A simple draft of air in the lungs
like I’ve done a billion times.
Exhale to hum a song I’ve sung
that calms with comforting rhymes.

In and out and rise and fall,
to feel my stomach be moved
and breathe through fears and all
‘til wrinkles of worry be smoothed.

A-walking ‘round a stony crag
atop which stands a castle strong:
I know each rock and brick and ****
that went to build it for so long.

My forebears helped to build this place
from its earliest days, just a palisade.
Thence it grew into this mighty space
that would touch the moon by fear unweighed.

The builders began, so constant and brave.
In Godspeed and discovery they came.
Once planted, a flower of May then gave
this rock two pillars of its fame.

Today it shines out far from its hill up high,
unhidden citadel of radiant beams,
reposed beneath the starry sky
while white and red roads to it stream.

Four hundred years — or thousands more —
has it took to make this fortress fair
at great cost to those who came before.
The scent of their toil fills the mountain air.

Yet this great rock is now on the verge
of toppling into the abyss below:
For those who claim it must be purged
now storm the keep with torches aglow.

Now there’s fear this fateful fortress will fall
to the whims and rage of a dishonest beast
who claims to just want to save it all
but will only lead to its defeat.

These castle walls shall not be breached
by the demons it once bred within.
The people who still build it shall reach
new vistas to the beast’s chagrin.

In a royal garden in autumn’s decay
I met a mottled statue of a mad king.
His crumpled crown of leaf inlay
was perched upon his head tilting.

In this motley vale of fallen leaves
and maples barren of budding boughs,
he bore a scepter of willows weaved
and twisted, by mystic rain well dowsed.

The bleak stony face moved its rigid lips
to command his hedgerow kingdom’s thralls
while his blank eyes in their stare transfixed
on me, whom he his newfound jester called.

Though lacking arms, his majesty raised
a marbled finger in mocking command,
dictating his sane fool to jape, be praised
for being the maddest of mad in his land.

Poor Tom’s a-cold, my mouth let out
as he haughtily replied with a cold leer,
no patience for my well-reasoned doubt
that I should bring this fell despot cheer.

The wan harvest moon began to arise
in a suitably strange and lunatic way
while donning a cunningly dim disguise,
eclipsed by the shadows of the day.

I saw: A shroud, a pall, a veil of the mind
had set upon my innermost light.
Must overthrow this bleak tyrant’s kind
and cast down his terrible mental might.

Here satyrs were sane and nymphs unloved.
This empire of absurd has ruled long enough.
I resolve to break through the darkness above
and call the callous old monarch’s bluff.

As the dream fever finally broke
in the setting of a sudden sunrise,
from the blackness my mind awoke —
at last I’d had the courage to open my eyes.

A fork in the road.
Will it stab me like a knife
or spoon feed me joy?

Agèd lady sits,
holding her silver and gold —
Anne, Mary, the Son

Anne’s daughter’s the moon,
sits on the throne of wisdom —
crowned in golden stars

Moon begets the Son
who’s fathered by breath of flame —
Both pierced by a spear

Two women, one son —
A motherly trinity
that shines in splendor

On the day of all souls in the fall
as leaves lose luster to winter’s bane
my father’s shade returns to call
while I walk along a splintered lane:

His memory murmurs in a darkened nook
of years of yearning and wasted days,
as the distance that filled up the book
of our lives still grows as I turn to grey.

The care he’d showed I did not feel
as the pillars of our bridge began to crack.
Too late, I turned back to heal
the fallen span that we now lacked.

By then his old mind’s lantern had failed;
the new light I’d shone back went unseen
and broken arches into a chasm trailed
where once a golden bridge had briefly been.

Across the valley, dark, deep, and wide,
a spectral stretch of stones appears
to shine as a silvery coach now rides
across, to bring two sundered shadows near.

Now on this day of all souls missed
by those who find themselves left behind,
one faithful departed returns to kiss
the forehead of a son’s reopened mind.

Man builds his palaces and fortresses of stone
to last him a thousand years
while clouds drift by that last not long,
as brief as the drop of one tear.

The clouds’ only constant is their change
as they curl into filigrane wisps,
or flocks of white sheep on a blue range,
or black towers wreathed by blitz.

But one day these monuments will topple and fall,
leaving behind only a trace
for future archaeologists who’ll struggle to recall
whatever had been in this place.

The clouds, meanwhile, disperse and reform
in the wandering winds that cover this earth
to tower up high in each new storm
as they constantly repeat rebirth.

In this dim night
before the dawn of All Saints,
no need to take fright
of the spirits you acquaint —
for they are merely the ones who went on before.

Beloved dead whom we miss
reenter the world of the quick
and blow us a kiss
with a treat but no trick —
as we celebrate their return from the dark shore.

The ancient oak
wears a cloak
of hoary old bark
and scalloped leaves.

She raises high her limbs,
writes silent hymns
that the nested larks
turn to music with ease.

A thousand years
on this blue sphere
has this oak thrived
under countless moons

aloof from the cares
we people may share:
She’s simply alive
to write her secret tunes.

The plaster peels around the windowpane
as Virginia creeper clings, hangs low
on the old stone wall that crumbles, veined
by the cracks from the hourglass’s flow.
The weathered wood of her rafters frame
this battered house that’s fading away
like the troubles and cares she’d contained
which are silting fast into the sandy soil.
The creeper‘s five leaves grasp like a hand:
Gaia hugs this house in her tightening embrace
to fully devour all the follies of man
until only the quiet creeper remains.

Weathervane, weathervane,
whither does the wind blow?
Will you learn to point the way
or will you just go with the flow?
When the fox would rule the henhouse
as the wind twists all around
will the weathercock crow midnight
without making a sound?

A trembling pale girl enters a stone
fortress of faith, buttresses flying outside,
in hopes of finding a way to atone,
find an anchor in the world’s shifting tides.

This Gothic cathedral lifts her wet eyes
to its heavenward ribbed vaulted peaks.
They’re painted deep blue like starry skies
in remembrance of what Creator to old Abraham speaks.

There, where each vault’s stone arches crisscross,
shines out like a clear harvest moon
the radiant burst of a gilded boss
that gleams in the recessing gloom.

Adrift in this vast and sacred space,
thin curls of burnt incense waft by
to fill the young girl with scented grace
whilst she sits in this place with wide eyes.

The gold on the stone catches candlelight
and reflects its flickering blaze
as the quiet chanting of canticles might
let her senses be softly amazed.

While the twinkling of these numerous stars
fills her rediscovered heavens within,
the tides of her fears recede past sandbars,
leaving puddles of patience therein.

The promise made by the Father long ago —
Abraham’s children would a galaxy be —
finds fulfillment in this starry girl now aglow
since from her darkness she’s tenderly freed.

She found her anchor and cast it up to the skies.
It caught a bright star and held fast.
New dawn lit inside her in quiet reply,
telling her no tides of tempest can last.

All I want is a bridge to the clouds
so I could climb up, high and away,
to loose myself from gravity’s bounds
and float above humanity’s frays.

Let my mind be a kite to catch the wind
and pull me up to the light above,
freed from the weight that kept me pinned
instead of gliding like a carefree dove.

Ornate iron bars that twist and swirl
on windows of a stone Baroque house:
Their billowing lines flow and unfurl
like the linen of a wan lady’s blouse.

Late sun casts her umbra on the stone wall,
a dark bramble of shadowy vines
that cling to the plaster in ways that recall
hung forests of lost memory and time.

Into this dark wood I walk with my mind
to retreat into the past of this place
and see how far the clock I can unwind
for to pass through its pale numbered face.

There faces now greet me, spirits of old
who once walked this very same street.
They look astonished at how I was so bold
as to travel there to warmly them greet.

To be remembered and seen once again
is a gift for which they’ve waited a year.
For as this day fades, the dark windowpanes
between our two worlds turn into a gauzy frontier.

And so the veil of the quick and the dead
turns thinner for just a brief night
while the faces of those who’ve gone on ahead
to the other side shine their dim light.

An old man walked up
to a great oaken door
and listened to a voice from inside.
It soon stopped, abrupt
as he strained to hear more
and wondered what the silence betides.

He thought he should knock
with a quiet tap of his cane
to ask for admission within,
but paused to take stock
and his ears were strained
as the sweat beaded on his skin.

Then the door was flung wide.
All he saw was a dark
that stretched far out to the deeps
and left him straining his eyes.
Not a sign of a spark
to guide him in taking the leap.

He must make his choice,
to turn back from the black
and return to paths better lit,
or heed the dim voice
that leads down a bleak track
but wear armor that of light is knit.

Take courage, dear friend
as you read these few lines
to take the dark stony road
while girding yourself as you descend
into the depths of the mines
of your fears and what they forebode.

Just now I broke a teapot.
My mind was in a spell:
The shards look back forlornly,
the cracking sound was its knell.

It was a treasured heirloom
passed down from age to age,
touched by hands from times of old
but now I’ve turned its page.

It had served my family well
etched by tea and good times spent.
For now I’ll just be grateful
that this old *** came and went.

Through twisted bars of dark wrought iron
I see the shining golden home.
There once I’d been in my personal Zion
from which I’d freely roam.

But now I note I’ve lost the key
to this imposing gate:
I stand outside, trying hard to see
what caused this change of fate.

When and why did I turn my back
on this inner keep of peace?
How to drop the sackcloth black
and find a new release?

Now I must pull me up
and scale these castle walls
that I myself had built
before I took this fall.

For my sake and for those I love
it’s time to find my way
back to where sounds of cooing doves
becalmed me, come what may.

The hulking buildings, sharp and spare,
slow march along the boulevard
through grey foul fumes of city air
as cars give chase on roads of tar —
A single tree stands in the waste,
last stand of nature against our haste

In an old Scottish town I walk in well-worn streets
framed by tall houses of stone.
I study their faces that lean in to meet
me: In their presence I don’t feel alone.

The old houses have faces with many glass eyes.
What have those windows all seen?
They stand watch over us like dispassionate spies
with a vision that’s eerily keen.

What strange things that these walls could all tell
if their silent stones began to shout.
But they say nothing at all of the people who dwelt
all around them, within and without.

I came to trust these rock-ribbed friends
who give shelter and keep silent watch.
Reliably they forever our secrets defend
and are just there for us, a loyal lodge.

Old and new, side by side,
always riding changing tides.
Ebb and flow, rise and fall,
topsy turvy times for all.
Old church clock strikes at noon,
a smartwatch plays a tune,
then and now we measure time —
see how our times seem to rhyme

In a darkened church
hard by the dusky nave,
a brass lectern’s perched
with blue Chi-Rho engraved.

It faces to a reddened west,
its golden sheen aglow,
by light of candles blessed
as darkness ’round us grows.

Above the tall stone spires
dim stars come peeping out
to shine down on the quire
and the small knot of the devout.

We few sit as the gloom
grows deeper all around
and let ourselves be not consumed
by the chaos that abounds.

Once our Evensong is sung
for our time that slips us by,
a last brass bell is rung
as we hope for dawn’s reply.

A dark clay raven hung at a windowpane
to ward off bright songbirds from glass.
It never spoke a word, nor did it feign
to know of a departed late lass.

I asked it my questions, expecting more
conversation than it had on offer,
but plainly it found me a tedious bore
for it stayed quiet. Not much of a talker.

The brief encounter left me po-faced
as I’d been led to expect more from him.
So I turned away, belying a trace
of disappointment weighing within.

Then I heard the wind, and nothing much else
except the song of birds who’d survived
thanks to the clay raven who hung by a belt
in front of a window to keep it disguised.

Graffiti artist
sprays to say that “I was here” —
Ozymandias

The village church was built to last.
It would stand until Judgement Day.
Its oak rafters would hold the roof fast
above the faithful who there prayed.

The grey stone is carved with inscriptions
of verses of scripture from Father God
who would grant the faithful benedictions
as they knelt on stone flagstones in awe.

The faithful had built for generations
and for generations still to exalt:
A gold, stone, and mortar salvation
rising up to a heavenward vault.

The stone walls were decorated, gilded,
lined with the lives of the saints
whose blessings had once gently lilted
out of the colorful daubs of paint.

The saints’ faces long faded away
and the statues have hair of green moss
while a few arches still try to stay
up like stone ribs of a body now lost.

The vault now lies open and broken
with a clear view to the old God above
and its grassy shell is now a mere token
of this cathedral built to love.

The broken flagstones are now a green mat
and the nave is barren. Its grey pall
belies the colors in abundance it once had.
There’s no more shine of gold at all.

Yet the grass that grows there is still blessed
by the faithful in ground hallowed below.
I’m touched by their hushed songs still sung, caressed
by soft breath of holy wind which there flows.

A-walking through the foggy wood
I found a Roman urn
It marks what seems a noble grave
but its fate took a turn

It lacks a name or token word
to tell just who lies there
It blankly stares right back at me
without the slightest care

The puzzling urn says naught to me
I sit in somber peace
and then the answer falls in place:
it’s a grave for all deceased

For all the nameless of the past
the memorial stands here
The grandest grave that ever was
Unsung now sung I hear

Cold walls rise up and ring around
and close in to keep at bay.
Blow off the roof with a thunderclap sound,
then soar off and fly away.

A tattooed man, burly and grey,
twists his hemp-fiber rope.
He thinks only of this cable’s lay,
not of wistfulness or unfulfilled hope.

His skin is bronzed and deeply creased
echoing the waves of the sea.
The grey wisps of his forearms’ thin fleece
recall thousands of mornings misty.

His thick fingers grasp like old iron anchors
as his mind glides through his tasks.
He pays no heed to the long-faded cankers
on his worn body from times long past.

Silently he furls the white canvas sails
and stows the great ropes below.
He calmly swabs with a mop and a pail
all the sea salt on the deck white as snow.

The now naked oak masts still rise to blue skies
as seagulls circle and sing their own lay.
But the sailor man hears not their cries —
He turns the capstan: Anchor aweigh.

The oaken ship now glides at slow pace,
adrift on the wide open waters.
A smile takes shape under grey beard’s lace:
He seeks the hand of Poseidon’s daughter.

He’s the last of the crew on this ship of the line.
He sails to be one with the sea.
He waits in calm as the smell of the brine
signals his new bride has welcomed his plea.

Ages hence a wreck will be found
with just one skeleton aboard.
But upon one bony finger, a round
gold band shines out like a vast hoard.

Lost in cloudy thoughts of sleet
as foggy tendrils swirl ‘round my mind,
I took a walk through stony streets
in hopes that sunlight I’d find.

The mindscape groaned as rolling storms
marched grumbling across my inner plains
releasing grey drops of thoughts all torn
from past faults I thought of again.

While stuck in this cauldron of tempests within
I sensed others who walk by my side,
the sound of their footfalls’ quiet din
to pull me out of my darkened tide.

My eyes peeled open to see a stream,
a mass of people who walk on:
They, like me, are stuck in a dream
of sullen skies that they each prolong.

With eyes wide open, I stopped to watch
and saw how I had not been alone.
The weather clears by just a notch
and a sunbeam of silence now shone.

An ice floe made of gathered up snow
that fell over thousands of years:
The snow’s source water had achingly grown
from billions of sweat drops and tears

But now the floe turns and starts to flow
in rivers of thawed out heart-ice
and emotions once caged start to angrily glow —
An avalanche loosed from its vice

The glacier crashes, a tectonic shift
as mountains of blue-white burst the dam:
The inland is transformed by dramatic drift —
Who will find new order in the break of the jam

The moon rose up
and the moon looked down
She’s watched the Earth
spin round and round

And kingdoms rose
and empires fell
The moon just waxed
and waned a spell

Her one bright eye
has seen it all —
she’ll still be there
long after we fall

Cross upon cross upon cross
were stacked to make the Union Jack
but with one saltire feeling salty
will Andy make Jack fade to black?

There is no pity in Berlin,
a place of prickly wounded pride.

A city of angels
who fell like scars of lightning
from gunmetal grey skies.

I watch old silvered rolls of film
and see flying columns of seraphim
as they march on by
row upon row
eyes ablaze
flaming swords drawn
in a parody of paradise.
They descended into hell
and are seated
at the left hand of the Kaiser:
Gott mit uns.

This sullen scene of no regret
stains the present with the dead and past:
It fits the flinty nature
of the blunt Berliner
under the ashen skies of winter.

I trudge across a gravel path
in the bowels of Berlin,
hear the grinding crunch
of brittle bones below,
and gird myself for the grim winter ahead.

In the dark of the whispering nave
as rosy incense blesses the scene,
old hymns once sung in chanted waves
still sail through hearts of choirs unseen;
Dimly lit by a sanctuary lamp red,
the altar lies in stony repose:
a throne for him who for all bled
and wished us love by the Holy Ghost.
Streaming, rippling ocean hues
with light washed bluer than Jonah’s whale
flow from stained glass richly imbued
by a Jewish hand with swirling detail:
This sturdy house is a bobbing ark
floating through our tempestuous time,
marked by a seagull who soared and embarked
on making his art for all sublime:
to fulfill the promise of rainbows above
for all those who seek the light of love

Hey, little frog
on your pad in a pond
surveying your kingdom green
You don’t have a golden ball,
no princess came to call
and these lily pads are all you’ve seen
You’re just fine in your domain
and have no reason to complain
with your fine banquet of flies that teem
So you sit strong and alone
on your very own green throne —
just now swims up a queen

Had a chat with my cat.
Now how about that?
She spoke with a twitch of whisker
and slow blinked her eyes to whisper
that she’s feeling quite content
to be in this moment.
For though she’s told me her life story
of all the times she’s been crowned in glory
by defeating her toy mice —
which is really not a vice —
it’s in the here and now
with no sweat upon her brow
that she’s glad to becuddle me
and from worry be wild and free.
Watch her fur belly rise and fall
and her purr keeps me in her thrall
as I scratch her fluffy chin
and feel peace spread within.

I’m in a wide deep river
that flows onwards to the sea.
The wind gusts at my back
in spite of the lee.

The bleak banks are far away,
the murky waters are swift,
my feet don’t reach the river’s bed,
I’m floating lonely and adrift.

Once every so often
I bump against a big rock
that my hands will firmly clasp
to stop the tick and the tock —

but the rock is slick
with the slime of passing time
and I slip on and on
to the sunset light sublime.

Look: All around are scattered people
failing too to stem the flow
as the tireless river hurries on
towards the sunset’s vesper glow.

Then I start to grasp
that to fight it is to fail
and I must be one with the river,
not see it as my jail.

And now, and now, and now:
As my thoughts flow consoled,
I float as one with clockwork water…
each bobbing second turns into gold.

In a nook of an old stone church
a cherub basks in the vesper light —
A childlike innocence for which I’ve searched
that seems to slip into the onset of night
Fade not away, you sweet dear boy
and never lose your childlike joy
Fight, fight
the snares of twilight

The sentinel stood
on the stone parapet
under heavy storm clouds
that stained the stone wet
and as the sleet fell
he turned his collar high
and, stoic, did his rounds
with the faintest little sigh —
His simple task was this:
keep watch over the town
no matter wind or weather —
the corporal earned quiet renown

Lightning snaps and rain applauds
as thunder claps above horizons’ walls
Grumbling clouds march swiftly on
to booming sounds and cracks of dawn —
Here below, in the cockpit of storm,
the rain now sows blue jewels that form
on an old rose’s petals and thorny stalks
to test the mettle of the bugs that walk
up and down their rosebush world
that’s becrowned by blossoms, red unfurled:
One bug, aloof, sits calm and at peace
under his roof of a sturdy green leaf —
This one bug that I see amidst all the gloom
is who I wish to be, under red blooms

A-walking through stone Old Town streets
of Edinburgh lashed by wind and sleet,
I saw Tron Kirk tower ***** the sky —
she loosed great raindrops on passersby:
A handsome former city church,
by fickle faithful left in the lurch,
still called down tears of Scottish rain
and wept, but dreams she’ll rise again

An old telephone
hangs unused on the wall
What voices it heard
as people made their calls
fade into the ether
scattered electrons all

Dashes to dashes
dots to dots
All those things once said
now forever lost

On the face of a tombstone there
I saw an epitaph made for evermore,
its letters eroded and worse for wear
and covered by moss that grew long before;
the trees’ roots twisted around its base
to nudge the old stone out of plumb line
and wrap the tomb’s body in wooden embrace
while draping it all in verdant vines:
The permanent stone turns slowly to sand —
a world without end that brief time spanned

The last rose petals fall to the ground
leaving the rosehips bare
as autumn’s chill again comes around
to strip blooms that had been fair
The rosehips have hairs all wiry and grey
that also break off, one by one
Her color is gone, she fades away
until this rose lady’s season is done
Her petals arrayed on frosty soil
decay gently in the cold rain
while in her hips, seeds are born
to bring forth new roses again

In the ancient Gothic church
Mother Mary whispers here;
Her stony face looks out at me,
blank eyes that shed a granite tear:
There beneath her warming cloak
a mass of children huddle there,
seeking shelter and maternal love —
their fears and pains that she will bear
are lit by a sea of candlelight
that lifts cares hence, way up high,
borne aloft away from here,
to dissipate in distant skies

Turrets and towers and a fortified keep
all protected by barbicans of stone
encircle a heart that solitary beats
besieged by being alone
The curtain wall rises terribly high
behind a dark, wide, and deep moat
behind both hides a soul with a sigh
draped in a man-at-arms’ coat
The banners are torn and raggedly hang
far above the desolate ward
while the heart hopes for a cannonade’s bang
to free itself with a stroke of a sword
And there approaches on the sunlit plain
a fellow heart with siege engines in train

Peering through a old stone gate,
its face well carved, in prayers attired,
I saw a golden wall of late
before which stood cracked streetlamps retired,
their warming light now long gone
yet they still glow stubbornly on

In an aisle of a great stone church
by flickering light of candles perched
under finials and arches tinged with gold,
flags fly for blood shed on fields of old:
They wave with wistful dreams of war
and tell of great esprit de corps
in a house made holy for a prince of peace
whose dreams of love they speak of least