summer of reed-boats when
dreams meander
in the puddle streams

Unbeknownst where
parts of whose strings die,
what song
does that violin string?

running figures past the
empty braille notes
in deep recess

what song does that soul string?

pirate song of the drunken ship,
as hale as the winds alive,
but parts of me are'nt!

now string a song for the jammed soul

dying in bits.

They led me to a chamber where
I heard you would be found,
and I returned shuddering and
baulking from the hall of mirrors

I hear your whispers walking with me
in the valley of flowers as in
the mirage-riddled path to the oasis

But fragrant pathways lead nowhere,
empty the nights of adoration

Dry of the sap of zest, barks that uphold
the canopies of our lives under the stars
And we hang paper flowers from them

where? when my call echoes in the winds,
you came and sat by my side, your warmth
entered in my soul. When I cast my blinds,
I find the world a hall of mirrors

Rock-still by the eroding river,
reed-still in the dance of the tide,
who eyes this world in mercy?
Shameful deeds now holy for
warriors of God. Outcast of ages
from steads by night, trek through
land where shadows upturned,
curses fain down from skies
in return for the homages in fire.
Emotion of the void that sighted
the exploding stars of hoary ages,
rock-still, reed-eyed friend of man
is there such a one indeed as this?

I'm just this much to you:
nuisance. disorder.
threat to lives
of all colours but mine.

this hue of earth
wrenched from my kind,
herded across seas
to tend your lands
as your bondslaves.

raise but an eyebrow
be killed and maimed
and chained in prisons
My anger is illegitimate
**** as you wish
and I, take it lying down

Yes, I know of the whisper
in the secret chambers
of your shrines, where speaks
your god double tongued,
all men are made equal
but some of colour
are no men at all

so **** me with a robot
and a bomb, I'm this much
to you, a nuisance, a problem
to be silenced, to be finished.
any means is fair.

I didnt know when you'd speak
why I'd feel as if,
now and then,
your voice was going muffled,
as in a flawed
television transmission?
I thought I must have been
imagining it all up;
Living out some
invisible, subterranean pain.
But, I see now:
you were a phantom;
You were never really there.
I must have
pinched myself harder

Power the dark twinkle stars
barking corners suspending time
twice kinks come harking cutting
the fabric weaving wearing magic
bending the burning distance
past echoes from the future wand
collecting in the pestles wrung
shrunk reeded in the rock crests
green, the glory that flowers thorns
crucified to the firmament after
the rains departed never to return
in the heart what flames red above
in the depths what fills the sky
pressed to the earth in the desert
song of rivers coursing among stars

I belong
             to no God
             no nation
             no creed
             no section

but to Spirit that
is home as much in man
as in the dumb and the meek

say brother, I have
                                no religion

but that of love that animates
the fabric of all existence.

and no deed as holy
as to love fellow folk
as I do myself, however
unlike me they be,
though pure of the heart.

Nowhere to go, no place to reach, no
path to take, nobody to please; No
journey to make, no pilgrims to seek;

At clearing in the wood and all of a sudden:
nothing to discover, nothing to unlearn; No
secret to uncover and no night to unveil;

Nameless junction where all paths meet,
and all of a sudden we know
the truth, was there all along: with us, it is us

season of renewal, when the leaves
drop baring the soul of the woods,
the night casts her cloak and the skies wink

Nowhere to go, no place to reach, no
path to take, nobody to please; No
journey to make, no pilgrims to seek;

Hold your palm to my *****
warmth of the stars
concealed under the tresses
this vast night, where my heart
will beat with yours;
In the stillness of the desert
lone song of the dune,
an arrow shot in the sky,
Here we erase the imprints
of jagged paths that led
us far from this haven;
Your dimpled smile,
ripples that rise slow
and commingle end to end
will settle - placid this
lake on the scale of love
that transcends time

The morning when the waves recede,
the low tide, when all was gone
consumed in desire now emerging -
bare the wet sand that we walk on,
shells to your soft feet, a puddle there,
minnows scamper eager, gone
the wave that now tides at horizon;
Winds, playing with our clothes
fluttering hair, beating hearts,
we are here, in ****** land, that was
all water before, just before this hour
every mis-step drowns ankle sand,
but here we are hand in hand,
reclaiming life, walk waking back

Then I must long for you, mourning
like the lark long after light -
fires shivering in the distant night,
shriveling bush in winter,
for her warm wings of green
aflame in a sacred time;
There go the buds that never bloomed
dug in the earth with the coffins
waiting for redemption;
Senora, breathe into my neck
like you are nowhere:
let me swim with you in those
phantasms that your eyelids conjure
past the whorls and eddies and currents
up the hills where in blood
are painted tales of the past,
daggers dug up the heart
treasured, it is mulled, mutual
the sour pressed red;
And then with wings gliding
past the valleys long after light
unuttered the hymns of the heart
that sing of you, flooding
and swallowing the embers
lingering on in the shadows of
the withered rose, long gone;
Then I must long for you, mourning
like the lark long after light.

Streaking past, a momentary cloud,
there goes hope, a severed kite;

Rain-grateful the stream: but the dunes,
still menacing, forlorn all around;

Hanging over our world, the inevitable:
shivering among a hundred stars;

Will we go blighted, Chenrezig, without
the Polestar through the darkest night?

Crimson-crowned, the snow-peak, now,
the end we shudder to think past;

Are you of the aeons before time,
how do we ken, us forlorn
of this speck of a world?
Blank we saw the canopy of our world
where stars blink in the dark night
and wept for a love caring and kind;
Lost, fatherless, orphaned
out of our childhood dreams
and we went searching hither
Gilgamesh to the horizon and back;
And you smiled, peasant woman,
hair streaking across the clouds
over the hills, across the vales;
In the still depths, an assurance;
Senora, or is time of the aeon before?
So long before that era then
to us forlorn of this speck of a world,
it matters not, it matters not

New, the form. Awareness new.

Now I am all the lilies
sailing into the expanse
of water, lake mourning your loss
this misty morning.

I am all the birds calling to you,
frenzied.
Birthing consciousness new.

All the trees drooping.

Crimson haze on the eastern sky,
you passed this way:
I am wailing with the winds.

Time is a strand. Channel, tunnel.
Among many burrowing through here.

Who picks this dust path for me?
I call her destiny.

I want to write of those times
before we started counting the years
words like beads, precious
like none before,
crimson dabbed in evening light
the heart, by the riverbank;
When we walked across the town
lost, unconcerned;
Them sanctuaries and vespers
that consecrated a nameless love
unborn, yet painting the horizon
red like a distant dawn;
Song of the drums welcoming
the Autumn Goddess;
And we ascended the sky
and knew not, when
the wheel of time that giant eye
stole past us:
and we land counting
the years, steps and dreams
that were lost, never to return.

This is the burden hammered into my palms
now hoisted dug into the heart of the vault,
stabbed, where throbs life - as the sky weeps
in pain, is this the way of the promised land?
Orgiastic masochism of the spectator-voice
that dictates to lunatics, verses we hold high.
Distant pierced by the chasm I laboured forth,
heavy on my shoulders weary, whipped on,
scorned pride crowned of thorns; Or dark
the recompense, in this world of transaction,
razor-line between heaven and mammon?
So transfigured must rise from the dead, parched
famished thirsting for redemption, firmament
carrying the cross of your love, beyond life

Let there be light,
      there be    light
light,

         the flowers, snow, the colours,
fragrance,    the dawn,
moon  and the sun and stars,
            poetry, you -
                                 all light;

You are poetry: your
              dimpled smile is poetry;

But isn't poetry sound?

The sparkling of the thunder,
        crackling of fire,
              susurration of the river -

in the end, sound is light;
      the poetry of truth is light;

Birth of a star, volcanoes,
supernovae,
        all -
     sound, poetry, light:
                   you   are light;

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

long that distant eve
when you bore the torch
flaming
into the horizon

every lonely hour,
weeps the sky
mourning your loss,

when the palms in the searing season
sway blown in your breath

our forlorn world:
anguished the ululations;

The hour when
the darkness lifts,
deep in the soul
when the moment comes,
rise rise,
secret power of the world,

knows not the demiurge -
Who lies curled in the cell and root
that rises up in the sprout,
long after the wildfires,
that the saw and axe cannot log
the sap of life,

scattered but not lost even in the
pits of the night, the light
that shines as the stars

now setting the eastern sky
on fire.

in the wilderness of the heart,
by parched vales and the haunting dunes,
here, by ancient wells, calling
miracle most unexpected

forth to the wearied, the prophet
at the head of the caravan
fire stilling storms walking
on the troubled water of  life

springing forth a joy unknown for
years unnumbered upon thousands
pouring open mulled a casket
haven for the lost and uncared

and speaking of the Presence with
authority in the temples
we now neglect and though condemned
a hundred times at the altar

compassion larger than treason
emblazoned on the wailing sky
this dirge of the soul for her mate
wisdom of the ages kindred

parted from us by the old time
rises unceasing back from the
horizon breaking on our shores,
love that passeth understanding

Voices, broken in the boughs
sleepwalking on nulled roads
echoing in the rain, and
the swings, empty rocking in the winds:
dry withering to budding, scenes
we never saw, until now
the everyday season;
Long since time stopped and
vanished behind the screens;
Then, can I call you, 'The Day'?
Echoes in the alleyways and
the dreary skies all the same;
But I must mark The Day: now
I chore, then endlessly refocussing
juggle as broomed go we muggles;
Know who's lasered on next?
Worry not, as big realms have
no pockets but ours;
For the ledgers must roll on;
Unmarked, we may go, like this
The Day, BUT: now work galore

When them leaves they don't stir
under blanket of winter snow
there an angel keeps
his hovel warm. Cherub
melts in arms by
mornings still. Lost in
tangle of her hair, and them stars
glowin magic on necktide
long after night retire.
But he set up to lose her.
Yea, this the way he made. Fear
he gonna be loser. Heck he
set up to be one.
Stop her, stop her!

late cab, where do you go
slicing through the silence
this damp hour?

it must be the night, for I'm
not worried-
though my phone's on

do you work late?

this is the worker's fate:
from father to son,
that we work to work ever harder ,
to break the tether
round our necks
invisible, but slavery -
when did it end?

it was the plantations then;
cabs and the keyboards now:
sugar grows on the brow
wet of the beaten man's sweat;

and oh we all want to rise,
far above from this shanty town
tither on that hill past the neon sea

so we dream, endlessly:
the reel
broken by the sound of rain
dripping on the roof

there are shadows that talk
very leaf is a witness

By the bonfire in the winter night
warming hands, a shadow

Dying muffled in the mist,
What about
my languid soul?

A hundred shadows echoing
in the wind beating in the wood:

How long this slaughter?
How long this pallid war
that nobody wants to end?

Hit, skirmish, dew-blood,
death and night,
and the stench at dawn.
How long?

Are you done smouldering,
firebrand? That from the ash
must rise a conflagration,

raining a harvest of ghosts
on this highway to hell.

Sing, my friend, for there is light
wading through this marsh I called
all the names I knew, all but
nameless that fire in the bush,
shining smoggy at the edge
of this the endless tunnel of life
playing, pirouetting at the bristles
spilled oil slippery on the vinyl,
at the edge of the canopy a way out
of the labyrinthine mangrove,
on the dreary night a surly tinge
on the horizon gone cold dark blue
here is the edge of the thicket
here is the way of the ancients
now I call that: I am that I am,
Sing, my friend, for there is light
at the edge of this trudge called life

Find me on this page, here
I don’t lie - here I’m what
I want to be:
When it is over and when
you flip these pages
find me here
where I am always light
always loving
beating heart and burning
bush and the 'I am' ness
no not in the other book
but here where I write
the story of life
in the ink of blood;
Don’t you worry wearied
carrying my cross
on your shoulder -
you will find me here
on this page where
I don’t lie and I am what
I want to be

Beyond this our world of shadows -
where bloom flowers of peace
and grow trees called love;
There, no disease
that snatches our dear,
nor death that leveller;
No trudge to the slum
to work and live far from home
that need bringing us back
alive or dead at night;
No high-rises from where
to look down upon the hovels in fear;
No kings that having slept
through the low-tide,
ask to sings peans to the high;
No borders nor thieves
that eye our lives,
Beyond this our world of shadows​ -
is a land called Hope

Starting to erase the complaints,
spotless this morning, spotless this morning,
that is thawing the snow: surely,
there is fire somewhere, fire somewhere! *

Resolved not to fly, now
even the birds have learned fidelity,
and taking darkness in her arms,
light has set up home
repaying what was stolen!

Starting to erase the complaints,
spotless this morning, spotless this morning,
that is thawing the snow: surely,
there is fire somewhere, fire somewhere!

You are victory, and I, loss:
and the string that joins them both,
you are victory, and I, loss!

Reminding, then making one count mistakes,
whenever the stars sing,
setting thieves in charge,
it is a matter of fate, it is a matter of fate!

This is the story of the heart,
this is letting go, letting go!

Starting to erase the complaints...
Resolved not to fly, now
even the birds have learned fidelity,
and taking darkness in her arms,
light has set up home
repaying what was stolen!

3/4/20

On a precipice:
perseverant, undaunted
rises a prayer.

2/4/20

And we learned to live
to love, uphold, win, let go:
time starts after him/.

1/4/20

I emptied my mind
of fears and anxieties,
filled it with birdsong.

31/3/20

When the facade ends,
genies back in our head trunks,
the numb trudge back home

Go back home migrant,
time stops now and who knows when
it is unfrozen!

Mayfly season, now
death is in visitation:
and resurrection

Early morning calm,
feels like the eye of the storm:
yet, this too must pass.

30/3/20

Bougainvilleas
shy smiling, deserted street -
social distancing

29/3/20

Some adorn the trees:
this withering hour, others
deck the mourning earth

28/3/20

Automobiles? no -
this morning, warbler and finch
sing where thoughts crowded

28/3/30

Not that You are not -
but this darkness is mine, Lord,
so must be the light

27/3/20

Vivid light painting
the leaves and wings swishing by
emotions buried;

26/3/20

Budding leaves season -
this pause brings to life, whispers
and colours we missed

Here where pits line the roads,
loss, we are so inured to in life:
wild-haired hero, when did you
go from warrior to zen master?

Breathing into the night,
the tricolour high:
we rose as one with you;
at the crest, now a vacuum
too hard to fill;

Now no artist the same,
that toils by sultry nights
in our backyard;
Who are you to us?

Lifting our spirits soaring
helicopter goes the sixer -
bouncing our sorrows off the park,
winning from death, the joy!

You are a memory
of the silvery night of hope
the miracle of faith
the tidal wave of belief
that engulfs adversity.

Go but you will never be gone
and a hundred such be born
in this your name, that in the stands
will yet never ring the same;

Thorn and flower though of the same stalk -
I'm the earth and you are the sky, vast;
Together, yet so far apart,
You hold in yourself numberless stars
and the cold of the night they shiver in,
the radiance of the moon
and the searing heat of the distant sun;
In my ***** dwell endless tears
that well up in tides every
sultry night when you arrive,
decked in your shimmer;
We are, since reckoning
together, yet so far apart,
thorn and flower though of the same stalk;
I'm dancing in ecstasy spinning topsy
lost holding you in my reverie
I'm a mendicant ambling on
among the sparkling lights
that adorn your visage
We are together, yet so far apart
I'm the earth, you are the sky, vast.

Part these waters, Lord: alien,
in this the land of our debts ,
long we wore our souls making
tombs for pharaohs of other men

Not a year that is passing
but another of our lives,
away from you;

Why wait for the crossing,
to show us you are that you are,
O word in flesh, raise us -
dead, worn of spirit;

Are you not the voice that
angles in the wilderness?
come part these waters,

that we may rush to you,
the light of our souls,
black rose, isn't that you exist
a miracle of our lives?

Asked the family upstairs,
if they knew:

2. guard at the ATM
3. flower woman across street
4. elder who sits by the road
every evening
5. the corner shop guy too#
6. the books of my time and
7. papers and portals
...

8. Asked my mind at night:

nobody knows if I exist
nobody knows,

I don’t even exist

#he knew by my face but not name

this surly hour
I entered a new world
where the old become strange,
the known go unknown;
Siblings and elders
relations by law, friends, teachers
who we knew so long
go acting unknown
either me, unseeing
for who they are now
or them, acting distant;
Those who we loved
feign unwant,
who we adored
flagrant;
Now here like the onion
I peel the layers
going sepia from ambient
just the highlight
of this twilit hour when
beloveds go estranged

Is it the wind that is wistful, or is it the mist,
slow suffusing the air tinged in the scent of longing?
The leaves, they are mourning the coming days,
the earth all flowers in their teary grief, and
the birds, calling for you, in a hundred voices:
the lamp was lit here of long, but lives bygone yet
when comes the tidal wave - the affliction,
that phantoms they can never be caught
all forms in the ken of my sight, and it is you
that I truly am? there is yet an alluring song
that the siren has in her bag and though warned,
that we cannot tell apart, you from the shadow,
it is the ever-peace and not of the moment
one unseverable not islanded thousandly,
here founded on the essence yet ever unseen

the morning comes to me endearingly,
like a severed kite topped in warm hues
the joy of netting a wandering kite,
strong in the wind and a string to bite!
Now the string, a song so lost -
to the left, the flame tree is in bloom;
to the right, and wild cherries rain;
and all the birds sing a refrain;
as the kite aflame in the faint light
distant whizzes in the sky,
blue smiling and jet waving back -
**** this hurried morning truck that
intrudes: before I see, now
she's gone, gone, now gone
flying far far away as her wont,
this lovely morning kite -
that I am now lying mourning

The butterflies, they’re all over, painted
in the colours of autumns distant
falling leaves rain a little and a lot of grey sky:
rain in my soul, and now, I smell of you;
Before the night of dissolution,
I came to your shore and sat silent,
mulling on the meaning of me;
And it was all you - I was you before,
die scatter and be you again -
and the me in between was
all bluster and no rain;
but - it is raining now and
I smell of you;
this is how it must seem before
the night of separation;
Don’t go tonight! I say clutching
the edge of your garment -
I need to learn more of me that is you;
Harsh nights of terrible cold are upon us,
and I want to sit by your side
as it rains in my soul and I must be
smelling like you:
long this night of desolation,
comes foreboding
distant moon frostbiting my feet of clay;
Don’t go tonight!
Rain in my soul, and now, I smell of you;