honoring the glass artistry of Dale Chihuly

A rainbow of serrated globes,
Friends to the water lilies,
Floats in a sculptured pool.

A surreal yellow glass Medusa
Woven through a white crescent trellis
Gleams in the midday sun.

Choirs of chrysanthemums
Sing with multicolored flora
Blown from molten soda, lime and sand.

Sheltered in a geodesic tropics
Orange herons stand on legs of glass
Amid living palms, bamboo and wild orchids.
Towering blue spires
Lift skyward out of the soil
While butterflies dance
In the misty veil of a waterfall.

Nature and the shimmering world within
Happily converge in the florid vision
Of an effervescent man with a patched eye -
A man called Chihuly.

October, 2006

Our mystic alabaster satellite
rules the midnight sky
casting shadowy silhouettes
of all our trees and houses.

Rational tri-millennial me
chooses not to bay about it
or worship its fabled godly essence
(long since neutered by geology).

Casting aside the chains of time
I sidle up to Cenozoic me
munching on a leg of venison
staring at that improbable hanging ball
suspended in the southern heavens.

Wonder and vexation cloud his hairy face -
hunting vainly for a clue.
I whisper in a secret tongue
that only he and I can comprehend,
"You may not get it yet, grandpa
but soon enough you will."

The crumbling husk of a little brown spider
chases after a swatted fly.
Not for a meal to replenish his brittle figure,
but because he envies such a glorious death.
This day is not for the covetous,
nor for the weaver. That eight fingered hand.
This is a day marked for interment by rain.
Both to be washed in Gaea's reshaping womb.

If God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt,
then why do we feed it the dead?
Whether mogul, scholar, radical, or drifter-
in soil we are stripped of semblance and class.
Man, beast, lain down as equals - offerings
to a hungry celestial wanderer.
The soaring nomad, mindlessly migrating.
Circling an eye of fire. Star sailing.

Ashes and dust. Blood and bone.
Thought and memory. Feeling and dream.
Our lives are poured into a basin of stone,
from a pitcher containing the constellations.
Every drop, a cosmic reflection
tethered by a silver cord to the present.
The perspective of heroes and house flies
is separated only by sensation.

Half cut teens dressed in high street dreams
stand and survey the beach,
combing it for male shells, to clarify:
guys who think crucifix tattoos on their lower leg will save them from hell.

A mother whose job it is to look after surfboard and parasol,
yes you the mother looking my way,
you should ditch the marriage and get on the road,
hug the coast with tire squeals,
hug men with body sacrificing screams in
cheap French roadside hotels that don’t clean their bathrooms that well.

Girlfriend left to sit the sun out whilst boyfriend joins husbands in the surf,
reads but really she’s breathing,
passing the hours and folding over page corners,
don’t let him see that you don’t love him.

Tablet kids who watch the sea on screen, in apps,
when behind them is a torrent of live data swells and boils
causing swimmers to tumble and coil up close to the sea bed,
some parents, increasingly the same,
forgetting why they came to the coast in the first place.

Every evening
We would pour a glass of wine
And talk about our day
I would put my feet on your lap
Which would make you grumble
But sometimes you would rub them for me, anyway.
At some point
We would make something to eat
I would chop onions, mushrooms, sip on wine
And stop to fold my arms around your waist
Breathe in us, our oxygen, my life
Dinner would be spicy, bedtime spicier
We might watch something funny on TV
Tidy away toys, or I would have a bath
And you would sit there with me, just being.
What now, love?
A distance and a dark, unspoken fear
The wine tastes sour
And my feet remain tucked under me
Slowly going numb.
I never want to cook
So we don’t eat, or we order in
I wish that I could order in the past
I know exactly what I’d have
And when it arrived, I’d devour it all, ravenous
I’d binge, throw up, and cry.

I want to *******
And **** you
And kiss you
I miss you
Will you
Please   Please          Please
PLEASE
Just
      *******
Come back?

I drink one
When I can't have two
I beat myself up
I thought I couldn't have you
Now you're telling me I'm pretty
And everything is fine
There's a ring on her finger
So she's drinking all the wine

I'm sitting in the dark
Losing feeling in my fingers
The room is full of no one
And I'm singing with the singers
Now you say you wanna kiss me
And everything is fine
I'm still feeling pretty lonely
But there isn't any wine

My skin is getting darker
So I blend in with the walls
This is all I'm getting
Always texting, never calls
He doesn't have the minutes
And I guess that I'm okay
But I wanna see tomorrow
Cause I'm tired of today

At school
Moorcraft said
about joining
the boy scouts with him

(the only scouts
you were interested in
were those who rode
ahead of the cavalry

in western films
and who got themselves
scalped by Injuns)
but he went on

about how they taught you
to tie knots
and light fires
with two sticks

of wood
and how to sing songs
around a camp fire
and be a good kid

and do Bob a Job
for old ladies
and he went on about it
quite a bit

and so you said
ok pick me up later
and so after teatime
of bread and jam

and a mug of tea
and biscuit
you went with Moorcraft
to the church hall

where the scouts met
and this tall scouts master
in short trousers
and hairy legs

and glasses
took you off
to join the rest
and introduced you both

and some kid
showed you how
to tie these knots
and climb ropes

and how to set up
a tent and make camp
and so on
until some kid

pushed you off
the ropes
and you pushed him back
and he punched you

on the shoulder
and you hit him
on the jaw
and then you were both

on the floor
and the good kids
were saying oh and gosh
and crowding round

until the scout master came
and asked what
was going on
and that good scouts

didn’t fight
and threw you out
of the hall
leaving Moorcraft behind

tying knots
and climbing ropes
but you didn’t  
give a fig at all

and Moorcraft still in there
not knowing why
and you walked home alone
under an evening sky.