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

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

How could I not— know . . .
See the noncut of soaring eyes,
Approach, moist, ****** and tidal,
Waves so searingly laden with tear,
Flame, forged in some mythic winter
Frozen as I was, before the rush of ice
And flows of glacier, I heard the loudest
Break of open silence in the seep and roar
Of depths' deepest, dark, coldest ocean waters,
  .  .  .  Before sweet suffocations of the very colour
White and saw the dim fates of fade, emergence of blue,
Hearts drowning.

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.

Joy after party—
How she could light up the room,
Evening dress falling.

Treasure in forest,
Water dropping crystal beads—
Dew on wild orchids.

His hands ring in the upper classes.
There, in the morning light, his will
Is forged, bent, as truth, on ruling  
This place, underhand, underfoot.

With shuttered ears divining his voice
The dim pupils see only what is said.
The top hand schools, topples all words
Ringing hands sing the song of fools.

How Headmaster trains on the heel,  
A dagger strikes, the paper cuts
Exalted, his close minded hands,  
See a Czar in the stony swagger,

And the student body, submissively lies
With his feet.  Outside the college
The headmaster is heard. Grossly,
He is their dream and only shepherd.

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.

Birdhouse under eaves,
Sparrows make their yearly nests,
Cat is on the roof.

On that western isle, bathed in gold-
Drenching sun, my only, giddy love,
Weaved a daisy chain and crowned
Herself, above the clouds and purple-
Violet seas, her grace, topping yellow-
Sparkled weeds, to flower, marching
In fealty, round her red, reign of crown,
Soon, after new mornings impromptu
Coronation, misty, bluer, eyes felt slow
Distant dread, the subtle, burning fate,
The inevitable nights of overthrowing
And fade of love's noble, corona light.

Were I shaper of dream, I would build
A grand labyrinthian castle of granite
Stone to contain that day—  I would
Conjure a moat, impervious to shifting
Time, the mute corruption of sorrows
Waking.

Under the muted bark of hazelnut trees,
Spurious, sprite juncos scurry in vertigo,
Pecking, replete bouncing downy knees,
Grounded, tuft, constellation of Scorpio.

Eyes of her my wish,
Reach told me of golden dreams,
Little hand in mine.

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.

Tangles of vine, wisps of thorn,
Roping a rocky face of granite,
High, on a hill are drops of sky,
Green hands cradle purple beads
Of the sun, whose skin is frosted
In water vail, morning days' dew
Has come, birds and bees singing
Songs to hum anew, this offering
All to ancient invitations of spring,
There will be wine and flower laid,
Before rise of moon or day is done.

Through filmy window,
I saw her leave the last time,
  .  .  .  My hand on the pane.

The coastal shoals are your dominion.
No salmon, or smelt, nor bottom flounder
Had ever left the sea until you struck,
You are wraith to the kelp beds dream.

Peacocks on HP  .  .  .
Are not birds, yet dinosaurs,
Wingless beneath earth.

The morning world in mist dissolves and under,
Towed to heaven, we, a plod below the death
Of clouds, sing mute, where they trumpet-glide
Flashing into peace.  Three-toed slabs, parched
Of orange, web the stars over the wine
Dark seas and chalk the churn and twining earth
Into gloaming.  In rapt stillness they,
Are import and income, parables,
Echoes of the innocent song sung to a spire,
Gilded hutches, to those who heap on brightness
Swans are brighter even more with blackest
Eyes, they pierce the silent shroud all starry.
I wish that we were like two swans my love,
Neck of nape, embracing without touch.

.
The mountain lily crowding,
Grassy glens in formal dress,
After snows and early spring—
Rain over all the green hillsides,
An earthly heaven of constellation,
Daybreaks into marvelous milkyway.

I want to know—
What only lips can know,
I want to see—
What only Falcons vision,
When they stoop from the heavens,
I want to preen and lord—
As only Jaguars can, regal,
In the tangles of purple jungle sun,
I will climb these ancient steps
Holy and of forbidden stone,
If only, you would
Surrender,
Love.

In plain sight, the Peacocks ply their wearisome
Colours.  Awkwardly swaying, pompously preening,
They cry to be seen, their voices are gurgling  
And gawking.  The direction of wind is their vane.

Overhead, in the secret sky fleet wings are truth.
In the sun the searing Falcon is seeing all;
His talons turn and steal away, they are mad,  
Playful fingers— they will have their say.

The weakly poet
In praise of Joshua Haines
Drivel and Drek shines

Cadaver wants fame,
Posts— poetasteries  . . .
  .  .  .  Never sees it's lame.

( uncouth )

Teddy bear, soft, warm,
Milky, curly hair— pawing,    
Bear in lambs clothing.


2. ( bottom )

Teddy bear, listless,
Alley home, downward spiral,                           
Fell— off his wagon.


3. ( shameless )

Teddy bear, stone cold,
Faced down in gutter, soiled—                          
Must have been some night.


4. ( forsaken )

Teddy bear alone—
Left in cold, empty alley,
Could use wash and hugs.

Climate change is con,
Says dumb tea party— snowmen,
In house on fire.

.
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.

IN THE POOL OF THE LOST MAIDEN SONG

                1

Down in the shrouded wood a wanderer walks
And dreams the dreamers story he has lived.
Sidled by the stream that sheds blue waters
By the beds, trailing the rail of loves unknown
Kiss and a voice that conjures truest bliss,
Down in the drink where sweet Ophelia sleeps;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the dreamer, he is dreaming . . .
Hair, that ropes the stoic man upon his mount.
Hair, making souls’ lost ending breath a shout,
And hair that weighs the wind, teaches it to sing;
Hair, wending whirlpools waving fools to dive in.


                2

Lost at land’s end the sea lions, washed-up, wail
And buzzards coast where eagles flail, rip tides
Assail and chop the collected bones they drop;
It is a chalky bone-yard break, golden escarpments
Wake and a ******’s salty sermons shake;
Where gathering ghosts glom and chide steeping,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the seeker, he is seeking . . .
Eyes that turn the sands and are mirrors,
Eyes that taught the books of Alexandria,
Eyes that shook the flesh and are seers,
Eyes that lit the pyres, burned true believers.


                3

Deep in the dark wood the waters rush, hush,
Cramp, crew and creep, melodiously tread,
Trammel, and burn as furies in keeping true
The melting moon, the onerous owl, fluttering
Things, muttering wings, cones in darkness
Flings and filmy time flicks by the wayside;
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the lover, he is longing . . .
Love, lithe and lyric, he sees your sweeping shapes.
Peace, parsed and pained he hears the voicing gape.
Blind, bliss’d and shamed he wears the votive drapes.
Hungered, thirsted and gone; seeks your pearly gate.


                4

Out in the forest maze the jarring sun seeps
And swirls, only to roust the traveler onward
Where soon he must meet the faces in the grotto
Down in destroyed lands by the seas’ unreasoning
Chime, deep in the dark whine of the shining mermaids,
Where the doomed cry, round the navel of the world,
In the pool of the lost maiden song.

And the doomed, they are crying . . .
“****** beauty bade us, in a star crossed chrysalis,
Made us, choose a desert’s winter of loneliness.
Heed our fate and leave this valley torn of bliss;
The many millions of locust fall in ripest fields.”

The worst reek the best,
When will truth take rightful place?
  .  .  .  Popularity.

.
I tried to capture you
In the forests of Donegal,
Your bark of hair, red, so dark,
Was smear, camouflage, and window
Into a lost Fae world made as I was sinking
Without ever knowing, falling, without fear
Years later, you have long left and I still
Breathe in a wooden box of dream.

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

Wings, whirl, blue green psalm,
Collapsed wave function flashes—
.  .  .  Into existence.

I came to a courtyard of my own making,
To a cottage by the sea at the worlds edge.
I furnished it with my left over life, complete,
Barren and colorless and I wrote the newest
Book of psalms out of tinder and flame, a tome
Of grey and useless poems, unheard of songs
And reams of flesh.  There in the lightest dark,
By the Druid stone that was placed just for me,
I planted a creeping yew tree.  And the moon
Sang in celebration and silence like a fallen
Priest.  
                    Under the covering hazel trees,
That sprung to life after the longest winter,
Which taught me to forget my name, I now
Struggle with light and my body, warring, torn
Is fading slow, like the always arriving, down
Turning solstice, the climates of the mind,
Where it is digging the never ending shallow
Hole only the spreading eternal yew, that I
Planted, will ever know and only the Lazarus
Moon shall ever rise above.

I came to a courtyard of my own making,
Was it dream that led me there or my eyes?

I took a walk with my love,
From Bray to Greystones.
Sharing smiles as we talked
Under a rainbow.

And the clouds rolled in
And the wind sprinkled rain,
Our path was etched in stone,
Along Erin's coast.

I took a walk with my love,
From Bray to Greystones.
Time unwent as we strolled
And dreamed of nowhere.

And the clouds rolled in
And the wind sprinkled rain,
Wild rushes and reeds so tall
They sheltered our way,
We moved through the day,

And suddenly,
We were two seabirds gently flying
And our souls
Were laid to rest, on the breath of heaven.

We devoted our lives,
Felt as one our spirits rising toward the sun,
Peacefully, so peacefully
And the Earth,
We felt her deep,
Undersong.

I took a walk with my love,
From Bray to Greystones.
Sharing smiles as we talked
And dreamed of nowhere.
We dreamed of nowhere.

Your eyes, flooding me,
Your anger, rousing the skies—
Rain drops with my tears.

When love was young and bore an immigrant
Soul, how fresh and adventurous the years
And brinkmanship, my rite, was took for grant,
Aye, in my flotsam and jetsam, I spent no tears
Which by and by a greedy sea of beginnings
Has left no bounty, but cargo delivered or turned
To wood adrift, which built but useless things,
Children love tossing in fires bonny burned.
Here I lie, on the waters edge, searching—
For something to contain my emptiness,
My wanderlust, but like shy waves lurching,
I wrestle now, toward land, not loneliness.
Though I spent my life as a flag unfurled,
A disembodied soul is without this world.

In rows like crumpled paper set,
The way one might design a brooch,
There sets a sparkle down so purely
Capital, beyond reproach and sure
She is the blackest flea who sits
Upon an old green dog, now should

You query, her name's a pond.  In Gaelic
It's pronounced: Baile Átha Cliath—
But in Irish she's plain, mightily named,
Dublin.  Where broods the dove, linnet
And swan.  Now take them pi'jons, they got
Dank habits and linnets lament the silent

Stones.  Sure, the goose gave out and took
To the air, but the swans, they've landed,
To roost, enchanted as 'Children of Lir,'
And so becomes a changeling child's
Fair city, for in her anointed proximity,
Gracious white birds do bathe and molt,

Supplied as I can tell, she looks black-
Pooled in clusters, long side her creases.
Stout nectar flows in near every nook
And cranny, but yer man, he's never
Busy, that malty fish, daftly avoids,
Swimming spirals round like buggies

Do on petals, he'd rather grace gardens
By drinking their dew.  O Dublin town,
She wends her ways and rows her houses
Round-a-bout on cobbled shores in tribute
To sprite, deary and fey, Anna Livia—
Who like a stem of blood, stabs right

To the heart of Dublin Bay— and proud
As a crowned thorny, who once had reeked,
She's bloomed large, into one grandeous
Beauty, like a céilí so finely fiddled—
A sandy, spirited, bombastic beach-
Flower, she is, a flag so fitting upon

The doons.  In dream, I flocked to her
Like the wild geese and saw her coy'd
Repose and there I spied, from mackerel
Skies— one monstrous, Irish rose!

Wine, spinning, we dine,
Candles and moon making love,
.  .  .  Sparkle in her eyes.

Weighty lightness, solid levity,
Primordial soup,
Some ancient rite, draws me
To the foam.
Its celestial colour,
Its effervescent overflowing,
How it teases my buds,

Not like water,
Like honey
As an insect encased
In amber
I am within,
The tears of sunshine
And Olympian folly.

On dry days
I seek the incendiary agent,
Brooding bout,
Pint-sized, el niño
And his brews
Come soaring
After the downpour,
As high-tiding winds,
That **** contented days
And spin spirals round
Cups of complacent
Hours, the whine
Eternal,

Only seems
Like spilling
Blood.
Draw me, the dram.
The dram of what?
Ale's the thing!

Falling,
Overboard,
No drowning man was so ever
Esteemed,
Ever so buoyant.

How the vessel becomes
His captain.

If one could forgive  .  .  .
Truly see love flaws in each,
  .  .  .  What flowers can be.