Only the moon
Defines our day
With orbit

Only sunshine
Allows our life

Only our ***
Creates our people

Only your love
Made me whole

Now moon drifts away
3.87 centimetres
Each year

The night shall stretch
And die

You left
All at once

Only I cry
I cry
I cry

From your end of
Telescope

Thirty years scans
Infinity

From my end merest
Blink of eye.

When slightest wink
Of billion mile
Star

Outlasts every planet
In the sky

Lincoln green robin
hoodwinking the
greedy rich

Feeding the poor
robin red breast
flaunting credentials
robbing the lady
marion
the little birds of their
flimsy
filmy honor

Little boy little
man-child john
little mowgli
conquering the jungle
conquering the tiger
riding imperious
the stark grey brown elephant

And backscratching bear
sleeping in the greensward
dancing with milady
tucking into supper of
fast arrowed stag

Hung out and dried
between devil trees
and huts afire

Across the brittle
yellow beach into
the deep blue sea

Loving the abstract you

Now that you in flesh are
No longer here

(Many years,
So long)

Your hair unplugs the bathroom

Harsh words
Entail no tears

Your beauty lingers
Burned under my eyelids
And your perspicacity
Shields my fear

You carry words
In your belly-
Pregnant meaning

I read in awe
Raw emotion
Direct communication..

Avoid spilling
Into oblivion

Your beauty
Lights the world
Courage inspiration

In a scented garden
Bees bow into
Flower-heads.

Pigment on canvas
Leaves drying points
To scratch the
Finger-tips.

A woman places herself
In this scene.

Far-off,
Precipitous buildings cling,
Spider on a wall

And long tree line between.

Ochre
Reddish brown mingle
Subtle essence of
Feminine.

Birds bow,
Bees bow
And man too bows-

Adoration of
Mysterious earth
And miraculous

Causeless

Creation

I swirl galaxies
In a fit of pique

Soothe exo planets
Locked in orbit

Blow gentle air
From hot face
To freezing rear

This I
Centre of centreless
Space

Dimple in the chin
Of directionless
Being

Entire universe
Mere metaphor

Of how This I
May feel
Right now.

This vaunted ambition
These vaulted palaces

Celebrants all of

This I that
This I calls

God as a two year old
Stamping mighty feet

This nothing at all
This whatever
This I
That is what it is

And loves only
This I

My ears are tired

Left alone
Nature proceeds
To order chaos.

Land unploughed
Turns grass, scrub
Forest, each

In turn colonise,
Each more beautiful
Than before

Stars cluster and
Nebulise to galaxy

And my sad
Chaotic life

Shall emanate
(O my soul, in hope)

Splendour

Only the moon
Defines our day
With orbit

Only sunshine
Allows our life

Only our ***
Creates our people

Only your love
Made me whole

New moon drifts away
3.87 cenimetres
Each year

The night shall stretch
And die

You left
All at once

Only I cry
I cry
I cry

1
Mike
Adam
Awoke to find
He had transformed
Into a dragon.**

His snoring had set
The bed alight.

He rose quickly.

Melting a toothbrush,
His wings flapped,

Mirrored.

Held down his whole life,
Finally-

He decided to fly

Where this arrow
all untamed
should land

Bury me there
in the greenwood

Or burn me on
the mighty river

Or give me to birds
or sea creatures
too fabulous to mention

Where this arrow falls
leave me there untended
time and flying arrow
spent

Show me still water
And a flat stone
Worn and beached
From beyond oral history.

Show me and wonder
At one two three
Four five six seven
Bouncing flights.

I want to dive deep,
Retrieve
That champion flatstone

Carry it home in sandy pocket

Keep it with found marbles

For life

In the beginning
Was the poem

What god made
Better than this sad
Universe only
I and you can make
With words

Sullied by overuse-

I love this world this poem

This notion that only
I and you may
Understand

This darkest night

Skipping lightly on surface tension
hopping lotus pad to pad
barely left a ripple leaving
the domestic shenanigans.

Now rogue ronin rock,
no master no disciple
I wander without orbit
gliding between

Thirty suns warming
cockles of a deadened heart
dreaming a home

Did you see
My portrait?

Tiny figure in a corner of
Mountains and lakes

This is who I am

Small

Not

Insignificant

Jade tree cuttings
In window sill tray

Pictures on walls

Panama hat
Hooked

Not a stick of
Furniture
To soften the bones

Home sweet home

Crescent moon
Through
Undraped window

Gentle rustle and
creak of bamboo

Far off soothing flute
and soft drum, gentle
mist caressing marsh

Barefoot monks pad
roads accepting simple
alms of curry, rice;
Blessings and incense
float on smooth air.

Sudden cacophony of
mynah explode the grove, a
steady chant bubbles under
the noise, some new symphony
of hunger below bloodshot sky.

Dogs militate exercise,
giving voice, cat slips in
knowing, paws daddy whiskers.

Hawking cough of the headman
announcing his non-demise-
neighbourly sighs.

Crab unburrows and scurries
aside from sand to lapping tide
to feast on volitional jelly who
come inshore to breed and die,
so many alien pearls strung
glistening along the strand.

Of elegant languor
with a tint of sepia
melancholy

The romance of
vague longing
and nostalgic bloom
a fading chrysanthemum
perhaps

Taking the promenade
panama hat and shades
suit sewn by hand and
long corporate umbrella

Macintosh and overcoat
by turns repel the
damp and cold

Cognac by the fire
and wistful glances with
widows in the hotel bar

Strolling on with
meaningless purpose
toward Edwardian
disaster

Not drowning
in michigan waters

But waving,
and in fair hand
emerging

That flaming sword
destroyer of delusion.

Polar wind ruffling
your surface,
goose bumping emotion-
then, fading as
passing illusion.

Reflected cloud,
the clear blue sky uniform,
deep cool waters of
mind gently
overflowing

unpromising,
this ****** clay
scooped from the thames.

old, used scoured
****** of old father
thames, river of home,
of shame and escape.

mould me, make this
wet lump pliant,
knead it into man-shape
paint it green, blue or
gold, red white and blue,

not with harsh horse-
hair brush, but soft
with tender finger-tips.

fashion mouth ears eyes
and that piece some
women prize.

breathe life into this
teeming, fleshing thing

mouth to mouth, eve,
make me man with
kind words and passion.

take a rib and press it
to your *****

Mystically shelled
snails in slime
embrace

And in vast space
galaxies spin
and dance the
fractal same

(On flat dead
man stone
lovers tongue
entwined play
the same nocturnal game)

Left to themselves
People fall apart

Left alone
Buildings tumble

Order invites chaos
Through the front
Back door

Heaven below
Heaven all around
Empty empty space
The garish merry-
Go-round

Thoughts arise
Expire

Clouds drift
Pour rivers
Evaporate

Stars implode
Radiation

God in his elements

Laughing
Laughing laughing

The only
Not wanted
Was
Breath

All of you

My darlings

I loved

What makes you,
Each morning,
Reach for the words

Flown through ether
Across the ocean?

She feeds my soul

And so
Fog

Descends.

Fields from train
Disappeared

And luxurious
Time

Lost,
Sacrificed

And

So
                    Perhaps
Some day

Sun

Bored

Will draw a veil

And sit

                              Hidden
                                              Embroidering

Some
Sunny
Moon

On one summit
Among the myriad
Mountains

Ups and downs
Of the hiker

Crawling valley
Pilgrimized

Leaping crevass
Energized

Climbing huff-
Puffing

Downslope
Freewheeling

Each dawn
Each sunset

Uniquely
Surprized

Pigment earth
Water
Tree paper hair brush
Hand eye brain
Trillion particles
Foot root head sky beyond

Mark on paper
Connection

Infinite time
Space definition

Mark of possibility
Existence being
Or gone

Stained and left
Forever to
Decay slowly

On this cave wall

Today

Sheep lost in the
storm

Wool caught upon
barbed wire

Lamb gone tame
to slaughter.

Poor ewe I unravel
the only thread of time,
present to past

Stitching together
words,
lives,

Given each to other
free

Pull the wool over
eyes closed

Cats cradle binding hands

Poor ewe
lost in storm

Dressed mutton
fooling no-one

Candelabra of chestnut

Aroma catches back
the throat

Conker on a string

Battles and innocence

Above which flower
Do you sleep
With vibrant color
Flavoring your dreams

Beneath what fibrous
Root do you rot
Dank earth mouthing
Funereal dirge

Within which flower
Do you reside
Aroma calls me
To your side?

Sturdy yellow petal
Or blushing wilted pink

Beside you would
I stay with buttercupp'd kiss

baby eyes
all the time

every landscape
any face

mirror skies
baby eyes

everything
is new

You are not a

What is it?

You are you-

Biddy you slept
In the crook
Of my legs.

She was gone.

Who are you

Glam

Pin on some sweaty wall
1950s

Chris

Dowager stick-
Young man-
Bring me salmon.

Chris
The peaceful scream-yet
Head tilted back-eyes-mouth-open

Asleep asleep asleep

Goodbye beauty
Fur and diamond
And gone

Sleepy eyes, Bear
Sleepy eyes,

Sniff the nest,
Winter warm and
Furred

Den and stretch,
Sniff slowly
Spring growth...

Sleepy Bear open
One sticky eye-
Sleepy eye
Unden...

Hungry one shake,

Scratch and rise,
Open sleepy eyes...

Emerge to

Feed

When vague
Unsatiated
Lusts
Float across
Flush pink eyelids
Closed
Against harsh
November sun

I open to note
A burnt orange leaf
Leaving its branch

In flight unknowing
Where
When
To land

Vines embrace
Trees
Stakes
Anything

Diverge
Intersect

Choices
Of lives
Joined

Teased apart

Love
Or
Dismissal

Some mountains pretend
They are unmoving

Their subtle lie
Pretends to permanence.

We are apart
For some reason
I cannot fathom

But trust
The chi

In the centre
This i
Of this infinity
Which knows
No centre.

Rust and dust flow rivered
In time honoured ways

As if movement meant
That centres shift

And that this i,
Laughingly called,
Pretends
An only bell,
Audible to all

Unreal

The time I whispered
"Mascara on your cheek"

I knew I loved you.

You fished mirror, tissue
And fixed

And thanked with such
Sweet smile and

I knew you loved

Reflection in glass

Victoria park was countryside
city boy

Conkers fall
wild squirrel
true totem

Wild and free
park leaping
iron railings

Sleeping dark winter away
nut stored
wild and seeming free

On those days

(Rare of late)

When a surge of joy

Flows through the veins,

Enjoy the gratitude
Due to life

It rains diamonds
On saturn

Perhaps these scales

Irridescent in
Hard light

Emanate from there.

Momma bear twirls
In white ecstatic dance
On polarised ice

Cub rotates in
Pirouette
Waiting to eat

This fish flops
At your feet

Gasping for air

Emboldened
Sacrificial protein

(Left igloo
Unaware

The raging gale
Blew away my hair)

Piscine bone
Zen marrow
Offered

My all my all

Important architecture
Of the soul

Forgot it

Only now

These words
Come from
No knowhere

Before unformed

After
Free

(To you
To you only)

This a silly
Unaware
Conduit

What i am

Away in the world,
So hard those years.

Back through gateless
Gate

Where waters meet

And fifty monks
All fallen in
The river

Laugh.

And some fool said
10,000 words a day

And this one
Reply
Is all-

What?

And take the
Plunging love
Of language

And turn it
Into job.

Nothing to say

Say it

Ok
Go dig coal

I await the
Diamond

I shall have to let you go

Your petals faded pink,
barely staining parchment
your saturate colour unsummered

Those annual visits of
birds, bees, the painted
butterflies, giddy for
our sticky stamens,
spread our playfulness
across the fields

Autumnal colours
your pink, my grey,
wilted, limp, harbinger
of winter and away

Remember flower your
spring stalk, surging power
lifted to air.

You shall have to let me go
my painting, partner
unscrolled, a single
flash, illuminating
lightning

Done and gone

In the smallness
Of your navel
I see all.

All the uni-
Soldered surface
Of moons and tides
And suns

All the whorls and
Curls of your fingertip-

The entire unknown
And as yet undiscovered
Totality of being

Contained in your
Little reality,
Buttoned up against the rain

In the garden
before it was lost,
(come back soon
lost garden),
pepper vines grew around
the sweet fruit trees.

durian fell
sarongs rose,

all was fecund in the globe
of sour tamarind
and bitter herb;
a balance, a unity
of love given and
lust taken.

chilli red yellow green
shone in morning mist,
evening gloam among
myriad leaves clogging the undug pool,
hurting the fish breath
in the old frog pond.

unpicked, the fruit.
unclipped, the hedge.

all my life
too lazy to get ahead,
leaving all my fruit to seed.
let it rot and feed the sand
soil, grow turf beneath the trees.
in this moment only hell and heaven.

To St. Pauls
deranged wrong-
sided traffic

Tiny frail hand
slipped into mine
doe-eyed fear
and trust

Lightning charge
of chaste ******
responsibility

Whispers round the dome
like sacramental marriage