I

I hear all the outlawed world in harmony,
The marshling stalks the green and gaunt
Destroyers who heed not sparkling deserts
Charged to the gill, nor candles pitching down
Like doom.  I note the scale of fossils
In cloud covered peaks, record
The seemly count of bodies by square root
And irrational number, I am witness
Bound to bounty to all who blaze in gray
And shallow grooves seeding their ends
In strikes on the ripe and smoldering fields.


II

I see all the outlawed world in harmony,
Barking wood bracing by the bud,
Where runs of blue, bury in vain
Down slash of mountain forest, cascading
Into august, rising after the fall,
As do kind-killers blasting from shells
To die as snails creeping under flower,
Who saw the past wasting away
In filed futures, slipping by blades in neck
Of wood, sightless as gallows of trees
Try ****** each time they make their leaves.



III

I know all the outlawed world in harmony,
By seamless song of stuttering gulls,
As in conches, waves of providence,
Cell from the center, beating musseled shoals,
Where wailing ghosts and wing-tips point
Printed nails to the silent capes,
And bumble hairs comb round the broken yokes
Stirring streams of babble baited
By flowering psalms, engaging arms to prey
On tales told by the rood and drown
In eyes turning like sands on the sea.
.

.
I heard a frail thump
Blue bird died in flowerbed
At base of window
.

.
I never saw eyes,
Like hers, now we walk together,
Lake water sparkles.
.

.
What blur is vision,
When woman, kind,
Naked as the moon,
Shines in such cool
Light as the stars lit,
In ink of night, scribe
Such spell as ancient
Vocabularies mystify,
Without translations,
The heart is drowned
Feeble as fey emotions,
Rosetta of thorny cut,
Blood spilt in desires
Hard as sarsen alone,
About circle rounding,
A universe unbounded,
For love is kind poison
In nightshade of moon.
.

.
Smitten in rushes
Woods beyond danced— urging us
Wild winds in her hair
.

.
Devout under sun
Deep in the wood is priesthood
Tree branches reaching
.

.
Sweet flower, all the meadows creatures
Are dancing, giddy in their bustle ways
And even the wild cherry has petals laid.
How do they all know that we are in love?
.

.
1
In the corner stands
My blue guitar,
Mirrors my grimace.


2
I have played you
So like dream was the dear song
Where you playing me?


3
Your body makes mine
Shudder as I imagine
A woman in my arms.


4
At the top of your body
Are keys unwound at the ready,
Silver spirals of tunings.


5
My soul is near hollow
But the blue guitar
Is filling in the foundations.


6
What makes the blue guitar
So shining in the mundane,
All the world is makeshift.


7
My fingers wet with you,
What water sounds like,
As it kisses the earth.


8
Deep in the strings
I summon my being,
Always blue as sheer sky.


9
Blue guitar, silent, singing,
My fingers ***** your neck,
Never do you scream.


10
Once I heard music,
The sweetest tabulations
Of sorrows in rosewood.


11
My fingers ache on steel,
These are your moved guts,
Strings that I borrow.


12
At an open window,
All the day obtuse,
I hear birds in your vibrations,
Untouched air of blue guitar.


13
I do not know anything,
Music is lathed on an open fret,
The heart is beating to a note of bliss,
Hole set in the body braced by wood,
Time cuts as it is sectioned, a staff fires,
All the chords are listed in primes,
Is the ear a window or is the eye,
Blind in the choral songs we make,
All things are ephemeral, wonderings,
Variations we work as structure fades,
As the blue guitar is touched, turning light.
.

.
She speaks in tongues and earthwards—
Angels fall listening how to know divinity
From lips that open and close as do tides
Slip, blooming with the face of the moon.

She walks in airs of splendour and light—
Shoulders kin, her child riding on a beam
Vanquishing the sun with celebrated night
Set in reflection on lake waters, little moon.
.

.
1
death dirges

Frogs in distance sing  .  .  .
Foxes, herons, join in too,
  .  .  .  A round of croaking.



2
love gifts

Her gift of flowers  .  .  .
Came at night without garden,
  .  .  .  Were picked in bedroom.



3
twins demure

Full moon and she  .  .  .
Beauties without crescent smile,
  .  .  .  Naked in starlight.



4
light music

Before even sun  .  .  .
Gleam opens to paint each day,
  .  .  .  Beauty in birdsong.



5
iridescent

After sun showers  .  .  .
Sparkle of rainbow colours,
  .  .  .  Busy hummingbirds



6
chilling

Hollow sound through trees,
Naked and bare branches sway,
  .  .  .  Old winter creeping.



7
flirting

She wanted a child  .  .  .
Rushed from one suitor to next,
  .  .  .  Clock set to maybe.



8
super villain

Truth once singular  .  .  .
Mucked all up with politics,
  .  .  .  In cowl of falsehoods.



9
casualties

Blood spills in gardens  .  .  .
Naïve worms torn from loose grounds,
.  .  . Red robins, green lawns.



10
stigmata

Each spring miracle  .  .  .
Trees blessed by caterpillars gifts,
  .  .  .  Holey hands of leaves.



11
consecrations

Ripples lead to bows  .  .  .
After fish breaks the water,
  .  .  .  A kingfisher dives.



12
constancy

Steadfast as always  .  .  .
Wildflower in sun and rain,
  .  .  .  Showing true colours.



13
roommates

Chaste lovers wonder  .  .  .
How bodies weather the cold,
  .  .  .  Never knowing touch.



14
swept away

Suddenly we kissed  .  .  .
At beach as tides rolling in,
  .  .  .  Drowning by ocean.



15
seductress

Her red hair so long  .  .  .
Brushing my face, hiding eyes,
  .  .  .  A kind entrapment.
.

(Sonnet)

Our tryst was sore, more like pain or penance,
What kerfuffles in our unspoken for eyes
And love grew low, by unanswered questions.
How could we laugh, live in such indifference,

Long, unmerciful time, grinding us down
With not even limitless skies for leaven?
Each day was comic-tragedy, no Eden,
Lives flooded about, simple pleasures drowned.

Yet, each day we dreamed with harnessed wings
Bound together in the throngs, restless journey,
A promise was made on some green gentle isle
And we made our golden shifts such shining things,

Running to rays, future dawns never to come,
Shining things falling mute in dry rots of sun.
.

.
Are we but dream junkies
And all the stars that trail,
In the gloams of milky ways,
But empty islands more for us,
Golden archipelagoes, baubles
Ringing, rounding out heavens'
Wreathing, oceans, nil vastness
To fixate upon from whence we
Once were, by souls' fashioning,
Airy and unrealistic as dear fools'
Child-minded convictions, fables,
Foetal, in smoky amniotic aethers,
Wisps of matter to see unlocked,
Unchained from sparks of nothing,
Wide eyed as supernovae in voids,
As light injects into us such purpose,
Imaginations so neatly dreamed upon,
Once and for all, stories bound in sleepy
Times, or tis more our sole, sun, but one
Dim light in all these unsettled sparklings,
A tapestry which etches our righting eyes,
Into sandy itchings, spiral notches, grains
Ticking us eternal to vested lime beds waiting,
Are we sunk in drunkeness by the overheaded
Skies, fumbling about, numbed, slumbered
In soul rummages?
.

(Haiku)


1

sorrow seeps in air
contemplation fails
sun bleeds at days end


2

hush drops in deep woods
soft as a hares foot on moss
rain sounds isolation


3

sliced blood oranges
such tang for the eyes to know
new way of seeing


4

at start of vast seas
clusters of orange poppies
tethered to a bluff


5

red head woodpecker
dives to sponge of redwood bark
where coral bugs swim


6

sun raining through leaves
freshness in each true colour
wildflowers in clearing


7

sun rays through red leaves
old trees glimmering with shades
afterthoughts of light
.

.
In a forest clearing deep in wood,

I spied the grace of doe and fawn

And stopped my track as I should,

To set my gate about face in song.
.

.
My window frames me in reflection,
I gaze out to the snowy mountains
Beyond myself, yet before such places
You have run to, it has been so long,
Now comes another new winter, I see
Snow drifts reaching, winds to the sky,
High atop the autumn white mountains
Paler than loneliness, white as my hair.
.

(Haiku)

1

touching the window
outside breathes dream world in sun
light through my fingers


2

in backyard garden
morning sun stirs flower beds
new emotions set fire


3

once my heart burned red
but young passions turned with age
mellow autumn flame


4

fireworks at dawn
fields of colour trailing out
wildflowers bursting


5

youth has horizons
elders have reached a new sun
beyond a mountain


6

after dread ice storms
sun beads forgiveness to earth
drops from icicles
.

.
Dear Pablo, as I look over
my soaking body, wet, with patches
of dirt, blotched and raw bleeding,
the clouds turn in my yellowed eyes
in order to love you, my Pablo.  
You, who made me feel radiant.  
As I am the sea,  I fish for you,
rolling in mud, and becoming
mountain, I topple for your toes
who'd dig in deep and itch my aching

breast to sleep.  My dreamful-drowsy
birds, rake the skies, rush-out like nets
wanting you on their wings, my poem.
Pablo, I loved you so when you said,
my flowers were little stars to pick,
and that loneliness was a train who waits
in a far-away station, and how, my most
minuscule attributes — a cat, a pear,
the atom, you praised, in odes, heaped
like showers hailed from heaven, as fresh-

water you reigned from the other side
of tears, and temper'd my salt, my green,
murky life.  Dearest Pablo, since you've gone,
my breath has the emptiness that hides under
stone.  And the blue-winds crossing, my life-
less age, they are nothing but long waves,
keening,   —  Nay   —  rood   —   ahhh!
Since you have left me.  And my trees,
they forget how to grow,
my song, my only,
Pablo.
.

.

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.”
.

.
In order the heart, keep running without knowledge
Of the living torch, of the soiling fires that wipe
Hopes memory, the boiled blood must breathe
In a sea of borders, of waves and rushing tides.

In order the heart, beats time, though it knocks,
Near breaks, as the wind that swoons is divining
Treasure, the jewel in the box of flesh must hold,
Must shore the rivers of the branching bleed.

In order the heart, is closed, and dry of touches
Towering keep, let the eye know mercy, let the seas
That travel with the bones never feel the marching
Desert, the hollow caves of the discarded lovers.
.

.
In the lowland fens at the worlds end,
Like the ferryman, a blue heron waits,
Eyes of dragon fly, hover, over still water,
His legs are the oars rowing to the dead.
.

.
I wanted to know the sighs
Of mercy.  On the bed she lied,
Laid bare in the shocking light
That twitches, as she rolls
I hover and cage her in question,
With moist eyes, abandoned
By loves interrogations,
I stab at the untruths and confusions.
I wanted to hear the supplicant
Murmur of indolence and shame.
With windy caresses I break
Her arms, she ropes me red
In tangled hair and I struggle
To let go.  I wanted to taste
The twin defeats of victory
And indifference, when in the light
Of darkest night there are cries of yes
And no and false accusations,
There is consuming pain and excruciating
Pleasure and as we squirm
And seethe, she teases,
Goading me and then,
I loose it.
.

(Sonnet)

At the end of night she bathes in light,
We tussle in the warmth of morning,
The blankets and she are of sea foam
And found shells, whispering lost ocean
Words.  Our bed is a raft, drifting aloft,
The coffee is brewing with mellow sun,
Her smiles, filling my silly, giddy mug.
Soon, we walk to the pebbled beach,
Her hair is waving at the friendly seas,
Gulls are circling in the moving skies
Reeling with the slow, slipping tides
And I skip stones with her as our feet
Sink in the milk of morning sands—
Must we be off to Dublin town?
.

.
Threadbare young lovers
Lost blooms felled in November
White petals in snow
.

.
Treasure in forest,
Water dropping crystal beads—
Dew on wild orchids
.

.
Third had grace, loveliest, angels face,
Second had music and long, lithest form,
The first was a lark, one amorous affair,
All three are now but phantasm, dream,
The forests dark, memory— lost to me.
.

.
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.
.