Five kindnesses

i.
A quiet hello said low in the morning

ii.
A genuine effort: welcome, Newcomer
a home, a life, some food & some funding

iii.
Solid company that brings us together
the alluring, the shy, the quick and the funny
a love that binds us stronger than tethers

iv.
A mouth that is mellow and slower than honey
with lips that procure, that swell and are hungry
the sounds of kisses, the battles of loving
openness of spirit, red frames for the lonely

*****

Duo

Silence and solitude

One is the host, one is the guest
A kind of company that is loneliness
Steal a still room to quieten one’s breast
To appease and deny, to push and to press

Worry Maker

Stage 1: great afflictions saturate the stomach.
Stage 2: the heart empties once the task is completed.
Stage 3: dailiness finally fills the veins.

Stealthy

***

There is such a thing as making the same mistakes over and over again.  Then there comes the day when you realize you are living the mistake, rather than just repeating it. What was just troublesome surreptitiously becomes a habit. The frightening part is that old habits are so hard to kill.

Unanswered

What sort of stubbornness is worse than a sentimental one?
Is insisting on someone out of sincere neediness sillier or wiser than sacrificing oneself?
What’s certain is that the burden of being alone isn’t easily surmountable

Fortress

Silence can feed as easily as it can make you falter
And if you nourish a hope on muteness, the heart is swiftly quietened
Quiet, cold and silent is a life no longer vibrant

Earnestness

When saying what you want without waiting for your words to wane, beware.
You may deem you are wallowing in straightforwardness, but your curly tongue won’t get you anywhere.
One, two, three: now look within.

A find

Fickle and fragile and febrile and foolish
After so many years of self-awareness
Why do innver moves still force the surface out of focus?
Sighing: self-inflicted pain is the only one to let go

Future

How reckless is stupidity diverted to oneself?
How many of the same mistakes is one entitled to make?
How careless does one need to be before becoming one’s own bait?
How far into the past does one need to see before being freed from its shelf?

Temptation

When silence is self-imposed, it enriches illusions and cleanses sullen thoughts, whilst its infliction by others causes anger to pass but an insisting deception to grow.

Prose

Sighing is to disappointment what tears are to sadness. But when smiling makes you slumber, you have no choice but to share it.

Wit

Will our solitariness ever lift, or is the life of the mind its own reward?

J.M. COETZEE, Youth.

Corporeal

**

When the head is the lid
And the voice is the key
The heart is the twist
That unveils the need

The ribs are the chest
And lungs can be love
That unlock what is best
From within the soul

**

Pictures by Brett Lloyd

The Exercise

Dam-like, water force
Opposing impulses I know so well
A pound lock, rising rivulets
Fighting to emerge from my own dwell

Ipsis Litteris

Every single night
I endure the fight
of little wings of white-flamed
Butterflies in my brain
These ideas of mine
percolate the mind
trickle down the spine
swarm the belly, swelling to blaze

The new album is  out on June 19th.