I'm like a bird, I want to fly away.
Wrapped in a billowing yellow silk scarf
which shines gold in the light of day.

Perched on a tree branch, face the horizon.
Hope and sunlight glimmer reflected in
each determined eye which widens.  

Ruffled feathers are my warm, windswept hair.
I will leap into the sky, stretching high
To glide through the air if I dare.
  
Music from Cape Town, a bird's song my ears
spread their wings and feel the song's lift beneath
and sing sweet as the horizon nears.

I am a  bird and as I fly away
wrapped in my billowing yellow silk scarf
I shine gold in the light of day.

There's no blind on the skylight in my bathroom.
When I brush my teeth,
do birds see me?
What do they think?
They have no teeth.
They have no idea what's going on.

Dwelling, I feel forlorn.
I mourn for the lost thoughts
escaping like breath from the corner of your mouth when you stifle a yawn in the sun.
I think for the bottles of beer
lost at sea,
cold but empty, liquor drunk and lost, your bottle stands sentry,
proudly holding a message as it bobs over waves,
it sails for the marooned it's trying to save.
Inside, a note.
Outside, the glass reflects the clouds as it floats beneath them.
I sit with the marooned in the sun and watch the clouds -
shapes like animals, worlds in the sky glimpsed for a moment and lost -
melting away like frost in the sun.
I think for myself as I lounge.
Like frost in the sun, I melt into the ground and it cradles me,
shape of my body pressed in the sand.
Soon to be washed away,
with these thoughts dwelling in the sun, I stifle a yawn, and I open another beer.

Sometimes, I take a deep breath,
And my chest crashes like waves
Onto the shore where you bathe,
Your skin speckled with sand like glitter
Or dust on a priceless antique which nobody dares to clean

A candle went out
A little flame on the tabletop dancing in the reflection in the wine glasses
hot and molten and fragrant, nights spent behind lightly-coloured veiled curtains
Mysterious, dancing, floating shadows through the curtain are glimpsed.
Tales of mystery, magic, agelessness hints in the small flame.
Scandals in the dark.
Wax seals on yellow letters
remembered by the candle;
the only light there to see on those nights
In stone castles and in hot bedrooms,
On steel blades of kings to their steely gaze,
to nervous eyes and shining lips
All reflected the burning candle's wick
Whose warmth and flickering glow were taken for granted until
a candle went out.

I'm not quite sure why I feel this way
Why in my bed, my legs feel tired
In my head, my heart feels numb
Why my lips feel dry without gin passing through them.

Chapped and sore, my patience like my lips thirsts
for a numbing draft of spirit to quench.
Spirit is exactly what I need
to instill charm into this hopeless mind.

If only charm poured as easily as gin
from the bottle so green with envy
and malice and wickedness.
Heavy, silver liquid within.

I hope I'm drunk
because if this is what sober is like,
I don't want to be sober -
Better pour myself another glass.
Onto the old slice of lime.

I like sitting by the river
The white noise
The constant running
The seamless flow
Floating
Music of wildlife
Stones smoothed and softened by timeless, endless current
The water reflects the world.
The sun and the trees and the reeds and the rocks
are all mirrored in the warbling surface
which carries the lightest twigs
and absorbs the heaviest timber.
Waves break easily against any obstacle, yet continue to glide eternally downstream
For water is delicate, but the river never stops.
One seagull stands proudly on a lone rock in the middle of the river and glares upstream, its breast glowing white and its tail flowing grey.
Fish flit in and out of sight.
The creatures of the river are as sleek as their watery habitat.
The tiniest bubble floats over the water in front of me and bursts.
Even that tiny bubble left ripples on the surface of the mighty river, humble, ageless and alive.