Hale-Bopp

Projecting a dusty beam
at the earth’s cinema;
a falling snowball
waiting to be caught.

You open your bright eye
at us but never wink.

A hole in the sky
spraying an iridescence
of question about you.

Your two tails sail
on the tide of felicity
around the cosmic pancake
which is your heart.

A dropped scone
in the night sky.

Pirouette

In the hospital
in the final
counting of days

You saw ballerinas
waltzing
hand in hand

Their little
numbered bibs
pinned to skin
 
Ambulancing home
you settled down

Never quite making
it to the kitchen

To die suddenly
in your pyjamas

The indignity
of jelly

A set of teeth
rolling on the floor

Medical hands
exposing smooth,
ageless breasts.

Spike Versus Paw

The ladybird and the rabbit
both giants of their trade

line up, begin to race
beetling, hopping
scratching, loping
spike versus paw.

Driven by a toddler
egging each position

and me
trying to save
them from extinction

in the process
getting bitten,
better get your mitts on.

Time to stand clear
not interfere
in things spoken
when it’s best to listen.

Obsidian

Smooth and round
cold warming

Veined black
masculine marble

Turquoise

A bite
of ocean

A nugget
of green

Rhodonite

pink pink pink
future magnet

karmic rake
layered sand

Soma

I have allowed you
close enough

Only this far
and stop

This is precision

What have I done?
where are all
the grains?

Gone, sieved
downward

Shard, shingle
into stain

This is our lot
this is not a lot
the tally is fail

We live
to give space

A line so fine
it’s stretching
credibility

Be my nurse
tend my skin
my mind agonised

For pity’s sake
this thing on paper,
this half moon calf
on the ground
is spaghetti

This mess
is only appetite

Yet combining
each string would
summon the swing
of an acrobat.

Wasp Blanket

The heat when it hits
starts at the rib
radiant solar plexus
lava on neck.

Next come spitfires
shoals made of insect
a squadron of stingers
netting the dark.

Yellow-tail landing
wasps bang on target
face, body, hands
a blur.

Peel and examine
trap in a blanket
the serve of a light bulb
batted above.

The mind is a furnace
electrical synapse
fuse and confusion
blown right apart.