There were days when the light was for us
When the sun lingered on our shoulders
Drawing lines of promising gold
Writing pages of poems not yet told

We didn’t notice then
Just how much the hours lazed around the days
Oblivious and unhurried
By what was on its way

There were days when time sat with us
Like a perfectly amicable guest
Filling our glasses with old world tales
of romance, wonder, regret

We’d half listen, drifting in and out with the light
Who seemed disinterested too

We rose and fell, for many circling suns

Until it hit our shoulders – that scorching beam of time
Now demanding so much of our attention
Now topping our glasses with the last of the wine

That was the day we learned the hours were not for us

So we listened

To the forgotten suns that lit up histories of our past
To the forbidden, the cherished, the weary hearts
And when we finally had something to say
About our days spent in the lingering light…

It was time to say goodnight.

Goodbye metamorphosis
Farewell tender, gracious form

You showed up for long enough
To catch our longing eyes

Then you left us
With a storm that would unleash a thousand goodbyes

So long to coffee and cheese
To ‘just a water for me, please’
‘And no, I don’t want another glass,
In fact, please just don’t fucking ask’

Sweet dreams to appointments
Booked with spotless hope
To scans that signal our gratitude
For the times we couldn’t cope

Adios to gnawing at the seasons, the decades
The breaths that didn’t end
To the aimless minutes
Just a pink line could mend

Goodbye to the freedoms
We so willingly forwent
To the sleep, the waistline
To the booze and the drugs we now happily repent

I’m signing off a future
In which I can be seen
In which crimson carpets unroll for me

So long to your palace of paid leave
To a house that squeals, ‘A ha!’ because they finally get me

Farewell to your faces
Who gestured we’d be okay
Because the system, the structures, the cycles –
Tell us, ‘Darling, this is the only way’

Goodbye unsullied undies
Bought one size too large
Farewell to the Christmases
That were no longer so damn hard

The designs are gone from where we now are
Tossed with the pricey seat you bought for our car

Instead, we return

To the apps, to the months, and the tests
To pretending I give an iota about the rest
In the meetings where I’m at my best

I’ll only be willing
That our scar
might metamorphose into a rainbow

We didn’t come for black and white.
Not for days that split into seams.
We didn’t hope to ask for clarity,
From our timeless, day-less dreams.

We didn’t keep up for knowing,
That we were half way up the climb.
Not for the promise of happy conclusions,
No, we’re leaving inertia behind.

When words didn’t meet their meaning,
At the point they ought to have met,
We didn’t toss them into the gutter,
Far away from our hurting heads.

And we never took to maintaining,
Old tropes we’d adopted in haste.
We didn’t tear apart our reflections,
When we saw your gutted face.

We didn’t come here for perfection.
Not for those who are right or so.
We came here instead for you,
For the bedlam in you that glows.

I never knew
A glass of juice
Would be our first together

That oranges
Taste fresh and sweet –
Not of ego or agenda

I never knew
That breakfast
Could ever be an option

That we could linger
As old lovers do
In sheets of banter
And compelling chatter

Turning nights from black to blue.

I never knew
There was nowehere. else. to. be.
That you didn’t flinch or scurry
And declare, “I’m in a hurry”

To be anywhere but here.

I never knew my defects
Could look like works of art

That my breaks and kinks
Didn’t need to be
So recklessly flung apart

I never knew you saw me
In that glass of juice we shared
Or that oranges
Could leave me
So buoyantly unprepared

For this.

It was Thursday when
My body broke
A gangrenous cyst
Launched missiles of pain
Into my belly
And up through my heart

Which was broken too
Because of you.

I couldn’t tell them apart
The strangling hands.
Too many, too tight
They clawed at my breath
They shredded my might

So I was taken
To be fixed.

More hands jabbed at the fiend
They poked him with blood
And dulled him with drugs

He slept for a while
Like dragons do
Dreaming of fires and rage
Through peaceful breaths

My body awoke
Together with hope

That you might be there too.

But the bombs now dropped
Inside my belly
And the War was on!
So it wouldn’t be long

Before I had to fight.

I fought with strangers
Together
For a different cause
All hail! We won the battle
Now I recover alone

The cyst is gone
But so are you.

I heal while I break
Pieces of praline scatter to the floor
And I wonder why I fought at all

If not for you
Then for who?

They tell me it’s for me.

My heart was broken
A troubled pump
That never knew
The good stuff is supposed
To flow inwards too

I reach down
Past my quiet wound
To collect the pieces
One by one
That I had shunned.
They’re brittle
Scarred, who wants them anymore?
Not you.
But I do
To give them love anew

If only you had too.

I’m holding on with uncertain hands.

Uncoiled from the arms of home, I look to the 20,000km ahead and allow an enigma to carry me onto the plane.

This move to Berlin feels like so many other lofty decisions I’ve made before. And even as I strap myself into the seat of the A380 airbus – even as we shoot up into the sky – I’m still not entirely sure…

I don’t have much cash, nor a job. And I don’t sprechen sie Deutsch. But I do have an imagination and an inclination for hope.

I’m to meet a man when I land.

We met three months ago. He’s a musician from home living in Berlin. Not for much longer though. I once saw him play the piano in a smoky local pub and his everything flawed me. He had dark features and enviable talent. I was certain he saw me through the smoggy light. I planned to ask him if he’d seen me too…

We first connected as many dreamers do. I messaged him; he messaged me back. A few small exchanges and vague plans to meet in Berlin soon morphed into something a little more. And more. Our digital love letters became a shared journal of our innermost worlds. This space, the words of two unknown lovers, was our solace – a quiet place for our worries and doubts, for our fears of the tangible lives that didn’t ever enter our realm.

We spoke on the phone once before I flew over. We arranged to meet. And I trembled. My friends, my family – they all urged me not to invent a story, yet I knew he would become one for me.

They told me, “what are you doing entangling yourself with a musician? You do realise his music will be the beginning and the end of his love for you.” He warned me of this too. That we would meet at the centre of our cross, before continuing in opposite directions.

But I don’t take well to being told, and this is my story, so it’ll go how I write it.

…

Berlin welcomes me with a homely embrace. Her air breathes restfully. The delicate autumn sun brushes the buildings that line the river bank where I sit.

Jet-lagged and hazy, I ease into my new home. All the foreign and familiar sensations of this place swirl around me in a tender dance.

I’m happy in this moment sitting at the precipice of possibility – at the intersection of what has been and what might yet become.

I hold it tight, as tightly as I can before it leaves me, as these moments inexorably do. And then it’s gone, and I’m left to wonder why we wait.

Why do we wait, and plan and give away our days, our months, our years for something so ephemeral? Even though we know, too well, that just like a train, she’s only passing through.

If this love story were an equation, my input versus output would never be worth the investment. Still, I’d splurge it all, all over again to feel how I do in these minutes before we meet.

We’d agreed to rendezvous on the grand cathedral steps. I get there early to see the entrance blocked by building works. I can’t reach it. Instead, I see him for the first time through two “Achtung!” signs telling me to “Steer Clear! Steer Clear!”

Just try me.

He emerges a little dishevelled with his dark brown mop and weary eyes.

What comes next is my Hollywood pitch. We pull out a map and pick a spontaneous route through Northern Italy. Lake Como, Verona, Venice, Milan. All are draped in superlative landscapes and sumptuous food. We fumble in Italian. We kiss. We have conversations that matter – the ones that challenge and reveal more than either expects. There’s a heavenly chemistry; there’s red wine.

I watch him from the amphitheatre steps meandering in the arena below. I spot him from across the Basilica studying the decorative walls. I lose him in the Duomo gardens. Then I lose my breath. I can’t bare for him to be gone. Soon he will be gone.

My entire life I’ve longed to be a part of this, of us, of our little story. It’s not possible.

I’m too overwhelmed by disappointment in myself, in the hopelessness that floods my thoughts and drowns our final moments together.

We argue. He reminds me that our dalliance was destined to be short and sweet, just like me. I try to be okay with that. I try to be like him, but we are not at all alike. It’s no use when he tells me he’s pleased to be here with me. I cannot believe him.

…

Before we part ways at Milan station, I ask him if he saw me through the smoggy light that night. He didn’t.

…

Am I brave? Yes. Am I a fool? Absolutely.

I’m a beautiful brave fool who risked a great deal for a story.

And though he doesn’t love me, how comforting it is to know that no matter far I’ve travelled from myself, however far I’ve gambled all that I am, even in spite of myself, despite all that has been, there I will always be.

And how lovely that it can never be any other way.

…

My train is pulling back into Berlin now. I’m back on the precipice. But this time, I’m holding tighter; I’m holding onto me.

If you would like to listen to this poem performed as part of an exquisite podcast for the restless heads and racing hearts, Night Light, visit:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/night-light/id1559703271?i=1000534344356&fbclid=IwAR3_gZFFrt7gk9NYwlNcTKxqMY5TZ6twzqxyDva-itrR-PAkRbbLqChG81Y

Hello star

It’s you and me alone again tonight.

Just us.

And the great expanse that flickers in your light.

I haven’t seen you in a little while.

I know.

It’s been hard down here.

In the paradoxical cheer,

you like to call my life.

On some days I don’t need the dark,

As you know.

I do well in my unblemished face.

Once I’m blushed and bronzed

Voila!

Not a soul could ever see a trace.



And then I vanish.

Each time, you know.

Into entrancing screens,

that hurt my eyes and all the space that’s in between.

You’re gone by then.

Or is it me?

Who leaves you like a fool whenever I get lonely.

Oh, how I wish it were a fractured leg,

and not this fracture in my head.

You know the one.

That splits from inside-out instead.

I’m missing you by now.

Somehow,

the light down here is not enough.

True. I’ve been able to succeed.

I know.

I know the drive in thunder and in rain,

so well,

so worth it for the gain.

And yes, I’ve laughed.

I’m sure.

I know the kind that ripples through the bones,

so much,

it soothes you to your core.

I’m good at loving too.

Like you.

The noble type, where you’re for them

more than they are for you.

I dance on top these pillars.

You see.

Their attempt to hold life up for me.

But the struggle is the distance

from seeing to being seen.

There must be others down here,

dancing next to me,

to the song of disconnection,

called happy irony.

If only I could reach them.

To tell them it’s okay.

That to be alone in loneliness

is never a disgrace.

Perhaps they have a star.

Like you.

I hope they do.

They only need the one,

to be the light that sees them through.

If you would like to listen to this poem performed as part of an exquisite podcast for the restless heads and racing hearts, Night Light, visit:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/night-light/id1559703271#episodeGuid=nightlightpodcast.podbean.com%2F3695e067-5963-36ed-a88e-922cabfd439b

I am a museum

for the voided void.

My walls speak words a millennium old.

My home it’s built in homage to you,

the displaced, the disoriented,

Resilient Jew.

 

I don’t claim to be facts.

nor a timeline of terror.

No, I won’t chronicle each. Last. Tremor.

 

Keep going.

Past the hair, the glasses, the letters unread.

Past the accounts of genocide mapped out in your head,

 

to the room at the end that’s made of stone.

Without heat or light,

you’ll feel you’re alone.

But the Holocaust Tower, small it may be,

was never intended to stand empty.

 

Stop there!

Can you hear the wail of a murdered Jew?

Who’s finally come to the surface in you.

You cry for him, and the millions more,

because who are you,

if you’re not crying for

 

the bloodlines of family you never met,

or the Jews in the art you’ll likely forget.

 

In my home… you can cry.

For all those who suffer

at the useless, wasted hands of each other.

 

I don’t mind,

if you leave your grief with me,

once you’ve been and done what you came here to see.

 

All the matters is your empathy.

 

* An ode to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, to my family lost in the Holocaust, and to all humanity that aches by cause of one another.  

 

The swirling steam

Rises up

From our oversized mugs

 

To remind us

That even a whiff

Is just enough

 

To dilute the rein

Of yesterday