.
We were as downy birds,
Sky once had names for us,
Rain pooled into faery wells,
Supernatural was our blood.

We saw each with opened eyes,
And touch was permanent as sun,
Light swooned about our keeping
And the earth was without tomb.

But time soon railed its perishments
And a star turned with pointed wind,
We lost the sun raise of innocence
And the glass of truth broke in a jar.

Now, lovers roam in the still hollows
And reminisce only on stoney banks,
A great ocean of peace was drowned
And to childish walls, a castle of sands.
.

.
Some branches of broken horn
Called to me, as most others
Were rungs, the trunk, a great pole
For one to vault, into the heavens
Where was perched a wild nest
Of a red-tailed hawk, at the top
I could see the great bird, once
Was there, upon his cloud throne
And all the woods and ripples
With the lake, in dear murmurings
Played for me to soundly hear
The waves lap onto the shores
Under my flight and the lighted
Breeze that sifted through needles
And the sap that patched me there
Out on the limbs of my swaying
Daze.  
          O to sail in the scented sun
Of the great old pine of tinted
Sage and black tall bark, to be
Nestled in the forests on high
Within its mystery and wisdom,
All the way up I rose, the journey
Earthward was so much harder.
.

(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.
.

.
Your eyes are always lost,
In empty places, your lips,
Are holding, your touch
Never does reach, unfolding,
And I am adrift in stalled dream
Unwashed by an indifferent
Sun, scarred black by a nil
Crescent moon, still jarring,
Calls through the night,
Of wretched creatures only
Punctuate the sorrows
Of my casted illusion,
With you, together, I
Have never felt so alone,
What stunted days we make
As the sun smokes ascended,
We stand in a doorway
Open to a bloodied heart,
Tendered, misbegotten.
.

.
Soft is the caul of breaths that seethe,
Loosed in the ears knowing
And light is held as a knife is sheathed,
Hard at the breaks reckoning.

Ebbing crawls in old cradles outset,
Clutched promises engulfing,
Death is a toll which gathers at sunset,
Ending seeps seaward in chills.

Listen for moon as it sails into lime,
Digging lost trails for journey,
Smell the salts as the sands run time,
Boarding penny barks turning.

Black birds soon flutter at drips window,
When dark winds cry crosslegged,
Lightless wings whisper— lit knowings,
Wraiths tapping three score and ten.
.

.
          1
Sometimes the body is contagion
To the soul.  Stars in their mission fall
To seed the fertile flesh, ignite
Blue waters of sulfureous hearts,
And so the flash is set to cancel
In the flood.  

          2
Sometimes the lip of soul onto seal
Will not hold, before he first knocked
And let flesh enter, thorny pegs
Pricked nerve and pierced bone on his climb
To the rose, yea, some stars odd as
Meteors crash.

          3
In the swan-sea, song-sangy-frame of crib,
Rough hewn words bent mold to scrape, like
Blasted coral, stood half-submerged
Amid sea and sky, for between the leaves,
Behind the eye, there are little stars
Shining like existence.

          4
In a circle world he fashioned green
Blazons about the darkling day,
Fostered by celestial navigation,
Wrote a language for music, on a map of love
And charted the force of green in a wind-
Rose of discovery.

          5
Sometimes the soul is not contained, it
Bursts in silent sound like well water
From the source.  And of men in streets
He saw the pennies in their grumble
Eyes, and of love and its course he rubbed,
Tickling dim stars.

          6
It was his thirty ninth year in that fall
To heaven when the steeping cell,
Refused to push in its tide.  Homeless
And free on scaffold of bone the middling
Man retracted from sun to sink
With the moon, turn-tiding-toward sea
Like a changeling.

          7
And as ever, nor often, unwavering eyes
Sprout through shifting grains.  And as he spoke
Quite rimless, Dylan Thomas was petrified
In undying light, and solid set within a rill
Of reef sparkling in concert betwixt gas
And sea, so becoming in purple sleeves,
This constellation of mute singers all,
Dried five-fingered-fish, bright embryos
Returned to the shell, they burn between the leaves,
Beset the grounded skies and show sprite flashes
In the dark where He has left his imprints, burning
Above and plastered below.  The first rock stars!
.

.
He wrote in the mornings, she recited to him at night,
He always made breakfast, she made dishes disappear,
His garb was quite frumpy, and hers, made of spun gold,
He struggled with fashion, song birds would dress her,
He thought his poems looked best in moving candlelight,
She made all the fires and lit candles with her eyes.
Once, he was embarrassed and said to her,
'How can you live like this with me in a hovel?'
She said it reminded her of Plato's Cave.
At readings he looked out and saw sinking eyes,
Now he has her read all his poems, it works
Wonders that way, and after-parties are strange,
Everyone keeps staring and asking for her
Name.  She gives cryptic answers and winks
At him.  The poet was running out of words
And thought his days with her were waning.
But she said her heart was kept in a precious
Box of symbols, of words, only he could write.  
She said that it was written in the sky, that poetry
Was dying and that he was the cure.  He told
Her that the stars were lost at night, and fading
While she sparkled unfailing, and many times
They tasted each others tears, many times
The world stopped spinning, he knew
It was her, she felt it was him.  To all
Others, their one bedroom flat was small,
Yet to them, it was the Palace Athene.
.

.
Some branches of broken horn
Called to me, as most others
Were rungs, the trunk, a great pole
For me to vault, into the heavens
Where was perched a wild nest
Of a Red-tailed hawk, at the top
I could see the great bird, once
Was there, upon his cloud throne
And all the woods and ripples
With the lake, in dear murmurings
Played for me to soundly hear
The waves lap onto the shores
Under my flight and the lighted
Breeze that sifted through needles
And the sap that patched me there
Out on the limbs of my swaying
Daze.  
          O to sail in the scented sun
Of the great old pine of tinted
Sage and black tall bark, to be
Nestled in the forests on high
Within its mystery and wisdom,
All the way up I rose, the journey
Earthward was so much harder.
.

.
I came to a courtyard of my own making,
To a cottage by the sea at the worlds edge.
I furnished it with my left over life, complete,
Barren and colorless and I wrote the newest
Book of psalms out of tinder and flame, a tome
Of grey and useless poems, unheard of songs
And reams of flesh.  There in the lightest dark,
By the Druid stone that was placed just for me,
I planted a creeping yew tree.  And the moon
Sang in celebration and silence like a fallen
Priest.  
                    Under the covering hazel trees,
That sprung to life after the longest winter,
Which taught me to forget my name, I now
Struggle with light and my body, warring, torn
Is fading slow, like the always arriving, down
Turning solstice, the climates of the mind,
Where it is digging the never ending shallow
Hole only the spreading eternal yew, that I
Planted, will ever know and only the Lazarus
Moon shall ever rise above.

I came to a courtyard of my own making,
Was it dream that led me there or my eyes?
.

.
She's like a drama queen,
Plays the 'blame game' like a loser,
Fair minded as a bigot,
Wages war like drones,
As free as surveillance,
As open as privatized prisons,
As equal as feudalism,
As rich as the beggar masses,
Bankrupt as homeowners,
Socialist as the military,
Truthful, trustful as "NEWS," as propaganda,
Pagan as the manufactured Goddess 'Columbia,'
Christian as the stingy,
Pious as a sinner,
Wicked as securities, exchanges on 'Wall Street,'
Insecure as an empire,
Greedy as a fast food glutton,
As brave as a fool,
Warmongering as a chicken hawk politician,
Machevellian as a coward,
As rigged as the free market,
As selfish as Capitalism,
As tolerant as Islam,
Beautiful as a clear cut forest,
Charming as a strip mall,
Forward thinking as chaos,
Lawless as congress,
United as a belligerent crowd,
Compassionate as a swat team,
Green as any petrochemical company,
Organic as pollution,
Deep as a strip mine  .  .  .
  .  .  .

.
In cool light of heavy air,
The lovers worked at song,
Whittling the oak as it grew,
Wrapping time in knot, a gear
By the rounded dial of a snail,
Even the sun waltzed forgetful
And antique moon soon forgot
What it knew under wink of stars,
The field was all in hushed flame
As the new ant trails always were,
Saying in the grass that May, windy,
Is all we can know ever beneath trees
As they burst from breaking blue earth,
Will always, grasping, be this evergreen,
The lovers became here truly, new witness,
To themselves never more, but only this once,
Eternal, fresh, undivided, jewels of sun, divine.
.

(Sonnet)

What length are days so dearly trodden,
Riddled in stocks, museums of mind,
How can one soul with heart commend
And play these martial fields unkind?
We are wages cast about four corners
And spun to globe of coordinates web,
Sailing by moon, lit oceans of scorn,
Rudderless, blind— innocently led,
Yet here, one star, the sun is a beacon,
We are bathed each day in ****** light
And gifted to morn with new beginnings,
From dreams we wake with newborn sight        
And gods watch over with stellar eyes,
We are babes knowing— cradled in sky.
.

.
Because she could not see—
Song in flower, light in lovers abed,
Dream unfolding as we touched,
Because her great beauty was gifted
It was unfelt, undeserved, shunned,
Making her even more irresistible.

Because I could not hold on to self,
Beside such dream, lost to my hands
As prints clutched into the ruin dark
Of her indifference, I made peace
With subjugation and humilities riven
Out of soul and flesh and hollow being.

Because we were unknowing, each
A foil unto ourselves as we cried—
This then was daymare riding in sun,
Twin delusions in oft reign of blood,
O what stories we both shall die to tell,
How the itch of desire scratches bare
Whole psyche as it writhes in a shell.
.

.
Your eyes are always lost,
In empty places, your lips,
Are holding, your touch
Never does reach, unfolding,
And I am adrift in stalled dream
Unwashed by an indifferent
Sun, scarred black by a nil
Crescent moon, still jarring,
Calls through the night,
Of wretched creatures only
Punctuate the sorrows
Of my casted illusion,
With you, together, I
Have never felt so alone,
What stunted days we make
As the sun smokes ascended,
We stand in a doorway
Open to a bloodied heart,
Tendered, misbegotten.
.

.
Frozen in rains, cloistering,
So severe in the dark of day,
Is the walled clutch of garden,
No one escapes, a gilded reaper,
Born of fears, promises beyond,
Of joys on the oak nailed pews.

Above the lost naves, who stand
In worship to a ghost, bones bent,
There are cast arches of old sorrows,
Veiling the lighted eyes of the cosmos,
Shutting out even mercies, heavenly
Lights duly smoked of incense.

And slated roof, so statuary cold,
Of aged rock and moss under spire,
That even the doves, as they coo
Are grounded, up muted hollows,
Chimes that merely echo guilts,
By shadows of faithless pride.
.

.
So, love began as it had— always been,
Stars exploding beyond the rays of gold,
Younglings new, born of bode and wonder,
The dearest waves, lept on forgotten time,
Among the furrowed hope of fields we grew,
Days sprung from long vines, handy grapes
Croft with sparkle in the bloomy meadows,
Hands knotted with clear, open eyes and all
The afternoons of spring rejoining, pebbles,
Divining from the told tale of forks in the hills
And reaching to loamy shores of lost ponds
For now, to be on at last warmly and grassy,
Dials of sun and summer cleansing showers
Under the peaceful wake, the never sleeping
Pines, yes and then we were highly held aloft
In the loom and yarns of green steps, storied
By forest upon shires, sandy uncovered eyes,
Happily, lost in the woods of lamb white days.
.

(Villanelle)

If only she would die with me—
Lying a bed on a sheet of stars,
Out of mere dark, our light set free,

Our leaves to hold in rings of tree,
Hair entwined in ocean days hour,
If only she would die with me—

In the forest fern to rest, wake curly,
We would nest in that place so far,
Out of mere dark, our light set free,

To ever notch a simple tapestry,
Colours even sun could not mar,
If only she would die with me—

In this morning all spark wants to be,
What our bodies are joined in marking,
Out of mere dark, our light set free,

We two have eyes blistering to see
And winds that tail the song of larks,
If only she would die with me—
Out of mere dark, dear light set free.
.

.
Still pale grey earth is turned,
Deep is the loam moisted,
Lone by the Ploughman.

The rows of the brushed patches,
Sweating the breakneck blood,
Are painted by labours.

Messiah doors out cathedral,
With iron plod anoints the soil,
Exposed unto mercy sun.

His hands are knobbed in stone,
His eyes searing of the star,
His face dark as deep loam.

Each day ablutions of sod earth,
Heaved out tilling unfree wills,
Burdens of harnessed beast.

Dark is the turned loam moisted,
Water flame heat of veined mist,
Seeds sown explode to bloom.

After thorny works, crowned blood,
Sun leaves to wine red fruition,
Ploughman maker is done.
.

.
Notes wash over
The no angled ear
Listener, journeyer
See trails leading
To a cloud of sun,
Break in the skies,
Soon to know again
What was creeping
In the eyes of restless
Thought, unrequited
Sense, the whirling
Ride in the globes
Of vertigo and touch.

Dismembered by mood,
The musician conjures
Lost jewels in thought,
Sparks to the mind,
Sorcery in the bland,
Wayout, man, you dig,
Tap the deep rythmns
Drowning under toes,
Shutters we have lined
Go ourselves together
In the blinds.  Turn on,

Off those penny eyes,
The horn careening
In its heights of low
Down blues and sheen,
Be bop and stirring
In a rush, unfinished
The player knows
Your got number,
Is offbeat, syncopated
With the pearly drums
Of the sheet, read heart.

Jazzman is charmer
To sleepy serpent
Kept, shot in only bars
That leech into night,
The looking glasses
Pouring over misery
Ride sweet nowhere
In the tempos of fix,
Youngling daddy-o,
Plenty is the brass horn
Of Jazz in the clears,
Cool fingers singing
What the mind hears.
.

.
After childhood sleep,
Of days into dawning,
Shucked of dusted clay,
Eyes set unto fawning,

Then, the rowing began.
Shy gentle waves lulling
As it does for Everyman
Who seeks loves' culling.

In a tempest of blue sky,
I was engulfed so plain,
That time was sore to eye,
All suitors never maidens.

One true love never came,
Nor to fly as birds teeming,
Now all is shipwreck of age,
Ah, but to drown dreaming.
.

.
We trod in steps without spark,
A careful journey one remakes,
With days of dreams' surrender,
O love— is but a promised land.

In our youth precious time reigns
And greetings are met with sorrow,
Maidens and lads, each entertains
Graces above us, Venus and Apollo,
                                                      ­  ­        
Gods on high, who told us stories,
Of the cloud nursery, of mountains
Keep and comings of celestial glory,
Not of gentle caress to windy hands,

Of shy indifferences, the trials of lot,
Nor the endless engulf, still desires,
In this land of lost, unmoving gusts,
Go those who shuffle— souls entire.
.

(Song)
.
She took the flower that she loved,
Planted him in the burning sun,
A desert formed around and the morning dew,
Were tears the flower cried,
It nearly died.

She took the flower that she loved,
Brought him near, into her house,
Her house was cold and dry, with no light to see,
The flower could not leave,
It nearly died.

She took the flower that she loved,
Found the place where he belonged,
Without walls, in shade of sunshine, where flowers bloom,
In peace they bear no pain,
And rarely die.
.

.
One day gone in the long great forest
Of the ancient world, wolves alone
And mighty hungered with true kin
Stalking the tundras of the snow drifts
And all their prey, with cautionary eyes
Moved in heards and flocks swaying
With the sounds of the forest floor
And the spearing grasses.  The wolf
Was his own master, free, unbounded.
A great spirit, brother to the moon.

One dying day, when the bushes burned
They came upon the garbage dumps
Of early man.  Their smoke was laden
With the smell of fresh ****, small skins,
Animals, ended trail, and salted death.
Many wolves circled in fear, their pits,
Only one or a few tasted the left overs
The easy scraps and bones, tailings,
The elder pack would not stoop for.
These few unguarded wolves morphed
And mated with each other, their mane
And fur, soon was tamed, soon became
Mottled and brown no silver remaining.
This was the fall of the wolf, not man
And the moon turned white, when wolf
Became dog.
.