Words and Invisible Cords

Waking up at 7 in the morning On a cold autumn Sunday Is as crisp as the satisfying crunch Of the dried, yellow leaves The full weight of my week Pressing them onto the coldness Of Burwood's pavement Still asleep. Take the train to the City I reckon, and ride the ferry And be tossed at the Harbour To Watsons Bay Walk to The Lighthouse Follow the short trail Spend some time watching the raging waves And thank the ocean For bearing the brunt Of a tumultuous life Now finding the calm In the suspended flight of birds. Journey back to Circular Quay This time staying indoors, upper deck Where it is warm And quiet Only the boat's engine roars -- Noise is necessary For staying afloat.

The southern beaches are quiet Their shores unruffled The sea breeze is thick with the muffled sound Of the scattered rippling of waves And the chirping of birds Of random unfamiliar muted chatters in Mandarin and French And the solid staccatic barking of the moneyed's white boat engines -- I did a little bushwalking, too Passing thru 2000 year-old aboriginal arts engraved in stones Finally stopping by Jibbon Beach Laid down my handwoven mat Pressed my left ear to the ground As I slowly walked my fingers to the sand Holding a pinch and forming circles Until the crystals fall off Shifting my head to the sky Squinting my left eye Followed by the closing of the right The vastness of the curved blue sky Consumed by the pitch blackness Of a quiet sleep By the beach.

Who needs sunshine In the Central Grand Terminal When the light of day Is cannibalised by the round, suspended Bright lights that line the steel roof foundation Your destination is absolute Flashed on the enormous electronic screen With orange and black text scrolling upwards Incessantly, then pauses for a while As if pacifying your beating heart You stop momentarily, scanning for the correct platform to board You breathe a sigh of relief, 3 more minutes to spare I see you As I refill my soy capuccino cup with tap water I tried to process why I chose to read here, of all places I stepped out of the gates an hour ago with no destination in mind So I chose to settle, enjoy some prose Watch people pull luggages, some running, some taking their own sweet time And I see you And I see me Rooted to my seat, joyful in my temporal solitary transient state You are leaving in a snap I am staying Who needs sunshine in the Central Grand Station When we are all guided By our own sense of destination...

John Banville once wrote a novel It's called The Sea Where allegories of crashing waves And tumultous lives are pictured to find rest  When they reach the shores Forming transient froth and bubbles Like memories appearing so clearly Until they vanish with another crashing of waves Memories come and go Like small ripples on the shore  Ever advancing and retreating Bathing the sand  I'm playing with my feet I try to confront the crashing of waves Dissipating all the memories Of a tumultuous life Only to find its fragments In the small bubbles and froth Foaming albeit fleeting ashore They are lovely to look at Those small, white bubbles But they are the byproduct Of so much agitation and beating. How wonderful it is to find beauty In the remains of anxiety No matter how fleeting No matter how momentary.

When your cold feet In the darkest of nights Brushed against my own toes It sent shivers in my spine  Supined in my dreams Of more than a decade of falling in love with you Unrequited. As I pressed my own head Onto your sweet smelling back My hopes for a reciprocated gesture A touch, a nudge, a quick acknowledgment  Of my invigorated love Drowned by my own fears of your own fears To let go of your inhibitions. You did not turn your face towards me But I kept on resting my nose on your frame Until the break of day Breaks the ennui of my sleepless devotion That remains unfurled in our own worlds Of unresolved crisis in how we see ourselves In the eyes of our own dreaded nightmares. The brushing of your feet against mine The summoning of your all too familiar scent  The silence of your feelings failing to give answers To my years of undying, relentless peculiar love for you They all vanished in the ...

The irony of the chilling wind  Summons the neophyte on a summer day Sydney, you felt lonely. Your train stations channel centuries of history The rust on the railways evaporate into the air Forming rustic marriages with the countless graffitis That travel with me into your suburbs Lined by untrimmed trees whose irregular canopies Highlight the view's randomness in the expanse of your many spaces Filled by brick, small houses; grasses filling the cracks in the pavements You smell of pure earth, organic and unfiltered. Your people, they are great They seem to come from a joyous eternal spring Their pleasantries sparking with enthusiasm Not a fan of short hi’s and hello's But love the stretch of asking  ‘Mate, how are you today?’, all the time. They love to chill, did I mention the beach in Bondi? Their sculpted bodies flat carpeting the fine, white sand I look at them from  afar while I squeeze lemon  Onto my fish and chips...

To the Land Down Under From the Little Red Dot My space expands like a ripple Set by a drop of grace. When excitement and anxiety gel They stick and breathe rhythms of Palpitations in the hundreds Thoughts, running in the thousands. Breaking the comfort of a world familiar Is the hope for good beginnings Uncertain as it may seem for now The skies will soon open, my meditations calmer. I rest my fears In the mapmaker Of unchartered territories.