.
I sit under the ancient apple tree,
My heart is low, my head in the clouds,
The day is slowly ending, I am sleepy
When visitors arrive, little buds come,
Raining down on me— a cadre
Of red-headed finches.

.
Waters waltz land dancing,
Dragon flies flutter a buzz,
Cat-o'-nines torching tales,
Where beavers are logging
Time with fresh water fish
Who breach as they mouth,
Fly catching in a casted sea,
Mossy and bogged with peat,
And the colours, mottled, fey,
Brindled, brim, know they say,
There are lessons, hear stillness,
Punctuations in the spry singings
Of the never tardy larks, windrous
Riddles ripe rushing through reeds.
.

.
When she touches me, I feel her touching
Herself, though she circles my shape into
Oneness, I sometimes feel— detached
Within those arms.  
                                   In her startled-fall
To sleep, imperceptibly, she gathers
The room from her haunting childhood.  
Drawing the air and curling in waves—
Her hair, as if she were weaving some kind
Of shelter.

When I touch her, it is with desire.
My reach untangles the very dream
Which took thirty five years of dull
Existence to unmuddle— to imagine,
My soul's other.

                         Ten fingers envelop her body
Like splits of lightning— rippling skyward
From wholly, bone-dun-desert, floor and there,
In that rose-journey of unbridled touch,
The shock of thunder makes a mother
Of the sky.  
                     When she breaks her water
The blighted earth that was sung— given
My name, becomes her light, awakening
Child.
.

.
I hear echoes that have no voice,
Sad before the vaulted tongues
Over brimmed, who spill on shunted ears
The sour milk of pressed pictures
And sooted lights of lime
And the golden knobs taste
Jarring-dry to their saw dust toes.
Must the babe be chosen
By its mother?

The sea dirt is lined with woolen shawls
And the chasm shout shall dig our graves,
Throated hollow, to the abyss, we sink our six
And ***** the dirt, call not them the spades.

I hear echoes that have no choice,
But to skim the moated land
And wash well eyes with leaven walls
That tease and **** the sum to crushing
Columns lifted shoulder
High by zeros of kneeling numbers
Worming in bedded slumber.
Must the maker of builders
Be dismantled?

*The sea dirt is lined with woolen shawls
And the chasm shout shall dig our graves,
Throated hollow, to the abyss, we sink our six
And ***** the dirt, call not them the spades.

.
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.
.

( Sonnet )*

Sound softly hung, she spoke, gave birth to place;
And there, found him closed in, frozen, shivering.
Her dawn light hands gently warmed his face;
His winter room sweetly broke into the spring.

After darkness died he felt strange bonds again;
Birds chimed, flew by, and the walls fell away.
Locked in her arms the turning world grew open;
His eyes nestled in the light her joy had made

And with her temperance swelled his weary eyes;
This was the day of her birth, Venus by the seas
And lonely air was steeping, the ground set aside
His tabled world was now a feral garden green.

Dearest countenance, with only grace she lies,
With merest touch, turned all ceilings into sky.
.

.
Body of ocean, milk and sky,
We are tangled in the hope of night.
The lips of the milky way, creaming us,
Stains and is **** with a taste keening;
All is creation.  My meteors crash
Into your ruptured Earth.  I flame
Upon your must and moisted furrows
And my toes are locked, rooted in yours.

Body of ocean, milk and sky,
In the deserts of the day you are true
Oasis.  The curves and waft of your sands
Seethe and sodden my barren plains,
Are erasing all my wandering memories
Of an endless sky and now your eyes
Are the only stars I know, and your skin;
A sheet that holds the heavens shimmering.

Body of ocean, milk and sky,
Your ******* are the heaving of grasses
And wind, loft and laden in the rounded
Hills, a hoard of ****** bread, bountiful,
Ripe and strange.  Your hair is an endless
Savannah, your valleys are gold and honeyed
With milk, seared, filled by my penetrating sun.
In passion we play; low on earth and deep in sky.
.

.
Deep in the cups of your eyes
I drink in the high shot,
Blood of sense sacramental,
Wine and veins piercing
The after loves of morning.

Lost in the reaches of your hair
I have found belonging,
Ambrosial of lark and meadows,
Like some primordial dawn,
Awakening the first lovers.

And our bodies, broke, chalk ****,
Shimmered in ghost of live moon,
Like the one white dove loosed,
Into the holy airs of flaming hope,
Above blue tranquil seas of peace.

The ocean slid with our rowings
And the air, so sweetly uncatched,
Moaned in moist heat of breeze,
Drunk in an ever last of new hunger,
Under all the heavens we plunged.
.

.
The sea is a landing,
The mountains, but ribs,
Merely brittle, sandy mounds,
That cradle and rock, my song,
The oceans, bath water foaming,
My body is all encompassed
In void, in elements of feather,
Light as the rays from the stars,
The Great Lakes are puddles,
And all bands of the ancient
Forest are wrapped in a ball,
The world is a playful bubble,
Only one note from the music
Of the spheres, a loosed bauble
Born of sparks, cosmic clouds,
Breaking in the nebulas of blistering
Iris, exploding in the joyous eyes
Of a waking child.  

                             Yet, there is only
Now, I am, locked in a dreamhouse,
By a vast sea, on old branches of tree,
And, I can only look, grow, daze into
Shut mystic heavens, and wonder.
Can I truly, only, live in dream?
My makeshift world is drying,
I am from sprinkled waters
Dropped like tears,
Graces that fell
From the sky.
.

.
With love so dear and sheerest light,
Arrived to clear moors of heart,
As it bled for near myth in fey touch,
Grained by times and dust apart,

The moon was cast as sun was shy
And rain did fall winsome, tasking,
Suddenly a meadow appeared new,
Flying colours under sun basking

And as a child once more, I became,
To feel such graces slowly divine,
No longer lost in gardens of dream,
But be rapt in broken light so kind.
.

( Song Ballad )

You say you don't understand me,
Here's a bargain for free I'll be sellin' you true ;
We'll go to a place, above the sea raging,
An' get down to what's troubling you.

When I was a lad, I remember my dad,
Would take me on walks down 'Langtrae Doon' ;
He'd tell me great stories, of sailing ship glories,
An' somedays just whistle a tune :

  *Slip away, slip away ;
  He'd say 'hopes will die chasin' the moon,'
  I'll tell you my girl, that the cares of the world,
  They don't matter much round 'Langtrae Doon.'

Rueful me mother was, six children never loved,
An' pride was offensively used ;
'You'll never amount to a thing,' she would state it,
Ashamed she was of her own brood :

  Slip away, slip away ;
  She'd say 'hopes will die chasin' the moon,'
  So but on your bonnet, I'll write you a sonnet,
  We'll get down to 'Langtrae Doon.'

Father died a broken man, just now, you'll understand,
Lord knows they buried him cruel ;
Left his debts unpaid, he never owned land,
But in his heart was 'Langtrae Doon.' :

  Slip away, slip away ;
  He'd say 'hopes will die chasin' the moon,'
  So but on your bonnet, I'll write you a sonnet,
  We'll get down to 'Langtrae Doon.'
.

.
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.
.

.
So many words between us—
The caustic breech of abatement, ruin
Runs atonal, in recitals of indifference,
How even the ****** birds now sound
Discordant and rain crushes as it falls,
Ballistic.

The pinprick stars are merely eyes
Undraped to the worn souls' veil
And gorgon time roils setting our feet
In the crust of wishes and delusions
Kept.  

The bullet riddled skies in absence
Of colour are but particulates of lime
To the moonless night.  Words have no
Eyes, they can only finger.

O the sorrows of the untouched—
The cruelty of the sightless and bent blind,
Drab vermillion stars felled like forced tears.

.
Cut like shrapnel,
Were buried in blood,
Her words, so subtle,
Plain, ordinary as air,
Snuffing out life, painting
Oblivion, colours smeared
Into black and off whites,
Cursory as lept dark wings
Fluttering in chaos, fleeing
Like crows and loud noises
Out in the open in blister of dark
Sun and threatens and oft wills
Of rain in the grey, scratch clouds
Always hovering, she proffered a word,
Implied so simply, with eyes askew,
But, love died in bodies drained,
Words that broke with bleeds
Under skin, under cold sheets
Red as ****** undertakers wall,
Leading to solids, wisps, no things,
Stark and only as tombs of stone.
.

.
A lone, lorn traveler
In silence and memory,
Writes to one flame at night
In a room where no answering
Appears, only shadows speak
With out lips to endear.  A lone
Traveler has time sutured to will
Cast in a tomb of what might have
Been.  He scrawls on chalky sheets
In the mausoleum of murk and dream,
His flame was once a face, real as now,
Filled with light unlike the later seasons
Of split rooms crowding.  So much of life
There once was to be lived, her flesh, burnt
Fertile, her eyes knowing promise, her blood
Red rains of hair, endless sojourns beyond myth
Or fable, a thousand barks, her swains over ocean
Silenced by her lips of love for you, only, a lone traveler,
Captain of all oaring ships launched from the plain shores
Of loss under a cliff so high, where his once long devoted
Before wrote a vow of love to all his follies, fates, travails
And gave her hand, to bloom of youths so glorious.
.

.
Something beyond,
To climb into cloud,
Into the snows of purity,
To touch the rise of sun,
Golden as it bathes us,
To realize all is small
Underneath, and all
Is washed by streams
Of blood from the skies,
To reach the highlands,
Plateaus in the heavens,
This is the only poem,
A great blue mountain,
Something beyond,
For us to climb.
.

.
Red hair in my eyes,
Phones that do not ring,
Supper for one, old dishes,
Birds clearly calling to no one,
Moss on a roof, mute sun through
Glasses of wine, not fading voices,
Winds that saunter, sweeping —
Aloof, still pools in a wanton bower,
Fingers unclaimed in the witching
Hours, an abandoned bed watched
Over, slept upon, the sharp creeks
In a silent, boardered old house —
Where no one has simply moved,
The branches in the blanketed yard
Swaying like new dancers so free,
Grey bark that fell at foot of tree,
What will become of me?

.
It's like trying with nothing there,
Hoping for connection, without
Knowing that you and I are lost,
Separate, etched in marbled face
Of stone, you never saw me real,
Nor I you, it was only happenstance,
The dead do not know they are dead,
As they careen in deserts bleeding,
Round living hearts, I was always
More than half divined, unliving,
It is not my fault you are blind,
Take what nothing's I once offer
In this spiny desert of Saguaro
And running sands of no relief,
Cast your visions skywards,
As mirages are miraculous,
Pray under blasted moon
And weep with me.

.
Woe for 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 songplay
And be glad there are musics
To rouse and uproot a soul,
In the afterthoughts of day.

.
The mountain lily crowding,
Grassy glens in formal dress,
After snows and early spring—
Rain over all the green hillsides,
An earthly heaven of constellation,
Daybreaks into marvelous milkyway.

.
Rain falls shooting the grounds.
In walks avoiding the schrapnel pits
Bleeding, over spilling, as they swell
Memories play to the mute bitterness
Of far cold, how we went wrong, bled
At arms, burned within salted wound
Of dishonest rush, assault of friendly
Fires as die smouldered out of smoke,
Taint of grace flew into a cauldron dark
A cross of red was only suture to veins
Ripped in the onslaughts and love was
Our only casualty.  We were lost, never
To reach the shining wins of conquered
Spoils, never to bed with timeless downs
Of lovers on leave, we now just soldier on,
To walk with rains, in campaign of sorrows.

.
Grasping to the sky
With ever reaching
Branches, leaves spirit
Themselves to sacred
Airs.  
           Old tree, a star set
Truncated with sprite earth,
Stolid, touchstone spark,
Place, feeling all waves
Dripping by like clouds.

In some underworld,
Bathing with Gods,
Are immortal roots
Divining water, laid
In ceremonious soil,
Digging out golden,
Unfallowed tombs.

Old tree in the sun,
Great soul barking
Skywards each day,
Joyous arms clench,
Lansing, higher out,
Embracing heavens.

.
In plain sight, the Peacocks ply their wearisome
Colours.  Awkwardly swaying, pompously preening,
They cry to be seen, their voices are gurgling  
And gawking.  The direction of wind is their vane.

Overhead, in the secret sky fleet wings are truth.
In the sun the searing Falcon is seeing all;
His talons turn and steal away, they are mad,  
Playful fingers— they will have their say.


*— after W. B. Yeats

.
Rose of your ear,
Lantern in your eyes,
Forest of branching hair,
In Inverness of your midlands,
I shall broach lit vernal deltas,
Kiss deep into darkling depths,
Climb the leaved trunks of thigh,
Drunk in the moisted, muted sighs
Of promise, tendered to surrender,
I shall know your ripened *******,
As bloom of moon paints moons
At night, I will be ****** in milk—
That offers itself to leeching babe,
With little, lithe fingers you rake one,
A wan vagabond, *****, homeward,
I shall know your flowing wetness,
Below my desert, with purpose,
I am lost, in sleep and dream,
May I never wake, may I
Sleep, never, may eye
Always open, keep
In tableaus of oil,
Strokes, hues,
Glittering
Of you.