Students of life

Contact can be tense
Communication rather distorted
ears and mouths and thoughts and instincts
three words a second and not two to comprehend

We are students of life
The great burning wastelands of our shortcomings
The pristine abundance of our understanding and compassion
The pitfalls of our impatience

Ears to listen to this world
and a mouth to shout at it
When the room gets too tense we dive into speculation
Drive into walls or the back of other frustrated drivers

And to learn is to eat
digest and grow
To learn and to want to learn is
to give your mind the world

A student of life not by choice
but you can choose it
and choose to love it
between our ears and mouths there is so much activity

Progress of the working hands

Late oh late
Clock why do you move around so
And life always happening by the arrow of the hands
Late, late and pleading, empty excuses, life happening

Climbing the grassy mound
Lost documents of the ones I've taught
Time flies when people have deep conversations on boats
Rivers free, roads all blocked

Protestors grab trash to burn in the street
The road is now shut but the hands still turn
The tick and the tock marching on
Such a mechanical attempt at focusing on progress

Early morning the sun on your wrist
When the sky is wet and the light hidden by mist
When the sky is dirty and light is hidden by smog
reset that thing twice a year, do you still marvel the spinning cogs?

The traffic accumulates around the demonstration
Police trucks arrive like alarm clocks
People all over the city are late and they know it's their fault
A system of robbery which sustains a greedy few grabbed the future and stole it.

Hill portrait

The city looms almost falling off the hills
The bracken and flax climb up
Dusk and the portrait of the timeless girl
Violin in hand

So foreign but so familiar
Wondrous girl
Imagine your fine fingers
as they play

Climbing around the hills
soft and curious clouds
The corridor darkens as dusk cradles us
The picture stirs

The frame shines outside it's grooves
the smile widens, the youth in you
and the clock ticks, time loses
You grin girl as the fiddle stick moves

So abstract but so meaningful
Wondrous girl
I imagine you timelessly
playing endlessly

The sun has gone fingers form to fondle
The portrait is now an open window moonlight pearl
I can hear music I can hear your giggling
I can see the fine curls

Flicker and play
like the moon had ears
so the earth could crush our fears
flicker and play like a muse would do

Before you became my life
 my mind had a secret painting of you

The tonne of love

The weight of love
Feel it and invite it
Being free of it would displease me
A thousand kilos of what I like to call the real thing

The tight feeling across the chest
Feel it invite it
Being free of it would upset me
A thousand kilos of what I call the good stuff

I want to lie back and enjoy every gram
of that tonne of love that I can't live without
That tonne of love that fits in the heart
As I lose the weight of my body and gain the weight of her love

The weightlessness of our tumbling
the heaviness of a kiss guided by touch and intention
A tonne of love never too much for my apetite

Shadow around the corner inside

Can't catch it
It's back there behind the mirror
Night comes and there is a spot where no shadow should be
there's mischief

Open the door and shut it
Something is outside waiting to get in
Get it's luck
Get it's wonder

The leaves are blown by the wind
and it speaks
The clouds rebound and the sky smiles
Something falls off the counter

What was that
some sort of voice coming out of the cupboard
All is calm no one questions these things
I relish a glimpse of the supernatural

So I smile and trip it up
In the mind when you are the sleeper
Catch up to it they tell me
Dream it they urge me

And pretend it's yours, even if it's not.