.
*Our life flows lush tended gardens now,

Lake waters with sun conspire to shine,

Mountains breaking through the clouds,

Lone eagle erasing all that is lost of sky.

.
In the early dawn
A shout is seen
As the moon is falling,
Tawny birds blithely dart
In the scarlet tangles
Of your heart, always escape
Yet never so parading past
The topped prime colours
Of bleeding eyes uncovered,
All the fields and clearing
Woods have cordoned
Themselves, beyond
Your glorious boundaries,
In the knotted, noble trials
Of briar and serrated leaf,
Green trails ply angled thorns
Leading to one ****** crown.

( Sonnet )*

Gentle water lord, of your traces;
Four seasons show in your graces:

Breezy spring, wafts, leaves so soon,
Lost loves, colours longing for white,
Light jewel.

Hottest summer, moves, in sleepy
Sun, all her ways soothed, running,
Milky days.

Autumn shakes of mellow webbing
Leaf as you arrive, majesty's thief,
Gliding lithe.

Frozen winter, low, pure and pale,
Never demure, as your wings aloft,
Flake so fair.

.
All the new flowers have gone.
I see flocks of birds flying away,
The waters of blue mountains
Fall, rush and scold, are running
Cold— wind, whispers and goes,
Lonely as a tree without leaves.

.
Sometimes the sun is not heard,
The world is silent yet, is living
Cold, the moon stirs not even
As it is rising, the birds are mute
The trees and oceans are still
All things are pointed and dull.
I hear a lonesome hound baying
At the empty skies when clouds
Are covering with a smear of smoke.
Where are the words that are never
Said?  What light burns my eyes,
Darkening most at the days zenith?
What is the language for sanity?
Why is there no math, no translation
For the heart?

Sometimes the sun is missing
Or lost by a sea of tears raining
In collusion with the shifty earth,
Sometimes the numbering stars
Are merely zeros, the die casting
On the green and desperate table
Of the turning world.  Sometimes
The sun sinks early to the west
And the moon is trailing not far
Behind.

( Sonnet )*

And she so blithely calm,
Perfection amongst nature,
So beauteous, so precious,
Dearer than faint rapture.

How, we new men are lost
Without words, without wit,
Unbeknownst of times' cost
Bearing, bereft, without pill,

Woman in all her temptings,
Hair, longing to be shackle,
Eyes, mirroring dire heavens,
Lips, that drowning fish tackle.

How, to be a man without fear
When all womankind is near?

~

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
.

.
Red is my ale,
Like the red of her hair,
Crowds in the pub, shuffle
And dart and all around is merriment,
Looking into my bottomless pint,
Facing the bars closing—
My muted voice mumbles,
Sighs, welled with sinking eyes,
Silent as my prayer.

.
*Simple clouds, clotting great blue sky,

Face of old, youthful man in mountain,

White headed, green warring with blue,

Winter trees having grown, all they can.

.
In gravest, gravels of untouched soil,
Spearhead of purple, beyond the pale,
One statue of siege upon a windy foil,
What mires meek airs in all you survey?

Like a frost of summers, you are lord,
To hold that seed in your spiny face,
Depressions of land your promontory,
All up with arms, iron clad as a mace,

Beneath you, the grown motley fields
Are desolate, all flowers bled, blender,
Spiders and birds know you unyielding
The lost aleatory scent of no surrender.

.
We made love as strangers—
Do when they eye each other
Separately intimate in a rush,
Our bed was a rack we made
Tortuous and flesh— revealed
As it gave into itself, the moon
Conspired in our dominations,
As we suffocated in the breaths,
Way down sips, of earthy heavens.

( Song )

Eight hours of work, eight hours must I sleep,
I can only weep, I realize my life is passing by,
Oh O O O Om . . .
My life gets in the way of living.

Creative people try and lonely people sigh,
I can only weep, I realize my life is passing by,
Oh O O O Om . . .
My life gets in the way of living.

    Travels I would make, cause my heart to break,
    For misery and ecstasy are one.
    Tibetan book of the dead, red rivers I have bled
    And temple walls, they speak of—*

My life gets in the way of living.

Years spent in school, we learn but never do
And if you have a woman, or a man,
Your life is spent, by a factor of ten,
Oh O O O Om . . .
My life gets in the way of living.

.
Inmost as cold tomb,
A soul is left, hushed,
Only seeks true light,
Unframed, shows itself.

Welcome to breaking,
All minds who question,
Let the whispers rail,
Only for an ears open.

Look into chaos here
At the edges of doom,
Wish for nothing's no
Upset by veins so blue.

We are cut runners, all
Braving into new upsets,
Take countings down,
All days are numbered.

.
*We fall, following doors, a jarr of sun,

The pale flowering of romantic youth,

As we are painted by pictures we run,

And all new meadows a vale of bloom.

.
There are ones
Who see colour
As only light made
Into shades by
A shifty vision,
The brain playing
With in-splayed
Vibrations, unordered
By such symmetries
That blinds mere minds
And yet, sets soul afire,

There are dreamers
So awake that stars
Are moony in sky,
There are lovers, lit,
Fallen so deep above
Heavens that the Gods
In envious joys arise
Like the first dawning
Sun, in prideful airs,
Among watery stones,
Blistering into birth.

.
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.

.
Blooms of hair, shimmers and starlight,
Face of dream, gathers in lighted loom,
Wakes of morn, spotty forest fawn, child
To magi moon, maid of golden orchards,
Of faraway seas, world opened vastness,
Temptress of foreign fruits and the giving
Sun, where blue, blood oranges old, ripen,
The dark vines grape of ancient olive, red
Lamb and wine.

What enchanted lands are you made of?
Where the diving seas of dolphin, sponge
And whirlpool weave, wherein Gods must
Have loved and making you, left this earth
In beauty and peace, burnished with dream.

.
Falcon rise— yellow racing eyes,
Blue wraith that rakes the skies,
Never has one fared such beauty,
Airs naught wholly bright as thee.

Is there a kneel for end of days—
Songs, deeds for those who prey?
Is there light breaking pied wings,
Or is heaven overlord to all things?

Sun spots feathering coated crest,
Talons top spires mountain breast,
When rivers of the wind fail all fowl,
What grace and splendour in a cowl?

Is there a psalm in the wailing winds,
A hymn that carries all innocent sins,
Or a fable, blue as stupendous skies,
A truest place where redemption lies?

The sea slides with lost ocean birds
And blue wings coast, row unheard,
Edging the skies with razors' tinge,
Seeding the immortal spark begins.

Falcon rise— yellow racing eyes,
Blue wraith that rakes the skies,
Never has one fared such beauty,
Naught airs wholly bright as thee.


                           *— after William Blake

.
Sun slowly sinking above the river rushing,
Lime white lilies trumpet to the moon aloof,
Fatted fowl wading, an end to days hushed,
Lo, mercurial otter slips downstream— ****!

.
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?