
       except to describe
the sheer joy
       of watching time and space /
       folding in
on itself. 

iv.
it should be your hand, mama
      carving forms, shapes, colours here;
instead,
       mine.
       revealing what's heard.