In the shadow of Pirongia, the Moa struts across impossible beauty,

beneath the sharp eyes of Haast, now echoes upon the Waikato plains,

reluctant tenants of a dusty book of natural history,

forgotten, in the wardrobe of a kauri villa in Te Awamutu…

The children of Tainui and Victoria pose with wary smiles,

a family portrait of imperial absurdity, of ( Read more... )

 
There are silences of my heart within which its most frenzied protestations cannot, should not be voiced...but yet you heard them.

There are stirrings within which whispers of love are carried, entombed beneath snow and earth and granite…but yet you felt them.

There are sufferings of my soul within which are held the tears of a child, the sorrows ( Read more... )

 
We’re sitting here, on a bench, on a street, a street called правда…. Truth…and is it not appropriate for this moment? The September sun hangs precariously over the horizon, casting its dying rays upon the facades…. illuminating their tired faces with unearthly shades of brilliance…. pinks, blues, yellows…the north wind playing gently with your ( Read more... )

 
Last night I held my compass, found west-northwest,

closed my eyes, began walking towards you,

to shorten the distance between our lips,

mingle our breaths in a cloud of rhythmic warmth,

But my footsteps were denied, by blackberry,

and number 8 wire…

Last night I shouted your name, into a rush of wind,

that it might carry my love, wrapped in silken ( Read more... )

Sunday mo(u)rning

Whose trampled heart cries out for you?

(with gift wrapped sorrows, with treasonable thoughts,

until you return from hell’s clutches)

My enviable flaws and eloquent faux pas

give substance to my apparent contradictions, in life, and so love.

It was not for you and I to decide, who would walk and who would ride…that was for a ( Read more... )

 
The art of love requires no canvas, or brush, or oils,

For the drone of street cleaner captures our suffering,

Paints a solemn scene on a lonely corner of Nevsky, 5am,

Carelessly wets our feet, lifts our tears from the pavement,

Framing us in a watercolour of pains and promises....

But the taxi arrives, to tear me callously from this masterpiece.

( Read more... )

Do you remember this day, this hour, this moment? I do. I remember it well, perhaps too well, too poignantly…how exquisitely poised you were…how gracefully you turned…lightly, delicately…like a ballerina at the Mariinsky…adagio, adagio…. facing upwards in wondrous contemplation, arms floating gently, on invisible butterflies, your soul dancing… ( Read more... )

 
For Katya…

The midnight sun still shines on the golden spire of Peter & Paul, a beacon for the tortured souls who stir within the fortress walls. But we escaped, didn’t we? Do you think our love warmed them? Did it offer them a brief reprieve from purgatory, or did your bittersweet tears compound their sorrow? Do you remember the way we shed our ( Read more... )