"aylward" poems
A bird hovers his heart
Like a flower opening up into happiness.
©Jack Aylward
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
Flipped in the oven sun, arched like a bow
They jumped one by one
As they found their own way through the thick foam
Of the falls of Shinn
Where the rushed and glided
Flying through the air
Like dolphins in the cool
Seas of Firth Of Forth;
Trying to find home
As the ice broke free.
Sitting on the cold rock
I feel the slime,
I feel my face burn with stinging
Coldness from the water spray
As I watch them leap
Into freedom.
I also escape...
Drinking my souvenir whiskies
From my 1970's
Led Zeppelin satchel.
Above me people snap shots with their flash
Cameras
As they rise like the sun.
Children laughing and feeling happy
Except one who wants to go home;
My brother who wants to watch TV!
Right next to him was the most beautifulest girl
I've ever seen.
Rainbows were in her auburn hair
Burning with autumn sun,
Blossoming with winter snow drops.
Her hair was like the river itself.
Her eyes were as green as the four leaf
Clover I held in my hand.
Maybe I was lucky to be in love.
Her eyes for that very second floated into mine
As she smiled
And I smiled back.
God how much I wanted to kiss her.
She was utterly beautiful.
But in that very instant she was gone
And I was never to see her again....
In the autumn light
Showering shadows
Were starting to collect crystals
In the melted waters below
And the gold is beginning to spread
Upon the leaping salmon.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
We made music
For the dawn birds
And watched the sunrise.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 10:32 AM UTC
Mind of power
Controls the crippled bodies dying; burnt
By the sun. Hung by a far-reaching cold iron chain;
Ringing with bursting, thrusting pain;
Where the eyes are tissues of penetrating darkness that turns into tortured dreams.
You can still hear the screams,
The muttering, the mumbling, the confessions of the innocence that learnt
The sufferings and sorrow of evil. I lay a flower
Into blood and left it to float upon a river of ***** leaving
A stream of pneumonia, a stream of the plague that
Left the pungent smells of perfume dying.
I watched their estranged faces, their eyes still crying.
Bodies lie still awakened in trench like beds; lying flat
On their backs as they left their loved ones grieving.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 6:28 PM UTC
The u-turn of uninterrupted talk
Falls short before the midnight hour
And through the remembrances
The hushed
Echoing of a printed face smiles
Among the old and new.
But only you know he has gone,
For your heart is broken
And thrown about the room
Where your old man's chair sits alone....
Where you once shared
A laugh and a joke,
A tear and a smoke,
A kiss and a hug,
A poem and a mug
Of tea,
(With a wee dram of Glenmorangie)
On a cold night
By the firelight,
Reading Frost
- 'The Grindstone'
In candlelight,
Listening to Django Reinhardt's
'Crazy Rhythm'
On the radio
As it beats out a frenetic system
Of notes that runs and parts
Into segments of your mind.
Now you are on your own,
You sit back to find
What you have lost....
©Jack Aylward,
July 2013
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 5:34 PM UTC
Pink caress
Your lips
Press
Together
To kiss
Upon mine.
©Jack Aylward,
28/9/15
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 12:00 AM UTC
The willow stood flower-like as a star.
The birds were like a choir following thy
Mellowed tune
As I whistled through the light winds in the air
And the meadows were green with mint and clover.
In the center laid a carpet of buttercups
Exploding with vibrant shades
Of purple primroses.
The blue sky crawled
And dripped onto the leaves
Where the green cadmium leaves of the willow
Were lifted and bounded in my soul.
The cleavage of the hands
That sing may hold the dust
From the clouds above
But the remembered memory is left alone
As the tightening of the roots
Gathers me together;
Finding the tune that embraces him
Enfolding him into a wandering dove.
Happy thoughts I had
When I slept at night
Upon a branch
Making faces with the moon
Listening to the willow
Whistling, humming
With its harmonic beat
In G Major.
But now summer has blown away;
It is gone forever.
In deciduous opening
When leaves had fallen
Like my youth
Before it drifted away;
I had vacant memories and happy
Pictures of childhood days
Where I had been alone
And wrote swiftly with pen and paper.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 7:36 PM UTC
TILL AIR, TILL BREATH
KISSED THE MARGIN OF MY LIPS.
TILL SOFT, TILL WARM
THE SPICES OF POT-POURRI
CLASHES TILL SOFTENED HANDS
TOUCHING MY FACE, STROKING MY HAIR.
HER VIOLENT PASSION FOR LOVE
EMPTIED IN THE CANDLELIT ROOM
TRANSPARENT WITH ECLIPSED HEARTS
MANY WITH ROMANTIC FIRES
MANY DEEP AND ELOQUENT;
EACH MATCHING THE COMPLEXION OF HER FACE.
THE COMBINED ATTENTION OF MY HEART
ARTISTICALLY MET WITH HER HAIR
FULL WITH MULLED CHERRIED WINE
LAVENDER, STRAWBERRY, GINGER AND VANILLA
AS THE SCENT
FROM THE CANDLES
ESCAPED THERE.
©Jack Aylward
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 7:11 PM UTC
She lay next to me.
Her hair like sand
As it sifts through my hand.
The perfumes of her hair
Are coming from the sea
Out there;
Out there where the sun
Burns its ****** flame
And settles to rise
In the oceans of Michelle's eyes.
Undone
With lace and pearls she plays her little game
Teasing and taunting me with the beauty
Of her body; she embraces me with kisses as waves copulate on the sea.
©Jack Aylward
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 6:30 PM UTC
We fold together like paper.
Our hearts beating;
Breaking and twisting open
Love's ***** dome.
With flight our minds
Melt words in pools of autumn sun
As we carve our initials in wood.
Our shape flits
Like butterflies
As we lie wet and naked
Moving together in heat.
Floating like lillies,
Like rose petals
Descending down the riverbank.
©Jack Aylward
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 7:10 AM UTC
Clear like a pearl of magic,
This silver eye
That looks down at us
In a world of it's own understanding
Makes love with the sun
When they come together
To embrace.
The moon is like a globe of love;
A synagogue of peace.
God's eye watching over us,
Keeping us safe.
God's face admiring us
With our beauty
As we act on his stage.
The moon is like a woman's breast,
Her heart, her soul,
Her eye, her womb,
Her ******
The sun burns with ****** desire
When the sun and moon come to kiss;
They become locked
In an eclipse of fire.
Mysterious
Like a blanket,
Like a golden fleece
The sphere of the moon sweeps across the sky
Like a quiet dream;
Floating like a ghost.
Wandering in jolting movements
As it sits in it's black watery hell.
As the moon sits
On a layer of haunting past,
Beauty, myth and adventure
It discovers the wilderness of ourselves.
It watches us making love,
It watches us when the world
Is at an end in war
And terror.
It confronts it with love and peace
And when we are in need of love,
Comfort and help
And his friends: the stars
Are at rest
He finds his own way of knowing
Where we are....
For those people who suffer the most
Are given hope,
Love and freedom.
And when the romantic moonlight spreads across
The lawn with silver shadows
It gives us pleasure of dreaming in silence....
©Jack Aylward
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 4:10 PM UTC
Often, one young in ripened youth will fall in love
With such a glowing heart to flutter at fair
Red lips, to meet and touch another sensitively enough,
To look and dream in eyes so rare,
Turning to take the others' hands
Floating as a stream into trickling tears
Like a flower with dew on finest strands.
Their golden hair, caught by the luminous moon, appears
Now mirrored like their own reflected faces
Beaming, following each other in each other's dream,
Understanding the beauty and innocence that graces
Where they meet in a startling gleam.
Entering a non-ageing youth of whispered time
The lovers' hearts entwine to rhyme.
©Jack Aylward
(Published in the Scotia Review magazine, no.24 edition, Summer 2001).
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 4:38 PM UTC
Our lives are in embers
But we still cut
Still fold
Still burn;
Ignite
With old flames.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
********** in the morning
Of the first moon;
We make harvest
For the future.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 7:30 AM UTC
The morning light is everywhere.
The soft frost
Is new
And the grass
Is crunching under my cold bare feet.
The trees; naked
Seem to walk
Leaving their shadows
Across the meadows.
I chase them
Across a little burn
Of running water.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 7:10 AM UTC
Anything goes
Whether your an in and out writer
Waiting to be put back inside
The loony bin.
Or a poet on suicide watch
Or an actor looking for ***
Or a ********** wanting to
Become a teacher.
Or a nun smoking dope
Or the alcoholic pope who
Is on the run for ******
Or the racist who works
For the salvation army
Or the Antichrist
Who is the local vicar.
Anything goes
Whether the Prime Minister
Is really a loner and drunkard
Or the ******* who wants
To become a Buddhist.
Anything goes
Whether I am a somebody
Who wants to be a nobody.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 9:49 AM UTC
A velvet leaf of clover; green
As vivid grass
Is blowing in an
Apricot breeze
Near a stream
Of pollinated hay.
Luck is long as a drifting current
In the water
And the clover
Is a brooch
Near a felt sky.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 9:20 AM UTC
Tonight we
Held hands
Like we did
On the Sabbath
Sunday noon
Tonight we
Dipped our feet
In the moon-lipped
Pool
Tonight we
Pressed our bodies together
Like the eclipse of the sun
And moon
Tonight we
Danced a thousand sonnets
To our pagan stone Gods
©Jack Aylward
15/1/13
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 5:55 PM UTC
If you love
Romance
And beauty
You will remember
Me
- The one
Who touched
Your heart
Like no other.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 9:27 AM UTC
Each memory
Holds your breath....
I will never forget
The touch
Of your tongue
Of many adventures
Kayaking
Down the river
Of my mouth;
The solar eclipse
Of our copulating lips.
©Jack Aylward,
20/2/14
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 9:00 PM UTC
I have settled and grown up
Here as a child where the
Garden is full of flowers and fruit
And the river is a rainbow.
The smell of peat fires in the morning
And warm crusted bread wafts
Slowly down the lane.
Wooden crates full to the top
With apples, pears
And strawberries
Are left outside the front porch
Ready to be brought
Into the cottage
Where the juices fall
Into an outstanding
Fruitfulness.
Roses hang still over the river and blossom
Into wine
Where also in the garden of light
Bullfinches, sparrows,
Chaffinches sing
And daisies and buttercups lie
In a sweltering sun
Of perfumed heat.
Over and over the green hills
I look down into the deep valleys
Where lakes are flavoured with
Pineapples and waterfalls
With damsons.
The garden of apricot jams, willows
And lily ponds open and spread
Their tasteful colour in an
Orchard of beaming texture and an
Opening of real wonder.
In our thatched white cottage
Smoked hams saturated in salt and fat
Sit above the crackling log fire
And the rooms are filled with gloominess.
A particular charm drifts through
The place from the
Warm glowing fire.
- Oh how the light passes through the
Whole house and how each window
Is a copy of glittering diamonds
That spreads
Across the musical garden of bells
And down onto the cobbled path
Where the geese
Flap their feathered gowns and fly off
Into the blue mountains
Where their
Feathers fall into the sun.
Cider is drunk by the gallon
From cider presses
And the fragrant
Ingredients are a special delight
Not to mention what it does
To the mind afterwards
As we drown happily
Upon the grass
Reading poetry
Or kissing our lovers soft lips
Under the shade of the trees
There the dove calls from the tree tops
Where our earthly hearts are scattered
And nearby a rose closely shimmers
In an azured wood.
©Jack Aylward
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 8:24 PM UTC
Tonight
My dog and I embraced
For the last time
Under the quiet
Of moonlight.
Man and dog
Friends
For life;
We will always
Love each other.
©Jack Aylward,
25/10/15,
22:00pm
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 6:01 PM UTC
A single feather
Floats into the lost
Darkness.
Naked and silent;
Free in flight.
A swan
Makes way
To my opened window
Which had broken
The moon's reflection.
Snowflakes drop
Forming a standstill
Of life....
Love had melted
Its touch
As my fingers curl
Through the softness
Of the swans white feathers.
©Jack Aylward
Aug 17, 2015
Aug 17, 2015 at 7:53 PM UTC
This wind blows like steel
From the cotton fields
Across my backyard.
My hand holds a cold metal
Object.
It is sharp,
Shiny
But old.
Its a picture frame
Holding a memory
Of youth, love, and happiness.
- I am old and alone now.
©Jack Aylward,
28/11/11
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 1:04 PM UTC
Lights lie flashing their sirens with the opening of the dawn;
In the sun streaked streets the artists mix their
Painted faces with oiled pigments;
The dusts of the streets, the dust of the leaves that burn with
The cold and rust with the heat disperse with
The knotted storms that rope the
Blazing frosted earth that lies there forever escaping into air.
Luminous yellow and flamed coloured red are streaming like
The moon and sun reversing and crossing each
Other in a street of luminous people
Where the warmth of great passion hangs in perfumed bottles,
Where people are beautiful in their young
Youth, people arranged like flowers
Burning with ripened love, soft and delicate in innocence.
The Eiffel Tower, the pinpoint of our dreams lies open as a free
Flamed metallic torch that ferments with its iron
Emotions; an almost Romanesque
Renaissance coloured with the Millennium stars that rocket into
The sky then stay for a while turning into dust
And becoming our ashes as we
Summon on again to the fires of our morning lovers we had left.
©Jack Aylward
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 4:15 PM UTC