Day taps away—
In the numbering rains.
All the fleet years, enveloped,
How many questions were founded,
What was granted by our solo vacations?
We have trussed, only films, yellowed and bent
****** into an makeshift, unready, empty album,
Dreams made right, journaled without strewn hands,
Lips rung dry from want of heat, touch and caress,
We kept our pride, penultimate, throughout
All the days, longing, dying, we slept
Together, in a broken bed of dreams
And thought, when will this play
Be glad?  When will that isle
Appear?  Will it ever show
Among the dark oceans
Rise— to ferry us away
Before the drunk sun
Sinks in the sea?

November shades down,
Single colour trumping all—
  .  .  .  Bluebirds in grey sky.

Songbirds listening—
Her voice, fresh in my garden,
  .  .  .  Wind chimes grew silent.

So seductive, she,
Never saw the coming stones,
Last cry— Lorelei.

Leaves stir announcing,
Seasons first Hazel nuts fall,
  .  .  .  Blue Jays return soon.

Tired, I awoke upon a lonely island beach
And gazed on a Goddess above the shore,
With sea foam hair, coral skin, what dream,
My salt eyes, blinded, open, wanting more,

Conspiring with rays of summer she shone
So bright, this daughter of the sun, we stood
I and my castaway crew, to that siren prone
As she led us to her mansion in the woods.

Her potions tamed the forest wolf and lion,
Spellbinding warrior poets to liven feasts.
Why then must she turn ***** men to swine,
By what she most desired contented least?

Desert falcon, my moly held Pharaohs' breeze
And what nil escape above the wine dark seas.

Her eyes,
Sunken, blue
With edges of ruddy green,
Of olive, kelp, fatigue,
A certain muddy camouflage,
Bright with purpose,
Ambition and fierce urgency,
Set their twin star sights
On me and I learned a new
Word that day—
Surrender.

I fell into formation,
Saluting her stars in the fullest light
Of the falling day.
I learned how to survive
Under such searing heat
And became intimate
With sneak attacks,
Friendly fire, sudden blitzkrieg
And the nuclear winter,
The dark sheet,
Of sorrows unveiling.

Troubled waters rise—
Sands march, locust lost in maize,
Harvest moon sinking.

Raven haired mermaid—
Moon body murmurs and sways,
Black waves roll white seas.

Man ends planet—quick,
Dinos last millions of years,
Birds are dinosaurs.

Leaves dance as they die, birds sing as they fly.  Where is weeping?
Why such silence in the exploding heavens?  I know the desert thrives
At night, I know the ocean depths have light, what's left is always right
And the sun is stored in cells as the crystals are growing in the frosts.
Don't you hear the music that runs cross the tracks?  Can't you see
The Sirens floating on their backs?  Bound to a ship that tips and flays
About the maelstrom we are spinning bobs to the edge, we are blind
By our own hands.  The shape is the binding journey and all around us
The feet are worn with miles and leagues as many have been moved;
As many do make what was always ready to be born like a new voice
Ringing in the colour of absolution and truth.  The maiden Earth is all
A blossom, and our tears, are a salt ocean and death is a supernova,
Death is a Star.  Is those around us the shaping of the hardware?

My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.

Beyond the massif peaks of Europa,
Above the ancient pillars of Heracles
Where rain and ocean are weaving,
Lays a fabled kingdom born of waves
And noble strands, my beaten hearts
Haunting, the lost, lush sylvan lands
Of Galicia.
                   Where Incomparable, dark 
Haired women, mythic, of Amazonian
Fairness, side the valleys and moors
Of soon forgotten dreams and secretive
Wolves slide amongst warmed runnings
Of the ram and moans of ewe, where
Way bountiful seas are over spilling,
In octopus and pearly gemmed shells,
The scalloped pilgrimages unfolding,
Where incense burns with under stars
Encased, the lost Atlantean temples
Of Egyptian sands and storied Gaels,
The clad forests of wandering Titans,

Where snow white beaches end forever
Unmapped in told footsteps, castaway,
As was the magi gift of treasured yards,
Enlightenments, of old and golden isles
Pearling the coasts, sailing the sweet airs 
Crossing Iberian gates, to Elysian, eternal,
Galicia.

Helios ****** his seed of light— Phaethon's act,
Pleasures born of pain, in the balled glass eyes,
Frees a moat of grey matter cloud, light crackles,
And one blue silent flash— mirrors zodiac skies.

By the dawn's early light,
Casual ties of warring pride,
Who wear the fit of uniforms,
Creasing down the seamy streets,
Who once in his sights were called to order,
By arrow clutching eagles, sandbagged
By the rivers heart of darkness, *****-
Trapped by bootstraps pulled, torn apart
In tiger eyeing fields that lied
In wait while choppers dived, delivering
Payloads of giant dragon flied fire
And this unction was to be their balm
And the swordless Dons were spit out
Of skull hunting windmills, Jonah
Beached to thy kingdom cong.

And over their heads cried the phantom
Jets, bat out of helmet, to the straw
Pulling hairs and these heroes, we
Abandoned without bonds nor blindfold
And lashed them to the flagging pole
With guns saluting while the sirens
Wailed, no wonder they should crack,
Our green jaded Gods, our Greek
Journeymen, due south of lotus land,
No wonder they should break on the China
Seas in that cold, ******* land.
O say can you see, that it is we,
The people, in anger and in shame
Who have no mettle, to give, but tarnish
Foisted on the brave and they
Are worn, like trinkets to dishonor.

And over the deep non-ending sank
Our heroes, betrayed by ism's, discharged
By ghosts in the machining guns,
Unspirited by a corporeal world,
Bamboozled in the muddy thickets
And dropped to the fray on ****** wings,
To foreign soil, where children are lost
In the man eating groves and they
Were thus dutifully numbered by their own
****** arms and all were made
Guilty cold in that sliver of uncivil
And polar eyed land, O say can you see,
The burning of twilights last gleaming?
And, we sutured a wall for the trigger-
Happy dead, we dammed the bleeding,
But can there be no bridges?

And further from those chilling fields
They are casting us letters, address
Unknown and mid adrift are messages
In drowning bottles by the waysides,
They are swimming to our doors,
Where, we the people, have built a wall,
Made of stone, black and shiny, it will
Not smear— and we are polishing off
Our dead, say the cold blooded
Behind that face and in front runs a red
River running down the vane, glorious sun,
Yet, this humble partition, in stories and tears,
Is deconstructing grave white heads,
Quartered in pride and darts to the ground,
That warring bird, crowned to his vacant
Lots.  O— say can you see, the turning
Of twilight's last gleaming?

Mankind playing God,
Red burning sands, angry skies,
Blue ocean will rise.

Birds above windows,
Jostle and sing, building nests—
Cat behind the screen.

He walks in stolid darknesses
At days zenith, hears whispers
In the dew dusted fens, lights
Leaves into sun candle flames,
Drew a lake sword by maidens 
Hand, alchemic shaper of water, 
Air, old fires and earth, bending 
Cold elements of moly and lode 
Rushing forth, in extra emotions.

I have come to the temple
Of your body.  I kneel and prey
Like a sinner.  The holy water
Beads low on your forbidden
Tabernacle, sears my touch
In cleansing flame, what I do
And what will be done is all
For unrepentant confessions
And penances.  Let me truly
Learn the sacraments of flesh
Before I bathe in your wicked
Innocence and commit my sin
At being mortal in your nimbus
Chambers, let the mercies rain
After the fall of my fellowing
Creature, for this night is blood
Sabbath, and sacrilege under
A Pagan moon and let the dawn
In the rising sun of mute morning
Be my absolution, our benediction,
Let the moving waters enfold us,
Pure as lambs, as washed babes,
Baptismal.

.
I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.

Raven haired woman—
Bathes in lake with sinking moon,
Black swan drowning light.

Tea and cup, ready,
Birds in garden weaving dream,
Kettle wakes, calling.

.
When your strung hair drops,
In any chamber, all is opened,
All is lithe, flowerfield of mirror
To the gathered stars unto fire,
Below as above is a universe,
Your eyes asking in surrender,
Were never so fair as your face,
My soul drowning in those blue
Orbs, what oceans of sparkle, so
Like jewels in a thousand temple
Reliefs of gold and safire offered
By flesh and thunder, waits to roll,
To wash and crackle firmaments,
Of earthly desires and obsession,
In your temples above and below.

HP is breeding  .  .  .
Forum for hack formalists,                                                                                      
  .  .  .  Dreck is deafening.

Flies in the haze morning sputter and splay.
Water drops from leaves rolling with the blown
Blades. The windy whoo of the owls fade,
Blue buried eyes cradled in the hollow
Trees, the swamps seeker is quietly rustled,
Wings of panoply, spangle-speckle the wind,
Over the flames of autumn, talons thistle,
Crown the dominion of the fall, fade in
Sporting meadows colour, till the dive,
Balm of field, marsh, all ignites. Lever pale
Winds finger through the leaves gravely
And rake as you raid, shoulders that burning vale,
Casualties of insect, the lemming song sings
Mouse and vole flash, dark, sparkles the clearing.

We kissed under moon  .  .  .
Pox of stars grew flowering,
  .  .  .  Nightshade of her lips.

She rides the chanting waves
At the seas horizon,
In fires of star sheen and moon shine,
Sweet Niamh of the golden hair, and aqua eyes,

Princess of the green sea turtles,
Of the coral sea grottos,
Anemone naves and kelpie skins,
Trailing the rainbow schools of the whirling fin,

The whole twining ocean globe of blue is swooning
Under the milky waving skies and unfathoming deeps,
Her laughter lighting the unremembered bottom of the seas.

In a flower field—
Blue irises, tendril hairs,
Saw her disappear.

( Sonnet )*

Great blue, draped by fade, overall
Of sky, clothed in feathers that run
Earthward from the mottled sun—
In stalks and reeds you will surmise
As you ****** into waters of demise
How fish take run underneath wattles,
A giant neck as it flies muck, throttles,
With legs that reach to lowly heavens
Waiting for loss minions as they rush
Over boarding the marshes and airs,
Great reaper, you spill as you sweep,
The lost pools and dire bubbling mires,
And even your wings, wade underneath,
Buzzing choirs of your beak into spires.

The lone stark bugle cry—
Horn of the great mountain elk,
Ripples down cold through morning
Dusted wood as the mushrooming dews        
Drop into dearly waded pools under
Fawning toes of forage and cool
Evergreen.

Dimples on her face,
Walking long miles without her,
Pebble in my shoe.

In the house of the unsaid
Tears are glass beads that drop
The ***** on the bone china

Blood spittles the lips, hair
Raises the dead the cut
Rosary roils and dents

Harmony’s rumour spouts
In the sink. The clock’s twitching
Strikes a mongoosed hour.

And the scattered stations run
The rude wood splinters
As the unsaying are floored

Clouded eyes pain the glass
Outside the house, bare
Trees are leaved with ravens.

We came from the rain,
Into ourselves out of body,                                                              
Kissing— still dripping.

Cloud, moving waters,
Ripples, soft white leaf on lake—
Shape of neck spells name.

To see with black eyes,
Little angels fall from sky,
Always on dark wings.

Man has wheels,
Books and machines,
Birds have better means,
Sing as they fly.

Man has culture,
Laws and slight reason,
Beast lives for all season,
A life without lie.

Man has fashion,
Art, music, daze galore,
Flower is supreme colour,                                                              
Ferociously alive.

When I look at her—
This girl is only my friend,                                                                    
But eyes betray me.

Outside is great cave  .  .  .
Coal mines exploding the skies,
  .  .  .  Canaries long dead.

Before even flight  .  .  .
Landed seagull chick strides, reads,
Waddles through bookshop.

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

.
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is - infinite.”
― William Blake

.
In this room
Drowning,
In ocean flesh,
Our days, replay,
With eyes cut
Out under sheet
Of stars.  All is
Not real, screened
For a soul, lost
On the dry lands
We bury ourselves
In.  

      One day we shall
Wake into the sun,
And bathe in the light
Of unbridled constellation
And voids deeper than
Life, holy and actual
Like drowning flesh,
Come, alive in sky,
Lit by eternal sheen,
Lost memories, grace,
Being burn, new sparkle,
Cast to air, as embers preen.

And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.