i strained my way up the hill *****
pondering dead dreams and lost hope
the walking song urged me on to the peak
where i stood breathless and couldn't speak
stunned by our penchant for self-annihilation
and descent  into abysses of gloom and oblivion
images of a brave new world- how tormenting!

On this my happy and blessed day
fondly I remember what Mother always said
upon some naughty day when I made her sad
stalling on her bidding and not being a good boy
Son, live straight and be easy to interpret
Life is a complex menu of choices. Still -
you can cruise along if there’s love in your life

I remember the wistful poetry from my father’s lips
Creamy words spoken in jest or in epic tales
and untutored philosophy when he spoke of his going:
Death has come and it’s time for last words
My life has dragged by but now how it hurries!
Be the person that you must and **** the rest!
A truly rich person shares what they value most

And so it is that I’ve shared my heart and my mind
In numerous lines of poetry that has dared me to write it

On this my 66th birthday I read no ills in this number
For I’m just a wayfarer looking for words along my route
I pick the gems that sparkle and dazzle as I stroll to eternity
The landmarks on my route are
The friends I made and lost along the way
The doleful souls that brought tears to my eyes
The pretty girls that taught me I could never have them all

I remember too the places I’ve been to
And the songs of my people – lively commentaries on everything
And how life always lay waiting to be lived

My day of birth is my day of possibilities
And I keep hearing the line from the jazz classic:
Get your kicks on Route 66!

Sultry like a winter morning, but delectable, nevertheless
She looked at him with an adjudicator’s eye for the indefinable
And down into the doldrums sank his loud bravado like a stone
He became a blubbering idiot, breathless at her royal presence
Whimpering like a blind, hungry puppy in its dark world

Bereft of height but redeemed somewhat by a rather rare face
She looked at him as if to say he was the answer to all her prayers
The boy’s disdain for seekers of things personal shot through the roof
He became a despicably insensitive dreamer living only for music
Red-carded by her heart on a sleeve he sent her home early to moan

Her clear complexion with the juicy tone was like ripe yellow peaches
She walked out of a shower into the sunshine like a subject of art
When her eyes touched his doting face he was lost forever in her gaze
On this day his obsession with allure was well and truly fanned; he
Became a devotee at the altar of romantic slaughter where dreams die

Dark, with dancing eyes and a full bobbing *****, girlish but feminine
She ate him up with a hungry look and threatened to swoon as her knees buckled
His infatuation with girls that treated him like the killer of their dreams began here
Sorely tempted was he to become her instant lover under that sunny September sky
But alas, it could never be; she was just a maid and he was on the way up

Tall and sweet with articulate eyes and a younger sister that spoke for her
She was not one to play hard to get and declared her love like a blessing
She made his ego grow in leaps and bounds and had a figure like an artist's model
He was stunned by her openness and began to feel like someone arrived at his station
But circumstances, as always, altered cases and they went their separate ways for good

Succulent like the clementine, her namesake, she spread her feelings out for him to see
She had a bigger sister who treated him like he was what her younger sister needed
Clementine and he shared yearning secrets about brief looks and shy touches
Henceforth his love for intrigue in matters of the heart drove him full throttle
And he grew into this heartless beau in love with love, cursed with a wandering heart

Today he sits in a tired armchair under a weeping willow wondering what happened

we hurt most
those we love best
paradox

she was the dance queen of the night
fragrant and exotic in her daily flight
from the bite of tropical night chills
under a starless sky and a pale moon
full of false vows that he would croon
with a granadilla fruit of raw passion
teasing his hungry eyes and keen nostrils
hot desire locked itself around their hearts
like a surreptitious granadilla creeper
entwining itself around a wooden lover
and soon the fruit of their passion had burst out
in a crescendo of dilated senses and smooth skin
she knew then that he was gone never to return:
the fabled passion fruit could be so very cloying

i'd struggle to see anything funny
in a world that was no longer sunny
we'd be penguins on some cold shore
dawdling stiffly in the icy indifference
of those who stand by and watch
they hope in their hard hearts that we slip
and maybe lie there, broken forever, and sleep
the sleep of those who go away and never retun

the haloed sun above winked like a sage
and its searing smile stirred coy memories
that sailed the blue sky like feathery petals
cascading like a shower of floating fancies

and in a shallow pond above the rapids
where the waters gurgled and roared
their call for blessings at the mystic waterfall
the kingfisher was soon to be with the grateful dead

the couple engrossed in the snares of scented life
gazed up at the sky in search of the evening star
that twinkling would witness a girl taken to wife
in the misty coolness of a spray of charmed wishes

the timid bride with latent fire in her heart and limbs
had a wet kimono wrapped around her treasures mild
she prayed that if she be preyed upon it had to be wild
and abandoned; consuming even as the sun danced its exit

a snaky trickle of golden warmth poured down like honey
coursed through the articulate body to coagulate inside her cup
and she became paralyzed with the joy and wonder of creation
enacted once again in this moment of pleasurable stillness

and the first of her petals was well on its way to necessary ejection
and a soft landing in the hearts of those who wait for signs

her contours are what everyone yearns for
perfect and full with inimitable symmetry
she's the prize at the end of our flights of fancy
when deprivation is erased and forgotten

that walk is pure physical bliss that kills the blues
and stirs long-forgotten desires and  emotions
she rolls around as only she knows how to
and her rich bust bounces and dances happily

these are the things that we have always imagined
an aesthetic figure moulded in heaven amid music
from the depths of our deep and unihibited longing
to be held close and cherished in tender moments

woman, the ground you walk on is awed by it all
it sighs so softly you never detect its abandon
lady, your attributes are the things that define you
especially that beauty from life's bouquet of surprises

i'm checkmate the bomb
i always make things a gas girl
i'm ubiquitous and unavoidable
i'm a social engineer,
making things happen for good time girls
i'm the promo man
i advertise curvaceous wares
and multiply the client base
i'm hoping to go exponential soon
I'm a moneyfinder par excellence
i can sniff it from miles away
and i know how to make a fool and his money
go separate ways
as for the miserly ones, we prise it away so adeptly
they can't help applauding us
the rich and affluent ones looking for an experience -
we cater for them as well
they're easy to spot from miles away
that bored vacuous look is hard to miss
i'm a connoisseur of bohemian girls:
the ones who play sweet and innocent to perection
their jumping eyes can send even you into a rhapsodic spin!
the leggy ones with shape and hips
delectable girls with unbelievable curves
the slim portable women that some want to take away
mmmm... and the buxom ones with bountiful chests of sweetness
i can supply extras too! just name it and i'm your man
i'm the paymaster and the insurance man to book
i'm security too, my boys don't brook any nonsense - be warned!
and hey man, do i have style! tailor-made suits, gold-capped teeth,
handmade shoes and handwoven ties to complete the rout
my principles are strict and regular; no sampling of the stock
although...
if it's sylvie i sometimes make an exception
sylvie knows how to rock and how to roll
she's what every man hopes to find during his prime*
now don't you dare go all weepy and disapproving on me mate,
it's not personal - just business!

once there were three kittens
three fluffy blue-eyed kittens
huddling in the dusty corner
of a disused swimming pool
where mother cat put them all
one day the rain poured down
in sheets to make all three drown
but they had nine lives by three
so after the rain the kittens still
huddled together waiting still
for mother cat to bring the mice
one morning one kitten was gone
on another morning another went
to join it's semi-wild cousins in the dark
then at last the third kitten leapt out
and was gone to cat hunting grounds
in all this drama the fluffy kittens were cute
cuddly and demure with soft pleading eyes

You always say
that I always may
declare creation
in those speech-act moments
when words become action
Thus see me breathe life
into hitherto stiff fancies
See me empowered by verbal magic
that conjures up fanciful shapes
in the image of my inclinations
So I say let there be beauty and wonder
a swallow swishing crazily past
and a lonely dove cooing for its mate
Let there be rustics exuding the rich smells of life
from newly-turned earth with neat furrows and fat worms
wood smoke and freshly-cut grass in musty he-goat odour
Variety is the spice of life the sages from long ago said
So let there be good-time girls and pompous pimps too
and petty thieves and flashy conmen in loud clothes
Let the world sizzle with a menu of a la carte activities -
sooty greasy grime and lurid crime to shock good people
In simple terms let the world be a poem teeming with life
and let its people know their roles in the scheme of things
Let them play their parts to perfection
while I try out a miscellany of diction and imagery
to capture and portray the wonder of another complex day

with each sunset the days are going
and though i've never stopped toiling
this wilderness bewilders me still
till i ask myself what comes after me
what gain there is from a poet eluded by material riches
some leave dream-quality mansions for posterity
others bequeth fabulous wealth to their progeny
and they're remembered for their bounty
but i, the poet in the family,will leave only my words
they will shed tears when my images come alive
they will say how singularly spectacular was my diction
and they will make songs out of my poetic epigrams
but they will not see in their chapped hearts
how other life was always hovering around me
how the words i invoked floated near the edges of my person
and how something huge was always on the tip of my pen

poet that i am
i shall be gone
only a little while
then shall my words
jump off the page
in a felicitous chant
that speaks a new truth
that i was never too far away
from the minds of the  human race
and the fluttering hearts of the world
i was never really gone though interred
poets live forever in their breathing words
that ride the winds across the years into new epochs
in new millenniums where a poet's words shall be gold indeed

a life-size study against the backdrop
of a silent ebony door in freeze motion
still as a queen in contemplative mood
and settled like a sonorous afternoon
it was a picture of loveliness in the morning
decked in black and spotting thick dreadlocks
picture of woman: a study in poise and splendour
accentuated by infectious warmth and inherited wisdom
until she moved as we all must in time and on occasion do
that was when i knew she was flesh and blood and a live woman
transient and gorgeous as most things human tend to be
and the frown of her corrugated brow was like a shadow in my life

one last tearful tryst
    saturday
poor little fool*
------------------------
Short Senryu

wearing his thick jacket and weary gumboots
                 the heat notwithstanding
the man is forever abroad on his strange mission
    his hat is the contraption that covers it all
as he feigns distraction and people call him mad
to live a life that has no surprises, only a pattern
how can they possibly know what he's brewing
or what he intends one blessed day to be stewing
in the big *** of dreams that he tends each day
those who want to know must,like him, be mad
only then will they see what really is in the sea
and how atlantis was a figment of souls hungry
for those unusual things from off the beaten path

my house
               my car
                         my children
                                            my furniture
                                                                my laptop
                                                                               and so on
How about
these are the companions and the comforts that life gives
in its wisdom and from its bounty
and verily my sojourn on earth
is dripping with possibilities

once upon a drowsy afternoon drowned in the heat of life
we sat upon a knoll playing queen and king in lavender blue
and wilfully waited to be tempted by the horned one to finally feast
upon the intensity of our rampant libidos and our malleable greenness
now these many years later in the warmth of your smoky country kitchen
as you tend the stew for the old man in rimless bifocals and a hearing aid
remember how some dreams died but we lived and learned nevertheless

Pain for you never again this side of life
All is now calm and easy and so sail on
True to this life's eternal golden rules
Rich in truth and kind you'll for ever be
If sturdy as can be, these rules you breathe
Cherishing morsel and largess in measure alike
Knowing that times move towards a zenith

i will come to you
rich only thus ...
skewered by the troubles of my unfulfilled dreams
irked by my  agrieved imagination
battered by the blows of relentless misfortune
famished by the constant fare of hope and fantasy
driven on by conceit and a crying ego
and that ever fading dream of getting rich and famous
being adored by a queen like you
and flourishing on generous dividends
from long-suffering social and financial investments
i will come to you
like an off-key air that you must moderate
like a breath of ill-wind that you must transform
into a melody of love

your role is to be gorgeous
                                    desirable
                                         remote and unattainable
mine is to yearn and moan
                                            then lie down and die
                                                      as I’m taunted, forsaken and abandoned
                                                                             by my illusions of you

She used to obey his every whim
       Love then was obedience
She used to let him have his way
       Love then was playing along

In those days he was never to be questioned
      His every word was like a deity's proclamation
In those days his every fancy was as good as done
       His every mood was to be humoured

Now he is the piper and she pays for his services
          He plays any melody she demands
She tells him what to dream and how to talk about it
            Lady luck deserted him the day the tables turned

these joys are sacred and precious
you partake of them if you're serious
but you best flee if you're just curious
these joys are cosmic and rarefied
they shower you with the sweet abundance
of seasons of plenty when harvests are a surfeit
when you can withdraw into secret places
and there gorge yourself on shapely pleasures
and dissipate in tender exertions on an unmade bed

the sound of his incantations
hung like a fertile cloud in the air
till it became locked in an embrace
with the holy smell of incense bare
and all the while he droned on steadily
like a distant engine upon an incline
the birds of the night spun around him
crazy like a moth willing death to come
the hot wax stuck like glue on his fingernails
as the passion heated up and blew a blast
in the direction of mirthless unseen onlookers
witnesses to a macabre rite in the dead of night
the time for forging ties that bind was well nigh
for what better instrument to weld togetherness
than a grim kind of secrecy in the  dead wilderness

the enfeebled voice spoke of hopelessness
the inflamed flesh told of a spirit subdued
shrunken and felled by a creeping weakness
her sightless eyes  were a sign of approaching demise
yet she said she would see me in the morning
and next day under the winking sun i was at her mourning
keeping a promise made a long time ago under a cork tree
to sing about the beauty of a true heart that loved well
and how there was a place and a time for sundown trysts
in the world of articulate shadows beyond the endless blue
and there an enigmatic silhouette she waits in expectant vigil

Massive water body in one-time quarry
colour blue like the sky and edges green with algae
offers untutored swimming episodes with man-bushed boys
I watch them float around like effortless swallows in the sky
hoping against hope that it can be me one day
on my back  at ease like a log or diving deep
Big boy with breaking voice will carry me on his back
I strip and hike around the pool on his sinewy back
Again and again till my fears are lulled and I'm relaxed
These days I smile whenever I hear the monkey tell the buzzard:
Straighten up and fly right, for the boy shook me off
And made for the bank to watch me splash and nearly drown
With hindsight I know I should've told him to straighten up and swim right;  but that's how you learn to swim among the boys

Shame on you
For making my heart bleed
and shredding my ego
Shame on you
For fleeing from one so true
And making me oh so blue
Shame on you
I’ve been but a shadow
All these besotted years
In the eerie corridor
Of your yawning indifference
Weeping and waning before your disdain
Shame on you
It was never my crown that I wore
When my whole being was all sore
You were my grieving destination
And my putrid dream with a caption
That said I was a loser
Parading in a flamboyant cruiser
Shame on you
For killing the room with dead flowers
Spraying it with bugs that fell like confetti
Just so you’d see me squirm and groan
In the teeming smell of bloodsuckers
Shame on you
I thought I had the right theme for a life
Of surfeit from the largess of the love i thought we had
Shame on you
For poisoning a hope so vivid and alive
You made me beg for bitter morsels from your nightmares
Then ‘took the gap’ to a place where you’d be the story
and I'd be the hapless man who chased a rotten dream
Shame on you
You gave love a bad name

shapi is leaving, the old man cried
shapi is going when she should stay, he said
lord knows i've done everything; i've tried
        she came into my life in a blaze of glory
        she of the dimples and the dancing eyes
        she was a breeze come whispering
        she of the rich ***** and coy smile
the story of my life was done; i was sated and glad
        when shapi set foot into my home and my heart
        she was a warm song on coldest winter nights
and a cooling effect when the humidity was unbearable
        the old man with several days' stubble wept sorely
        as his memories teased and tormented him
        shapi's sensuous figure haunted him still
        the artistry expended in her making
             the fluidity of her graceful curves
               life had never been this kind
                   where the things that bind
                  were concerned ...
  now shapi was leaving and he was alone
and the cloud of dust raised by the old bus
        choked his memory and dimmed his eyes
     those who had never seen and old man cry
    were hushed by his gushing tears and by his wailing
                as shapi left him, never again to return

She called me again today
from the top of a queen-sized bed
drenched in scents and sweat
and draped in satin and velvet

She called me again today
from the tears of a thick cloud
slowly dripping into a hole
on the broken earth below

She called me again today
from a bubbling ancient spring
into which a mad woman high on glee
had poured gallons of stale ale

She called me again today
from the torn page
of a creased exercise book
old, forsaken and mute

She called me again today
from where she waylaid me
and sap from a weeping trunk
went thud against tomorrow's hay

She called me again today
from an angry hissing tap
whose force and might
spoke of trapped time

She called me again today
softly from the pride of her casket
and I knew futility then
We live and love in one direction only

my heart wept silent tears
that gushed out of sad sighs
to lean upon withered wishes
and the sounds of dead words
out of the frozen lips of seers
in this silence and aching gap
at life seeping through i gape
and long to march to the beat
of the words of  dreamers -
dream of finer times to come
they urge in a raspy chorus
among these few am i counted
though it were better not to be

i'm stting, i'm thinking and i'm wishing
time could have frozen on that wistful day
a cold misty morning in the month of may
a day i discovered how a heart can whisper
and how a stomach can sometimes growl
against  the many who scheme and prowl
as they plot someone's downfall and demise
before it happens the system's alarm rings
an ominous melody about sly deception
i'm sitting here in my sorrow and aloneness
thinking and wishing sweets would come

'times i think i have it finally
only to discover not actually
it's so slippery and intangible
it feels light as a feather
and ethereal as smoke rising:
a thing so painful to glimpse
'cause it's always in flight
a reality too much like a dream
and a love so sweet and fluffy
i must have imagined it
life itself leaves you wondering
how you ever got so suffering
time lulls you and you sleep and snore
till you think you're here to stay
but your tiny moment is a fleeting one
the accountant is always within earshot

this is a poem for all children
and for the child in the adult
those of us who stll can stare
in wide-eyed wonder, and lust
for life; giggle some, and laugh
just a little when life tickles us
this poem is for you and us:
                       so
smile sweet baby smile
giggle sweet baby giggle
and laugh sweet baby laugh
let your dimples enchant the world
let the dribble of your drooling gums
wrap the dead hearts of skeptics
in a theme of rainbows and waterfalls
         crawl baby crawl
         and scream baby scream
         a seizure is ecstasy in blue

Smarting from that cruel retort
      and the smoke of ages
      that blurred my vision
                    I lost
    a golden opportunity
   to breathe her into me
in one huge gulp of indulgence
          They lose who gaze
                   into
  worlds of reckless abandon

he had little to give, but gave it still
from his warm and generous heart
beating with a love pure and good
for his sister's children
so he seized the moment to stamp a value on my mind
gave me his prized bronze bottle opener
a fringe benefit from some fat kitchen where once he worked
with hot spices, sizzling grills and artistic salads
and now i have lost it, a thing of more than sentimental value
these gestures can never be repeated
they are the products of inspired moments
when somehow you know there can never be another chance
to leave some evidence that you too were here

sometimes i sink
to depths of despair
that leave me gasping
for air in claustrophobic spaces
       then i hear a voice calling me
       to rejoin the chorus of life
sometimes i think it's the end
and that i'm finally spiked and dried
no more clinging flesh or sightless eyeballs
just a mounful song swishing through my skeleton
       then i hear a voice urging me on
       telling me to rise up and soar
       into the blue heavens
       where anachronistic melodies play
       on rusty harmonicas trapped in gravity
then sometimes i think i'm dreaming
when life bubbles and is exuberant
in my heart that's full of melodious chants

sometimes
i think i'm flying
and i ponder as i hover
over thought light as a feather
and ethereal as a mad man's dream
sometimes
i think i'm dying
because i think i'm alive
and without substance or essence
i float about free and frivolous
and make-believe that my preoccupations matter
sometimes
i think that if i cry a river like one in fever
i might find i have exorcised all the sorrow in me
and that a new regime of easy laughter comes in
sometimes ...
just sometimes

Sometimes you stand aside
and weep over things not done
And sometimes you wait and wail in the wings
wondering where the rain beat you

it is sometimes a blessing
when life kicks you out
it is sometimes a blessing
when doors are closed
when new webs are spun
and bounce you back
to mainstream struggles
it is sometimes a blessing
to walk familiar old paths
feel the tongue of the sun
lick the back of your head
as you moan in soft delight

spasms of unbearable pleasure
course through me like a treasure
spawned upon a bohemian island
when i behold you, beauty incarnate
you're the epitome of accomplishment
an apotheosis of the woman of the age
your eyes are a velvety soft hue
your chin is a stroke of aesthetic genius
you have a fine finish like prettiest silk
and you're an open book of life, to read
at leisure 'neath a flamboyant tree in bloom
woman let me serenade you with this poem
let me sing of the passion in your eyes
let me wax lyrical about your coy mouth
lead me to a tropical hideaway
then banish all things negative , and
let me be your obsession through life
as we stroll together towards the rising sun

i speak of
rampant confusion
that's not
rabid profusion
i speak of
sapping exhaustion
that's not
of debilitation
i speak of
manic depression
that's from
naked manipulation
i speak of
senseless obsession
that's from
candid illusion
and i speak of
fictional annointing
born of
endless seizure and seeking
i speak of
unadulterated reeking
grown out of
staggering imbibing
after stunning rejection
and numbing oblivion
i speak of
endless yearning
endless seeking
endless delusion
endless exclusion
thwarted efforts
dead dreams
and misguided hope
i speak of
...

Life is full
of twists and turns
delays and stoppages
but ultimately you get there
if you put your mind to it

Dreams do come true, sometimes
and we can celebrate, sometimes

she succumbs to her own beauty
the way one yields to awesome fate
and carries it like an accidental gem
that she has to learn not to worship

to watch her you'd think it hurt for sure
with no conceited smile for good measure
her true asernal before which suitors wilt
is the stoicism of her serene countenance

she lends credence to roadside philosophies
based on the assertion that beauty and grace
are accidents of biology and heritage
and takes no credit for such accomplishments

a woman is beautiful even when the straits are dire
and days are darkest in the most depraved of places
she weeps silent tears when her children are hungry
and they gorge themselves on her loveliness and sleep

tomorrow being another day she struggles anew
and conquers hard reality with feminine creativity
and no matter how hard ill-fortune lacerates her
her delectable contours and carriage still shine through

she has no false pride though she's a pearl of great value
and is forever the stoic beauty driven by the calmness
of the aesthetic tremours of her bewitching gait
in the shadow of a moon rising on the horizon

woman you're nature's rival in beauty and depth

i want you to know dear reader
that i've given up playing the saint
and it's time for a few home truths
i'm  shooting straight from the heart
and though toxic nothing will stop me
bleeding an ocean till i'm done for sure
this time my dripping words will go thud
into that shameless unfeeling love infidel
and i shall know peace of a kind at last
aaah, the beauty and the catharsis!