Alone in the fog
Encased within a dreamscape
The sea calls me home
Haiku: My Afternoon
my puffy ankles
stiff in the humidity
yet I keep sitting
The Sea of Light
Wavelets move towards the shore,
a cold southern sea on a hot day.
Burning sand with sparse shells,
no sea snails hidden from sight.
Walking on the littered wet sand,
ivory beige skin turning pink, red.
Dirty white sand, dirty white feet;
soon we look like sandy lobsters.
Whispering songs to the sea of light,
playing with our mind, the dark sea.
Tanka: Forest Dreaming
sweet forest dreaming
mythical marijuana
smelling something odd
nose twitching, ready to sneeze
waking to grass up your nose
A Vision in Blue
Caught by your soft eyes,
those eyes tell no lies.
You fight the truth within the mirror,
Your eyes see who you are much clearer.
Caught by the way your soul cries,
Your bleeding heart slowly dies.
You fight a true love growing dearer,
the touch of a heart coming nearer.
Caught by your love for grey skies,
tear-stained soul resists, it dies.
You are near to her,
You can now hear her.
Caught by her crystal blue eyes,
A vision in blue, those eyes.
You rid yourself of all the lies,
lost forever within her eyes.
Haiku: Back to Work
waking up anew
realisation makes you
feel like shit: workday
Kiss of Time
Photos of your world.
You stand in a snow-covered forest,
with a stillness not found in my summer.
In those photos, the kiss of time moves slower,
for the kiss of time moves faster in the heat of summer.
I find myself longing for the winter, yet I need the summer;
without summer, there is no winter; without spring, there is no autumn.
Without the kiss of time, there would be no time for us.
Our impermanence would be permanence.
Our beauty and wonder would never be so lovely.
Our hearts would beat something other than blood,
as we grow colder every hundred years or so.
Tanka: New Year
Another year bye.
The heat of the new year burns
into our bodies.
A becoming something new
as we look to the new year.
The Tea House
The words of Rumi take shape and play a scene with sounds as I sit thinking of the desert, exotic lands, and being another person in another land with another life.
In a far off land different from my own, I am alone, and I walk within your nation, yet I walk apart. The half-hidden faces and the glances show me that I do not belong here.
I have never worn so much cloth around my head, had so much material cover my body, and I have never felt unseen; yet the heat and the clothing cool my skin, and I feel free of fear.
Arabic on the wind and the vision of a mosque so beautiful you know the artists and architects loved their god, yet I’m a hypocrite for I do not believe in anything anymore.
Safely wrapped, a kind man ushered me towards the tea house to have something to drink. The smell of mint, rose water, and orange blossoms put my mind in a philosophical mood.
Surrounded by noise, I feel calm as I cannot understand a word, yet I know I don’t belong here; I am not part of this country. I am a hypocrite hiding behind a cloth I don’t believe I should wear.
Yet, I cannot bring myself to admit that the pull of this place feels like a longing that I have felt since I tried to play that broken instrument that looked like a Qanum many, many years ago.
I sit in the tea house surrounded, yet alone with my thoughts. Then I hear the bombing begin. It is a shock: a booming calamity and a whooshing sound mixed with many other sounds. It is a shock to my ears and my heart, for we do not know of this life in Australia.
Blood mixed with dust, concrete and debris strewn across the streets, bodies broken and mangled, and there, so close to me, the kindly man who ushered me in: bloody and dead. In those cloudy eyes, I once saw courage.
I walk from the tea house to stand and look towards the sky. You have gone from me through some cruel twist of fate, yet I know we will find each other again one day.
I feel like an important person in that instant. It is as if my feelings are the only feelings I can feel exist. Individualism has taught me to think my feelings might change the rivers of time.
The next bomb destroys my daydream, the images and the sounds of Rumi end, and I am sitting at my desk reading about your country: saddened by so many dead.
January Dawn
Last night we whispered, ‘Happy New Year’.
No dancing and singing; no festive food, wine, and sparklers glittering.
We sipped and read quietly at home, contemplating another year gone and looking forward to the new one to come.
Almost another year older. I feel a bit jaded, perhaps wiser, and I feel like I’ve aged, and I’m so much older.
I sit thinking about all the people I have not seen. No hugs and kisses unless they are through a screen. Friends down the road I have not seen, and a longing to do so much with so little time, sometimes I’m searching for the words to say what I mean.
The January Dawn passed us by as we slept in late. Whatever this year brings, I hope we come together, become closer, and learn to embrace love and not hate.
Life is not lived by the rich and the few. Life is lived by smallfolk: by me, you.
At times like this, I feel the pull of that longing place. The place with a door leading me to somewhere magical: a hidden world with a forest and the phenomenal. Is it my inner place?
I wanted to open that door wider for many years, yet I get closer, and I falter and think of my peers and imaginary sneers. Is my inner place calling for the two halves to meet? So separate they have been that no one knows where one-half ends and the other half meet.
For now, I sit hidden from the blistering sun. I peeked at the outside world, at the browning lawn that we must mow, which will not be much fun.
I sit here and wonder what we should do. How many more New Years’ Eves will I get to share with you?
C & K 