S F H

Every S F H song begins here — as a finished poem on the page.

These are ten of my poems, chosen from nine years of writing. Some have become songs; some are still waiting for theirs. Read them first, then follow the Listen links to hear where the words went next.

Poetry first. Human always.
— Stephen

my first kiss

our faces part
teenage marshmallow lips vibrate
like wet electric jellyfish

my legs are like butterflies
neck hairs stampede
as I spring into altered states
my body floats in her ocean

she leaves
me, shell shocked
a new lotus blooms

♪ Listen: "my first kiss"
Spotify

Breakfast with Jung

At dawn’s ragged edge, my kitchen becomes
A temple of ordinary prophecies
Coffee grounds like black diviner’s sand
Messages from the dead burned into toast
My grandmother’s hands emerge from steam
Weaving histories into my cup, while outside
Bougainvillaea bleeds its crimson alphabet
Across windows thin as memory’s skin

In the toaster’s chrome, faces ripple:
Great-aunts with eyes of burning coal,
Cousins carrying unborn stars in their teeth,
Children who might bloom from my bones.
Their reflections overlap like hungry ghosts,
All pressing against morning’s fragile glass.

The kettle screams with a thousand voices—
Every cup of tea ever poured flowing backwards
Through time’s copper throat. Even Jung himself
Pauses mid-bite, startled by its prophecy.

A tui splits the sky’s yolk with her song,
Harmonising with languages lost when
Eden’s gates swung shut. Her notes scatter
Like black pearls across my breakfast plate.

Time pools honey-thick in this hour
Between dreaming and day, sweet
With the marrow of memory. My spoon
Stirs ripples in the universe’s coffee cup.

The morning news bleeds through dimensions—
Every headline ever printed rising like smoke
From my coffee: wars, loves, births, extinctions
Spiral into one eternal moment of toast and tea.

Through the window, the bougainvillea
Drops petals red as birth-blood, each one
Carrying messages from the collective heart—
Semaphores from gardens of remembered light.

Watch now—as my ancestors lean in, hungry
For one more taste of morning, their shadows
Drinking light from my cup. Even the sugar bowl
Holds crystals of compressed eternities.

In this kitchen, we are all time travellers,
Breaking bread with our unborn children,
While the dead pour tea with trembling hands
And tomorrow whispers in our marrow.

Tell me then, you who breakfast alone,
Do you see them in your morning mirror—
All the faces time has worn and will wear,
Gathering like moths around your light?

Here at dawn’s clean slate,
Where every breakfast is the last breakfast,
And also the first, we drink our coffee
Black as memory, sweet as prophecy,
While Jung smiles from the doorway,
Knowing that eternity was always this:
A kitchen full of ghosts at morning,
Passing cream across time’s borders.

Title poem of Breakfast with Jung — The Collective Unconscious

♪ Listen: "Breakfast with Jung"
SoundCloud

how to kiss a whale

I stand at Oneroa beach (a coffee in my hand)
diamond light cascades
from the open-mouthed sun
it pours its blinding tongue across the sea
over the beach and up the green bank
licks the trunk and branches
illuminating the giant macrocarpa tree white

a red scarfed mother plays with her son in the sand
her other son throws rocks at a longfin eel
in the estuary, that his slipped into a log
to meditate on time passing
upturned aluminum dinghy snoozes
under the arms of a Pohutukawa tree
as an army of toitoi - (Prince of Wales feathers)
shimmer like ostrich plumes in the chill breeze
their cream tips face the same direction

an Argentinian woman, ripped jeans and a jumper
lies still, her body
splayed on the grassy bank
she makes love (to the sun)
becomes instantly pregnant, smiles
to carry the suns child in her belly

two flocks of seagulls take off
from the sand in unison, they glide
together, a wild blue bite of the wind
scatterers them into the corners of the globe

a man in a business suit walks on the beach
oblivious to the sand under his feet
one hand glued to his iPhone the other a
Jack Russell terrier
it leaps and licks the salty air
pulls on its shortened lead, sniffing a smorgasbord
of life's aromas into its drooling nose

industrial tire prints from a tractor's wheels
zig-zag down to the water's edge
they disappear into the empty sea
shipless, boneless sea, (is it the coffee?)
or a mutiny perhaps?
or perhaps, a boatload of people's
attachments (sticky)- anxiety, fear, conflict
broken identity, pain, and depression
all made to walk the crimson plank
one by one drowned out at sea
to disembark (from the self )
give back life to the moment
set sail to kiss a whale

♪ Listen: "How to Kiss a Whale"
Spotify · SoundCloud

Hongi

we have stood here before
although I cannot remember when

leaning forward
gently pressing
noses and foreheads together
sharing the same breath

two noses press
the first tap, us
second, our ancestors

hands grip
you lay your left on my shoulder
brown eyes stare
into the soil of my aorta

Maori and Pakeha
a green Koru fern frond spirals
the outer coil a vortex
of perpetual movement
its inner coil returns
to the same point of origin

love and honor bow
the eyebrows, a bird's wingspan
and the tail of the whale
the nose is the body of the whale

eye to seeing eye
link in and remember
part of the same oneness
of everything that exists

blown by strange winds
my heartbeat races
as the egos cord is cut
before I jump out of the plane
to the equal playing field

we have stood here before
cannot remember when

On the hongi — the Māori greeting of pressed noses and shared breath (hā).

♪ Listen: "We Have Stood Here Before"
Spotify · SoundCloud

Nerudas footprints

dead woman, lend me your spine
that I may never abandon the poor
or bend a knee to dictators' hooves
running roughshod to blacken blacks

dead woman, lend me your arm
to share your joy and sorrows weight
dead woman, kiss this heartbeat
so I may warm the hearts of all mankind

my feet to print your shadow in the snow
and my hands to lift up the dead
like a child's stick and leaf boat
rocking through rivers boulders
roaring victory at the sea

to carry brothers, sisters, and children
in wooden chests rocking in loves ocean
for what is life but a light shining inside
that we waking blind cannot see
or extinguish

in the silvery frost of moon's breath
your feet call me
to step upon darkest mountains
towards that soft place called sleep
but I must go on, living

After "The Dead Woman" by Pablo Neruda

♪ Listen: Neruda's Footprints — the album (out 27 November 2026)
Spotify

A Gypsy at my Table

the girl wears a skin dress
a pigmented explosion
of pink sherbert, azure, violet
gamboge and gold

her abdomen landscaped in a swirling feather's
watercolor of purple, a flock of birds breaking out
from the feathers vane

autumn leaves cluster on her shoulder
her chest fires two red-breasted robins
perched on spikey white blossom branches

brown buffalo and Monarch butterflies
dance the moon
ship in a bottle carried in a leopard's mouth
painted waistcoat with wet pearl buttons

her legs leap a labyrinth of landscapes
her naked skin moves mountains
black text reads

'Just living is not enough
we must wear sunshine's shirt'

the garden of her Gypsy skin
offers a traveler the flower of her life

she bends over my table
and serves me a cup of coffee
with a smile

♪ Listen: "Sunshine's Shirt" — from Dreaming of Africa
Spotify · SoundCloud

Green Kerf

the farm gate stands between two oak trees
dark sap bleeds from its thick frame
the throat of a tin soldier squirts oil
after being shot twice by his mother
a green kerf runs the hem of her dress
singing "this is the last time"
himalayan salt rusts
the butterfly hinges as they snap open
ash dangles and drops from mother's cigarette
as her silver son
counts the wet minutes he has left
like a bird down after a fish
that cannot stay
the lamp goes out
and in the black
silver stars shimmer

From Breakfast with Jung — Individuation

♪ Listen: "Green Kerf"
SoundCloud

King of the Night

the black king speaks again
from the diamond star of death
to the darkest of nights skies

'Let freedom's red aorta flow'
a white wooden rowboat
kidnaps the gold torch

dirty money lines velvet pockets
from Birmingham, Alabama
to the bloodied footsteps
in Tiananmen Square

when my feet once touched the ground
at Boston University, packs of laughing hyenas
hid under white cotton hoods by night
parading as the city's police by day
torturing and robbing sanitation workers
crushing them in garbage compactors

death has her rightful song to sing
it's not for others to take

don't let blinded dogs
and poisoned water hoses
turn you around

call the body's cells to swirl
upwards into a tornado's fury
harness the fire of kings
palm trees are but blades of grass
beneath naked numbered feet
tortured spirits unite as one

push truth's silver scalpel
burst the numb bubble

'Yes I had a dream
darkness cannot drive out darkness
only light can do that
hate can not drive out hate
only love can do that'

keep the baton burning
the jackal cannot steal the sun
we are all created but once
now is the time to live
all colors glowing in the same garden

stand with the sun at your back
probe light into the darkest corners
hold not weapons
but the hands of love

Quoted lines: Martin Luther King Jr.

♪ Listen: "The King of the Night" — from Dreaming of Africa
Spotify · SoundCloud

Animal Farm

The commandments were painted fresh
On the barn wall that first morning
White letters drip wet in dawn light
All animals are equal
Fresh starts, clean slates
Until you notice the ladder
Leaning against tomorrow's lies

By evening, Squealer stood
Beneath the same wall
Explaining why milk
Disappeared into the farmhouse
Why apples rotted
In pigs' bellies while horses
Worked double shifts on empty stomachs

He could sell water to drowning men
And make them thank him
His voice, smooth as butter
Turned equal into necessary
Theft into supervision
Hunger into sacrifice
The animals nodded, bodies
Betraying what minds couldn't grasp

Stomachs growling dissent
Like children crying for mothers
Who will never come
Napoleon's teeth gleamed
While Snowball's exile order
Dripped ink on the desk
Two pigs, one throne
Revolution eating its children
Before they learned to walk
Each betrayal sharp as glass
Cutting through brotherhood's myth

In pocket screens
Squealer multiplies
Ten thousand voices explaining
Why billionaires need tax cuts
Why surveillance protects freedom
Why your job disappearing
Means progress
Pay attention to small lies
They lead to larger darkness

Watch Boxer at the quarry
Haunches tremble under weight
Repeating I will work harder
As his spine curves
Toward claiming earth
Hard work, another word
For slowly killing yourself
For someone else's dream
This is Tuesday at Amazon
Wednesday at The Warehouse
Thursday's gig economy
Where your car becomes office
Debt becomes motivation
Body becomes currency
Traded for permission to exist
Each day carved from flesh

Some animals are more equal than others
Paint still wet
When they changed the commandment
Morning said one thing
Nightfall, another
No one remembered original words
Except the feeling something
Was stolen while they slept
Memory bleeding black
Into forgetfulness

Election night, two thousand twenty-four
The candidate promising change
Shakes hands with lobbyists
In rooms without cameras
News anchors explain
Why handshakes mean progress
Why healthcare disappearing
Means freedom expanding
While we sit believing television
Like children believing Santa

Animals press weary faces
Against farmhouse windows
Speckled in shit
Unable to tell pig from man
We press our faces
Against blue screens
Unable to tell
Democracy from auction
Representation from performance
New boss from old boss

In hairy darkness beyond the barn
Something moves
Heavy hooves on gravel
Breathing that refuses to break
Boxer's eyes gleam, In shadow
Boxer's eyes gleam, In shadow
Boxer's eyes gleam, Boxer's eyes gleam
Boxer's eyes gleam, In shadow

Orwell’s 1945 “fairy tale” remains our most urgent contemporary prophecy.

♪ Listen: "Animal Farm"
Spotify · SoundCloud

The Empty Space

take a risk, my friend
drink a pint-sized death if necessary
but don't let judgment stitch an enemy spy
into your shadow

to tread on naked boards into the empty space
is to call forth all of you, to breach beyond the tight
skinned edges of yourself, the performer's
spinnaker thrills to stretch and balloon
you up, onto an uncharted path
into the unknown unknown

tether yourself to the purple scent of lavender
listen to the still small voice of sharp fingernails
scraping up the back of your neck
respond without thinking
jump out of this world
into the spider's pattern
and then into another

this diamond dog lighthouse of creation
armed in the pulse of now
embodied in a cloak of awareness it flips
the theatre of the ordinary into the extraordinary

Written for every performer who walks onto an empty stage with no script in hand.

♪ Listen: "The Empty Space"
Spotify · SoundCloud

More poems

My first collection, Her Soft Fingers Pickpocket My Brain, is available on Amazon.
My next book, Breakfast with Jung, is on its way.

Support this poet

If a poem stayed with you, you can buy me a coffee — it keeps the Poetry Cabin lit and the songs coming.