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Teacher 

I make the space for the brains to thrive

Creating safety

Encouraging fun

Being a peripheral part 
of the excited buzz
Of the hive of minds 
as they pollinate each other

Witnessing their outrage, 
their passion,
their determined agency 
in the wryly augmented world 
that they know to be theirs

Celebrating the brilliance
in every one of them
In all the manifestations it makes
As it shines through 
via their unique and essential imprints

It’s like resting in a forest
As I survey in wonder
the miracles surrounding me 
All these perfect human trees 
Growing amongst one another

I am in awe

I am humbled 

May they thrive
I whisper in my heart 
As I meet their eyes and say their names




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Out

Out.

I’m out.

Mum, I’m gay, 

I texted her.

That’s nice dear.  

As in you’ve renamed yourself, or like two poofy men?

Homphobic bitch.

Out.

I’m out.

Striding through the Autumn morning in my walking shoes

Seeking solace in the beauty outside me

from the rage that churns within

The grey blanket of the pre-dawn sky warms me not, 

but offers me great comfort,

with the reassuring reminder that I am 

at once 

infinitesimal

and as expansive as the universe

A blush emerges as the sun comes back from the other side of the world, busy tart

A suggestive apricot, fuzzy and without edges, and with the optimism of Alabama Whitman

“She tastes like a peach”

how truly did I want to taste her mouth

Still I stride, breathing through my swirling truth

And now, somehow, streaks of pink and blue

Audacious as those marine creatures that you think have surely been exaggerated 

in the artist’s depiction

I can even forgive my ancestors for believing in sky god

Out.

I’m out.

Here under this cracking morning sky, remembering to notice the beauty of the universe.

Mary Oliver eat your heart out!

Savour those juices as they stream down your chin

Rivulets forming in your cleavage invitationally 

for another lover 

of life to slurp at

Yum.

Mum, I like to lick life juice off the tits of women poets.

Still I stride, rounding the corner, home comes into view.

And in the valley beyond, down over the town to the west

The sun, my current favourite artist, has invited the morning mist to dance.

A rainbow!

My queer little heart opens in bliss.

Life really does love me!

And I love her right back, 

most Sapphically indeed.

Copyright 2021.

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saved 

Poetry will save us
as it has
and always does

It's poetry who catches us
falling in
and out
of love

A resting tent that nurtures us
while our souls replenish,
touching the universality of our own uniquely fragile stardust...

Stroking our foreheads,
breathing peace into our hearts,
illuminating the beauty in everything
and stitching it
into a cloak of light,
draped lovingly around our shaking shoulders;
whispering cogently to us of its impenetrability, 
of our own sovereign safety,
so that we may rise refueled
our furnace stoked
charged by the life force now burning
outrageously bright in us
to face the world and all its oddly timed surprises
with the optimistic courage of a rising sun

This day is mine!

Poetry has saved me.

Again.

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Rain 

How can the rain
be without 
symbolism?

How could it ever be
that it is 
simply raining?

How can I be calm 
when this water
is surrounding me
without relent?

My heart's lament.

I'm damp.

Damp in all my organs.


I want to whinge 
in protest 

I want to register
with some authority, officially,
my dissatisfaction
with the 
appearance of mold
on my timber chair

Actually?

Really?

Truly?

I'm to put up with 
this now
as well?

My heart is harbouring mildew.

Black soot haunts my kidneys.

My liver is beset by 
wet dust
of the kind that causes hives in some young children

Smoke it out, this ominous damp!

Cleanse me of this creeping moisture...

Smudge, 
Fire,
Hot coals...

I don't care.

Just let me be rid
of this soggy curse.

I would rather that 
the workings of my brain
crackle like dry forest twigs
or a lively fire

I would rather that 
the air in me
felt light and crisp as sunshine

I want to be crunchy

to feel like a spark in me could easily ignite

Yes!  I want to be flammable

or at least warm like a pocket potato

or a passionate embrace...

This damp suits me not.

Enough rain.

Enough.

(C) 2021