PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Bindings
Some bindings creak when opened,
as if they’ve been holding their breath for years.
Others part without sound,
trusting you to notice the loosened thread at the seam.

White Space
Between the paragraphs,
there’s a pause long enough to hear the paper think.
It remembers every hand that turned it,
every fingertip that hesitated before the next line.

For the One Who Will Answer
These pages are not finished until you speak them.
Until your voice folds into the ink,
and the ink folds back into you.
Only then will the echoes know where to rest.

.

Between Shelves

The air here is thick with the weight of almosts.
Books lean toward one another,
spines whispering the titles they wish they’d been given.

On the floor, a stack of drafts waits without complaint.
Some are missing their middles,
                            others their endings,
but all of them know the sound of a reader’s breath
when they’ve found the sentence worth keeping.

I walk the aisle slowly,
palming the dust as if it were a kind of currency.
Paying my way deeper into the silence.

.

Until the Duvet is Folded

( after CG Thomas' "As I Lay Dying" )

I rest in the breath of wild thyme,
late warmth carrying a brio of wallabies
slipping between trunk and shadow.
                    A duvet settles over me,
           its seams brushed with wattle dust,
the slow dissolve of aniseed toffee on my tongue,
linen on the line lifting in the afternoon drift.

                              I linger, hearing bees
trace loose spirals through tea‑tree and grevillea,
the ring of my father’s axe on the woodblock,
my mother’s voice spilling from the kitchen —
                flathead spitting in the pan,
condensed milk thickening in its tin.
The ground beneath me eases,
soft as sand after rain.

I watch the sky unroll its pale cloth,
clouds loosening toward the far hills.
I remember a cake bright with sherbet lemons,
tin kangaroos wound and hopping,
friends whose names still bloom in my mouth.
Back then, no thought of what might follow —
         only the clear window of youth,
       edges now dimmed.

I dream the meadow into its first dawn:
river tumbling over stone,
wallabies hidden in their burrows,
duvet now folded and set aside.
             In that last quiet,
     I choose love over ambition.
                 The air keeps it for me.

.

Foment in the Firmament
(after )

There is a stirring above the stillness,
a slow‑brewed unrest
braiding itself into the blue.

Cloud‑veins thicken,
their edges bruised with light,
and the air tastes of iron and distance.

Somewhere, a wind rehearses its entrance,
curling through the rafters of the sky,
its breath warm with the scent of rain not yet born.

Birds wheel lower,
their wings cutting arcs in the charged flush,
as if tracing the script of what is coming.

The sun, half‑veiled,
becomes a coin passed from palm to palm
in a game no one admits to playing.

And I stand beneath it all,
feeling the pulse of that high conspiracy —
the foment in the firmament —
gathering its syllables,
ready to speak in thunder.

.

For the Reader Who Will Not Stay  

(after a list of three truths)

I have pared the bread

to a single crumb,

so it will not weary your jaw.

I have drained the wine

to a thimble‑swallow,

so it will not cloud your head.

I have locked the third door

and pocketed the key,

for I know how you hate to find

yourself in a room you did not expect.

You prefer the garden gate:

open, low‑hinged,

a path you can stroll

in your lunch hour.

You prefer roses already cut,

vase‑ready, no thorns

to coax your blood.

Still— in the rafters of the stanza,

I hang small bells, and in the mortar

between these plain bricks

I press a coin, face down.

It will tarnish there, waiting

for the one pair of eyes

who sees that the wall is hollow.

.

"poetry's reply"

I hear your ants —
their soft feet tapping the inside of my skull,
counting the cracks.

Truth is only the name we give
to the lie we can stand beside without choking.

The ballroom is empty now,
but the gown keeps swaying in a draft
no one admits is there.

In the folds of my palm,
a match, unlit —
enough to promise warmth
but not enough to scare the dark.

And still, I say,
Love you —
not as an answer,
but as a rope tossed into the air
for both of us to catch.

.

.

Parade of the Singulars

Plato sold tickets to the cave,
while Elvis tuned his sequins

to beat-off shadows.

Helen waved from the balcony,
unsure if it was Troy or tabloids

burning below.

Attila rode in, not on horse

but on talk‑show couch,

Oprah nodding as he confessed
the secret to pillage was

“location, location, location.”

Sappho passed notes to Colette
under the bored gaze of Aristotle,
who wondered if metre or

metre‑high heels
truly swayed the polis.

Jesus scribbled in the dust,
Liberace leaned over his shoulder—
“Try rhinestones.”

And somewhere in the stands,
Achilles and Twiggy compared
the shine on their perfectly useless armour,
while Nero fiddled back‑up for Sting.

By dusk,
Alexander was selling maps to kingdoms
that now fit in a snow globe,

and Socrates sipped wine with Björk,
debating whether questions or choruses
make better lovers.

The crowd roared. The world spun.
And the Muse — if they were here —
would grin: Every empire ends,
                  but the after‑party goes on.

South of the Equator

Wattle light breaks on the brim of his lines,
gold pollen drifts through syllables like slow rain.
Lorikeets heckle the dawn, and he listens,
pen tipped toward the edge of the continent.

In his stanzas, drought has a patient voice,
and flood remembers the laughter it took;
the Southern Cross tilts above kitchen sinks,
over rainwater tanks and

the red‑earthed ache of distance.

He speaks in more than one tongue at once—
colonial clocks, ancestral winds,
digital solitude tymballing cicadas
in the heat between two gum shadows.

Each poem is a map the north never drew,
where grief leans against corrugated walls,
love tastes of river‑mint and dust,
and history carries a sunburn no winter can cure.

Here, at the Antipodes, his ink runs inland and outward,
a tide that answers only to the moon it knows—
southern, salt‑white,
pulling every word toward home.

.

.

"a former dream"

I too once marveled at the shimmer of lift,  

Mistaking ascension for a kind of gift.  

But wings are not answers—they're questions in disguise,  

And every rise comes with a price.

The sky is not cruel, just indifferent in hue,  

It watched as I flew—and then withdrew.  

Now, grounded not by grief, but grace,  

I trace the burn marks time can’t erase.

We did listen… just not soon enough.  

The truth, like altitude, always feels rough.  

Yet in every fall, there’s a lesson to glean—  

Even ashes carry a dream's former sheen.