Ingredients:

• Dark chocolate
• Washed and dried cherries and strawberries, preferably with stalks still attached
• Dried dates and apricots
• Anything else you want to dip

Method:

• Prepare some trays with some wax paper
• Place a small glass or metal baking bowl over a small sauce pan with about two inches of water in it. The water shouldn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.
• Place on a medium heat and turn down a little when the water begins to steam
• Fill the bowl with broken pieces of chocolate and cover with a small plate
• Check regularly and when the chocolate begins to melt, start to periodically press the pieces down into the melted chocolate
• When most of the chocolate has melted begin dipping your fruit
• Gently shake the fruit and let as much of the excess chocolate fall off
• Place carefully on the wax paper
• When the chocolate has hardened carefully remove the fruit into your pre-prepared gift box

The gift box:

• Take an old gift box, Christmas card box, etc. (should be the kind with a lid) and wrap the bottom and top separately, two different Christmas wrappings make a nice contrast
• Line the inside of the box with gift wrap or wax paper
• Save ribbon during the year and iron suitable lengths of it for tying bows on the box(es)

Cleaning up:

• Don’t through out the wax paper and wash the bowl just yet!
• Use a steak knife to shave the chocolate off the paper and bowl to make chocolate shavings
• Use on top of Irish coffees, desserts, hot chocolate, etc.

Niagara Falls in my head
And all around me churning
Pull me under, suffocate my hips
Pull me under, crush my swollen lips

Above me in the stars
Your eyes shut in heaven
Listening to a bass boom
And a saxophone sing

Eyebrow, lip, chin, ankle
On thigh and over calf
A welcome snare,
A welcome stare full of
Soul filled windows

Crush me, pull me under

The actors leave the stage
Everything is empty, dry
And in its hollowness
Everything is more,
Echoes dance,
Shadows flicker

A mouth-watering drop
Falls to parched lips
A soul hits a high note
And curls comfort
Wrapped in smoldering hips

The soft touch
Of hair on skin
A feeling of
Being

A swirling thickness
Slows graceful steps
Hugs hips and
Pulls ankles

Rocks smooth
Under gripping toes
Fingers treading water
Peaceful solitude

Tiny droplets dart
In swirling air
Cool kisses
On warm skin

Gurgling splashes
Roar softly
An uneven mirror
Moving like warm honey

Ropes of silver flow
Over face and neck
Over breast and nipple
Down to join again

The universe in
One moment
Reflected in an eye
And curling mouth

And on the other side she stands
Injured, alone, limping from a battle
She lives in her bones,
In her muscles, in her head
And dead she creeps back

A fetus in a rocky womb
I go to hear her story
Her secrets, her sins and sinners
she is a cold heap of lonely bones
- And life is mine again

She comes into view
Serious, out of place
She pauses mid step
Our eyes lock
For a long moment
Time bending

Then she lumbers on
Past me, out of sight
I’m left
Trembling
Energy surging

“Is this an Emergency?”
“Stay still and you’ll be seen.
They don’t like it
When you leave the bed”
I’m on a bed of grain

There’s a parrot in the window
He’s hanging upside-down
He’s talking to me, to someone
His beady eyes move in circles
Am I really here?

Author’s note:
Pretty strong drugs, this was one of my bouts of hallucinating.

A too warm, moist face,
An unavoidable suit of green,
Draped, to be discreet,
But still the pounds round.

Perfume wafts gently,
Careful make-up, the natural look,
Matching shoes, bag, and coat,
But all are disregarded.

Filling hollow places
Like filling a bottomless bucket
Dipping into the ocean
To fill my sinking boat

Author’s note:
I am a comfort food addict – this was a particularly hard period while living in the USA

Between the sheets and lines?
Under raindrops
And cloudy skies…?

It no longer sits at the table
Or curls around the bed post
At ten past one

I turn over, an island in your sea
This isn’t me

Author’s note:
Romantic love lost and a personal epiphany