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.

How close you approach,
Moon-

How blue
How blood red.

Within the love
Of living heart
(Pump pump pump)

How close-

How far far


Away

This land
Is not your land

This land
Is not my land

It is land

This woman
Is not your woman

This woman
Is not my woman

She is woman

Folly
To fight over what
Cannot be possessed

From nowhere
Walk on
Walk on

Earth supports
Your feet-
Grateful

Woman looks-
Grateful

Walk on
Walk on

To nowhere

Walk on
Walk on

Alone

Amen

I would sing
To you
My love

Could I sing

I would dance
With you

Could I dance

I would take
You fly
My love

Could I fly

But cannot

So
Please
My love

Accept this
Metronomic
Beating heart

In lieu

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

Orange leaves
Decorate
The door mat

Methane bubbles from lake
floor to surface.

In winter hang
suspended in ice,
waters block.

Millenial fermentation
of leaf, fish
filtered through
pristine crystal

And what emerges is
hot air and gas,
aroma of
subconscious musings

Mind whiskers
picking up on
preternatural meanderings

Unfurling the chromosomal
flag

Read, write and deepest blues

Cobbles wet
air thick
unviewable.

Feeling the weeping
victorian brick of
railway arch

Warm fug of
pigeon feathers
ammonia droppings
and the playground
of houses ruined
by bombs in the
reign of hate.

Elsewhere london
swings-

A small boy lost in pea soup

(in the grate
banks of coal
glow and flicker
pictures, movies
of the soul)

Who is the one
In lonely.

From fifty years
All that first love.

Sniff

May I burrow
your subconscious?

Not as worm
but wormhole

Through dark
dense space

To ethereal worlds

This is all he does
promethean spirit
thief of light from dark

The gods laugh and
thunderbolt for fun
but he has seen
their little game
from high
from far above

Mountain spit
split sides and fall

From some other sun
this puny world
god man
as nothing

Nothing at all

To follow that
Splash

Into the
Mirrored pond-

To follow the

Shallow frog

To freedom!

Words and notes
Have no owners

They waft through
Souls picking up
Flavors

Surf on minds
Developing
Patina

Slither along cultures
Taking on
Color

Glide with history
Collecting
Tone

What gives longevity to
those old paintings
emerging from lofts
lost for centuries
survivors of wars

Whose force makes this live whilst
those manifold perish?

From the kaleidoscope
one jewelled fragment
drops and glows

I refuse to worry
Mercurial one

Your accidents are
Planned to the
Finest detail

Scorched by
Moonshine
You flutter
And float
About lake and
Mountain

A wilderness of
Spirit urges
You down

And yet up you
Bob
A float

Fish bring
Hooks
To your feet
In homage

anyhow
that was the day I gave up everything

one thousand hotel mirrors
well travelled.

train Milan, cheek-kissed Maria.

cognac. A man. Unconsumed.

Guylove dance, marketplace Castries.
Lord Jackson, Victor
Calypso kinging.

Anyhow
that was the day I gave up dancing

Jack lighthouse, broken glass,
spilled Guinness never forgiven.
Named my son for him.

Anyhow
that was the day I gave up talking

crew cut Poughkeepsie, émigré fashion
boarding cockle boat, Dunkirking
Queen Mary.
Nero sunsetting on piddling empire
wallmap fading red to wilted pink

scouring the bottom of titanic bucket,
glorious lido summer, dear Liza,
got a hole in it(torn piece of rubber
mnemonic for a mother)

anyhow
that was the day I gave up ***

now come the restoration of the king.

London shall rise again,
borne on tide of flying,
infinite darkness,
osmosis of light.

whisper saint Paulus,
de-clocked, unthroning,
myriad swimmers swarm
canal cut channel,
(furry animals cluster, cuddle
in unlikely couplings).

quavering timbers
blowing and swaying,
queen lay dying, long live the king.

anyhow
that was the day I gave up my mind

Paving slab sheen
Streetlamp puddle
Midnight rain

Does it matter
How to live
How we die?

The householder
In his bed surrounded
By family, friends

The ****** in the
Gutter all sense of
Self abandoned

The monk bolt
Upright sat
Self-gone mummified

What matter
When matter gone

All flesh decayed
All mind leaked
Away and
Away all spirit
Flown

All dead all beastly

Dead and gone

Two trout on a line

One struggling

It is the moon again

That mirror girl

Who shows you

What she wants to reveal

Month by month

Now and then

And under
some other sun
man seared by heat
pompeiied, seared
in body fat-
slowly
pains-takingly
chick-beaks through
his shell
to sky

looking from above
frail atmosphere
hovers and runs
a swirling course

man ***** in
age-old re-cycled
air
and soars

Yes, I screamed
Between mothering thighs
Emerging into light,

Masked man wielding
Forceps.

Yes I screamed against
The coming of light and,

Ageing now in
Deepest night,
Yearning for the
Dying of all light-

Amniotic fluid

Of

The


Dark.

Eyes
In your mirror
Perfect

Every pigment irised
Each fleck of yellow and
Black lining

Deep
Reflection
Irridescent pools

Your eyes
In your mirror
Take me home

if only
lonely today
a lady full mantled
walk my way

if only if not
a shaggy dog
peace sleeping
upon my lap

She moves like
A whisper

I feel her flush
My ear with a
Tickle brush
Of calligraphic pleasure.

You cannot exactly
See her

She moves like a
Breeze or
Jasmine scent

And then,
Gone,

Only the sweetened
Fragrance

Of a pure heart

In being

Railway sleeper
For a bed
With hollowed
Back buttocks
Heel and head:-

We like to think
Life precedes death

Why?

Does sleep precede
Awakening

Dream the real

Reality the ideal?

Before existence,
Prior
Existence a blow,
And afterthought
Of universal flow:-

Freight train coming

Lift torso from
Timber chamber
And move

Move on

Move
Sleep over
Exists first light

Then dawn

I saw not the moon

She loved me never

Lumpen rock

I saw not.

The moon and how
High out of song
She shrilled-

The lying moon

Hugging wolf

We made you

Us.

Mother of twins,
Brother
Son,

Us.

Suckle me now

And walk

Beside

Forever

Broken stem

Breaking this
Old heart

Gipsy take me

Away away

Far from bethnal green

Ten years old
wanted away away

Near sixty lord
let me go

She sat
Upon my knee

And branded me

In quiet reflection
Pond kissing
Cloud-scudding sky-

Young frog
Wondering
At the fuss

Flicks tongue.

Goodbye

Slow

Fly

Accretion of memories

Accumulation of things

Take the canoe
and clean

Lest the hull cease
to glide through
your waters

I sense your
Fragility
Unpainted lady

Wings frayed from
Flight through
Storms of static

Voice flutters
Digitised,
Fragmented

Subtle beauty noted

I acknowledge too
The strength of
Your journeys,
Of
One who migrates

Across continental drift
Through dark tunnels
Of despond

Yet with
Psychic power
And mothering love

Surmount all

I call too
If you may
Hear...

Office girls hitch their skirts
craving lunchtime sun

Rabbitting salad
admiring slender thigh

Prince charming rides by
his charger rearing

This evening the ball
is all in cinders

Where does the cherry blossom go?

Why with the maple leaf
and the fruit missed by
bird and hand-

Back to earth
to soil new
generation

The long dead poppy up-
form beautiful youth

Borne into this
World

By the will of
Others

I have wandered
Alone

Bewildered by the
Ways

Of man

It is four in the morning.
Bourbon is beautiful
In the right glass.

No matter how many
Times you leave it is
Never enough.

Always one more to run from.

There are none left to go to.

It is four in the morning.
The past has gone.

I am writing this
Right now.

I am writing this from
The void of current life.

This too shall pass.

This art. And it can fail.

Oh we have met before my love
we met and merged before
became one many times before
spring fever shook the
tree of desire and the hot
red mist descended and
lusted in our eyes

Bodies entwined
vine and tree become one
once again in breathless love
come see the parting of the
limbs of tree and clinging
vine venerating old old bark

Oh how have we met beneath the
full budding trees
dripping red dawn the dew all
honey sweet the sweet dew

Sap rising kissing leaves to life
veins throbbing chrysalis
bursting to life the bears
and bees ******* honeyed flower
caressing the breeze oh this is
how we met our endless cycle of
love and being

Natural children we play in
natures rhythm we sing
the day the bright sun-blue day
we sing and whistle the black
night stars into twinkling being

This is how we met full summered
in the honeydewed grass of orange dawn
the unnaccountable wind (whence, hence?)
and yellowing golden crimson leaves
blown by the gleaning breeze to
nitrogen the earth at tree feet

Oh yes my love well met we were
caved furry bears nuzzling the winter
emaciating the cold steel dawn and
clung together in sleepy hungry comfort

In all the rhythm of our seasons
oh how we have met and merged
and being one enfolded
in the breast of world
in the sensuous fall and resolution
of the roundish cyclical earthly ball

And I am deaf too
and too dumb to speak
kind loud and slow
to your yearning ear

And also blind too
with distance unsighted
this burgeoning passion
too easily blighted

No language too pure
no dissonant rhyming
no sentence may capture
your precious flower

It is

Making a path

By walking

Summer twilight
Blushing colours
Merge and swirl

Subtle reds yellows blues

No brush visible-
Breath of god

My Lady must be near
Xylophone spine chimes

Touch of her Angel
Wing

Stood on head
ten years
walked backward
on hands
10 years

Of a sudden
flipped
onto feet
face forward
moon face
turned to sun

Found the land
map peters out

No hole
no treasure
cigar burn on casket.

Hand Robert Graves
fondling
jar full of marbles

Hand writing

House making
never mind.

Trench breaking

Old Homer loves you

Truth teller

Blind and sunned

You knew
you knew

Marble margle
pirate treasure
small boy treasure
skull and crossbones

Mappa mundi
treasure treasure
take me captain
morgan
take me home

Li po in his prime
reclined
in silken robe
on brocade couch

Surrounded by jasmine
perfumed dancing girls

Singing out verses
immersed in wine

Gentle river yielding
delicate fish.

Compare and contrast
dingy corner of cheapened pub
with a last pint of black stuff
in a faded seaside town.

Sense of a crumbling life
barmaid checks her teeth
in the shining mirror of
a bald pate.

So to pier end
no sense to leap
only cockles and mud
mud and cockles

And the effluent of
one million surplus souls

Flower open

Bee-line

In the presence of evil

Calm

Was your baby
an arm here
torso
head over there
some other limbs or
organs tomorrow

To be stitched together
in a week or year
or two?

And was that baby
(perhaps ugly as sin)
beautiful to you?

Pah!

You come out whole
my little wordlings

I kiss you on your
knotty spine and
leave

Bon chance
bon voyage

Have a good life
hope some reader
loves you

50 trillion miles away
greetings
to the pixillated blue spot
hurtling round
with assorted rocks
a nondescript star
in a tiny galaxy
on the far side
of oblivion

Calculus shows
the dot may harbour
civilized life

We laughed and laughed
comedic machine and I

Then wondered if you
like us
do battle with your
mind waves

(From the crack
In a crumbling wall

One tiny flower
Defies all
wilted pink

Blushing at dawn)

Wildflower dark road
Wet shining rain

Clustered under hedgerow
Berry-red

Walking past-
Fragrance