poems from POCKETS
june 2025
World Wide SpiderWeb
When did currency invade our idiom?
Words displace our screaming?
When did fear uproot me from our body?
When did we forget living?
When was my plurality forgotten,
My expression codified, When did we become I
My rest commodified, When did Us split from Them
My jazz gentrified? When did the become My?
Plant our sole back in the soil
Pour the water into roots
Bury this body in grass until i shoot truth again
Rise again and compassion is the midwife
Empathy the fungal goddess
Who urges out new life
from this feculent mess
Take us back
To something we’ve never seen before
Imagine the alternative
Dream with the child inside
Brave as a baby mind
How to live…
Global treehouse
Love massive
Worldwide spiderweb
Oasis
A moon crescent shape the basis Soon humidity in stasis Moisture and algae making life From desert The beginning of oasis From this ancient practice We gain praxis Of heaven for our grandchildren Paradise under construction “What if it wasn’t divided?” What if we were strategising, fraternising, energising a big new green What if every trans child grew up feeling seen? What if fragments were not enough And pockets were stuffed so full Of blossoms they burst out on the city And what if you let your mind roam in liberty? What if we had enough houses for the people who live here And the hedgehogs who used to What if we mobilise when there’s something we can do? What if this oasis bloomed so big that Croydon’s sky grew back And these green spaces so free that brambles decolonised the tarmac
Nymic, (sym)phonic I
We step, every day; We walk, barefoot
The ground speaks ageless wisdom through our soles
To our souls
So funny english would choose this homophone,
or homonym?
Is the spirit ever so separate from the
skin?
Maybe even this tongue so strange,
so misshapen by the harm it has caused other nations
and people
Notions of ownership
ships that plunder
people
Lie under this tongue
Under duress and
Lies.
The stress
the stress of Empire and
Grammar
And still english lies down now as we walk barefoot, silent or softly talking
Step by step
Hands holding
Ground holding us and
our little s[ole/oul]s
We step
Love-oak
Today i lifted one leg at a time
Toes first, heels, knees and thigh
I took a step out of my mind
I climbed, into
Tree hug snug
Shelter me from all the gales that blow
Oak tree true and tender
Smoke and mirrors left behind in slender human minds
This love is wide
The circumference of my arms is too small
But her bark doesn’t mind
She cradles gentle
Sends her bug friends to greet me
Whistles sweetly the winds into melody with birdsong
Her leaves are shivering
Quivering
In rhythm with the notes
Bell tones an ode to dusk and sunset
We smell the change more than we see it at first
The ageless change well rehearsed
The falling fire’s thirst for rest beyond the treeline
I face the west in witness to that death
I take a breath of thanks
And climb down to meet a moth
And run somewhere for no reason
[prayer poem]
Protect us from 'all the gales that blow' Show us all the rivers that flow Teach us all that the insects know Lead us where all the paths go Makes us strong as the seeds we sow Takes us safely through high and low Help us deconstruct excess ego Undo in us ideas of above and below Move us like the leaves who unendingly grow let us embody ourselves from head to toe lay us for rest in the tall oak’s bough wake us in blossom green blues and yellow
[mitcham common]
Hail the stony majesty Grey green humpback hills of mitcham common Bent over grumbling with the mother’s meeting huddling circle of trees Seeking shelter on windswept wintry days But come springtime, without fail Green bursts giddy with new life pollen drunken haze Heather stuff and sweet peas Landfill landscape nurtures oak babies And a kinset of kites fly over pond and green
Young Witch’s Plea/Druid Lesson One
Give me a herb to make them stick like glue, Peel that away, And never ever lose you “That’s not how those work,” a calm voice replied, Still waters that never belied the light amusement they held inside, “The herbs work like wind,” the voice continued on, Winding devastating way thru its explanation, “Like wind whipping water, like birds in the trees, In dance in rhythm in light-footed ease: You will not exert your will over their tease” I’m not sure what it means yet If it means anything But meaning is not living Not like breathing, not like wind And herbs are not just medicine, not just giving, not just weeds Ancient wisdom also takes, and needs, and fades, and feeds, and eats
Heart Herbalism
Love-ache, hawthorn Some things grow better on their own Some things desire to wander and are stronger self-sown Some good things taste bitter And some are meadowsweet Unassuming things can save you Wisdom in their leaves Divinity is everywhere, and in purple petals And nettles hurt to heal you if you will just wait Which takes only patience My sweet, taste and see We have what we need Just know that frozen ground in springtime Is not your season’s expectation There are times to protect From alternation You deserve no less Than love and rest
Germinating, deliberating
i am communicating these days with new ease i am going wherever the sun shows me Everywhere the soil knows me Whenever i dance with the cadence of breeze i am leaping, and this time i am landing on forest canopies i am soaring roaring playing jumping down to the ground i hit home and find i am seeds i bury down in sweet brown and greet death with a little crying i let myself decay and am surprised that i do not wither away i germinate There is so much life in dying There is so much love in mourning We could keep on fearing or we could awake: In loss, in change, is dawning
[mitcham common]
i need to go outside in the storminess reacquaint myself with the real, that stormy mess separation i need to disestablish unhibernate from who i are, the wilderness all that cloud and humidity after days of sun reflecting me teaching in the dew drops glistening if i sit still and listen and spirit will you come to me if i ask for more? if i will offer myself blooming and raw? i ready to tangle up in all that i are pure intention pour abundant incandescent we so take of me what you need
moments
We don’t always need to capture Sometimes moments thrive where instants don’t In the blurry archive With someone who lived and forgets it or Better yet with no one to know the full story And deliver it aimless Flavourless on a plate for consumption Or tawdry reproduction No introduction to the shaded face Faded Like memory slips And water drips And night owl flits In and out of vision And time skips Moon and sun kiss horizon for a moment only // Owl in the dark, When i listen rather than talk Swift swish of wings Soft and feathery things Gossamer bats and moonlight flings shadows And i wont see and i wont see and i Won’t see So i breathe
revolt [unfinished]
Maybe i mean what comes before? Before we learn mud is dirty Insects icky Mould revolting These are all tales, there is something older That tells us crawling things still are made of colour