The snow was falling thick that night
like tiny feathers to the ground
while stiff white fossil-coral trees
Stood still as statues all around


And in their midst a mansion rose
with towers and frozen weather-vane
Where sparkling pavé diamond snows
encrusted every window pane

The match-girl shivered in the cold
then made a spy-hole in the ice
And peered into a golden realm,
an ante-room to paradise

But all the velvets and brocades,
the glowing fir-tree there inside
Appeared to her like pictures painted
on a magic lantern slide

For in her world these plush divans
with cushions bursting at the seams
The draperies and tapestries
would always be the stuff of dreams


Two cats with buttonholes for eyes
and fur that shone like watered silk
Were purring by an open fire
no doubt with bellies full of milk

While what our little match girl ate
was scarce enough to feed a fly
Though she was told by men in gold
her feast was waiting in the sky

No, here on earth, these coddled cats
like pharaohs basking in the heat,
Or padding round on velvet paws,
had choicer food than her to eat

So when she saw the gingerbread,
the frosted fruit, the marzipan
She wondered how this hunger could
be part of the Almighty's plan

And then, beside two girls, a youth
with dreamy gaze and rippling hair
Came in and hardly seemed to see
the many treasures waiting there

The  match-girl watched him button-eyed
as if he were a fire-plumed bird
Or some chimeric creature from
a fairy tale that she had heard

And as she dreamt she felt such joy
though hunger gnawed her like a mouse
For now she stood with him right there
inside that warm, ancestral house

They danced a sweeping ballroom waltz
while she was draped in crispest white
With diamonds sprinkled in her hair
like stars upon a cloudless night

Then as the lilting music swelled
he picked her up and twirled her round
Until, just like a swan in flight,
her feet were lifted off the ground

A swan who'd left her murky pond
with all the fetters lurking there
To reach up for the firmament
and taste its sweet, untainted air
                      ii
Next day as she was hard at work
she passed the house and there they were,
Her prince dressed all in powder-blue
the sisters swathed in sable fur

They'd flown down from their iv'ry tower
to tread with serfs upon the street!
Oh how she longed to be in silk
with buckled shoes upon her feet!

But as she blushed and stepped aside
to let the "dvoryanstvo".pass
The boy stared through her sallow face
as if it were a pane of glass

Dvoryanstvo=Russian nobility

Words of love so often stale and
die with the lips that utter them,
And go to the wormy realm of
the bone and the root and the gem.

And yet I do not dread the sidereal
silence of the tomb
When, like the stalwart evergreen,
the legend of our love will bloom

Our stories entwined, and chiselled
into history's marble pages
Our light will blaze like all the stars
Through the dark and through the ages

For we will prosper in my art
as the rose that lives and breathes,
And tread the gleaming aisles of glory
but not as kings festooned in wreaths

Nor as Byzantine manikins
from walls of tessellated gold
Nor simulacra, cast in bronze
each from the same heroic mould

But as creatures of light and shade
with just a spark of the divine
Where, mulled by bellies full of fire,
our blood flowed rich and warm as wine

It was the world after the Flood
a Shangri-la of dripping flowers
Of pungent soil and sparkling leaves
where minutes were as long as hours

I sang the music of the birds
and sighed as one with all the trees
I breathed the winds and wept the rain
and lived the rhythm of the seas

But childhood passed; life wrenched me from
the velvet womb of Mother Earth
The golden cord was sundered that
had bound me to Her since my birth

They stuffed my head with formulae
put cogs and wheels inside my brain
Till I began to think that I
would never smell a rose again

And when I delved into a flower
to search the reaches of its heart
I'd eye it through a jeweller's loupe
to **** and pick the thing apart

I'd pine in towers of hothouse glass
and wither slowly from within
For here the birds could not be heard
above the town's infernal din

Now I'd have given all the stars
to find once more that childhood Me
Like Tantalus I thirsted for
the waters of my Mother Sea

The waves of lapislazuli
and sands of crumbling honeycomb
The sulphur tang, the murmuring conch
the fish that swished beneath the foam!

Where mermaid queens had golden hair
and silver tails instead of legs
And shell-encrusted diadems
with pearls the size of darning eggs

And then there were the drowsing woods-
the wistful doves and droning bees
Elysian streams that trickled softly
In the shadow of the trees

Where summer air was sumptuous
as thick as musk and just as sweet,
where,after picnics, we would nap
like bluebells drooping in the heat.

And so I searched for Shangri-La-----

While bonfires smelt of frankincense,
Upon the chilly morning air,
A mist was rising in the pines,
that fell like stars upon your hair.

The sun was low atop the hill,
the fields were gleaming bright with dew,
And velvet mushrooms sprang up where,
a galaxy of flowers once grew.

For me at least, if not for you,
the atmosphere was charged that day,
It was as if each phrase you spoke,
I'd heard once in a Russian play.

And soon you would be on your way
Inside my chest I felt an ache,
And watched the geese take flight across,
the beaten silver of the lake.

Then as I gazed 'round at the mist,
that filled this cold, enchanted clime,
I realised moments could exist,
outside the drab constraints of time.

Where poets spin the golden stuff,
of which our finest dreams are made,
The goblin door, the fairy glade,
the land where roses never fade.

For then I knew, that once you had
been borne away upon your train,
You'd soon forget our meeting and
our paths would never cross again.

And later, at the station, as,
your train was waiting to depart,
I sealed this day forever in
the amber locket of my heart.

As the smoke twirls from the chimneys,
like weeds beneath the sea,
The houses look as finical
as baubles on a tree.


For tiny diamonds sparkle on
each little pane of glass,
And in the garden frost is piped
on every blade of grass.


While snowflakes twirl like candied flowers
and flutter all around,
The snow lies like an ermine cloak
upon the frozen ground.


In ferny trees of crystal bright,
beneath an opal moon,
The hoary-feathered owls sit
and flute their spectral tune.


And then inside a carriage as
she takes her night-time ride,
Appears the Snow-Queen, thin and wan,
her goblins at her side.

She has a wedge of swans to pull
her carriage through the air,
And there she sits in twinkling robes
with snowflakes in her hair.


She flies above the spindly spires
all powdered pearly-white,
Then, passing with her frigid stare,
she melts into the night

The weeping willow wallows
in her silver pool of grief,
And aches in every bending bough
and every withered leaf.

For Summer's gathered up her
skirts and flitted from the scene,
No velvet peach can grow here
now, nor silken nectarine

The leaves have turned to rusted
gold and mists are creeping in,
So cue the musk of woodsmoke
and a Schubert violin.

The birds have flown their dingy
nests, the flowers are all dust,
And in the ragged hedgerow
blows the sombre stench of must.

Soon tiny stars of crystal
bright will shimmer all around,
Till slabs of mausoleum
ice lie covering the ground.

But dreams will not be buried
here upon this funeral bed,
When in the earth a snowdrop
waits to show its sleepy head.

And bonfires smell of incense
now, of myrrh and spicy things,
As birds fly south to sweeter
climes on fiery golden wings

Now summer's here and showing off
her treasures to the world,
Festooning roses far and wide,
all dewy and unfurled.

The birds are gargling syrup as
the day glares hot and bold,
Each scrumptious fruit is jewelled with seed,
the pollen sparkles gold.

The dragonfly, a coxcomb, in
his rainbow-tinted coat,
Is ling'ring by a burnished pool,
where gauzy lilies float.

While butterflies parade about
with plush, new velvet wings,
A velvet fit to make the cloaks
of emperors and kings.

And, crowning all this splendour, sits
that tangy lemon sun,
That fizzes in a turquoise sky,
like sherbet on the tongue.

My life was sweet as honey once
it was a sun-filled garden where
The roses blossomed as I passed
and seed hung thick upon the air

While trees from some enchanted realm
were laden with the golden peach
And every fruit was ripe but firm
and hanging just within my reach

With plumes of crispest ivory
on wings of silk. the swans all flew
But then the autumn brought her morning
mists of gauze and pearls of dew

The swans went south, and winter came
to turn the streams and lakes to glass
To **** the flowers with bitter frosts
and freeze each tiny thread of grass

The flowers would never bloom again
nor would the gold-beaked linnet sing
And so I chose my inner world
where I am God of Everything

No need to sit and weep or sigh
for any God from the Machine
'Tis I who writes the storyline
Who shines the light, who sets each scene

I am the Great All-Seeing Eye
Afloat above this painted stage
And here my actors mouthe each line
that I scrawl down upon the page

I've bent the Cosmos to my will
and there is only Summer now
The lakes are full of silken swans
and peaches hang on every bough.

This city is a wasteland of broken temples
and creaking pines, where the fountains wheeze and sputter into their bowls of lichened marble
From every street vent rises the dismal miasma of the sepulchre
Among the ruins, the dark roses are ragged as moth-eaten damask
and the tired nightingale trills like a rusty harpsichord
-all hope died here with the Golden One
Now I look East to the Promised Land of the opal arch and the diamond rains
where hives bristle and the honey flows

There was a dreamy, pine grove once,
whose towering trees looked, to my eye,
Like pictures from a fairy book
beneath a turquoise-vaulted sky!

Some days I'd see an image of
a sleeping princess tangled there.
With lilies fading in her hands
and briar-rose woven in her hair.

Well, years have passed. I walk there now.
'midst lavish trees of greenest plush.
A mossy carpet 'neath my feet.
and all around a velvet hush.

The clanging anvils of the forge
the banks of sombre porphyry.
And din of the metropolis
all seem so far away from me

I've left that pell mell world behind.
and stepped inside a giant church.
While somewhere in the rafters sits.
a cuckoo fluting from its perch.

I see a little spring. I drink.
then walk the woodland sparkly-eyed.
For, like the water from a font,
it leaves my spirit purified.

And now a shaft of light beams down
Each pollen grain and mushroom spore
becomes a tiny mote of gold
transfiguring the forest floor

It is the time for flowers again,
the lily fold, the iris frill,
The foxglove tower, and the trumpet,
of the golden daffodil.

The strawberries now are growing plump,
and sweeter with the days that pass,
While butterflies and jewel-eyed hares,
are quivering in the flower-filled grass.

First, through whispering trees, I spy,
a swan next to a water mill,
On liquid silver there it drifts,
and scoops the water with its bill.

Then, further on, a startled deer,
comes springing from its faerie dell,
It stares and freezes to the spot,
as if beneath a magic spell.

I pass the grey-stone country church,
so small beside a sprawling yew,
And in the grounds a cemetery,
with headstones crowding, all askew.

Then topsy turvy cottages,
with ivied walls and crooked gate,
With roses clustering round the door,
and wood still crackling in the grate.

It seems they had no set squares when,
this winsome little town was planned,
That every map of every house,
was drawn up by an elfin hand!

At last I reach the city where
like finely-chiselled ivory,
The towering old cathedral stands
with everywhere a filigree.

And as I start to wander home,
the sun has disappeared again,
But I am happy now to walk,
In cool, refreshing silver rain

I see a rabbit on the path
I call him but he does not wake.
And though his fur is sparkling still
his once bright eye has turned opaque-
Rabbit..
I pray the tiny span of life
that once you lived, at least was good
Your stomach filled with toothsome grass
and fresh green clover from the wood

And jasmine, rose and willow, too
and all the finest rabbit fare
Or else I think that I would weep
to see your body stranded there

Your coffin shall be velvet-lined
a painted box, beneath the ground
And as I hum a little dirge
I''ll scatter flowers all around

I pray that once, just once, you felt
the glorious blessing of your birth
That in those woods, you filled with joy
to know you were upon this earth

I hope you danced beneath the moon
with all your long-eared friends last night
And had yourself a ball until
you dozed off in the morning light

That light you'll never see again!
How sad your days, they had to cease
upon this hard and stony path
Dear rabbit may you rest in peace.

Now, in an instant, Rome has turned.
from workaday to the sublime.
For, with its golden mists it seems.
the sun has slowed the flow of time.

The sluggish, muddy Tiber drags.
itself along the river bed.
A cloud of starlings swells and then.
it swoops and circles overhead.

As day begins to fade, it is.
as if the world exhales a sigh.
At first the lilac comes, and then.
a burst of red to light the sky.

The gilded clouds! The rosy glow!
no watercolour can compare.
A glimpse of the Empyrean.
afloat there on the evening air.

Or is this day the dying man.
whose sudden state of fervid bliss.
Confers him one last joy before.
he passes...into the abyss?

The statues here, they live and breathe,
now shadows start to fill my head.
I see no rose or laurel wreath
upon the tomb where I lie dead


What riches can I bring to Rome.
where sculptors and the Men of God.
The painters and the emperors.
and all those towering Giants trod?

If I could leave their twilight world.
and walk along a path less worn.
On wings of gold I'd rise again
and like a phoenix be reborn.

I am a blue-eyed daughter of the North and yet
the fire of Hephaestus burns in my chest.
My blood flows hot as Vesuvian lava

In my world the flowers have tongues
and smell of cinammon and myrrh
The trees sizzle with cicadas,
and the air glitters with Saharan sand,
like gold dust wafted over the sea
from an Oriental fairy tale.
On every horizon shimmers a pink mirage

I never understood those cool swans
who glide across life's waters without a ripple
or feather ruffled.
in a landscape of alabaster palaces and polished moons

I want to smash the waters into a million crystal drops,
dive in deep and yank the lilies from their roots
There is gold to be sifted
and there are pearls to be trawled
And I want to make ripples that blossom until the edge of time!

Leaves are peeling from the trees like gilt shavings. Peaches of mouldering Venetian velvet drop from the branch.
;after those months of torpor and light-headed stasis, our lives have weight again.
Now in the cold museum of our mornings the air preserves our words like frosted violets.

In the city our eyes are caught once more by remnants of old-fangled
finery: a curving lily in a stained glass door.
a stone angel pointing heavenward in the cemetery
In this weak, amber light, the world feels
as gentle and distant as a sepia photograph.
Yet in the wind there is that chilling hint of diamantine winters on the horizon.Now we ache like a Chopin sonata for the lacerating beauty of what we must leave behind.
It's the last days of the Romanovs all over again.

No marble urns, nor crumbling wreaths
no widow's weeds nor plaited hair
Not even skulls are needed to
remember what is always there

The stream that darkly rustles while
the world is breaking into spring
That slow but dogged leitmotif
that threads the life of everything

The widows wear their heavy veils
and rivieres of blackest jet
Instead I do a million things
In order that I might forget

I cram with gorgeous curios
the Wunderkammer of my eye
with hummingbirds and coloured flowers
and every treasure 'neath the sky


Then rush to all my rendez vous
with ticking pocket-watch in hand
and leap around the city like
a rabbit out of Wonderland

When Bluebeard told his bride there was
a closet she must never see
She painted deep inside her head
A portrait of how it might be;

She saw a wonder chamber there
with Baroque pearls and curios,
with sequinned birds and spiky shells,
and monstrous fish and cameos.

And when her husband had to leave
to make a voyage 'cross the sea
he said she might use every room
and gave to her the master-key


The chambers here were many, all
with costly silk upholstery
With works of art and silver plate,
and porcelain, jewels and ivory

He showed her then another key
but told her, glaring, to beware-
To never use it, for it opened
up the closet 'neath the stair

His bride just laughed and said that he
could trust her even with his life
That he might rest assured that she
would never be a spying wife


2

So now alone, she asked her friends
to come and keep her company
To gossip in the courtyard where
they all could sit and take their tea

A courtyard sweet as heaven's door
where roses smelt of cherubs' sighs
And peacocks trailed their rustling tails
of tasselled silk with turquoise eyes

The fountains chimed like chandeliers
each tree sang like an aviary
Ripe fruit hung thick from every bough
and all was just as it should be

But Bluebeard's bride could not discard
the baleful warning of her groom
Nor could she cast out from her head
the phantom of that hidden room

And though she knew that it was wrong,
she sprang up quickly from her chair
Then took the silver closet key
and hurtled down the spiral stair
3
She held the key with quivering hand
and turned it slowly in the lock
But as she did, she met a sight
that sent her reeling from the shock

She'd entered now that nightmare land
where Kraken loom up from the deep
And you no longer understand
if you're awake or fast asleep

That half-remembered childhood world
where goblins lurk beneath the bed
Where witches fly around at night
and everything is on its head

For there, all caked in ruby blood,
a woman lay upon the floor
And peering round the shuttered room
she saw at least a dozen more

Their necks gleamed dark with clotted gore
like pomegranates split apart
While others had been hanged on ropes
or stabbed with daggers through the heart

At which the girl let out a shriek
that could have woken up the dead
And dropped her key upon the ground
amidst the blood of coral-red

Then picking up the key again
she stumbled 'cross the crimson floor
And, choking from the fetid stench,
she raced to slam the closet door
4
Her ordeal though, had just begun
for Bluebeard came back suddenly
And when he did, he told his wife
to show to him the closet key



But then he saw her bloodied hem,
that glare of terror in her eye
And knew she'd peeked inside the room
where he had told her not to pry



"The key," he said, "is streaked with blood
You've poked about inside that door.
Well, Madam, you shall join my wives
and rot with them forever more."



He drew his sword out from its sheath
and held the blade above her head
"Please give me just a little time,
so I may pray to God," she said



"You went against my word," he growled
"You shall not have one minute more"
But, as he gripped his sword to strike,
he froze, then tumbled to the floor-



His wife could scarce believe her eyes
and wept with joy at what she saw
But still she took the sword and plunged
it through his heart, just to be sure.

A hawk-eyed wizard snapped her up
and plumped her in an ivory tower,
So she'd have time to till her brain
and make it tassel like a flower

The tower rose in an Orphic wood
where gold dust showered though knotted trees,
And faerie-antlered stags would strut
while pollen drifted on the breeze

And when he'd tired of all his tricks
the sorcerer would meet her there,
He'd steal beneath the carven tower
then shinny up her golden hair

But he was not the only man
who fell beneath Rapunzel's spell,
A lad who lived beyond the wood
would come to visit her as well
                      2
It pained the boy to see her trapped
This rara avis in her cage,
with such a sweet and youthful face
and yet so jaded for her age

It seemed whenever they conversed
she used some arcane Latin word,
Or lapidary axiom
the like of which he'd never heard

And when the girl would talk about
his Dionysian turpitude,
He'd wonder if he should rejoice
or if the girl was being rude

These men, you see,she'd tired of them
their lure, like gilt  would rub away,
And soon they'd start to irk her as
they clomped around with feet of clay

And though the lad beyond the wood
had picturesquely windswept hair,
She'd feel each time he came to call
as if a storm had broken there


So then one day she took a blade
as he was climbing to her room,
And cut right through her finespun locks
like threads of gold upon a loom

The poor boy tumbled down to earth
and whimpered for a little while,
As she just stood there in her tower
and fixed him with a twisted smile

                    3

Now, free again, she took her paints
of saffron, cinnabar and gold,
and made her jewel-bright manuscripts
like cloistered nuns from days of old

Her boudoir came to life once more
as gold-tailed sapphires stirred the air,
While orchids sprouted up the walls
and tigers sauntered everywhere

And later, when her books were shut
as day was blazing to a close,
Their essence hung there rich and sweet
as attar of the damask rose
            
                  Nox
But once the night-time fell and all,
except her creaking room,was still.
outside the mists were creeping in
that brought with them an eerie chill

Her covers now seemed winding sheets
beneath the opalescent moon
Or folds upon some effigy
supine atop a marble tomb

And then soft snowflakes came, and fell
like lilies on the sleeping wood,
and seemed to seep into her heart
for love had gone away for good

Rapunzel saw at once that she,
had missed these years the scented air
And wandered blinkered as a horse
through catacombs of dank despair

And so, as iif transfixed, beneath
the icy moon's hypnotic glow
She ****** herself down from her tower
and crashed upon the ice below
                  
Then gazing calmly at the stars
as life began to ebb away
she thought about the windswept boy
and knew they'd meet again one day




                      FINIS

ACT ONE

That night a savage tempest raged
the lightning flashed, the thunder roared
And boomed as loud as cannon-fire
While rain in giant torrents poured

But in his room, the prince just yawned
all tucked up in his feather-bed
With perfumed pillows made of silk
and cherubs swirling overhead

He did not think about the storm
or all the soaking serfs outside
The only thing he cared about
was how to bag himself a bride

And though he'd travelled far and wide
he could not find a maid to wed
For each of them just paled beside
the bride that lived inside his head

This girl she had to be, you see,
a "real" princess of bluest blood
Whose lineage stretched back until
that misty age before the Flood

He'd hunted her as if she were
the greatest prize a man could snag
To mount upon his wall just like
a roe deer or a trophy-stag

But still he went to bed alone
until he grew so tired he swore
He would not wed a real princess
unless she knocked upon his door

                ACT TWO

Well soon that knock came loud and clear-
so loud the prince fell out of bed
And there she stood inside the hall
a real princess, or so she said

Her hair was dripping wet and yet
it shone as bright as leaf of gold
And like a young gazelle she was,
though blue and shivering with the cold

She seemed a Tudor miniature,
with such a sweet and pearly face
It was as if a jeweller's hand had
set each feature in its place

But when the Queen came rushing down
to view her through her gold lorgnette
The girl twitched like a butterfly
ensnarled in an explorer's net

This queen she seemed to be the kind
you find in children's fairy-tales
A stiff, white ruff around her neck
and bony hands with claws for nails

A Gorgon in a diadem
with beady eyes and puffed-up hair
A dowager who could have turned
a man to stone with just one stare

And glaring through her opera-glass
with eyes of bloodshot sapphire-blue
She fixed the girl as if she were
A beast to gawp at in a zoo

"But is she real?" the old queen asked
she seemed to think the girl might be
An ignis fatuus or a ghost
and even poked her, just to see.

And so the royals hatched a plot
to see if she was who she said
They'd let the princess stay the night
and hide a pea inside her bed


                ACT THREE

The old queen led the princess through
a labyrinthine corridor
With peacocks staring from the walls
and tigers sprawled across the floor

Then showed her to a cosy room
with tapestries hung all around
A fire was popping in the hearth
and mossy rugs lay on the ground

The weary princess looked about
at all the gilded finery
The mirrors and the silk divans
the crystal and chinoiserie

And there, beneath the rafters, she
could see a bed piled up so high
With mattresses and blankets that
it seemed to tower to the sky

You'd think it would have been a dream
to lie on such a comfy heap
Instead the princess stirred all night
and did not get a wink of sleep

              ACT FOUR

But in the morning when she rose
and grumbled of her wakeful night
The prince seemed not to care a jot
and viewed her with a strange delight

"I've never tossed and turned so much
I'm black and blue," the princess said
"It seemed that something razor sharp
was trapped beneath me in the bed"

"A real princess! " rejoiced the queen,
for only a princess could be
Kept up all night for something quite
as trifling as a garden pea

The girl looked sheepish for a while
and then she said, "I must confess
I'm not, nor have I ever been,
what one could call a real princess.

I told you both a lie for I
was fearful if I did not say
That I was born of royal stock
you would have sent me on my way

The Queen turned pale and stared aghast
then viewed the girl through narrowed eyes
"You're nothing but a fraud!" she hissed
"A lowly peasant in disguise,"

            ACT FIVE

"But what is in a name?" the girl
asked, rising proudly to her feet
"That which we call a rose by any
other name would smell as sweet"

"The treasures that a person has
are not a measure of his worth
And he may be a king though he
is but a man of simple birth."

"Indeed, she's right," the prince agreed
"Who cares if she's of royal stock?
This talk of keeping bloodlines pure
is just a load of poppycock."

Besides this girl is more refined
than any royal I have met
She has no gems or castle for
a princess she is not... and yet

Her hair shines like a diadem
her eyes like jewels of emerald green
With her, for sure, I could fall more
in love than I have ever been."

                EPILOGUE
And so the two of them were wed....
much to the chagrin of the Queen

When sun hangs low and Rome is swathed
in faded gold on winter days
Like Nero creeps the hooded night
To set the dimming skies ablaze

The Emperors now seem no more real
than painted figures on a page
Than onyx head on cameo
or villain strutting on a stage

Those tyrants with their pleasure boats
their marble spas and saffron pools
Who smothered guests in flower drifts
and set their palace walls with jewels

Who lazed in frescoed gardens filled
with citrus fruit and roaming beasts
And gorged on grapes and peacock brain
while hosting wild and lavish feasts

Their temples walls and aqueducts
still stand upon the Hills of Rome
But now they bear a jaded air
like moulderlng golden honeycomb

And so we build our citadels
and rich make fortress of their wealth
But none can halt the March of Time
that sieges all with lichen-stealth

Indeed it matters not if one
is born patrician or a slave
When even those who don the purple
face the shadow of the grave

Their palaces are relics now
once gleaming bronze is stained with rust
While pillars crumble, marble cracks
and flow'ring Empires turn to dust

And 'midst this splendour and decay
I think of all that once was mine
Of ruins and the sighing pine
as sun sets on the Palatine

With velvet slipper, wing of gauze
And robe of black and yellow plush
The Queen hoards treasures in her home
Enough to make a pharaoh blush

And here she lolls and dines upon
her jelly and her pollen cake
Inside a tessellated hive
like something Byzantines would make

The foragers are on their rounds
and as the yawning flowers unfold
They let the bees buzz in to load
their gleaming freight of powdered gold

They've flown their fusty catacomb
to breathe the air of perfumed bowers
To haunt the velvet labyrinths
and silken chambers of the flowers

And once inside, they feast upon
each tiny toothsome nectary
For nectar is the stuff of Gods-
A taste of Immortality

While in her home, upon her throne
the Queen sits fearing an attack-
It won't be long, she knows, until
her workers stab her in the back

For though she lives a gilded life
of bee-bread and of honeycomb
More intrigue swirls within her walls
than in the courts of Ancient Rome

To budding trees and bubbling birds.
and to the river's breathless gush.
I'll take the faerie stasis of
a winter landscape's snowy hush.

I've turned into the Queen of Snow.
a furnace could not kindle me-
A glacier rustling through my veins.
a crystal where my heart should be.

I brought this winter on myself.
here soundless snowflakes fill the air.
I watch them from my tower of ice.
and play my games of Solitaire.

I once lived just for Sturm und Drang.
for swirling leaves and driving rain.
But then I tired of autumn and.
the maelstrom raging in my brain.

One minute feasting with the Gods.
next, staring into the abyss.
And so I stopped and froze the clocks.
for I could stand no more of this.

I turned the fountains all to quartz.
lay pavé frost upon the floor.
Heaped piles of snow up to the eaves.
hung icy daggers from my door.

And so I pray the sun will not.
unlock the rivers from their sleep.-
They lead to far-off places and.
their waters are so very deep.

I cannot face the Springtime now.
In all its beauty and its pain.
The dove would lure me to the wood.
and I would have to live again.

That afternoon in Greece, I thought,
a sea-nymph hid in every cave,
That I might spy a Hydra or,
Poseidon on an emerald wave.

For here there was the kind of air,
that blew like perfume through the mind.
And like the lotus made you dream,
and want to leave the world behind.

There were so many things to see,
an infant I was not and yet,
I felt just like a child as I,
beheld the strange new alphabet.

I took a pomegranate, and
I slit the hard and sturdy rind,
As memories of a tale I'd read,
came flooding back into my mind.

And while  I held the bleeding fruit,
I put its rubies to my lips,
And thought of poor Persephone,
who ate the pomegranate pips.

I wondered if I,too,might end,
up in a palace underground,
With Hades for a husband as,
the shadows followed me around.

The golden hour had faded now,
and day was drawing to a close,
The rooftops and the gleaming domes,
were bathed in amethyst and rose.

And once the night-time had arrived,
I sat beneath a giant moon,
And stared up at the firmament,
where all the diamond stars were strewn.

The world became my Nursery,
the Moon a Pearl hung from a thread,
And comets were but glitter as,
they rustled softly overhead.

The constellations came to life,
like sparkling creatures of the air,
I saw the flash of Perseus' sword,
Medusa's wriggling serpent-hair.

And from my Cradle now I gazed,
around myself with childlike eyes,
And stared in breathless wonder as,
a shower of perseids lit the skies.

I turn the towering  wave to quartz
I pin the painted.butterfly
And freeze the arching rainbow in
the dark-room of my Inner Eye

For not in meadows or the wood
nor strolling 'neath the breathing bower
It is in memory that I
distill the attar of the flower

The living lily wilts and dies
the evening fades and sunsets pass
and instants flutter from my grasp
as gold dust through an hour glass

And while the tuberose Is sweet
its scent is sweeter still, I find,
When wandering hidden byways in
the sunken gardens of my mind

Here through the prism of my dreams
My daylight visions crystallise.
Like relics trawled from turbid seas
now all is clearer to my eyes.

I see a jungle in my dreams.
of treepie and of parakeet.
Where water-flowers are big as plates.
the mangoes pulpy, gold and sweet.

Here serpents shimmer in the grass.
and view their prey with gimlet eye.
While killer dragonflies swoop down.
like turquoise daggers from the sky.

And as the battle rages on.
the monkeys squawk, the wild cats growl.
And midst the orchids and the vines.
a panther goes upon the prowl.

Some Bible-reading people say.
the trees, the flowers the beasts, the brook.
Exploded into being like.
the pictures in a pop-up book.

And when they see a beast with jaw.
as fine-tuned as a workman's tool.
Chimeric-antlered stag, or bird.
with plume of pearl and eye of jewel.

They claim that all this beauty must.
be fruit of some celestial Mind
That, like a timepeice worked by cogs
their every facet was designed

But where is the All-Seeing Eye?
this jungle shows no sign of Him
Here many fish get swallowed whole
and deer dismantled limb from limb

And how can we believe that God
would let the aeons pass before
He made an insect or a flower
or wrought a single dinosaur?

Now when I dig into the ground
amidst the fossil and the bone
The creatures of the past are there
asleep within their world of stone

They tell a tale as precious as
a seam of gold inside a rock
For from their dark and dusty realms
the secrets of the Earth unlock

This back-stage world is not for me.
why spend in shade the fleeting hours..
While out there lies a sunlit stage.
where I can roam among the flowers?
So in the morning when I view.
the cold and leaden light of day..
My mind departs this drizzling isle..
and takes the road to Mandalay.
Now in the dawn the city looks,
with all the silver mist that shrouds..
The gold pagodas and the trees,
as if it floats among the clouds..
While fairy bluebirds fly about.
I feast on spiky dragon fruit.
And smell sweet frangipani trees.
that line the dusty, winding route.
Once ivory men in palanquins
were ferried round upon this street.
While natives toiled in paddy fields.
and sweated in the summer heat.
Those far off days when Englishmen.
would go out in the midday sun.
And wander 'round exploring jungles
with a handglass and a gun.
And though upon the Empire now.
the sun has well and truly set.
Those times I spent in Mandalay.
are ones that I cannot forget.
I still recall the stifling air
that in the day hung thick as musk.
And how the temples on the hill
would shimmer in the purple dusk!
And when I lie and dream at night
the temple bells they seem to say.
"Come you back you, British soldier
Come you back to Mandalay.

When I awake and see the fields
and flowers bathed in drops of dew
And all the world is basking in
the pearly lustre of the new

Then when the air is shimmering and
the winds are blowing from the south
With peaches so delectable
they melt like honey in my mouth

'Neath skies as blue and cloudless as
a vault of lapis lazuli
I think of sparkling oceans and
a thirst begins to grow in me

For I have dreams of setting off
aboard a giant sailing ship
And gliding down to Greece to see
the wood nymphs take their morning dip

A languid aura there like mist
weighs heavy on the flowers and trees
And every persimmon is sweet
as fruit of the Hesperides

Then on to Istanbul to see
the ruins in the scorching heat
And cool off 'midst the pillars in
the dripping cisterns neath the street

To sigh beside the Bosporous
beneath a giant yellow moon
And roar off down to Cappadocia
in a painted silk balloon

And where, if not to Persia when
the palace gardens are in bloom?
^Where fountain water tastes of rose
and where the air is like perfume

Then to the dunes of sifted gold
upon those parched Arabian lands
Where camels bear their loads of silk
across the sprawling desert sands

Where merchants trade in tea and jade
and pearls of finest orient
Enticing travellers to their tents
with jars of rich Arabian scent

And so I look towards the East
as yet another day is born
Before me, rising from the sea-
the gleaming palace of the Dawn

All fruit is sweet as marzipan
and seraphs carol just for me
Each brook sings like a silver lyre
and finches trill in every tree

Life is a cloth embossed with gold
and even through the blackest rains
No rainbow seems too hard to reach
for ichor courses through my veins

Those daedal thoughts flow thick and fast
like honey from mosaicked hive
The world's a Garden of Delights
I burst with joy to be alive

And now it starts, the skyward flight
slow at first then gath'ring pace
Just like a breathless fairground ride
that sends me whirling into space

And on my climb to crackling sun
I glimpse a gilded paradise
That sphere aswirl with cherubim
and full of riches without price

But like hot-headed Icarus
who thought that he would try his luck
I, too, fly straight towards the sun
and all my feathers come unstuck

Then rainbows smash like Roman glass
and splinters ****** all around
My head aswarm with twinkling stars
as floating castles hit the ground

That plump brocade I once called life
is torn asunder at the seams
Now all I wish to do is sleep
and quench my thirst in lethean streams.

The country is awash with flowers
on every *****, in all the dells,
The hedgerow with its ivory stars
its golden cups and sapphire bells

Yes, summertime is here once more
that warm and lavish, golden place
Where buzzing things with pearly wings
come flying straight into your face

Now jasmine scents the alleyways
I breathe the sweetness of the grass
And see the world with winsome eyes
like Alice through the looking glass

Those pollen grains that make you sneeze
are but a kind of faerie *****
And every dandelion- head
looks like a feathery powder puff.

While in the bushes now i hear
the sound of elfin industry
That droning like a distant saw
that is the music of the bee

I long to see a garden so
towards the flowers now i go
I view them as if gazing through
the peephole of a raree show

I peer into the damask boudoir
of a rose and there I spy
a ladybird so miniscule
it seems a beadlet to my eye


Then watch a dragonfly upon
the ruffle of a peony
as dainty as a painting from
some distant Chinese dynasty

At last I see the creature rise
as if a jewel had taken flight
And shimmer like an opal as
it flashes past my line of sight

And so I hope to always look
about this world with childish gaze
And notice treasures such as these
on balmy, golden, summer days

Amidst those dark, uncharted times,
when leaders locked the planet down,
A stag leapt from his woodland home,
and took a trip around the town.

In centuries past, this centre was,
the verdant playground of the deer,
A meadow of Elysium,
and fragrant flowers blossomed here.

This stag, of gentle-footed step,
was full of soft-eyed majesty,
In fustian coat with, on his head,
a crown of rugged ivory.

And tall and strong and slow of gait,
just like an emperor he trod,
Along that concrete boulevard,
where once the kings of France played God.

In days of old they would, no doubt,,
have hung him on a palace wall,
While courtiers dined on quail and swan,
inside some sumptuous, draughty hall.

But now it was as if he were,
upon a glittering victory march,
As we, the vanquished, watched him stride,
beneath the vast, Triumphal Arch.

And gazing on the silent street,
I felt about to burst as I,
Stared like a parrot from a cage,
at laughing birds all breezing by.

That sticky prickly sickly sun
it is the source of life i know
But everywhere I go it sits
in ambush like some fiery foe.

This sun it makes me hold my breath
and dazzled by the shimmering light
I cannot wait then to exhale
in limpid gardens of the night

And so like sunburnt labourer
returning from the fields, I crawl
Away from scorching brick and stone
to chilly church or marble hall

Or else I seek the velvet plush
of mossy woodlands strewn with dew
Where frogs take baths in icy pools
and violets blossom far from view

But when the winds begin to rise
I soon forget the fires of hell
With thunder rumbling low, I walk
as if beneath a magic spell

And like those dancing figures
that you find within a Grecian frieze
My skirt begins to float as if
upon some preternatural breeze

The park, a halcyon cloister now
so far from brutish summer heat
I stroll past pomegranate trees
and watch a blue winged parakeet

Then clear as water from a font
bright drops of rain begin to fall
And bless the parched and yellow leaves
the pomegranates, birds and all

I breathe a sigh of sweet relief
the struggle now is at an end
The winds caress me smooth as silk-
the sunlight has become my friend

Too often when the clouds have come
to bring their storms and gushing rain
I seek that world of childhood days
the faerie orchards of my brain

Where skies are painted cobalt blue.
and pears grow thickly all the year
Where southern winds blow cool and sweet
for climes are ever clement here

But winter days are over now
I stumble, tired-eyed, from the dark
towards the misty morning light
the sleepy kingdom of the lark

Like buds my waking eyes unfurl
I smell the honey on the air
As petals flutter from the trees
around my head and on my hair

My nerves, as roots in frozen soil,
have broken from their sheaths of ice
And now I view with heightened joy
spring's flowery bird-filled paradise

And in the trees it is as if
I find on every slender twig
A twittering finch, a lemon or
a fragrant cherry blossom sprig

Cool as a deity I roam
this airy temple of the Spring
Before the savage summer heat
starts setting fire to everything.

You breathed a furnace on the town.
and made a desert of the street.
The oleander withering.
as asphalt cracked beneath my feet.


Our Lady gazed down from the wall.
it was as if she pitied me.
As cool and cloistered as a pearl,
beneath her marble canopy.

The air hung thick and filled me with.
such tension that i nearly burst.
And worst of all I could not quell.
this deep and dusty-throated thirst.


There rose a fountain in the square,
It only made my stomach sink.
For even Neptune in his bowl,
was parched without a drop to drink.

And here the birds refused to sing.
The statues all were blind to me.
No starry jasmine on the stem.
no honeyed fruit upon the tree.

But then at once the sky turned grey.
a halcyon breeze began to rise.
As drops of diamond rain appeared.
and fell like manna from the skies.

Now silver trickled through the streets
a bird shook opals from his wing.
While gurgling fountains brimmed with pearl.
and all the world began to sing.

And then that scent of earth and sky!
That bracing mix of soil and rain
That made me think the deities
had joined us on the mortal plane

I'd sit in church, on rainy nights
with gargoyles gurgling at the door
And dream that I was setting sail
towards some warm, uncharted shore

I'd leave this land of unbaked clay
of plodding cow and dreaming spire
Where flowers are wan and fruits are sour
and where the heart is without fire

For realms where colours pierce the eye
where rainbow parakeets parade
And peacocks sweep the jungle floor
with starry plumes of bright brocade

Where silent tigers skulk around
in painted orange velveteen
And fix their prey through lacquered leaves
with eyes of flashing tourmaline

Here everything is huge, as if
beneath a magnifying glass
The flaming, angry flowers poke
and lick and stab you as you pass

And in this great Promethean kiln
where lifeless clay was given breath
The spiders spar, the mantis prays
and tigers tussle to the death

No place for salon-cloistered swans
who glide around all dewy-eyed
In some Imperial hookah-dream
and never see the world outside

While I...I long to see it all
the light, the squalor and the mire
the lotus rising from the mud
the dark, the splendour and the fire!

She lived beneath the spuming waves,
A crown of pearls atop her head,
And like a pearl her limpid face,
Her lips of fiery coral-red.
Her palace was a sunken cave,
With scalloped roof and amber walls,
While golden-paved and turquoise-domed
Were all the dark, rococo halls.
The candlesticks, the marble busts,
The amphorae and frozen clocks,
Were spoils from all those star-crossed ships,
That came to grief upon the rocks
And when the moon beamed through the waves,
She dreamt of life upon the land,
Of painted birds and pungent flowers,
Of honeyed fruits and sunbaked sand.
She pictured there a gorgeous prince,
His eyes like shards of peridot,
A youth with hyacinthine locks,
And raiments of forget-me-not.
But when she woke, she knew that she,
Would never tread upon the land,
Nor smell the flowers, nor taste the fruit,
Nor kiss her lover on the hand.
And as she held this solemn thought,
That they would always be apart,
She felt as if an icicle
Had struck her squarely in the heart.