Some art and poems— our strokes on paper

And walks among green mountains and sea,

On weekends of a friend visiting, time tapers,

Simple riches, words over ales, wine and tea.

Making love at dawn,
Mist, caress, mellow sadness,
Mourning doves cooing.

I feel the shrug of the passing winds,
That gather beyond my solemn place,
Where indifferent birds fly to and from,
With only lost dreams, real as her face.

Seashells and castles,
Imagination, holy as the skies,
  .  .  .  Sea sprayed our faces.

( Sea Chanty )

When I was a youth, I spied a bird,
She filled my field with song,
And sadly it was, my duties began
But we made a vow singin,'
Together again!

    And a way'l we go, as I hurry the sea and—
    She waits the land.

My true love I call a nightingale,
And I myself a lark,
Together we make, two turtledoves,
And we made a vow singin,'
Together again!

    And a way'l we go, as I hurry the sea and—
    She waits the land.

    *O come will the day, that my true will say,
    When all my sporting is over,
    'Do you remember the days, I waited the land,
    And you hurried the sea?

Now, the sea is my girl and I her man,
I hear a lovers' lament,
An old seabird cries from the brighty main,
And I join with him singin,'
Together again!

    *O come will the day, that my true will say,
    'My heart, you've been the world over!'
    But until I rest free, I must hurry the sea and
    She waits the land.

Love deflowered, crushed,
Pelting rains exhausted skies,
  .  .  .  Weight of salted tears.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

I have a curled photograph
With waves that crest behind you
And your hair, golden veins,
Tangled in the sun that caves,
There you sit— my open secret,
Atlantic,
Frees my wrested heart
At the fortress—
Altar,
Dún Aengus.

In that place, that wanting place,
High— on the jagged edge
I captured you,
Your eyes were ocean,
Atlantis,
Never so deep, never so
Lost.

I gave ocean pearls,
Her answer was no— blue firs,
Hold, cold water beads.

~
By scratch and scrim and keys, a poets write,
Parsing the eyes drop, lancing the buried ear,
Under the hewning gaze of hazel trees night,
Streams forded, moon and yew stepping, stare.

I saw a hunter by a country road,
In tandem with me he sailed as I drove.

His hoody-head set monkish to the soil
Conjured up music so soundful, sacred,
And I unmoving over a tired flesh—
Coloured vehicle felt naked and dead

For he so saintly robed and dressed to ****
In the colours of the sky prayed with wings,
My harrier, his eyes cleansed purity and gold
While mine unsightly piebald pale and blue.

But want of food dovetailed two craving
Creatures, yet, over fed I felt rusty
Below his steely hunger and what saving
Grace God might offer either mice or men.

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

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.

Magic flash— her hair,
Deepest red by candlelight,
Forgotten sunset.

Bright moon, perfect, full,
Her *******, unbound in starlight,
Heavens outnumbered.

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.

Mourning doves at dusk,
Coo, harken what is to come,
Sun falls, new stars break.

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.

.
Flowers so rare and fine,
Missing from this dry world,
Lost, unwatered, unseen, yet
No ones and none despaired,
They then planted their garish
Seed in blot sun, most sodden,
Soppy soils sprayed which fell
On the plainest, most commoner
Grounds, such fertile dirt, wrought,
Then, all who came to view where
But gaggles of proud mediocrity
Who arrived to revel and preen,
Unjust, they remade this earth,
Once lively, to be lame, what
Celebrations they now need
What praises they do crave,
Sadly, they could not know,
A flower for the weeds.
.

.
With wings at rest longer than its tail
My hobby waits.  Great bird of creation,
Where do you come from?  As I sit and mull
You take flight to and from places I may
Never know,
                            Where are you taking me,
Great spirit on high, far, farther-ring with light
And the wind, which streams then to delirium
Heights?  I am bled and I am torn.  Must I
Suffer in my soaring?  Your clutch, tings
The sky, pierce the cloud, my hobby hovers,
I dream of coronations, talons to my head—
A crown of thorns.

Half way up mountain,
Flesh so weary from journey,
  .  .  .  Pillows in the sky.

Gaggle reign of quail—
Sharply dressed, proud, lead by scouts,
Marching down alley.

Eyes, orb as exploding stars,
Weighted light of hair rushing,
Held extremities, nimbus limbs,
Eons' spring, singularity crushing.

Empty rooms are for loving her,
For love in a dark silence grows
And crowded rooms in volumes
Speak as the crush of loves goes.
When may I know ends to trap—
After deep valleys, cold snows?

Showers of promise punctuate your days,
The waters creek, mumble rise and swell,
Flowers, spark of youth, marching in the rains
And birds sing anew, bright pages, bursting-bell,
An earthy coronation, cleanse and glisten,
All the wood, shorn by Winters’ wane and fan,
*** and waltz in balmy breeze collecting
Ferns and Falls' forgotten blood red hands
Renewed, the grass and trees, heavens missal,
Wing-lipped leaves exploding green, just listen;
The washing rains parade, all resurrection.

.
From out of the smoke,
And impromptu silences,
A lone piper plays at reels,
Beyond the borders, his knees
In a trinity of keys, breaching
Low dun black ****** hearts,
The public house is enclosed
Out in the open, under a plow
Of mossy stars, peat and bog,
Wrapped, within chanters throat.

I fill the bird bath,
Then splashes, wings, songbirds play,
  .  .  .  Joy to fill again.

I Hear All The Outlawed World

                        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.

He follows a win, shoddy as tin,
What a week, one sorry victory
And tales to be strewn, too thin
His climbing hill, a pyrrhic story.

.
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 frost, sets in and leaves of red have fallen.
And a cold sun beads on the stiffening ground,
Nimbus clouds, snows of down, now wafted in,
Tagging sun become louder, as ripples on pond
Are waging white with grey, dabbing the tableau,
That nature is painting with a pair of wild swans.

In my working days world,
Outside little birdies do swirl,

With wings and songs saying,
Wee birds in trees are playing,

But my blue drab or grey suit,
That chains me to my roots,

With only windows to imagine                                          
A world so colourful, tangible,

Is shroud, only wrap of clothes,
Yet little birds, so downy robed,

And within my comely, demise,
See how brightly birdies do fly,

As I shudder, muted, wintering,
O how wee birdies can sing.

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.

Hazel tree, long breeze,
Young tendril branches stretching,
Woman combing hair.

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.

Bright moon, perfect, full,
Her *******, unbound in starlight,
Heavens outnumbered.

.
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.

She put her hair up,
All night I imagined its fall,
Breathlessly waiting.

Driveway of grave stones,
Army of orange poppies—
  .  .  .  Little flags victorious.