A storm is brewing in the east
and a white bird is flying high,
like the shadow of smoke
from the last fires in the moonlight,
lying crossways over the bed
on her belly in dark *******,
whatever she is dreaming
its meaning she keeps to herself.

The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
And through the bone.
Along the back of the baby tortoise
The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge,
Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections
Or a bee's.

Then crossways down his sides
Tiger-stripes and wasp-bands.

Five, and five again, and five again,
And round the edges twenty-five little ones,
The sections of the baby tortoise shell.

Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Then twenty-four, and a tiny little keystone.

It needed Pythagoras to see life playing with counters on the living back
Of the baby tortoise;
Life establishing the first eternal mathematical tablet,
Not in stone, like the Judean Lord, or bronze, but in life-clouded, life-rosy tortoise shell.

The first little mathematical gentleman
Stepping, wee mite, in his loose trousers
Under all the eternal dome of mathematical law.

Fives, and tens,
Threes and fours and twelves,
All the volte face of decimals,
The whirligig of dozens and the pinnacle of seven.

Turn him on his back,
The kicking little beetle,
And there again, on his shell-tender, earth-touching belly,
The long cleavage of division, upright of the eternal cross
And on either side count five,
On each side, two above, on each side, two below
The dark bar horizontal.

The Cross!
It goes right through him, the sprottling insect,
Through his cross-wise cloven psyche,
Through his five-fold complex-nature.

So turn him over on his toes again;
Four pin-point toes, and a problematical thumb-piece,
Four rowing limbs, and one wedge-balancing head,
Four and one makes five, which is the clue to all mathematics.

The Lord wrote it all down on the little slate
Of the baby tortoise.
Outward and visible indication of the plan within,
The complex, manifold involvedness of an individual creature
Plotted out
On this small bird, this rudiment,
This little dome, this pediment
Of all creation,
This slow one.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

I.  Father
A folded spiral delicately assembled, nestled in modernity feigning a place in nature. Round and round her made and found ingredients turn, creating a circle whose beginning and ending sit so close that they almost touch. Her circle extends far beyond the nest she is building, extends without shifting into her mother’s laden cycle. Bird, earth, man; at the extremities of their existences they are separated no longer. The old man’s limbs sit heavy, their frailty relieving them of the weight of gravity that had, in their youth, banished the wind. Quietly he sways, lost in the rhythm of terrestrial orbit that seems to beat louder with each passing day. I see the thoughts move about his stoic face, like midwinter ice-skaters whose tracks become his wrinkles and whose unraveled scarves are caught in the same current that graces his cheeks like a kiss. I think he must have found the answer for which I am still seeking the question. I think he must know that the feathered ***** of native energy that speed like backyard bottle rockets through the air and pull worms like loose threads from the fabric of our mother’s coat will see morning’s glory blossom, and drink of its sweet nectar, and that he will become those flowers and breathe their roots up from  humid soil. I do not know where he goes when his eyes close like the wooden shutters that will soon be taken from the old brick house’s covered windows to close over a more somber cradle. I know when I mimic his tacit gesture I am in the singing robin’s nest at which he so tranquilly gazes, crying to the universe from the raw cords in my fragile neck for nourishment, for some magical substance, some divinely instructive stardust that would explain to me why the leaves shake just so and why, when our brilliant star hides his smoldering stare behind curved lids, I follow suit. I am new and unrefined and awake, and I can count the days of my existence like my still-wet and vital feathers that are too young yet to catch the wind. In this place God is a burgeoning emotion in my chest that speaks to the earth’s fertility, an abundance fed by the bodies of her fallen children. I am all of this and I know that in truth the old man thinks of nothing but the glowing atmosphere that fluctuates in both temperature and hostility, but is, at this moment, swaddling his broken form like the arms of a mother he will soon reclaim. The still branches of night are so laden with stars that they threaten to snap and come crashing down on the planet that sees them only as the ripened fruit of cosmic energy. Out of the night the emancipating wings of my consciousness flourish and are carried on stronger tides to see human expiration as the agent of enduring rebirth. Flight of body and soul bridge the gap between what was and what will be, closing the circle and guiding my solemn realization to fruition. The old man sleeps amidst a shower of home and sweet ****** bird-song. The wind that fails to wake his aged form smells like beginnings.



II. Son
The man is an ocean. He is reaching out to distant shores, spreading himself so thin at the edges that people can’t see where he ends and his country begins. The boy is a buoy, caught in a tide that never stops to wonder about the things it is moving. Buoys trust the ocean because they have to, they never had a choice. The two stand soul in soul at the crossways station of anticipation. The boy is silent. “He must know the way”, he thinks. “We’ve fought this war before. It was in a dream I had. I wrapped your arms around me like a cape and gravity couldn’t tell us what to do anymore. It was raining, I thought. Now I think those might just have been your tears coming back down on me. When gravity returned that was the first thing it took. It was so easy to cry when we could pretend the distance was only physical.” In this hub of passing voices and trans-Atlantic potential fear is a wide-eyed monster pretending to be a saint, wishing to be a child.   boy leaves Siddhartha’s white and glowing temple. The temple is surrounded with iron birds like transformers let loose from the pages of his comic book, rolled and folded like a hammer in his fist. His mind is an iron kettle whistling in the dark. His changing voice walks miles with words like his father’s back pocket bullets, shouting “I loved something once. Its name was a feeling. Its hands were the way the wind feels when you’re far from home. Its loneliness was a stone tower that I’m still trying to climb.” He sings an ode to a modern ocean, oily verses of pollution and corruption sinking morals like ships to be consumed and reborn to a better earth. He calls it a lullaby. I did not hear the last note played. His father forgot to sing it before his heels turned towards the old continent.

III. Spirit
Broken colors, reassembling, slow as the breeze that wanders and mocks the stationary world. I’m caught in a metamorphosis of mind, dancing a waltz of confession towards reality. Faces have faded, have bloomed from myth to speak in mortal voices, though their tongues be made of steel. Clouds of dust, caught in stray rays of northern sun, hang low over the aquatic murk, the impenetrable field of elemental strangers, and through them appear two figures. The first, his shoulders a bit too hunched and his gait a bit to staggered to be of this last generation, traces the perimeter of the pond with a studied poise; the latter figure comes into focus as he approaches the shore. I hear him calling, asking. I know he is asking even if the language he speaks is a foreign one. He pulls from under the surface a log, bent and creased like the aged arm that reaches out to assist. I am a ghost. I observe but rest immobile as if I am alive only in essence, existing for a moment in the corpse of the past. A fly on the wall whose chiseled stones tower over this piece of eternity. There is so much of forever piled within these walls, and in a desperate search for meaning I am left to drift away on waves that crash miles above this fortress of sand and early-summer expectance. The two continue, the boy taking two steps for every one of his grandfather’s. The possibility is never brought forth that they will reach me; I am not a part of the scene unfolding, I do not hold a piece in this game. Still… the wind coaxes the breath out of my silent lips, left powerless by the immensity of the incommunicable. I’ve forgotten the boy, forgotten his red jacket and his boots that slap the mud and his legs that propel his body up and down just to hear the sound the earth makes when he lands. He is beside me. I know this like I know the location of my own two feet, currently sunk into the shaded conglomeration of dirt and fallen leaves that makes up the bottom of the inky pond. I turn and for a moment wonder if he can see me, for I am but a ghost in most modern senses of the term. But he doesn’t know that- he has yet to see death or destitution. He knows nothing of ghosts, and therefore sees me clear as the blue eyes through which he looks in wonder. Those eyes! How could I forget their inquisitive stare, whose innocent gaze stole from my image all that it could not accept, all of the melancholy reflection and grief of which it knew not. Long and long he stayed unblinking, tugging on loose threads of my being, ever unaware of their significance. Somewhere by the path-side, under trees that bow and sway his grandfather calls- his voice is heavy with a familiar tone that I am unable to identify, like the call of a bird whose name you remember only when you are asked to recall it. Old and young part, hands intertwined in their forever-dance of humanity, playing games with age and expiration, laughing at the distance as if it were only there to make the known road less hospitable. The world is still. I am a spirit, no longer a ghost, rid of darkness, at least for the time it takes to refill my lungs with the gold-spun fabric of the universe, all bluebells and stardust at this moment and forever, and exhale away.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

Grizzly bear lay on the library floor.
Just his skin, really.
The bratty kids spilling red fruit punch on him.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to the taxidermy shop with its formaldehyde odor
And jars of glass eyes.
A fat man with a dull knife
Ripping his flesh from his bones.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to when he was heaped onto the cold metal pickup bed
Piled crossways on top of two dead deer
His large head flopped on a cooler of smelly fish,
Exposed to the wind and snow
For hours.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to the moment when bullet hit bone,
When his crystal clear vision darkened.
When his mighty roar was silenced
Forever.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to the crisp fall mornings
Standing in the river
Feasting on salmon
Tall and proud
The master of his domain.

He liked being this way.
He dreamed hard to try to stay there.

Swift bee, the gilded messenger of bliss,
    Begirt with golden stars of Heaven’s span,
What draws you to the clover’s gentle kiss?
    Sweet nectars, that the strongest drinker can
    Carouse with dreams and dizzy waves of sleep,
        Or mocks the freshest breath of summer’s clime?
            Swift bee, a flame-plumed star of black and gold,
    Why do you with your mouth, completely reap
            The liquors that each golden bud does hold,
        And lulls with somnolence the might of time?

Oh, bee, you spread the tufted pollen clouds
     Like nebulae of opal stars crossways
The delicate, soft digitalis crowds,
    Which passionately garner sunbeam rays
    Within their coral shells. I can’t express
        How much your toil’s worth to coming spring,
             And how so passioned glide your wings around
    The purple, gentle harebell’s loosened dress,
             And make, through pretty hums, spring’s hopeful sound
        Oft too profaned by your most fearsome sting!

Oh, pretty hummer! Hearty worker! Bee!
    I see you roaming round the garden’s bend,
Where sweet, white daisies wreathe a canopy,
    And make you but a hearty, cheerful friend.
    Swift bee, the aching, swollen heart of mine
        Desires comfort where pain knows no ruth
            The buds hold, like rich garners golden grain,
    Ambrosia of the gods, dream’s honeyed wine
            So bring and let dear bee, such moisture stain
        My lips and warm my heart with spring’s bright youth!

i can lose myself in your eyes—



no, actually, that’s not true.



i have an excellent sense of direction

(up down around the contours of

your spine,

between the frantic pulls of

your breath,

across yet through the rise and fall of

your chest;

always with the certainty of

you)



though i do usually become waylaid by

crossways,

intersections,

and boulevards;

by unspoken daydreams,

unseen words,

and misplaced thoughts;

by the

fragile temerity

of an allusion at midnight,

and the

convenient paradoxes of

endless space

and finite time.



but you;

you, i can find.

because though i will never be quite able

to steer myself by

stars, portents, or street signs,

i can feel the way across your fingertips

as surely as any sailor

and where the

stars, portents, or street signs

direct, but do not guide

it is your warmth

that means that i will

never

get lost in your eyes.

because i’ll always be

found in your voice,

and the taste of

your touch.



and while i’ll always have to

carry a map

and still have to

stop three times to

reorient

redirect

and ask for directions,

i’m not too worried.



because lost

is a frame of mind,

and found

is a destination

that I am constantly

leaving and arriving;

an infinite loop

wrapped around

your little finger.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

Tis a full blood moon
Shining in a witches eye
The ****** winds blow crossways
As the hour draws nigh

The ghosts rattle their wispy chains
Soulless red smiling demons scream
The night of all nights the poltergeists whisper
Haunting voices that cannot be seen


Black dressed hags riding brooms star high
Cackling cast their spells
Halt the waves of time
Those who speak no more in coffins
When commanded would rise

For it’s a full red moon
In a witch’s eye.
When the creatures of darkness
Frolic round an enchanted fire

The dance of the werewolves continued
So the cold night tells
Not a single trace will ever be found
Where those of the underworld dwell


Gaze deeply into the dancing flames
But beware, careless humans,
Of that which may be seen
When orange goblins of the blood moon
Celebrate Hallows Eve

All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby Oct. 9, 2017.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

He was the glorious poem
inside my mind, the muse
in the moonlight that made
me shine, divine intellect,
sublime truth rising into the
sky, his existence on the surface
of my world.  I could feel
his touch on my lips – rejuvenating,
romanticizing, each spinning
shift captivating my soul.  
I wanted the rhythm of his
high seas to stream
into my harbor, to listen
to his luminous lyrics
stretch across the hallways
of my heart, hip twisting jams
swaying, pumping bass,
his smooth canvas an exquisite
masterpiece I envisioned opening
up to me, all bare and dripping
luscious chemistry.  To twirl
my fingers inside his dreadlocks,
inhale the starlight equations
roaming through his realm,
the broad inventions beyond
infinity, vibrant lines, reverberating
rewinds, incandescent horizons,
surprising symmetry, super basslines
slaying in various lifetimes.
His essence sifting inside my skin,
as I marveled at his glow,
his fluorescent flow, his thoughts
on the bridge of my cheeks,
his emotions on the river
of my streets.  I loved his
riveting roadmap – the stops,
exits, and side turns, blazing
crossways and steep hills,
the sudden movements in his
stance, the good loving in his
romance, the million shades
of deep brown running through
his skin, all finger-licking fresh,
thrilling fun.  His slamming
rock and roll, the good times
whirling around on the ground,
drunken brown eyes lost in dizzy
funk, his out of control spins
and turns making my muscles
rise in delight, swelling thighs,
electrifying mouth, all of me
surfing inside his vast oceans.

the ocean had disappeared
from view
probably on its coffee break

or whatever oceans do
when we
are not looking at them

the mountains were silent
now
their noses in the air

when the humans had gone
they chatted amongst themselves
wore stupid looking clouds on their heads

the littlest mountain tiptoed
nearer and nearer the ocean until:
". . .bOO!"

"God" gasped the ocean
"Ya nearly put the heart
crossways in me!"

the ocean sulked
ignoring the mountain's jeers
gazing at its own horizon

the ocean said nothing...nothing
did not even utter
a single solitary seagull

thought i was fed up of mince pies

& lost my appetite



though having the day off work today

fancied one from frozen

reduced at last to fifteen pence

as that time is well and truthfully

over



thawed

i like to place upside down to remove

the tin foil ready for recycling

then cut crossways into quarters

it looks like those tiny meat pies

goblins, from tins



i don’t eat those of course

with it being meat & vague

ingredients which would

come clear if i read the

label



i eat the little bits

with mine coffee



& think that the pastry reminds

me of the 1960’s when tarts were

very usual



without much flavour



i think most of it is none of my business

although i hear folk are getting very

heated about it all

THE SEASIDE'S DAY OUT



the ocean had disappeared
from view
probably on its coffee break

or whatever oceans do
when we
are not looking at them

the mountains were silent
now
their noses in the air

when the humans had gone
they chatted amongst themselves
wore stupid looking clouds on their heads

the littlest mountain tiptoed
nearer and nearer the ocean until:
". . .bOO!"

"God" gasped the ocean
"Ya nearly put the heart
crossways in me!"

the ocean sulked
ignoring the mountain's jeers
gazing at its own horizon

the ocean said nothing...nothing
did not even utter
a single solitary seagull