There is serenity
in the realms of heart and mind
as soft-coloured music
flows harmoniously
through the waters
of my iridescent
soul.

Late at night
in a white, silent
and sleeping village

The Elizabethan
Serenade
seduces a heart
playing
solitaire.

In the supine despair
that infiltrates every corner
of the spirit's, sometimes,
suffocating privacies

we yearn
to grasp and breath
hope and the simplest of joys.

Outside my window
the blur of a November fog
hastens up eternal ghosts, Hades-like,
from gardens bleeding with pungent odours.

There are
the remembrances of mistakes and faults,
unexcitably, gone to dismal wastes
and waters of stale and frothy ****.

A shot of music.

A human voice -
a voice of Slavic magic
storms into
the dried out
wastelands
of my parched soul.

You are like a well
of fresh water
in a desert
of desolation.

You are like a warm flame
in the cold night
of dark nihilism.

You are as a compass
in a directionless universe.

You are as a revealing flare
in a sea of distress.

You are as sense
in a maze of absurdity.

You are like a purpose
behind apparent chaos.

You are like an answer
to a long list of supplications.

You are like a surefooted guide
through the muddles realms
of space and time.

You are as a cool dawn breeze
after a night full of fever.

You are as a shining star
in the essence of our beings.

You are like the finest cut diamond
that sparkles in our souls.

You are like the best of wines
that brings solace to our hearts.

You are like a lover
who gives his all
in anticipation
of nothing.

3 brown, tall, large and stately bottles
of Trappist monks' beer,
each with their own individual and historical label,
stand quietly, sentry-like on a shelf.

Craftmanship in
3 colours and 3 tastes,
7, 8 and 10 percent strong:
from dark robin-red - fresh, soft and a little sweet;
to dark blond - fruity and sweet and sour;
and finally amber - fullbodied and sweet and sour.

Religious beer
celebrating
the festive season
of Our Saviour's birth.

3 times a heavenly treat, indeed!

My many
faces in a mirror - multiplying
faces of one being,
dully and mistily ever changing,
erring
till the death.

My voices of many pasts and buried pangs
looming into the uncertainty
of the fleeting moment's anxiety
for arrest and release.

My memories -
generations flowing into generations,
like clouds of permanent change,
wind across the circles
of earth's heavens

and there are waters rising
dangerously higher
with the engulfing of  unforgiven faults
and tragedies not sufficiently drowned
in tears of blood and anguish

and there is the baptism
in the bath of self-confession
leading to glimpses of patches azure
in a sky of cold and brittle
shining glass.

The mirror shatters into its atoms
and while they escape
I remain
none the wiser
just being those faces,
those voices,
those memories,
those waters,
that baptism

both recognizable
and totally alien.

This heart
weighs heavy
on the shoulders
of my existence

as a Welsh choir
bleeds forth
another lament
for and about
mankind.

In the dark silences
of my downtrodden thoughts
there is sometimes
a fiery consummation,
conception and fermentation
of breaking new ground -

frontiers once again opened
and filled with cadences
and rhythms of liberation.

A blessed release
from interminable durations
of the void's hammering on
and in the brain.

Heaving in my heart
plucked guitar note
send a hopeful tune out
to the limitless bounds
of space and the eternal.

Haunting music
fills this soul
to the brim,
in it's quest
for meaning
and dignity
in the wherewithal
of this meagre and aimless
existence.

Forever,
you walk through dry pastures
admired by the ghosts of dead civilizations;
resting in a sand-dusted corner
you savour the wine
as it wets men's throats
without twitching a nerve.

You make a fool of the camel
who insists on appearing satirical;
being so strong as to let
pockets of stabbing light
pierce your pools of welcome shade.

Finally,
you are never totally surprised
and with a shrug of the shoulders
say: 'Let us get on with the job!'

The cue - the cue - the cue
for a joyful entry
Django on your radio
lures him dancing through the door
and your face plays and portrays brilliant colours
with the laughter of a spirit
being momentarily freed
from the sadness of it's earthly shackles.

Without You
I would have no anchor
and would be left drifting,
aimlessly, in the endlessness
of a sea without shores.

Blinded
and surrounded
by light and more and more light
there are no insights, comforts
or illuminations;
only tears raining down
on the dusty desert
of my thirsting soul.

Your door
was always
open -

this time,
I entered
from the weatherbeaten
steppes
of my non-being

never to leave
again.

Injured to mutter in mad ways
(a town's sneer won't let him scream)
his eyes settle for blind sights drawn
from painless but poisonous prods -

their targets a scrapbook of wheat and chaff
in this womb where no one watches
the self-embraced death of desire
that blocks hidden tears from surging
to a valley tomb.

Violin strings
being fully stretched

as the world sleeps
through it's woes -

a dolorous tune
for mankind

heard
by but the few.

Sun and seed
warmly embracing;

the caterpillar
winding it's way
to incendiary flight.

Dichotomy
between the struggle
to be born,
the will to live
and a crestfallen
and ignominous
exit.

A piece -

too terribly beautiful,

too extremely poignant

and too utterly perfect

in expressing

the emotions

of a frail

and pathetically

limited heart.

See!
The savage will's sinking fangs
bite deep down into the bubbling head
of the madly laughing larynx
where the screaming- in-silence turbulences
are launched through melting marble eyes
into the distant heights of blue celestial skies
where they become bloated
and explode into nothingness,
beautifully lost in their pre-existence.

Soft rains
falling
onto the quiet
unobstrusive
mornings
as seas lap
gently
against
the winter-weary
shores
of
hearts
and souls.

Buds
sprouting
and shooting
their green-rich
heads
towards
an inebriated
sun;
upwards
and outwards
in the delicate
art
of crowning
the bare bones
of skeletal
trees.

Wet grasses
slowly
changing hue
on desolate pastures
of brown
rot and decay.

Wood and soil,
flesh and blood
animated with an
optimism
going wild
with newborn
joy.

Days , weeks?,
gone by -

stubbles,
beards appear
like weeds
in a garden;

the wash undone,
no clean clothes;

***** dishes
suffocating
a small kitchen
space;

plants not watered;

post unanswered;

knocks on the door
ignored.

The poison
must first run
it's course!

The moon
is full
and bright
as the stars
glitter
through gaps
in the clouds.

All traffic
to and from Schiphol
at a rest
as Handel
makes
his joyous
entry -

and I dance!
and I dance!
and I dance
and dance!

Winding up by the sea

Even the grown-ups appear content
as the first paces of evening
bring a freshening breeze with them.

Time for packing,
beachballs to deflate,
togs to wring out

and uncomfortable grains of sand
to wash away from the nigglies of one's toes
by the cold-water tap
at the local strong smelling
convenience.

Writing in memory
and distance
of those rampant
fiddles and flutes;
of those swaying dances
over drunken floors
and sailing seas;

the jigs in heaven,
rock and roll,
ups and downs
between a nod and a wink -

the forever being,
cynically, hopeful
in the flux of things
that knock us flat
or cheer us on.

As an actor on the stage of life,
in the daily flux of time,
continually crossing frontiers
I move from one space to another
endeavouring to fill each one
with some semblance of normality.

Walking
in a field
surrounded
by a forest
light streams down
and the sound of winged voices
drowns the senses in sheer simple drunkeness.

I feel as if I have just begun;
just been born and am 4000 years old.

In this silence
there is not the hush of a breeze,
not the purr of a cat,
not the hum of summer bees
and not the wiping of feet on a familiar mat.

In this silence
there is the absence of fear,
the quenching of thirst
and the quiet eating of hungry bread.

In this silence
there is the wise old look that says so much.

This silence is and is not
the lapping of gentle waters on the shores of a lonely lake;
is and is not the cries of gulls
hovering above the cliffs of etenal seas.

Let
some solace
come
from the fire
and brimstone
rampant
in my soul.

Let
a soft and gentle
lyre
transform
the black clouds
permeating
my mind
with
condemnation
and gloom.

Let
the rivers
bursting
the banks
of  my heart
subside
and flow
to a tranquil
ocean.

The best 4 lines that I ever read:

The stone is a perfect creature,
equal to itself,
mindful of it's limits
and filled exactly with a pebbly meaning.

(Zbigniew Herbert).

A great day,
aided
by Mars bars;
out on a lake,
in a small boat,
fishing for all
we were worth.

Later,
retiring to a pub
we spoke about
the big-one
who got away -

the big-one
always
gets away!

There is an easy way
and a difficult path;
but most of the time
life is not gentle.

We nearly all end up
politely wiping our feet
on a tear-soaked mat
before the door of death.

Like an object
lying on the strand
I am tired and immobile
in the dying light
of the day.

Let the tide
sweep in
and carry me off
to the depths
of glistening pearls
and divers' dreams.

While celebrating
the late hours
in a silent, white
and sleeping village -

an Elizabethan Serenade
enchants a heart
playing solitaire.

Yet again
the stars
are out
in all their
stupendous
glory;

as ever,
a silent
fireworks
of constant
dismay,

while
You knock
on the door
of my heart.

Please enter,
quickly,
that I
might
convey
to the world
with candlelike
signals

something of
the joys
of Your
workings
in, through
and  around
humankind.

Mr. Williams
and his guitar
bring aesthetics
to a new level
in the paradise of my room -

my entire being
totally ravaged
for 3 odd minutes.

I trust that
all Your
comings and goings
are for my own
and others' benefit
as You deem necessary
in Your divine
omniscience.

During
a symphony
a fusion
of Your cross,
Munch's Scream
and my Mona Lisa's
innumerable faces
breath
a sense of completion.

The intangible touches me,
now and then.

It is always gone again
before
I can reach out
and embrace it.

Where to go from here
on this most intimate journey
towards eternity?

I do not know
but my faith remains firm
in trusting Your most precious wisdom!

I must be mad -
up the whole night,
a favoured night,
writing and writing;

while the village
thinks
that the lunatic
is probably
at it again.

I feel
that it is not my pen
but Your's
that strikes these chords.

I feel
that Your's is the abetting
and the glory
of sanity on virginal paper.

The spirit
of Erasmus
of Rotterdam
still does
and always
will
thrive
in me.

Please put a brake
on my writer's greed
and let me patiently await
Your promptings when and where
You, in all Your sagacity,
choose fit.

Slate,
brittle
and chipping away
at the edges -

like
growing
old!

In youth
my impatience was pure
and my ignorance supreme.

All advice was treated as criticism
or as a declaration of war
on the sanctuary of my little toe.

Night's journeyings
through the unfathomed
depths
of the mind's basements
lead
to the immeasureable mysteries
of more than this, our temporal
existence.

Look!
Here's a body speaking
some clues to answers sprung
from a tired and exhausted mind.

Just watch the rippling apple in the throat
contort the face and tear the lips apart.

Picture to yourself
in a single moment's breath
the pounding voice in the head
sledgehammering them shut again
till they take the appearance
of a fist gripping itself
in the teeth of it's piercing pain.