Ravens scatter outside my pain.
A throw of die against the winters

First snow and the window needs cleaning,
Maybe later.  The running glass

Is watery and after I make love
With you, I wake to the severing light

That is always silent.  The phone
Does not ring, as my cat has told me

Many times, let us play she says,
The way it used to be under

The red wood beams on the hard wood
Floors, you would cry in that vacancy.

Though we lived in a one bedroom
Unfurnished, I called it a dance hall

And we danced silly tangos.  I tried
To lift you then, but now outside

My window, ravens dervish and never
Fly in formation, under blue mountain.

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

All day sun is grey,
Still world covered in pale sheet,
  .  .  .  Bird song lost in din.

The heron spreads his wings and preys.
His stony stand a beachhead sloughing
The salt sea, a sepulchered wading.

Leaven the broken bred, unshell
The teeming waters, a fisher of mermen
Unlordly low this lying father,
His wings are palms,

His rock a mount, his wings a bay,
And deafness, tears in the outer shores
And exaulted seas the forgiven waves,

Swells the briny blood and kelp.
Vains are streaming to the fisher king,
Lordy he lands the lying father
His wings are psalms.

A tiny flood that arcs the sky
Marks lord in miniature, a King
Fisher flies, His wings are
The waters calmed.

The otters bask and preen, mermen
Jostle in the laddered rays of the sun
They mark their surf, insouciant play,

Wavering the fisher of men, he sways,
Simply they circle in song singing hours,
Dancing as do the murmuring waves,
Their strokes are psalms.

Eyes of tigress look—
Her gentle ways gone at night,
Sacred and profane.

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 soul's 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.

Out of Greek myth, she
Glowed at the party and proved,
Stories I had told.

At the end of night she bathes in light,
We tussle in the warmth of morning,
The blankets and she are of sea foam
And found shells, whispering lost ocean
Words.  Our bed is a raft, drifting aloft,
The coffee is brewing with mellow sun,
Her smiles, filling my silly, giddy mug.
Soon, we walk to the pebbled beach,
Her hair is waving at the friendly seas,
Gulls are circling in the moving skies
Reeling with the slow, slipping tides
And I skip stones with her as our feet
Sink in the milk of morning sands—
Must we be off to Dublin town?

Deep in the screws of his lonely keep,
Waiting for word of a land promised,
Sentinel man watches across the sea
Never knowing faith was so dishonest.
Across the sea of doom lies his joy,
What awe, so spindrift were his days
And what lay behind was no corridor
And all his dreaming has left no ways
Forward, but to sink with hapless sorrow
And flowing to the thirsty ocean seas,
He pours another drink, toasts tomorrow
And all the empty horizons of history.
Spiraling down he leaves his diggs,
Praying, death be not a doornail's rig.

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

Must be exhausting,
Tireless self promoter,
Spewing his drivel.

Someday, soon I will sail a boat,
Away from all the modern seas,
I shall be cast aside, with wind,
The four corners, all calamities.

And gentle waves will carry me
Afar, sailing lost under the stars,
To live in dreamy breaths happily
And never wake, forever slumber,

Free as ocean birds, downy gliding
With currents that are leading true,
To the domes, new heavens hiding,
This is my plan, my soul to renew.

Farewell, fated blue world spinning;
I'm off a rocker, for lofty beginnings.

Memories smoulder,
Cold searing flame never doused,
Burning touch of her.

Fire on water,
The hearts smoke
And low rain of her eyes,
What wry lashing they gave,
The currency of night's tender,
My fare to the wandering lands
And makeshift rounds of munitions
Slice and plosive gaze.

She sang me stories  .  .  .
Tales of love and touch at home,
  .  .  .  Little book opens.

All day sun is grey,
Still world covered in pale sheet,
Bird song lost in din.

Shelter my eyes, with lighted skin,
Touch me with printed flame, rapt
In songs of joy, for I am unarmed,

Lift me to the spiral keeps of soul,
Spires thrusting in hearts firmament,
Set free in curled locks of your hair,

Let us be new as babes are nestled,
Long in the pines of the bristlecones,
Ageless and evergreen in cloudy bed,

Close the lids of night in sensate blue,
In eyes piercing painted skies of dark,
See my shroud cast out with the dawn.

After sun showers  .  .  .
Sparkle of rainbow colours,
  .  .  .  Busy hummingbirds.

Exquisite torments,
Her body, voice, my leaving—
Freedom above all.

7 Pieces of Heaven  ( haiku | senryu )                                                


      1

windfallen

Instant lovers join—
In her bohemian flat,
The breadth of heaven.



      2

bright winter

Sun beams in finery  .  .  .
Heaven and earth enthroned,
White sky, white mountains.



      3

mirroring

Under azure skies—
Fuzz of bees and lavender,
Blue REM's of heaven.



      4

ephemera

Doomed bright innocence,
Vibrating sirens of youth,
  .  .  .  Bodies of Heaven.



      5

testament

Autumn leaves falling,
Trees burn stories of the sun—
Pages from heaven.



      6

annunciation

Wind through pine needles,
Humm  .  .  .  of iridescent birds,
Whispers from heaven.



      7

unfolding

White of sky blooming—
Little clouds from heaven fall,
Snow geese land on lake.

One fence post taller—
Holds round black moons full of death,
Silent wings falling.

Dark sound raven makes,
Chortles top fir tree, haunting—
Druids incantation.

( Sonnet )*

What length are days so dearly trodden,
Riddled in stocks, museums of mind,
How can one soul with heart commend
And play these martial fields unkind?
We are wages cast about four corners
And spun to globe of coordinates web,
Sailing by moon, lit oceans of scorn,
Rudderless, blind— innocently led,
Yet here, one star, the sun is a beacon,
We are bathed each day in ****** light
And gifted to morn with new beginnings,
From dreams we wake with newborn sight                              
    And gods watch over with stellar eyes,
    We are babes knowing— cradled in sky.

She left in springtime,
White globes of daisies explode—
What is left of me.

Was there a word,
Plain or shimmering,
Cast of gold and mercy,
In the bathing light of forgiveness,
Tempered with down and feather,
Wrought of worthiness and pride,
The mellow flame of tenderness
And shearing morning sun,
One tabulation of saving flesh,
The tapping root of the knowledge
Tree, the forge of stainless metal
And touch, stone direction,
One healing humour, cardinal
As blood, forceful as the salt
Journey bearing the pines
Of lodestar coordinates,
Spotting the Xanadu ex
Of the lost lovers?

.
Memories are shuttered —
In the out of doors closing,
For five eternal years we were,
Once married beside a church,
Beside a tomb.

And our hearts were simple, freed
Among the moss of grey stones,
Pebble beach and wayfare wishes
And wild doves seemed always
To be hovering.

And our only bed, growing ever
Cold as a cup of leftover wine —
We drank in sacramental prayers
Never uttered, never declared,
After all that was.

As it was after all, only —
A mere, makeshift dream.

Where have all the days gone by?
What once was new, now is made;
Night is falling, close my eyes,

Now, the moments softly cry,
The light has clouds racing away,
Where have all the days gone by?

Fresh and verdant the gentle tighs,
Summers sweetness up in blaze,
Night is falling, close my eyes.

What once was truth now is lie,
After rains shear loss of May,
Where have all the days gone by?

I hear the hush, leaves that die,
I fear what the swan has to say,
Night is falling, close my eyes.

Awakened to such sad surprise,
Spring was such a fleeting haze,
Where have all the days gone by;
Night is calling, close my eyes.

Mellow wafting branches,
Late spring, purple magenta scent,
  .  .  .  Summer in the wind.

Echoes from stone walls,
Rain bleeds rocky into being,
  .  .  .  Water drips to wells.

.
We drove to the wild poppy fields,
Lost and opened under felt sun,
To picnic in solemn spent wonder
And celebrate new founded love.

Teapot rains came whispering in—
The skies blue up a clouded mood
And old mist rose in lighted eyes,
To stark sheet of uncovered brood.

We talked of one day, this day now,
As we laid with the lovelorn flowers,
A day for pictures, unmarked boxes,
How droplets grew to cold showers.

We broke down then and took leave,
Of letted time in tiers now dead—
There under cathedral glass of sun,
Our cut love smoked in poppyhead.
.

They saw each other—
As party died their ache grew,
  .  .  .  Paired eyes *******.

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.

You are song,
Rain dropping on still pond.
You are sky,
I see Heaven in your eyes.
Your are peace,
A garden above the world.
Your are grace,
The gentle path of the swan.
You are knowing,
The wind that whispers alone.
You are star shine,
The dust that lights the plains.
You are vast ocean,
Mother to the Fathering atmosphere.
You are dancing light  .  .  .

I do not envy the man about town,
The shackle suit and morning groom,
The campaign of papers and style,
Whose work a day is but a futile way
And each choice is ruin to the heart.

The pill shaped tables of the board rooms,
Where ink is blood and flesh is facsimile,
Caged in by the cubicle, lets in no breeze,
Only the still air of stifle, encased.
What dreams may die in this dullness  
Of days?
          There is a ringing that will not  
Cease.  There are stalls by the staples, there is  
No peace.  And time is warden either side  
Of the glass doors and with mercenary feet  
And closed eyes he makes his stand, he makes
His choice, he sets his gait, chimes in lock step,  
His voice is hoarse, and all his salary days  
Are trojan.  
  
        No, I do not relish the dog  
Eat dog, nor the barking toes that step so low,  
Even lower than the hangman's boom.  For like  
A slug crossing a busy street he does not fear  
The tread.  He does not know these sounds are clink.  
His thoughts are trapped in folders read, and with  
Mobile cells his ears are pinned and grating-micro-
Waves well cancer to his brain.

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

I do not envy the man about town,
The shackle suit and morning groom,
The campaign of papers and style,
Whose work a day is but a futile way
And each choice is ruin to the heart.

The pill shaped tables of the board rooms,
Where ink is blood and flesh is facsimile,
Caged in by the cubicle, lets in no breeze,
Only the still air of stifle, encased.
What dreams may die in this dullness  
Of days?
          There is a ringing that will not  
Cease.  There are stalls by the staples, there is  
No peace.  And time is warden either side  
Of the glass doors and with mercenary feet  
And closed eyes he makes his stand, he makes
His choice, he sets his gait, chimes in lock step,  
His voice is hoarse, and all his salary days  
Are trojan.  
  
        No, I do not relish the dog  
Eat dog, nor the barking toes that step so low,  
Even lower than the hangman's boom.  For like  
A slug crossing a busy street he does not fear  
The tread.  He does not know these sounds are clink.  
His thoughts are trapped in folders read, and with  
Mobile cells his ears are pinned and grating-micro-
Waves well cancer to his brain.

.
My love is kept, and I have nailed
Her face to mine in a box of sleep,
A chamber for lost chances, subtle
Visitations, concrete emanations,
Somnambulistic signs and mercies
Elation, we walk through meadows
Of the mending sun, sweetly chaste,
Ever deep into the wandering shift,
That tearing time and moon allows,
Real as dream, to the lands of night.

One lame beastly crow,
Black blotched on leafless tree,
  .  .  .  Cackles all alone.

Out of shell, she broke,
Goddess face, Bottecelli painting—
'The Birth of Venus.'

I left the house of the tempest brewing,
Spinning like a rod, spun into flame
And came upon the redwood forest,
Eternal, shouting out heavens name.

The sun was indifferent, the creek shuffled
Its lament, the birds fluted their dirge—
I was so small, in the red giants grove,
Yet, felt so beloved, my pain was purged.

And I warmly came to see again—
My eyes, through the needles drove,
What a trifling is ones fleeting mood,
How true, heroic, immortal is my love.

We came to the wild beach
To picnic,
But the waves
Were breaking and rushing in,
The wind was gusty
And cold,
Was moaning a faint
Dirge.

In soft and plain
Footfalls,
Over the slide of sands
We made our way
Into the covering
Dunes.

The dull pressing sky,
The white gloved waves,
And sharp grasses,
The call of scything gulls,
All things were grey
And hovering
Dark and faded that day, but not as much
As the few, ordinary, words we spoke,
To each other
We cried,
To each other
When our tears dusted the sands,
We were saying
Goodbye.

Daisies crowd my lawn,
Soon clover, bees, butterflies—
Now, garden meadow.