The skies were beautiful for a week.
An upward trend, I sense.
Spring is bursting through the dreary seams
With trees covered in pink fairy floss.
The crisp (almost unbearable) morning that slips into a certain Pantone spectacle.
I'm happier in golden times
Made up of toe-exposing moments and subtle rosé,
Of mangoes, Beaumont, and untainted blue.

For the unexplainable calmness that soothes the kinks in my days-
I'm thankful tonight.

Before sunlight stole the sky
Abrupt consciousness led the frosty reception.
Like training wheels I started with two separate alarms, tuned precisely five minutes apart.
Then two weeks ago I weaned off the stereo.
This morning my eyes opened quite effortlessly half an hour before time.
I keep thinking this marks new beginnings
Of character, habit, and hence chance.

Come join me here
Or here - this time there won't be sangria to stop me.

I stole a piece of real sky today.
Sandwiched between slabs of cloud
There was a layer of true blue.

-A certain stillness-
The strings of retro-orange beads hang unstirred.
Partial sunlight sieving through frosted glass panes.
The bath water sways lethargically with my breath.
I'm tired, but had forced myself up to relish the day.

-A certain peace-
Of being able to spend a full hour over the papers, undisturbed.
The dog sprawled, legs up, eyes closed.
Juice, coffee, Julie London.
Contemplated the effectiveness of Love for Sale and Desafinado-
Can anyone really sing it better than Billie or Astrud?

-A certain interruption/block-
I've stopped talking
Because words are usually barricaded out after the revelation of a fact and half its accompanying elaboration.
Phonecalls from people I'd met the night before.
It is a start, if I'd only convince myself so.

A pagan - in content, sometimes contempt. Yet surrendering to the superstitious whims of dreams.

Sundays are best suited for afternoon naps. Particularly pluvial dreary ones. The wind feuded with trees outside, ocassionally whistling through gaps in the window. Between checking on the dog and windows, there were dreams. A busy beach, and once again, the tide was high and waves swept far onto the sand. Magenta flowers - bougainvillea;frangipanni? We ran, and amidst all the madness, there was a plexus of other competing feelings (quite real): relief - of having that moment; choler - that it took so long; want - of an honest, puerile type.

I thought of flying somwhere (else) today. Peering past the spiked grills, catching the sound of hail on a tin roof. Rice-paper thin tolerance for meretricious pleasantries. Longing for another sunset where dune seeps into teal, and the moon is but a sculpted arc.

Venue:Terminus Hotel, Victoria St, Abbotsford
Stimuli: A mobile invite, toasty comfort, animated banter over a bowl of shoe-string fries
Response: Laughs and suggestions of re-enactment. Delectable!

Venue: Victoria St, Richmond
Stimulus: Desperate sentimentality from once-loved partner
Responses: Eyes wandered from bowl of beef pho to busy road outside, quesy from this untimely outburst, then slightly guilty afterwards

Venue: Tusk, Chapel St, Windsor
Stimulus: A bad deed rewarded
Response: With a good one

Venue: Moonlight Receptions, Nicholson St, North Fitzroy (yikes)
Stimuli: Geisha prom queens - tiara and tafetta, too many bottles of very cheap grenache-cabernet.
Response: Cruel mockery, playground-style

Venue: Home
Stimulus: Morning-after reflections
Response: Resolution - never again

Venue: Rob Roy Hotel, Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Stimulus: An experienced voice
Reaction: Silence, of thoughts and words

That she was an anomaly- but a pleasant one. That she stirred a thought, even in the shower. The one in red, walking the grey streets of winter. Click-clack. The sound of her tiny heels tapping the pavement. She dreaded the collective, the result of an adolescence of mediocrity. That she was the girl looking up at the clouds when stuck in traffic. Sheets of clouds moved deliberately across the ash-stained canvass. To be anywhere, fleetingly happy, soon.
Nights of near-eventful recollections, hazy with swirling glasses and smoke. Of la-dee-da conversationalists and their wide-eyed sidekicks, of genuine fun, with moments reminiscent of a stylus on the spinning record. Singing along with Julie London at the Gin Palace. Yes, do fly me to the moon.

A torn piece of paper
*Grand Hyatt 123 Collins Street Melbourne*
It brought a smile
Of quiet wonder.