How can heaven
be home for us now
when our hearth’s ashes are cold?
Stoke the fire and fix a meal,
the stranger at our door
holds our hearts in his hand.

Ever walk a birch wood
at autumn's peak;
on a dark gray, overcast day?
Their leaves are so yellow,
gold and bright
it’s like walking through
captured sunlight.

I love and haunt the wastelands,
the rundown, out of the way lands;
down by the docks and abandoned piers,
out on a lonesome, windswept jetty;
warehouse row or the rail yards
and ruins of every type.
I know these places for what they are,
forgotten by some
but never empty.
Always full of dreams and memories past,
of what was wrought by man.
There you will find me
walking and thinking,
sometimes drinking
communing with the wind
that blows through my soul,
like a stiff November breeze.
So it is with my heart;
I love the forsaken,
the lost and alone
trembling unfulfilled,
aching for that gentle touch.
They make the best lover’s,
struggling to release their inner flame.
Can you see them?
I can hear them
singing their own songs
with rough and ready voices,
fading in the distance
until only the melody remains.

I chisel words
from the spaces round my heart,
giving shape to longing and desire.
Touch me I whisper, then cringe
fearing, yet not afraid
of that exquisite torture,
merging into one.
Tell me who you are,
I will show you my wounds
if you’ll show me yours.
Stigmata,
the holy cross of love,
hanging on the crucible of self.
I’m tempted sometimes by the void,
to step off into the silence.
It doesn’t take much,
no angst, loneliness,
despair or pain,
just a good day to die.

Sometimes...
in the cold squeaky morning
while the heart's still naked from the night,
despair looks out from the mirror
and speaks of things
we fear or know
yet dare not admit.
And when she sings her siren song
with no mast to bind us
the void ever present
is just a misstep
away.

05 March 2010

Summer’s gone;
the leaves,
brown memories on the ground.
The southbound sun
cast shadows at mid-day,
later amber hues.
Winter Solstice, snow and pine
the ****** gives forth a child.
Air so crisp it bites
like an apple,
snow beneath the foot.
Orange light ascending off a building;
transfiguration,
day slipping into night.
A snow covered tree,
it’s Christmas lights
shedding pockets of color onto white.
Deep in the blanketed woods
the animals know nothing of Jesus
but feel the nadir of the year.
Our acts behind us
potential ahead;
so lovely this garden,
without apple
or eve.

19 Dec. 1989

The moon last night
with clouds for veils
dancing like a gypsy maiden;
moving cross the waters deep,
Salome never looked so fine.