He came from the place
where the mulga scrub
can dress his garden grand,
Where rivers full of bracken dust
Sleep in this ravaged land

Where shade is sparse and precious held
By the bush men far out west,
And waters sort like gold below
In the land he thought was blessed,

He didn’t want to leave his wife
twelve years of arrant dry,
The swirling dust the song it sang
words hopeless in the sky,

Why don't you wash your weary thoughts,
and brush out your heavy woes and pains.
Wipe out those tears in eyes,
and sweep everyday's miseries away.
Bleach all the stained ,
and the spotted hatreds in your heart
clean it all and say:
Hey..
"Everything is gonna be OKAY."

I shaved my head and beard today
but it didn’t take away
the feeling I had crawled
recently from a dumpster,
although I felt meaner.
And a little colder.

the sun is going down,
the wine is running red,
I'm feeling awake,
someone else might soon be dead.

Meaner and colder
is fine by me
a life lived in lead
is the final dread.

the water clear
escapes the touch

and falls

I can hear you picking
up the keys
the bass chords
the pedal shifts

Love is a mystery
fraught with the ruin of
leaving
Just when the echo of
Hello has opened
the frame
of possible
hope

a piano lives
a soul walks
the hallway

these ghosts of us

gusts reach walls
we built
the stones of
work like bones
sleeping

this warmth gathered
curved against it

Roses are my favorite flowers
The reds growing outside my school
is blooming so gracefully
behind the stone fence I sat on

The round silver globe of the world
Sits carefully in the front courtyard
Water sprinkling up from her pond
Sparkle like diamonds in the sun

I love this time of year
Springtime is in the air
When all that's dead in winter
spring back to life in spring
©barbara writes

Intangible, soft colours gently drift
in streams of many tones, across the void -
creation's water's vibrant, bejewelled gift
there for my humble eyes, to be enjoyed

But truly too far distant to behold
for vision that's contained by time, confined
to me its symmetry will yet unfold
when my soul-self, again, is re-defined

I'll leave behind this dirt I've worn and trod
exchange it then for light of fiery essence
and be set loose to wander throughout god
in galleons of lustrous luminescence

From the original:

Anni, (Cloudthings) new Prose entry:

When I sit on a verandah in the autumn afternoon, watching the leaves glow chrimson or saffron bright in the late, rich sunlight, I wonder what it is that makes our hearts echo that glow so deeply?

Sitting in my back room, writing letters to a friend, long absent, playing “artist in residence” in Korea, I gaze out my big window to get lost in the swaying, shifting mass of gum leaves against the sky. Again, mesmerized and somehow fulfilled and inspired by the interplay of tree and weather.

Her innosence gone, prematurely
she's like a full-grown, glistening pearl;
a flawless unit of nature
not to mention, "daddy's girl";

imprisoned, and surrounded by
the thought that it "feels", wrong;
told, "not to yell", and "not to cry"....
because he wants her to be...strong.

An extremely trusting child
childishly placing trust;
on her shoulders, guilt is piled
as she hits the streets, or bust.

Shadow fever elevates
From a whisper through the veil

Awoken from the lost
Contamination alludes to past,
Reclaiming softly
Skin unholy borne.

Foretold eyes
Witness deprivation.

Doused in spell-gaze
Hue extracts life
Leaving only an outline
Of a form unknown.

Voice of agreement
Renders no vow.

Weak stature
Desperately craves consciousness,
Unavailable, reclamation is lost
Leaving only resonance of silence.

Alone
Exposed
Frailty heightens

They've taken up the railroad track
that joined together all these places
and they'll likely never be laid back.
All that's left are gravelly traces.

Iva, Starr and Lowndesville too,
small southern towns along the line,
(and many more I never knew)
left to wither with no vine.

Mere remnants of those byegone days
when textile mills were going strong
where looms echoed through the summer haze
a background beat to dryflies' song.