Your breath chokes my lungs
elastic with years of sick love,
lay your hand against my face
press the nerves converging
like cloudbursts under the skin.
Rake and turn the leaves
to bare a ripe fruit glowing
with a warm smell.
(Inspired by Dale Favier’s ‘Raw Spirit’. I have borrowed the phrase ‘lay your hand against…’ from this poem)
I dreamed of a large fish cresting the waves
the golden shoulders shaking away spray,
sea rising to the sky to kiss the clouds,
a curtain of drapes from heaven to earth.
The metamorphosis is for procreation
but he has been disoriented since he became a fish;
he is searching for his sex organ
among the scales glistening in the sun.
I explore the landscape that maps his consciousness:
coral protrusions, oyster silence of kisses,
algae covering him like secretions. His coming
into me is like stepping into a story book.
If gold coins are anathema for an ascetic, what about words
that like lust tangle thoughts? Images strewn across
the noisy bazaar are the temptations I keep away.
Instead I gather stones unpolished by the senses,
monotones of experience drained of colours: these
I secret in my collection box made of Burma teak,
while the clock ticks time through the monochrome day,
and minutes crawl like ants burdened by crystals of sugar.
Photo courtesy: Tim Dobbs
My Garden 