I have known the stifling silence of all—
The world's cruel turning, the teasing dawn,
Breaking with fainting days, blinking out
Their dashing hopes, so much for rugs,

Pulled out.  I will not miss the slipping shade
That buried my name in Pharos fallow tomb,
Nor will I lament the times passing, raging,
Spectacle, the fallen masque of my fame.

I shall welcome the majesty of the ******
Loam, the honour of being the daisies mantle
The goodly fortune to sleep under the golden
Stars who birthed my dream of grace and light.

Sometimes the body is contagion
To the soul.  Stars in their mission fall
To seed the fertile flesh, ignite
Blue waters of sulfureous hearts,
And so the flash is set to cancel
In the flood.  

Sometimes the lip of soul onto seal
Will not hold, before he first knocked
And let flesh enter, thorny pegs
Pricked nerve and pierced bone on his climb
To the rose, yea, some stars odd as
Meteors crash.

In the swan-sea, song-sangy-frame of crib,
Rough hewn words bent mold to scrape, like
Blasted coral, stood half-submerged
Amid sea and sky, for between the leaves,
Behind the eye, there are little stars
Shining like existence.

In a circle world he fashioned green
Blazons about the darkling day,
Fostered by celestial navigation,
Wrote a language for music, on a map of love
And charted the force of green in a wind-
Rose of discovery.

Sometimes the soul is not contained, it
Bursts in silent sound like well water
From the source.  And of men in streets
He saw the pennies in their grumble
Eyes, and of love and its course he rubbed,
Tickling dim stars.

It was his thirty ninth year in that fall
To heaven when the steeping cell,
Refused to push in its tide.  Homeless
And free on scaffold of bone the middling
Man retracted from sun to sink
With the moon, turn-tiding-toward sea
Like a changeling.

And as ever, nor often, unwavering eyes
Sprout through shifting grains.  And as he spoke
Quite rimless, Dylan Thomas was petrified
In undying light, and solid set within a rill
Of reef sparkling in concert betwixt gas
And sea, so becoming in purple sleeves,
This constellation of mute singers all,
Dried five-fingered-fish, bright embryos
Returned to the shell, they burn between the leaves,
Beset the grounded skies and show sprite flashes
In the dark where He has left his imprints, burning
Above and plastered below.  The first rock stars!

Albums of our love,
Immaculate tales  .  .  .
Bound skins without film.

In sorrows' garden,
Out of clear blue sky— omen,
Small floating feather.

We met at night and our love
Grew in the eves—
And then, I had to leave her.
It was like a new emotion,
An uncovered degree of cold
And far winds moaned, shuffled air
Became scarce and mythic as aquifers
Under desert, like no bird had ever flown
Nor sung.  I longed to see her in dream
Her burning red hair, like my steadfast
Flame— alight, a swoon of dance
Of newness and of peace,
In the death of night.

In black of mudlands,
Egrets white as loneliness,                                                                    
My heart lost in reeds.

Words, utter, deconstruct,
Pure truth is now, tainted.
Always two ways of seeing,
Right is mighty and written,
The blinking stars, warning,
Over heads of manly stone,
Silent testimony unheeded.
Faith, the hearts perdition,
The exquisite supplication,
The tyrants dream so freely
Spun for turning heads tips
As baubles do when moon
Is full or the sun is searing.
Is the world really flat? Are
The angels already among
Us or do birds surely winter
On the moon?

Take this vesper and drink to glorious time,
Smolder and ride on golden chariots of fire,
Run with burgeoning seas, of child and wine,
Have your fill of flesh, plays among the stars.

Dry words reassure  .  .  .
Her still eyes breaking down speech,
  .  .  .  My eyes are raining.

I see myself in you—
With a spike we two spoke out,
Vagaries of wind, verisimilitudes
And the moon gives us her light.

Black bird, black robed Druid,
We both are spinning round
The hills draped in psalms
Of the oak and windy leaves.

Your words, I hear, go unsaid,
My utterings babble, ring in a rill,
Cold and cascading to mosses,
Bleeding from a lone escarpment.

.
Empty paper swaddles the wanting babes,
Pages crying fill me with thoughts so clean
And light comes down exposing low sages,
Though soiled hands bleed virginal to deem.

Poets, one and all,
Make your words sing,
Never fall, like a tower
Which babbles as it breaks,
Never loose vane admonitions,
Nor tear a tale of fancy, rather seek 
A song of remembrances and revelry 
So that others may share in such 
Gifts as Gods are wont to make.

Dark forest of Tao  .  .  .
Black boughs under evergreen,
  .  .  .  Raven wings in wood.

Outside is temple—
Soft chanting snow fall, pure white,
Crystal mandalas.

.
In straps, of wire saplings,
Becomes one wild rose.
Alone in the dawn,
A solitary crow knows
That this is beauty,
Greater than his own
Shiny black robe.
Impossibly regal
Red as a scarlet wail,
A siren, amongst all
The greens and yellows
Of a meadow, of the entire
World, is the rose, above those,
Especially the bleak, envious
Crow, latched to a branch
As scaly and gnarled as his soul,
Blacker than eternal night,
Beside the shining light
Of the rightly charmed
Wild rose,
Alone.
             Sorry is the crow—
Most of all unmatched, strikingly
To long flame of chalk faced moon,
Rides in airs, misbegotten, makes
Desolate cries, of wounding caws,
Self inflicted, so, somehow seems
Unalive, tarred, undead as smoke,
His fettered, black, unfeathering
Eyes.  Not like the blooming spark
And flash of the stunning, runner,
Unbeaten, indomidible, shocking,
Wild rose, unmired by bramble,
Wood nor motley thorn of bush,
A star of life, razor cut, blistering,
Free, this spirited, ****** heart,
Set, a rage, on jagged leaf.

In tangled straps of green wire saplings,
A Rose is even more a rose, next to crow.

Cloud burst drenching us,
That day, love glistened, laughter—
Caught in a shower.

Small yellow flowers  .  .  .
Sparks sprinkled in meadows shine,
  .  .  .  Mirroring the stars.

.
The sun pours upward into day
And the little cottages by the sea
Are smoking, sandy souls are turning
In their beds by the glaring windows
That hide the birds who were always
There singing, this is a new day, wake,
Wake into dream they are saying, play,
Scurry with wings into light, every branch
Is an avenue, each leave a communion,
Coffee and tea are soon brewing, tangled
In the chlorine mist of the ritual showers.
What to wear this self made, self same
Day?  Fingers tracing glass, new messages
Are frozen in light, so many things to do,
Undo, ****** into ones mobile devices,
Off to work and pressed into their mask,
Ready, makes of shuffles same to endure,
Eight hours or more later, the wounds
Of indifference, avoidance and deflection
Rear and hunch shoulder, weary as it
Trumps joy in a limp to shelter, soon
Too late to be home, and bathe
In the numbing light of situation
Comedy, tragedy, star seekers
Flail on the flat screens, that's
Entertainment, ready, sold,
Told for next new days slog,
And then, all must off to bed
Only to dream mercifully,
Again as dear sun is falling,
Wakes into lost horizons.

Lilies bloom in sun—
In the stillness of summer,
  .  .  .  Swans till the water.

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.

Newly painted house,
Clouded windows between us,
  .  .  .  Flowers in glass vase.

So many worthy causes,
Climate changes everything,
  .  .  .  Save the humans!

Drops fall from the skies,
Red rain— worms pulled from the earth,  
  .  .  .  Robins on the lawns.

.
Hands undecided,
Touch in the dark,
When even light
Is shy and flickering,
Candles lit, trying
To survive in caustic
Air and a hollow room
Where two old lovers
Reach, as they lie,
Feel for anything,
But what they feel,
Lost in a fog printed
On skin overrunning
With ambivalence,
Not felt by either lover.

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?

Who said cemeteries are for the dead?
For those who celebrate such silence
A commotion’s something too.
Crow about the stones, smeared by sun  
All gawking formal and sharply dressed, rung  
A black congregation that drilled and sermoned  
My ears down to coffin nails beneath  
My feet, a voice that hung the wanting
Waves.  

And over head I saw the braised yearling  
Eagle bobbing past the undivided sun,  
Who tottled about the sky in circles out  
Of center, a wearing down of gear
Churning with the grave
Bruising birds, that spoke  
And wheeled over dusty  
Stones.  

Sea spray, leaning trees, slant  
Of cloud, spilt green grass of one  
Sided mosses all pointing which was to be —
The way,  

And leaving there, I saw the sign and it read:  
    ‘Ocean View Cemetery,’
Opens at sunrise —
Closes at sunset.

Drama dropping down  .  .  .
Starlings squabble on the lawn,
Soon as here— they're gone.

.
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.

Greatest eagle, black and white,
Tell me how to reach the skies—
Wander with wind into the night,
Are you lost like me when you fly?
I see you marking the flaming sun
And want to follow your windy path,
Rising after moon, majestic one—
What trials of life in your aftermath?

One scarf next to coat,
Winter, clings, though never worn,
Springtime scent of her.

.
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?

Abjure the bones broken in,
The first lift frissoned by
The moving trees slain on the shift,
Rivers and risen flowers cut,

My statuary lurches betide
The nap of bent wing saluting.

My aviary is a fluttering bed,
The scattered head REMs my flight,
My feet in cloud extend for landings
Tings the belled bound legging.

My falconer bows with pride
In the stall bent wings stooping.

My clawed creature glides for only
The pitching sun or shining moon
And my flights execution, the hooded
Head, end trails my falconer.

My days, fowl to the lunar kite,
Assail the winds open wound.

.
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.
.

The fly makes his way through the house.
Its tongue, like billions before, is tainting  
All it touches.  The fly has wings to spread  
His mess, and though he has innumerable  
Facets to his eyes he cannot see  
The swatter coming.

The house surrounds the fly and is sacred.
As the great blue world beyond is sacred.   
And the fly is spreading fast, flitting here  
And sticking there trampling his own  
Shelter, spreading pollution and excrement  
With a rolling tongue  

That spews and spits upon his own home.   
And though he is happy while he soils  
His house his eyes are two dead worlds  
Barren and still, born to die by the hand  
That flies even higher, so, the fly cannot  
See the swatter coming.

Buzzing, like a burn, through the innocent  
Air he dreams of vast minions rooting  
His world with legion hands.  The house was  
A garden that led him in, he cannot  
Wait for his seed to fester, all's he needs  
Are God’s green plants  

And clean water, some fresh air to conquer.
This house was made for him he would have  
Himself believe.  But when all has dried  
And all is soiled the fly would wish to move  
On, if only he could, trapped as he is  
In the earth and wooden house.

He could taste it all, oblivious to oblivion
In God’s green wooded world— all spinning,  
The sands are running in the sacred home  
That he himself has always defiled,  
As he has never shown any grace;
The swatters hand is His  
Own hand.

Her love was mighty,
Great ocean after desert—
Little hands open.

Fishing on a pier
In midsummer haze
With my grandfather,
Out on a misted lake,
The blues of the waters,
Stirring, deepening blues
Of drizzled sky, we baited
Our hooks, lapping waves
Caressed the drowsy pillars
We rode and so, were reminded,
That there is one colour for both
Joy and sadness. Over slow time
Different fish appeared, bass, pike
Trout, hornpout, but mostly the rangy
Perches, scaly pugs of yellow-orange,
Like slabs of weighted, tiered sun, they
Fought on the reel with high crested spine,
A quiet, noble ferocity.

                             Later, moving lethargically
In the grey of our pail, like broken beads
Of water shed from the morning sun,
How I wanted to toss them all back.

Woman,
Why do you visit so seldom, and plant things
In my fallen over garden, lavender and thyme,
Only to leave, but not
To tend?

Woman,
Take my sorrow and turn down the moon,
Plaster the sun in golden dress and spill
The ground with buttons
Of flower.

Woman,
Why does your face haunt me in dreams,
Your voice, play as in the spirit well that sings,
Drops forth, the moving waters
Into being?

Woman,
Take my open hands and travel with me,
Beyond the ninth wave, to the lost island
Of Hy-Brasil, and we will long live,
Wondrous as poetry.

Robins spike the lawns,
Pulling from moist earth,
Bobbing and rigging oil
Skinned worms topside
And butterflies hovering,
Round eddies over flowers
On a windless day, sailing
In search of colourful spots
On which to land, sparrows
Are nesting above the fray,
Winging with fresh supplies
Building bases about twigs,
Tufts and twine, canvassing
The nailed on house shelters
Left for them, finches, yellow
Headed come in, cheerfully
Raiding the red apple buds
Before trees are even laden
And flowers are out in force
As the rapacious humming
Birds thrusting their rapiers,
Lash all the hearts blooming.