The day is done

And no one is immune,

It’s true.



That sense of a voyage

Slips seamlessly past,

For there is a finite beginning

And end to everything.



And yet a sense of connection,

A bejewelled purpose too,

Like the child

Whose way ahead

You’ve already lit,

Or the lover you’ve yet to meet.



Many such moments

Come and go, as they must,

Melting away

Into the space we are given.



But what endures for me

Is a persistent resonance,

Some heady wish

For access again

To a sense of wonder

In the stream of things,

That, this time round,

It might just be possible

To keep in my heart

A little longer.



So tarry with me awhile

And we will see

What we can do

To tenderly explore

Beneath the frail shell

Of all we’ve since become.



Trusting that, maybe within

Such smoothly sculpted casing,

And still delicately enclosed,

Might just lie the silky lustre

Of some lavish

And joyful communion,

Waiting for its chance

To grip and catch the light again.

Lost puppies

We are no longer,

That’s for sure…

Since all that’s been and gone

And the very essence of you,

Left behind in so many hearts,

Is never forgotten.



And, on a day such as this,

When your world is calm,

Full of warm smiles,

And your soul is at last

Let off its string,

One cannot help but sense,

For certain,

That all the love inside you

Comes from the best of those

You’ve known and loved

And those who came

And went before you too…



Sweet darlings! Sweet youth!

All our hope and dreams

Derive from just that.



So, show me the wonder

Of all you’ve seen so far,

Stretch the day to its limit,

And let us have no guilt

Left to waste for dreaming still.

Graced with the chance to be here,

Even if only fleetingly,

Embrace whatever comes your way

And, in so doing,

However enchanting

Any treasures you uncover

Might be,

Their loss should never be your concern.



In this matter

Make your heart your queen

And follow her as faithfully

And bravely as you are able,

Just as swelling fruit

Hurries towards its own sweetness,

Shine whilst you can,

Without fear,

For nothing is as inevitable

As it seems here.

No, not even the fissures

Of loss and decay

We are oft led to expect

In this temporal world.



For whilst we fuss and fudge

The lines we are given,

Above, below and all around us,

Lingers the energy of countless others

Who already know for sure

That, just as it was long, long ago,

When they first found themselves

Enraptured,

So it is for them, again and again…

And now with only a dark empty hollow,

A feeble space of earth left in between.



Such is true joy’s absolute certainty,

Its slow lit fuse that burns holes

In the shabby shroud of death forever.

Every new day our childrens' joy is as fresh as roses,      

Even the birds chatter at dawn.



Tomorrow will be sharp and noisy,

Like the bright spotted splash of wild flowers

That freckle the shaded tawny look of ancient meadows.



How stubborn life is,

It clings like silver in our souls.

Splendour sleeps

In the thick still grey skies

Of a season's bleakness.



The steady muted glow of the sun,

Its sorry circle of gold

Highlighting the snow covered,

White-edged portrait

Of a winter's afternoon.



Inside the ashes of the fire

Burn red raw.

We talk

And your eyes dance

In patterns of pleasure before me.

To kiss the fruit
And caress the flower,
To taste without tarnishing
Humble nature's natural dower,
In this sweet pursuit
I shall place my frail body
Till death's timely hour,
And do so
With only breath remaining
To wish that
Amidst the winds of the world,
It will not shake nor cower
In the face of quiet eternity.

To dream as Picasso did.
To seize upon the astounding fact
Of being alive
And make it significant,
Over and over again.

To love and live like a demon,
Without any shame or inhibition,
Till you unlock the fiercest of truths
That, once ignited,
Cling to you like *** in the night,
Like ******…

To seek solace as they did.
To draw strength from the natural world,
Only for it to tighten its remorseless grip,
Till it brings you face to face
With elementary truths
That spear your insignificance
And stake it to the ground without pity,
Like a trophy,
Like the bloodied innards
Of a wounded animal,
Caught in the final dazzle of despair.

I can imagine that,
Before she left him,
They might have often sat indoors,
Hidden away from the awful truths
They had uncovered,
Watching the heat from the fire,
Cast in germ-like shadows,
Rise slowly up the wall.

All too aware
That their time together was now melting away.
Two souls emptied, hollowed out,
By the risks taken in pursuit of meaning.
And, at the window,
Diamond truth.
The hawk's eye
That mocked them without mercy
And harried them, desolate, to their graves.

Life collects, pools around you.
It paints its highlights,
Nothing there you can destroy
Or begin again.

Calm in aquamarine beauty,
Barely a hint of surf's snowy trim.
Today the sea is out
But will come again.

For the moment,
On the beach,
My love and I,
Naked and blissful as can be.

In the soft, sun baked sand
History between my toes.

Sense how
Even the smooth stones ache
With stories of their own
In the shuddering light of day.

Whatever joys come our way,
The road ahead will be a hard one.
Your kinship though is precious,
Like sweet molasses,
Fuel for my journey.

Sometimes returning,
Battered and bruised I admit,
My basket full of
Fresh hewn promises,
Chiselled out and polished in hope.

And with all my dreams too
Of what could come true,
Of what my labours long to proffer you.

You know I give you my love, as best I can.

Together we live to the point of tears,
I wouldn't want it any other way.

A need for connection,
Attachment.
Drawn in, enchanted by
Resonances with nature
And the kinship of others,
With beauty
Forged by heart's endeavour.

And so should we
Always aspire to polish
Such precious achievement
With love,
A blessed friction of sorts
That allows us
To birth our night into day
And bathe it clean,
So that beloved things can glow
Together in a litter of light.

Laid bare,
Ripped open
By the sheer joy
We allowed ourselves to share,
I sensed then
This had to be the beginning
Of the end of everything.

For all I have left for you now
My love,
Is my steady heart,
My humble happiness.

And so, ****** and blessed
In equal measure,
Such is the cycle of romance,
Or so it seems…

Capricious, frail
And yet, at times, so wondrous
And all encompassing.

Yet now I can see so clearly
How, when the rose first opens,
Its thorny stock stiff and fit to burst,
Such divine and fevered feelings
Are released in a perfumed crescendo
That, from that day on,
Can never be quite as sweet again.

Maybe better this though
Than fidelity?
Some persistent fervour
That, even in its noble rawness
And good intent,
The world can spoil so easily…
And one day, no doubt,
Would have only succeeded
In choking itself.

When it comes to passion,
We might as well be beasts, it seems.
Though, trust me,
I would not have believed it to be so then.

But Oh, to have lived such a dream
And cruelly to still be here now,
Full bloodied,
Feeling the warmth of the sun
When you are not.

So now it has to be farewell!

The truth is I will never stop loving you
And am therefore irretrievably lost…
And that, my darling,
Even in death,
Has no matter of reason within it
I can be forgiven for.

Passions burst.
The excitement of being
Leaks away into time and space.

And it seems to get hotter every year,
As I lie here caught between
Loss, lethargy and a sweet indulgence
That ages you fast …

Above me
Snowy clouds
Of fleecy willow blossom
Teem in the air,
Flimsy magic
That soon slips through your fingers.

Dreams of flesh
Soon turn to dust…

Out there in the fragile shadows
Beyond the self,
Lurks unimaginable power.

Energies that conspire
In the darkness
To offer you a tantalising glimpse
Of another world:

Possibilities beyond dreams,
The scalding risks of magic beyond mortality
That cannot help but slip through your fingers
As soon as you reach for it's blessing.

Like the stale perfume of a tired romance
The searing light of morning
Asks unwelcome questions,
Fragile hopes soon blistered by daylight.

However beautiful,
No pebble on the beach.

You were my touchstone.

And yes,
I have now smelt the perfume of the Gods.

If only for precious moments
Opened the gilded door
And walked through.

Set foot on hallowed ground,
Taken refuge where my soul longed to be,
In the sunlit meadow of my dreams.

Bathed in love and light,
Healed and nourished,
Elevated by experiences of wonder.

It was the miracle of how the needs,
The spiritual hunger
Of two separate physical beings,
Two fractured souls,
Could fit together so perfectly,
Like long lost pieces of some ancient code
That, once re-united, yielded up energies,
Ecstasies and insights beyond our imagining.

That was the key.

And far beyond any love affair
With its own predictable half-life
Of intensity, its cycle of emotion.

Instead a permanent path
That, once illuminated,
Goes ever onward - a way home…

When in love or inspired,
An eternal kiss from the divine
Awaits us all.

And, just as the frostiest of old maids
Secretly longs to tremble
With excitement in her bed,
One more time.

Or the pained young lover
Pitifully nurses a wound
That renders their heart homeless,
Mourning the loss of romance
Seemingly gone forever.

The truth is
Nothing that truly matters
Can ever evaporate,
Be excised,
Burnt out of your soul.

However ready we may or may not be,
And at any stage in our life,
There will always be the chance
To reclaim our essence,
The shape we call our own.

For, once spun,
The silken thread of all our aspirations
Remains intact,
It can never be broken.
And, with courage, even a trail of tears
Will always lead us back
To where our fractured heart longs to be.

So that, just as the wise old Shoguns
Chose to,
With their most precious of porcelain vessels,
We too can repair our cracks with gold
And glow again.
Crazed by life,
More beautiful than ever before.

Each of us orphans
On this dizzy sphere,
Initially cast adrift
Without a mooring point.

Even as infants,
We hunt intuitively
On the surface
Of the kind natural world,
That immediately enfolds us,
For divine connection
And it offers us just that,
Even if only fleetingly.

Weak as we are,
It's not always possible
To hold station for long enough
To heal as we should.
But look how,
With our hungers
And our needs stretched
On the steely breeze of existence,
We do so love to feel
The warmth of safe harbour
Whenever we find it.

Here we can nuzzle,
Nestle for a while,
And feel safe enough
To open ourselves up,
As we need to,
In search of the key
To trials and experiences
That will make us whole again.

Summoning the compassion
To share the pain of others,
Or fearlessly becoming
The fiercest of lovers perhaps?

And how I long
For that abandonment again
More than anything else,
And the opportunity it offers,
With our gift of self,
To rouse something eternal
In the ascendant,
Impervious to all peril or decay.

A luminous shape
To forever call your own.

We are anything but finite
Or alone!
After all the petals of proof
Are here in our hearts,
Are they not?

And however lengthily
Deflated or tortured
By our own frail selves,
Or even at the hands or others,
Inviolate, intractable,
At the core of our being,
The very prism
Of sanctity and self remains.

And latent there forever
The quick silvered opportunity
Of redemption,
To become enchanted again.

Sublime moments refracted,
Even if only for seconds,
Caught forever in your soul.

Despite what we imagine
In our sometime pain,
Beset either by aching anticipation
Or subsequent loss,
Lovers are never found by chance.

So tell that to the trees,
Who've seen it all
Countless times before
And can only stand apart
In the meadow of life
And wait
For us to dream again,
Like some broken hearted waif
On a grimy street,
For whom only the predatory
Are likely to stop.

For not even fool's comfort
Can cling on there
To inhibit notes of caution
That would otherwise trim our wings,
Spoil any such dividend.

And so much more too!

Seems like
We always had this coming.
Our needs, till met,
Like rising sap,
Like clotted pollen in the air.

As it always is
In beauty's sweet surrender,
Desire is the irreplaceable *****
That draws us steadily on to one another
And then fruits.

You were in me all along.