(Sonnet)

Poppies, wild in a quarry,
Orange, brighter than sun,
Thrusting thoroughly gravel,
Bold as soul crossing sticks
Into ****** pagan heydays,
A crop of colours branding
The loose stipend of stones,
One windy trail-flare shock,
A bulwark of stars, so laden
On landed, maiden shores,
The first batillion breaking,
By mighty petal, prim hands
Fiercly alive atop the lifeless,
Gravely low, defeated soot.
.

(‘little young rose')

It is late this day the hushed sun falls, my dying flame,
The night appears without stars, only memories of stars,
The sparkles in your dark red hair, the moon in our eyes,
Across the lake my faraway heart shudders with the loon.

I promised you a paradise of days, you gave me the night,
That we would be together in sweet fields of lamb and rose,
But now there is only wandering, now there is one long road,
Aye, tis a cruel way that a man must rove to make his keeping.

When I set myself to sea to ride the unbounded waves of loss,
I sometimes take to wheel in early morn and the blaming gulls
Surround me with the great blue of the ocean and endless sky
And I weep at the mizzen alone on oak decks, wet in misty cries.

I weep even before the rains have come as they always gather,
Dark and cold in the maelstroms and whirlpools of oceans deep,
To know the seven seas of the globe and not be with my dove—
She with eyes, vast and blue as ocean, with hair of the setting sun.

It is too much to bare, the endless silence in the fury of my travels,
If only I was a merchant, a steward, a lord, even the lolling tinker,
Such a house I would build for us in the ***** of clear lake wood
And we would have such charming brood, enough to quiet the loon.
.

.
High atop shining mountains,
Where Gods glint as they spy
On wanting mortals, cast in heat
And toil, in heavens that are always
Basked by sun and days of grape,
That flow from the endless pour
Of golden casks, give mirth to always
Blue veins as they revel in mighty
Perfection and beauty, enameled
With imperishable face and statuary
Form, who thunder above feathery
Cloud, rumbling beyond all earthly
Ken and dream— in these heavens,
Is there myth only of desire?

Or do they yearn in cradle sleep,
As all those landed babes in need
Of mercies and fable, do gods shape
Subtle creations with the music of love,
Of blood in a touch, of dawn and hope
In the flowering of family and learning?
Can the gleaming child ever know needs
As they are met, held by eyes and lip,
The windy caress of kiss and nod
And rarest time as it wanes?

On radiant, fabled Olympus, where
Eagles, golden in the sun, only rake
The rims of Elysium as they song glide
So effortlessly, unlike the perilous, shy,
Wandering tribes basely set so far below,
The sun clad Titans home eternal, who always
Are held, perpetual in ever engulf of skies, rest
Starry, in their sparkling, immortal cloaks
Of milky cosmos and ambrosial aethers.

Above the murmuring clamours
Of the under strays and dogs of plain
And sea, do chose children of light ever
Quake or shudder in awe, never moved,
Or are they but wielders of storm and fierce
Lightning strikes, burnishing in judgement flame,
Never to be struck by leaves that come in fires of autumn,
Such monumental peace in a seasons turn, the simple joinings,
Of lovers, by a hearth, by a road, by rush of mountain streams?
In high heavens do even the Gods not dream
Of deep, down, sole earthly pleasures?
.

.
Woe is any town or village
Without alleys.  Pathways
Behind the glamour shops
And shut, work a day worlds
Of the weary, township mates
Who drown after their labours.

In the small, backyard keeps,
Alleys unhinge the moons'
Sorrows even before great
Mercies, breaks of sun. fall.
Alleys of gravel and earthy
Tar, are as veins communal.

Walk among stillness, only
To know what shines hidden,
See the unkept wild yards,
Bright flowers forsaken, yet
So full of life.  Hear new birds
Rehearsing ancient songs
And be glad their is music,
To rouse and uproot a soul,
In the afterthoughts of day.
.