Wandering slowly down
from Mount Otowa
We’d gotten lost
behind Kiyomizu-dera
in quiet contemplation
of the winding lanes
like night and day
from heaving temple crowds

Rejoining civilisation
the souvenir shops
and chocolate-dipped strawberries
We make our way down
to the Kamo River
with crustless sandwiches
cans of iced coffee
and legs in need of rest

Sitting on the ancient path
...

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Daniel, we were kids
racing through the cobbled alleyways
of our hometown, in the Springtime
We were bright
we knew how things worked, instinctively
We were different but we overlapped
complimentary in creative ways
I lived somewhat in your thrall

Daniel, you were the loud one
I was sensitive and quiet
You were popular and active
always quick with a withering quip
While I hid in summ...

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Branches curl their gnarled fingers
Sprouting leaves as thick as hair
I’m older, but drifting alone again
Through the botanic gardens
Roaming the hot houses
I taste that chewable air
Holy loneliness
I hold you dear to me…

The roughness of weathered bark
contrasts the delicacy of fresh stems
Poking from fractured seeds
I feel the world breathe
I’m taking part, I made my peace
I don’t...

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The river flows
and we go chasing
the mysteries of living
We’ve been running
through the meadows
of wildflower notions
Tangled up in nothing but
the hunt
To give life meaning…

Beneath the meeting tree
we stand again
warmed by summer rays
It’s here I see you fully
and you truly look at me
We each bare witness
Tangled up in nothing but
the hunt - it is our nature
To give life mean...

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I still taste you 
in every sip of liquor
O, how quickly
our past begins to replay
projected on the evening lawn
as the oil lamp burns 
ghostly, beside me

You said so little
like some men will
That stillness was a balm
to my life’s tumult
Your stoic way
and silent eyes
a recurring character
in my diary’s scribbled lines

I don’t do much
but work and walk
and play the records
y...

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Shattered glass now frames
the family portrait
All that is broken
I’ll sweep into the past
I’ve been in hiding, too long
it’s time to strike out on my own again
I rented an attic room
high above this sprawling city
and it’s from here
I’ll begin again…

The slamming door, definitive
as my tears kissed the snowy ground
I wandered shoeless into the vacant night
It’s time to bury that he...

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I awoke, on the beach
at Durdle Door
Pebbles jabbing their bony fingers
into the knuckles of my spine
Tear tracks make maps of cheeks
a brew of salt and sand
that cannot easily be brushed away

The alarm call of gulls above
they want my chips
But it’s 4am
and these hands are empty
with swollen palms
and throbbing skull
I have nothing to offer
them… or anyone

The busy sea endlessl...

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Floating on my back
weightless in the turquoise water
off the shores of Koh Phi Phi
Been living hard, too long
All these years without a break
Now, I watch the crust of duty
gently peeled from damp eyelashes
Invisible hands, unburdening me
O, never let me go…

The water’s warm against my wrists
joyous tears kissing the brine
caught upon the tide of living
gratefully tangled in this un...

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This city of rooftops
this tangle of streets
Houses perched 
upon hillsides
This fragmented view
a colour sample chart
of various greys
Choose any shade…

A ghoulish wind rattles 
shivering window panes
as remnants of noisy leaves 
shuffle down crooked lanes
Frozen snow 
blocking passageways
I wiggle my toes
to keep the blood flowing

Between five rivers
a hill I rise, or will s...

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In stop-motion, through a liminal space
a corridor of time without definition
Shuffling, herded by invisible hands
the creeping crawl across a blank ocean
from the mainland of experience
to the vagary of unknown islands

There’s no measure of the distance gone
or the length of journey still to travel
This formless, featureless landscape
drags and expands in all directions
The weak will ...

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