"I am so impressed with the early look at your poems. I am amazed that you can feel so much from a painting and then put it into words. I can’t wait for more!"

- Tony Heath
 

Whenever any information "hits" my senses, I try to stop and notice my response. Sometimes, pictures form. Other times, there comes a feeling , a quickened heartbeat, a word, a sound. These perceptions, or better perhaps, receptions, are the inspiration for my poetry and music.

I have had Tony's paintings in my house for several years now and I still really look at them, with interest and feeling. My lack of ambivalence towards his work speaks as much to me as the works themselves so, in this collection, I have given a voice to just a few.

- Helena Tibocha

Ballet Burlesque

Limelight shadows
Dance between
Heartbeats
Sighs extend for a
Pulse

She dreamt
Degas Dance Class
All turned out and tutus
Legs stretched completely and
Pointe

At Cabaret Brusque
Compère is calling
Throaty and cunning Voix de Ville
“Bend” and “Flex” 
“Mingle my Ecdysiast” 
(you know, and all that jazz) 

Plié.
Plié. Plié.

Once Shadow Now Matter

Torn into pieces
          Stuck together
                            With shadows

         Angular curves utter
Blessings and curses
         Flowing sharp corners lead
Dead-end infinity
         Masked transparencies move
Screens in shadow-plays

                  Forlorn  

Hiding and visible
         Presently dissociated
Exhausted and endlessly

         Driving

Colourful shallows dance
         Deepening and dreaming
Solitude meets silence 

Serenity 

Once shadow now
Matter.

Felinity

How long do you have to be down for,
for down-ness to matter?

Getting-up-is-easy-when-you-have-a-svelte-body-and-
(muscular limbs and strong sinews to pull you up tall) 
things-that-twitch-involuntarily-tell-you-when-it’s-time-to-get-up
(if you love to play and have very highly developed senses). 
Clear-vision-converging-with-instincts-and-a-strong-sense-of-balance-helps
(keep your secrets, stay relatively inaccessible and climb higher with lithe agility).
To be very-very-social-candid-lissom-and-savvy-immaculately-presented-and-sleek
   (Perfectly accessorised in fur coats and wielding retractable gadgets)
is a skilful and technical, trendy and fluid
work-to-be-peppered-with-pique.

When will what matters
become just about
getting up and
How?
 

Ellie's Paradigm

She believed,
“Unappealing.”
Bouffey, perhaps.

He said,
“Attractive…Big,”
“Biggest Darn Butt I’ve ever seen.”

“This morning I woke up a Possum
and now,
I’m a Mammoth!” 

Such good news.
It’s all about positioning.
 

Inspired by the film, Ice Age.

Alice was a child, once

i remember
before my name was Alice
turning my face to
the sun

i closed my eyes
and the brightness penetrated- 
invaded my eyelids without
even opening them!

Contrology
shapes my body
           now
i open or close
without thinking
 

Mirror, Mirror

“I’m only good for one thing.”
Whisperings LOUDER
than quietest thoughts.

“I’m fat. I’m not sexy.”
Messages worming deepest beliefs.
When I turn away,
restless Nagger reminds
what I think I’ve been seeing.

“I’m not posh enough,
my background is wrong.”
Wretched mirror, what you say
feels completely true yet
in the image of incompleteness,
you lie.

“I’m not good enough.”
When this looking stops,
will the dim light of this condemning glass
find me shrinking in a darkened room
decorated Shabby Chic with these whispers?
“I’m useless.”
“A fool.”

You say I can identify a still small voice,
call to it; that it will help me?  I will shout:
“Take me away from this place, NOW!!”

Take me to a different room with different thoughts
to a beautiful mirror whose laser light
will remove these dark tattoos from my mind.

I will see in full colour, rest
in the stillness of beauty
when I believe what I read in The Book,
“You are altogether
lovely.”

reaching thoughts

clipping toenails off
well travelled feet
necessitates
no thought or careful or
careless clipping
just clip p-i-n-g

and only ten now
enough to be repetitive but
not thirty to keep up on
in high concentration
clipping on tenterhooks to avoid
winces, screams,
drawing blood

toenail clippers drop in heavy silence
where breasts meeting thighs and knees
warm like the soft insides of a Mother
nest lined with tiny feathers

a first and last position
where reaching toes
and thoughts
becomes effortless