take my hand, walk
with me to the lands beyond
the horizon,

tingling superposition of
pin-drops on the wet tile,
obelisks rising above the river bank,
shut temples to the god of love,
buried scabbard;
the nights of embraces,
red bus out of the mist,
the hymn to the autumn goddess;
curled serpent memories:
hiss-lurking behind -
and the bare bough
by the frost-bitten lake;

Saw me through and
I may flame out
like a flower ***,
hundred beads
of coloured smoke;

On the way, there can be a home
hooded go the nights
personalities, that seethe
worlds out of the keyhole

it is all the swaths
that people the in-betweens
of is and is not

then at the toll of the festive feast
take a moment off for the
***** on the street;

Count the blessing that we are warm
when frost bites the feet
of those forlorn;

That birth here is death for many
beauty and gaiety come lighted
by the paraffin of toil:

There goes the chariot
of the sages, if you count your muscle
lend then a hand to the wheel -

for what there is, that lasts here?
For a moment the smile
that ravages the lands,

and by the loot of our fathers
that made urchins of princes
do we in mansions roam;

Behind the cruel curtain of a shrug
and a nod, lies our risen lord
Alone in the desert calling Lazarus forth

There staring at us bare is this truth -
Don’t window-dress it, friend,
this world is indeed of suffering made:

Birth is suffering,
And growing up,
Friendship is suffering,
And love and loss,
Time an affliction and
Ageing

There is a kernel of sorrow concealed in joy
Victory and defeat are two sides of a coin

We rise to fall and fall to weep

The rich man sleeps in his mansion on the hills
Because a urchin is awake empty stomached
Sweeping the street
A full belly here is a meal
Snatched from the hands of a child somewhere

We conscript and send to deaths young men and women
Ugly and blighted is ok as along as
we profit

And so we go seeking a moments joy
In this world of suffering

Face it bold don’t conceal it in hope
The sad truth of our suffering world

seek the roots of suffering deep

new depression in the ocean
coming our way, that's so uncertain
this rain -

it can pour down very heavily,
then I won't come and sit pining for you
here, by my window, lone in the storm;

it can blow mildly across the land,
losing its passion down the road
and then I won't come, there's one more
thing I can get drenched in, besides -

it can wheeze and whistle down in the wind
drizzling past like the waters of blessing
then I won't come, there's one more
thing I can bow my head to,

or it may not rain at all, all wind and no zest
and then I won't come, there's one more
agony to savour, besides,

your love

there, the lone swan at night
at the edge of the lake
has a story to tell:

in the track-whisper of the
first morning train,
the bell ringing
in the apartment below,
in the whir of the bicycle

that flew past the channel
wetted by the tears
that well up within

those are the words
you have heard
and laughter
ebbing forth
from this echo chamber

Did you call for me?
Reach me then, as I
grasp my own hand,
past where the Lee bends:

I'm curving over
hollow the years
that life plays on
like the reed flute

Drenched in the tears of distant clouds
comes calling a name, echoing
in the dunes of the heart;

There is nothing in a name...

Announcing of itself to a seeker
knelt on a hilltop,
burning in a bush,
of an essence beyond names;
Beyond the before and after;

... but the word, is something else.

Long the season of withering,
but deep in the night,
a fear grips the heart racing
to the rhythm of the dew
dripping down the tile;

A father who has conquered all
that is in space,
here and among the stars
and the higher worlds,
begot Her as his child,

She of an essence beyond time:
aeons of vaster joys,
sundered now from the world
so sorely imperfect,
must yet come down here
to lead us back to the wonder
beauty of the blank spirit
the basis of all;

We can bottle up fragrance
in choicest the vials of our whim:
but released, it must fill all space, no less.

So was She the freedom
shining in the stars
flowing in the rivers that raft through the hills
in the winds that beat down the vales;

Protected, She grew in his home
among others lustred lesser
shining forth as his darling
who would keep aflame
the glory of his name;