Awakening slowly in morning shadows,
Céline senses what might now ripen and
grow within her. The earth is ringing out.

By obscure transitions, affirming visions in
the girl’s self-determining mind are revealing
new depths to her evolving character.

The nameless hour has arrived, that
mesmerizing, eternal hour, when children
cease to look vaguely at the sky.

What was previously dreaming confusedly
in her eyes now takes on a more determined
glint; her resolute grin also declares it.

While still half asleep, a single delightful
odour communicates itself, returning the
nine-year-old to an autumn lived long ago.

Unaware that the Madeleine returned Proust
to his childhood, she suspects memories will
awaken and breathe when odours are good.  

The bitter, sticky fragrance of rice cakes
cooking on the breakfast fire has returned
Céline to her to grandmother’s kitchen.

She shakes herself awake, blaming the sweet
odour on a dream, but she has bounced off
the intimate memory of grandmother’s cakes.  

Her sense of it is sleepy, but she’s aware
that this odour is beginning to introduce
her to visions of a life she has not yet lived.

Then, unaccountably, a series of echoing
sounds accompany the scented reverie and
her potential universe unravels further.

It’s no vague hint; it will sleep in her heart
forever, or until she is rocking her worn,
old body in a warm rocking chair.

Attuned to the fountain’s sweet harmony,
she imagines the multi-layered sounds are
multiplying with endless new variations.

The gathering vision washes over her in
soothing waves of strange calm, mixing
a taste of knowledge with hints of mirth.

She discovers these sounds to be edible and
having feasted on her memories, she now lifts
her head to facilitate her feeding on the future.

She can smell all there is to know
roasting in the sky. No words come
but she vocalises the amiable sounds.

Breathing rhythmically, it is no surprise to
her that life can be sensitised in this fashion;
she has played reverie like this before.

Céline knows how to curl away, go
deep within, sing in her head and
rejoice in opportunities of solitude.

She bids her sleep-filled body to stir,
re-affirm who she is and discover what
the welcoming sounds have in store.

No answer comes, but fortified and grateful
for the magical reveries she surrenders to a
forest that will be wild beyond her knowing.

Drinking in the dawn like a cup of spring
water, she prepares to enter the heart of this
forest by vowing to stay close to her heart.

A girl runs to fabled woods aiming
to sing a forest of songs.

Dreaming of applause, she takes up
residence on a woodpile.

For her it’s cheap to repeat verses
from popular chorus lines.

She demands potential, expansion
and radical improvisations.

What happens is that improbable
verses pop up out of the blue.

Secretly she imagines that others
Might like to join in, but who?

Looking straight ahead, she has no
intention of singing a ballad.

She sings oblique medleys that lack
any detectable connotations.

For her, ambiguity and wonder
should sit high on the horizon.

She has never tested sung surprises
on a new audience before.

Her refrains anticipate harmony,
but her voice flies far from it.

Had an audience been present
they’d have labelled it tuneless.  

She looks around for kinship and
emotion without keeping time.

She is oblivious to her vanishing
chords and musical silences.

Symphonies resound inside her
head, but her voice is silent.

It doesn’t germinate songs as the
chest of another singer would do.

She bonds with rhythms, oblivious
to the merits of transmission.  

They rang out once before when she
had fasted from speech for refuge.

The songs she dreams of are subtle,
Personal, ambiguous and obscure.

She can’t even imagine singing
them to the people she’s closest to.

She sings to the trees about things
It’s just not possible to say.

Her unobtrusive sounds fall far
short of anyone who has ears.

In the silence of recovery, she
hears solitude residing inside.

This is a deep place where tongues
fail because intention succeeds.

Her sounds express nuanced truths
that the trees alone understand.

The forest bathes in this sonorous
invitation echoing beyond the bark.

The leaves applaud, they wave,
flicker and join with the singing.

It’s rare for woodpiles to pulse
with song or breathe with breath.

Nothing is too small

A hairpin of gold wards off the cold,
subtle music sounds when I wrap myself
in a silk shawl: nothing is too small.

In this game of consequences my
duplicitous imagination, like the sunset,
manages to heat the old villages by the lake.

Hidden

In the autumn twilight, my words blend their rhythm
with bird song, dance across bridges and linger in the
summer pavilions, free from their birthplace on paper.  

Those that fell outside the garden were covered in blood.
Feeling the shame others should feel, I gathered up my words
And returned them to my heart where I could nurture them.

Decisions

As we were landing on the African
continent, I wondered if now was the time
to admit to my wife that the morning
I decided we should move our home south
I’d mistaken a cloud of fruit flies for
A swooping swarm of migrating swallows.

Redemption

1. Happy Joe Lucky

Happy go lucky Joe trusts cheerfully to
Luck and never worries about the future.
To be lucky is to be wise, but some say Joe’s
Good luck is also his foolhardiness.

Joe never evades love.
He never shuns demands.
He never dodges conflict.
He never inhibits invitations.

2. Carla Maria Mendoza

The ballroom invites Carla out of the
Repressive hole she has spent her life in.
As the dancers whirl past she wipes away
Tears trickling down her astonished cheeks,
Aware that her knees have started to move.

She is working more intensely than at
Any time since she was five; her tears are
Joy and the look on her face is elation.
Carla is re-charging her batteries,
Taking the world in, weighing it all up.

Carla thinks by moving in unison,
These dancers shake off futile defeats.
More than anything she wants to lose her
Divided self in their collective world
And have pleasure unite her many parts.

She needs lifting out of her oppressive
Disquiet, her relentless struggle to stay
Alive, to be reborn on the dance floor.
Dancing as a child was miraculous
And she’ll be a magical child again.  

3. Joe and Carla

Carla moves gently up and down,
Thinking that fruit is rewarded with
Sweetness after months of bitterness.
Joe sees the intense piety of her moves
In silence; his words would shroud the
Ecstasy of her actions in obscurity.

Smiling, Carla unbuttons her shirt.
She remembers the angel of death
Gliding gracefully into her bedroom,
Displaying his impressive wings.
She’ll never be afraid to die alone.
No one enters Joe’s world lightly.

Joe offers Carla-Maria his hands.  
She opens her arms; her coat falls.
Every dancer watches as Carla takes
Joe’s hands and slowly shuffles one
Foot forward and then the other.
Joe’s archaic life glows with intensity.

The life of a sensualist is not an illusion.
Brief encounters and chance events are
Ephemeral but noble, they’re like gifts of
Abundant moisture from a virile earth.
Joe bends his knees, willing Carla’s love
Of pleasure to bloom. Her bliss is close.

Not expecting a dance to occur, Joe
watches Carla shuffle forward wearing
A smile that has the countenance of one
Who deserves a reward. She’s sharing a
Thing that’s close to poetry, carrying
Out an act of justice that’s long overdue.  

Seeing the disquiet that has filled Carla’s
Days, Joe whispers gentle words in her ear.
Let your action start at your heart, move
It to your back and send it down your legs.
All eyes are directed at Carla who is snared
In the carnal existence of ballroom dancers.

Reticence is about to engulf her when she
hears Joe whispering again. Be indulgent.
Carla’s knees bend and straighten just like
She did as a child. The physical beauty
of her movement is like a sumptuous gift,
It’s is the action that will change her life.

This is Carla’s redemption, the move she
has hung her dreams on, a new commotion
In her life that will cause her heart to know
Of a love that operates beyond the realms of
Legend, where she can sing to the stars and
Fill the heavens with her growing pleasure.

Dinner with the Djinn

In a few seconds the light decreased in
Lustre from dazzling brightness to a pale
Spectacle of flickering candlelight.
A djinn told me that I had summoned him,
I’d craved a place at his table and here  
He was, offering his invitation.

He conjured a dark chamber lit with lamps,
Where odours of pungent oils, frankincense
And ambergris hung in the solid air.
He conjured a table of meat and wines,
Saying, this is your exclusive banquet,
But I knew this was my funeral feast.

I fought him by conjuring emerald
Meadows, but with sweet asphodel blooming
I was only conjuring my afterlife.
He took my ring, bid me sleep and tried to
Invite my slumber with a song, but I
Grabbed the ring and placed it on my finger.

I was possessed by a frightening power.
A great noise boomed, I flew into the air,
The djinn sped thunder-like behind me.
A grim fight ensued; I, holding on to
The ring, which curled and stung me as I flew,
And the djinn screaming he’d not be cheated.

Suddenly, I was on a tennis court.
The djinn had vanished, and spectators threw
Bunches of bright flowers onto the court.
The umpire spoke, “first set to the poet,
Who summoned the djinn by trying to live
While suffocating her dreams and fancies.”

Lost among Monkeys

Willian, seven, wanders the gallery
As if he is walking through poetry.
He is lost, and his mother is frantic,
But the art is calling out to him like
Soft ripples gliding over still waters.

The art shows him how the sun creates its
Gold and how the queen of the clouds descends
Onto silver terraces where tigers
Play the lute and the phoenixes dance the
Ancient, regenerating flamenco.

He presents himself to three carved monkeys,
And asks each one where he should be going.

The first, with gentle look, says dreamily.
Pass the city ruins where the road ends,
Where the bears and wild boar play in the woods,
Where the flowers lure you and the rocks ease you,
Where clouds darken, and the day swiftly ends.

The second speaks gravely. You must search
The woods for the stone gate your forebears built.
It was broken by the God of Thunder.
Go without fear past the sphinx-like shadows,
Randomly cast by the angel of death.

The third whispers, just walk on. It seems like
Only yesterday that you passed by here.
You smiled, blinked and continued your singing.
Some imagined they heard the bubbling brooks
But I heard pipes summoning your spirit.

Princess of a Thousand Valleys

With feelings of sadness growing within,
I dreamt that I climbed the highest mountain,
Beyond the flight of birds, to survey the
World and drink from the springs of rivers that
Nurture those who approach death. I wanted
To be close to heaven's Jade City, to
Bathe in restoring virtues, but in my
Dream the peaks were forever before me,
Each ascent showing more mountain-ranges
Divided by precipitous valleys.
Exhausted, I lay down to sleep and dreamt
Of angels riding brightly coloured clouds.

They showed me a woman’s head carved in rock
Which shone with unexpected splendour.
Her face, dour or cross, was pale; maybe she
Was ill, yet she looked sturdy and healthy.
The eyes, gazing from her white face, gave her
A primitive, unworldly, knowing look.
When her eyes, blue or green, stared with increased
Insight, her pupils dilated to black.
With craggy rock for hair and smiling lips,
Her force and vision pierced me. This sculpture,
This destination for holy pilgrims,
This rock, spoke to me in soothing tones.

I’m the princess of a thousand valleys,
I carved these hills, so when clouds heap the sky
And this mountain darkens, I keep my light.
With my will to carve, each rock is a life
Renewing sculpture. When troubles darkly
Swirl around your peaks, don’t lose your chisel,
Reconfigure, and sculpt your rocks anew.
When you doubt your strength and long for vision,
Remember me with your aching heart and
Know I am here, my face like spring’s surprise.
To some I am a mountain, but to you,
I am the place that inspires endless change.