Tag Archives: writing

Liquid art

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We descend
from the incinerating heat above
through the cool water,
speckled with sunlight,
and then drift
weighted, but weightless
in the silence…
inhale…exhale…inhale…exhale…

Sculptures of ancient rock conceal
and reveal
an extraordinary profusion of life—
I move closer…a pair of feelers
shrinks back into a dark crevice,
a clownfish nibbles
on a strand of my sunlit hair, the shadow
of a stingray passing overhead…
inhale…exhale…

Suspended in a living art gallery
of creatures, bizarre and magical,
we breathe in a vaudevillean kaleidoscope
of parrotfish, chocolate dips,
Picasso triggerfish, coral trout, pineapple fish,
swarming shoals of baitfish—the exhibition is endless…
inhale….exhale…inhale…exhale…

Life’s tensions
are expelled through the bubbles
of the deep,
slow
pace of breathing;
my senses are heightened,
but I am completely
calm.

Above the brain
coral, a horseshoe leatherjacket
on its side in a cleaning station, enjoys the nibbling
of the cleaner wrasse
in its mouth and gills…
inhale…exhale…

A cuttlefish sashays past,
eyeing me coyly,
displaying its fabulous
Mardi gras costume as I wave
my hand in its direction.

A saucy, painted red-lipped
morwong flicks past,
while a dugong smilingly lopes along—
an underwater burlesque
and Carnivale all rolled into one.
I marvel
at the phantasmagoria of the deep…
inhale…exhale…

The enormous,
gregarious Maori wrasse engages,
while the Neanderthal of the sea—
the prehistoric stonefish—sits unseen
and deadly on the bottom,
camouflaged as a rock.

The dark side is right here—
Look but don’t touch!
Don’t peer too closely into the nooks and crannies!
Don’t dive too long or stay too deep!
And always there,
on the fringes
of my consciousness, lurk
the sharks. Thrilling!
Inhale, exhale,
perhaps a little faster.

Low on air,
time to go, but we will be back
to explore the endless
beauty
and search for the elusive
weedy sea dragon.

Look up,
inhale
exhale
inhale,
and exhale,
surface slowly…
from my favourite place.

A day at the office

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Under the fluorescent lights,
she takes him
through the details of the report,
but he is undone
by her scent
and thinks, instead,
of them as one, his lips
on hers, silencing
the banality of profit peaks and dips;
of her sensible shoes carelessly
discarded in a tell-tale trail;
of liberating her
chastised fireball hair
into a cascading
mess across his chest;
of her  scent, illicit, on his thighs…
“Do you have any questions?”
He sighs ,
“Sorry, can you repeat that. I was distracted by the cost blowout in the 3rd quarter.”

Under the flourescent lights,
his devil-dark eyes
intoxicate her, the arousing effects
of his easy smile
and casual wearing of perfect clothes,
undiminished In the rude glare,
but, she knows
dreams of them are hopeless; he barely
notices her when they meet;
he isn’t even listening now as she speaks:
“Do you have any questions?”

The Brother

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Ancient Bijin dolls
smile in polite approval
as she paints in the dim light of a Chinese lantern –
a little piece of the Orient in African suburbia.

At 3pm she serves her handmade guests tea,
positioning them in their miniature chairs
so they can admire her handiwork.

Teddy loves its fiery breath,
Polly nods uncontrollably in agreement,
her eyes blinded by the Brother a long time ago,
but Humpty Dumpty is scared of its horns.

At 6pm, on the way back from her bath,
the Brother pounces,
twisting her arm behind her back,
“I have srayed the dragon,” he menaces. Tell on pain of tickring death!”

In her room,
she finds her exhibition guests in contorted poses,
the graffiti spray still wet
across her masterpiece:
NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE’S THE SEX PISTOLS!”

On pain of death or not, this time she will tell.