TRUTH ALWAYS EXPRESSES ITSELF WITH THE GREATEST SIMPLICITY

I can write again about your blue
or the falsetto strumming about war
and how time left when I remembered this
and the sides of my mouth curled
with the heat in my neck.

I want my truth, as anyone, gold plated
and lucrative, and feeding, and purpose-full
but somehow the lipstick and limosine
has begun composting
turning into new life
that I know to share with you.

How do you know when you are true
other than knowing that this is only true
so simply
so doubtlessly?

Insecurity has plagued me and does
but your staff points me so directly,
so simply

and soon
so wait, patient please,
and soon.


I hate the way she demands attention when she enters a room -- and gets it. It is not in the expensive jewellery she wears -- there's none of that, or in the haute couture black shift dress -- she knows not of Chanel. It is not in the perfect figure or sculpted nose or spray of freckles upon her cheecks -- but in the quiet dignity of her being. She simply is -- She needs not do.
Truth -- her sure step always expresses itslef with the greatest simplicity

and I beneath my Gatinau'ed body, carefully made-up face, pencilled mouth, plucked eyebrows and Nicci chiffons feel tightly coiled, coiffed and frozen like a tight-rope walker in mid-air

EACH NEW DAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO START OVER AGAIN...TO CLARIFY YOUR VISION - JO PETTY

Somehow the east's brown brink unfurls just the same
and steals me from my painted fields.

I have forgotten your words
but my choice is to brand my chest with them
and curse you.

Something shall sew my skin
and light my eyes
and 'full' my breath

and your stone will sink --
its ripple reached the shore --
and I will gasp new skies
baptised.

Vision begins once more
with an aged clarity
and scars.

This will be soft and sweet
soft and humble
sensual and soft

And I will be you because
you were me
but, opportuned, my toes will be painted red.


When Jacob wrote to me about the bitter coffee he remembered in Frankfurt, I envied the cocoa colour, the blackness and the sugar that his evocation of the ritual inspired. I seek it our in faux Italan restarants and Greek garlic-smelling tavernas but never taste the pleasure-pain mix of the cold air and the intoxicating smell.
Each new day is an opportunity to start all over again. Perhaps the vain pursuit is for the cappucino of the imagination. Perhaps the Taste is really only contained in the words of his email and the desire to be with him tasting the fairtrade beans on his tongue -- from his tongue in the cold German city where plastic refuse, MacDonalds polystyrene and oil spills don't filter into the senuous picture. Perhaps tomorrow is opportunity to clarify my vision.

THERE WILL BE NO RESULT

It is a natural trudge -- homestasis --
but stagnance threatens,
tempts,
and brass bells call in dinner
and weekends off.

Would you be the belly,
cooing at leather gadgets
and the sunshine
or the artist twirling the rain
to feed her chidren?

You leave it all behind
in your destructive wake
and stamp through oily fields

Or here
you know, and vow to know
and as you pierce the snow
you turn and brush it smooth
so i can paint my own canvas
and turps it after
for them.


There will be no result in the sweltering afternoons from sugar packs and sweet incense. Try as I might I cannot find the secret to happiness in Gandhi's words. All I hear is the buzz of traffic along the suburban main road, the throb of the coffee machine grinding beans and the birdsong -- somewhere unseen. All is muted by the insistent traffic. I know that I love to write. I love the words as they ink the pages in lines and curlicues. Ah I smell the coffee -- sweet pleasure. My sunglasses lie losely on the table. There is a breeze at this late hour -- a relief from the burning dryness. The Sangria has arrived -- and the cappucino -- both rich and full and and bubbling. The coffee is strong and bitter and deeply satisfying. The smell of the fermenting Sangria overtakes the coffee and I sit back and realise that you may never know what results may come.