Friend in Need

This is a collaboration with J.

Let me crawl in your blue sweater
Curl up in your grey couch
Fill this empty air with a fragrant coffee
And the simple sound of your acoustic guitar
Sit with me in my sadness
and love me as I am

I love you as you are
with cloudy eyes of pain
Harmonise your breathing
with a song
Humming in nothingness
We’ll wander without aim
My shoulder
where your soul’s laid bare
Your heart
tended with care

Sublimation

This is a collaboration with Benjamin Grossman. I asked Ben to write with me in the hope that it would help me to overcome some difficult emotions. I think this poem achieved just that. I love the last line with all capital letters. It is exactly how I feel about emptying negative emotions by putting up a good fight, even it means shouting.

Night Cemetery

Painting by Christopher Marc Ford

He has always been drawn to cemeteries, from a young age, when he didn’t know fear yet, or the intricacy of life and death. Later in life, he learned the complicated truth about emptiness of the living dead and the totality of a life’s end.

He doesn’t believe in life after death, nor the grand closure death may bring to the human souls. He gets comfortable with death, like birth, breathing, hunger, thirst, sleep, arousal. These sensations are striped down to the natural form of things, without the need for questioning or overthinking.

Tonight, he was motivated to take a walk in the cemetery to get some fresh air, to get unstuck in his creativity, to deconstruct the somewhat overwhelming feelings and all the while numb sensation.

Maybe it’s the blue moonlight reflecting the quietness of the dead, maybe it’s darkness presenting herself as a lover, he broke free from his jeans and linen shirt, exposing his chest to breath freely. He lay on his bare back, let the moisten soft grass caress his over sensitive skin, he felt the softness and teasing. The flexing of muscles drove the lawn bugs to hiding.

He experienced a surge of energy from the earthing, sparks of electricity coursing through his body, building up in his torso. Without any conscious awareness, he started to stroke himself with firm pressure while staring into the void of the inky sky. His palm pulsating in sync with the blood-filled veins, without knowing how close he got, the flash of shooting stars brought about his eruption.

Slowly he began to notice his own breathing; the steady rhythm of his heartbeats returned; the feeling of an uncomplicated emptiness stayed with him in the deep of the night, in the cemetery filled with the serenity of the dead.

Butterfly Love, The Origin of Love

Reading of two poems: Butterfly Love by Jeff Flesh; The Origin of Love by Cassa Bassa

Butterfly Love

I rise from the ashes of past
circumstances

with a ladle of love in my right hand
and butterflies alighting on my left

thinking about the trees dwelling within me,
how they do always seem

lost in times of chaos, yet they
keep me warm

tangled emotions
cutting deep within, where love and pain
are perfect twins

and life is lived beneath the texture of your skin


The Origin of Love

I sit in the quiet
underneath the white oak
watch the rain rolling from my left
edging the sun towards my right

Isn’t that what grief does to us
chipping away the simple things we enjoy

I remain sitting under the tangled arms
unshaken, unmoved, undisturbed

Here is my sanctuary
and centre of gravity
where we once hid from the world’s chaos
and found each other
locked gaze
in awe

Thesaurus of Blank Pages

When I asked Bree to write together, she generously shared with me a poem she’d already crafted. I wrote in with her effortlessly like a little leaf floating along a river.


It’s difficult to find the words some days
I’m a thesaurus full of blank pages
Trying to dig between the emptiness
old stories stare back at me
characters having a banter party
without me
There must be unfinished business with those ghosts of my past
They invade my waking moments
eating up my creativity
thieving all the phrases that used to live inside my mind

I gather my strength
focus my weary mind
willing the words to come back
Surely if I shake the past hard enough
they’ll release all they hold captive
and start falling like cherry blossoms covering every crevice and crack of the page

Words

Writing with others are both inspiring and fun. I hope you enjoy this collaboration between me and Bree. Reading Bree’s work is like walking into her garden in every season.  Secret Thoughts Within

An exhausted heart,
asking no more for rain
A shameful shadow
deserving no reprieve from disdain

A drip,
running down from the heavens to my soul
A refreshment,
replenishing the drought within me

A book,
doing just that to rescue me
A story,
unfolding before my eyes
making my heart sing again

Friendship

This is another collaboration with Bree. Do check out her written and audio poetry, you will be sated:  Secret Thoughts Within

I see you sitting here all alone 
wondering if your worries
will keep you up again tonight

I hate seeing you break
watching the light draining
from your sunken eyes

Let it wash away
you were never meant
to carry a burden so laden   

Tell me your troubles 
pour them out into my open heart
and together we’ll break the chains of despair 

Beach Bliss

This is a collaboration between Bree and Cassa. It’s so much fun to write with a fellow Aussie. Check out Bree’s blog for more of her mystery Secret Thoughts Within.

Let me be the sea breeze caress your sun bleached hair
My urging breath dances on your bronzing shoulders and coats your lips with a crystalline salty kiss

Let me be the fine sand between your thighs like a wayward soul seeking paradise
I’ll warm up your skin to bring a pink blush to your cheeks as I explore every inch of your summer soaked body

It's the Pacific sun burning my mind
You are making me hungry, thirsty and possessive
I become a predator roaming for my prey till twilight

Let me overtake your senses with my crashing passion as the moon pulls in the tide
My every neuron charging along the ebb and flow of your sinew body
Breaking into your veins and crevices over and over till eternity

The night owl hides in the blackwood
The moon blushes into wattle flakes
Our naked souls lace in the orange sand
The waves blossom into our ferocious moans as we drift into a blissful trance

Indecent

This is a collaborative piece by Bree and Cassa. Do check out Bree’s blog Secret Thoughts Within for more of her wonder.

My love for you is indecent
it doesn’t fit neatly into the mould
I am an outlier in every book of sin
No amount of purity resists my passion

Offer me your vigour
and I will return it ten-fold
You have never known a love like mine
I’m a wildfire and raging storm

Come! Count me in
Let me be your intoxication and Sunday regret
We’ll be each other’s forbidden fruit
and feast on a love so indecent

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