One

Star bright

Lantern-glow

Carols drifting

Candy cane dancing

Evergreen branches sway

Joy gathers around tables

Mistletoe brought home from forest

Year-end turning, warmth clear through the frost

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outstaring a blank wall 

You stand before a wall.
It waits, blank as withheld breath.

What hovers over you?
Drafts unpinned,
stories unspoken,
videos sealed,
pages chasing horizons
that never arrive.

Perfection dithers—
a mask for delay.
What if you placed
one imperfect mark?
What if you let motion
carve its shape?

The wall gathers:
crooked sketches,
half-born concepts...

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Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (reprise)

They set forth again, the fishermen three,

their chair of seasoned steel, rolling free,

their wheels carrying stories gathered

from seas where frolic once travelled.

Gold in their hair, not from youth’s frame

but from the long sun’s patient flame,

they cast their nets not for silver schools

but for recollection’s wispy spool...

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After fighting, and ofcourse, winning,

a grave battle,

against the storm, within me,

I will, finally, sit back, and think.

Gazing at the night sky,

when I will embrace the light of moon,

I will not look back, in time, and regret,

but will surely rejoice, for the present, I am,

And if somehow I realise,

that yes, I am me,

That will be the moment,

when I will be, 

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“More Than Scribbles”

The pen does not speak—
it holds its silence in a chamber,
a reservoir where sentences
float unformed,
dark rivers stalled
before the mouth of paper.

Each droplet is a thought
waiting for gravity’s compunction,
a poem in liquid pause,
its capillary compression
held at the narrow throat of the nib.

The pipeline presses with pressure,
yet nothing escapes—
un...

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empty nest

Stairs lengthen
with the seasons,
names slip like
coins in torn cloth.

A calendar lies scraped,
its edges powdered with absence.

Looking‑glass memory fogs,
reflections scatter into hollow rooms.
Between heartbeats—
quiet nestles within its cage.




.

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In the meadow of impossible mornings,

the daisies exhale in a trumpet’s blush,

petals fluttering like embarrassed fans as

the air fills with laughter disguised as wind.

Rosehip hiccups, clouds of lavender smoke,

their thorns rattling like spoons in a drawer.

Lilies bow low, releasing secret choruses,

a brass band hidden in their stems.

Children chase the gusts,

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"A Slow Turning"

The stairs lengthen each season,
though the house remains the same.
Names slip from my tongue—
like coins through a frayed pocket,
clinking faintly in corridors I no longer patrol.

I misplace mornings,
folding them into afternoons
that arrive already weary.

The calendar stares back blank,
its squares scraped clean,
eraser dust gathering at the margins.

Onc...

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So stain—
as marks that remain longer than intent,
and hesitation pressed into the grain.

Second guess,
doubt’s small fracture widening,
as though the Voice were drowned,
as though we mistook the silence
for absence.

But sustain is not the clean note held—
it is the rough edge,
the falter carried forward,
the scar that steadies the hand.

And then—
awareness r...

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"Dusk"

The town exhales—
a soft geometry of roofs and fields
folding into shadow.
He sits where the light
still lingers,
jacket creased like memory,
hands easy on the stone.

The church steeple leans
into the horizon’s stillness,
a single bird
drawn to the vanishing point.

No declarations.
Just the red of his collar
holding warmth
as the sky turns
from blue...

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The world dims—
light falters, seas fall silent,
love cools to ash,
and memory frays into dust.

Yet in the hiatus,
a sudden blush of petals—
sakura, trembling in the air,
a brief rebellion of beauty
against the certainty of decay.

For a heartbeat,
the streets are rivers of pink snow,
  strangers pause,
    eyes lifted,
as if eternity had cracked open.

But th...

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Stand in your own light—
even when the lamps go out.

Carry your silence like a lantern,
not as a burden,
but as a map.

The world will tell you
to wait for rescue,
to lean on borrowed fire.
Smile, and keep walking.

Every step you take
is a small rebellion.
Every breath you claim
is proof you are enough.

Do not beg the t...

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I fold the silence into paper,
address it to your absence,
and let the ink wander
where my voice could not.

Every word is a bridge half‑
built across distance,
collapsing into the river
before you ever arrive.




.

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“Rusted Edges, Burning Gears"
 

The gears don't just turn;

they gnash—teeth of industry,

blood-stained from forgotten hands.

Whispers don’t drift;

they crack like breaking glass,

but no one listens.

Faces sink into hollow screens,

cogs spinning louder than their voices.

You scratch at the edges,

but the rust doesn’t heal—

it spreads, then con...

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At the pier’s end,

a lantern swayed in the wind,

its light holding back

the dark by inches.

The tide had gone out hours ago,

leaving the seabed bare —

a map of ridges and hollows

drawn by hands no one remembers. 
Somewhere in the shallows,

a fish turned once,

as if to read the lantern’s flicker

like a message meant for it alone.

When the wind drop...

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an unread poem
is unwritten poetry —
ink still dreaming in the vein,
a slow current beneath the skin
where no light has yet entered.

Pages breathe in the dark,
their margins uncreased
by any gaze,
their fibres holding the faint salt
of the tree’s first rain.

They live in the quiet tide
before the pen descends,
in the pause
between heartbeat and word,
where silence ...

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Poems for Money, and No Kicks for Free


Verse 1
The air smells of printer’s ink and cold coffee,
and the page stares back like a shopfront window
where the mannequins wear my metaphors,
price tags swinging from their wrists.

I used to think the words were a kind of weather —
blowing in from nowhere,
soaking me through for the sheer joy of it.
Now they arrive in invoices,
in neat...

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They name me Cleaver, though I am no hand,
but the patient edge of centuries,
a blade honed by the Southern swell,
by wind that tastes of iron and kelp.

I split the dolerite as kin are split —
not in malice, but in the slow necessity
of tide and time,
each fracture a journal of what was kept,
and what was carried away.

Below, the broth seethes —
foam thick as ghost‑milk,
stea...

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parched wind, salt‑tongued

from the far edge of the bay,

licks the last drift of

mauve jacarandas.

in the tin‑roof blush,

I hear the slow heartbeat

of soil— patient, cracked,

still keeping the memory of rain.

I walk the market’s narrow spine,

hands grazing mango skins,

the laughter of vendors lifting

like myna birds into a sky

just beginning to remembe...

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gate mist

in the hour

before names

footstep /

echo /

gone

puddle edge

holds the sky

too still

.

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Once I was starling voice at dawn, 
A flock of chimed echoes on my tongue,
Wheezing whistles on choralled lawn,
Each verse a mimic so sweetly sung.

Now I’m a lyrebird lost in the brush,
Framing my solos in shadowed boughs,
With heart unfolding in trembling rush,
A lonesome lilting with hidden vows.

With cheeslets and flummox in my beak,
I sift the flock’s bright feathers from my cor...

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It was nearly midnight

when he slipped out of bed,

careful not to wake her.

The house exhaled its silence—

walls warm with sleep,

timber creaking

from the day’s last heat.

He padded to the kitchen

in bare feet, opened the cupboard

where li’l miss had hidden

a note for him the day before:

“I love you even when you forget milk.”

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i lean into the salt wind,

fingers tracing faint ridges

in damp sand.

“Where is my oyster?” i ask the horizon,

its answer swallowed by surf.

Kester Reed waits behind a driftwood break,

taps the shell-shards underfoot,

listens for that hollow note

that might be its name.

“What would it be, even?” he murmurs,

searching for shape in shadows.

O...

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"streambound" 

In the stream before thought, 

a silver thread spills from a cloud’s open palm. 

It beads the air with patient syllables, 

falling into the current where our minds already drift.

We wade in — ankles claimed by the cold, 

our boots drinking more than we do. 

Above, heaven’s ladle tips again, 

its rain stitching ripples into the moving mirror.

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"flight mode"

The higher they climbed, the quicker they blurred,  

Wrapped in code and status conferred.  

Juno sat still, mapped the ache,  

Her descent revealed what ascent forsake.  

A world within—a pulse, a thread—  

Flight not above, but through instead.

.

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"The Impossible Turn"

To hold what harms, to face without flinching, to shape warmth from wire.

To drop the name, to meet the eyes, to let edges soften.

To burn the mold, to kneel in ash, to rise listening.

Not conquest. Not perfection. Only forward motion.

.

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"Clockwork Reverie"

Tick tock — the echo mocks,

Time slips through paradox,

A ghost in velvet gloves, unseen,

Dancing deep where thoughts convene.

Murky depths and rhyming schemes,

Fractured poets chase their dreams,

Feathers inked with crimson lore,

Minutes bleeding evermore.

The spool unwinds, the tongue forgets,

What once was sung now drips regr...

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“untethered”

shelves of faces wheel past our names

we dissolve on blinking glass—

silent exits logged but never traced

by the circuits that once claimed us

our missteps vanish in tangled code,

no pardon queued;

the platform shrugs in empty bits,

leaving apologies half-typed and gone

perhaps erasure spills relief:

we unhook from worn-out errors,

...

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Through the moor she whistles,

her presence a crystal shard,

slicing through the night air

scented with damp earth and pine.

Windows tremble, trees yield,

cries ripple across the barren plains.

Her voice, an echo of distant storms,

resonates from the ocean's depths,

a spectral cry that chills the bones.

She strides under the moon’s watchful eye,

her shadow...

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As you may have seen on the News and Features page, I have compiled a selection of fifty poems to mark the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Some of these poems will be familiar to regular contributors, but a number have not yet featured on the WOL blog.

This is a private print and not available for general sale, but I would be pleased to send a free PDF copy by e-mail to anyb...

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We made a blood oath...

and yet the promise of it dissipated with the conversation I often expected.

As much as I’d love to over-describe, as some might expect me to, the weight of how I feel while concocting the narratives of Univerza, my writings mislead me.

I might say the campfire stories I told, which wrote themselves, are but a light in a pitch forest as I meander away ...

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Know You Better

I know you will be there at the agreed date and time.

I open my screen and there you are;

no excuses, not late, nor disinterested, never vague,

rather switched on, involved, intense, passionate, reflective, attentive.

Called to the stand I find a voice.

You listen quietly as I speak the unspoken.

Kindly, you allow me to continue

neve...

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when the world continued to move,

she was stuck in her life.

she wanted to move on,

but her body felt numb.

she wanted to live,

yet she felt like dying.

she was losing all her hopes,

yet she dint give up.

she was hurting badly,

yet she kept on fighting.

and now when she looks back,

all the pain is long gone,

and there's this smile on her...

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Is it not the beads you count
Is it not that blessing
Is it not your seated position
on the far side of the screen

It’s here I come and spill
twisting myself as rope
endlessly unknotting 
a constant confessional

And through the cracks
behind the mesh
I feel your furtive eyes 
licking my salacious lines

Dear reader
you are my witness
you are my priest

Is it not the way you br...

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cleverly shunned
this clever lad
who once was
quite celebrated
applauded, even; 
that once and
clever tyke —

little did he know
one forward day
when he'd've all
up and grown
dependable lads 
are what's wanted

clever 'uns were

interesting enough
for a bit of a larf but
just a tad annoying;
when things gotta
be done — go figure
dependability and

cleve...

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I am not Thaaumaturgically Charged

But thaumaturgically challenged

I like his input

no matter he hides from Facebook

Because I understand the need for Privacy.

So I sit in my privvy

Not thinking at all

Hoping that TC

will someday call.

Love to Janet and the others too who make this space worthwhile.

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