Poem about Desire

I can fall in love in two minutes 

fuelling and falling

at the petrol station.

because I see the tiniest of smiles 

escape your gentle face

from underneath your bucket hat

(which doesn't look as dicky on you

as it does on most boys)

and because you are 

bold enough

to offer it 

directly 

to me.

My back to you 

(my favourite)

I feel your inquisitive eyes on my

mud-streaked thighs

while the petrol greases into my old Toyota,

I slip my palms into my waistband,

to divulge to you just a little of the 

skin of the small of my back,

slightly achey from a day of bending over;

from carrying an antidote to the 

weight of the apocalypse 

Would you like to put your palms there ?

You have a trailer with a lawnmower on it

your bread comes by the earth, too --

but not like mine does

you have no idea of 

all the things

I could show you

you seem young and wise enough

a potent combination

and I'm moving through autumn

and it's been a while

because I'm learning discipline

and I am full of it

and then there's tears ... 

because you will never read this poem

because my skin is lonely

and I have so much to give

because I am perfectly happy in my own rhythm 

and there is no one else to share that happiness with

because I give and therefore ask 

the world

MITRAGYNIA

shape shifting :

I am the Seer

the conduit

the vessel

the receiver

the maiden,

the mother, and the crone

I bleed and yet I survive

I am reborn every moon

I come full circle

with a depth you cannot imagine,

with your shallow trajectory of pleasure

I am emptied and

I am (fool)

Here Lies Power.

I can dance between all worlds

earth and aether

warmth between my legs &

fire, deep in my belly

even as my head gets stomped on

I am whole, I am green-eyed

salt-licked cheeks

I am wobbly awake in daylight

I am

practicing restraint

I am

perceiving impermanence

I am

the devil's advocate and mistress

I am

not thinking,

therefore

I am

not ?

I am open for inspection &&

totally unobservable

I am full of surprises, he says

which only reveals his blind bias

rushes about his goodness.

he's miles better than his father.

and still he won't allow me

my name (which he so defends)

Woman.

they are afraid

there'll be nothing left for them.

they are

Afraid.

because like fish and fungi

we are shape

                          shifting

we are sh-he-er

we can be all of it

It doesn't mean we don't need you.

We want you to come with us.

Here Is The Portal --

wide open to enter

you pass through whenever you can but

it's more than just getting in,

more than just getting wet --

it's a taxing art,

being received and re-seen

you'll have to be willing

to sing the skeleton back to life

you'll have to be willing

to kill the things you love dearly

to shed tears and lick wounds

to taste iron in your teeth

to kiss feet, temples and hags

to dissolve and decompose beneath us

to be transformed and chewed up and spat out again

unrecognisable

but oh-so-light

and in the brightness, we'll all be new

our children will shine the way forward

the forest will open its wings

and the earth will tremble with joy,

shapeshifting 

in the eye of the beholder

so dangerous to be young --

everyone wants a piece of you

and you have so much to give

everyone gets a limb or two

so dangerous to be aging --

you want a piece of everyone

and you see in yourself

the sharp teeth of a wolf

Like the Colour of Earth (and not Your skin)

infatuation.

(like always)

: my veins desperate to drink

in the gentle copper curve

of your eyelashes

which sit briskly above your quiet cheekbones

over and over

rain-lit ocean eyes and

lips alight with joy

(I see them every time I close my own)

close to sit

and there, should be sensation

in real time --

instead, fantasy / fantasy / fantasy

mind, I see the fixation

dangered delight in delighting in ..

the putting down,

the retrieval /

the casting aside,

the "picking up the coal"

I'd move down you, if you'd let me

softly, just how you know I like

and in the sharpness I'd reveal

all the atoms I'm made of to you,

animus mundi

my polar opposite and twin

-- could you hold me ... ?

or have you not yet grown ?

(though I love your slightness

I love also your strength --

balance is exactly a libran's coveting)

power and abundance lies between us

as in him and her.

the mountains are full of wild cats.

he warned you -- watch out

ate eight ate

before life gave way to redeath,

my acquisition of beautiful things --

off the street, the basement, bar or beach

like some green-eyed magpie

I could build no nest from them

now I practice discipline

(excepting in the forest,

where words re-emerge,

and at night, when catharsis

turns in two gentle streams)

so my hands are clean(ish)

even as I caress the dirt,

even as I lay myself prostrate before you

in the pretense of putting in plants

do you see me fawning ?

or am I too good at opening and closing ?

am I too good ?

am I, too ?

(surely, you are more discerning

or else, more innocent than I)

from there (the discipline)

wisdom uprights itself ;

from there,

maybe,

maybe ?

love-like lettuce grows

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. 

defector

I wanna be like Jack
with a world for a pack 
and the fearless form of two legs

straight thru, east coast to west

I wanna nirvana my best hedonist heathenism

and kick up a sweat
rolling in dust 

I wanna dusk and dawn forever,

a scramble of beginnings n ends

and skip out the uncertain 

blur of choice; 

I want

whatever I want whenever I want it,

and what I want 

I want it

now

and I wanna be a right bikkhuni,

living with nuthin’ but praying 

all night,

waking up 

enlightened

I wanna get my legs out in the summer,

propped up on thick boots

and bloody cut knees

I wanna eat humble bread

and $15 cheese

and survive on nothing

but a lonely alms round

I wanna cook on fire and empty 

my desire under the embers of dying stars,

resenting the biological need

for sleep

resenting sheep and yet spinning

a regular 8-6, goddammit

(with plenty of coffee breaks

but never the dukkah of diabetes.)

I wanna live forever and die young.

I wanna live forever in the Sun

and become brown and crusty

I wanna be a goddamn Queen 

and break bread like Jesus, 

entrepreneurial the beheezus

out of modern capitalism 

I wanna play the game

and fuk it all up,

infiltrating from the

inside 

out

I wanna be as high as a kite 

and earthy as a bleeding bow

I wanna speak with immensely profound clarity 

that rambles on rhymes with no reason 

I want each and every season

every month

on tap

I wanna be in the present moment 

and I don’t wanna have to wait for it.

I’ll do whatever I’m told

and love resenting every inch of it

I wanna kiss the life back into cold loves

and stuff my hurt back into my

womb

and feed it blood and bone fertiliser

and watch it grow each moon

I want to give Him a baby 

and then hand it over,

a good honest Concubine

with full rights on Joy

I wanna go back in time

and forward in space,

I wanna see the empty atoms and
holes in my dead face.

I want to remember every acre of every
memory across the aeons;

build it \ tear it down,

and build it up
again

I want a narrow tunnel of a vision

and the deafening suck of the city’s hum

I want gentle drum beats and roaring karanga,

a mish mash of the 

21st mind that 

changes
every 

instant 

I want a proper diagnosis, a

checklist of “yes”,

a fat booming throat 

whose tongue lashes,

“NO!”

I want to know time 

before it happens.

I want 

out

and I want

in. 

I want the 

nekkhamma of poverty

and the 

ability to give-give-give endlessly, honestly…

I want a First Rate Lover

with little-to-no defects;

As New, a

World of Worldly Wisdom

\ Made To Order;

a strictly monastic companion

bought On Tap.

Down into the big, gaping gap we’ll reach

and gasp, “Oh God!” when we

touch the Void.

right off the edge we’ll fall,

knowing it all all at once

and with

nothing to show

for it

down the rabbit hole we’ll swim and

never
come back for daze

and of our esoteric ways,

friends and strangers alike will say,

“gee, what a pair!”

Oh! what a cocoon we’ll spin,

us two fantastic beasts

(who knows where to find ‘em)

and from the soft, silky threads of us

we’ll catch

every

last

little 

fly

And then

we’ll die —

just to do it all again

but maybe… better,

next time.

sundays again and never

forever in the dusk
I want to be
dappled in evening sighs
and amber shadows, thighs
tanned and bare and hair
slightly wet

how much higher can we -- ?

your hands \ my ankles
I melted seven years through time
you took off your socks

that sweet relief

she runs over my chest
and into my hearteries
over my abdomen 
and behind my broken knees

I wish you would see me like this
I wish I would let you
I wish we
I wish I

october

I'm still wet with the tears of you
a year later,
little Ngaru

flooding forked rivers
across my cheeks
down the creases of my neck,
whenever the stream of possibility
runs between my legs

I still ache with the sharpness
of the loss you of,
little Ngaru

doubled over and dancing
my favourite dance on all fours,
four teeny misoprostol pills
clamped between my jaws

(perhaps that's why
my teeth are wearing down)

horizontal with grief
and grievous pain

a nook of love turned into a mile

you shook me up
good and proper

like nothing
will never 

and now I know
what I always knew

never.
again.

I must never
love another more than I love
my own womb

strange-r

 1.

and I wonder -
when it's time to fold into you,
will I open?
will the tears of my old wounds allow you in?
will we entangle ourselves in one another with ease?
will I still be able
to be gentle and gently led?
or will I demand you rough me around,
wilding out the nostalgia
of a hundred million lovers' hearts
and a sweet sigh of satisfactory silence?

on paper we're all a dream
but in the flesh, we're something
beyond this world entirely

my heart aches with the sun that never shone
and the warmth at the centre of me
burns with the fire
of every woman who's ever
melted her ribs into this earth

the sand is a thousand trillion tiny glittering pieces,
and so am I. 


2.

I know
I'm impatient
to know you

and I have no idea who you are

I'm wondering about our capacity to melt into one another 
when the sun comes up again
- will the forest breathe her spirit into our lungs
and teach us how to sing together ?
or will she sharply dig her branches into our sides
reprimanding our impatience

it's the apocalypse, tomorrow
and I can't wait to drown in the ecstasy of it all
do you wanna come with me to the end of the earth?
it lives between my legs
I've seen it all die so many times

and yet I'm still blinder than the bat
that fed the soup of this whole damn mess

yes, we're on the ark
it's time to drown. 

3.

go in there at night
and flesh out the skeletons
sing the bones back on 
and don't be afraid of the creature your skin conjures.

deltora

and it's like time folds in and reverses through itself
back, back she goes
moon full and melting into orbit
mapping sorry saturn's incessant turning, 
a churning choke for the decade's change

she goes out, she bursts open &
floods herself red,
gentle streams and devastating torrents and
dreams of sleepless sleeping
and eyes across the hallway
it's all amplified now, it's
all on record, all recorded --
keep your bluetooth razor sharp
and your mind in the mush

green holographic haze 
and dazed fickle fingertip imprints,
(this is where it hurts,
she says, poking below the ribs)
inter-continental existence interrupted
by a never-ending wish list
and an existential hiccup --

well, here we are.
this is what we were walking towards
when we decided to enter the stream:
it's a brave new world now, darling
so dream whatever you can dream. 

blut

the farce and flare of coromandel chic;
a woozy misoprostol spell slowly leaks
through my bloodstream; my heart trickles down my cheeks
this wasn't supposed to happen after four weeks -
the doctor stutters behind his mask when he speaks;
my womb cramps, clots, cries and creaks
salt stinging down my cheeks
- psychosomatic, probably, doctor thinks,
embedded in these atoms, it never blinks
a foodless belly and veins full make me weak
return me to the rivers winding through forested peaks -
a motherless body needs space to breathe and shriek
this world, tumultuous, filled with grief
pre-masticated words stick sharp in my teeth ...

and still --
much safer, much more loved, cared for, respected, heard, held, supported,
than so many wombs here have been...
a small lick of blood flows a little more free
and for that, I am both grateful and guilty
oh! what heavy ancestry I am to carry
to heal these generations with a deep urgency:
but already there’s blood staining this life,
not all of us are getting out alive.