"Tout aux tavernes et aux filles."

Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
    Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?
    Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
    Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your ***?
    How do you melt the multy swag?
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;
    Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;
    Pad with a slang, or chuck a ***;
    Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;
Rattle the tats, or mark the spot;
    You can not bank a single stag;
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack,
    And on the square you flash your flag?
At penny-a-lining make your whack,
    Or with the mummers mug and gag?
    For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!
At any graft, no matter what,
    Your merry goblins soon stravag:
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

THE MORAL
    It's up the spout and Charley Wag
With wipes and tickers and what not.
    Until the squeezer nips your scrag,
***** and the blowens cop the lot.

When descends on the Atlantic
    The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
    The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:

From Bermuda’s reefs; from edges
    Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
    Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
    The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
    Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
    On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
    Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
    Strike the ocean
Of the poet’s soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
    In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:

From the far-off isles enchanted,
    Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
    Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
    That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
    Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate;—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
    On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
    They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.

pulling back the covers
dimming the lights

an owl calls
from the holly tree

just outside
of my window

the garden below
has grown beyond my control

weeds sprout vines tangle
in the summer squirrels gnaw

on the green holly berries
littering the courtyard

with half-eaten haws
in the spring mockingbirds

gorge on the bright red fruit
their florid songs

celebrating
light sky life sun leaf air

closing my eyes
I think back through the decades

to when I planted the tree
it was a time of hope

a time when we dared dream
of a world without

mortal enemies
when you could imagine

shaded islands of calm
hidden coves immune to rancor

now look at us
heads down lost hurtling

stumbling
under a trance

we have turned on one other
distracted by those

who grab wealth and power
under the cover of night

confused by the constant
trumpeting and alarms

blind to what we share
we retreat

into the darkness
of our fears

Tom Spencer © 2018

IT runs fluid between us and around
Rigid boxes can no longer contain it
the colour scale varies today
what is red is green anyway

The water in your eyes swirls like it does in mine
It drops out of the corners into our veins
ice seas leave unleading tracks
into treasured coves in our domains.

Its a touch of a finger tip and
not what they talk about in song
that pulled me into the air
that you breathed out

IT bursts and falls from trees
causing electric storms of desire
chasing the internal fires
that give us courage to dance in the thunder.

*Him and Her
Pulled towards both axis

There is a place in this world where we all belong

Where we can be as free as the wind and as reckless as the waves

We could sleep on the sand and walk the shores

Where the water will love us and we will care for it

Where we can swim forever into the depths of the sea

And explore the places where people have never been

And share secrets with the coves and have a family of miles of seawater

See creatures of other worlds and beautiful kelp forests

That’s where I would be forever and ever

I wish I could be there, live there

Soon I will be at the sea and live with the
Creatures

Soon that will happen

Everyone has that place they go to when the world is too much with them. Or at least, near everyone. Mine is dark, like the sea, and it’s full of stars. It’s not quiet. It’s endless and orchestral, swirling with symphonies that I haven’t quite heard yet, symphonies that are always just a galaxy out of reach.

And sometimes it’s full of fields. I’m from the city, but they feel like home. They circle me and the sky is blindingly blue and I count my breaths: One, Two, Three, and so on. Until softly the wind blows and there I can imagine a different sort of song -- it doesn’t elude me; it consumes me. It’s there in the breeze, in the drifting bits of dust and pollen and tiny particles of sunshine. It’s great and beautiful and the first song that anyone ever heard.

And every so often. Only every so often. That song changes. It’s still within reach, but it’s a different tune. The song is light with floating, glowing ash; it’s heavy with a million voices and laughs and other songs; it drips with summer drinks and rushes through my soul. I am not alone in some black, celestial ocean or alone in golden labyrinths; home is no imagined place, nor are others just comforting phantoms. I am with them. It is more breathtaking than the stars, and more blinding than the sky.

It was like this that my summer began. In musical swells of escapism, visions of melodramatic beauty, grander than my true surroundings. It was built up like Fitzgerald crafted the West Egg, and it nearly ended much the same way; a journey homewards marked with disillusionment.

First came the traveling. I had hoped to find something I’d lost, and started out my search in the throbbing streets of Barcelona, saturated with sunlight during the days and at night with the sounds from sports bars as the football games ended, or young lovers’ laughter along the clear, black Mediterranean coast. Even the most hushed, winding alleys were full of something; perhaps this was just some magical element I conjured to make every moment new and original.

In Spain I found sea food and chilled beer and a bright rose to color my cheeks. I found churches crafted with dizzying dedication, art that made my heart stop, that somehow filled the world with its own sort of symphony.

Then came Paris. There was wine, red and deep and romantic, wine that Hemingway might have brooded over, or that Audrey Hepburn could have brought to her lips on some glamorous getaway from her Roman home. I found walls too, covered with Degas, with Monet and Manet alike, with Da Vinci and the rest. I discovered what it feels like to survey the Luxembourg Gardens on a July day, from a high shady point where despite denim shorts and a boulangerie sandwich, you’re aware that you’ve been graced with something that holds a euphoric regality.

And finally came a trip to Maine. On the shores of Bar Harbor I saw the endless pines and clear blue waters that spelled out the promised land for the first explorers. Atop Cadillac Mountain, as I burrowed into my father’s jacket and hid my face from the wind, I found the stars, as endless as I’d dreamt. They danced for me as for Van Gogh and I could have died up there. I found cool mornings to be filled with walks to rocky shores, and tea and berries and books. There was a different quality here than had been in my European travels. It was introspective and quiet aside from the chirps of crickets and birds and the laps of waves on dark cliffs. I loved it.

Each place held its own collection. Sand and shells and Spanish fans; metro tickets and corks and long linen dresses lightened on the bottom from the waters of the Seine; sea glass pulled from the harbor and dream catchers and endless dog-eared pages. Physical, tangible, ephemeral things for me to grasp onto. I added them to my character, grafted them to my bones, made them my own.

But what use is imagined significance; I hadn’t grown or changed or even learned what it was I had been looking for. I was several weeks older, I had seen a few more corners of the world, granted meaning to trinkets and decided they added to my worth.

It was August then. Shorter days for fluttering leaves and the understanding that nothing separated me from the person I had been aside from the hours between us. Direction in life can’t be dreamt up, it’s earned. It’s what you’re allowed to have after you’ve fallen down and picked yourself back up. I fell, but chose to imagine a new self in faraway places where my troubles couldn’t find me amidst the breezy, sunny crowds.

The cobblestone Parisian streets, the docks of Barcelona, the coves of Maine; they were only where I fled to when my own world was too much with me. When I couldn’t find any use in continuing as myself, I invented a girl laughing on the edge of l’Arc de Triomphe, wading quietly into the inky mystery of the warm sea, or hiding in pine forests with a copy of Wuthering Heights and a serious demeanor. She was the same girl that lost herself into empty fields and dark oceans of stars.

Only one thing stopped the self-absorption that had claimed me that summer. It was nothing fateful; nothing original. I didn’t traverse the world to see this, and the experience was not mine alone. It didn’t hold any old hollywood glamour, nor was it the topic of any of Hemingway’s books. Or maybe it was. It was true, after all. It was the truest thing I did the entire summer; it wasn’t adorned with portraits or cathedrals or soaring landscapes because it didn’t need to be. Hemingway, I think, might have liked that. What I’m going on about now is that Every-So-Often moment. It doesn’t stand lonely in my memory, like so many of the others might. It’s brimming not with strangers and false romantic visions, but with the company of those souls you’re allowed to feel like you’ve known for your entire life, for more than your entire life. The sounds of empty seas and shapeless symphonies have no part; instead, there’s the strumming of guitars with songs so familiar they place an ache right in the core of you. You ache because that moment, full of bonfire and friends and song, is becoming you in a way that nothing else could have (for all of your efforts). It’s a beautiful ache, the one you get when you’ve come home after a long time spent lost and away.

There once was a man whose name was Moonie
He was a very handsome man
His skin was sun kissed, dark like a brown bears fur, soft like a baby's curl
And oh, the way his hair curled
Moonie had hair that grew outward instead of downward
His smile was as white as the snow capped mountains
His heart as warm as the coast of Australia, all year round
He smelled like matches and Dark Horse cigarettes
Like everything warm
He dressed like a professional troublemaker
His laugh came from his stomach when he laughed real good
And I've never heard him laugh bad
He loved like a father
Protected like a brother
Teased like a sister
And worried like a mother
He cursed like a sailor
But only when he was angry
Moonie had a fuse so long that if you lit it in January, it would take a whole 365 days for him to explode
But by the time 365 days past it was a matter that didn't really matter anymore
He had a mind like a turtle
He thought thoughtfully, slow and subtle
But he spoke like he knew every wonder of the world
He kissed babies and broke bottles on the backs of ships carrying soldiers off to war
Even though he was confused about what they were fighting for
Moonie spoke of peace and of hope for future souls
He loved everything from the edges of the universe
To the coral that grows in the deepest of the oceans coves
Moonie met a girl, who brought a whole lot of sunshine to his world
She made the lips of his mouth curl
Upward, it was a beautiful sight, especially with teeth that white
Moonie met a girl, he swears by the stars that she is incredible
Magnificent
Wonderful
Beautiful
Terrific
He says she makes his heart 10 times larger, like it's flowing out so much love that it makes his nose runny,
He calls her Sunny

There once was a girl named Sunny
She was a very beautiful girl
She had curly brown hair that fell just short of her shoulders
Skin that was kissed by the angels themselves
If you believe that kind if thing exists
She dressed like an artist
The kind that like to paint masterpieces
With every curve of the brush
She smelled like summer, like home, like sunshine peaking through rain clouds
She planted roses for those she lost,
In hopes of continuous growth and beauty
She spoke with the authority of an officer
But also with the gentleness of a butterfly
Her personality was layered like a Russian doll
And as you opened up every part of her she grew so very small
But not small in the bad way,
She was wise like an owl
But she was happy like a child at play
She cared like the ocean cares for sea creatures that swim in its depths
She cried like it was always rainy season
She laughed with a sadness in her eyes that was easy to detect
But she was happy
And she loved a man named Moonie
And he made her happy
And she swears on the rings that circle Saturn
That he is the most beautiful man on the planet

Sunny and Moonie lived together in a cozy home by the ocean
Where it was never too hot or too cold
They had a beautiful garden, that sprouted all different kinds of things,
Pumpkins that grew tomatoes
Watermelon that grew on trees
Potatoes that grew above the ground
Flowers with yellow stems and baby blue leaves
Beautiful birds flew around, bluejays with mocking jay wings
Their family was the world around them and they wanted and needed for nothing
Moonie was so happy
Sunny was so lovely
The things that they did, how incredibly they lived
How wonderful life had become
When moonie and sunny both lived as one

Then one day when Moonie was down by the beach
Sunny was in their little green house, fast asleep
Moonie slipped on a snail shell and fell into the pretty sea
When it got late Sunny worried and went to see
She called and she called
Moonie was nowhere to be found
He had fallen asleep forever, in the ocean's underground
The sharks and the octopus found Moonie and buried him deep
The sea urchin said we must bring him back!
But the turtle insisted that we must let him sleep
The flounder found Sunny by the shore and they brought her the news
The look in her eyes was as if her heart had been bruised
She look to the sky as dark clouds rolled in
The raindrops dropped to the rhythm of the tears on her skin
Her Moonie was gone forever in the ocean blue
She threw herself into the ocean saying take me with you
The flounder, the turtles, the mer-people and creatures of the sea
Tried to stop her from suffering the same fate as her dear Moonie
But she would let them save her as she fell into the deep,
Whispering, I love my Moonie and my Moonie loves me
She sank and she sank
She fell and she fell
She floated right next to her love
In the oceans pink sand
The most beautiful death in all of the land
Moonie swore by the stars that his Sunny was magnificent
And Sunny swore by the rings on Saturn that Moonie was the most beautiful man on the planet
They died together but they're souls rose separately
Moonie rose for the night
His love rose for the day
Sunny became the Sun
Moonie became the light that snuffed out the darkness of that day
And as they lived in their respective spots in the sky
They saw each other from time to time
They might have been punished for loving too much
Or they might've loved so much that the universe needed them to take care of us
For the Moon now takes care of the oceans tide
And the Sun takes care of you and I
I think Sunny and Moonie had it right
Even though they no longer see each other everyday,
their love is something you don't have to look so far to find
Maybe that's why you sometimes find the Moon and the Sun in the same sky
They're so close to finding each other, but they have so little time

You are the type of boy whose got saltwater in his bloodstream, bones like coral, and a heart made of driftwood – and at this point I’m just hoping someday you’ll wash up on my shore. I have seen the broken glass and beer bottle caps tucked in the folds of your sandy skin. I know how you left cuts on the feet of those who walked all over you. They were never sorry and you always were. Everyone else was too busy molding you into mangled and misshapen castles, only to stomp on them. Your soul was tangled in a mess of seaweeds and deep-sea debris. No one ever saw the brilliance of the sun's reflection in your smile that made you more dazzling than a million diamonds. But I noticed from the beginning that you were more than a temporary vacation spot or a convenient photo-op. and the shark-infested waters in your head shrank to puddles when you spoke to me in words like waves. To this day I can’t figure out what I did to deserve to be the only one you’ve ever allowed to explore your ocean floors, but I am grateful. I pressed my ear to your chest like it was the mouth of a conch shell, and heard the entirety of your ache without you saying a single thing. Violent storms churned in your belly at the hand of faceless puppeteers; made seasick by countless careless captains. But the sky cleared instantaneously the moment I came aboard. The same sun whose rays you’d always been wary of, now kiss your face the same way i wish to, taking utmost care not to burn. Your laughter is a school of fish filled with more colors than I can count and the sound of your sleeping breath is an ocean breeze. I am in love with the perfect shoreline curve of your mouth. Every day I find various buried treasures in your hidden coves and sunken ships, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of discovering you.

- m.f.

The middle class idea of theft--
where we eat at semi-fancy restaurants
seated at faux leather interior
deep seated dimly lit coves
dine in a sarcophagus of tasty mildew.

A youth lends their smile
teeth faintly shine through,
but roughly cut short of sincere;
on their lapel in fine print the label says Sandy.

Flexing water spotted plastic
black brim borders
and articulated names of food
that would put all of Italy to shame.

Porcelain plates hold lofty portions
of what is purely compensation
as texture and flavor remind me of my adolescence
this is when Playdoh and Crayons are used for flavoring.

A slate for my signature is provided
and the upside to this all
was the perfection of a pen they lent me
it was ball tip and bright pink--
finally something I'd be glad to take home with me.

Water wives live sheltered lives
Amongst the coves where pirates rove

Daily catch is makers match
Where red hot stoves hide fresh baked loaves

Water men are thick and thin
So often strove where shipmates hove

Water child is often wild
The treasure trove where pirates roved

r ~ 19Mar14

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
    There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his ***** Spring, when fancy clear
    Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
    Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
    Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
    He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness--to let fair things
    Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate,
And Emont’s murmur mingled with the Song.—
The words of ancient time I thus translate,
A festal strain that hath been silent long:—

    “From town to town, from tower to tower,
    The red rose is a gladsome flower.
    Her thirty years of winter past,
    The red rose is revived at last;
    She lifts her head for endless spring,
    For everlasting blossoming:
    Both roses flourish, red and white:
    In love and sisterly delight
    The two that were at strife are blended,
    And all old troubles now are ended.—
    Joy! joy to both! but most to her
    Who is the flower of Lancaster!
    Behold her how She smiles to-day
    On this great throng, this bright array!
    Fair greeting doth she send to all
    From every corner of the hall;
    But chiefly from above the board
    Where sits in state our rightful Lord,
    A Clifford to his own restored!

        “They came with banner, spear, and shield;
    And it was proved in Bosworth-field.
    Not long the Avenger was withstood—
    Earth helped him with the cry of blood:
    St. George was for us, and the might
    Of blessed Angels crowned the right.
    Loud voice the Land has uttered forth,
    We loudest in the faithful north:
    Our fields rejoice, our mountains ring,
    Our streams proclaim a welcoming;
    Our strong-abodes and castles see
    The glory of their loyalty.

        “How glad is Skipton at this hour—
    Though lonely, a deserted Tower;
    Knight, squire, and yeoman, page and groom,
    We have them at the feast of Brough’m.
    How glad Pendragon—though the sleep
    Of years be on her!—She shall reap
    A taste of this great pleasure, viewing
    As in a dream her own renewing.
    Rejoiced is Brough, right glad, I deem,
    Beside her little humble stream;
    And she that keepeth watch and ward
    Her statelier Eden’s course to guard;
    They both are happy at this hour,
    Though each is but a lonely Tower:—
    But here is perfect joy and pride
    For one fair House by Emont’s side,
    This day, distinguished without peer,
    To see her Master and to cheer—
    Him, and his Lady-mother dear!

        “Oh! it was a time forlorn
    When the fatherless was born—
    Give her wings that she may fly,
    Or she sees her infant die!
    Swords that are with slaughter wild
    Hunt the Mother and the Child.
    Who will take them from the light?
    —Yonder is a man in sight—
    Yonder is a house—but where?
    No, they must not enter there.
    To the caves, and to the brooks,
    To the clouds of heaven she looks;
    She is speechless, but her eyes
    Pray in ghostly agonies.
    Blissful Mary, Mother mild,
    Maid and Mother undefiled,
    Save a Mother and her Child!

        “Now who is he that bounds with joy
    On Carrock’s side, a Shepherd-boy?
    No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass
    Light as the wind along the grass.
    Can this be He who hither came
    In secret, like a smothered flame?
    O’er whom such thankful tears were shed
    For shelter, and a poor man’s bread!
    God loves the Child; and God hath willed
    That those dear words should be fulfilled,
    The Lady’s words, when forced away
    The last she to her Babe did say:
    “My own, my own, thy fellow-guest
    I may not be; but rest thee, rest,
    For lowly shepherd’s life is best!”

        “Alas! when evil men are strong
    No life is good, no pleasure long.
    The Boy must part from Mosedale’s groves,
    And leave Blencathara’s rugged coves,
    And quit the flowers that summer brings
    To Glenderamakin’s lofty springs;
    Must vanish, and his careless cheer
    Be turned to heaviness and fear.
    —Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise!
    Hear it, good man, old in days!
    Thou tree of covert and of rest
    For this young Bird that is distrest;
    Among thy branches safe he lay,
    And he was free to sport and play,
    When falcons were abroad for prey.

        “A recreant harp, that sings of fear
    And heaviness in Clifford’s ear!
    I said, when evil men are strong,
    No life is good, no pleasure long,
    A weak and cowardly untruth!
    Our Clifford was a happy Youth,
    And thankful through a weary time,
    That brought him up to manhood’s prime.
    —Again he wanders forth at will,
    And tends a flock from hill to hill:
    His garb is humble; ne’er was seen
    Such garb with such a noble mien;
    Among the shepherd-grooms no mate
    Hath he, a Child of strength and state!
    Yet lacks not friends for simple glee,
    Nor yet for higher sympathy.

    To his side the fallow-deer
    Came and rested without fear;
    The eagle, lord of land and sea,
    Stooped down to pay him fealty;
    And both the undying fish that swim
    Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him;
    The pair were servants of his eye
    In their immortality;
    And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright,
    Moved to and fro, for his delight.
    He knew the rocks which Angels haunt
    Upon the mountains visitant;
    He hath kenned them taking wing:
    And into caves where Faeries sing
    He hath entered; and been told
    By Voices how men lived of old.
    Among the heavens his eye can see
    The face of thing that is to be;
    And, if that men report him right,
    His tongue could whisper words of might.
    —Now another day is come,
    Fitter hope, and nobler doom;
    He hath thrown aside his crook,
    And hath buried deep his book;
    Armour rusting in his halls
    On the blood of Clifford calls,—
    ‘Quell the Scot,’ exclaims the Lance—
    Bear me to the heart of France,
    Is the longing of the Shield—
    Tell thy name, thou trembling field;
    Field of death, where’er thou be,
    Groan thou with our victory!
    Happy day, and mighty hour,
    When our Shepherd, in his power,
    Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,
    To his ancestors restored
    Like a re-appearing Star,
    Like a glory from afar
    First shall head the flock of war!”

Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know
How, by Heaven’s grace, this Clifford’s heart was framed:
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the Race,
Revenge and all ferocious thoughts were dead:
Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred.

Glad were the vales, and every cottage-hearth;
The Shepherd-lord was honoured more and more;
And, ages after he was laid in earth,
“The good Lord Clifford” was the name he bore.

Hidden coves of love disguised by cold eyes
Chances not yet given.
Angry tones escape tooth filled holes
Drilling dissent through another's soul.
Selfish is the only answer,
yet not an excuse.
Forgive the fool.
He is you
She is I
We are one.
Negative polarities combusting innocent eyes.
Lost in the essence of the moment.
This is an apology for the mournful cries.
forgive the fool
he is you
she is I
we are one.
distinct beings intertwined amongst the influx
passengers and neighbors, reactive tension
impulses of separation.
pause for a moment. breath together.
similar beings galvanized by difference
nutrition for acceptance.
forgive the fool
he is you
she is I
we are one.

Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites

of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal

pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark

on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.

~~~

Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of

mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows

splash,  re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at

gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?

~~~

Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer

cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless

flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.

On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble

over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze

over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole

song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -

coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined

existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.

Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.

~ 

i stand before this kneeling bench,
no sanctuary of our making;
its walls here open thrown,
on stained glass windows found
strewn upon the sand,
its tide-washed, polished glass,
my feet find holy ground;
my sandals left at driftwood door.
incense burns upon the wind,
its salty spray is mingled,
with my own upon
these joy-stained cheeks.
the worshippers that went before
have built a temple out of wood,
hewn, untouched by human hand,
a steeple to the sky is lifted,
and within its shelter,
remnants of a ring of fire,
smoke once lifted to the
heavens by believers true;
this church i see through salted eyes,
this scape awash in teeming life,
here i drink this living wine;
its ebb, its rush, its living in
each moment without need,
to connect each dot, or even speak.

i long to live at razor's edge,
where sands and tides collide;
the rocky shoals where dungeness,
find sustenance and shelter;
the coves where seabirds feed their young,
above the sandstone cliffs;
the bar beneath a setting sun,
in flames awash in waves;
find comfort ‘neath
the storm-shaped pine,
feel longing in the stinging air.
these cheeks that weep,
though want of tears,
not in sorrow mind you,
but in joy of freedom,
the lure of siren alter call;
of a close horizon on a misty morn,
the haunting breath of orca,
just beyond my sight;
the bark of ocean’s lion,
the roar of distant waves;
with these my prayers i send,
as i offer this my praise;
this church of no man’s making,
here i come for cleansing,
to breathe the life that i am given!

~

*post script.

by nature we are spiritual creatures;
spiritual... not religious.  reading your
sea-scaped prose inspires me; planning
changes in my own life even more so!!
it is said that we return to what we know
best... the ocean calls...

This is the kind of happiness that comes in waves.
Water fills coves and beach shores but just as quickly as the waves were given, they're taken away.
The tide is at its peak and I prepare myself for the emptiness I'm going to feel when it leaves.

All tools are ******* symbols in the eyes of the disillusioned.
The mountains are phalli, the valleys and coves, vulvae.
Cross country crotch rocket, crevasse stretching, rough landscape.
All interconnected, like the bluffs on the beaches, with holes right through.

Ismism
Feminism?
Masculinism?
*Equalism!

Two
pools
of green in deep yet shallow
storm filled waters churning up
sands of waves that have already reached their shores...

How is it
from the moment green met green
that two pools of darkly swirling currents would
churn and twist into whirlpools of retreat?

I want to feel your pull, your elemental
slithering past all thought all consciousness,
into the eddies and hidden coves of my dream states.

I know if I look, I will find you there.

How could I have lasted so long
in this existence without you?
Mistaken and settling for transparent echoes...
saccharine kisses and bitter aftertastes?

I feel you in the very air
around me. In the space that I occupy, I feel a shift in the atoms as you come
Near enough to taste, to sense, to breathe you in.

I am in the moment. as you are, wanting to occupy the very space you take, at one with you.

Needing to want
yet wanting to need you in all the ways that needing
you makes me want you even more than I do now...
An impossibility in it's similitude.

Not as much a minus,
a void that needs be filled, as an amplitude
of the very vibrational undercurrent of...

Life.

Throbbing as we circle
then yet again, come together in the way that
is as old... as time itself, yet a genesis in each cohesion

Of souls.

Let me breathe...into myself
your breath, melding skin on
skin and feeling you within

the very...Id...of all that Ego cannot say

Lying spent... two
yet one. Still feeling the shuddering aftershocks and ragged breathing
as the spinning of the globe slows for a moment

and the Universe narrows to one small cosmos, here within this shared delusion, this moment suspended.

Let me look at you for the instant it takes
And in that instant I pray that that moment takes life and you realize that there is no Other
There can BE no Other than You...For me.

Suspended until I find you again
and pools
of green look into deeper pools of green and the faintest flicker
Of the soul recognizes a piece of its own.

True and pure waters move deep beneath the surface for those who aren't afraid to hold their breath...and dive.

You hold my heart.
Keep it close to yours and guard it well now that it has been stripped bare
of all artifice and hardened scars.
It isn't weak, Only tender and new to this world

Give me your care and I will grow with you,
as strong as I know my character to be.

As strong as the woman who is worthy of an Other and a chance at love.
Real love.
Worthy of Life.

My storms have carved a vast, stark, yet rugged shoreline
Not an easy place to land, but there are inlets and coves for those
who know the rocks and reefs of these... deep waters.

There is no lighthouse to save me,
only this Ship Master to face these storms and stand
Within the waves as they move around him. Around the vessel, he has crafted with his hands, his wits...his love of the Deep

The Deep green I see... when I look into your eyes.

I do not want to consume you and yet I can not bear to let you go.

And so I beckon to you...as I feel
the pull as old as the tides to be near you, to be OF you, all around you.
Pulling you to me ever closer until there is no you, no me... no Other

We just ARE.

And I know you feel it too.

High on Hawk Hill, where ancestors of past had danced and chanted tunes of yore. Sat a modern man, dressed in illusion and bold in his character. He was of a consuming nation, and regretted that, but what
could be left behind here at these healing mountains not even the local bellman would speak.

So the modern man and a group of individuals all from distinct cultural groups waded down and through the rivers. Dis-clothed, they would look each other in the eyes. The clouds would hang like lily pads of atmospheric magnitude over head the stage of man, waiting, smiling, wondering. Bathing and cleansing, the beings would draw steam to the heavens from their radiating bodies. Rinsing with the herbal perfumes and seasoned smells, they would dress in flowers and beauty. Long dryad hair wore the women of druidism. Feathers and clothes draped from tribal piercings and exuberant head wear.

They stood wooden spires over peering exceptional mountain ranges which held the coves and nests of spirits. Something deep was within the Raven's Caw or the magic that the deer's leg print led to.

Piercing the corrugated peaked ridges laid within winding and glistening river banks which brought leagues of fresh fish to the bay peoples. Poking from root-stock, the medium mammals would bore warm dens with fresh nuts and berries to feed. The red gloaming sun would reign overhead when bellies were full and out would the children play. Songs were crooned throughout the lands and together the creatures of the bush would wander to join. And when the sun would squint its last ray and the darkness kissed the land with hovering summer warmth. Something ancient would hold the stillness.

Across those gigantic ranges was the spirit of nostalgic history. A thudding would be announced like the marching of a great ocean of ones forgotten. Bounds of diverse souls and spirits colored of rainbows from differences would pour and not even the most contemporary and constricted could argue the depth of beauty of these myriad mixed marching souls.

Curls of vapor rose like dancing spirits from the hearth of camp. T'was a nightly ritual that invoked the spirits of ages. For one man locked in trance to envision the union of souls, no matter immense diversity. Songs would project from those hollow vocal cords of ghosts harmonized and jiving. Limbs of smoke would wrap around the enchanted man, lifting him to realm of the immaterial. Those disembodied chants and drumming of old seemed to converge as the
man was dislodged from a heavy body. What was left was a golden hum of unison, floating, floating.

Hovering light like a cloud of non-density, buoyant in a space which seemed to have no points of reference. Simple and overwhelming was a warm and ecstatic hum of bliss that enveloped what should have been his body like thin silk robes woven of divinity. Laced in caressing arms he would drift slowly and softly back to a solid and still world of night. Exemplified darkness would circle a single dim lit fire, almost gone out.

Those drawing off hums would change tone and become the snoring of lovely plump women and young children cuddled. All of energy which once was exercised, was left but just a simmering coal of fire and pipe.
The smoke curled once more from the feather dressed man's nose, seeming a dragon in the night.

Tired would the night drift along into those colored dreams. Smoothly, the hills would rise and awaken into a purple, crisp morning bounding with birds. Squirrels would perch and nibble. Winds would brush glittering  glades. Hushed but ever known would the spirits rest in their eternal vaults..

A suite of fourteen poems

for Alice, always

I

Cutting for Silage

Seen
on the path close to the field edge
a swathe of green grass cut,
Left
in the wake of the machine
to dry in the hopeful sun,
Rich
in a profusion of grasses,
glimmers of wind flowers,
weeds and tares.

Seen from afar
the cut fields partition this landscape
with stripped overlays
packaging the valley,
dark green rows revealing
the camber and roll of
a naked field shorn,
Dark upon light.

II

Walk to Porth Oer

Where the sand whistles
and windy enough today
for the tinnitus to set in,
we’ll walk the curve of its dry fineness
left untouched by the tide’s daily passage
up and back

before
and along cliff paths,
from the mountain
past secret coves
whose steep descents
put the brake on all
but the determined,
beside shoulders of grasses
bluebelled still in almost June
now hiding under the rising bracken
up and down

we’ll walk to a broad view
of this whispering bay
where below on the sandy shore
dots of children
tempt the slight waves.


III

Cold Mountain

Whether  a large hill
or officially a mountain
it’s cold on this higher place
wrapped in a land-mist,
the sea waiting in breathless calm
where the horizon has no line,
no edge to mark the sky.

Any warmness illusory,
in sight of sun brightening a field
far distant, but not here,
where waiting is the order of the day,
waiting for grass to shine and sparkle,
for bare feet to be comforted
by sweet airs.

Meanwhile the sheep chomp,
the lambs bleat and plead,
the choughs throaty laugh
a shrill punctation, an insistence
that all this is how it is.


IV


China in Wales

In my hermitage
on this sea-slung place,
a full-stop of an island
back-lit illuminated always,
I view the distant mountains,
a chain of three peaks
holding mist to their flanks,
guarding beyond their heights
a gate to a teaming world
I do not care to know.


V


Wales in China

O fy nuw, I thought
my valley only owned such rain,
but here it teams torrential
taking out the paths on this steep
mountain side. Mud
everywhere it shouldn’t be.
Everything I touch damp and dripping.
No promise of pandas here.
And there’s this language like the chatter of birds,
whilst mine is the harsh sibilants of sheep
on the hill, the rasp of rooks on the cliffs.


VI


Boy on the Beach

Heard before seen
the boy on the beach,
a relentless cry
of agrievement, of
being badly done to.
This boy on the beach

following his mother
at a distance
then no further.
‘I hate you, ‘ he screams,
and stops,
turning his back on the sea,
folding his arms,
miserableness unqualified,
no help or comfort
on the horizon he cannot see.
It is attrition by neglect.
He becomes silent, and called
from a distance, relents
and turns.


VII


The Poet

Austere, his mouth
moved so little when he spoke,
you felt his words
were always made in advance,
scripted first
and placed on the auto-cue.
Ask a question: and there’s a long pause

as though there lies
the possibility of multiple answers
and he’s running through the list
before he speaks, his antenna
trained on the human spirit,
full of doubt, doubting even
belief itself.


VIII


A Gathering

Thirty, maybe forty
and not in a lecture room
but a clubhouse for the sailing
look you. And we did,
out of the patio doors
to the sun-flecked sea below us,
here to honour a poet’s life and work
in this village of the parish he served
at the end of the pilgrim’s path .

Pilgrims too, of a kind, we listened  
to the authoritative words
of scholarship where ironing
the rough draft found in the bin,
explaining the portrait above the bed,
balancing the anecdotal against the interview,
reading the books he read
become the tools of understanding.

But the poems, the poems
silence us all, invading the space,
holding our breath like a fist.



IX


In the Garden

He came alone to sit in the garden
and remember the day
when, with the intimacy of his camera,
he took her, deep into himself;
her look of self-possession,
of calmness and confidence,
augmented by butterflies
motionless on the wall-flowers,
and the soft breath of the blue sea,
her soft breath, her dear face,
freckled so, his hand trembling
to hold the focus still.


X


The Couple from Coventry

Young beyond their years
and the house they had acquired
but only to visit at weekends for now,
they drove four hours to open the gate
on a different life, a second home
requiring repairs on the roof
and replastering throughout.

With their dog they were walking
the mountain paths, checking out the views,
returning to the quiet space
their bed filled in an upstairs room
echoing of birth and death:
to experiment further with loving
before the noise and distraction
of children swallowed up their lives.


XI


On Not Going to Meeting

There was an excuse:
a fifteen mile drive
and a wet morning.
He had a book, a journal
that might focus his thoughts
towards that communion of souls:
a silence the meeting of Friends
sought and sometimes gathered.

These experimental words
of a man who felt he knew
‘I had nothing outward
to help me,’ who then, oh then,
heard a voice which said,
‘There is one, even Christ Jesus,
that can speak to my condition
. . .  who has the pre-eminence,
who enlightens and gives grace
and faith and power.’


XII


New Life

From behind its mother
the calf appeared
tottering towards the gate,
but after a second thought,
deeming curiosity inappropriate,
turned back to that source
of nourishment and life.


XIII


A Walk on Treath Pellech

Good to stride out.
Good to feel unencumbered
by the unconfining space
of beach and sea, a shoreline
littered with rocks and shallow pools,
sea birds flocking at the tide’s edge.

Alone he sought her small hand
and wished her there over time and space
so to observe what lay at his feet,
that he might continue to look
into the distance with a far-flung gaze.


XIV


The Owl Box

James put it there.
One of forty
all told but
empty yet.
‘We live in hope,’
he said.

Slung from a bough,
bent and bowed,
on a wind-shaped tree,
a hawthorn blossoming still,
(inhabited by choughs a’nesting)
the box hangs waiting
for its owl, her eggs,
her fledgling young
who are not hatched together
but are staggered as though
to give the mother owl some
pause for thought.

Meanwhile the nesting choughs
tear the air with tiresome croaks,
a bit of rough these black characters,
neighbours soon to the delicate mew,
the cool, downy white of the Athene noctua.

she wanders through the forests and the groves,
her bare feet scarce upon the mossy ground,
as day sinks into night without a sound
and sunset fills the skies with pinks and mauves;
and like a restless breeze she wildly roves,
a love-lost woodland dryad, summer-crowned
and who could ever guess where she was bound,
or why the sea so whispered near the coves.
her eyes as bright as a white-feathered dove,
beyond the river, near a sheltered tree,
she rests awhile finds lilies for her hair,
their flowery mist no prettier than she,
(enchanting in the hearkened, vibrant air,)
her heart soft-brimmed with longing and with love.

Capri

roofless cubes, spidery with wire,
cakes of azure and enzian;
above at the Villa San Michele
Rilke smiles down at the broken beaches,
coves of defiant waves, compacted sea

Pompeii

a chessboard of honest stones
open to a sky of hushed shouts;
we huddle in a ***** frame
of another life, a stopped day

Napoli

warm and secret, olive-eyed
you make a new face
as we gaze from a bus:
an act of moment

Chapter XVIII
Parapsychological Plot

They were in the parapsychological hypnosis session all undaunted by everything that could happen. The journey of a life through the hidden spaces of past existence was a reality. It all begins in antiquity where Vernarth was hypno transported to meet his inmates and comrades. He proved to be a great defender of libertarian ideals and above all not to betray his formation of great leadership of the greatest empire, with his immeasurable feats of achievement, of this super experience of reunion for a world past to more reunions for having lived and relive them again.

The master director of this great feat, acknowledged never having attended something that is compared to him, it is an unprecedented fact that would mark a new milestone in his specialty and the study of parasychology. The doctor together with his assistants arranged to reevaluate a new systemic therapy policy, in exchange for their own way of life, generating the largest plan of the episode of intercommunicativeness to planes and dimensions of the ancestral memory of the entire created world and those that its beneficiaries have been able to verify.
In the immediate vicinity of the clinical consultation, hundreds of people, curious, journalists and the media gambled. To which one of them asks the doctor:

Journalist: Dear Sir, I would have a coffee ... just when I heard about this great news. We decided to come to his interview. I consult you. What has been the greatest content that has differentiated this from the rest of the procedures that you have carried out, and how will your future method be to reconvert your specialty?

Parapsychologist says:  there are undoubtedly innumerable connections in our life and beyond ...., But now I have found routes that I did not think I was capable of knowing at this point. And I think that now they will be more than I could count in my entire active professional life.

At that moment, his assistant called him urgently to tell him that an emergency had arisen. They both rush in and enter the cabin. And they manage to perceive that Vernarth was with the clothes on a sofa from the time of the exploits of 331 a. C. requested that they excuse him for his demands and needs, but he had a lot to propose and deliver to his comrades who were in Bumodos. Considering his beloved wife, Walekiria, who was as always preparing elixirs and essences for the restoration of the recipe for his chest and limbs. He had an urge to improve this whole process before the next Ekadashi, to enlist with new stages of his worksheet. Surely he should return to Patmos to take over the pantry and library of Saint John the Evangelist. He had to restore local buildings, house rooms, temples, regional development works, and regional art. Another elementary task was to take care of agriculture, and obey Hera's designs, for the next millennia to re-awaken from the cultures that survive on themselves. “Another of their great passionate obligations was to ride through Macedonia for the sunrises that run through the grasslands of grass and the swarm of hieratic insects, when the Oracle of Dodona made them polish their germinated seeds in the arms of dawn turned into Fireflies. He flew with his horse, appearing to be acclaimed from all over the world for his “Liturgical Conclave”. To surrender in its entirety to the pazos  of time on their Alikanto, beyond all the Eras and Millennia incapable of evading the disgraced ways by consolidating a new firmament. ”
Countless times Vernarth and Alikanto are seen crashing into the gleaming valleys and shores, encapsulated in the fields with the golden hooves of their steed, ushering in a new rebirth of their adventures, which are more than the same as God would entrust to a individual anxious to reissue Genesis or a new collaborative proposal with the Evangelist in Patmos.

Parapsychological Session resumes:
Vernarth, wake up. And she comments to those who accompanied her. ” I thought that as a child playing with weapons was only entertainment. Today I have realized that this never ends. Now I know that they are waiting for me in Patmos”. He quickly says goodbye to everyone and the rest remain undaunted by such a decision. Vernarth continues; I'm leaving with Raeder and his pelican Petrobus. Alikantus is also grazing for this long journey. Even every time he takes me away, he gets an allergy in his nose that makes him lose his nose. But my magic steed laughs at the ridicule and the decline of all doubts imposed on it. From Gaugamela who has had intermittences with his nose, but we will arrive at Patmos. The afternoon is darkening and is tinged with predominant whitish-white colors; Raeder arrived, entering through the large gentle window. They were preparing to begin the journey.

Vernarth greets him with a gesture of courtesy to Raeder, who offered to leave running from the new exile, it would be one more contingency. From that moment, he stood in front of Petrobus. Telling you; The Great Hour is undefeated in the face of the setback, it will be a great amenity to be with it.
Petrobus says: Greetings my lord! With my master Raeder we have been attentive to this moment, to overcome the best wishes of taking him to the Dodecanese and then from there to the Grotto of Patmos.  Where well known will be welcome in the house of the Evangelist. The time has come to leave ...!

“At that moment, Vernarth remembers an animal that was in a forest when he went to collect species as a child. He lunged at the animal; Vernarth looked at him squarely, then left. The animal followed him walking for several hours, until suddenly he looked to the side and was gone. He still misses this entire magical continuous event and with this cycled image of the animal kingdom. When he was preparing to arrive at his palace almost at night, he appears again before him, the animal showing him the desire to accompany him. Vernarth  looks at him and they start running, each time imposing more speed on the go. Vernarth screamed with contagious laughter and happiness. While his companion fired circulating cries that were confused with soft longings to address him by the middle ear and rule him. But beyond there, they both laughed almost turning and merging two into oneself, festively eager to laugh at the secretion that every man fills his soul, have another similar competing in a race without knowing where to go ... or why to leave? . "

React from that moment; Petrobus was blowing the room with strong and swirling winds. Raeder takes Petrobus by his golden feet and prepares for the journey.
Raeder says: Vernarth await us! We have to suspend ourselves at the dawn that glides through the winds of the wheat fields of the Dodecanseso. Petrobus will go near the iris of the great atmospheres, and will be supported by the great masses of winds that will take us to Greece. We intuit that Kanti, will then pass to escort us and join our events beyond the bend where the guidelines collide where the sea and the sky end, where Zeus will give us the good things.
  
Parasicological ellipsis in Piacenza:
Piacenza, Italy in 1887. It was right here where all the parapsychological regression was carried out. In the two-story house, he had two feline pets; Rannura and Catutto and three Tupac dogs, and three Canela and Bianca females, followed by Mara. These mysterious and resilient cats, at night they used to scare their inhabitants changing the tone of their meows by those of large beasts. But generally they were seen sleeping in their bedroom, one of them looked at them from the closet and pondered a compliment. The other was quiet near the feet of some of the two from Vernarth or Walekiria.

Its dwelling It is located in the padana plain at an altitude of 61 meters above sea level, on the south bank of the Po when the bushes change in autumn to the average of adult trees and the Trebia river meets in the west and the Nure torrent in the east from the city. She was always going to trek a few kilometers south, close to the slopes of the Piacenza hills, the first propagations of the Ligurian Apennines. Here they all passed through together, in such a way that there was no time to clean up or calm down in trifles. It was all playful diplomacy. Even when they rested, the pets teased him to continue with the ritual of running and running in circles through the groves, some flowery for ***, yellow lantanas, ornamental citrus etc. And why not name Pyramid Cypress or cemeteries...

Here his brother Etréstles always came in the spring with Drestnia from Messolonghi, Greece. Lía, the Muse who loved them both when they attended the Tuscan festival, usually came to visit him. Where he met Maddalena Tressi,  her greatest fortune teller of her regressive ancestral journeys, great inspirer of her artistic, religious and secular works at a great spring carnival. Whose name derives from the one used by Greeks and Latins to designate the lands occupied by the Etruscans, a territory of fertile plains surrounded by the main mountain ranges. The Tuscan landscape is characterized by the undulations that form the hills invaded by vineyards, olive trees and cypresses, especially in the footsteps of the Troncosada, which were and will be reunions of Italian families, of which there is no support or limestone that remains intact to its omnipresence.

In 790, a capitular of the Carolingian king of Italy, Pipino, in whom he acted on behalf of his father Charlemagne, prohibited the citizens of Piacenza by deliberately granting citizenship to those who depended on the king, thus allowing someone to escape control of this. The prohibition prevented escape from royal power. The city became famous on May 10, 1847 when the annexation to Piedmont took place, which started the long process of the Unification of Italy, which culminated in 1870 with the incorporation of the Papal States. Vernarth undoubtedly before closing the door inside his house opened it for a well-deserved new constitution of the right to acquire.

From here he went on great excursions to the Island of Sardinia in the autumn, where they lived from 1874 to 1877. Sailing trips were true insignia that shone through the waters of the green Celestine Sea. In an emerald sea between large and small coves of white sand ... on the celestial map of Sardinia, great syllogistic light of the Mediterranean for only them, with a territory full of galleries and bookstores, mainly mountainous for their walks and a half barefoot in summer, and with high chamber music peaks. The presence of Vernarth and Etréstles, attracted a lot of attention here, because they were seen every 50 or a hundred years, always seeing that their environment appeared the same, but humanly different. Sometimes in this territory, there are large areas that remain magically intact, inhabited by deer, wild horses and birds of prey, rich in forests with ancient trees, ponds and small desert areas where they both rose, to dissipate the sea that reigns with its colors and it is insinuated in the hidden coves, along the coast and on the beaches in the most frequented towns. The Emerald Coast, on account of impatient dreams in a little gem such as Porto Cervo, Porto Vecchio and Porto Rotondo, the latter facing the Gulf of Cugnana.

Great commotion attributed their curiosity to them as they were older, and where every millennium to be inaugurated they went to the nuragic complexes scattered throughout the territory: Unique monuments in the world that serve as testimony to an ancient and mysterious culture, dating from the fifteenth century to VI BC The nuraga, built with large stone blocks, were developed around a central tower in the shape of a cone trunk, which transmits solidity and power. These are archaeological sites where signs of ancient rituals and domestic life can still be found today.

In this algebraic cradle, it is where his Liturgy will connect linearly with Patmos and evangelization methodologies. All the seasons of travel to this mysterious area, he summoned them to meet and plot the 1,020 km. Where no thread of life is left unpatched without their repeated prayers before each glass of wine served, not even in the darkness of the Mausoleums themselves of the Troncosada, noble family originally from Venezia, in the early middle Ages.


Ellipsis in Tuscany, Villa Gamberaia
Vernarth, and Etréstles and Valekiara, are approaching the coincidence of Tuscany. Once they stayed in Sardinia, a coastal sailboat transported them in the middle of a stormy day. It was a great happy day to arrive in La Spezia.

They arrived, in a bright cart devastated by the olive trees, near the Villa Gamberaia, after eating some bacon and cheese sandwiches. This villa was originally a country house, which was owned by Matteo Gamberelli, a bricklayer, in the early 15th century. His sons Juan and Bernardo became famous architects by the name of Rossellino. After Bernardo's son sold Jacopo Riccialbani in 1597, the house was greatly enlarged, then almost completely rebuilt by the next owner, Zenobi Lapi, documents from the time mention a limonaia and the landscaped bowling alley that is part of the garden in today's design. Here they parked and at night they followed the Liturgy, highlighting those that coincided with Lent of Easter, where one day they were seen talking with Petrarch and Laura de Noves. Here Vernarth with them offering the modest auction that without a doubt would bet one day on this Villa of immemorial centuries with great challenge to its ruse, and of such architecture.

“A little more history…, The flower bed was presented with French-cut broderies in the 18th century, as can be seen in a detailed map of the estate described by Georgina Masson. The olive trees have always occupied the slopes below the garden, It has a distant view of the roofs and towers of Florence. The monumental fountain set on a steep hill on a side flank of the garden terrace has a seated god flanked by lions in stucco relief in a niche decorated with pebble mosaics and padded masonry. ” Here at the Verbena of a long feast day, everyone together with Vernarth got drunk with Corinthian Wine, which they brought and did not stop from the swing of the rhythm of the music that made them foresee their multi existence beyond their limitless sensibilities.

The parapsychological plot took them through multiple spaces of their frantic journey, as if they were being recently procreated by their heavenly and earthly parents, before they resumed the end with Kanti, Reader and their pelican Petrobus. This outcome would mark a new path of valleys on valleys, to shelter and fill their memories, especially their great navigation to the Dodecanese and Patmos, so close and intertwined with Sardinia as two islands united by the same new ocean in which we will have to navigate, and domains to ride shipped around the world.

To be continued , under eition

The old and now empty railway track
Where iron horses will never come back
Carried trains along it on two four four
Driving along to the Welsh sea shore.

Children would travel with bucket and *****
Later to wonder at castles they’d made
While Mum and Dad with bags by three
Wondered if they’d brought enough for tea.

From Stafford station it pulled away
Stopping at Newport along the way
Then Shrewsbury town and Machynlleth too
Pulling in at Barmouth just after two.

Passengers piled out in their droves
Most of them looking for shallow coves
Mums carrying babies who’d often screech
Heading for quiet spots left on the beach.

To Mum and Dad it was a well earned rest
From their working days and household stress
And the joy of seeing children have such fun
It meant the holidays had begun.

Some days later, maybe three or four
Passengers waited by carriage doors
And back to their homes they all would go
With tales to tell to folks they know.

And as they journeyed East again
Saying goodbyes to holiday friends
They felt refreshed and enjoyed the ride
As the train sped away from the wild Welsh tide.

©JRW2014

Really?
Why don’t we just
Break it off?

This must be a test
Of endurance
Or self-sacrifice even.

We both don’t know
the waters around us
anymore.

There are no safe coves
or humble islands.

So we drown in the
fishbowl of our little whims
And tiny gripes.

That keeps us together.

I know that every-time
You get into bed,
You think
“****,
this guy,
again?
I hope he chokes
on a cheerio.”

And I’m thinking
“****,
this girl,
again?
Why can't it be socially acceptable
to **** someone
with a spoon?”

So why are we still here?

Why do we remain
When everything else has left
in boxes.

We eat our sorry cheerios in silence.

In bed
you keep mentioning a bowl,
that separates the milk
from the cheerios,
like I'm not good at code.

And I feel us growing closer
in scales.

my heart
like a small drunk boat
between two coves  
with no oars,
like the the top of a match stick  
ready to be lit

my heart
like a bustard
wandering on the mine fields of regrets,
like  seagulls
lost on the fingers of
a fool poet

my heart
either will get lost on these flows
or resurrect on these ebbs

poems like no words
is my heart

On our bikes, day after day
Wheeling along the West Country Way
From Georgian Bath, that Jane Austen knew
To Glastonbury Tor, our challenge still new

Where are we now, is it this way or that?
Another cool stretch on a railway track
No one fell off, no one got hurt
Except now and then by a few cross words

And so over Exmoor, our longest day yet
It was football, not cider in our Somerset
Sea views and fresh air in Westward **!
We could have stayed longer but on we go

The hills are getting longer, tall hedges either side
Our legs are getting stronger now we've found our stride

The Eden project was on our route
So we had to stop and see
The scene was complete in a bio-dome
With David Attenborough filming for tv

Past holes in the ground where they dug the clay
Along old canals our journey panned out
Then over a beer at the end of the day
Out came the map for the mileage count

On through the ancient landscape we go
Past the odd castle or stately home
Past sheltered coves and beaches of sand
And on to the end  -Lands End-
Where we ran out of land

The mold you breathe in
Grabs your roots and invades your curtains
But you are still here
And though your mind wanders miles
Unraveling
Your body it trembles with unseen
Genius smiles
The gaps in your teeth scream
For truth
In their finger curls
You've got it
And it glows
Humming patiently
In those hollow recesses of your
Self-contempt
Begging those shallow breaths
To deepen and unfurl
Where hopeful racing heartbeats
**** the dark and empty coves
Licked by moonrises
And soothed by the tides

Despite the cheers, fears, tears and years. In spite of pain or of the rain… the distain in vein! Oh dear it’s insane! Hear the reindeer as they adhere, jeer and peer? Now remember the chance and dance; their glance and stance. Wow! Remember how they pranced? Remember
September? Barefoot on top of bear’s soot. The colored leaves, in only

our shirt sleeves. Remember October and November? The heaps of discolored leaves. Remember December, remember the embers? Remember to achieve and to believe. Remember to grieve, to perceive
and to see. Remember above the coves, the doves and the shoves,

remember love! Remember the deranged and rearranged. Remember the angels, the angles, the dangles, the strangers and triangles. Remember the countless and the relentless. Remember the byes, the cries and the whys. The lies, the doggy-puppy eyes! Remember the

awkward and backward! Remember the smiles, the many, many miles... Remember the romantic picnics? The manic, the panic attacks! Remember the blacks and the smacks! Remember the debate, the fate, the great and hate! Remember and endeavor, forever…