The tulip, your flower, has changed its form,
its upright stem no longer crowned with
perfect instances of hue.

Like fallen petals, randomness now
flutters in my heart, the sweet scent
of bloom still floating on the edges
of belief.

My memories of breath’s brief signature
break away and leave me in a world
of lost directions, each flower shaded
with the ghost of its inhabitant.

Each flower is a kind of heart
that can’t let go.  Other losses
translate into nuances of dream,
but you are still a shadow in the
moonlight, showing what’s no
longer there.

If Only …..

If only…
to lift the heart,
to play the game
of hope again,
to caress the softness
of longing.

If only….
the half-spent moon
would re-appear in full,
gently touching each
dark shadow on the edge
of night.

If only….
time had held still,
billowing into a mound
of motionless pink cloud.

If only ….
the dream of myself,
filled with a thousand
frailties, would brighten
the cold room of my life
with warm, quiet smiles.

If only…..
the dove’s shimmering
coo would break through
the tears of dawn where
the silk-white sky would
swallow me.

Then, at the first unexpected
tinge of brightness, I could
pat, stroke, kneel and kiss
the earth where your upturned
palm meets mine.

This quilt we shared
has become heavy with sadness,
damp with tears since your passing.

Rips and tears, unrepaired,
are now gaping holes
of stark loneliness, each one
a wouund, a near-death
of the soul.

This quilt, once a shelter
from world’s cruelty,
now bleeds grief
into every night.

Where is the magic needle,
To sew up the gaps ?
Where is the thread of kindness,
the stitches that heal the heart ?


I huddle and shiver beneath
this thin reminder of past joy,
a gift of love given, then
suddenly snatched away.

Like a
            h
            u
            r
            r
            i
            c
            a
            n
            e
At first a haphazard
                                  d
                                   r
                                   i
                                   z
                                   z
                                   l
                                   e
Then a deadly
           d
           o
           w
            n
            p
            o
            u
            r

Of beak-masqued terrorists
                                     i
                                     n
                                     v
                                      i
                                      s
                                      i
                                      b
                                       l
                                       e

Threatens each unguarded
                 m
                 o
                 m
                 e
                 n
                 t

Fear grows everywhere suspicion
                                     l
                                     u
                                     r
                                     k
                                     s

Yesterday’s mosquito makes tomorrow’s
               g
               h
               o
               s
               t

It’s the season’s ungiving
                                      p
                                      a
                                      n
                                      i
                                      c

No remedy : only the sky’s massive closed door and
                  t
                  i
                  m
                   e
                   l
                   e
                   s
                   s
                   n
                   e
                   s
                   s

Despair, immeasurable
as shadows perceived
in fading daylight.
Colors of an unseen
rainbow beckoning,
hope just out of reach.

Prayers beyond words –
a bright reflection imagined.
Questions hanging like ghosts
in the atmosphere.

Time without substance,
a moment of breath,
suspence awaiting repetition,
help or comfort.

Speculations about angels’ wings,
darks tunnels, light rivers of love,
and the memory of a story we once believed.
Life, like a stunned bird, held between
invisible hands.

Gone, last year, you’re gone,
as a guilty lover steals away,
No use zipping up the bright
horizon as the day begins again –
your replacement will still barge in.

You’ve grown old, weary, your face
craggy as a mountain, your beard
a wisp of cloud. Time to chase
your end around the world,
your destination everywhere.

Run, old year, to time’s
bartered space, where
the chaos of bewildered atoms
cannot follow. You, who were
only a shadow, a shape of brief
episodes, departed moments,
forgoten yesterdays, a bridge
swept away by momentum’s
transformation.

A book of poems –
a stunning moment’s promise,
a planet of new songs
each scarlet stanza firing
neurons at the back of mind,

a word like «whorl»
violet verses, rhythm
thumping as if with curses

Each image a word explosion
Spilling sparks on the dark,

each metaphor a painting
each simile a saying

Rhymes of psychedelic highs
Music of soft-petalled tongue:

velvet sonnet
silky sestina
vigoruous villanelle –

Perfect lens capturing
each wavelength of light,
splintering time, filling history
with slippery equivocals.

Perfect circle, irridescent
kalidescope, all colors
transposed, admired,
re-interpreted.