I harbor a gentle whiskered beast
made of quiet sighs, all knees and elbows
jabbing my ribs while I sleep,
a weight shifting among the sheets
in the long shadows of earliness.

Suddenly, unprovoked, he is startled
as if threatened by an electric presence.
He listens intently to the silence and bristles
as though a ghost in the corner has spoken
in a tongue meant for beings higher than myself.

When the spirits have gone he sighs again,
his paws turn circles and he lays himself down
curled neatly behind my knees,
quietly pondering primal truths
that I was never meant to understand.

Outside he chases skittering leaves
and imagines he is wild
in the great wooded taiga,
flushing fowl from the brush,
scattering them like gasps of color,
with fluttering hearts beating warm in their *******
among pines capped white with snow.

It is the tipping point
the harvest well begun
its end in sight
an early morning
retreated to past
five on the clock

mist lay on
the meadowed fields
observed the pond
held tight to the trees

walking the empty road
camera in hand
to catch the chill earliness
in the far fields then back
through the uncared-for orchard
past the forked-fingered ash
still quite still -
the night air collapsing
as the sun rose

Darjeeling
in the white bone-china cup
a kiss of milk
comforting this delicate tea

and light everywhere
between three windows
our table her gifts
from the shoreline
shadowed hard-edged
whilst the back-lit screen
blinks and waits for words

my story blended from fact
pestled into fiction
itself a background
to a further fiction
from a past in ancient time
where each image described
takes aim at the resonant heart
of every exquisite moment


Eight Sketches in a Notebook

I

into a western sky
the sun finds cloudspace
to enter and set
well above the sea’s horizon
and for a while its rays
glimmer upward onto shards
holding remnants of the day’s
unreflected light


II

not a hut of straw and rushes
on a far mountain fastness
this a walled stockade all but moated
gardened inside its bounds
a miniature railway said to surround
a six-cornered house facing seaward
and towards a lagoon on whose banks
little terns nest from April to June
a mirror of light upon which
the solitary soul might dwell


III

rock guardian
standing
mid-beach

its debris
spilled
to water’s edge

still as still as
no wind or wave
pools dark depths

further out
the sea shimmers
ablaze with reflections


IV

hiding an anxiety of hair
a headscarf blue
and spotted white
reveals an ear
and below a sturdy neck
on round shoulders
her bare arms fall to quiet hands
next to thighs trousered  
knee-length to gentle calves
falling further onto bare feet
stood standing on course sand
at the sea’s murmuring edge


V

here the rock opens
its lips to a kiss of light
but deep inside remains
a dark sheltering secret
blackness impenetrable
wide enough for a storm’s
intrusion of water and wind
but beyond such darkness
possibly nothing
- a closed door
of rock?


VI

from my canvas chair
on the flags outside
the white French doors
this drawing – from where
the garden gate once was
a gap between
the honey-suckled hedge
and the long low cottage
above an ash tree waving
its fingered branches
in the afternoon breeze
fresh over the hill
from the sea’s shore
hardly a mile away


VII

the land points seaward
to an island light
a mile off-shore

on a shingled beach
sliced by the sea’s knife
cattle wandered yesterday

in the mist-driven rain we
sleeked wet as dogs approached
on the headland’s path


VIII

littered the land lies
with interruptions
interventions of the built

past beside present
ends amongst beginnings

complex histories
to delve deeper into
on this northern shore

It's early,
But not too early.
It's grey and calm and it's what I know to be the best.
Birds, so many birds for October.
Their nonchalance is refreshing.
Just easy and calm in the not too earliness of it all.
I think they like it too, the grey.
The grey is what I remember the most out of scattered,
Tattered memories.
And breathing.

Lateness of night,the earliness of morning
where the twine meet between stars and dawn
I feel the ******* of fear and anxiety that won't
leave willingly.
Where is my armor and my weapons to fight,
even being girded,I feel so lost to the Art of War.
The heart beats,the blood flows,eyes are dry
my body is at peace...
then a big bang of creation of ******* of peace to panic
and terror begins to lord over me...soul and body to become
my Master.
Control lost,dignity shattered,the Master takes over,
my body overtaken with fits of puppetry,the fear ravages my psyche,
I am losing myself.
God Almighty hear the piercing cry of the violent silence,
help me for I am helpless,hopeless to return my sanity,
the peace I had possessed.
Fear cuts me and I bleeding out hope...
Stop this chaos of flinging limbs without knowledge of it's humanity.
Dear Jesus hear my pain for it speaks from the grave that should be empty because You took my place.
Fear and its legion try to resurrect the old man and it's sins that are gone by your love.
Fear was my name but You gave me a new name
speak it over me so I can fight one more battle,this one,
the war I leave to You.
Permeate my being with Light to illuminate all the fear torn darkness.
As I shiver down to my bones,I wait in hope and childlike tears to be redeemed and saved by your loving hand just one more time.

He watches the moon and feels the blood rushing through his head.
It starts, an explosion of causality.
No way back on this merciless expedition.
Only the destination keeps its value.
A breeze comes up from the east, invisible tongues lick his face. It turns to night. The sand underneath his naked feet has lost all previous warmth. The chill tickles. Seconds succumb in symbiosis.
The marram grass rustles against his arms, the warning of a friend.
He feels the fire of candles burning in his bowels.
Feeling comes. No escape.
Surrender the only art.

There is light.
From inside out.
Something fluttering in earliness.
Reverberated and repeated endlessly.
The lonely game of gods.
Consciousness.

Light. From inside out.

You are all my dreams never put to paper
You are every star in the sky
You are the fog resting on the lake in the earliness of the morning
You are the wish I make before I blow the candles out
You are the heartbeat in my chest at the top of the mountain
You are the leaves clinging to the trees in fall
You are the rings in the trunks of fallen trees
You are the yearning of the earth for spring
You are everything that has ever been beautiful
You are anything that is strong
You are all this and more