Acceptance

Acceptance is not for the acceptable

What need have they for it?

Where would they keep such a thing?

There is no room in the inn.

No, acceptance is for the unlovely

The tattered and diseased

A gift to those whose pockets have room enough

Because they are so full of empty

The Vague

Every time it gets me

Folds me up inside

Creases up my spaces

Until everything tears

We who burn to shine and yearn to climb
Bright towers where dragons do not lie in wait
No
Do not wait do not pause
To take in the sights.
To turn out the lights.
Take out the trash.
Preplan the flights.
What's the rush? Everything!
Stacked like dominoes in a Jenga Box
Poised for tumbling when the music stops

Burn to shine to forget the time
Forget ourselves
For one bright moment
Where we flow like stars
In our own galaxy

When you were different
On the day you were made
Ideas pressed together
Into soft papered flesh
There you breathed
Though you had no lungs
Or air to do the breathing
And no exhale marked an end
Or marred the wholeness
Of perpetual inhalation
Gulping in raw connection
Like a black hole
Like a sponge
Like the first unblink of a newborn
When you were different
On that day, before you made
Your first exhalation.

Silent Retreat

God struck me
So that I rang like a bell
And all my joints ached with fatigue
Yet it was not God who struck
For God was not there

God stirred my dreams
Like some vast prophetic vat
Bubbling thickly against the surface
Yet it was not God who stirred
For God was not there.

God ran His hands through my pain
Till its eddies shimmered drowning rainbows
Till they too were lost
But it was not God's hands
For God was not there

God came to me in the silence
In the stillness between thoughts
And held me within eternity
But it was not God who held me
For God was not there

God stood still on a lonely hill
As the Wellington breeze tore at the weak winter-sun warmth
And watched unmoved as I died
Yet it was not God who watched
For God was there already

Until you speak to the silence in me
I shall never hear its voice

I chased my shadows
And became the sun

Hope is seeds of our selves sown in secret soils.

The Big Bad Wolf

.....
My what big eyes I have,
All the better to trick you with
My what pretty smile I have,
All the better to fool you with

Ahh little one with your hood so red
Just wait till you see me in bed
I'm gonna huff and puff
And fuck up your life instead.

Trust is for the desert
Putting down waiting roots
Straining through the cracks
That none but the mirror sees

Trust is for the desert
Where the stones are bread
And angels wait to catch me
And yet I must say no

Trust is for the desert
Where I can find no green within me.
Though I wander forty years
The seeds refuse to sprout.

Trust is for the desert
Where distance is measured
Against the landmarks of my shame
And always I must measure again.

Trust is for the desert
Search for a God
No longer found in fire or cloud
No longer heard in whispers.

Trust is for the desert
Against the grain
Against the rain
Yearning for the green again.

There is a strength in open doors
That cannot be found in walls

I wear these scars

Beneath my skin

Easier than believing

That it won't hurt

When the light gets in

Editing Photoes

I can't fix you
These calloused fingers
Don't reach deep enough
To unmake, unshape
And tear the holes right out

I don't want to fix you
And leave you less
Than the sum of your pains
To burn away your shadows
I'd kill your light.

I'm not fit to fix you
Because​ youve not been broken
Just rewoven, recoloured
To tell a richer tale by far
Than bland perfection.

Sadness
Like a cheeseburger
Hastily assembled
Gradually sinking
Into the grease stained paper plate
Less appetising
Even as hunger grows

Bring your heart like a wolf to the water

I could chase her like the thoughts
That whirl my head
Or catch her in a moment
Instagrammed and frozen
Open to the words of her
That wend a weary way
Between our distant worlds
But still the hope that lies between
The clutched and the let go
Needles up my chest
As it dies
As it does
Every single day.

How curious to breathe
While still being held in so many ways.

Afraid of Ice

Under pressure
You melt
Then run

This was going to be a piece
Where I expunged the flickering flame of sadness
That fickle prickle lurking
Whenever I take my shoes off
And show you my weird ankles
Or how that nail never quite grows right
But its OK sometimes
When pain slips through the callouses
And sticks between my toes
I may limp for a while
And keep my laces done up tight
But every wincing step reminds me
Barefoot freedom on the grass
Is worth this prickle price

When a sadness grips me
Asking what I'm letting go of
Is as good as any other tissue.

Thoughts on What I Need at This Juncture

I need these trees
Which reach down beneath the bones in the garden
And hold something steadier than the dip of twilight
I crave their rough and honest skin
Questioned by relentless Wellington weather
Answering in gentle unyielding bends

I need something
On which to pin my insides
Unfurled in all their flagging strength
To bravely wave when Northerlie rage
And rip at the ragged ends of me

I need a thought
Not my own crumpled creation
One whose breath reaches back to lost Gardens
And bids muck and dust to rise