Singly among the sand castles
No one noticed until he was there
Above him or in his path

We had built him like children
Build sand castles
We carved and patted him from moist earth
He was soft, yet rigid as he lay there
His gaze was skyward and uncertain..

We left him there to see what people do
And walked a distance to the dunes
We watched him among people
For he was one now.

They came. Families, elderly couples
And children too and stopped
To admire and express delight
At this sand man's sculptured form.

We felt happiness at the pleasure be brought
He made them stop a moment to feel their surroundings
And recognize his contented solitude.

Teenage boys came to jeer and leer.
One of them looked around as if in secrecy
And plunged a driftwood stick at the sandman's groin
Then quickly ran away laughing at his tale.

The stick protruded  boldly
Our sand man's hands were at his sides
He felt no ruler of the sands
Only a gentle soul made of mockery.

A girl and her brother approached
After we had removed the offence.
The young boy was waving his 'mighty sword'
(Some stick which had washed ashore)

At first, with his sister in charge
They stopped to admire
But then she walked away,
Turned her back to venture on.

"Hello", he said to the sandman
As if to acknowledge someone there.
Then with his 'mighty sword' he pierced
Into the sandman's groin and
Ripped up to his chest
Then swung his 'sword' and
Cut the sand man's throat...

Why? Why! we cried in mind
As the young boy ran away
Murderer! we yelled in our hearts

IWe hurt for man
We sat stunned at this violence
This desecration of a soul.

We couldn't just leave him there
Blameless, yet aware
So we buried the sand man and prayed
Dust to dust, sand to sand

Sand he may have been
But soul he was for us.

The sky began to purple
And the scene to set
And the heart like drums
Began to beat
Then from some twist of light
A play began to roll
And there I was
Dozing in the sunshine
One quiet afternoon
When lightening flashed
Right from out the blue
Shattering my reverie
Was the Sunlight's goon
As he took a bow for
His introduction and
How d' you do
He shook my world of classic order
To a surrealistic view
With quick steps to the left
And then to the right
He bent my gaze
To his central stage
Of course,
This monochrome painter
Requests total attention
Not difficult,
As he's been struck from
The list of convention
He spills his canvas with tidy
Abstractions of captured jests
Of wild imitation, a pose
In fractured time
He is a master of imagination
With noiseless motion
He whirls to each identity
From his kaleidoscope of darkness
His badge of entity
He bends symbols to a new formation
A magician of dimmed light
He nurtures the checker board
Of contrasts in angles to
His invention
From a repose in solitude
I now acquaint myself
To timeless relenting
For he's here
He's everywhere
Though neither god nor man
But entertainer
A show that begins from light
And ends with darkness
While I see, he plays a game with me
Wherever I go, he goes
Whatever I do, he does
Though sometimes leader
Sometimes the lamb
But while still blinking
From this sudden view
He wills me to another hue
As he molds his statues
To another stand
And shades the tones darker
Then with some secret mime
And the close of time
The audience, now
Just common dolls
That leave no echo of applause
So they've left
The lights have gone out
And the Shadow
Opaque of emotion
Releases his hold
And there he's left me
In a final void
Was he really there?
Or was it just another show
Of self confrontation.

Dust balances in the sunlight
Curtaining a mystery room
Of hazy sunbeams
Working fabric of gold
From its sacred loom
Spindles turn in ballet curve
And mingle in a hue
Of bright clarity
And hidden to the few
Who believe
They never see the view

Coffee sharing
Going other people staring
Shopping or old fashioned talking
At the mall.

At a meeting place,
The round table at the coffee shop
amongst the bobbin belles
Of the mall.

Hearing, listening,
Talking at one time
These are warm and special
Moments with an
Urban Friend.

If the sky were a pool, a swimming pool,
You cloud would fit the rule
Sunglasses and Lillo-pose
Who caught who you suppose?
It's as though you'd just noticed
A human at the window

Peeper human had seen the model cloud
In her fronds of glamour shroud.
You are staring because I'd been
Now you've noticed that you've been seen
With a gusty windward swoop
You drop somewhere into the pool

Ah, I say
And back away...

Footprints left in the sand
here I am walking with the blues
Nowhere specific to go
No thought nor plan beforehand
Naked mind, no body ruse
Before I get real low
A beach walk to wake my talk.

Listening to my inside mind
As one footprint follows
Footprint not too far behind
Moving, just to hide
The loneliness inside

Naked feet, pocketed hands
Imprint a time inside of me
A time of shifting sands
Unsettled like the beach dunes
For awhile, oh so temporarily.

Migrating white butterflies
Like snowflakes in mid-summer
Dancing on heat waves of January skies
Thousands upon thousands,
Can't tell one from another
This must be the celebration to summer.

Like some mystic fable they appear by magic
Their wild scattered bouncy flight
Springs chaos amongst all city logic
For they paint a rural innocent insight
To the mysteries of summer's secrets.

Their cascade is tumbling northwards
Like bubbles blown from a gypsy child
Hidden in these concrete woods
Hearts wild yet breath so mild
They simply pass as lacey summer reflection.

I remember as a quiet child
The summer days upon the grass laid
Banks of a timid stream
Sitting cross-legged, bending
To stroke the muddy waters
With a part of forgotten wood
And all around the warmth of
The summer's glowing sun

An intake of breath would
Bring the scent of tall trees
Bounding to my favorite nest.
footsteps followed shallow paths
That meandered to and from
The stream which gurgled as a child
In excited and gay temperament

I did then pause in rapture of my sense
And touch a life of serene sublime
A tender moment to solitude
Yet as I sat flat upon the grass
A gentle butterfly swaggered
In its pride of showy acrobatics
White and blissful in balance
With my sun-filled dreams

Nature showered in a halo of blushes
Collected the dusty corn colors of summer
And sprinkled then at my feet
For a secret wish for me to dare
Then... through my reverie
I heard some voices cheer
Some boys scuttled the biggest log there
back into the stream it sped
Some part cooled in water
Some part basked in sun

I recall the echo of buzzing beetles
That zoomed across the water
And were hidden by the distance
On the other side
Some dragonflies hovered with curiosity
In some infrequent time
The red and green of their wings
Seems now lost to me
They shimmered like chrome
Of tireless helicopters

This was a busy side to my young years
What with barges of driftwood
And scurrying air-traffic
Yet the call of the water birds
Stayed only after the sun had set
And leafy foliage lingered in silhouette
The birds crossed the sky with
To me a mournful cry
As a reminder the day had said goodbye

Yet little did I realize then
That in flowering adulthood
I would return to those summer days in sweet lament
And cherish that moment of child content.

Watch the falling of the rain
Through the dusty window pane
Life's out there, a lost soul
Coming through the rain
I see him pushing in vain
The storm is too angry to let him pass
But still I see the falling rain
Through the dusty window pane.

This house sometimes leaks
Leaving stains for weeks
Claw marks down the walls
It's what the dampness seeks
That confuses me from house to leaks
I've thought of hiding them
But they show upon the window pane in streaks
What funny little freaks!

On sunny days there is no sign
And I forget that window confine
Life's with me, a restless soul
Pushing at the living vine
I see him and know the sign
That sunbeams whistle out a tune
Dusting out that little memory of mine
Just so that I know, with me it's fine.

Can't remember the last time I got paid
Lost my worldly goods
Now I am stranded
By the house on the water

The river is the only thing
That moves real fast
As time nestles in.
Life seems normal
On the water
Like an everyday occurrence

I got laid last night
Drew my mind-set around my body
Down through my toes
The river keeps coming from nowhere
More and more
My mind is reeling like a movie
From your touch last night

The morning starts
With mist on the water
The wintery bare trees
Hold the mist at bay
Like a man sitting smoking
In a dim and crowded room
Just waiting for something
Gray and bad-lunged
And slow to move the day along

That cold sun pulls back
The ice like curtain
Man, you got to see the sun
Another day by the water
And I ain't got no work and no pay

By midday no one's calling
But the ducks that skim the water
The rocks can't hold back the river
Hushing sound of water
I try to think of something else
But baby, your power
Has me someplace else

Picture you naked as you were
Got to have you, got to be there
All the time
It's your distance
That keeps killing me
And the waiting by the river

Call you, got to call you
From the house on the water.

I am looking at the door and
My heart is ever sore
My hands are aching
From forever slapping at the door
I know that golden memories are there.

When I stop slapping at the door
I stand naked in despair
I realize that love is there somewhere
Somewhere and everywhere
It keeps me straying from the truth or dare.

That love is always somewhere
Somewhere and yet so near
Neither less in spirit form
Neither more in earthly norm
Love is always here somewhere, so close.

I am looking at my feet
Bare and on the floor
And deep within my heart I find
There is an unlocked door
To feel that love has gone before.

I turn the **** and
Open the door at will
To find the golden memories in there
I grab the shackles off my heart
And pull out the storm
To blow away my heart's despair

Now I understand
That love, your love is here deep within my soul
Love is here and everywhere
I have only to let it flow.

Stop when I have to
Give me a time to breathe
Notice time in and out the door
Stop at the line my heritage
Had drawn on the floor before
Open my eyes to see
Who enters and who exits

Red is the color to alert
That stationary worlds  exist

Caution when I consider
A peeling away of the discarded
Notice this breathing time
A stirring of movement
Hidden below my dwelling floor
An energy, slow and beginning to vibrate
A humming sound building to negotiate.

Amber is the color to wait
serenely before the door opens

Go when you show me the way
Then my soul no longer argues
The right and the wrong
This I have noticed no to prolong
The Wind-Soul opens my eyes
Shows me how long is too long

Green is the color to go
Move in the constant glory of flow

Take heart to these teachings
And all that is needed, is supplied.

The heat is on and the sun high
The ball's bright purple dots nodding
Gently as it rocks over heatwave ripples
In the pool, going really nowhere...

In brightly colored plastic
Blown up tight with air
The beach ball swirls around
The little blue plastic swimming pool.

A forgotten pool, an empty playground all wet
Even the shadows evaporated in the heat
Someone has been, but now they've gone
And left the ball to entertain itself.

The yellow, red and clear bands held together
By the big white nozzle, fall one behind the other
As the ball makes its fat rounds of the pool
Inspecting here and there, just to pass the time.

A clown ball, saddened by solitude
Wading downcast, waiting for some playmates
Seeking a corner to protect itself
An excuse for going nowhere.

We used to sing a song
Of little children playing
Until the sun had completely gone
They chased the butterflies swaying
To and fro in the summertime
The teddy-bears and dolls
Danced and cheered to this song
Its sound beat with the passing years
And now, much later now
We sing different tunes
Not loudly in a gust of play
But few times when alone
And far from a neighbor's ear
It's not a song of children's cheer
But of lover's hearts that are dear
broken or estranged to another's sway

Few times when I browsed through those
Growing years
That little song comes knocking
And with it the happy games
And childish lines
And the setting of the sun
I see the close of day
But now it's darkness that'll next be my way
Those little children playing in the park
Didn't notice it was getting dark
How I now notice the quiet night
And the passing time
It's not the years that make me sad
Its comparing them.

A black boy came upon me
running with the wind
He rushed passed me
With one blue and one yellow balloon
Bouncing excitedly behind him
Like some faithful pet companions
His laughter in both sight and sound
Spread all over his face and around
The bright bouncing balloons pulled
Hard against the strings
And he laughed and laughed...

I put on high-heeled
Ruby shoes
Now I walk the talk
And strut my stuff
With my high-heeled
Ruby shoes

Legs go striding
As opposed to hiding
When I wear my
High-heeled
Ruby shoes

Knock 'em dead
Turn a head
That's the way I feel
In my high-heeled
Ruby shoes

No one's stopping me
From purring
Down a catwalk
When I'm high
On my ruby shoes.

Dressing, I slip into my jeans
Brush my hair while looking
At my reflection in the mirror

Old and betrayed
My nerves already frayed
'Too low for zero'
My mind-clock registers

Age was just a number
Until you are really there
I don't mind the graying hair
A new line somewhere

It's the mind, the death of love
Love for my existence
And the bleeding persistence
That ****** dance with forgetfulness

But one thing I can't forget
As I stand dressed and ready to face
The demon of my drudgery
My head starts to throb

I foresee an attitude
It's in his grudging old bearing
I foresee a bad day coming
I try to convince me not to care

Indifference and rude commentary
'I don't like to be seen with you in public'
A joke, a sarcasm said, I smile
But inside my stomach turns to bile

Distancing is the fastest way to salve
Need to escape from the space of the car
It's suffocating space with scenes in halves
One side of the view; the passenger

At home I become a wishful thinker
Independence, freedom from
Shadows, deceit and hollow looks
Hide I do, in sleep and whatever books.

Can't remember the last time I got paid
Lost my worldly goods
Now I am stranded
By the house on the water

The river is the only thing
That moves real fast
As time nestles in.
Life seems normal
On the water
Like an everyday occurrence

I got laid last night
Drew my mind-set around my body
Down through my toes
The river keeps coming from nowhere
More and more
My mind is reeling like a movie
From your touch last night

The morning starts
With mist on the water
The wintery bare trees
Hold the mist at bay
Like a man sitting smoking
In a dim and crowded room
Just waiting for something
Gray and bad-lunged p
And slow to move the day along

That cold sun pulls back
The ice like curtain
Man, you got to see the sun
Another day by the water
And I ain't got no work and no pay

By midday no one's calling
But the ducks that skim the water
The rocks can't hold back the river
Hushing sound of water
I try to think of something else
But baby, your power
Has me someplace else

Picture you naked as you were
Got to have you, got to be there
All the time
It's your distance
That keeps killing me
And the waiting by the river

Call you, got to call you
From the house on the water.

Worn and used
Clothes sentenced to
Bounce and strain
Against the line
Pegged by rules
Not of their own design
Shirts, socks and
Trouser legs kicking
Round and round they go
Where are the shoes...
To get away.

Dream-like, the owl perched
High upon a headless pillar
As a surrealistic statue
Bathed in a lupine moonlight

A still night
Wintery and ghost-like
I had suddenly noticed the owl
And got the feeling
It had always been there
That I had been unaware

The two of us had been staring
At the same view of the city lights
Its head then moved
As if in a nightmare
I blinked, but still it was there
Alone and timeless.

My father died
And so did something of me inside
A mad rush headlong into love
Converted to desire of man and things
And scorched my eyes from further peace
I got no tranquility from this release

A chapter fell from my book
And as the words were left dripping
From that page where my father stood
A young man approached
A figure carrying ghosts
I thought then a friend, but now a foe

The need to turn and recoil
Left me bare and stoical
I wanted to turn my face away
And blind myself from grief
An urge to strike out hard
Left me low inside

His arms opened, he was still a friend
And forgiveness gave way in the end
A caged battalion of emotions
Cut away from deep inside
The hollow place in my soul
Like a blindless window seen from outside

The soft light burning there
Released the anxious grasp of old ideals
I can't regret these things
It is my tao from which
My new direction springs.

I am meditatively sitting at the edge
Of the Saturn rings
High in the sky, looking down
Into an Earth-pool of reflections
I can see it, concentric rings
Moving like shadowy things.
In that space between you and me
is a pain, like a sheet of glass
My stretches through and
Into the water of the pool
And as I pull out the watery rings
I feel alchemic longing swirling inside of me
To have and to hold you
To pour you inside me
A soul-jug and its chalice companion
Its in your face I see
But it's reflection only
Touch and you are gone in concentric rings
And I return to the edge of things.

Upon a will not of my own
My eyes lured westward
To the settling rustic clouds
Spread wide-winged across the sky
And from an open vortex came
The leader's shrill reply.

The ducks of Sabie braced the winds up high
Their wishbone flight kept in harmony
Ignited a compelling thrill
Deep within my half conscious eye
For yet again I listen into memory.

The days spent at Sabie might have gone by
But these alluring creatures pass here now
Stirring a hidden intimate thought
Which grew from Sabie's twilight river banks.

Where unattended grass abounds in profusion
The blades tall from country breath and
Wide pastures naked to the windy storms.
Against a reddening sun and a blackening bridge
Which overhung the ice-cold waters,
Those ducks bleated their melancholic cry
Like a marker for a question why.

Their passage seemed a continuous dream
Their throats resounding the restless stream
Sabie, a shelter to beautiful liberty
That reverberates against green clad mountains
Where heaven unites with a shy still spiritual grandeur

I watched the haunting waifs wander through the sky
Like a ghost refection against my sub-conscious mind.
A holier feeling, as a church spire lost in mists.
Of a rainy day, yearned within me.
Their swaying wings cast shadows in my heart
Their beauty and their vagabond souls
Provoke a thought of sublime content.
That evasive mood on which poets' conjure
A strength of divine sorrow and subdued delight.

While the river's rhythmic pulse beat over the rocks
And in the darkness seemed a sight of slithering glass
With the tall trees mirrored in its sun-stained depth
A subtle yearning reached within my soul.
An urge evolved to save this temporary while
And rest within this insulated haven
Where to hear the ducks invokes an embracing joy
To be a limb, a fringe, a relative of this deity-like company.

Present falls too soon on shallow ears
And the ducks of Sabie, might they be
Lose their reminiscent shadows to the dark horizon

The dry season of love has
                Gone Fishing
With a barefoot girl with a
                Rose in her hand.

Wind blown curls about
                Her as she
Strips from her head a
                Rainbow band.

Warmth and tenderness
                Wraps the banks
As she splashes into the
                Cool river.

And though it's day
                The Moon
Is high and in
                Shimmer.

Fishing season wasn't on
                Love's mind.

But there's no place for wading
As some Times are
                Sudden to find.