In youth, to myself I thought,
'Is true love bound in some far away place?'
I flew off— picturing dreams to be had.
Ah, so much in books and on film I saw
And so I settled my gaze,
Westward to love.

And I met a girl who knew,
Trades of skin which came and quickly fell,
Of longings true it was not to be had.
Ah, so much in books and on film I saw,
So I left her one glad day,
For we did not love.

O love, so nebulous a thing,
Windings on wheels, windy fates command,
If I could but contain her starry light,
In a wrapped box of hopes, still, on reels,
Recorded in books, in films— fables,
Ah, such an album I would dream.

Then came my only, true one,
The coolest rains held in longest summer,
But soon even bliss in a shower ends
And words to eyes but stories— whims.
Ah, so many pictures I made,
In a camera without film.

( song )*

Every culture of the world, they speak of,
Tell the tale of a great flood,
I feel the weather is changing, pouring hot
And getting ready to spill.
    I don't know what it was like before,
    'think now is like before the flood.

And so I welcome the rain from the sky,
It is only the tears of the earth,
As a young woman who cries,
Showing beauty along with the hurt,
In future days woes of our lives,
Will be cleansed by the tears of the earth.

I read the story of Noah and his ark,
'say that he was a righteous man,
I look for truth but I can't see clear it's dark,
And all the animals are scarce.
    I feel the end of an age is come,
    Inequity is the day, O Lord!

And so I welcome the rain from the sky,
It is only the tears of the earth,
As a young woman who cries,
Showing beauty along with the hurt,
In future days woes of our lives,
Will be cleansed by the tears of the earth.

The sea gulls— who fly in wanton
To the horizon, are a spirits
calling, are sea songs falling
To my mind they falter— as I
Have known such cozen to the sun
That falls each day nor do I see
It rising.  My world is weighted,
Under, pass the lining of the quick,
By the mounted cloud which hangs silver
Over the plated night. The owl,
Whose eyes of Janus tails, when wanes
The lids, tied to crescent holey
Whelm of malevolent moon,

Praise over me, with wooly wings,
Is silent as shadow.  I may strut or run
But they do come as the shadows will
With cahooting sun, and the blotting
Bald faced moon, chiaroscuro—
The days feign and heaven pales under
The wake of the luna sea.

       In darkest daylight
I shamble toward the flat horizon
Where the seabirds fly, till their ends,
I take two-faced my faulty comfort
As I see them, falter, falling, yet never
Do they touch the gloaming ground.

.
You've asked me how can I see a future when love, in all
Its numinous beauty, is waning?
I reply, the immortal stars still shine above the veil of clouds.
You say, why are the salmon swimming to their pools of origin
Only to die as they spawn?  Only to die?
I tell you their love is unconditional, like mine.
You ask me did the giant sequoia know it was shelter for the burning grasses
When they walked from the seas?  I reply yes they knew.
You question me about the lofty snow cranes that fly over the Himalayas
And I reply by describing
How the priestly flocks, chanting on their mission, honk—
Announcing the mantle steps to the heavens.
You inquire about the elephantine manatees gracing the shallow banks
And wonder if the sea mermaids remember their lives beyond the latitudes
Of capricorn and cancer?
Or you’ve discovered in the wind a new reasoning as to why
The talons of the paired eagles lock in midair as they court?
You want to understand the nimbus garden, ocean slate, of lake Titicaca
Where resides the Andean sea horse gliding above the clouds?
The whales that circle dance in unison collecting krill?
The noetic display of the birds of paradise, the songs of nameless creatures
Playing in the wilderness like a forgotten melody only lovers lips remember?

I want to tell you that true love knows this, that life in its
Prismatic shimmer is all the myriad colours of infinite existence wrapped
In time to the sublime structure of white and bones.  I must tell you
That the flower is mighty in its opening, the humming bird is a sorcerer
Who needles ambrosia with vortex wings weaving his way to the Gods.

But I am nothing beside your disbelief which has arrived, before
I can even imagine the sweet awakening, like doom, my shell is the iridescent
Hollow of the one eyed Abalone, discarded in the deep fathoms
Of the ocean pressures.

I swim the tides as you do, investigating
The endless tendril seas,
And in my chest, during the night, I woke up empty,
The only thing treasured, a golden face
Trapped inside my dreams.

                                                        ­­­          
                                                             ­­                       — after Neruda

.
I have seen couples,
So far from each—
Other, on a platform,
Waiting for the next train,
Never touching, yet how
They ****** their mobile
Devices, how softly, sweet,
Without guile nor agenda
They swipe the glass—
As it swoons back in return
With blue lights and alerts,
So dearly needed and answers,
In way words for the machines
Of flesh and the ghost within,
With such personal aplomb
In real notifications of text
And instant message.

( a vision dream )

      1

Down in the shrouded wood a wanderer walks
And dreams the dreamers story he has lived.
Sidled by the stream that sheds blue waters
By the beds, trailing the rail of loves unknown
Kiss and a voice that conjures truest bliss,
Down in the drink where sweet Ophelia sleeps;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the dreamer, he is dreaming . . .
Hair, that ropes the stoic man upon his mount.
Hair, making souls’ lost ending breath a shout,
And hair that weighs the wind, teaches it to sing;
Hair, wending whirlpools waving fools to dive in.


      2

Lost at land’s end the sea lions, washed-up, wail
And buzzards coast where eagles flail, rip tides
Assail and chop the collected bones they drop;
It is a chalky bone-yard break, golden escarpments
Wake and a ******’s salty sermons shake;
Where gathering ghosts glom and chide steeping,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the seeker, he is seeking . . .
Eyes that turn the sands and are mirrors,
Eyes that taught the books of Alexandria,
Eyes that shook the flesh and are seers,
Eyes that lit the pyres, burned true believers.


      3

Deep in the dark wood the waters rush, hush,
Cramp, crew and creep, melodiously tread,
Trammel, and burn as furies in keeping true
The melting moon, the onerous owl, fluttering
Things, muttering wings, cones in darkness
Flings and filmy time flicks by the wayside;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the lover, he is longing . . .
Love, lithe and lyric, he sees your sweeping shapes.
Peace, parsed and pained he hears the voicing gape.
Blind, bliss’d and shamed he wears the votive drapes.
Hungered, thirsted and gone; seeks your pearly gate.


      4

Out in the forest maze the jarring sun seeps
And swirls, only to roust the traveler onward
Where soon he must meet the faces in the grotto
Down in destroyed lands by the seas’ unreasoning
Chime, deep in the dark whine of the shining mermaids,
Where the doomed cry, round the navel of the world,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the doomed, they are crying . . .
“****** beauty bade us, in a star crossed chrysalis,
Made us, choose a desert’s winter of loneliness.
Heed our fate and leave this valley torn of bliss;
The many millions of locust fall in ripest fields.”

( Sonnet )*

Our time flicked with drops of summer,
The numberless nodes, mellow cicadas,
Pixelated a world swirling of music—
All dates, sweet tabulations of primes,

The savours swelling in fragrant breeze,
The still waters of pond mist and flame,
How your eyes, with mine, gazed into—
O sleepy windows of eyes being born,

Flowers made a bed and we drank it all,
The light of the sun as it passed in grace
And the birds sang songs of remembrance,
Water fell but once from mothering skies,

Wind whined, such days could never last,
One flesh of burgeoning— moon in the grass.

.
You are song,
Rain dropping on still pond.
You are sky,
I see Heaven in your eyes.
Your are peace,
A garden above the world.
Your are grace,
The gentle path of the swan.
You are knowing,
The wind that whispers alone.
You are star shine,
The dust that lights the plains.
You are vast ocean,
Mother to the Fathering atmosphere.
You are dancing light  .  .  .

.
Lovers entered a forbidden forest bower,
And as they stalked that range, with eyes glazed,
She offered up her hind. Now, with doe eyes,
Deep as his, deep in arousal's sleep, heels fell,
As he knocked and pulled her dark honey hair
And whispered, surrender, into wanting ears,
Softly he drove his hunting command, homing
To his huntress.

Her body braced, yet bade, with heat and vibrance.
Ruthlessly, he ****** his arrow deeper and then
Once more and then again.  She bucked fiercely
And defiant, goading his prodding lance ever more
Ever longer, and parting the pink lines of her white
Rose, he was, and once again, Prince to the dark
Dominion of her quarters.

In the middle of this carnal match they paused.
And looking into the forest beyond they saw
A yearling fawn, a feral Goddess, grazing still,
Bathing in a vale, virginal, wholly unmoved
By their act of venery, lustfully playing, in the innocent
Leaves.  It was as if they were among her kin, a gentle
Doe and a noble stag. From that moment on
The human hunters did not speak.

Falling, again, rolling eyes were deep in arousal's sleep.
Her back was a crescent moon pocked and wet with dew.
He could feel her heart beating in time with his piercing
Prong, her arching back glistened in the suns spittle
As it broke through the dark and vernal ceiling wood.

In the final shot her quivering buck lowered and broke
And a sound not heard, made a scene, a sweet murmuring
Shuddered and sank onto the floor of the forest leaves
With her tale, taken and told, her breathless breath,
Her nostrils cold and her heated and lanced openings
Dripping, draining; here was a New World’s beginning.

Sated, solemn and softly quaking, his woman sweetly laid,
And now, doomed with her doe eyes, two lovers, fated, made;
She glowed, divine, like the rolling brook that mellowed
Slow, in the vine-dark and golden forest stable,
In Artemis’s wood.

.
Your face,
Tender, round and dimpled,
Framed with gilded, carved, tawny curled
Whirlpools of hair, long, lighted, and sparkling,
Your face is the face—
Of Ireland.

Your lips,
Full, moist and deathly deep,
Are wells, not well for me, not safe, taboo,
Tantric, tall told tales of brave Odysseus
Under Circe's alchemies
Of forgetfulness.

Your *****,
The zenith of blossom in fabled
Elysium, gateway to the forbidden gardens
Of sage and sinners, warrior-poets, Aphrodite's
Envy, Poseidon's drowning
And smouldering Zeus.

.
Teems in the whirling grasses,
Fire in the daisies, littlest suns
Becoming patchworks of stars
Above the hallowed loams of soil,
The black ants shine in the light,
Spiders construct their silk laces,
Line by line as the wind unweaves
In the crepes, even in round dew,
One can see the globe of waters,
Watching itself in minnows' eye,
The insects, fly, iridescent gods
Floating sparkles, burst, buzzing
Wings, the stems of green ferals
Flowers flagging them into grace,
With chalice, tasting cup in blood
Of the petals, to thirst and quench
Ambrosial nectar, freshness, new,
Sweet in the tendril vines embrace,
The songs of colours, lowly birds,
Even higher, sing, above, choirs
Of the knarled and ancient twig
Branches that flame into briars
With leaves of yellow, feathers
So fair, water cresses in pools
Of the meadow and the violets
And buttercups spun, painted
With splattered, arts, confetti
Whirl, world in meadow sun.

.
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.