The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
And the highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding,
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark innyard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by the moonlight,
Watch for me by the moonlight,
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way.

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come at the dawning; he did not come at noon,
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching,
Marching, marching
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at the casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement,
The road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"now keep good watch!" And they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say
"Look for me by the moonlight
Watch for me by the moonlight
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years!
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it!
The trigger at least was hers!

Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs were ringing clear
Tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming!
She stood up straight and still!

Tlot in the frosty silence! Tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment! She drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the west; he did not know she stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were the spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding,
Riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

for Sally, Bex and Tonya, Denel and my beloved

<>

gods do not seek forgiveness,
or comprehension,
desertion, desecration, ascension
or condemning condescension

but how how they crave
just a good conversation,
to get a word in edgewise,
a nice chat,
entrée à, la tête-à-tête,
entre deux, deluxe-amis

a casually talking,
absent of
words of need and beseech,
reason and causality,
and no I or We pronouns,
sans enunciations and annunciations,
false hopes for incarnations, incantations,
set asides for life's grievous aches
all human requests, and some of God's commandments
for now, set aside,
annulled

just a talk,
some repartee,
but mostly an open ear lent,
an early morn quiet listen
over tea (he/she) and coffee (me),
paying attention to
both sides of an interactive story

as recompense for my willingness to be,
his engaged counter party,
my mourning gloomier cloudiness,
quick exchanged for instant,
rising sunshine warming glorious

my vista
of a bay dancing
to Tchaikovsky Swan Lake ballet music,
deftly inserted between
an Agnus Dei and an Ave Maria

mood music he said,
and we chuckled,
he/she was god and orchestrated
my tastes,
Adele et Dudamel,
comprehending my undesirable apprehension,
by granting my needy wish for
poetic inspirational composition contentment

all exchanged,
for just a good listen,
no judgements, in either direction

I am the god of love,
the one who makes you weep,
when you study your beloved's rising chest,
each uplifted breast heaving,
a confirmation blessing,
that her life is present
for at least the next second,
ready for your magi adoration

be not fearful,
this day we talk only,
as I pass by,
I have no business to conduct,
on your island of sheltering redoubt,
but to engage and unburden
for even gods
are required to confess,
and aging godheads do adore
a human shoulder
upon to rest,
a great invention,
(If I may say so myself)
and to whom better to address
than my only love poetry
poète personnelle

here he off-guards me
with a favorite injection,
Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings,
music so sweet that it never fails
to weaken my knees,
sweeping my eyes unto weeping
priming me with this first coat of
sounds so elementary soothing

he half-bows before me and says,

forgive me human, for I have sinned

in Dallas and Nice,
just this past week,
with forays here and there,
doing god's work

read your bitterness and struggle,
anger and forgiveness all in one crust,
furious curses and wails so plaintive,
my heavenly musicians weep from jealousy,
at the cries emanating from the fired fury song
of human hearts torn and love plundered

I am the god of love

and

the god of pain and all that is the

anti-love

(and to make me better understand,  
Schindler's List score, so sweetly,
he plays for me,
to clarify the atmosphere,
that death and love -
and the courage of understanding,
so oft go hand in hand)

write me a love poem for me,
no hymn or sonnet do I require,
for love is essence of forgive,
there is no perfect union,
that cannot stand,
with out this emotion of
conciliatory intermediation

tell me you understand
that the scales
of bereft befallen,
disparate chance interrupting randomized,
must periodic perforce
sometimes weigh more,
than the good of simple

balance tip that creative god spark within,
of which you write,
away from my bloodied, unsightly hand

write me one more love poem
a frisson semi-sweet and cleanly neat,
of good things sad,
but worthy of remembrance

you are not the first for this bequest to receive,
other poet's before and after,
will Jacob-wrestle with my angels,
battling to find the...

no matter

"my love to thee is sound sans crack or flaw"^

let your love poem
to me
be of whole healing,
for these disarrayed feelings
cannot forever persist,
the perfect balance you desire
is not on your Earth existent,
unobtainable

these cracks and flaws must and will come


and yet

love poems
will be our common language

and then he/she left,
leaving this poem behind,
born from my mind, yet,
carved on my skin,
written with the nib of my rib,
sealed and signed,
future undefined,
but dated upon my
cleansed hand's lifeline,
hand held outstretched
as if to say

“and yet"

Prime of my life
Priming my life
For some prime prize
Progress provides.

But if prime plans proved
Poorly placed,
And my priming went to waste
What would I have?
What good could a bunch of
“Should”s be,
If I ended up exactly,
Matter of factly
Where I once stood?
Primely dissatisfied
With time gone by.

What would I find,
If instead, I didn’t dread a step
On a path untread
Certainly unsure,
But with a bit more
For me to explore,
Now,
And less up ahead.

Would you come with me and lend a hand?
I forgot to let the dim bulb burn
last night; the water in the well has turned
to ice, no longer flowing on demand.

The flow has stopped before, you understand;
you'd think that in that time a lesson's learned.
Well, maybe so...at least I have discerned
to force a trickle; not to let ice dam.

These things we think
and then write
are how we get it out
..so continue......
"get it out...let it out"
we hear you.
I want to be heard.

I was born onto this sphere
alive and lonely,
embraced by the sun
and sheltered by the moon.
Burned by the sun,
abandoned by the moon.
One of many lights


Sometimes I don't know
where I am going
but I know where I have been.
How I cried or laughed or swore.
And if I don't let it out
Words will appear on me
like a tattoo.

Covering every inch
the more I have to say
the words will grow smaller
and smaller
to make room for more.
Until I am all black
Drowned in ink.

I won't hide my light
Slashing at the page
Pounding the keys
This all makes sense,
it has to make sense
Someone will hear.
I'm listening.

I stepped out,
finally, a terrestrial in Istanbul.
My leveled shoulders carried
an empty satchel of undone buckles
To let every fresh sip of raw experience
tumble inside,
my adventures impatiently plucked
from the closest branch  
of a banyan tree bearing
a crisscross of endless tales.

I rescued my lungs with air,
thick with resentment while
swallowing astringent flavored symphonies
and ballads of orchestrated ruckus as
women deflated their lungs
blowing out antipathy, through high pitched whistles -
A forgotten kettle blowing off steam.

Adorned in scorn, sardonic welcoming mats lined the airport.
Women pushed at their car horns as if the dragging sound,
like a severing saw can cut through
the tenacity of the ones with innate ear plugs.

They have become obsolete traffic signals -
First, their green light diminishes - like their wages
Then, their red light is dimmed -
it stops too many people in their footsteps.
And thus the world just races past them,
And they are left only with yellow -
Telling them to slow down.

They said it was an act of love.
That their plumped crimson lips,
Glossily complimented with nails
that matched the tails,
of the so-called mile high club
was just too much to handle.

Priming for work meant neglecting their love
for the perfect shade of watermelon lipstick,
No more sweet ketchup fingertips
Showing you the emergency exits. No more,
lipstick stained glasses
of a self made woman.

These cumulating lip kissed glasses  
stack up like trophies,
that sway in the heavy panting
of the ones who can’t keep up with this generation.

So the women gracefully conducted the orchestra
and through lipstick stained whistles,
They tried to drown out the dogmatic policies
And with unrelenting strife,
they passed on some advide
stop shattering our liberties
And underminining our abilities for
Endless possibilities.
Because we are the ones
Who fly high and soar
And we will always
look fabulous
while doing it.

Vim and vinegar.
Lushously loose and lulling a ligation of love.
A pretense of pompous pretentiousness priming a primal powderkeg.
Destructive dictation diseased the dowry daunting a demons debate.
Imagine an image irrigating an interesting irritation.
A common citizen creating a carcinogenic cacophony.

You visit this place
You do not stay long
There’s nothing here
that speaks of settlement
Everything you do has an edge
of intensity wet by the weather
sharpened by the clock

If you try to be still
in what passes for shelter
the wind will find you
seek you out

So with the camera your primary tool
begin to collect - image after image after image
Point and click : view and share

Eventually the mark-making begins
though fraught with difficulty
it seems just hopeless this testing out
of the body’s response to what passes
before the scanning eye
Blink
and the image shifts

There is this fierce and on-going campaign
between the near : between the far
What lies at your feet :  what decorates the horizon.

After a few hours wrapped round in nature’s vortex
the eye and brain are exhausted by the profusion of it all
wearied by the press of wind, the touch of rain, the glare of sun

Always the problem of what you do
with what you’ve seen
and touched with cold hands
pulling out metal objects from the sand
whose rusted and distressed forms
will lie exposed on the studio table

The place marks you Rain and wind on the face
raise new freckles there’s a salty veneer to the skin
the rub of sand  :  a wash of seawater
the grasp of pebbles : wood’s chiromatic grain
The lexicon of texture expands under your fingers
changes of temperature : degrees of saturation
and further uncompromising perspectives
unimaginable yet in two dimensions
Beyond beachcombing this is seacoast surgery

Away from it all (and out of the wind)
your memory stretches to the corners of recall
Wandering through a home-centred day
as in a waking dream
knowing you’ve already gathered
all manner of sensory matter
held and stored in the pineal gland
flowing free in Meissner’s corpuscles

Even absorbed in conversation’s company
as you turn away to fill the kettle
you are on the beach back in the wind
scanning the memory tin : priming the future.

In life,i dithered,pussyfooting,
Cringed,thought,delaying,
waited,holding ****** on,
feared you, all and sundry
argued futile,to myself!
philosophized idly, like hell!
reacted sensitive! norms as per,
mouthed bull, pitied empty!
gave little,grabbed in shovels,
didn't even hate properly!
thus loving only timidly!
fought causes unworthy,
sat bang mid on the fence,
foot each in pastures green,
mind,ever weighing the soul,
civilized,polite and gutless,
to even say,****,***** you!
you evil sob, to hell you go!
polite to kids,dogs, folks old,
lovely ****** and dumb bores,
swallowed angers,conceded points,
knowingly with a mind sharper,
died some death everyday small,
got lost so, mirroring ****** all,
unheeding ever, a decided heart!

Truth hit,mirror shattering!
Fully clothed,stood I naked,
unreflected in things any,
staring at nothing,blank
here, in this place and time.
feeling all the garbage pent-up,
priming to manure, catalyzing,
some part of being, unvisited.
knowing somehow, all I did,
or not,mattered,was worthy,
leading me here,to this  place,
Beware,of Existence Point Blank!

Just trying
to get by in
what appears to be
a catastrophe,

this day stuns in its coming
and I'm tired of the
running
so I'll stay, stand and fight,
hit out at what's wrong to see
the right in it
and you guessed
it's a Tuesday
a neither here, there or do I care
day.

Let battle commence,
two pounds and eighty pence!
for the tube train.
first round to the day

minimum pay
maximum outlay
and that's the way
we're all kept at bay.

Poverty is and will always be
the preserve of the poor
to spread on their bread
while they're drinking cold tea

the rich do not worry
because they seldom see
nor do they care
what happens to you

Me,
I say it's Tuesday
what did you expect?

Some will not agree
and
that's okay with me
some only see what
they want to see
I see
everything
and nothing,
values are overrated
morals dislocated
sounds abated and in the
silence I have waited
for the second coming

still running
gunning the engine
******* in fumes.

Soon
It will be done
or will it?

Hit out anyway
everyday
especially if that day's
a Tuesday.