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.

Sleep-walking

Having landed here from a far-off isle
And feeling upbeat in my pyjamas,
I follow sleep-walking signs and enquire
About the garden of Hesperides.

A dragon appears, and I stand rigid
In its shadow. I’m present in body,
But wholly absent in spirit and sense.
The brute is huge and I’m beyond weeping.

The golden apple tree bids me onward,
So I send flames from my sleeve and wave my
Arm as though I’m using a wand; I can
Surely banish this hideous monster.

Three women dance around the apple tree,
Causing dusk’s golden light to fill the sky.
I blow breath into their dancing and my
Pulse causes their memory to vanish.

With gusts of air, I decrease the light and
Increase the passing of hours. Then, spraying
Lyrics into the air with a fine sleepy dust,
I sing a lullaby that prompts their sleep.

Like an angel, fearing to tread, I make
My feet walk to the far distance, past the
Lullaby, and find a path through a gale,
Keeping an even keel with my head down.

When I spy the apple tree, the calm night
Welcomes me to its realm. I’m now truly
Ready to be amazed by the golden
Fruit or anything suspended in air.

In the moonlight, I head for the apples,
Never putting a foot wrong; I’m walking
On a moonbeam, being a star, reaching
Up to the golden globes in the branches.

Weighing gravity’s authority, I’m
Poised, ready to pluck my prize, so I grab
A branch, get pricked by thorns and hear my wife
Complain that I’m ruining her roses.

Dithering sleepwalk

Another year gone
And still I languish,
Drinking in memory before it dies.

Attending to dreams,
Neglecting the house,
Leaving the garden to butterflies.

Sleep is quite hopeless.
I am a scarecrow,
Standing stock still, with buttons for eyes.

Haunted by nightmares,
The road without rest,
Searching for you to undo goodbyes.

Dithering sleepwalk,
Past the dull wasteland,  
Lost, but still eager to fantasize.

Leaving no traces,
Frozen winds blowing,
I cherish the dream, despite the lies.

My hopeless yearning,
Hits fading echoes
On distant peaks and never survives.

The vibrant firmament

I want the full range, devotion, fervour, zest and
A collage of bright hues that can fill the heavens.

I want incisive action that prevents my cursors
From converging on conflicts that inhibit dance.

I want this world, this excited sphere, to be  
A magnificent stage set that isn't improbable.

I want music of shared gaiety and pleasure,
A song that will light the vibrant firmament.

I want the delights I imagined in earlier days,
An eagerness and a zeal that are everywhere.

I want to flavour my outer limits, to add new
And exuberant expressions to my vacant gaze.

I want deep red waves tipped with honey
And passions of every rhythm to swing to.

I want quick-eyed adventures and long slow
Embraces, giving reign to unexplored desires.

I want days of crazy randomness and not have
Urgent signals demanding that it’s time to hide.

I want to live in a smiling house of sensations
Where talk is an incessant wealth of cadences.

I want the floor of my sad defeated heart to be
The place where only vim and vigour explode.

I want hostility to end, the world to mend and
That peace which passes beyond understanding.

Under the Bridge

Do you remember that shaky, old bridge
With massive stone buttresses where you
Roused me to the glories of the underside?
You accepted the green slime and mould,
And declared this mythical mass, beautiful.

We gazed at the shadowy world below,
To the opaque water, callow and deep,
Where the vertical and horizontal meet,
Where firmness and fluidity reassemble,
Fixed yet flowing, a haunting, terrifying
And beautiful metaphor about what? Us?
Our culture, our ideas, our unconscious?  

I had no idea how the word beauty could
Describe this odd assortment of material,
Or how you knew that obscure vegetation
Grows in the depths of this stuff; its black
Flowers only blossoming in the darkness.

You converted dim matter into gentle reverie.
Mysteriously, you knew all this, while I, lost
And shaky, isolated solids, abandoned them.
Artefacts in my dreams were immobile, inert
Stuff, foreign to my nature. I left them dangling.
After our time on the bridge, material was no
Longer an imaginative deficiency I suffered from.

Someone said we have to go down to grow wings.
I was born borderline. I knew it could go either way.
Life was tough, so I went the hard way, it felt easier.
That’s OK for now. Who knows what happens later?
We just prepare ourselves for stories and changes.

Three Sonnets - out of Keats, Shakespeare and Coleridge

True minds for you

When I have fears that I may cease to write,
Lead me not to the marriage of true minds,
For the melodies will clog up my ear
And my pen will join with my teeming brain.
Admit convolutions; song does not sing
Like mawkish romance, or the murmuring
Heard from a wall of earnest, hard bound books -
Sounds alter seasons, while judgement must hear
A hornet’s nest on the first day of Spring.
Risk it for wonders that can fill your core,
Bend with removal men, freely add more:
Rhythmic sounds of sev’ral senses will change
The dark starry face of night, while thinking -
Having aimed it straight - will sleep near the mark.

A fancy fling

If your lonely breast rouses a mindful tear,
A huge cloudy symbol of high romance
That looks on tempests and is never shaken,
Then treat forlorn thought to a fancy fling
And know that you will never have to trace
Every wandering star back to base.
Find fragrance and dew under fortune’s wing,
Mix shadows with the magic hand of chance,
Whose worth’s unknown, though its rule is taken,
And play ‘til your sickly doubts are drooping.
After you feel the fairness of this hour,
Sing not the fool through rosy lips and cheeks,
Blossom anew and thrill at the news that
You can turn a lonely breast to fancy.

Love shifts your age

Bend his sickle, invite the compass more;
Duty’s strains keep you in memory's dream
Where bright fairy power hardly ever goes.
Love shifts your age, not by filling up weeks
With pale forms of past delights lived by eyes
That can’t reflect on zeal in the bedroom,
But by building lights round your edgy gloom.
Paint a peach on love's pale cheek, try surprise,
Start anew in the wide, wide world and think…
If this be error and upon me proved,
That pleasure’s smiles are faint and beauteous lies
Voiced to cut love to nought before it sinks,
I never sang, nor no man ever loved
Or pictured a rainbow over a stream.

Rumours for Tumours

It is rumoured that all objects
Living in you and out have an
Intrinsic imagination.
This is talked of in fairy tales.
Think of your forebears who escaped
Sorcery with the ancient art of
Projecting identity; they could
Settle their endangered soul in
A tree, threat free, to return again
When calm times favoured connection.

Could you now proceed by walking
Buoyantly into poetry,
Where your body cells commune with
Matter’s unspoken narratives?
Could you remove tumours using
This ancient intelligence?
Trust objects, call them your allies,
Teach them to listen and fight for you.
Inspire healthy cells to pester
And break-up your foreign bodies.

To make your body a safe haven,
Forget sympathy, breed great love.
Take all the sunlight you’ve fed on
High above the clouds, load it in your
Heart’s light-projecting ray gun and
Shower the tumours whenever
You have the energy - always
Imagining their surprise and
Magical dissolution, like
Wet snails melting into thin air.

The Human side of Nature

John Ashbery and Janas Salk both said
There’s nothing specific for us to do;
Our wisdom arrives by necessity.
Some growing is crucial, but this we do
Inherently, just by evolution;
We can simply submit to acceptance,
Learn how to anticipate the future,
Track the rhythms of growth and submit to
Inclinations that dance fandango for
Well-being and flamenco for the cells.

We can hear through bones, as well as the ears,
And the spellbinding, multi-layered tales
Told by old shamans cultivate benign
Instincts for our future’s broadmindedness.
When frequent blunders become more acute
It is time to start swinging from the heart.  
As new loves are born, there is no need to
Immunize against the negative swoon,
The old way of judging is out, it was
Never kind to flowers or buoyancy.

Having experienced the infection,
Shun old paths and the acceptance of fear,
We’ll easily recognise the pattern
Of lethargy when connections increase.
Keep open, keep scanning, grow a thin skin,
Have a bird's eye view and a worm's eye view,
Elbow out the dominance of cash flow,
We’ve no need to carry investors.
Merge with the creative neutral misfits
Who practice positive simplicity.

Discontent expresses the driving force,  
But constant interference is the norm;
Let the next evolution process be
Upon us, in us, with us and through us.
Make affection the newfound bravery,
Multiply magnanimous attention,  
Send reasoning to the intuition’s
Department, observe the new unfolding,
Assist what’s unsupported and learn how
To breeze with time at perception HQ.

Attend wholeheartedly to unlearning,
Start giving evolution a purpose.
We’re ripe for falling steadily into
Ourselves, making each new day a life-span.
Anticipate the future; it’s fine now
To stumble upon self-consciousness.
We had wisdom, without too much knowledge,
Then we developed fear, replaced benign
Casualness with scary risk forecasts and
Stopped the good old carefree buzz from humming.

If we have no wisdom to govern the
Knowledge, let the custard pies be our guide,
They will aid the inception of slapstick.
We have the right genes for this and they will
Activate fast when people are ready;
This affirms the collective certainty
That each of us has a different purpose.
Anything is only worth the candle
If you make frisky hearts the starting point,
And celebrations of beauty the norm.

While writing, I don’t quite know my spirit.
I appear absent, but I’m trembling in
A world of secret happiness, grasping
Nothing, blissfully intoxicated.
Being carefree is important, just as
It’s crucial to enjoy playing structure.
It can be sweet when these things pursue us;
Then we want to be everything for them.
The fine, subtle, delicate things, seem best,
But there are questions that can’t be answered.

I’d like to suggest that the absence of
An answer can be heavenly when it’s
A vague, enchanted, majestic reply
And I’d like this to be true for longer.
Those who are raised to be competitive
Are not like those brought up to honour love.
I say this as I want to remember;
We are ****** with too much judgement, it stops
The heart from getting enough love to grow.
There’s little doubt we’ve all suffered from this.

I’m thinking about a kind heroine,
Thinking myself the hero of this tale.
In a mood of audacity, I cross
The boundaries of the familiar
And ****** myself through the crust to freedom.
With words, I try to smile a charming smile
But it is too delicate to smile it.
I am not a human among humans
I’m a scent grown fragrant by the heart, one
Who swims alone in a human breast.

When I choose to create a fantasy
From my secret reveries and daydreams,
Conjuring, say, sweet meadows to lie in,
A place to gaze up at birch tree branches,
I do these things to pledge my cheerfulness.
I have no desire to own anything
And still my branches grow higher each day.
All I am is what I have never been
And should you now start dreaming about me,
The concerns I have will melt in the night.

When my thoughts afflict me, I pile them up.
Grief isn’t cute, my anger lacks worth and
I torment blues in the soul needlessly.
I will never glare at you crossly, I’d
Hate to encourage your woes and sorrows.
You can afford to be gentle, don’t slay
Your noble emotions and mellow voice,
Don’t keep your elegance on the inside,
You must know there are times when the simple
Can only be grasped with almost no effort.

The trees apologized, but they hadn’t
Done a thing that required a confession.
I know nothing, so I keep as quiet
As a painter with a full brush of paint.
Then, when my lucid consciousness sits up,
Alert, I gather my thoughts in a flash
And strike out, sensing that all lives can lead
To a new path of possibilities.
It’s pleasing to pull oneself together
After seasons loyal to inertia.


This poem was inspired by Looking at Pictures, a collection
of texts by Robert Walser. Published by New Directions.