"decanted" poems
the grass, leaning in the south wind , seeming
as if emeralds, had sent tendrils up
to suckle at the yellow breast, now, high above inflamed....
over soft new
grass
like
strands of green gemstone,
as delicate as humming-bird tongues
teasing nectar
from a titan,
in the sky
triumphant in the void,
a golden bead in the baffling blue !
cattails, curling in sway...and two brown eyes bob upon the surface
of a myriad fertilities.
as if
nature itself had known, one day
a poet would come ~
to roam the rambling renascence of these remote ramparts
in awesome humility ~ and so prepared
a path afflux
that ambled near
and yes !
an
anonymous nomad
with nicotine skin and a scabbard of scandalous quills
would indeed
stumble in as if returning home
to a mansion restored to glory
and seraphic randomness....
a place
that in youth, sustained a quiet, soulful troubadour
by gospels of granite and grain, grass finch
and faun - ennobling an oracle ... but now
enticed a scholar from his cot
to jot ephemera
of outlasting spark
before dark-fall
and so... there
amid all allurement and soft machines
a word-smith gathered
poesy and prose.
muse-driven
this one served
an invisible
sovereign
one
of unsurpassed virility
who charms kaleidoscopes
with offhand sketches
rescued
from
a landfill
a basket weaver,
that unravels to
achieve pure
forms
a wineskin was decanted in dianthus and hollies -
as ampules of anagrams
were sold unscrambled, to dyslexics
without hope
a falcon frolicked above the lowborn lilies...
with eyes
too keen
to see a
blur
as the hand
of god
or a vole
as a lifeline
on his
palm.
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 6:15 PM UTC
the grass, leaning in the south wind , seeming
as if emeralds, had sent tendrils up
to suckle at the yellow breast, now, high above inflamed....
over soft new
grass
like
strands of green gemstone,
as delicate as humming-bird tongues
teasing nectar
from a titan,
in the sky
triumphant in the void,
a golden bead in the baffling blue !
cattails, curling in sway...and two brown eyes bob upon the surface
of a myriad fertilities.
as if
nature itself had known, one day
a poet would come ~
to roam the rambling renascence of these remote ramparts
in awesome humility ~ and so prepared
a path afflux
that ambled near
and yes !
an
anonymous nomad
with nicotine skin and a scabbard of scandalous quills
would indeed
stumble in as if returning home
to a mansion restored to glory
and seraphic randomness....
a place
that in youth, sustained a quiet, soulful troubadour
by gospels of granite and grain, grass finch
and faun - ennobling an oracle ... but now
enticed a scholar from his cot
to jot ephemera
of outlasting spark
before darkfall
and so... there
amid all allurement and soft machines
a word-smith gathered
poesy and prose.
muse-driven
this one served
an invisible
sovereign
one
of unsurpassed virility
who charms kaleidoscopes
with offhand sketches
rescued
from
a landfill
a basket weaver,
that unravels to
achieve pure
forms
a wineskin was decanted in dianthus and hollies -
as ampules of anagrams
were sold unscrambled, to dyslexics
without hope
a falcon frolicked above the lowborn lilies...
with eyes
too keen
to see a
blur
as the hand
of god
or a vole
as a lifeline
on his
palm.
Sep 27, 2011
Sep 27, 2011 at 5:51 PM UTC
I'm thinking about June Acott
She died on the 18th of August, 2009
She had aged seventy-four years before her demise
That's what the bench says, anyway.
If June Acott were a wine she would be a glowing, sweet red
June Acott would be a summer wine
She would be a pricey vintage
And as she had aged the sediment would have built up
And it would have smoothed her rough edges
But maybe that wasn't enough
And maybe if she'd been decanted she would have aged seventy-five years
Or maybe seventy-six
But seventy-four is a vintage that anyone would be proud to have in their cabinet
And I hope that whoever built this memorial bench serves her all the time.
Jul 28, 2013
Jul 28, 2013 at 3:16 PM UTC
winter has crept from it's cathedral with it's blue loom of white sod
against black crows and over-coats. we awaken in our separate pause
and modify our crumpets with thin icing,
drizzled over moon faced scones -
as golden as your marmoset of port wine
and wrinkled wheels of cheese...
at a moment's notice.
you float through the open window where crescendo the crisp winds and the bacon fats
rendering in the musk of firewood, oaking the nose of the decanted day
the early hearth of heaven, now powder blushed and rustle thrum
with skylarks larking in the luminous icebox
of barely sunrise.
your eyes sparkle and my antlers score the aspen bark
on a lost acre of our thickening plot.
we love a lot.
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 11:22 AM UTC
happened upon an extravaganza of spring’s hallmark,
the cherry blossoms outing their munificence of color,
I happened to position myself direct below a tree,
the thicket
of blossoms so, well, thick, that sky was obliterated ‘cept
for pointillistic spots of blue sun, yellow sky that poked
through the
few de minimus interstitial spaces permitted, and was
struck silent, by-for-before shimmering eyes that uttered the
requisite oohs and ahhs,
and
words came to me weeks later,
when the memory, now fully decanted,
reappears
courtesy of a giant tech company’s code tinkering,
merging and splurging the combined images in the
photographic memory
of my devices,
as if to say:
your life is
points of light and color and scent
as you write now
amidst the hubbub of jackhammers, raucous horns a blaring,
the homeless screaming on the street at god,
the fatalistic headlines of hate and
the pallor of a low level haze of perp~gray
between you and your true elfin self,
and you are not surprised,
but sadly, but not entirely,
bemused
that the photo’s true utility was to
remind weeks later
that all that my eyes utter
is not just
woe, double trouble and toil, toil,
*but to Hey Jude and George,
step out and see the park on a Sunday
in its entirety and to glory in
your being
by being
a point in that tapestry spectacular
of ingestion, digestion and final comprehension and
a happy*
exhalation
May 10, 2024
May 10, 2024 at 8:06 AM UTC
winter has crept from it's cathedral with it's blue loom of white sod
against black crows and over-coats. we awaken in our separate pause
and modify our crumpets with thin icing,
drizzled over moon faced scones -
as golden as your marmoset of port wine
and wrinkled wheels of cheese...
at a moment's notice.
you float through the open window where crescendo the crisp winds and the bacon fats
rendering in the musk of firewood, oaking the nose of the decanted day
the early hearth of heaven, now powder blushed and rustle thrum
with skylarks larking in the luminous icebox
of barely sunrise.
your eyes sparkle and my antlers score the aspen bark
on a lost acre of our thickening plot.
we love a lot.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 2:59 AM UTC
these days
i look upon the weary throng and sink my teeth into the pith of dreary
but sup luscious the wrung jewel with my wet lips decanted in the mid night.
i clutch the vocal point in a deep silence and patch the quilt of our unusual tapestry
cinching the knot in our not known, knowing the difference is the same light.
i suspect the heresy of my devotion longs for pink sheets of syndrome and theory
but my church has no steeple. it merely goads hydrocephalic angels to play bingo
in the right light.
i kiss peaches where they hurt. i drive a hard bargain to drink; and I keep my worms
in apples that bob for your eyes.
but not for nothing.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 12:38 PM UTC
the grass, leaning in the south wind , seeming
as if emeralds, had sent tendrils up
to suckle at the yellow breast, now, high above inflamed...
over soft new grass
like
strands of green gemstone,
as delicate as humming-bird tongues
teasing nectar
from a titan,
in the sky
triumphant in the void,
a golden bead in the baffling blue !
cattails, curling in sway...and two brown eyes bob upon the surface
of a myriad fertilities.
as if
nature itself had known, one day
a poet would come ~
to roam the rambling renascence of these remote ramparts
in awesome humility ~ and so prepared
a path afflux
that ambled near
and yes !
an anonymous nomad
with nicotine skin and a scabbard of scandalous quills
would indeed
stumble in as if returning home
to a mansion restored to glory
and seraphic randomness....
a place
that in youth, sustained a quiet, soulful troubadour
by gospels of granite and grain, grass finch
and faun - ennobling an oracle ... but now
enticed a scholar from his cot
to jot ephemera
of outlasting spark
before dark-fall
and so... there
amid all allurement and soft machines
a word-smith gathered
poesy and prose.
muse-driven
this one served
an invisible
sovereign
one
of unsurpassed virility
who charms kaleidoscopes
with offhand sketches
rescued
from
a landfill
a basket weaver,
that unravels to
achieve pure
forms
a wineskin was decanted in dianthus and hollies -
as ampules of anagrams
were sold unscrambled, to dyslexics
without hope
a falcon frolicked above the lowborn lilies...
with eyes
too keen
to see a
blur
as the hand
of god
or a vole
as a lifeline
on his
palm.
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 1:04 AM UTC
eat me, green man
give me sweet electric snatches of
the past
writhing within my favorite intestines
lies the last vestige of love
in shallow acid waters lies
my only hope
twist my brain, please
in want to lay in insect-covered
beautiful pastel field
where They are;
creatures tear my couch body apart and
unzip my sanity
at what expense?
None, for the universe will and already has
ended
you are imagination you young ol' boy
all the anger has been decanted
from my withering figure
but He still runs along
whats left of this physical phenotype figure?
Squirming shaky awkward confused
hollow rope
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 11:18 PM UTC
My baby has taken a leave from me
My baby does not love me anymore
It's a worry the little notes on walls
It's the paperless kisses in the holes
My baby is just a long lost friend
My baby came to stormy realisations
It's a worry the trendy dreams jotted
It's the plain poetic dellusional tunes
My baby has a frown of grown horns
My baby vacated the walls of destiny
It's a lightening strike of the emotions
It's a collapse of the clouds we laid
My baby let this kiss lead to destiny
My baby let abundance ambulate
It's not what I really wanted to hear
It's decedent of the decanted time
Jan 1, 2017
Jan 1, 2017 at 3:57 PM UTC
In a faraway place and faraway time
stood square a cabin rotted pine and bramble flue.
Once haven for old crones craven - their skins thin-skinned slivers of brine;
now nary a soot line marked a witches' brew.
In the dark, swirling silver stark and creatures would quiver
held over pot-stew thither, along hymns of damning chanted.
Waggled tongues with an evil glaze would slither,
cursing in eye, toe, and liver the bubbling broth decanted.
Oh a malkin giggled and a paddock piggled;
sniggled in a mirth-marked cauldron's rubble double bubble.
With a whoosh and a swish a bony finger had wiggled,
as papery skin withered the drubble swuddle brubble.
On those blackest of nights, when wolves would fear the moon,
howls held loomed, choked on down the throat of dusk.
Hatred uttered its sleepy breath, pitch-entombed
and justice marooned under a tar most brusque.
Shadows danced incantation
for an occultish creation, oh the devil's bidding be done!
Flamed carnation, neither here nor there god-fearing,
cackling a primrose coronation; the stirring spoon spun!
Death-catcher chimes hung close upon the entry;
a dust since turn of century marred bone;
witches’ wart-encrusted noses crinkled at gentry;
chenille voices sung with celerity a hellish praise: Divinum Occultum.
A little duende ran down the cauldron,
gloom chanting a chant come out with a hurl.
Burnt feet chasing away all ghosts ‘n goblins,
unfurling like whisper from the concoction:
Doom upon all the world.
Dec 1, 2024
Dec 1, 2024 at 6:26 AM UTC
Line suspended.
Train decanted.
Commuters frustrated.
Work belated.
London isn't working.
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 4:20 AM UTC
JULIAN IS WRITING A POEM
"The thud, thud of a horse's hoof
does not alarm fish."
MIND UNDER WATER - 1883
Richard Jefferies
Fishes flee him.
They can feel his thoughts
touch them.
Here, Creux Harbour
on the Island of Sark.
Mummy fish tries not to laugh
as her little darlings dart...
It's only a poet!"
she tells her younglings
"thinking thoughts
they won't hurt you.
Julian's vibrations
pass through them.
"It's what poets do
before they turn the world into words"
The little fish listen
with open mouths.
"As far as I can tell...it's a Julian
one of the cleverest kind one can find
a man composed of equal parts
wit and charm
an all shall be well and
all shall be well type of guy."
Julian is thinking
of nothing
but horses.
Horses.
The fish don't
even get a look in.
He sees the great Shires
being swum in the harbour.
Such a magnificence
of being
decanted from land
to sea
the great hooves
treading water
free to be themselves
enjoying their day at the sea's side.
Julian is alive
with this image
the sheer
awe of it all.
The fishes think
nothing of it.
They are used to horses
galloping among them.
It's the vibrations
of the poet's thoughts
that tickles them.
"But our Mam..?""
a small fry ventures
"...there are no horses
here....and now?"
"Ahhh that doesn't bother poets
ya see...they see
both what is there and not there
or what may be!"
She quotes the great 16th century fish
"Nothing is so but thinking make it so!"
Later, at the Candie Gardens
on another island altogether
Julian sits, sips...
a double espresso.
And again.
A double espresso..
We see the words flow
onto the page
charged with the grandeur
of the great Shires
as the little fishes look on
amused at the poet's
coffee coloured thoughts.
May 9, 2018
May 9, 2018 at 2:18 AM UTC
Check the list
Are you missing it?
You know what I mean -
That feeling in between
The layers of bone,
The cage in which it's grown
But the seed was planted
In the river decanted
Flowed through so many streams
Unheard and unseen
But it was always felt
Despite the heat
It did not melt
Crashed hard reaching for the sky
It often withers
But never dies
Oct 13, 2017
Oct 13, 2017 at 1:30 PM UTC
Amorphous, dove-form, on rink;
I was once as free as the wind,
and I consider the day’s unremitting reminder:
bent light – falling flat on my dull skin.
Wryly enough, the mornings are pried open,
remorselessly, like a note discovered obsolete in secret
gaps: why would such unopened unraveling
be secret? A persistent memory?
I gaze by the barricade, children fluttering
almost in flight at the city center’s space,
possibly conjuring themselves up as birds
or words freed – such scene requires several audiences,
whereas adjacently crooked, I stare inanimately,
which requires no spectator, possibly dreaming
a shadow, an old man wiping his reading glass clean,
or the squalor of the heart decanted in the heat of transitories;
acute on the night-watch, I will rejoin them
like old haunts finding new-fangled skin to scar.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 1:50 PM UTC
we're brothers in flesh
disjointed in mind
allah is all together
all the gods refined
distilled and decanted
the measure the bind
the empty glass is more full
than the headiest wine
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 2:14 PM UTC
The day is hallowed
A fresco croft of Sunday shire
made Gabriel in stallion- manes,
Decanted into bottled ships
of scalloped Wedgewood
promises.
Trees
slope away in careful rows,
Well- fed matrons
fountain pruned
wear puff-ball cheeks
of flouncing gourd
that curtsey in bewildered
corns of desiccated flora
,
flawed by scorn of August forays
left as unkempt graves
.
Much more than these
stand poplars, ordered
keepers on their plated watch in
ruffled smocks of coppered
lime to tame the knee- worn
names of climate ,buckled
down the yarrowed lanes.
This day retains
its hallowed mien
as I pass through
these borrowed years
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 2:45 PM UTC
[Dear Planet Zog]
Light lies in the skin
In the mud, in the smell of a ruin...
In the quaint moments shut wanting to open...
In a zillion children’s burnt blood decanted from tilted hospital ruins
Not in the robots that breed robots for a planet they won’t call Zog (stupid)
There’s so much we could be doing but don’t because of how we’re feeling (odd...)
Because of what this predictive text wants us writing...(off)
**** it... I’m not frightened, never have been of being
Just frozen – broken – breaking – mending – sending – back to my soul – a child and teacher’s chance to know but not neglect this
To flow... and fetch fragments of that bliss we still nurture as it glows, grips, insists...(to wake in some blue moonlit snow and project this)
[That’s all I’m not afraid to know now – but go on, skip...]
Aug 20, 2025
Aug 20, 2025 at 7:37 PM UTC
It sits there on the sideboard
Or on the mantle shelf,
And after such a long time
You don’t notice it yourself.
But should you have a visitor
Or younger child come by
It will spark interest anew
And gasps of “Me oh my!”
It’s then the curious wonder
How the ship was put inside,
And where the opening’s concealed
And was it hard to hide?
And if you put it in there
How many times you tried?
And if it went in through the neck
How could it be so wide?
It’s then you tell the story
Of going to the store
To find a bottle of good clear glass
With a shape worth planning for.
Dimple Haig is famous,
Carduh’s pretty fair,
The first one is triangular,
The other one is square.
The bottle must be decanted,
When empty cleaned and dried,
And a careful measure taken
Of the dimensions inside.
It’s then you render drawings
Of the ship you want to make,
And plan out going backwards
Every step you’ll have to take.
First you carve the hull
Of wood with grain that’s fine,
Then step the masts with hinges
So they fold down in a line.
You add the sails and rigging,
Check how they’ll *****
When’s time to pull the halyards
Through the bottle’s neck.
It takes months to finish
Doing a little every night,
I had my children watching
And remarking at the sight.
They saw me put in plasticine
To mold and shape the ocean
And carve wave crests with a spoon
To give the water motion.
When at last the time is right
And everything is ready
You carefully set the ship upon
The sea and hold it steady.
Then pulling on each halyard
The sails are slowly raised
And those who watch the process
Stand enchanted and amazed.
May 5, 2018
May 5, 2018 at 9:21 PM UTC
Four enchanted rainbows
From earth's fair far corners
Surge west at red canyons,
Cris-crossing my heartstone.
One by one, each sect fades—
Blue, yellow, every shade—
Becoming one pure white.
The Sky Jeweler fuses
The flowing lava streams
(Decanted airs, sunbeams)
With cloudless glints of light.
O jovial Jeweler,
Take this magic mission:
Cast a precious diamond
From carbon flakes and coal;
Meld my multicolored heart
And make me truly whole.
Sep 26, 2019
Sep 26, 2019 at 3:19 PM UTC
HOW TO COUNT TO OVER FOUR...HUNDRED BILLION!
( for Maureen )
She makes a nest
in my lap.
Teddy, her blue blanket and
a twig and a stone she adopts.
The twig is
her newest bestest friend.
She watches THE KING AND I
from this eyrie.
Thumb in mouth she
soaks it all up.
The world decanted
into music.
Later as I kiss her
goodnight
stars cluster about her
bedroom window.
"How many stars are
there?"
"Oh, I don't know...over
400 billion I suppose!"
She starts to count
what she can see
reaches ten and then
begins again.
Ten is all
she can count.
Then sleepy she
whispers
"etc., etc., etc.!"
Jan 1, 2018
Jan 1, 2018 at 5:17 PM UTC
*shape shifting furniture
carouses with crisping
wallpaper, peeling away
as it turns a shade of jade
its deafening roar of tussle
echoes in this hollowing
out of a cranial chamber
while across misty chasm
a light beams steadily, from
that gap under your door
surely disintegrating, the
now useless horse blinkers
that kept this ageing eye
on a once consuming goal*
●○
•
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 5:24 PM UTC
a slip and fall, busted up face,
an ambulance ride, cute young
docs, a his and her, in a busy ER
always apologizing for causing
any pain, and now again, in
another waiting room for the
specialist surgeon to,
make reperfect what was imperfect
naturally, seasoned and aged,
a face lovely and decanted,
a nice blush, though she looks now
a fresh mugging victim
and here I am, thinking about
all the waiting rooms in a long
life that I’ve called home, a temporal
temple abode, for waiting, praying
and now surmising and now, even for
composing
let’s not talk of bland, pastel colors
way past the over limit of blandness,
acoustic tile ceilings water stained,
and “leatherette” furniture,
that no else ever wanted in their
life, all sent off to die in the classical,
traditional rooms for waiting
births, deaths, diagnoses, verdicts
delivered, way stops on a traveling
life
Mar 25, 2025
Mar 25, 2025 at 4:08 PM UTC