September

high on the escarpment

in a train

white cockatoo flies

exactly the speed

wing-beats, pace same

I’m choked

with need

to be

in love?

or grief

tendrils reach

from a thorn-spiked heart

sinuous and green

into the thick undergrowth

lustrous, keen

gymeas ridiculous

Quentin Blake sketch

in a stringybark forest

perpendicular

bridges from

a childhood book

with an old man’s pride

and tragic accident

to overcome

oh!

the ocean glints

and froths

whiteblue, whiteblue

in the distance, so

utterly beautiful

that rock shelf

like bricks, like stones, like fossils and holes

I yearn to be

whole

entirely

immersed

with spray in my face

spindrift, salty

it’s something like homesickness

or lust

ancient craving

carving

can’t explain

the deep interior

sea-cave

heartspace

soul-pain

Photo by Ryo Nagisa on Unsplash

September, September, September
suddenly everything I read
says September! although it generally means
autumn, northern
not sultry sudden-summer breeze
September! marker, moment of stepping through
the brink, the precipice
of spring, sudden launch in
to a shock-cold waterslide thing
with bushfires ahead
not cozy nights
closing in
with
Halloween pumpkins
a flickering torch in a garden
scent-lit by warm-jasmine
on closer inspection
turns out to be
pixelated, muzzeley
not a real flame
immediately
September!
a start or an end?
put my hand in the still-cool water
realise if my palm is the bay,
the knuckles sandbar, my arm’s the channel out to sea
and me
– I’m out there, not the land
but a floating, liquid being
ocean-whole and once again
I wonder
does it mean
to finish, or begin
September, September, September
a door
a spark
an ember
Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash