My Poetry.
Antipodal Man
In the antipodes
There is only me
And all my yesterdays
Barely give me shade
From dry futurity
In all my blessed days
Of my past
None have ever last
As long as this eternity.
Nowadays slight creeping
Wind is forever keeping
Me in a frozen sea
And because my heart beats again and again
I lend an ear to the furthest thing.
Across my desert my desire sings
Bring bring anything bring bring anything
But my mind ticks incessantly.
Again my breaths persists.
I’m at war with myself
And only time reminds
Me that I shouldn’t mind
If it does not end with a blast or a sigh.
In the antipodes
There is only me
And all my yesterdays
Barely give me shade
From dry futurity
In all my blessed days
Of my past
None have ever last
As long as this eternity.
Nowadays slight creeping
Wind is forever keeping
Me in a frozen sea
And because my heart beats again and again
I lend an ear to the furthest thing.
Across my desert my desire sings
Bring bring anything bring bring anything
But my mind ticks incessantly.
Again my breaths persists.
I’m at war with myself
And only time reminds
Me that I shouldn’t mind
If it does not end with a blast or a sigh.
On Emperor's Constantine 312 AD Conversion to Christianity.
Constantine’s Morning
The battle flags are still furled away
The moon has long across the cold night strayed
One by one the stars have died
And desert sands embrace the tents which lie
As laden palms grown side by side
But in a silent shattering, the cold night air
Is broken by an unbroken line of red
For the emperor has just raised his head.
The spinning Earth makes love to morn
And dawn is greeted by his humble yawn.
Olive hands reach for leaves entwined
To crown a head which can embrace a mind
From which blazes the eyes of Constantine
And darkness itself is sheered away
As his face is hit by dawning rays.
Sand dunes are warmed to life
And landed flies meet upon camel hide
To spy the dawn with prismed eyes
That cleave the ending night in twain
And then break it yet again
Igniting into sparks of golden flame.
And these flies weep beneath carrion crowns
From imprisoned eyes which glitter stains of fire
In knowing that darkness has vaporised.
Transfixed our leader stands hands on head
As he frames the sun which breaks the mountain’s crest.
Gasping light into his lungs
Filled with the thought that Pan is dead.
Within two hazel eyes reflecting flared weather vanes
Solar twin windmills breath into life
And rotate into the sign of Christ
And in the union between the senses
Man meets God and is made senseless
As his eyes becomes His
An infinite moment, then his eyelashes close
Ripping light to shreds while the image grows
And flows through mortal veins He who bled
And Christ is reborn into Rome’s new head.
Constantine’s Morning
The battle flags are still furled away
The moon has long across the cold night strayed
One by one the stars have died
And desert sands embrace the tents which lie
As laden palms grown side by side
But in a silent shattering, the cold night air
Is broken by an unbroken line of red
For the emperor has just raised his head.
The spinning Earth makes love to morn
And dawn is greeted by his humble yawn.
Olive hands reach for leaves entwined
To crown a head which can embrace a mind
From which blazes the eyes of Constantine
And darkness itself is sheered away
As his face is hit by dawning rays.
Sand dunes are warmed to life
And landed flies meet upon camel hide
To spy the dawn with prismed eyes
That cleave the ending night in twain
And then break it yet again
Igniting into sparks of golden flame.
And these flies weep beneath carrion crowns
From imprisoned eyes which glitter stains of fire
In knowing that darkness has vaporised.
Transfixed our leader stands hands on head
As he frames the sun which breaks the mountain’s crest.
Gasping light into his lungs
Filled with the thought that Pan is dead.
Within two hazel eyes reflecting flared weather vanes
Solar twin windmills breath into life
And rotate into the sign of Christ
And in the union between the senses
Man meets God and is made senseless
As his eyes becomes His
An infinite moment, then his eyelashes close
Ripping light to shreds while the image grows
And flows through mortal veins He who bled
And Christ is reborn into Rome’s new head.
A Poem inspired by the poem Betelgeuse by the poet Humbert Wolfe.
Golden Apples.
It is time for maths and in her classroom.
Her children sit in straight aisles
While she teaches vertices, vector, and matrix
Her children hang on every word
While she speaks and smiles
And walks in lines and moves in tangents.
Her hand gestures to their imaginative eyes
The picture for coordinates in all their minds of
Rows of golden apple trees that are side by side
For twice a hundred million miles
And the fruit are factors that apply for twice a hundred million years
And the second period bell is a wind that does not blow
In her classroom.
And time is a bird whose wings
Are not stirred in the golden aisles
Of her classroom.
In her classroom
There is nothing that joys or grieves that is not born from maths.
And not the ghost of evil or good disturb the multitude of figures
And, of herself to her task, she considers herself not the dust on a single leaf
In her classroom
Her children grow and in the graduation harvest they are taken
Still, she teaches so that more hearts to maths can awaken
She does not notice the frost of grey that touches her hair
She does not see her lesson’s end by the hand and deed
Of her former students who with her formula
Build bridges across the seas
And construct serums healing those in need.
Then the sum of all things comes and she is old.
To retire she is told.
She powers down her computer and from her desk collects her things.
She, who expects no praise, drops her gaze
And is amazed to find a student has left her something
For her withered hand a gift to grapple.
On her desk lies a bright red apple.
Gratitude to the knowledge she brought.
One knew that in painful sacrifice the best comes forth.
Time flies, time flies.
Empty now her classroom lies
And nothing stirs or moves in its empty aisles.
But although in her grave her body lies, empty too it is.
For like the golden apple, she has been plucked by God.
So many years of teaching and her reward is His.
She has gone
And she can rest
And she is blessed in turn
For forever, she the teacher now from Him can learn.
Golden Apples.
It is time for maths and in her classroom.
Her children sit in straight aisles
While she teaches vertices, vector, and matrix
Her children hang on every word
While she speaks and smiles
And walks in lines and moves in tangents.
Her hand gestures to their imaginative eyes
The picture for coordinates in all their minds of
Rows of golden apple trees that are side by side
For twice a hundred million miles
And the fruit are factors that apply for twice a hundred million years
And the second period bell is a wind that does not blow
In her classroom.
And time is a bird whose wings
Are not stirred in the golden aisles
Of her classroom.
In her classroom
There is nothing that joys or grieves that is not born from maths.
And not the ghost of evil or good disturb the multitude of figures
And, of herself to her task, she considers herself not the dust on a single leaf
In her classroom
Her children grow and in the graduation harvest they are taken
Still, she teaches so that more hearts to maths can awaken
She does not notice the frost of grey that touches her hair
She does not see her lesson’s end by the hand and deed
Of her former students who with her formula
Build bridges across the seas
And construct serums healing those in need.
Then the sum of all things comes and she is old.
To retire she is told.
She powers down her computer and from her desk collects her things.
She, who expects no praise, drops her gaze
And is amazed to find a student has left her something
For her withered hand a gift to grapple.
On her desk lies a bright red apple.
Gratitude to the knowledge she brought.
One knew that in painful sacrifice the best comes forth.
Time flies, time flies.
Empty now her classroom lies
And nothing stirs or moves in its empty aisles.
But although in her grave her body lies, empty too it is.
For like the golden apple, she has been plucked by God.
So many years of teaching and her reward is His.
She has gone
And she can rest
And she is blessed in turn
For forever, she the teacher now from Him can learn.
Thouest Fallen’s Heaven.
A sign! A sign! We cry and to the heavens we beseech
Fixed in place until we see His face.
The greatest signs are those we see inside,
Miraculous enlightenments so brightly new
In present it makes others near-blind.
Who see that forever boastful they seem and adulation they seek,
While future lives do recognise
Of how greatly to their talents they were meek.
For beside such flying wondrous colours within,
The greatest of us were mere mortals in sin.
A sign! A sign! We cry and to the heavens we beseech
Fixed in place until we see His face.
The greatest signs are those we see inside,
Miraculous enlightenments so brightly new
In present it makes others near-blind.
Who see that forever boastful they seem and adulation they seek,
While future lives do recognise
Of how greatly to their talents they were meek.
For beside such flying wondrous colours within,
The greatest of us were mere mortals in sin.
Feeling about Thinking.
Not:
I think therefore I am.
Better:
I feel I must think therefore I am.
Not:
I think therefore I am.
Better:
I feel I must think therefore I am.
Epigram on Life.
All his works Homer would give if for one more second he could live.
All his works Homer would give if for one more second he could live.
enjoy writing poetry. Here are some of them.
My Poems First Volume.
The Sun is God. (2003)
I saw the sun today it was so beautiful.
It was not rising nor setting and no clouds framed it like burnished gold.
I saw it as an image on my monitor.
An image which in turn had been captured by some telescope.
Magnified in all its glory its surface a patchwork of flame,
A fiery maze.
It was beautiful. So beautiful and so fragile,
I realise now why it’s beauty seems greater when pitched against the horizon
It is because my eyes normally blinded by its light can then rest upon its glory
I am told it has burned for millions of years
And will continue to burn for millions of years.
But when my eyes can rest upon it and my thoughts can sleep on it
I admit that some part of me becomes afraid.
I am at a loss to explain how something so necessary,
And so life giving, can desire to give itself and ask nothing in return.
Surely nothing can be so fine and so sublime in power.
It strikes me as a pointed irony that the sun
Through my monitor unclothed by distance and the smear of smog,
Rounded and naked showed the reality of its existence to me for the first time.
I am giddy in knowing that if it can exist then surely it is capable of nonexistence.
I think I am in love.
Over this earth, this world, a speck of dust in space,
Life is a moments grace on this largest rock,
And the sun is God.
On Leave from Marsden (2002)
The milk boy was the first to tell her
face pale as the cream in the pitcher
and renewed stutter
bringing news of her death.
They called her type ‘a natural’
Elizabeth from the sill had seen her
gathering wild narcissus
by the road side - as fast
as they were gathered falling
With one hand to her cheek
Elizabeth wound a lock of grey
absently about her finger.
Heard the bacon spluttering on the range.
watching the girl with the round belly.
‘It was a young cadet that did it,
down on leave from Marsden.’
was the feed store rumour.
‘The pity - her a dumb mute.’
‘Gone fishing.’ Said her husband
the night before, tramping off
to the muddy brook; late returning.
Elizabeth looked up. ‘Nothing.’
was his reproach bringing
the empty bucket to the floor.
His boots were clean
Tackle dry in the box.
‘She had wandered after dark
and slipped.’ ended the milk boy.
Found her at an impossible angle.
Later in the parlour ,after dark,
the settee lined with brown
butcher paper to crunch under
her weight, Elizabeth alone,
counting with the hanging
seconds ticking from the wall.
To the Modern Poets (2000)
From couch potato all stiff and starchy.
To feared and teared at all the parties.
You wrote a nice book its very rich.
Don’t kiss or kill me but what makes you tick?
What? Not a word. Is your tongue bound?
I hear caution in your silence it makes a muted sound.
As if you hold your breath. Wait. Hear your ears pound.
Write it with your pen and know you’ve never told
Is your book worth your weight in gold?
Your book on an aged man lying for a century cold
And you so young to write on someone so old.
Mixing metaphor with your bold belief.
Though who talks of god saves my soul.
Please I beg understanding to do what’s told.
For you see I cannot trust my face.
In the mirror I stare blankly into space,
With eyes so deeply closed wide open
Blind to how I am week
It hurts for me to think as much as you to speak
Lest there be awakenings in our heightened sleep
Now the question that I undertake
Ha! Undertake. Oh. Excuse my cryptic pun spun for others sake
I ask to place my soul for your dark fate
Judge before I hesitate
Who am I to Judge?
I don’t know. Oh is that the key?
Are you asking who is judging me?
Beyond how I am seeing me as I wish to be seen.
But still all you speak is chosen all too carefully.
Selection is that the key?
Pardon. I mean no harm.
I know your state of discourse on historic recourse
Is given the critics mandate.
So you take the past to mould the future.
Apt pupil. What a lesson and tutor.
If my eye is my vision…
Oh do not answer like that!
To force fate is a deplorable slap.
Surely after so many knocks and echoing trails.
Making stepping stones on memory’s bedrock floor.
A rock. Yes a rock. This is the real question.
Ok. More the problem. Do you mind to
Key into my state of mind
The covers are drawn rendering me blind."
Writing and scribbling that’s the biz.
I don’t know where the ends are that’s the twist.
A strip sealed in circular ever rhyme
Now meeting itself and looks eye to eye.
To again claim such a beast hast been born.
Nay father these words and this eye that reads.
I have seen the slow scales of the dragon
Been blown by its breath in sour cessation.
By a pinprick still pinned and ever leashed to pain.
Tempered and presented for praise and blame.
In this room this dark room there is a rock
On this rock all written bigger than you
In the blackest ink is the Word of LOVE.
Going deeper down - now here is the rub.
You do not, have not laid hands against it.
Nor turn your back but face it. Thought to sing
And let your voice sink down into its core.
A low song, a whisper, a sigh, a yawn.
As an oak settles into a forest.
Or so high that your very words and thoughts.
Were the screech and twitter of the sparrows.
All were wasted echoes of love poured forth.
To bounce and renounce a heartbeat not heard.
Happy-sad memories of brighter days.
Turned mystery. Anything but break it,
And then you. And I tell only you this.
I tell you this. You would not touch that stone.
From hard nothing no one asked what is it
No one did come and pay you a visit.
You with shiny teared grief and spangled face
Creating in you thought of love undone.
Creating so much blindness by dust.
Camouflaged in tears till made mud and ash.
The only answer to all your questions?
Is to take lovely only brightest
Your last and first delight never lonely
Throw burning into formless history.
With all things remotely necessary.
Or in dead sands gripped by cold hands you float"
When your thoughts were spoken the spell was broken.
Enough of the chatting this gaping.
Your singularly you it twinkles.
What shines the brightest is what the heart
Delights in.
Observing love with pain pricked eyes
The far is made bright.
In vision twisted and knowledge blighted
The prick in time has held itself.
Even the cleverest men be brought hell
And an explosion of Truth.
Why must we float stand up and look around
For falling has ended and we have hit the ground,
And in a dragons inward breath
You breathed on it.
Across these floors desert ash
Became molten matter in the flame
And all that’s in it contained.
Mental alchemy in the words you choose.
Blending me and love and you.
Beneath your magnificent microscope unique.
In telling me the dream you did not wish to choose.
Why not be now loosed because of love?
Fifty Years in One Act (1996)
Cue:
Sound of fading Wedding bells.
Woman:
What happens now? What happens now my LOVE?
Man:
I take you and then we hold hands my dear.
Woman:
For how long my HUSBAND do tell how long?
Man:
Till we gain a son my dear until we get a son.
Woman:
And then my LIFE and then?
Man:
My life I must live; must live.
Woman:
But what of I my ONLY, my ONLY?
Man:
Only you alone can be lonely,
Woman:
But as I am YOURS are you not MINE...
Man:
And other men will come my dear.
Woman:
You are right. I see a priest, the priest my ALL.
So soon, so fast. so many autumns have fallen.
Oh yes I remember you. oh so Tall; so Tall!
-Now the briefest moment.-
Woman:
Are you there my Love? my Love!
Cue:
Sound of a clock ticking
Woman:
Am old and I am old.
Cue:
CURTAINS
Old Town (2001)
An outcrop of city blocks
Throw a shadow on the parking lot.
Sunlight cuts shapes in the park
And makes lace-work with bright and dark.
Grey cars crawl to a stop,
Fences, bricks and shops
Hide them like a rabid pack
To wait until the children cross.
Shopkeepers quote the cost
To window shoppers pushing carts
Who give vacant nods and keep on walking past
In boots which crack leaves sealed in frost.
Bringing cakes and passion fruit
Harps and drums and magic flutes
We fill the stairs and hallways.
Holding masks and waving fans
We hear the playing of the band
And take each other’s hand
To our way through the doorway.
When I pretend eternity
Stands close to me.
I make room.
Feel her breath.
Open my eyes,
Let melt all.
Banishing legions
Lose all thought
Find reason.
God is in the smallest thing expressed.
Days serenity and nights divinity.
Split by morn and eve into infinity.
Seconds with meaning
Every moment dull seeming
Is glory and ritual teeming.
Primed with pattern
We play a tiny part
Thus living on the edge
Makes nature’s heart.
Not if we open a door
But how we turn the handle.
Less the lighting of a match
More when we blow out the candle.
Solace (1996)
I think that there is a wondrous energy
Close and pervasive.
Too sublime for this plane it is felt
In utterances.
Encased in books
Between the covers and the lines
Enshrined in memories
Between two distant yet bound hearts
Enwrapped in dreams
Between two worlds destined to collide
The gateway between the miraculous and mundane
becomes wider.
We live separated by life.
Puzzled people; the scattered pieces of a puzzle
Stemmed by
A greater knowing that to be gone is to be without hope.
Death becomes unbearable when hope is sacrificed.
If we cannot hear one atom we could not hear all
We could not see one atom we could not see all
If we could not feel one atom we could not feel.
The duality of consciousness.
Consciousness of ourselves and others.
When all can be sensed we could only
Sense all things
Or we could not sense at all.
From birth to death
Asleep or awake
We are always open to all things
But fear our souls will break.
Should we be asleep or be awake?
Do I sleep for myself or awaken for
Others sake?
Only one life to give for
Only one chance at life.
The Fear and Delight
When we see
Ourselves hidden in other people’s eyes.
But what if
Our eyes have lied?
So we combine ideals beyond theory
And embody deeper needs in ourselves and others
And until these books are really opened by opened eyes we must
Wait in slow torment, separated and united.
This is our hope, our solace.
The Kingdom (1994)
Welcome Wordsmith to this poem
I humbly ask that you read this tome.
Please listen well to this tale I tell
about the loss of faith and a realm.
As a fan drops sliding across a golden floor
courtly laughter echoes within the marble hall.
Ladies in waiting exchange whispered dreams
while a gilded harp drowns out the distant screams.
As the aged king weeps bitter tears
the queen dances away her fears.
The prince shows a secret smile
and the jester prances with his winning guile.
For God and King the commander roars
to the charging hundred bred for war.
From horses high swords come crashing down
till like autumn leaves the dead strew the ground.
Outside all is now cloaked in death
and ravens pick at the kingdom’s best.
No more nights will fight this day
broken shields mixed with blood and clay.
Still their flag so proudly flies,
its many colours hide the lies.
But secrets sooner or later end
and an enemy may yet prove a friend.
For what is told and what is true
change as kingdoms win and kingdoms lose.
History blesses the chaste and just
while deceivers are claimed by ash and dust.
Those with wisdom be you young or old
pray your floors are not paved in gold.
For that which shines can also blind
and wealth that frees is known to bind.
With these last lines my tale must end
I wish goodwill to your King and his valiant men.
But beware the King you trust
or it may be you who returns to just ash and dust.
The Borrower (1990)
I clutch at any book.
A solid significance of time
And signature to my existence.
Although I do not face the pen
I cry to be blessed in my attempt to understand.
What another issues forth.
Hard and hollow
Like smooth velcro
It clings to my chest.
I see a glittered rip
That scars the faded surface.
On legs week with reality
I sink into the dream recorded.
Words as crushed brick moist with blood
And there is another issue
This time of innocence.
My vision is gritty,
A mutated child is born.
It's a boy.
The librarian hands out cigars
Standing still she throws them.
One to be caught in my mouth
And I chew bitter with her hidden tears.
It goes down hard to find my guts more bitter.
A trilogy of little difference.
No Plot
Little character.
A mere division of humor
Naked facts
I smirk tiredly
Ripped edges
I hurt with doors
Digging in creating voids in my flesh
And orifice for eyes.
Disciplined I choose the narrow path
Finding it easier to follow
Blameless in retrospect
Introvert in recognition
Interned for eternity
Go on feel me die.
Opium of no taste.
It is a voluntary wither.
The Lone Poet (1996)
When I see the beautiful things
The things which are good and true
I wonder why I write these poems
And why I write to you.
It seems to me the poems I read
Are the ones you may never hear
I know to me that the poems I write
Are reminders that you're not here.
So when the moon shines twice as bright
And the stars brighter still
I find I lie awake at night
And think perhaps I always will.
Perhaps some words are spoken better
Than they are ever read.
Perhaps there are things written
That would be better said.
I know that poets are often praised
And writers claim their dues.
I know that writing has healed their pain
As such writing has healed yours too.
But I believe that words alone
Leave too many scars.
I believe that true healing
Can only be done with open arms.
But here we are with this poem
Telling me I lie.
But here we are with this poem
So I have no need to cry,
And here I stand reading this
Replacing tears for ink.
I stand reading this
Hiding what I think.
But sometimes when I am lonely,
And I am all alone
I wonder why if I can pick up a pen
I cannot pick up the phone.
They say that the pen
Is mightier than the sword,
And I, like Damocles, wonder if it
Should ever fall.
When the sun has set with the rainfall.
Or mist climbs up to my house upon the hill,
And I am surrounded by all these beautiful things
I know that if I was a swallow I would have flown
A little faster
I know that if I was a willow I would have grown
A little larger.
Know that as a man I walked a little slower
Never one with what I saw.
Too impatient to record.
To Mount Macedon (1996)
We three on the road.
In the car warm wind dances.
Between us alone.
Momentary Fragment (2002)
On one afternoon delight
Nature’s majesty cast a room of light.
By the elemental architect and builders,
Parting clouds sank down as pillars.
When, between opaque bars, sunlight burst
Forth golden colonnades.
Now all was furnitured by trees,
Upholstered emerald in grass.
The dying of the day
On the hill and fields exhibiting
Heavenly evidence in the things,
Each original and shimmering,
Under vaulted ether
The world magnified instantly beneath her
Changing, and animated
This domed and varied array
Created in enchantment.
Unlocked and bounded
With beams all surrounded
Onto the centre of my eye.
Praying, contrasted to calm,
Before the spray of a storm incoming
Whose rain’s warmth washed thy into formlessness.
Witness (2002)
Dear city,
Deserted Mystery.
Now only the wind
Between the bleating of the flock.
The windy echo of that
Does more than simply scour the ruins
Of your dark stones into sand.
Being a pale requiem
Weeping from beneath your rocks
Does sing to me in grains of sadness.
Begging empathy to emptiness
With your funeral symphony
You would never die,
And your once existence
Wagers with eternity for one instance.
Compared to now,
The ever present,
This is the shaking of skeletal hands.
My Poems First Volume.
The Sun is God. (2003)
I saw the sun today it was so beautiful.
It was not rising nor setting and no clouds framed it like burnished gold.
I saw it as an image on my monitor.
An image which in turn had been captured by some telescope.
Magnified in all its glory its surface a patchwork of flame,
A fiery maze.
It was beautiful. So beautiful and so fragile,
I realise now why it’s beauty seems greater when pitched against the horizon
It is because my eyes normally blinded by its light can then rest upon its glory
I am told it has burned for millions of years
And will continue to burn for millions of years.
But when my eyes can rest upon it and my thoughts can sleep on it
I admit that some part of me becomes afraid.
I am at a loss to explain how something so necessary,
And so life giving, can desire to give itself and ask nothing in return.
Surely nothing can be so fine and so sublime in power.
It strikes me as a pointed irony that the sun
Through my monitor unclothed by distance and the smear of smog,
Rounded and naked showed the reality of its existence to me for the first time.
I am giddy in knowing that if it can exist then surely it is capable of nonexistence.
I think I am in love.
Over this earth, this world, a speck of dust in space,
Life is a moments grace on this largest rock,
And the sun is God.
On Leave from Marsden (2002)
The milk boy was the first to tell her
face pale as the cream in the pitcher
and renewed stutter
bringing news of her death.
They called her type ‘a natural’
Elizabeth from the sill had seen her
gathering wild narcissus
by the road side - as fast
as they were gathered falling
With one hand to her cheek
Elizabeth wound a lock of grey
absently about her finger.
Heard the bacon spluttering on the range.
watching the girl with the round belly.
‘It was a young cadet that did it,
down on leave from Marsden.’
was the feed store rumour.
‘The pity - her a dumb mute.’
‘Gone fishing.’ Said her husband
the night before, tramping off
to the muddy brook; late returning.
Elizabeth looked up. ‘Nothing.’
was his reproach bringing
the empty bucket to the floor.
His boots were clean
Tackle dry in the box.
‘She had wandered after dark
and slipped.’ ended the milk boy.
Found her at an impossible angle.
Later in the parlour ,after dark,
the settee lined with brown
butcher paper to crunch under
her weight, Elizabeth alone,
counting with the hanging
seconds ticking from the wall.
To the Modern Poets (2000)
From couch potato all stiff and starchy.
To feared and teared at all the parties.
You wrote a nice book its very rich.
Don’t kiss or kill me but what makes you tick?
What? Not a word. Is your tongue bound?
I hear caution in your silence it makes a muted sound.
As if you hold your breath. Wait. Hear your ears pound.
Write it with your pen and know you’ve never told
Is your book worth your weight in gold?
Your book on an aged man lying for a century cold
And you so young to write on someone so old.
Mixing metaphor with your bold belief.
Though who talks of god saves my soul.
Please I beg understanding to do what’s told.
For you see I cannot trust my face.
In the mirror I stare blankly into space,
With eyes so deeply closed wide open
Blind to how I am week
It hurts for me to think as much as you to speak
Lest there be awakenings in our heightened sleep
Now the question that I undertake
Ha! Undertake. Oh. Excuse my cryptic pun spun for others sake
I ask to place my soul for your dark fate
Judge before I hesitate
Who am I to Judge?
I don’t know. Oh is that the key?
Are you asking who is judging me?
Beyond how I am seeing me as I wish to be seen.
But still all you speak is chosen all too carefully.
Selection is that the key?
Pardon. I mean no harm.
I know your state of discourse on historic recourse
Is given the critics mandate.
So you take the past to mould the future.
Apt pupil. What a lesson and tutor.
If my eye is my vision…
Oh do not answer like that!
To force fate is a deplorable slap.
Surely after so many knocks and echoing trails.
Making stepping stones on memory’s bedrock floor.
A rock. Yes a rock. This is the real question.
Ok. More the problem. Do you mind to
Key into my state of mind
The covers are drawn rendering me blind."
Writing and scribbling that’s the biz.
I don’t know where the ends are that’s the twist.
A strip sealed in circular ever rhyme
Now meeting itself and looks eye to eye.
To again claim such a beast hast been born.
Nay father these words and this eye that reads.
I have seen the slow scales of the dragon
Been blown by its breath in sour cessation.
By a pinprick still pinned and ever leashed to pain.
Tempered and presented for praise and blame.
In this room this dark room there is a rock
On this rock all written bigger than you
In the blackest ink is the Word of LOVE.
Going deeper down - now here is the rub.
You do not, have not laid hands against it.
Nor turn your back but face it. Thought to sing
And let your voice sink down into its core.
A low song, a whisper, a sigh, a yawn.
As an oak settles into a forest.
Or so high that your very words and thoughts.
Were the screech and twitter of the sparrows.
All were wasted echoes of love poured forth.
To bounce and renounce a heartbeat not heard.
Happy-sad memories of brighter days.
Turned mystery. Anything but break it,
And then you. And I tell only you this.
I tell you this. You would not touch that stone.
From hard nothing no one asked what is it
No one did come and pay you a visit.
You with shiny teared grief and spangled face
Creating in you thought of love undone.
Creating so much blindness by dust.
Camouflaged in tears till made mud and ash.
The only answer to all your questions?
Is to take lovely only brightest
Your last and first delight never lonely
Throw burning into formless history.
With all things remotely necessary.
Or in dead sands gripped by cold hands you float"
When your thoughts were spoken the spell was broken.
Enough of the chatting this gaping.
Your singularly you it twinkles.
What shines the brightest is what the heart
Delights in.
Observing love with pain pricked eyes
The far is made bright.
In vision twisted and knowledge blighted
The prick in time has held itself.
Even the cleverest men be brought hell
And an explosion of Truth.
Why must we float stand up and look around
For falling has ended and we have hit the ground,
And in a dragons inward breath
You breathed on it.
Across these floors desert ash
Became molten matter in the flame
And all that’s in it contained.
Mental alchemy in the words you choose.
Blending me and love and you.
Beneath your magnificent microscope unique.
In telling me the dream you did not wish to choose.
Why not be now loosed because of love?
Fifty Years in One Act (1996)
Cue:
Sound of fading Wedding bells.
Woman:
What happens now? What happens now my LOVE?
Man:
I take you and then we hold hands my dear.
Woman:
For how long my HUSBAND do tell how long?
Man:
Till we gain a son my dear until we get a son.
Woman:
And then my LIFE and then?
Man:
My life I must live; must live.
Woman:
But what of I my ONLY, my ONLY?
Man:
Only you alone can be lonely,
Woman:
But as I am YOURS are you not MINE...
Man:
And other men will come my dear.
Woman:
You are right. I see a priest, the priest my ALL.
So soon, so fast. so many autumns have fallen.
Oh yes I remember you. oh so Tall; so Tall!
-Now the briefest moment.-
Woman:
Are you there my Love? my Love!
Cue:
Sound of a clock ticking
Woman:
Am old and I am old.
Cue:
CURTAINS
Old Town (2001)
An outcrop of city blocks
Throw a shadow on the parking lot.
Sunlight cuts shapes in the park
And makes lace-work with bright and dark.
Grey cars crawl to a stop,
Fences, bricks and shops
Hide them like a rabid pack
To wait until the children cross.
Shopkeepers quote the cost
To window shoppers pushing carts
Who give vacant nods and keep on walking past
In boots which crack leaves sealed in frost.
Bringing cakes and passion fruit
Harps and drums and magic flutes
We fill the stairs and hallways.
Holding masks and waving fans
We hear the playing of the band
And take each other’s hand
To our way through the doorway.
When I pretend eternity
Stands close to me.
I make room.
Feel her breath.
Open my eyes,
Let melt all.
Banishing legions
Lose all thought
Find reason.
God is in the smallest thing expressed.
Days serenity and nights divinity.
Split by morn and eve into infinity.
Seconds with meaning
Every moment dull seeming
Is glory and ritual teeming.
Primed with pattern
We play a tiny part
Thus living on the edge
Makes nature’s heart.
Not if we open a door
But how we turn the handle.
Less the lighting of a match
More when we blow out the candle.
Solace (1996)
I think that there is a wondrous energy
Close and pervasive.
Too sublime for this plane it is felt
In utterances.
Encased in books
Between the covers and the lines
Enshrined in memories
Between two distant yet bound hearts
Enwrapped in dreams
Between two worlds destined to collide
The gateway between the miraculous and mundane
becomes wider.
We live separated by life.
Puzzled people; the scattered pieces of a puzzle
Stemmed by
A greater knowing that to be gone is to be without hope.
Death becomes unbearable when hope is sacrificed.
If we cannot hear one atom we could not hear all
We could not see one atom we could not see all
If we could not feel one atom we could not feel.
The duality of consciousness.
Consciousness of ourselves and others.
When all can be sensed we could only
Sense all things
Or we could not sense at all.
From birth to death
Asleep or awake
We are always open to all things
But fear our souls will break.
Should we be asleep or be awake?
Do I sleep for myself or awaken for
Others sake?
Only one life to give for
Only one chance at life.
The Fear and Delight
When we see
Ourselves hidden in other people’s eyes.
But what if
Our eyes have lied?
So we combine ideals beyond theory
And embody deeper needs in ourselves and others
And until these books are really opened by opened eyes we must
Wait in slow torment, separated and united.
This is our hope, our solace.
The Kingdom (1994)
Welcome Wordsmith to this poem
I humbly ask that you read this tome.
Please listen well to this tale I tell
about the loss of faith and a realm.
As a fan drops sliding across a golden floor
courtly laughter echoes within the marble hall.
Ladies in waiting exchange whispered dreams
while a gilded harp drowns out the distant screams.
As the aged king weeps bitter tears
the queen dances away her fears.
The prince shows a secret smile
and the jester prances with his winning guile.
For God and King the commander roars
to the charging hundred bred for war.
From horses high swords come crashing down
till like autumn leaves the dead strew the ground.
Outside all is now cloaked in death
and ravens pick at the kingdom’s best.
No more nights will fight this day
broken shields mixed with blood and clay.
Still their flag so proudly flies,
its many colours hide the lies.
But secrets sooner or later end
and an enemy may yet prove a friend.
For what is told and what is true
change as kingdoms win and kingdoms lose.
History blesses the chaste and just
while deceivers are claimed by ash and dust.
Those with wisdom be you young or old
pray your floors are not paved in gold.
For that which shines can also blind
and wealth that frees is known to bind.
With these last lines my tale must end
I wish goodwill to your King and his valiant men.
But beware the King you trust
or it may be you who returns to just ash and dust.
The Borrower (1990)
I clutch at any book.
A solid significance of time
And signature to my existence.
Although I do not face the pen
I cry to be blessed in my attempt to understand.
What another issues forth.
Hard and hollow
Like smooth velcro
It clings to my chest.
I see a glittered rip
That scars the faded surface.
On legs week with reality
I sink into the dream recorded.
Words as crushed brick moist with blood
And there is another issue
This time of innocence.
My vision is gritty,
A mutated child is born.
It's a boy.
The librarian hands out cigars
Standing still she throws them.
One to be caught in my mouth
And I chew bitter with her hidden tears.
It goes down hard to find my guts more bitter.
A trilogy of little difference.
No Plot
Little character.
A mere division of humor
Naked facts
I smirk tiredly
Ripped edges
I hurt with doors
Digging in creating voids in my flesh
And orifice for eyes.
Disciplined I choose the narrow path
Finding it easier to follow
Blameless in retrospect
Introvert in recognition
Interned for eternity
Go on feel me die.
Opium of no taste.
It is a voluntary wither.
The Lone Poet (1996)
When I see the beautiful things
The things which are good and true
I wonder why I write these poems
And why I write to you.
It seems to me the poems I read
Are the ones you may never hear
I know to me that the poems I write
Are reminders that you're not here.
So when the moon shines twice as bright
And the stars brighter still
I find I lie awake at night
And think perhaps I always will.
Perhaps some words are spoken better
Than they are ever read.
Perhaps there are things written
That would be better said.
I know that poets are often praised
And writers claim their dues.
I know that writing has healed their pain
As such writing has healed yours too.
But I believe that words alone
Leave too many scars.
I believe that true healing
Can only be done with open arms.
But here we are with this poem
Telling me I lie.
But here we are with this poem
So I have no need to cry,
And here I stand reading this
Replacing tears for ink.
I stand reading this
Hiding what I think.
But sometimes when I am lonely,
And I am all alone
I wonder why if I can pick up a pen
I cannot pick up the phone.
They say that the pen
Is mightier than the sword,
And I, like Damocles, wonder if it
Should ever fall.
When the sun has set with the rainfall.
Or mist climbs up to my house upon the hill,
And I am surrounded by all these beautiful things
I know that if I was a swallow I would have flown
A little faster
I know that if I was a willow I would have grown
A little larger.
Know that as a man I walked a little slower
Never one with what I saw.
Too impatient to record.
To Mount Macedon (1996)
We three on the road.
In the car warm wind dances.
Between us alone.
Momentary Fragment (2002)
On one afternoon delight
Nature’s majesty cast a room of light.
By the elemental architect and builders,
Parting clouds sank down as pillars.
When, between opaque bars, sunlight burst
Forth golden colonnades.
Now all was furnitured by trees,
Upholstered emerald in grass.
The dying of the day
On the hill and fields exhibiting
Heavenly evidence in the things,
Each original and shimmering,
Under vaulted ether
The world magnified instantly beneath her
Changing, and animated
This domed and varied array
Created in enchantment.
Unlocked and bounded
With beams all surrounded
Onto the centre of my eye.
Praying, contrasted to calm,
Before the spray of a storm incoming
Whose rain’s warmth washed thy into formlessness.
Witness (2002)
Dear city,
Deserted Mystery.
Now only the wind
Between the bleating of the flock.
The windy echo of that
Does more than simply scour the ruins
Of your dark stones into sand.
Being a pale requiem
Weeping from beneath your rocks
Does sing to me in grains of sadness.
Begging empathy to emptiness
With your funeral symphony
You would never die,
And your once existence
Wagers with eternity for one instance.
Compared to now,
The ever present,
This is the shaking of skeletal hands.