Not a rock
carved smooth ovate
immutable in ossified intent

but an egg
quiescent peacock hues
hatching in YOUR imagination

Cast in amber shadows
Slow the thick light gathering
Slow the evening’s long embrace
The moon’s sigh soft in the clouds
And drifting down
Stardust showers us

In the shadows time’s passage
These stardust mountains and valleys
This end of eons, far from the stars
At the far side of the turning wheel
In amber shadows end the day

Once two vast stars danced
Together their heavenly minuet
Burst in wild ecstasy, spinning and turning
Burst in wild ecstasy, fire and burning

Now together we dance
Slow to the memory
In each other’s arms,
Of when we were once stars!

morning air, soft,
warm and welcome as a lovers touch
summer leaves promise
almost time
almost ready

I travelled far
not counting footsteps
shapeless past not formed
by ranks of hours
yet now days to come
are measured precise
and welcome as
the needle falls

too short now
and too long
stretching home

and footsteps close
to beating hearts
to clasping hands
to sighing breath

together

sunrise skies, blue and hard as enamel,
held in place with power cable nets
pressing down like separation
holding in place my mood
as a fish frozen hard in ice

mornings with no kisses are brittle and sharp
with no hugs are cold and mineral
with no words are harsh and cutting
with no you are winter crystalised

as I walk where we walked
the imprint of your gloved hand
develops from memory like a photograph
my feet find the cadence of your footsteps
and I am warmed by togetherness like a stove

the taste of Valentines sweet on my lips
but not as sweet as your kisses

like this
your imprint in my life
footsteps in the damp sand
fills
with the incoming tide of days

we sat, you and I
not waiting but being  
like the hawk that circled above
and invisible fishes below
after the rain, in the wet
watching the empty shore.

we saw mountains
thick with green pelts of
bamboo grove and conifer;
a park on the shore
neat and clean as
a public information map;
boats and ripples
held in static snowglobe motion.

even the air was less heavy
less breathed
condensing in the mountain cool
and rolling down to us
a sundae for our souls.

I saw it in your face,
you were home,
there was nowhere more

The end of Memory
Hard and dull, matt surface
Plaster white and bitter
Tasting of no return, no reruns
Just a passing out of reach
Animate to inanimate
Clockwork spring extending

End of memory
Not forgetfulness of a Lotus eater's gape
Nor distance crowded out
With noise and meaning filling
All the gaps
The spaces left for colour and
The lines that merge in a single
Perspective point

Of memory
Gradual fading and graduation
Stutters of old strangeness
Pretences of identity
Nighttime of distant blues
Past sunsets
Or mountains drawn
Childish grey pyramids
Sinking in childish grey sands

Memory
Unspoken and
Matt and
Linear and
Lunar and
Lastly
And

faces

pressed hard against frosted glass
face shapes, indistinct
bleached of expression
distorted by breath condensed

why choose to suffer like that
frozen to the outside of distorting glass
separated by that pane
division you refuse to submit to?

when every smile is unaware
where there are no windows on the soul
who you are a concrete set

I resonate because
on this side too
there is identity, pulse,
that quiet sense of self
pushing harder into the ice
believe some locks
can be unpicked

Love weaves poetry
from two voices
defter than any poets pen
and in silence
imbued with passionate memory
my pen weaves
just an echo
backlit by Love!

Footsteps and
the whispers held in the mouths of gods
black as pine needles
old loves like mountain rocks
sculpted into shrines
that glint in sunset

paths and trails
purposes oblique
hawk cries and
the lake that sparkles in morning

Were I with you every day
I would rest in your arms
Stare up, a moonstruck hare
At a slow eclipse of hours

Were I with you every day
Soft luxury of tender touch
Prevaricate in velvet stillness
Under long clouds, long sighs

Were I with you every day
Wrapped in hibernating warmth
A nacreous glow illuminates
Outside’s lunar seas

But I am not and so
Busily I start to stitch
The quilt of my life fast to yours
Decorate this nest with coloured geegaws
Built, not just experienced
This place is ours, this place endures

sulphur rose petals
tumble in defiance of
the ghost breath breeze
suburban chintz fragments
red browns and
stained glass lead black
waltz together

shameless trees refuse
naturally dutiful blushes
cover their nakedness
with still dull echoes
of verdancy

Funa bask in the river
shadows beneath
what distortions
vague weather weaves

somehow my footsteps
seem too heavy