Foresight

GET OUT OF bed hollow eyes, turn your corners up not down. Please don’t be sad, the day is nice. We could go out to the park, around the lake or into town …no …you just don’t feel up to it today?

Uh-oh. I see the mania in your eyes. You’re excited, gushing, telling those weird pointless little lies. There’s chocolate topping to put on our dessert, you say, following a dinner dished in empty pots and pans.

Today your eyes are hard, on a mission. A focus of steel, like the kitchen knife in your hand running down the hallway like a mad woman, chasing, screaming, afraid I’ve fallen into enemy hands.

Now your eyes are institutionalised. Quiet. Pleading in some lilted, half-slung watery way: let me come home; tell them that I seem okay. I peer around at the other eyes lurking in this place to comfort myself that yours are not as bad as theirs.

Both our eyes say tentative today. We are happy to be home, reuniting on the doorstep after our separate “holidays”. Let’s hurry up and get back to the way things were before, and before next time and the time after that.

Down on the farm

SOAPED UP HORSE sweat running races around the puffing blue roan gelding, sides exhausting, head hanging low. Sticky leather traces with rugged brass buckles, prior sheen now dull. A field ploughed manually, aggressively, on another parched typical Hawke’s Bay day.

Age-veined vinyl upholstery in the nearby car is much like the driver of both vehicle and hoe: red, hard, crackled, weathered. The same Austin 1100 my wonderful big bro boasts of getting to 80 miles per hour in a straight line. The back seat is itchy and clammy, like me, as I’m laid down, under garments quickly removed. What’s happening? What is he doing? To me? What should I do? Where should I put myself? Where on earth... can I be?

“I’m a baby”, I finally hear myself blurt out in a weird sing-song voice. “Goo-goo, gah-gah.” Even though we both know I’m nearly six-and-a-half. But why else would he be fiddling. Down there? All fingers and tongue. The licking especially… shhrriiink and cringe. Dum-dee-dum. Nothing to see here, goo-goo, gah-gah. I suck my most familiar friend, Thumb.

“Don’t tell your mum. This is our special secret. She wouldn’t understand”. Words her boyfriend would whisper numerous times in different apparently opportune moments and locations from this point in.

Navigatory devices

DEAR CRUNDLESTEIN,

THIS TIME IT is I passing time in an airport, Christchurch, awaiting my flight home on a Friday night. It is, in a word and without sinking to profanity, COLD. I’ve been here for the day, supposedly toiling. Translated: on a paid holiday from the kid! You know, of course, I love him most dearly but nevertheless my ‘adult’ days are glorious treats.

Things are not great here. In the Garden City I mean. The energy around a stalwart client of mine feels pretty bloody bleak. Not towards me specifically, and I have work now for the next two months all things going well, but new management appear to have ruckled things up rather and all my friends here are exuding undeniable misery in morale.

For over eight years I’ve been happily pottering along doing what I do for work, and producing some pretty great stuff. But I kinda intuitively get the impression now, from all these recent and repeated road blocks, that it just might be time to change tack, alter course. Which is fine… change has never unduly frightened me (stagnation does, in truth), except right at this moment it’s the “to what” question that has me drawing mysterious blanks. So tonight, on the aeroplane now, velocity swifting me home (Claude would be jealous), I’m putting out there into the ether, without being TOO shouty: “OKAY, OKAY, I GET IT. NOW SHOW ME THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD!!!”

I shall keep you posted as inspiration hopefully unfurls.

Thank you for your recent letter. I am very much enjoying our correspondence too. Your words are living breathing creatures exhaling colour from observing nostrils, artful rainbows across my sky. While I publish my own letters, know that when I write them, I do so just for you.

If knowing the background re writing to my mother found you in relief, then perhaps my words too might be working if you experienced some of my grief, i.e. I guess that is the point, that others can feel with gooses upon their elbows what I have felt. I have questioned whether I should be publishing that stuff, some of it falls quite blatantly over the crest into icky. It serves a number of creative and therapeutic purposes and I’ve decided squarely that reactions to my creativity are not my responsibility. And what others choose to do with their own truths is entirely up to them. Nature, however, dictates that at the end of winter comes spring.

Upon your soon return, and after getting the mutual licks with those you love out of the way, I’m sure we can come up with some new way of writerly exchanging things.

Love,
Me xx

Radio static

IT IS CONSIDERED rude of course to deliver lines to others such as "You're boring", "You're so f***en shallow", "How insecure are you?" and other shit like that. Because, I mean, who the hell am I?

Everyone, in my humble opinion, is most welcome to regale themselves with endless stories of past conquests, drunken escapades and other monologues from their glory days; times now past, but when perhaps life appeared more straightforward and less prone to feeling lost. To fill perfectly adequate silences with non-stop eager recommendations on where to buy the perfect child-sized merinos, Enjos and other must-have trivial crap. The weather perhaps? Go ahead. Knock yourself out. Complain, if you want, about something somebody else did, how much you hate your physical body, your job, the people you hang with, where you're at, yourself. Go on, don't hold back. While you're about it, why not get really self-righteous about something. There are plenty of causes to get opinionated about, just pick one and go at it all hard out - the state of the nation, the f**ked up choices people make as part of their democratic right. Whatever it is - you're RIGHT, right? And the opposers are just dumb deluded uninformed c**ts - isn't that how it generally goes? Hammer it home, fill up everyone's social media feed. There's a dude down Invercargill way ain't heard ya yet.

It's where we're all at at some point, usually repeatedly. While also being kinda dull and small-minded, at least I find it so. This is, of course, a note to self as much as anything, as I continue to be drawn towards lighter, clearer frequencies of more interesting things and the places and people where I want to spend time and go.

Said Ms Holier Than Thou.

xx

Along the merry way

I’VE BEEN WRITING and not writing here for some eight years. That could well be a record for anything I’ve done or not done. Except breathing, and being some girl that likes horses, neat handwriting and imagining things.

This began as company, when I moved my life to a new place, knowing next to no one and nada. Smoking endless reefers atop my keyboard to relieve the boredom, dreaming up romantic touch typed writerly dreams. Pleasantries tapped out, amusements, experiments – generally lolling about here often times for the lack of anything better to do. And pontificated, or my ego has, scathed and ranted in some perceived justification of whatever my crackled heart yearned for then. At the very least, I hope it can be said that I did so creatively :)

Life is fucken hilarious when you look back, which is just as well. And pretty wonderful too. Aah yes, the joys of feeling and self-expression. Which is why – although many times before now I’ve been tempted to delete this blog, to remove all evidence of some of the seemingly trivial shit my mind and fingers dallied themselves with through much of my fourth decade – I haven’t and am unlikely to. I kind of like it sitting here as a reminder of forever growing up, honing skills, fucking myself up and getting unfucked again along the merry way.

Listening into other peoples’ conversations over a cafe lunch today, I was reminded of how much I used to think I had to say. I don’t have anything particularly poetic, witty or inspired for you just right at this moment, but nevertheless, perhaps I can squeeze out at least another eight xx

We can rebuild her

THAT GIRL IN THE right-hand column there, I vaguely remember her. Upon peering at my own reflective murk these days I actually catch myself gasping momentarily, wondering whether it's the mirror that needs a bloody good clean or my eyes some form of greater assisted sight. It is neither.

It's a strange thing giving yourself over to somebody else to survive from, to take from you whatever they need to be nurtured, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, time, all of the above. And it's awesome and wonderful and like nothing else I've ever experienced and tiring and easy to forget yourself and the sparkly conversations you used to have. I was shallower then.

I think some form of normal transmission is resuming however, physically I mean. I've been catching glimpses of my ankles this week and there's hope. Dare I say it, but I'm sure down there be seen some resemblance of tapering and shape. Now, if I could just get about a year's worth of sleep back, I reckon it would do wonders for my face.

In the meantime I've begun showing love to my feet, which I've always pretty much detested until now. I've decided it's mega important to love your body and all it's parts. It seems that I've just moved it up to the ankles. Well done me. Wish me luck on my journey further northward, won't you.

Naturally, convention has gone out the window. Again. I don't mean for things to happen this way, it's not a goal to be the one who is 'one of these things is not like others' or anything. It's just the way things pan out, but I've come to that place of peace where I actually like it. It's pretty fantastic being me.

Duly, with age and the slopping face comes what many likely perceive as madness, but I am thriving on it. Inhale and invite more. Living by intuition is true freedom. I wish more people understood how immeasurably grateful I am every single day not to be so much constrained by BS stressful, socially acceptable, stick it up your a-hole, rational thought. Einstein says it's the way to go, and he was one really onto-it dude, no argument.

An exceedingly clever chap. I agree with him, so he must be right.

So, I just figured I'd write something here to see how it felt. Now signing off, tipping my hat and into my bed I melt. Sayonara for now.

Taking the long way home

SYMMETRICAL DUCKS LEAVE Vs in their river wake, peace signs, fitting for this dusky subtle hour when folk, like me, launch their dogs and/or bodies about the neighbourhood. I am escaping a long day's work not yet complete, the man in my house whose primary hobby appears to be television sentry, the fact I'm so tired I want to ball, and yesterday's dishes. I ask the ducks what they're liberating themselves from, but no response. Perhaps they think I'm quackers.

A stringy cat and I make friends via mutual smooching. He's a cat on a hot tin roof, literally, only this aint Mississippi, it's The Wood. The shed he orgies himself upon is trooping in ants on reconnaissance some place to or from, who can ever tell. But Puss and I are both civilians and don't much care, we are bonding, that is until the little bastard bites me on the hand. I resist from cuffing him about the ears as I continue on my way because he's just a cat on a hot tin roof and that's what cats do.

Fused over time into letter Ls, two old white fellas stop on the bridge in front of me to resume a more natural position, elbows nosed over the iron hand rail, commenting on the lack of eels but plentitude of fish. As we three alight onto a leafy street bedecked with modern aquarium houses and insurmountable fences of irony, my heart smiles when the Ls break out into a loud, melodic and Maori rendition of God Defend New Zealand. Indeed.

They have chosen another path by the time, homeward bound now, I pass the clutch of tall poppies dressed as sunflowers dancing about happily of the evening from their dizzying heights. These make me happy too as I continue on my way, glancing as imperceptibly as possible into secret crevices of people's properties never before noticed, despite my frequent meanderings about my hood. Modern baby carriage waits patiently at a back door under an old lady shady hydrangea alcove, while another front door lies open onto the street revealing the butterfly décor preferences of the matronly-efficient woman often to be seen clipping her insanely tidily manicured hedge. And here lives the Rawleigh's Man.

Cornering my own picket fence, dinner fills any vacant space left in my curious nostrils and the world now seems like a definitely more aligned place. Fairies have even done the dishes in my absence, sort of. I am hungry, tired, happy and grateful. Peace.

Rolling with it

“What was left of her hair formed a vaporous tangle of white that seemed not so much to grow from her head as float in its vicinity.”

“So perhaps the greatest worry of all was that one day you would realize that all the worries of your life amounted to one thing: the desire to just stop worrying.”

LIFE HAS STEPPED BACK a chop or two, no longer lived at a thousand clicks an hour. I don’t mind it. I doodle snippets in my wee notebook that particularly take me along with them while reading. Like these from Justin Cronin’s ‘The Passage’. A not-normally-my-cup-of-tea genre, and yet for some reason, strangely compelling.

The usual burgeoning ‘to-do’ list instead replaced with a stack of ‘to-reads’, corralling in fervent invasion of my bedside table. There are worse problems to have. So far this has not resulted in my being clocked about the head with too much writing rampancy of my own or anything. But there’s something growing steadily inside me readying to pop out with its own brand of fanfare, I’m sure of it.

I read. I sleep. I eat. I doodle. I even search for new recipes that appeal to my senses and cook. How about that? Time passes swimming at the beach, sitting in the river, or whispering things into my horse’s delightful brown ears, even though I’ve hung up my stirrups for a while. I drink lots of water. Sometimes I even work. I ignore people. They talk too much, most of it of little interest or originality. It's nothing personal. Right now I just prefer a teeny-tiny coterie.

Junk shops get the once and twice over for creative purposes – inventing mystical spaces and cutesy dioramas in my little house – while other inspirations are dutifully catalogued on Pinterest for some future crafty date. Sometimes I even think about covering my head with a sarong and meditating tomorrow morning when I wake up. Always tomorrow so far. And I’ve learned that there is the equivalent of seven and a half teaspoons of sugar in a can of baked beans. Diabolical.

It’s a new year and the beckoning of very new frontiers. My grand master plan is just to roll with it, with as much serenity as possible xx

Intimacy at sea

SHE IS A MOUSE in his trouser pocket, snuffling around. Hearing echoes of footsteps trouncing up the gangplank, overheard conversations muffled by cotton lining and big city grime. The 5pm East by West ferry is departing on time.

-- "I love the way you see the world," he laughs at her once back on the telephone line. "A mouse indeed!"

The same merry amusement as upon discovering she likes to dress up cowgirl - boots, denim skirt, flannel shirt, horse head belt buckle with an old metal toy cap gun slung into her belt.

-- "You go out in public like that?"
-- "Of course."

A pause.

-- "Are you okay?"
-- "Yes.
    ...I just wanted to hear a friendly voice."

-- "Oh yeah?"
-- "Of someone special. Stop fishing for compliments. You know that's you."

-- "Uh-huh."
-- "Who doesn't judge me."

-- "Talking to you opens my mind, girl."
-- "Have you departed the shore now?"

-- "Yes."
-- "Goody. Keep a watch out for dolphins for me. If they appear, you could swim home with them. Even if just in your mind.
    ...So, how are you?"

He is, as always, busy. Busy being ridiculously good at whatever it is that he does.

-- "We haven't hung out for ages. Is it time for a weekend adventure with you, Ms P. and me?"

She loved his freakishly stunning Amazon-legged girlfriend of eons, because he did. That simple.

-- "Yes! I miss you. And I want to rub your belly, to see how it feels, your little guest."
-- "Ha, ha. Are the dolphins there yet? I've been feeding the fish too. But it's okay. I'm over that now."

-- "A grand adventure it is then. I'll check my diary as soon as I get home and text you. I'm going to lose reception soon."
-- "Surely swarthy sea dogs don't need cellphones. They have Morse code, semaphore, talking parrots on their shoulders and hooks."

-- "Hooks?"
-- "And probably warm wenches below deck with ruddy and inviting thighs... do you think there's any real pirates in Eastbourne?"

-- "Anything's possible. But I know one thing for sure."
-- "What's that?"

-- "That there's a mouse on this ship, snuffling about."

Cuckoo's nest

I wake from another poor excuse wrestling with the padded white, and by now entirely sodden, restraints of once starched hospital-grade sheets.

Hello, yes, that acrid invasion is indeed wafting from me. A staunch and sweaty stench to sucker-punch Chuck Norris and then some. How the hell anyone can slumber fitfully in this place saturated in craziness is beyond me. Yes, it’s clean as a shiny new whistle, the warden insists on that, and I appreciate it. It’s materially comfortable and the food’s pretty good, but am I really to wholly recover stuck here in this loony bin? The revival odds, I fear, I'm losing faith in. I'm living a lie someone else told, or so my self-appointed publicist says. So sometimes I pretend, mostly to myself, that I'm just another troubled rock star doing mandatory rehab.

—- Lord, give me some sanity, please!

I'm forever hopeful.

Amy’s delirious screams from the next room are heightening in decibel as I lie here, demolishing any loaded silence that could ever exist. I’ll go and comfort her in a second, just as soon as my head clears enough to stand up and function. Clear head... that’s a silly bloody notion, I really can’t remember—-you know what? Sometimes I wonder if good old shock treatment wouldn’t be better. Short, sharp and to the point. Maybe then I could forget all that it pains to recall. Life would be simpler after that.

Right now I pitifully exist in this manic routined haze, the same basic experience over and over, week after week. All the while daydreaming uselessly about something else. These rituals are designed to make me feel secure in a mad mad world, but it’s... predictable drudge with the odd difficult drama thrown in (mental note, haha, don't loiter round the ablutions block or eventually someone will fuck you).

My pal Tom, he’ll be wandering around here anytime soon, looking for a manly chat. About stuff that doesn't really matter, because the important stuff, hell no, we don't talk about that. He has nothing much else to do either, but yearn for his next drink or his next life or whatever. He’s one that's into killing himself slowly I reckon, because he don’t have the courage to do it any quicker. Poor sod. 

Sometimes I wonder if it’s ever going to get better, what's my long-term prognosis? Will I ever be released from this berserk hole? I don't belong here, I deserve better than this, don't I?! I'm not like the others... or is this my lot for the next 20, 30, 40 years? Someone tell me, tell me please, that there’s a good behaviour bond for adhering to... well fuck, I dunno... to doing what’s expected I guess.

-— Yes, Amy darlin’, I’m coming.

She gives me the will to get out of bed. Far better than dwelling here darkly on my back feeling lost.

-— Stanley! Your daughter is screaming. Are you intending to go to her anytime soon?

The warden. I love my wife, I really do. But when the clouds do part on occasion, just momentarily, I can glimpse her confused understanding between the two; of motivation and manipulation. And not just her — I don’t blame her, cripes, it’s everywhere. She maneuvers and I deceive, the game we've learned to play together. Everybody seems desperate to gain control... of our own and others' minds... of all sorts of things. As if it will make us feel better. But it's the best we know for now.

-— Amy, sweetheart. Good morning!
-— Hey, honey. Good morning.

Kisses all round for both my girls. And the rich smell of fresh coffee to awaken a man for the start of another working day. I'll make my fame and fortune yet.

-— And good morning Tom! How’s the head? Glad you didn’t drive home last night, you were somewhat wrecked.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more I see. This world is a massive mental institution. And that acrid smell — I’m realising, it ‘aint coming just from me. I’m surrounded by it. And it's got me to wondering, maybe... could it be... what fear smells like?

(Inspired by something Don Miguel Ruiz said)

Jane Austen becomes seduced

Romeo has been entering by way of the window at all hours, and dare I confess to having been so encouraging of it. One should never deem to entertain thoughts of opening arms to such a creature, don't I beseech it. The obvious Lothario that he is, indeed, a professional an artiste of seduction as you could ever meet. To share or compete for an object of the male species is pure madness, it is without demonstrable self-respect, as all eventualities will be what the ego and wisdom (or lack thereof) justly deserves. This being so, I am in deep quandary.

I cannot but declare to being an utter fool. Knowing for a fact as I do that he frequents not merely at Number Two, but half or more of the ladies of the street in its entirety, and who knows whom else beyond, in lobbying for their sweetest caresses. So incredulous is he, such that he does not possess the decorum of mind to even attempt in hiding his true Casanovarian nature. Nay, instead he slinks and winds himself about me as we stroll of an afternoon, it can but be said, with the vivacity of a common gigolo.

And I duly swoon. Putting up defences no more than a warmly inviting smile, beckoning coo and becoming embrace. He winks languidly at me, purring in my arms all the while with manly pride during our brief snatched moments of intimacy, before I, with a heavy heart, doth relinquish him to another. For although I have not personally sighted her, I know they reside together in apparent, yet clearly false, propriety at Number Five. I beg, if her ladyship had any good sense at all, alongside the engraved address on his feline collar, she’d place also a warning bell for birds.

Right as rain

It rains and still it rains and then it pelts some more. Officially it’s summer, it has been for six whole days. Seemingly, no one told the weathervane, silly cock.

While the atmosphere continues to spatter darkly outside my window, I don’t feel too much like grizzling of the drizzling dampening this town’s sunny reputation. Even for a girl who loves feeling the warm kiss of relaxed summer sunshine on bare skin, it’s somehow calmingly, refreshingly serene.

I’m imagining the sodden cowboys out on rainy plains in the brilliant novel I’ve just laid down, where it’s also pissing down racoons. I’m infatuated with the Wild West at the moment, you see. Well, more than usual that is. I might have to venture to the American wilderness just to get it out of my system. Or in it, depending how you see it. 

In the puddles I reflect on another year. I pulled finger in this one and haven’t been at the old homestead much. I liked it more than I thought I would. This small town, I think, I continue to enjoy not least because I leave it often.

I wrote down 15 intentions back in January, of which, looking back today, I’ve done pretty well. It ain’t over yet. Perhaps for the very first time ever it feels like I know where I’m heading, even if the exact trail remains a bit of a mystery. I guess I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Next year I will most likely move house (who knows where), grow my hair longer (because I feel like it), write like Oscar Wilde (I wish, and maybe not here), ride madly like a cowgirl (with a bit of an English twist), laugh like a crazed banshee (I love that) and shout out to the hills, “hello wildest dreams!”

It all comes out in the wash.

Have a fantastic summer xx

The silk worm and the monkey

There’s an effortless lightness.
Legs swing gaily in the sunshine atop a sleeping log, scanning across tall grasses and seed heads bowing allegiance to the spring-time breeze god.
Slipping nakedly into the river, into the slipstream, life becomes silk. Floating, smooth, natural, free. Flowing across skin beautifully.
Alongside discarded garments strewn on the riverbank, a monkey scratches at its pits. Clothes gone from the back, so too the ape’s hairy grip.
No more skulking inside a bulbous back end, the heaviness of dark. Great things begin subtle, the silk worm tells the monkey.
With an ever expanding heart.

Moths and flames

“Look at that weird guy, him and his long hair. Pacing up and down like that for ages, I’ve been watching him. I pity whoever he’s here for, he’s obviously entirely deranged.”

Darklis didn’t recall precisely what he looked like, having met while under significant influence all those weeks before. But her immediate recognition of the ‘nutter’ was because, in fact, she had invited him to attend.

Something in his silent stalking movements did indeed scare her, a fear tinge seeded deep within her belly. Screaming – OBSESSIVE! A characteristic she had learned to turn and bolt from with Olympic speed and precision.

Rather unfortunate then, that intrigue snagged her in the same moment and by equal measure. Of this dark moody looking man, waiting outside the theatre all this time in the puddled cold to catch her as she left.

By loudly declaring his judgement, Darklis’ opinion of her companion diminished right there and then, never to be regained. She understood all the reasons why he’d said it... but he was shallow and irrelevant.

She also knew inside herself, driving away from the scene as quickly as she dared, that from that exact instant in time she was well and truly fucked. And that it wasn’t necessarily going to be good.

Trouble was not, and still isn't, what Darklis wanted. For her sake, or his. If you were one of these two, at least slightly, off-centred people - tell me what would you have done next?

Joy (it's my middle name)

I dated a guy once, many many moons ago for a very short time, who told me I was delusional for looking on the bright side of life most of the time. It wasn’t reality he said.

We’d just broken up due to the extreme limitations of his dating repertoire; namely eating (but never ever potatoes, which in itself is sacrilege) and fucking. That, and the way his dreadlocks used to grease filth down through all my bed linen grossed me the fuck out.

In his favour, he did have the gruntiest of motorbikes, which thrilled me to pieces riding high-speed pillion over the Rimutakas. But there was just never enough of that and I was craving carbohydrate.

I take joy wherever I can find it, and not just because it’s my middle name. But because bitching and whinging like a victim about the things not so great in life is easy. It’s the weak man's (or woman’s) cheap way out. To amuse myself on a daily basis and make the choice to be happy is SO, SO, SO much more fun.

My crowning eureka moment, when I was catapulted forward to meet my whole new life, found me driving round a Petone roundabout - just another ordinary, everyday moment in a 30-year black dog battling lifespan. I was about to bark off down that same road, when suddenly, for no discernable reason, I thought to myself: I wonder what would happen if I purposely chose a different path?

So I concentrated on something else, some happy thought or other, rather than following a life time of embedded habit. And I kept consciously practising, until that was the behaviour defaultly ingrained. I’ve hardly looked in my rear vision mirror since (which might also account for the shocking state of my present truck).

Now, on Saturday mornings during my most-weeks ritual doing what I like to do, I often find myself thinking about joy. While I indulge in delectable finger to spine thrilling touching at Page and Blackmore's, or as the sunshine warms my back on my way to market and my favourite stall.

I don’t know his name. We don’t speak much, except for my good morning cheery hello and his out loud calculations toting up my fruit and vege. But every time without fail, he looks at me and I look at him, and he splits into the most humongous Thai-boy grin you’ve ever seen. His face completely taken over and mine responding helplessly in kind. Yes, I think of joy then too.

It makes me chuckle for the rest of the day, that for a few seconds on a Saturday morning, there are these two great grinning fucken idiots in a crowded carpark sharing a passing moment, with nothing else needing to be said or done.

My deluded reality? Yep, I’ll take that. I recommend it to everyone.

Out of the woods

Ropeable she awoke, spitting like a nail gun gone rogue. She hated anger vehemently and by god she fucken hated hate. That ironic thought bringing with it a fresh wave of repulsion, riding her stomach lining fast and hard like a fix of sweet and dirty drugs.

That goddamned book had started this. Who knew reading another's words on a page were possible of wreaking such bloody havoc, seeding the subconscious with this insuppressible vile. The thought both petrified and impressed her by equal measure.

A truckload of firewood was never carted and stacked as proficiently as that morning, head and body ravaging violently against a grasped-together list of extensive crimes and injustices, collated in panic. Tears, meet fuming eruption. An unsavoury pity party.

How she detested this mercenary wrath, choking on it, yet indulging it still. A deep coal seam breaking through to light, a solidifying energy source fighting for a look in. How dare it? She so thought this thing had already been split wide open, chipped out and ordered be gone.

The woodshed was a work of art, no question. Anger washed away with the rains in a paper boat, set free to navigate other shores. Contrary to popular belief, Custer’s last stand wasn’t with Sioux Indians - but inside a girl and a book and an unsuspecting wood pile on some Nelson street.

Clean sheets

Habits form nonsensical
Boredom prevails
I want OUT you shout
Only to yourself
In hidden moments
Through vertical bars
You fitted yourself
Give the prickly cactus away
Fix the bed that squeaks
Old leaves fell with autumn
On my doorstep ushers spring.

Time travellers

SILK SCARF ENTWINES a young and graceful neck, floating softly in her wake. Delicate? Yes perhaps. Melded with an ambling self assurance, an energetic peace.

Busy city street, a thousand beating feet. Nameless thoughts bleat from blank mosaic faces. The silently deafening blah that's so unattachedly intriguing.

Scanning wallpaper as it passes, until… glue hits an image embossed unforgettably upon the brain. Too late, the nanosecond fleet of double-take is observed, noted.

Instant recognition, despite never having met. Silver now sheens his well-groomed hairs. Same unassuming exterior disguising the inwardly intense. Those drilling eyes.

Neither knows which has travelled back in time or who may have travelled forward. Magnetic strangers, numerous concurrent lifetimes. Neither uttering a word.

If need be

Propositions were nothing new to Sissy, from men and women alike. It was with their increasing frequency and obscurity the realisation dawned that she was living on an entirely different planet to mostly everybody else.

“You know how I feel about you. And we can do anything you want... even move to deepest darkest Peru if you like. I want you to be the mother of my kids, we don’t even have to be together if that’s what it takes.”

I need you and neither of us are getting any younger he had inferred. You’d better hurry up or you'll be left barrenly standing outside the gate. Meaning well, but the declaration also evidenced that he didn’t know the real her at all.

Exactly when Sissy had reversed roles with practically every man she had ever dated she couldn’t put her finger on. But there it was. No longer her key to feeling secure, happy or even ok, and along come a bombardment of the desperate to prove their manhood and correctly functioning sperm. Murphy’s Law Sissy, Murphy’s Law.

It wasn’t that Sissy didn’t want these things. Rather, the intense need upon which they hung their hat kept her navigating in the opposite direction. As the hats, for the most part, were ten gallon – heavily flourished with laden bands of ‘at all costs’, societal rule books and obligatory norms.

You can bark up that tree all you like, she thought, and never find what you really seek. “Thank you,” she said quietly instead, declining politely as had occurred so many times before. Fully confident of realising the fulfilment of her own deep-seated desires and dreams, that were, as she spoke, manifesting on their way to her.

Lyrical

When anybody asks me “Is it easy to forget?”
I’ll say “It’s easily done you just pick anyone
And pretend that you never have met”
~ Bob Dylan