A request — The dead don’t die. They look on and help. - D.H. Lawrence speak as I dodge a taxi coming at me down the alley are you inside? speak so I never lose hope because we’re still linked by a long silver thread — you sailing up there red kite speak…

The kite poem — Grab the wooden reel and a new kite. Bang the back door. Run. The wind is up. Let loose the yellow diamond high above a stretch of park, acacia grove and gums. This flimsy tissue bird has two cane struts. You bought it at the City Show last summer from an improv station-wagon tailgate store. These kites…

A sonnet about love and wind chimes — Let’s say this is our sound-stage by the sea. We’ve tracked the wind to bring us back again. Speaking in wooden tongues, wind tonks a name - this bamboo wind chime tinkles in the tree. Here coconuts are cake for you and me. If only I could monkey up my game and…

From a verse novel in progress — Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. ― W.S. Merwin At 8 in the morning, at exactly 8 in the morning, they wheel her through swing doors, banging like a poltergeist. The irritated doctor in a white coat says: “Why you came…

A sonnet about step-parenting — She remarried in a hopeful year, changing the pattern, thread by thread. She sewed on angels like a prayer for clinging girls who shared a bed. They slept beneath the quilt of heaven. The mauve bedspread hid their cold dread of losing mum to a new dad here. …

A sung poem — Chinatown is bargain price, kitty cats that show and tell, hunan hotpot, chicken rice, roast chestnuts aunties sell. Chinatown, in Chinatown. Chinatown is a calendar, starfish, sea horse, ginseng stall, butcher shops, dried snake vendor, peacock lights that blink and call. Chinatown, in Chinatown. New year street…

Hollywood hasn’t got the market cornered on vampires — As bumboats putter by the river shore tourists walk like wallets of fresh meat. “Good evening, come try some Indian.” They think I’m just a local pavement tout but I’m of older stock. Before your spice trade Vampire Inc. had spread across the globe. We sailed here riding shotgun on the necks of immigrants…

Trees that have stories — Kusum, kusum, your name is smooth and shiny as shellac from the red lac bug feeding off your sap. You are the colour of Radha’s sari, passion’s rang,* Makassar oil of old making, engorged — a tongue in love with the lips of the lover of gardens and rendezvous. Krishna…

After a COVID death — I am sending you my voice from the zero of my mouth, I am sending you my voice although you have flown south. I am sending you my voice that flaps with hungry birds, I am sending you my voice as a map inside these words. I’m sending you my…