wish

wish

this poem was in part inspired by a visit, some 14 years previous to its writing, to the home of Amercian businessman, Jim Thomspon, in Bangkok.  Credited with revitalising the Thai silk industry in the 1950s & 60s, Thomspon disappeared on Sunday March 26th 1967, while holidaying in Malaysia.  The mystery of his disappearance has never been solved.  Sydney, 1997

The view of Jim Thompson’s house from the canal, sourced from the collection of The James H.W. Thompson Foundation,. Acknowledgements to the ‘Wild’n’Free Diary’ where this image was posted and so attributed.

koh samui
an island its
round of beaches
the blood-warm sea
grazing the dark
of evening
with her, her sister
we were sitting under
the thatch looking out
to the mainland
unknown line from
which we’d come
watching the clouds
hatch dry lightning
light stitched across
seconds of sky
i wished myself
there in the lightning’s cut
where things like
disappearance invisibility
self in a new coloured shirt
a ghost’s hand on your

her town, her sleeping ice

her town, her sleeping ice
Anima, animae f.
2001, revised 2023

Jung’s ‘Bollingen Castle’ built by his own hand, image sourced from: cgjung.net (avec accord), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

walls
thick
as night,
gates heavy
as four seasons
turning, water winding
through stone to the
heart of the square,
all under her hand,
and hers only,
her suitors are words
answered in a midnight
mirror onto paper,
cathedrals rise
and sink
where she prays
alone as if ordained,
the stained glass rose
of dusk slips over her
shoulders in kneeling as
she gathers her hair