"Give and receive fearlessly."

Dale

half your life ago

was one-third ago mine

you cross your legs to pack your pipe

rolling your spliff with concentration

you take my clothes off 

outside on the deck

with classical music accidentally 

and a view you photographed earlier

you buy me jellybeans and beers

you say you want to live here

you check in that I love you, 

"eh?" 

You know.

and you Admire me,

very seriously --

you sit legs all tucked up under me

like I've never seen any others,

with me

entangled in me

you save the last chip for me

You stand in line for me.

you hold my hand across the passenger seat

you keep your shoes on 'til the last minute

you let me drive.

you push me off the jetty and

into the lake 

you put your underwear on immediately 

after sex, you go for a walk 

alone

you pour me a glass of orange juice

every time you have one

without asking if I want ...

you talk to me in a 

concerningly compelling French accent, you send me

photographs of yourself with swallows

you talk to me during sex

you touch me in public

-- and refrain from touching me in public

you bring me acid on your 

tongue, while I'm playing 

volleyball with my friends

you do the dishes

you cut my hair

you soap me up

you dry me off

you worry about your hair

you sit a bit too far away from me

to eat your bacon

in the morning

we fall asleep to Deftones

holding hands

/not holding hands but

touching feet

you buy me a silver key and a

rainbow robot

you carve 

slightly incoherent messages

into my notebook

amongst my ambitions

you tell me I've

Changed you. 

I lead you around the supermarket,

semi-blind, half

seeing

I play you music

I tell you things

I wear my hair up !

I omit "I" from your poems until the last moments

I wonder --

and I feel: happy,

about us.

We are now.

We are present.

We are here.

We are love.

We are 

here, now

memories 

in action. 

poem for fuck-ups and the fucked-up

We've all
  seen it
    said it
      been it
        done it
          do it
have it
  want it
     need it
       want it --
we all want it

but nothing ever
   comes
   came
       will come
out of nothing, never

we all
       try
  and try
  and try
  and try
  and try
and
   fail...
try again, and
      try
 and try
 and then we
die -- if we're lucky

You might get lucky,
   you might
or you
  might not.

You might get lucky
or you might
die.

hiatus

All the words have gone and
made themselves heard:

in the vacuum of
Neverland, where skies lie
violet-indigo
and fire.

They've all tripped off my teeth
(the words), they don't
melt so easily off my fingers, these days
and it saddens me

because I need to be talked to, too,
for all the listening that I do

tarawera (after taupo)

both feet (blue)

of both feet:
knee soaked,
with hand-hold and
hand-picked,
being cared for, for caring's sake
and still having some
slight shake from the morning

being convinced and confident
of times since and
thereafter
and before --
"years and years" say I, in the
aftermath he holds his hand over love
... and drives us.

the contract

You know it is going to be

         Forever.

You know.

   You decide, you

go.   When you come back, 

  everything is the same. 

  Having felt through the anxiety of

changed rhythms and 

plain speeches and 

    hurtling. Into the morning 

         with phantoms and fantasies

up around your head

(though coming thick and ordinary from mine)

-- a sign of the times, he, thirty-one, says

though she says, 

"Welcome to the '70s." 

test

We're on the longest, straightest stretch of road between Te Awamutu and Cambridge when he turns in the passenger seat and puts one hand over my left eye. He keeps his fingers splayed at first. Then, holding his gaze pointedly at my temple, he begins to shut out the gaps in his hand. The horizon disappears out of my left peripheral vision.

I keep very still at the wheel.

"You're testing me," I say plainly.

No reply.

"Why?"

Now he holds still for a moment. He shuffles closer towards me in the passenger seat. He wraps his right arm behind me -- just below my headrest -- the front of his shoulder stacked into the shoulder of my seat. His fingers inch in towards my head.

I take my right hand quietly off the steering wheel and place it along the upper outside of my thigh.

His fingertips keep creeping around the headrest. The middle fingertip touches the corner of my right eye, pricking an eyelash into my cornea. It waters a little.

A van bobs up over the hill at the end of the road.

The car keeps moving forward in its designated lane. I imagine, as I often do when driving, us both hovering just above the road -- sans car -- our legs at right angles in non-existent seats. His hands remain very, very still. I can hear him breathing close to my face. He is breathing calmly.

The car keeps moving forward in its designated lane.

Then: Lurch, scuffle.

My hand resting on my thigh shoots up to grab his prone wrist; at the same time, he drags his right hand over my right eye. My hand, on his wrist, over my eye.

"The other car is near us," he tells me.

"I know," I reply. My left hand is still on the steering wheel.

"Your hands are over my eyes," I tell him.

"I know," he says.

"Yes."

The left front tyre grates against the perforated shoulder of the road markings. I listen to the sound and keep exactly on top of it. It deviates occasionally and when it does, I find it again. The vibrating it causes seeps into the whole car.

We both say nothing and listen to the rumble of the tyre. We feel the car shuddering disjointedly underneath us. He is barely in his seat. My back is very close into mine.

After some moments more he takes both hands off my eyes but his body remains hovering in the space between the driver's seat and passenger. His gaze is still at my head. Mine, straight ahead.

"The van has passed us," I say.

"Yes," he replies.

He settles back into his seat and stares forward at where we are going.

Falling asleep to the sounds of trains in Arthur's Pass. 

abundance

It's not that I want everything. I want all kinds of things. Things that don't match or fit or go together. They're not found in the same place or moment or person. 

So, meandering ... 

watercolours

Eighteen heads shifting:
up, down
(I'll make choreography 
of this, I tell them).

An embrace with the eldest
before eyes
shut,
and they all
and they all
caress me with their pencils.