One Inch Bottles

corked

you palmed
into my palm

they contain
a pupae case
you plucked
from the fence

seeds we
rushed upon
trying to
best each other

purple carrot
shavings you
dried on
my heater

fragments
of antique
songs

string

The Anatomy of a Wing

money the colour of pigeons

wings interleaved through

unsold books

jewelled aigrettes

teal, sapphire, plum

fashioned from folded paper

by silver scribes

pigeons live in a poverty of

feathered nests

Lined with poetry and

tongues of the heartbroken

outstretched wings

wait for the surgeon’s drill

to unscrew phalanges and

replace them with balance wheels

in fifty years aigrettes

are muffled and shabby

they’ve been in the attic

bitten by rats and mice

they won’t fly

Wrtiting Exercise

I suggested a writing exercise to some poet friends on Twitter. Pick 20 words from the last 10 tweets write for 5 min from that starting point. I'll add the additional rules that you can add other words, but you must use all 20 that you chose from the tweets. My first pass at it, I came up with

single bound
analysis
encountered in the avenue

I've pursued adversity
and applauded
the sandbox of domesticity

gathered a love-child
to an otherwise
cool expectation

swoon words
that uplift
are too close
for comfort
too listy
for my blog

Ok, so at this point, it's a bit of nonsense to a reader. But here's the magic bit, for me anyway. I'm aware of some personal references, some autobiographical images in these words. What they give me is something to edit, that I can enrich with meaning. I write to be read, so I will also inject some universal themes.

Biological Name for Moth

The scientist shudders
at the touch of
plumes and russet
dusty wings
thud against
a back lit window
the squash and gag
of a hunting cat

the Atlas moth gives
a map and sextant
his heart glows green
beneath his t-shirt

his wings
spread wide
red/yellow/brown
continents of wings
countries of wings
territories and states
of wings

he allows himself
to be palmed
and pinned
through his thorax

a swoosh of feelers
semaphores
his love

Beach Comber

My Nemesis speaks
in the vernacular
from her slips

faces made of
sun ray pleats
drink the
ancient catch

and abandon
her hull to
salt rusty scabs
and perches of
weary godwits

she aches for
waterline modesty
and thin slices
of whale song
on melba toast

southerlies scour
her gentility
she curses
my pockets
filled with paua
and bleached
seal teeth

Fish Trap

She's a gleam
of sunlit
fish scales

a glance up at
radial winter
branches

his finger
slips beneath
her shirt hem

hooks her back
a small rip
a claim

red vapour
in water she
wriggles free

he lays a new trap
further upstream

baited with
erotic books
watch cogs
owl words
straw houses

she swims in

In memory of Dianne Perano who passed away August 5, 2009

Balloons for Dianne

In praise of silver skins

taut volumes of spirit
move and stay

stretched
by the vestry's breath

they hover above her
and rise

evading a float of steeples