Void

 

‘She’s not cold tonight,’

I think suddenly –

passing the heater where 

I would leave a blanket for her

to lie on, these winter nights.

I can’t stop myself 

from that quick glance  

checking her kitty litter

every time I pass the laundry – 

where there is no kitty litter now.

Her soft rugs

from all over the house

have been taken down 

from her perches and nests,

the hair brushed off, and washed.

I remove the covers

protecting my lounge suite 

from enthusiastic scratches.

It does look nice,

now that we can see it.

I clean and put away 

her food and water dishes,

gather left-over food supplies

to give to the vet for others …

it’s best to keep busy.

My little cat, Poppi, died of a sudden seizure, in the vet's arms, on Thursday morning – two days ago. Apparently a  brain tumour, not uncommon at her age (15) and nothing that anyone could have done. This photo , showing the covered couch, taken in April this year (2026).

Sharing with Friday Writings #241: Change, at Poets and Storytellers United.

Hereditary

She thought it would be the eldest grandchild inheriting her magic. That bright, beautiful girl of quick mind. But no, that one is consumed by dance, already giving her time, her passion, her life to her art. And shining from her stages, both gymnast and sylph, lifting eyes and hearts. 

the moment

caught on camera –

a white star

sails through the sky

impossibly stilled

Nor is it the middle child, the quicksilver boy. Though he loves to search through the earth (or her treasure-trove cupboards!) for sparkling stones; though he already tends plants in his own garden. Life is complex for him: he’s still finding his way. To be a man – is that to excel at sport (he does)? Is it to joke or be harsh when he wants to cry? Where will he find a different model? Does he even suspect there may be one? He is not ready to explore magic, and may never be.

triumph –

from the sidelines 

the father

once a winner too

cheers from his wheelchair

No, it turns out to be the youngest. We should have known from the start. When she came in, it was hard for her to fully arrive – still so connected to the world beyond, which we see (because we can’t see) as death and darkness. Finally she settled, after surgery. She has always been gentle; sometimes afraid of things we deem ordinary – but full of light, of love, of wonder. She did not have an ordinary capacity to hold things; quickly learned her own way; then surgery again to make her appear more normal, more human, more like all the rest. She adapted well (she’s quick and willing) and kept her fae quality too. In conversations with her grandmother, she reveals that she sees things beyond the veil, even though she is now anchored safely here. They are sweet and interesting things, which will not harm but enhance her. 

the grandmother

holds this one close  

yet loose 

enough to let her grow 

and be well nourished

Note: In case you wonder, this grandmother is not me.

Pandemic Lockdown

 

On earth we’re briefly gorgeous,

before declining into beautiful ruins.

After the unbearable lightness 

of being blithely unaware

that something wicked this way comes,

we must evade the forest of hands and teeth

choosing instead what feels like one hundred 

years of solitude. No love in the time of cholera!

For Friday Writings #238 at Poets and Storytellers United, Magaly invites us to include in our writing an intriguing book title. She gives us these examples:

1.        Beautiful Ruins

2.       The Forest of Hands and Teeth

3.        On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

4.       The Unbearable Lightness of Being

5.       Love in the Time of Cholera

6.       Something Wicked This Way Comes

7.       One Hundred Years of Solitude

I decided to be a smart-arse and use them all, but the only subject which seemed at all plausible for such a combination turned out to be the one I've used as my title.

This Modern Life

My energy provider does not 

use AI to speak to me.

I love their customer care! 

Patience. Efficiency. 

A polite human

who understands my elderly

confusions on details.

Also, the quality of music 

playing while I wait 

in the ubiquitous phone queue

is excellent.

A quadrille in response to Sanaa's Q. 252 at dVerse: exactly 44 words excluding title, and using  the obligatory word 'care.'   I came off the phone from the experience described above, to see this dVerse prompt in my email, so the above pretty much leapt into being. Apologies if you were expecting deep and serious poetry! (But, believe me, this matter IS serious.)

Gathering

I gather trinkets now. Indulgences. Now, at last, when my life grows late. 

A silver ring like a fox; earrings like silver roses – though why I need them I don’t know, knowing we can take nothing with us. Nothing, perhaps, except our memories. 

Will you remember me? Now, I know you do; but always?

‘Shall we meet again?’ I asked the seer, soon after you died. He looked, it seemed, into some kind of space, at once inner and cosmic. After a few minutes, said, ‘Nothing surer.’ Then, after another pause, ‘But not in this time.’ 

Well, duh, I didn’t want to encounter you next as a new infant and I an old lady!

Then again, I want always to encounter you. Whichever way you come, whatever body you’re dressed in. 

There is no body you inhabit now. (Well, not as far as I know.) There is the one I remember … in which to dress your soul … your soul which I also remember.

The trinkets are simply symbols. I wish they might also be signals. Do you receive them, in the ether somewhere?

Symbols.     Signals.     Sigils?

I fill them full of intent.

Exploring the zuihitsu form: 'following the brush' – or the movement of the imagined brush.

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #237: Favourites Revisited, in which I invite participants to identify a favourite prompt and write a new piece inspired by it. When I came to do that for myself, I discovered that there is no particular subject I prefer, but that I most like prompts to which I am inclined to respond using form, particularly some form I feel I'm not adept with and need to explore. One of my current favourite forms to fit that bill is a style of prose poetry called the zuihitsu. I'm not sure I'm even getting it right – but making the attempt is one of my poetic pleasures.

That Childhood Game

 

I remember the huge puff

that blew the dandelion seeds 

all 

off

to fly away on the air, 

and you had to

get the lot

in one whoosh.

I can’t 

remember why – 

any of it. 

Something

about love … ?

Do you think 

I’m getting 

old?

A quadrille for dVerse's Q251 Light Burst of Air

(A quadrille is a poem of 44 words excluding title. And including one compulsory word, in this case 'puff'.)

Guadalupe

The Guadalupe was green. 

Soft green, as if cloudy.

Not transparent, but secret,

glowing with inward light.

I sat with Anne

on large, flat stones

extending into the water.

The Guadalupe was green.

We watched three tall black birds 

forage, from stones in the centre.

We spoke of poetry, Reiki, 

friendship, and being blessed

to live in places of beauty.

The Guadalupe was green,

almost turquoise that night

alongside the wooden veranda

where our restaurant table

was full of new friends, good talk,

red wine, and feasting.

The Guadalupe was green.

He swung his truck to a stop, unplanned, 

for a river walk in the sun.

We laughed with a little boy, and 

a small happy dog … pretending we could be 

always ... knowing we could not.

The Guadalupe was a shade of green

I’ve never, anywhere else, seen matched.

Stranger, I longed to merge

with the depths and bends

of that river, to stay connected

forever. Perhaps I did.

Written for Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings #235, where we're invited to write about a body of water that holds a special place in our heart. I'm a river lover: mainly the Tamar in Launceston, Tasmania, where I grew up, and the Tweed in Northern Rivers, NSW, where I now live. But I've also fallen in love with some rivers in places I've only visited, most notably the dramatic Urubamba in Peru, and the mystical Guadalupe in Texas, USA. 

Shield with Owl Figure

 

This gilded and silvered copper disk reveals

outstretched wings and grasping talons,

inlaid eyes of shell and turquoise,

light reflecting off contrasting movement.

The Moche (the Mohicas) flourished

six centuries: from Nepena River Valley

perhaps as far north as Piura River.

There was no tradition of writing –

the precise significance of owls 

at the burial site of Loma Tegra

is unknown. (Owls prey, fly at night ...)

Of mystical or divine power,

Owl is my guardian on my left side.

(On my right I have Serpent.)

Written for  Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #234: Words for Images, this is largely an erasure poem taken from the long text about this artwork at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The erasing leaves me with some quite big chunks of sequential words from the original and also qualifies as a found poem. Only the last two lines, italicised to differentiate them from the rest, are my own words. (I did also place the third line of the third verse a little out of its original order.  It makes more sense this way in this context – and I so wanted to use it, for the wonderful sounds of the words as they roll over the tongue.)

Image and text are in public domain, open access.