While walking through a wintry town
of weavers’ crackerbox houses of stone,
all with carved shutters and panes of wood,
I noticed I was far from alone.

A tabby cat sat on a sill
and looked at me with wet jade eyes.
I asked her what she for Christmas wills,
what sandy claws might bring as a prize.

She winked a blink as slow as tar
and gave me a sideways smile.
All she wanted was a door ajar
to sneak into with all her wiles.

Why yes, I opened the door for her,
and scarcely had she gone inside
that she returned with a satisfied purr
and said that she’d changed her mind.

This cat will do as she may please —
She’s a feline, fickle as a winter breeze.

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.

Candle, candle, burning bright
in this vast and dusky church tonight.
In its shimmering light I see
few fellow faithful kneel near to me.
Our chant is soft and barely heard
above this fallen world’s absurd
descent into a tyrant’s wrath.
Like those before, await his aftermath.
Therefore we must keep this flame alive
so that hope and charity still survive
‘til the fickle follies of sundown times
end again and new dawn shines.

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 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.

What lies beyond this dour door
that leads to things ahead?
I stand and wonder what’s in store
behind this portal grimy with dread.

Its glass is cracked, its lead paint is chipped
while its brick wall is turning to sand.
Its handle doesn’t invite to be gripped,
nor does it tell me where I’ll land.

I look all up and down the street
and see only more doors that look the same.
Before each one are more: their feet
wish to walk away from these doorframes.

Each one of us is seized by impotent rage
at facing a choice that’s no choice,
to be fixed as if in a steel cage
and finding no cause to rejoice.

But one of us in this bleak boulevard
must be the first to twist the ****
with the will to face the path that’s hard,
to not let our lives by fear be robbed.

Let each of us kick in our doors of fate
and overthrow their grips on our lives,
smash the clock and pass through that gate
with heads held high, fearless of where we arrive.

Spurred by the clarion call: it came to pass
our pent up waters burst the dams.
No captives are we! We struck en masse:
Battering rams forged out of lambs.

A Christmas market —
smell of pastry, baubles shine,
bright star lights the night.

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

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.

A **** of lightning’s searing blast
that ripped across her rib cage’s sky
had torn anew through clouds aghast
at what the storm had loosed from on high.

The brooding might of the blackened squall
kicked up the chill winds of her innerscape
and hurled down hailstones, icy *****
that pummeled the pit of her belly’s nape.

To tame this tempest, this wrecking gale,
felt too by the kaleidoscope of her spirit’s kin,
she in and exhaled breaths of kindness to regale
her kinsfolk around her with fresh air within.

Though the storm reared terrible and bleak
above these heads bowed and burdened below,
their sparks of lightning that blazed and streaked
were together tamed to a shared soft glow.

They held tight the hands of those around
who quailed in fright as thunder drums
to form a circuit bright which surrounds
and transforms dark sparks to delightful suns.

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.

The copper dome
of this domus Dei
provides a home
where I may in silence stay.

Beyond its great doors,
a sea of candles like a hearth.
The cool marble floor
reflects the roof mosaic’s warmth.

In this vast space
my silence softly echoes
and in my vault vibrates
a secret libretto.

In sleet and rain of Edinburgh
a cathedral rises from the deeps.
The salt of sea and old coal blur
veil her face in grey-cast sheets.

On her western pediment
within tympanum carved of stone
sits Christ triumphant and in judgement
where he calls us all to atone.

I stand before him, my head bowed
as I contemplate our shared guilt,
with mea culpas weighing on my brow
for the follies fallen man has built.

And so we’re burning Eden down
with flaming swords that we still wield
as once vast forests shrink and brown
and fallow lie once verdant fields.

Where trees once stood, smokestacks rear
their heads belching fumes up high
and in the deeps, the oceansphere’s
no more a garden for octopi.

For in this our earthly commonweal
that was a gift that’s given free
we prove that purgatory’s real
because we ourselves have made it be.

A whisper came from the carved face
to walk into this stony womb
where colored light and incense trace
a path to overcome the gloom:

Forgiveness for our many faults
comes when we change our ways.
There in this temple’s holy vault
I vow to fight Eden’s decay.

In Edinburgh I found Eden
in a vision of what can be.
For we are by no means beaten
and we can do it, you and me.

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.

What happened to the little boy
that I once knew so well?
He’d greet each new day with unfettered joy
and wave the last one farewell.

When oaks and maples began to turn
and the leaves had started to fall
the boy happily switched the TV on and yearned
for the return of his game of football.

Somewhere along this growing boy’s way
he became a great deal like me:
I wake and walk to the mirror today
to see where that boy used to be.

Now I cling to every last leaf
that falls from the branches up high
while stretching the days that are now too brief
as the winter comes rapidly nigh.

King David’s bard once sang about
ceaseless cycles of the tides,
a time to hope and time for doubt
as we the cresting waves must ride.

Once trusted boatsmen stopped to ford
the deep oceans that divide
and swung their oars in wrath’s discord
to scorch with flames of pride:

I walked across an iron bridge
that had once been made a wall.
Not so far back was it the edge
of two worlds to rivals called.

The warhawks of those bitter days
that swung hard over seas of steel
returned to their unspoiled state
of ivory doves whose touch can heal.

Some doves now blacken in their dirge,
their talons whetted for the **** —
it’s worth recalling when this bridge
its joining purpose re-fulfilled.

Fell waves will crest and seas will smooth,
our tossed ark will come to rest
upon a place where psalms will soothe
us where we by doves are blessed.

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

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

Helicopter seed
comes to rest on the green moss —
A princess in bed

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

A life after death
prayerfully sought in churches —
Mushrooms in tree stumps

Waves in handmade glass
in old peeling wooden panes —
Ripples on the pond.

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.

Goddess of harvests
calls out from wheat fields waving —
Heavy clouds marching

In an Edinburgh square, pale frosty dawn,
my collar upturned to ward off the sleet
a-pattering on the grey stony lawn
of slate flagstones and cobblestone streets.

I see a creature of myth that flies a flag:
The unicorn wields a white cross
and spites iron clouds of sullen ****:
Her golden horn gleams in the dross

of short winter days of sickly suns.
As daybreak crawls out slowly from grey
and fog’s misty veil turns light to dun,
I long for a glimpse of sun’s gilded rays.

This Scottish sunrise sends its weak beams
of wan threads of silver to kiss the gold
which sheathes the unicorn’s horn and gleams:
Her white coat shimmers in summers foretold.

Her sunbright horn pierces the pall
of grim grey winter’s grip on my heart —
In this moment her lightness enthralls,
her horn a flame that freedom imparts.

I once checked into an old hotel
that’s served guests for many a year.
The white-clad staff will serve you well
and greet you brimming with cheer.

Its handsome brick and stone façade
shines gold in the bright morning sun.
Inside, the red velvet furnishings’ a nod
to the lovers’ tall tales there spun.

The rooms are filled with patchouli scent,
or perhaps with a strong note of musk.
At first you’ll easily make the rent
and stay there from dawn until dusk.

Oh, how well could I in that chamber sleep
on starry fields of Elysium each night,
my baggage packed in cotton I’d keep
to stow it from whatever gave fright.

But the longer this hospitality I had
the more a locked hospital it became;
the doors that’d welcomed this young lad
soon rusted, harder to open again.

I chatted with the friendly concierge
and noticed the crease of his smile
was curled into the quirk of a sneer
while his light humor shifted to bile.

The mattress that once was thick and soft
grew coarse and lumpy with age
while the vistas seen from the gilded loft
were obscured by the bars of a cage.

The red velvet’s colors began to bleed.
All was gilded with the gold of fools.
Once this hotel had for me filled a need —
but it sought to make me its ghoul.

This hostel had to hostile turned,
its host was revealed as a warden.
With time I learned its charms to spurn
and escape to a greener garden.

Even now that hooking hotel calls,
a sultry siren who woefully wails
and summons her guests — or thralls? —
to deep sleep in her heavenly jail.

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.

Will she, won’t she
buy my Christmas wares:
If I work to sell me
will she take my snare?

The practiced pitter-patter
of my seller’s pitch
hangs in crisp cold air
and hopes to scratch her itch.

Her eyes dart to and fro
from one stall to the next:
the jingling coins’ fickle flow,
Christmas bells that leave me vexed.

Will she, won’t she,
see this heart that beats?
What if I add it free
to the sale of these sweetmeats?

Each moment wisps of tinsel
a-flutter in icy gales:
I fear her dismissal
as I grasp at just one more sale.

A spark of insight melts the ice
in a tiny warming breeze:
It’s not my wares I price,
but what I’m truly selling’s me.

Athena turned ’round her head
like a night owl on the sly
and looked up behind her
as gold Apollo crossed the sky,

riding with his four coursers’
flying gilded manes and hooves.
Their silver flanks and quarters
thunder across the earth’s blue roof.

The rhythm of their beat
stamps a lyric all their own,
blood coursing with the heat
of the sun-disk they all towed.

The she-god of the wise
observes this cloud-streaked scene,
the man-god shining out,
casting shadows ’round Athene.

Apollo’s path is sinking low
as the winter months advance.
The frost now blurs his glow
and bare forests fall into trance.

It’s in this creeping night
that Athena finds her time.
She draws her wisdom in twilight,
no need for blinding light up high.

For she shines not with a sun.
Instead she lights her own pathway.
By her craft and wits she’ll run
her own trail she blazed today.

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?

In the house by the lake
sat a man of few means.
He dwelled on his mistakes
that had left his life lean.

In that house in a place
by rippled waters’ edge
he saw just the faces
in the photos on the ledge.

Outside rang the birdsong
and the sun sent her rays;
the trees stood there strong
and the clouds went their ways.

But in that tiny home
a man just sat to dwell
to brood on being alone
and missed out nature’s spell.

Gunmetal grey skies
loose leaden teardrop tempests —
Lights in the window

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.

On a church, Mother Mary gazes up high
with her saving babe on her stone arm.
On her alabaster face: a cryptic smile
that has its own fine chiseled charm.

While I stand in the old town’s cobblestone street,
my mind sees me in a far distant place.
The visions I see speak of defeat,
a void that devours all grace.

I see myself floating in a brittle wood boat
with sails torn to shreds by the storms.
Frantically I toil to stay afloat,
tossed by black waves which ebb and reform.

Her disk halo of gold shines out in the dark,
glinting to those who sail by.
I ask her: tell me what can give me a spark
to let me soar up into the sky.

She offers no answer in so many words
and just smiles on, stonily serene.
In her silence is where her answer is heard,
a quiet reply — I know just what she means.

The rock of her tells me what I must hear:
No need to soar nor fly nor flee.
Let black tides flow past me ‘til they clear.
Like this old pale statue, just simply be.

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 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

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.

i.
I walk through the streets
of old Spandau
under a sky of slate and zinc
that lets loose its sleet
and drops of pale ink,
filled with burdened clouds
weary from hurrying onward
out of the iron east.

ii.
A church tower stands sentinel
watching over the people fleeing past
on cobbled streets paved with fate.

iii.
Once, to doubt was to believe
as Thomas, bereaved,
called out in awe
My Lord and my God.
Today there’s just doubts,
faith is fleeting as clouds.

iv.
The tower waits,
outwardly strong,
yet forlorn and alone,
abandoned by the faithful
as the sacred slips away.
It watches and waits
in hollow hope of a time
when its hallowed purpose
might yet be whole 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

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.

In the teardropped dew of golden hour
as dusk-sun dips below the edge,
an angel of bronze upon a stone bower
keeps watch as nighttime’s fingers stretch.

Across the spans of painted sky,
one by one bright sparks appear:
constellations form as portraits high,
a hunter, two bears, points on the sphere.

These starry creatures connect the dots,
parade across the firmament
and crown the angel deep in thought,
twelve stars, a wreathed encirclement.

The hunter wheels around the dome
of charcoal sky. His thrice-jeweled belt
shines out to mark him as he still roams
in pursuit of where scorpions dwelt.

Above him run two starry bears,
one’s tail-tip pointing to the north.
Though he lays his trapper‘s snares
the scorpion always hurries forth.

The angel watches the hunt go on
as it’s been since this our rock was made.
She hums her part in creation’s song
that set it all turning on time’s old lathe.

There in the shade by moonlight cast,
this angel smiles at the pageantry
of starry figures marching past
to mark her maker’s majesty.

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.

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.

From the leaden sky
descends a dark winged lady —
Black sunbeams dawning.

Reddened night replies
and locks her blackened aerie —
Hunter’s moon is rising.

Morning herald cries
to summon sunburst faeries —
Sparks rise a-flaming.

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 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

Two marble columns
hold up the high temple roof —
Lovers holding hands

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.

At night, a Christmas garland brightly lit —
Milky Way, spine of the sky.

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