Gaudy handles
Painted coastal scene

Varnish crackling
Under so many
Sweet little
Sweaty palms

Dainty feet
Dancing at mid point-

And from what deep echo
Emanates
The simple
Skipping rime-

The unborn-
Young girls with
Granny rope and
Long rotted dead
Roped vertically
Together

Your wart,
When it went-

How I missed
Kissing

Your little
Blemish

Don't remember me.

Dust in your eyes

Phphew

Swirl and gone

Lake view from
Beech canopy.

Legs, arms, enwrap
Broad trunk and
Ascend unlike any bird since
Dodo.

Sun through beaten
Coppered leaf-set.

Fair Day
With tall grass,
Bedded moss beneath

My seat of rooted
Contemplation

Carp iced under pond
Stare folorn with
Milky eyes-

Suspended-

Waiting on
Warming dawn of

Spring

The ego fell

Emerging from the Cave

Sunshine

Blinking
Drops form

Blue sky

Deep breath

Freedom

And still the
Pagan moon
Refuses worship

Tumbles around
Reflecting light
On every blade of
Grass and even this
Cold heart

Is warmed in
Bitter night

Sat on grass
beneath a canopy of leaf

beneath the body
seedling grows

fifty years immobile
tree grow high, wide

sitting seeing far
with tree high eye

Seized and ******
Dry

Adjoining spirits
Sacrifice all smoke
Unto sky.

Meat of thigh-
Burnt coals glow
And this meal

Divine

Conjoins you+I+all the

Gods

The leaf
does you good

Eat it
chew

It feels,good
and helps you
regular

The leaf without
water will
wither

In sun or moonlight
might die

So your little salad,
darling

Eat up
lest we die

Vivid as fire

If your house burns,
etching flame

Let it

Walk on

Waste not a single word
Though syllables scream for release,
Consonants flap to fly and
Vowels seep through cracks

Waste not to want
For nothing to
Finish your perfect
Death poem

I do not wish

To disguise

The tears-

They furrowed

Who I am

Longer now,
Thickened and
Harder to trim;

Toenails turning to
Horn

Re-turning to animal
With age.

Head surrounded by
Stars;
Containing their rocks
And revolutions,

But feet merging with
Mud,
Cracked skin in
Moist balm,
Rooting.

This, then,
Age advancing;
Goodbye to love,
To youth and
Longing.

Stars and clay,

Destination

And all around
The elderly,

Sleeping

It to be good

But it is is not?

Late rose
That moist rot rot
But beautitiful still.

My old ladies.

Lovely.

Chop water

Carry wood

Not creator

But conduit

Small cave in the
western cliff

Monk cell in the
western cliff

Waiting
waiting
patiently

Recalling now
Your smiling
Lips
And smileless
Eyes

Oh how
The classifying mind

Reclaims-

Renames

The unruliness of being-

Loosens worm with
Incisive *****

For black-bird
To swoop

Pigeon roadkill

Crows kaw
With
Delight

Your laughter
****** of clear
Water over
Pebbles

Intoxication of the bee

Dancing lavender
In the hive

With quill on parchment
scratch to me your love
my love

With ink-stained fingers
ribbon fold your love
to me my love

With blood- drippedink-
well trace your love
across your breast
my love

With humble skill
I share with thee my love
my one sweet love

But no
Cross-words

what shall ye be
old man, dying man?

a dog perhaps, driven
by passion, guarding
the house of master
or maiden

a tree perhaps, stolid
by a river, rooting shooting
flowering and fruiting

a snake old man
slithering and hissing
and tempting the ******

a louse dying man
itching and *******
raising curses all around

what shall ye be
a pebble in a stream
methinks, grinding
sand in the clear
cool water

So hungry

Young women

So old!

So old!

Roots in crevice

Half way up-

Down-

A cliff edge
Clinging tree

Isolate-

Some seed spilt bird
Dropped me here.

One day-
Perhaps-

A wandering poet
Slips-

Falls and grabs
Windblown trunk.

Now-
You
Poet-

Learn to

Climb

Three golden headed
dandelion
open to sun

Unseen dandy lions
people scurrying by.

One day on
closed face
turning to seed

Crawling across the earth
one of many creatures
crawling through the garden

Where is your dominion
termite mounds built high

Too many bonfires!
Too many bonfires!

So lustrous
Jenny and
her long curled
black hair

Oiled,
beautiful in
spring sun.

I cannot love you
but I love you,
Jenny girl

Strange how suns burn out
Tired of the light

How did I spend the vigour of my youth,
on chasing fame
and riches
and chimera of power?
No.

And somewhat proud I say
of that.

So what lay waste
the flower of my time?

Travelling to stars
outside the
planetarium of skull?
No.

No seeker of novel worlds
and strange practice
beyond sitting on the ***.

With this body encased
in mind did I explore
my globe

In walking and sitting
and standing and lying
in running and swimming
in energy pared
in eating and ******* and sleeping
in sexing and drinking
and library reading.

So tell me old man
of this misspent time
of the hurts you made
and the lazy days

And tell me of the
hells you created
of the good intentions
fallen to dust

And do not omit
the belly laughter
and small kindness
and hospitality to strangers
and open heart
and spirit soaring.

And tell me now
how will the fruit
of time be thrown
into the small basket
of remaining days?

Why what to expect
of a maverick reprobate,
but more sweet lady,
a little more of the same

I went into the darkness

I did

Where sensible people leave
Alone

And felt the ultimate blackness

I did

It was so cold so sure so

Strong.

Black yang

Not bad

White yin

Not good

No emotion

Good bad
Indifferent

No notion who am
Within

Events

Anarchy
Violence and blood

Revolution in the air
And angry
(Raging)
Men on the rampage

Look out
Look out
All the years of niceness
Fundamentally

Falling

Apart

"Without trace,
Leaving only ash

Good-night rice-paper
Person.

Little damage done
To earth-

To infinite space...

No trace, like
Flying geese
Through time.

(Love)"

Talk of Tomorrow
As if it were a
Thing

A clay malleable,
Made to some Will o'
The Wish

No tomorrow is
Nor can be,

Tomorrow, Yesterday
Cannot exist.

Just This
Now
Synapse
Arm
Pen

It is your
Absence

That

Foolishly

Leads our
Yearning for

Your Presence

I shall go down to the dump today
to pick up a random thought
and translate it into
a first language

Tide arrives

Take a breath,
Deep

Engulfed within the Ocean,
Unconsciousness

Let it

Small dwelling

Flower and ****
Vying for place

Any breath could be
The last-

A sigh of deep
Contentment

Sand heap

Eroding

Floating above
A silken sea-

Gielgud reciting
Poems-

A universe my
Little concertina

How did the wild wheat
Survive the sheep
Shorn grass

The wild rice
Survive the
Buffalo graze?

And how did this small boy
Survive the
Dysfuntional family,
Calamitous friendship

And the obligations
Of love?

What a plight

To circle a planet.

New moon

Swimming
No

Treading
Yes

Above
Tornadoed

Deep dark hole

Unusually
Below

Wine-Dark-Sea

Turbulent
Blackcurrant

Cur­rent-which way

To
Go-

Kick or slow?

I tread lightly
Upon the earth,
Frosted or
Moist.

And when I
Die,

Just a little
Ash

Between
Electron and
Nucleus

Boson dancing
A jig-

Pan pipes a
Neutron aboard

This floating world-

Limitless space
Within the
Solid

Goodbye
sweet raft.

I climbed the
grassy bank
and watched

Until the rapids
took and dashed
you on jagged rock.

(some nights still
a sliver of  bamboo
pierces my slumber)

For so long
Wanted death

(From the womb
Hated life)

Now death nearby
Fear loathing terror

And prospective
Oblivion

How cruel
And sad

And unyielding

This solid slab
Of time