SHADOWS OF OUR FORMER SELVES

April in Paris
John Donne has indigestion
pines for words from the Isle of Wight

"...whether I be
increased by a child or
diminished by the loss of a wife..."

his baby is born
dead
his wife lives

words...words
these creatures
made of ink

he begins his Anniversaries
Elizabeth Drury becomes a symbol
for the death of youth and beauty

Ben Johnson scorns
such
extreme lamentation

"If it had been written of
the ****** Mary
...it had been something!"

"...she, she is dead; she's dead:
how wan a ghost
this our world is..."

"the imputation of having said
so much
...to say as well as I could...

an Emperor is
about to be
elected

the busy old sun
rests for a moment in
an empty room

*

Being in Paris 'round about the time John Donne was ( but not the same century)and seeing these graffiti people on a wall across from Le Lapin Agile in Montmartre reminded me of his circumstances at the time and what was going on around him in his world.

Second guessing my goodbyes
cursed us back in February
but now it is July.
Found myself hot and running
full sprint, shirt unbuttoned
back to you,
you are something.
Something to chase
and something to hold
a flame worth protecting
a memory, not yet too old.

It's been 5 years
but I still wish you'd touch me again
bring life back to my skin.
My eyes will grow wide like a deer's
blood rush to my ears!
For you I am prey,
and I hope you know, my dear
no one has ever seen me that way
never been permitted to stay
and to smell my humbling fear.

WORD FROM BABEL

buildings floating
on a sea of fog
passing me by in the night

out at sea
a foghorn moans
a great prehistoric beast

who would
at any moment
stomp ashore

a Godzilla gorging
on a human or two
before retreating to

the time before
time was
God not in his heaven

the ghosts of people
walk about the streets
the living and the dead

all the one
as the fog
eats the world

my building is just
several countries squashed
into several squalid rooms

no one would live here
if they had to
they have to

we the people
lost
even to ourselves

Finnish floats
out of broken windows
Spanish slides under bolted doors

Italian caught in
filthy Venetian blinds
Irish blocking up the sink

the great stink
of humans trying
to get by

?think?
the last thing anyone would
want to do

we get by
by getting by
weirdos amongst weirdos

a welter of tongues
each a stranger to the other
getting in a lather

the babble
from Babel
lost in language

I alone
remain alone
self kept to self

walk these mean streets
like a fictional detective
in some dime store novel

buildings floating
on  a sea of fog
passing me by in the night

The under shell of
the tortoise looked
like a sunset.
Blasts of color:
orange, maroon, burnt sienna.
I caught them in
the garden at
sunrise, eating a
tomato or chewing into
a head of lettuce.
They always looked so
serious.

I was just a
sunburnt boy, with
cutoff jeans and a
straw hat.
I caught toads too.
But when they peed on me,
I let them go.
I loved that land.
Ponds and streams,
fishing and climbing trees.
oh,
sweet, green
youth.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

she's a mere three
demands to know
"...the history of me..."

well, now I say
that was a long time ago
"...try to remember..." she pleads.

I remember when you
first came out of your shell
hatched into a lovely little girl

you were my duckling
everywhere I went
there you were

I could hear you cry
even before you cried
you made me a good daddy/mummy

your dreams
staining the blue
pillow with golden curls

every night the moon
would come to our window
just to take a peep at you

one day your name
perched upon you
and never flew off again

you were a fairy story
I had never heard before
and wanted to hear more

once when you fell
you hit the road
"Naughty road for falling me!"

"No I never!"
she squeals
"Oh yes you did!" I tickle

"Is there any more of me?"
"Oh loads...loads more
but I too old and tired!"

"Well..!" she tells her dolls
"He tells a good story but
shhh...it's not all true!"

the dolls gasp in disbelief
having drunk  down
the dregs of every detail

I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A WAVE

she brings me
the sea to see
in her tiny hands

tamed in blue buckets
the captured sea
sleeps beside her bed

*

It was the first time she saw the sea and she patted it like a pet and said; "See...sea my friend!" The sea fell in love with her and she fell in it.

Her mother was sick and couldn't make it down to the shore so Tilly kept trying to bring back the sea for her to see. But alas the sea would trickle through her little hands so nothing survived the journey. She kept trying and repeating " See the sea Mammy...see the sea!" or "I have brought you a wave!"
She managed to smuggle some sea home in her bright blue bucket with the red stripe and she kept it by her bedside because it was her friend. She would also sleep with twigs and stones and shells she had also befriended that day. She regarded everything as a sentient being and loved them all equally. To her a stick or a stone had as much right to a life as a human being or a bee. I think she believed that we are all here in this moment and so all living beings sharing the same place in the universe. Loving and kindness was her religion and she practiced it daily and embraced everyone and anything she saw.