With single touch
I shall unfurl
A frond so coiled
Unwind, uncurl
One vertice stroke
‘Long lines so bound
Down spine and bone
Til soft place found
And with one stroke
Surrender comes
To all life’s vice
All will-be-dones
With one caress
A soul is found
Neath frond so coiled
Unfurled, unwound
© Kacey Patrick 22/6/2015
The night is old and still I am not sober
Sweet intoxication lingers on my lips
Bursting forth
To conquer oceans of alone
A look
And at once, a flame
Warmed that part
And pricked the layers most exposed
Filled my dreams
And banished thoughts which sought to chain my heart
To the rocks of vacillation
From glance to touch
The sequence retains no form nor function
The passage blurred
A convoluted series of frames shaded with desire
Laced with passion
Each an enigma
Each a mirage
Each an apparition
But I did not see
More felt you, as you moved
Your presence
Increasingly near, drew me in
And my perceived self
Iron filings
A million sharp and brittle fragments
Descended, with such alarming force
En masse
Determined to satiate desire
The kiss
Tender, it was not
My alarm
My hesitance, was
For one brief moment
Reflected in your eyes
Like the hover of a hummingbird
Before sweet nectar is all consumed
Then the dissolution of space
Between limbs
Between lips
Between reluctance
How long did passion last?
A minute …
An hour …
An evening …
Sweet intoxication lingers on my lips
Bursting forth to conquer oceans of alone
The night is old
And still
I am not sober
© Kacey Patrick 2013
‘The night has passed and still we are not sober.
In the garden of the heart the feast goes on.
The nightingale sings and the lover and beloved are entwined into one.’
Rumi (Quatrain 1257)
Translated by Maryam Mafi & Azima Melita Kolin
A rose in bloom in a gardened room
Plucked by hands so fair
A table laid, preparations made
The rose is placed with care
A shy ‘hello’, eyes search to know
If the other feels the same
A shy ‘goodbye’ met by hopeful eyes
A rose exchanged
A promise made
A blushing face neath a veil of lace
Her hand, passed on, entwines
And with reverence placed on a tome of grace
The rose encased inside
Eager words are spoke and emotions choke
Her lover’s turn of phrase
From this day on, two lives now one
A vow exchanged
A promise made
As seasons pass, first child to last
A family two, has grown
And each head blessed with the words that press
The rose, now chestnut brown
Between ivory page, the rose it fades
Each child, with wings, takes flight
All that remains, great love yet pain
A rose exchanged
A promise made
Some years on grandchildren come
Support a man so frail
With weathered hands, upon the land
He lays the rose now pale
A story is read about a life well led
The lovers’ rose in bloom
From the book of grace with scented space
Their rose exchanged
Their promise made
© Kacey Patrick (2013)
A jar for love
A jar for joy
A jar for solitude
A jar for hope
A jar for life
A jar for seeking truth
A jar for melancholy
A jar that holds one tear
A jar for saying sorry
A jar for all you fear
Pick a jar, take it down
Which one will you choose
A jar for every nuance, every purpose, every mood
Pick a jar, take it down
Choose one from the shelf
Take only what you need to truly find yourself
Ancient jars of mystery
Hold tales from long ago
Jars clear and fine with crystal lines
Hold secrets never told
A jar of brass for courage
A jar of ebony
Holds the darkest thoughts and dreams
Of who you might have been
A jar for strength and fortitude
A jar to test your faith
A jar which holds compassion
A jar of rage and hate
A jar for every story
All regrets, all love affairs
A jar for every child
Who’s whispered magic to the air
Aubergine for passion
Cadmium seeks a friend
Azure blue for all the days
When sorrow never ends
Scarlet whispers promise
Vermillion keeps you safe
The jade looks to serenity
For calm and quite space
Pick a jar, take it down
Which one will you choose
A jar for every nuance, every purpose, every mood
Pick a jar, take it down
Choose one from the shelf
Take only what you need to truly find yourself
© Kacey Patrick 2013
Performed with Linsey Pollak – ‘An evening of improvisations’ – Maleny, May 2013.
I dance as though I’m dreaming
Our hearts are so revealing
My lips they long to speak it
The longing lies beneath it
Embarrassed eyes down-turning
So little said in yearning
As hearts and heads keep falling
Love seems to find its calling
To ask is this completeness
A feeling from the nearness
No more a love forsaken
A heart has been awakened
We seek and end to longing
What would you have me do
Love me so deep
‘Til light returns once more
Hearts lost in situation
Embraces long mistaken
Look to your eyes I find it
The knowing lies behind it
To cherish all remaining
A heart is not distaining
Flight to a place uncertain
But shame has drawn the curtain
True words are left unspoken
So many lying broken
While tears they keep on falling
Lives have divergent calling
We seek an end to longing
What would you have me do
Love me so deep
‘Til light returns once more
In time we cry to remember
The dream our hearts thought forever
The dream of passion together
As love finds time rewinding once again
Yearnings no longer forgotten
Our arms they reach for one embrace
What would you feel in a moment
If love was caught out of place
If hearts were lost and never found
What would you feel if you were near
What would you find, what would you fear
A heart still beats when love is broken and undone
‘Til light returns once more
I dance as though I’m drifting
I wonder what you’re thinking
A heart it seeks reason
When love discovers treason
Our bodies keep implying
The fear we keep denying
That love has been forsaken
No more to be awakened
New love is so revealing
In time it comes concealing
What could we find tomorrow
The joy, or pain and sorrow
When hearts they seek belonging
What would you have me do
What would you feel if you were near
What would you find, what would you fear
A heart still beats when love is broken and undone
‘Til light returns once more
© Kacey Patrick 2004
© Music: ‘Milonga’, Jorge Cardoso
Text written to ‘Milonga’ by Jorge Cardoso, as performed by The Saruzu Quartet.
If one’s pure heart is tainted for a time
Can one’s pure heart remain to feel rewind
If I conceal all that I’ve done
Can my poor heart begin whence it begun
He was my love, adoring me
With purest heart, naive and free
But in my selfish heart I found
A place to lie and to be proud
To scorn another’s love so pure
To break a heart, leave it unsure
Of all the gifts it could receive
From one such heart, naive and free
But did I know where scorn would lead
I surely would have taken heed
And nurtured love so pure and true
The games I played, I came to rue
If one’s pure heart is tainted for a time
Can one’s pure heart remain to feel rewind
If I reveal all that I’ve done
Can my poor heart begin whence it begun
In search of high and richer life
I came to be another’s wife
And spurned a pure untainted love
For the life I had dreamed of
In doing so, I broke a heart
Which for it’s strength, shattered like glass
And never more was it to be
A heart so pure, naive and free
A ship, it bore him from the land
He took his love far from my hand
And left a message etched in stone
Of how one’s scorn could cut to bone
And when the waves, they bore him down
And in those depths, a pure love drowned
I had not had the chance to tell
Of how my heart, it loved him well
Sirens who call him to the deep
Know that my poor heart surely weeps
Release and send him home to me
And I shall love, naive and free
If one’s pure heart is tainted for a time
Can one’s pure heart remain to feel rewind
If I reveal my love to thee
Can my poor heart forever live….in memory of thee
© Kacey Patrick 2012
Another place another time
I know you would be mine
Another space were we inclined
I know you would be mine
If to embrace to feel sublime
I know you would be mine
If to erase and leave behind
I know you would be mine this time
Like a tide against the shore
I retreat still wanting more
Where dampness soaks the sand, a desire it expands
Along the ebb and flow of seas
Where the waves crash over me
Every time we came to pass I cannot breathe
Like an apple from a tree
Enticed by gravity
To be caught within a hand and surrender to the man
Who could devour with a breath
All resistance I have left
Every time we come to pass I would be free
If there is more than one
For each and everyone
You would be one of those ones for me
If I could step outside
My current life
Surrender to igniting strife
I’d cross divides to realise
And actualise desires inside
Like a moth drawn through the night
Singe-ing wings in candlelight
I flutter in the wake of the ripples that you make
And treat with nonchalance and fear
The sense of you so near
Every time we come to pass I cannot breathe
Like the movement of a moon
With an orbit gone too soon
I revolve around and wait, in an state, as I anticipate
What madness it would be
If my will abandoned me
Every time we come to pass I would be free
Another place another time
I know you would be mine
Another space were we inclined
I know you would be mine
If to embrace to feel sublime
I know you would be mine
Another place we’d be entwined
And I know you would be mine
© Kacey Patrick 2012
Inspired by ‘Invocation’ from Beyond Words – Bobby McFerrin.
Brick by brick, tile by tile
We built a wall which stretched for miles
Each piece was laid with silent rage
And mortared with resentment
Sometimes I’d feel you trowelling there
Upon your side, with extra care
Ensuring all the seals were fixed
All holes surely cemented
Our wall it started with one word
One slight misunderstanding
But then it grew and each brick laid
Continued the compounding
Until it stretched from here to there
One horizon to nowhere
Our wall it stretched, it wove and weaved
Beyond all understanding
Each brick a word
Each tile a hurt
The mortar, when we’d felt unheard
And each of us upon our side
We worked upon the wall
The bricks once small to manage
Began to grow in size
Until the effort to construct the wall
It made us tired
And sometimes we would double back
And find a brick we’d laid
And carve a pattern in it
With such purpose to dismay
As the wall grew long and wide
We started on the height
We’d build it up to hide the sun
We’d work both day and night
Until the only good to find
Was resting in the shade
Of the wall of words and spite
We had so deftly made
Each brick a word
Each tile a hurt
The mortar, when we’d felt unheard
And each of us upon our sides
We worked upon the wall
One day a little crack appeared
A shaft of sunlight did reveal
A glimmer and a promise
The hope of new contentment
You from your end, I from mine
We met at last on either side
We laid our trowels upon the ground
Exhausted and repentant
I placed my hands upon the bricks
I sensed you do the same
And then we pushed with all our might
And felt the wall give way
Our wall that stretched from here to there
To dust it crumbled, fine and fair
And now it’s only ruins of the ramparts
That remain
Each brick a word
Each tile a hurt
The mortar, when we’d felt unheard
Now each of us upon our sides
We work upon the wall
© Kacey Patrick 2012 (September 29th)
A snow white dove she sits, beneath a walnut tree
Her snow white breast lit up against a darkened shade of green
And his adoring eyes
Caressing her with care
He sees her grace and charm and all the difference there
She sees the Griffin watching with his calm unwavering gaze
His gentle heart encased within a dragon’s crimson scales
This creature of a myth
Glints ruby in the sun
So different from herself and yet for her, the only one
How could a love
Ones such as this
Survive beyond the sanctuary of this garden
Out in a world
Where sameness holds fast
Could they be brave enough to share their love and rise above
How could a love
So real yet so stark
Survive beyond the sanctuary of this garden
Would others remark
Or would the fable stand true
That a love so full of promise will overcome the rules
A snow white dove she sits, beneath a walnut tree
All the while she wonders on the world she cannot see
Where poppies all compete
With roses’ faded blooms
As the setting sun reflects a darkening afternoon
But to overcome the fear and embrace with all your soul
The difference that attracts
That completes, that makes you whole
To celebrate your love with all who come to pass
To be strong within each others arms
Dismantle walls and shatter glass…..
How could a love
Ones such as this
Survive beyond the sanctuary of this garden
Out in a world
Where sameness holds fast
Could they be brave enough to share their love and rise above
How could a love
So real yet so stark
Survive beyond the sanctuary of this garden
Would others remark
Or would the fable stand true
That a love so full of promise will overcome the rules
The Griffin in majestic grace, sweeps down to join her there
Beneath the ancient walnut tree, beside the rusted chair
And with tenderest embrace
Her feathers white as snow
She nestles neath the crimson scales, in love she’ll always know
© Kacey Patrick 2012
Stand alone upon a cliff
The sharp north wind it brings relief
Icy tendrils catch a breath affronting in its harshness
Crystals form upon a cheek rubbed red and raw, coarse and deep
No mind for broken hearts
No mind for salted tears
The winds of love and loss and longing
A mantle pulled as close as it may dare
Shrouds a neck once caressed
But now the harsh north wind seeks to kiss the very same
With sharp and bitter calloused lips
To touch the skin and prick with cold
No mind for broken hearts
No mind for salted tears
The winds of love and loss and longing
Brace thyself against the swale
Steel thyself against the gale
A Payne’s grey sky
A grey green sea
The winds of loss envelop thee
Stand in pair upon a beach
The warm dank wind it does beseech
Surrender to a realm so near of passion unabated
Skin is damp drenched with desire
Loins are wet, one touch is fire
No mind for reserved hearts
No mind for frigid tears
The winds of love and loss and longing
A lover’s touch as close as it may dare
Caress the flesh which lies in wait
And now the sweet damp wind excites love’s revelry
With sultry fragrant overtones
To swirl round limbs which seek release
No mind for reserved hearts
No mind for frigid tears
The winds of love and loss and longing
Immerse thyself in bodies sure
Sweep thyself in rapture
A crimson sky
A turquoise sea
The winds of love envelop thee
Stand at edge of vast expanse
The dry west wind invokes a trance
It sifts and grasps in reckless whirls and smothers all it passes
Breath succumbs, eyes are blind
Lips chafed and split are blushed unkind
No mind for lonely hearts
No mind for barren tears
The winds of love and loss and longing
A veil wrapped tight as close as it may dare
Coils a neck which might expire
But now the dry west wind lifts and whips it like a sail
With rasping voice and mournful cry
To tighten skin, to choke and parch
No mind for lonely hearts
No mind for barren tears
The winds of love and loss and longing
Bend thyself against the blast
Stand before the shredding draught
A mustard sky
An arid sea
The winds of longing comfort thee
© Kacey Patrick 2012
Kacey Patrick 