He runs down to the river I mean really runs so hard the dust flicked up by his rubber thongs partially obscures the back of him his excitement is palpable his delight contagious ah, the river slow lazy fat and brown cool wet deep and inviting on a relentless 40 degree day
as he sheds first his bucket hat then his T shirt and flips the flipping flopping thongs from his feet he lets out an exultant “Whoop!” of sheer unadulterated anticipatory pleasure as he leaps off the steep sandy bank defies gravity and launches through the air like a rocket
his board shorts balloon out behind him his pale thin and lanky preadolescent body curls into a foetal position as he flies across the water to execute a classic 12 year old bomb
and i smile and smile all the while I remember this time this place to where I always wanted to return one day with my own child to make it what I always wanted it to be, but never would be for me a life disrupted, interrupted father and son I am content
If you love me will you touch me? Will you show how much you want me? Will you need me just like I’m needing you?
If you miss me will you kiss me? Will you come over when I’m lonely? Will you give me all the things I want to give to you?
If you're there for me act accordingly, look into each other’s eyes with me. Will you be there where I would be to show you care for me like I care for you?
If you see me in the country, will you come to me, yes run to me with open arms to receive me as I run to you?
When I’m working in the city will you ease the stress that gets me? Will you soothe me with caresses like I do for you?
What is love to me? When all that I can see is you avoiding me? It’s more than I can bear!
Take a tip from me, so we survive you see, say you're still loving me. That’s all I want to hear!
this kiss, first of spring two lovers, lives joined as one sparks - The Love Party
On a perfect spring day the wedding takes place. The setting a pillow soft grassy sward of green subtly dappled by the fresh blooming leaves and branches above. This verdant carpet gently slopes down to the tumbling Spring Creek below. Running water creates a tinkling backdrop to a natural amphitheatre.
The semi circular gathering of friends, family and other loved ones is awash with anticipation. The new season’s golden sunshine adds to the warm inner glow in which each soul present dreamily basks.
A murmur precedes a parting, a joyous gasping announces the arrival of two brilliant smiles on radiant faces. Black patent leather shoes and open white sandals step gracefully down the way. The crisp pin striped navy suit attired Emerald is arm in arm with Georgia in a shimmering white satin jacket and trousers that flash and ripple in the light breeze. Emerald and Georgia are married. They seal their commitment with their first married springtime kiss ..... and the three day Love Party begins.
Pip: poetography.ink — where the color blue does more emotional heavy lifting than most novels.
Mara: Today we’re sitting with a single poem by seanatbogie that moves through blue as landscape, then intimacy, then grief — and it earns every shade of that journey. Let’s start with the poem itself.
deep dark blue
Pip: The question this poem asks is deceptively simple: what does blue mean when the world is still beautiful and the person beside you is leaving?
Mara: The poem opens in postcard serenity — water, mountains, a wooden jetty, a cotton dress — and then turns. Here’s where it pivots: “your eyes are blazing iridescent blue when I gaze into them I’m suddenly drowning cyanosed lips bruised blue blue finger tips touching you cold with the bleak blue fear of no longer having you near.”
Pip: That shift from picture-perfect to clinical is the whole poem in miniature. Cyanosis is what happens when the body stops getting oxygen. The poem borrows medical vocabulary to say: this is not metaphorical dying, this is the body registering loss as a physical event.
Mara: And the poem sustains that register all the way through. The line “pumping vital red to sluggish dying blue” frames the heart itself as a system failing — red is life, blue is what life becomes when it slows. The warmth of the day never leaves; the poem is careful to keep the summer intact around the collapse.
Pip: Which is the move that makes it land. If the weather had turned, the grief would have somewhere to hide. Instead it sits in full sun on a pretty jetty, which is a crueler place to fall apart.
Mara: The closing image pulls everything together: “deep dark blue and frozen to a jetty pretty above turbulent water dark deep blue I discover your love is no longer true.” The turbulence was always underneath the surface. The prettiness was always the trap.
Pip: Blue as a color word usually signals sadness and stops there. This poem makes it do six or seven things — geography, eye color, bruising, hypothermia, cardiac output — and the accumulation is what gives the ending its weight.
Mara: It’s a single sustained image system, and it holds.
Pip: Blue as a color, blue as a diagnosis, blue as the moment you realize the water was never still.
Mara: That’s the kind of poem that stays with you. More from poetography.ink next time.
The water is still a deep deep blue giant distant mountains are blue too there’s a pretty wooden jetty for me to sit on with you in your light cotton dress broad bands of blue
the sky is picture perfect blue there’s an old rowing boat tied up too it’s blue
your eyes are blazing iridescent blue when I gaze into them I’m suddenly drowning
cyanosed lips bruised blue blue finger tips touching you cold with the bleak blue fear of no longer having you near
you knew
a chill wind blew an icicle dart straight through my heart pumping vital red to sluggish dying blue
the world around me turns dread blue I feel it mind and body through like a heaviness I can’t escape a smothering blue oppressive weight
on this warm picture perfect blue summer’s day sitting beside you deep dark blue and frozen to a jetty pretty above turbulent water dark deep blue I discover your love is no longer true
Could it be that I the purity in the sky should cast a discerning eye over my breeding stock of human worth my goods and chattels harvest of the earth?
Could it be that they have gone irrevocably astray despite my clear direction to follow my instruction my example to embrace peace and love as do I in heaven above?
Could it be that I master of earth and sky should punish the fear and loathing the hatred and the gloating in the name of God above despite my principle of love?
I wake at 4 in the morning in the small hours when small things matter and ideas can repeat in your brain taking on more significance than they deserve eroding your ability to unwind like a tap dripping in the next room
but not this morning this morning it is soft rain I hear gently tinkling on the metal of the carport roof outside
it is warm under the covers I feel secure as your soft regular breathing resumes after you roll onto your side next to me
was it an interrupted dream? I like not knowing everything that goes on in your head after all these years you can still surprise me
I snuggle up to your back and rest my forehead between your shoulder blades as I contemplate what it is to be us your heels settle into the angle of my ankles your calves align with my shins your thighs mold to mine and your backside schmoozes deliciously into my groin
I raise my head to create more space so I can wrap my arms around you pulling your upper body into mine
as my arms embrace your warmth I soak up your textures I draw in your smell with my eyes closed I sense every point at which we touch
I feel our body rhythms synchronise as my muscles relax and my mind smiles with the intimate pleasure of as much body contact as we can muster I savour the moment as peaceful sleep reclaims me
For today’s dVerse Poetics, Sanaa asked we poets to write a poem about love as something quietly sacred — not just roses and hearts, but the small, unseen ways. A confession upfront, I wrote this poem for my wife years ago. It remains one of my favourites and I thought it fitted the prompt so well I just had to repost it. FYI, this poem still speaks the truth. My darling, I love you.
Even if I sometimes manage to help to ease the pain anytime you might start again with rivers of tears like acid rain eating at everything good again
I love you and I don’t know what you’re going through but my love remains true you can still see it, can’t you?
when you cry fouled rivers run the darkest shadows cross the sun cyclone clouds further blacken the day the very rainbows turn themselves to grey the sun finally puts it’s light away
for you the whole world turns to bleak anxiety and fear empty of hope and cheerless the sadness is so deep and so near so profound it breaks my heavy weather beaten heart as icy words you shoot at me feel needle like poisoned darts
this melancholy is so wretched it puts our life on hold I don’t know what to do how to bring you in from the cold but I will keep trying and in my safe warm wings you I will still enfold
Juliet is all slick and wet her long hair in her eyes she has been hit by an idiot drunk driving by ……………. bye bye
Romeo roams idly past he sees the girl on the ground he looks at her - quizzically then he realises what he has found
Juliet breathes in gasps as blood pools under her back she looks up, sees Romeo last look, last love as her limbs go slack
Romeo’s not much you know but this time things are different He wipes the hair from her glazed eyes and wonders where her life went
Juliet rises above the scene she watches Romeo He cradles her head gently in his lap he whimpers out a moan
Romeo struck by love’s full fist his only love has gone he whines, he weeps at his loss death into his soul is born
Juliet bears final witness to Romeo’s last testament “Did my heart truly love till now?” he whispers
------------------------------------------ For the first time he knows of true love and grace “Good night, good night” “Thus with a kiss I too die” He declares to her still and pallid face
Romeo bends his head down and tenderly brushes her cold blue lips with his own
he softly places her head on the ground a final look to the only love he has known he lies quietly beside her he takes her right hand in his left
Romeo retrieves a switchblade knife from his trouser ‘s pocket meant for rivals never his life and yet, he eases the blade into his chest dividing his ribs apart the sharp-edged steel slides smoothly it finds his broken heart
As blood pools under his back he has nothing more to say onto the cold hard tarmac his life also leaks away
Juliet utters one last cry of grief before she disappears forever or was that one last plea for relief in hope somewhere they will reappear together
for never was there a story that reeks of more woe than this tragic tale of Juliet and her Romeo
If only you had stayed, I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones with you. Why wouldn’t you? We could have learnt together. Such contrasts are about opportunities, about understanding different perspectives, about understanding each other and how to live and love together. All sorts of days come and go. All types of moods. There are enough days for everything we could imagine sharing - good days and bad. If only you’d waited to see how bright the future could be. If only you had taken the time to see through the clouds to the clear air beyond, to project us into that space of hope and optimism. Instead you allowed us to falter at the first hurdle without even thinking to explore how we could make the dark days bright again. You succumbed to the transient storm as if it would last forever.
This week Kim’s dVerse Prosery Prompt comes from Walcott’s Dark August , “I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones with you.” The task was to write up to 144 words of prose incorporating this line. I chose to write a flash fiction about the disappointment of a short love affair quickly lost to stormy weather – in 144 words.
I watched him as we sat upon the deck of the sinking ship the stern about to dip our chairs starting to slip our hands white in their grip he wondered where we would be tomorrow
he stood as fires erupted upon the tilting deck walked around the wreck sought every way to check for escape that he did seek only to find himself on the rails of sorrow
the water now was rushing over both our cold wet feet with no sign of relief in sadness and in grief life’s surging wild thief he told me he wished well for his wife and children
I looked at him I took him into embracing arms no protection here from harm just wishing to disarm anxiety and alarm one last moment of loving calm when going under the waves was the only given
we held each other standing there on the edge of fading hope to the horizon we did look to the water of our grave cold and churning were the waves then into each others eyes resigned to our good byes we held hands before stepping forward
the last things I remember are treading water in my doubt the water in my mouth the imminent blackout wishing I’d never roamed my loved ones left at home wishing I’d never sailed slipping under as strength failed his tired smile as we fell that I forgot to tell him how much I loved him
then came the wings of rescue they winched me up into the sun I the chosen one the sky it turned to gold but I had lost my hold on my brother and my friend who supported me to the end all I could think was how much I’m going to miss him
it’s been ten watery years passing underneath my bridge I’m wasted and I’m damaged with nothing left to salvage I relive our time together the fractured brother tether brothers ever a pair ever together everywhere and here I am still left with no way of knowing
how I can go on without my brothers song days are dark and long I think it’s time I must be going underneath the waves my lonely soft parade in hope that I will find my brother left behind always on my mind I want to join him on death’s seas a rowing together across the waves nothing in it brave just our watery grave and our time together saved
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not want AI to use my work.
For lovers, North Creek, Strathbogie Forest, Victoria.
In forests we go walking to find the time for talking to take us away from the city hustle ever stalking
I meet you on love’s wings at the perimeter of meadows and I love you all the more as we enter soft green forest shadows
we take the paths less trodden to open new forest doors we find our way to high places to meres and rugged moors
the ferns they point our way with glistening fronds a waving guiding us through the timeless forest we find ourselves a weaving hand in hand we travel each a lovestruck wandering Gypsy this time this place alone together precious magical and carefree
sun rays light the glades with golden shafts of wonder we look aloft, laugh and dance beneath the forest grandeur
we lie down on forest beds and let our fingers do some walking our hands our lips our tongue tips put a silence to the talking
again the language of forest love begins and with it our renewal I’ll always be your forest love you my cherished forest jewel
when the forest loving is done and we must find our way back home we’ll look forward to more forest talking and forest loving yet to come
Ah, that is not exactly what I mean, how I meant to start. I mean you are my dearest Wife, but not the dearest of Wives amongst many other Wives that I have clamouring for my attention. No, no, there are no other Wives clamouring for my attention. I was just trying to make the point there could be dozens, even hundreds of Wives banging at my door but you would be the only one I would be looking for.
You are the only woman for me. Ah, I don't mean exclusively. Yes, there are other women in my life. Our daughter, my sisters for instance. Oh and your sisters of course. And then there is your mother and my stepmother and we have mutual womanly friends and ..... oooooh dear, what I am trying to say is that you are the only woman with whom I want to be associated intimately.
That is stating it fair and square, hits the nail on the head so to speak, glad I got there and have stated it unequivocally.
Oh dear, yes I mean you dear. My dear, my dearest. I dearly want to tell you, to explain, to you, to say absolutely and without doubt you are the one I was always looking for.
And I found you. Hmmm, possibly, it would be more accurate to say we found each other. Well, really, it was just a happy coincidence. Me finding you, you finding me. What does it matter? Not that I am saying it doesn't matter! All I am saying is who found whom is not important.
What is important is that we found each other and didn't leave it at that. We made it happen that we met again to become lovers, partners, friends and 45 years later we are still together. 45 years of loving happy days, of a life well lived in each other's company, of trust and confidence in each other, of a deep knowing that we will be together until the end.
I still delight in time spent with you.
Together or apart you are always in my heart.
Your dearest husband, of course by that I mean....., oh shit, pause, reset, rethink, be mindful, take a moment, keep it simple.
I have always loved you, I love you still and always will.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Sanaa provided this week’s dVerse poetics prompts. I selected No. 2 Love Letters Through Time: Write a poem in the form of a love letter. It can be addressed to yourself, to someone special and/or in memory of a person who has passed. I chose to write from the perspective of an incompetent romantic.
Mine robe is rust it’s purpose refuge oxidised shell around me protector of my heart a flutter barrier to the world a clutter
betwixt my rusty robe and me lies a sea of tranquility where mind and soul are at rest where love beats strong in swelling breast
I dwell in rust on rusty bed my pillow brown for rusty head there find me with pledge to you amongst helter skelter rust piles askew
through water deep I will walk with you with you beside your rusty guide to rusty haven secure engraven come stay with me we're safe inside
in rusty fortress under rusty sky this place to be abide with me a rusty mantle tough rust retreat that malign forces will not defeat
my trusty eye my rusty robe deflects the fierce threats of the globe the purveyors of hate the snide deprived the walking hopeless the full divide to whom protective rust has been denied
I trust in rust as I trust in you together we’ll forge our rusty due the crust of rust our rusty glue
Poetry days #41.
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
Secretly we meet as separate, boy and girl but take each other’s hand for company and together in our own world forget their world which has split us, violently we tarry a while, for our regret is felt both deeply and silently
to give up our child before our prime when all we wanted was decency all we needed was more time to be a family and only to be with each other as three together instead of separate and lonely
Poetry days #34.
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
bessie is a bear loved by our son tucked under his chin when he was young now bessie is a bear loved by his daughter the love in bessie bear has well and truly caught her
Photography days #17.
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
