Fugitive Hours

Sleeping in the cracks of fugitive hours
are books and steps and forest floor
forgotten, wrapped in paper
and stowed away for more solid days
in the attic of snail shell spirals.

Autumn Longings, Reprise

When longing has turned into
vines creeping through your veins
unreal places grow into gardens
in hollow chambers left behind
by fog and fire and storms
and the mystery of brambles starts
posing riddles
within the knot of where is when will be
and the return to the unbeen sleeps
under your heavy mountain chest.

Sameness, Serpentine

Sameness turning
from friend into serpent
spreading itself across days:
Ouroboros
of months locked into circles
rivers eating rocks, canyons swallowing rivers, rocks filling canyons
into a flat surface of
interchangeable memory, seamless
new features sanded down by the same winds of their recent creation
slipping by, snaking
past all perception

Autumn Snails

Autumn days sticking to the window
lazy like snails, lounging
in the morning light, jewels muted glossed over in fog

dreaming around lunch
about the dusty fabric of space
in the curtain folds beyond
a glass horizon: time to move on

looking for the taste of
sun-coloured leaves, the fire
of rain glittering on crisp afternoons
and sliding down the window pane

Cosmic Cats

Cats licking the stardust off their paws
after dipping them into the Milky Way,
fishing for comet tails,
those beautiful fins of cosmic shoals:
Thoughts of rainbow scales, iridescent
remains of supernovae, nebulous
the steps of cats, prowling
in the shadow of eclipsed stars, caressing
balls of planets, unravelling,
dreaming of glittering strings

Autumn Mosaic

In the darkness, autumn lingers
suspended in the gaps between days:
Tiles carved out of time, sliced by
a world idly spinning,
and layed out into a mosaic

on the forest floor, grouted in fog
and polished by the soles
of visitors leaving:
Black holes, flighty asteroids