Let me meet you in a marbled
                                                 field of
                                                           sand...
                                      
                                                               Though
you bewitch me with clifftops hooded in emerald grass ...
                                                 Though
your sheep bleat loudly the marvel of your serenity...
                                   Though
you wait patiently beyond your lonely precipice,

             I cannot endure the eons
                                         raging against the cliffs of your security.

Every
passing year, the thunder of my broken waves
gouges deeper into your wounded coastline.
Every
rock torn from your embrace, resounds the pain of our growing rift
Every
crumbling cliffs edge dissolves the beauty I held in reverie...

                      I wound us in this way.


Let me meet you in a secluded
                                                     gentle
                                                          ­      cove...

There,
    upon quieted sands, my waves will softly stroke your skin.
There,
    the lions will laugh in cacophonous delight at our simple joy.
There,
    our worlds will dance as pebbles tumble into diamond crystals.

There, a child will listen woefully,
                                 the sea song of our love.

With eyes in contented darkness,
         With a soul filled, overflowing
                     With the power of bearing witness
                                                         ­      to this daily wonder.

Each
     breath brings her deeper into the burning core of her mind,
Each
     thought sparks the flame brighter
Each
     billowing blaze will enliven her roots, and
                                                             ­                     she will bloom.
    
      Then,
her eyes will open to a shimmering world,
glistening through tears of quiet understanding.
                     Then,
breath will guide the salt of our dance into her veins
                                  Then,
         she will dance to the song of our world.

With arms wide as eyes,
               she will embrace
                      this treasured moment  
                                 With the divinity of her mortality.

When the moment calms, she will walk solemnly through our shallows.
When my waves pull home at her ankles,
When the crystalline pebble shines brightly in her visage

she will reach with focused surrender through my water for a memento
of the love she feels so presently.

In our slow dance,
of Land and Sea,
               our love bears its fruits in tiny treasures.
In her little pocket,
                             the diamond of our love
will travel further into your heart than my waves ever could.

In this way...
                  you and I grow fonder
                                                             with every passing day.

Faces only remind you of
How lonely you are,
You say you've swam too far
Into the sea of your regrets
That I am your lifeboat
But didn't you hear
I sank long, long ago?

You've been searching
For a new home,
One that doesn't creak
Or shudder at night.
But homes are not people
And your voice cracks
As you point out
There's a welcome mat
By the front door
But I never answer
When you knock.

It's been a while since
I started attracting
Strangers with flashlights
To search me like
A haunted place.
I finally realized they
Were the ones that
Needed scaring away.

It's so odd to think,
You once told me
You saw beauty
In clifftops,
And I thought you
Were talking about
The view.

In mighty kingdoms far away
Grew an elven king, stern and wise
Whose young daughter grew in the fields
with eyes as blue as the clearest skies

Elenir, was the daughters name
who danced amongst leaves like gold
whose laughter rang like a thousand bells
whose fair skin would never grow or old

There a traveller came from mountains
and lost, he wandered beneath the trees
he drank from nameless rivers
and voyaged across the savage seas

They met under the sheets of stars
as she saved him from himself
he touched her hair, felt her voice
and till death, he stayed with the elf

His human life frayed away
After a mere blink of years
She watched and stroked his aging face
and wiped away her tears

And when he passed, she could not bear
the pain that she felt inside
the once swaying trees that danced
felt empty, old and dried

She traveled up to the clifftops
Elenir cried her lovers name
She threw herself into the raging oceans
for her life was never the same

The elven king was despaired to see
the loss of his cherished daughter
He cursed the lands
Set fire blazing
and froze the wicked waters

He hide away his treasured kingdom
and watched as the world around him burned
His soldiers pleaded, his people begged
to not leave the world so spurned

But his heartbreak was too great to deal
The world fell into darkness
and with the once-beautiful Elenirs death
the skies grew black and starless

a bedtime story*

In the distance stands a lighthouse
seeing all with cyclops eye
once a beacon, now a hollow,
dead in misted moonlit sky.

Proudly once she ruled the headland,
warning all of crag and shoal
trusted friend to salt scoured sea dogs,
smugglers caught within her glow.

Beauty lived as Keepers mistress
'till one day her love did bloom
walking clifftops with her lover
brought her ending, far too soon.

Bloodied, torn by cliff face ragged
screaming for the life she craved,
Beauty held her rounded belly
As fury deep hit waters grave.

Beauty stands alone in darkness
there above the tempest sea
bloated souls of those who perished
now her only company.

 When the moon is high above us
wrapped in rags and witching stare
Beauty stands atop the catwalk
weeds 'a winding through her hair.

This love of mine, fatally wounded,
It will wait for you in agonizing patience,
For the pages of your life to flip, right to left,
Enduring the days until you finally see who truly loves you.

This is not a boast of arrogance, but a commitment of facts;
Hands clasped together and heart restrained with crystal chains, I have walked with you through tormentuous chasms and clifftops.

I am the one for you, the only one, because all others would have blown away like straw in the wind.
No other man has seen the depths of your heart as I have.
None person has fathomed the twinkling starlight in your eyes, the portal to your glimmering spirit.

So I'll wait for you as the fires of hell hollow me within,
Burning me up, becoming tortured for your sake.
For you I will wait, to claim your heart...
To give you mine...
**For love

An ode to hospitality and the magnificence
of New Zealand’s majestic South Island.*


Pale Granite massif plummets down from snowline to Kaikoura coast
Where white waves seeth in ocean rage atop the green of dark abyss,
Below subducts Pacific plate to buckle mountain mantle’s boast
Titanic forces ****** beneath the wheeling flock of sea-tern’s hiss.

Cold winds blow from seaward swell of glaciation far to south
Where blue whales hunt the clouds of krill and ply this ocean’s constant roar
Through icy currents rich and deep resourced from white Antarctic mouth
Whence icebergs blue shall calve and drift, where seeking albatross do soar.

Frosty on this Winter morn, green rolling hills caress my eye
Deep shadows creasing valley clefts, round sunlit pastures highlit, mound.
From coastal dune transitioning to snowy mountain crags on high
The splendour of it all, my friend, entrancing me in sense-surround.

Blown red tussock streams to windward, ripples in concentric waves
Ripples in the mountain’s flank surmounting to the alpine pass.
Bastion of high country shepherd, striding forth with dog he braves,
The loneliness of isolate in isolation’s clawing grasp.

Tempest in the black beech forest thrashing leafage falls like rain
Rain in sheets cascades from clifftops, waterfalls in grand parade.
Hellish clouds embrace the fiords in hellish lightening flash refrain
Fiordland in majestic style in vaulting might of storm’s charade.

Grey light in the estuary, reflections in still water stand
Of fishing boats at wharfage in a timeless moment’s instant gaze,
Riverton in midday mode as fisherman’s coarse calloused hand
Prepares to launch beyond the spit to brave the sea, to snare the crays.

Comfort in a welcome smile, welcome in a warming fire
Luxury in the steaming sting of shower water piping hot.
Blue cod baked so perfectly with pinot noir to my desire
The sanctuary of “Land’s End”, quaintly, the very best New Zealand’s got.

Marshalg
“Foxglove”, Taranaki
25 June 2015

*“Land’s End”… An exquisite find, a very English bed and breakfast hotel located, remotely, at the very tip of southern lands end at Bluff.
A delightful discovery to complement, perfectly, the utter charm and grandeur of New Zealand’s wonderland....
The magnificent South Island.

M.

Predannack

You lean back
Into the wind
On the clifftops at Predannack
It holds your weight
You test its strength
Leaning a little further
It holds, to your Joy
It holds
Arms splayed in crucifix
T-shirt billowing at your sides
Your sturdy ankles
Planted in deep heather
I watch from a rock
At the cliff's edge
Waves **** and swirl
A death's distance below
I am swept over
By sweet chamomile
Swept over
Reeling on  dizzying scents
My heart is stopped
By the Joy you feel
For the World
We killed

These exposed moors lie shrunk
and unslaked under searing skies
yet streams in damp bushy sidings
feed thriving ferns or tall bullrushes.

Gorse scorched to unpetaled shards
of stiff pretence once bore yellow gilt
yet life dies on hot clifftops and wings
feeding fledglings seek richer harbours.

This moorland looks on ocean's plenty
as rather precocious for incessant thirst
in midsummer dirth fathers disturbance
to parental warnings of dying seed-heads.        

Unheard their dumb cries for water
when plants' burnt insides become raw.

In dark or day, with rain or burning sun,

nothing holds as pure as a mountain’s air.

When all is quiet and the day is done,

I feel so much guilt for the weight she bares.


Among me are thousands of other guests,

Her rocky flesh, we will surely consume.

Myself, the trees and the animals- pests,

worsening winter’s night till summer’s noon.


She pushes me closer to her clifftops

I peer over the edge, fearful, yet numbed.

not fearing the pain, not fearing the drop,

but fear of destiny- to which i will succumb.


For my bones will become fertilizer,

to the ever-selfless, fertile mother.

I am drunk on desperation
upon the clifftops of despair
Will I take the leap of faith?
or continue to live in fear?

Ashamed for feeling broken
I am trapped within my past
I must unravel these emotions
to truly be free at last

I want to confront this darkness
Shed some light upon this pain
Reveal the creepy shadow monsters
before they seep into my brain

Made to believe I was not good enough
is what keeps me feeling weak
I learned so young not to love myself
from the Death Mother’s critique

There's this child in need of healing
who keeps tugging at my sleeve
as I kneel to finally greet her
she softly whispers, “It’s safe to grieve.”

It is the color of her lips as she looks up at you through her eyelashes.
It is the heat running through your veins as you whirl across the dance floor.
It is the incomparable rush of bidding your sanity farewell (because one more drink wouldn't hurt, right?).

It is the taste of strawberries in the summer sun and the sound of Coke cans popping in the ocean breeze.
It is the smell of flowers growing on clifftops where most people never dare to go.

It is all you can see when you scream.

It is romance, catharsis, anger, exhilaration.
And it reminds you that you are alive.

To live and lust for purple pennies.
As upon clifftops and hillocks I stroll, reluctantly stuck.
In perfect patience, I sit and wait, dreaming of bright lights, no silence.
Dancing on starlight and raindrops of thought.
Just wearing a smile.
And so shall I wait.
(C) LIVVI