Hip Service
By Julian Malek

The zeal of cobblestone tolerance arrayed in fashionable hues masquerading as crimson secrecy, elevates the tide of man but some boats leak in their foundations. Therefore a cork to every exuberance and a triumphant torch for every sorrow lives onward in collective time. Larks that abound because prescience and PUGET sound, that brown has become the new orange which in turn prowls as a concealed swarthy black. To antagonize the willful and frenetic pace, a prodrome of lasting but memorialized disgrace. Should I move to a state by first or last name, or is the final appellation worthy of much more lasting fame. I scurry down the aisles, bemused by shimmering tiles and the beguiled audiences who see much in my limitation but doubt little about my debited elation. Ringmaster Barnum, how much horticulture is needed for assured superstardom, how many cloisters must we evacuate from the incendiary plumes of a metaphorical Harlem..  But know that no virtual reality can supplant the reality that does truly exist, or at least our time is too infernal and purblind to resist. Carrey the tops of mountains in the humor of wellsprings and fountains, we engage a menagerie of egos lilting of an etiolated pragmatic concern. Evicted from paradise, littered with say-cheese demise ensnaring three blind mice eaten alive by snake-eyed vice. To feel good without incorporated tyranny, we must see blue and red as alternatives to the same destiny. A world that reckons with the futilitarianism of pacified malcontent and astroturf monikers that lead the impressionable into a slaughter shed. Established or not, any enchantment under the sea must include fishes once a pastiche of me, but to them I avoid their courtesy flush and never even faintly blush as my egalitarian statements are lavish thrush.

Five TO Won baby one in 99, everyone here aboard the titanic stays alive, you got your boat baby and I got mine, gonna make it with babies numbered in surreal primes. Halt the slots game the nines, a stitch in time is going to turn out to be Mine. Flanger goals, girded piles, liminal like an aborted Harry Styles, we climb mountains we issue tithes, and the turmoil is etched into 45-notched bludgeons and two-tucked knives. Excuse you, where have you been all day, have you been sauntering in a gentle rain or a genteel pain, have you wallowed beyond the mires of doubt and ranked above David Blaine. I hope you tell me of your magic tricks, rather than your other flicks endeared I stand to fight an ineradicable itch. But if not, you placid pond dented by so many rocks and so many ripples give your heart over to me, before I clinch the special Olympics *******, we ran, we span the homespun garments of your left and right hand, but death is a specter that ghoulishly carouses along the carousel terminal disease we call life. I beseech your deepest affection and want to console you for your deepest struggle, to be there every time wed with time rather than a throttled scuttle. Moons make you guarded but maroons leave me desiccated, don’t ever let that wilted flower die, always water it with a rich but gentle ties and widened deck for all to at once marvel and pry.  Monsters of Mars Attacks once flanked my bed, as though the **** brain scared every gooseflesh and restrained every frisson of mystery. I lampoon myself for those cold Dark Knights and the protection ended by the plight of the poor mattering nothing to the deliberately internecine rich. I struck gold in a valley somewhere, an oxymoron of paradox that now you have the privilege to dock, to stay aboard to be a vessel of peace less widely deplored. Even if we don’t sprout wings, we garner the exactitude of measured things and our glass elevator though easily shattered by the glower of enslavement is actually our vista to heaven or listening to brethren tingles for rich mans trinkets and other things. For humanity deserves a legend and a princess, a regimented desuetude and a flanged lust but in our mistakes wildly flouted in momentary moments we become purified by the temptations of an alabaster palace.

***** the left-field wisdom of a pragmatic paragon ellipsis in prison, slip between the cracks and let my suburban muse become your urban ruse. To enchant a caged world beyond a reality delicately and deliberately unfurled. Squirming toads on highways enchanted but dead, are graves for the blue becoming purple in every dignified red. Gainsay assaults me with platitude, a repeated hitter quit on the first bunted ball into foul-line territory. Those gripes are swiped right in all circumstance no matter the plight. The pronged hearing of a trident sensitive to ambient collection, and suddenly we are all in the mad house even though the house of profaned pain is much worse. Glimpses of gambits that gambol for nickels in transit as occult grenades and known dice waddle through without artifice or device, and the laughter and slaughter that trains collegiate minds, differs no more than the tropes of a glamorous violence articled in sordid rhymes. This surfing movie means so much more than Surf Wax America pristine in limited but sacrilege nirvana. Teen spirits smell muskier than 90s pop dreams, the grasp and grunge of gouged eyes becomes a mummified staid, a scarecrow to those who disobey. Childhood flashes with blinding light, and new sight illuminates darkening blight, A blight eradicated only by two magazines and including one that houses the bullets that ***** themselves between death and comatose dreams both within astral sight. Littoral harbor on a seaside town, a shanty with a brackish gown that glides the gourmand to the cosmopolitan eatery on the outskirts of lost & found. But forever lost in embonpoint and forever gained in chavish that exonerates the gaunt, the etiolated prince in heart becomes irrefutable marrow in minded souls.

If I am a spy you are an ESPY, and if I cry than you are a baby,but since neither are the case my wiseacres will cultivate lava lamp dreams for a new generation and suddenly Boston bets on Harvard, but who knows of this piped blather squirming for relevance rather than voguish but temporary chatter. My regatta knows how to swim, my life now knows how to cringe and yet still win and in stilted plays of bungled sincerity the God of peace reminds us of our transcendent personalities. That we in sincerity top the barnacles of invention a novelty but a rarity. But the guillotine quill of emboldened unscripted parvenus ruthless in their eager dues, outdate and outlive the sued swayed blues that indemnify Clinton and make the atomic dog an amazing Winston hill a church often in sheltered disuse. Imps and urchins sting the sentiment, cloy the alimony of repentant betterment, but neither touches the gilded skies of pleonasm striving for raspy disguise as to dissuade further diatribe investigation. Lurking in those scared days of youth, the gore of unalloyed horror scourged me with a limp, that compassion itself could ever become a gimp. Now years later athletics better and scoring goals making the mildew sweat and the years wetter, not a global warming that can be alarmed by global mourning. Take peace at heart if distanced spears of separation make Idiocracy as a pastiche look exceedingly smart. And spar only with the true antagonists bridging malevolence with expedience. Killjoys sure, will joy even more sure, but still boys fluttered heart stopping dead at a stop-watched alarm the worst tragedy of our sordid sort. Give an African Child a real home rather than a spatial roam, a palatial desiccation of momentary Jonas Brothers snapping back at captives with sexualized foam.

Narrative blinds shuttered in an Island among mountains hardly ever wiser to sanitize the sanitarium among the wasps of stung power. Police crumple their uniforms as they prowl down the avenues, looking for misfits and widened platitudes. Somehow that the vigilance of those corrupted by their very career choice, look even worse when megalomania of private is the limelight of public, to their defense few turrets I can muster but castles in the sky will be the apartheid judge. Those that cling to virtue to eradicate Porsche-driven faked or real deaths at the most breakneck speed, that Fast & Furious operation if disclosed completely would turn the Shire of the ring into the hatred curtailed by a song in Sing-Sing. Immunity must not Yoda implore, that livery Liverpool marooned on islands can also to deplore the R.E.D. and still whet the sharpened stead and the fly-by-night Manchester United alights like militant peer pressure for wranglers in tights. But beating the Beatles at a game of Walruses and egg-shelled eyeful towers likely impedes rinkside hockey from anything over bellicose ballyhoo…it exists as a transient fixated glower. But who knows about soccer speculation when love is the transcendent temptation, when nest-egg hens rather than neglecting rig Bens of clockwork and clocked words designed arise better for their token ken. Do I must repeat the subtext of submarines, yellowed as though ugly unused as though unseen, as though the quixotic earthquakes of tintinnabulations Avatar dreams. Wafted souls console the disheartened thoughts of a dashed dream that Berlin hates more than a Furor’s unbridled and useless scream.
Demotic clips slinging from the bedridden silence of a token moon and its token friends, swimming in a shore of ambiguity whether history mellows or whether its furor melts away momentary doubts. I want to avoid the sting rays exorcised by due providence and become the amalgamated talents gentry and of course the upstart swagger of Jack Dawson. But with the psy-op going on, the people manipulated on all sides of a gray picket fence will the relationship bloom without muttered dissent or pretended smiles. Will we take upon the shuffled shuttle and dig with shovels deep-rooted Christmas trees and toast our lives to Dos Equis. We may never go out of style, but the treacle of illuminated imagery when divorced from sentiment bristle shows a swagger that prioritizes rather than amalgamates all love. I love being brash and brazen and honest because when she finally ditches the grandstand of delayed frenemies fandoms of other tinsel decorations without any substance beyond meretricious thrill. You want a roller coaster on some days, but most often you want the nutcracker to elope to secret hiding places. Swim with adventure not just in love, not just in affection with the starlight now matter how luminous, sixpence all the richer is no centuries any poorer and we could be that gilded couple of star and screen and if we ever have to scream, let our screams unite us in passion, rather than a milquetoast deference to pedestaled beauty. but of course the end times don’t laugh at your crumpled wizened relapse. Not out of convenience wed by a discriminating genetic harvest moon but a deeper engagement that flatters when stylish and bristles when romantic but never defiled, never riled of specious pretense. Promise me that you will always remember me in my flaws and my faults, in my scause factory destructions and the penults of PEN-ULTIMATE wisdom that comes before the grace of God in the annihilation of passion for eroded omission. If your goal is to be remembered, check that out…but the most admirable goal is as the propinquities of souls dusted in the wind returning to a spring equinox of passion and if you find in yourselves reservations do not depart from sacred land, and never jilt me because of a boisterous and menacing friend. You are everything to me right now, and I Hope this persists despite the vicissitudes of star-favored afflictions mixed with utter benediction without the pontification of stilted Benedictines  or rather the hyped ludic effrontery of termagants being made of younger and younger women. Leave it at this ,32 leaves the royal secret in royal hands and the Knights Templar and us we altogether hold hands, if only a prelude for a masquerade ball. But the stilted embarrassment of crestfallen time, let that be relegated and emphatically lets embrace what is like to not ever need a real white horse to get back into your favor, because we never go out of style we can brandish the best elements and reject the sentiments of the too newfangled and the too stodgy. We in our crenellated pleonasm can eager ride the lightning to another tomorrow and another yesterday and if even not that, we virtually make an indelible impression of embroidered love not too distant in ivory towers and not to vulgary( catering to popular sentiments) to become a trash glam movement. We soar, others deplore but let their purblind doubts render them blind to our burgeoning love.

Forget the brisk trees dangled in the wind on winding paths through haunted forest or remember them because of ghoulish fortress but with our apotropaic lamp we can avert most evil and call the rest fun and gains and shun but fames never profaned, never inalterable a destiny to magical to be some whimpered catcall. Or we could linger beneath lambent street lights disguised as though wilted garb, attrition of circumstance waiting patiently for the matinee and the vintner to escort us beyond the garb of pretense in a city so abundant with it that it deserves castigation. But I digress, a beachside cliff overlooking tepid waters tumultuous in their power but august in their noises, the cadence of love will sing a half-moon bay on full-moon nights and we will frisk each other like grasping at straws of permanent tracks trammeled of the elite and a sidetracked basque bet. Trim those antlers and instead grow metaphorical wings, to us we all sing but few can match your elegance and everyone would be crazy not to see your ennobled age and together thrilling songs to emulate thriller in sales we will collaboratively sing.
Haughty sneers from lifeless lycanthropy straggling furtively along the pastiched sidewalks of grime, livid because they can’t share the lingering limelight, with as many guarded perks of privacy clambering like a hive of snarky sharks. Lets ditch the big town dreams in terms of posh and stature if only for a caressed moment beneath the unadulterated stars and if you find spars **** to the extent they are amiable than I say guess what my name is Lars! Or wait a second, paused in the big city spotlight our stenciled hearts will guide whatever progeny is yours or mine or ours together we will sing the most comforting lullaby, and caves no longer must we abide. Yearn and earn every inch, as I gripe with my delicate saddened pinch but I think the innuendo speaks . Ripen with our trips to Napa, long afternoon sunsets swim in our hearts as we taste the vanguard’s toast on elegant wine.I console with entreaty to disavow the omen of that San Franciscan church October 2008, the doom implied by Einstein, the raillery of a world grinding down the endless decadence of a railed future inalterable in destiny or partialy amenable to widespread coquetry.

Forget those rumbles in your past that made you feel partial to insecurity and learning the ropes you transcended all and live in all eternity. Thimble and brook, tolerant of all those tokes I took your rebellious side flattens the yeast of Exodus raspy in its begrudged clapping. But the Pharaoh of the modern world sheltered me under his prickly thorns, shielded me from the sickly things that life adorns. We have the numbers on our side, the weight of destiny on our shoulders, dedicate yourself to yourself and I will preen the most vibrant wisdom and love will leap like Apollo across all borders not for camel-****** hoarders. We are culminated destiny in the wings of the best daydream

He is in love with questions
And the lilting world of words,
With the fabric of philosophy
And the taste of fresh ideas.

He is in love with the smell of green
And the shifting sands of dreams,
With the hunt for profound moments
And the hunger-lust for purpose.

He is in love with his books
And the zodiacs cross the planet,
With patterns of chain reactions
And the way we cog and gear.

He is in love with pools of stardust
And fanciful notions of theory,
With darkness, deep and coveted
And the fabric it is made from.

He is in love with one who left
And the poisoned past he bathes in,
With being perpetually lonesome
And floating twixt life’s sabulous banks.

He is in love with memories, and the universe,
And nobody else.

With my choking heart, I’m grasping at dust,
And I am in love with him.

Nightbird perches high
beneath the shooting stars
that dapple the bouquet
    of sleepless peace
... his soft downy breast      
    has lent breath
to the sweet April afterglow
     heaving with song

The mystical feathered troubadour's
     swooning echo
A melodic twilight serenade
conjures a moonstruck metamorphosis,
sprouting magical wings of flight;
rousing a lonely heart's esprit
     to fly away unfettered
     in constellations of song

How dare imaginings spilled from the big dipper
enchant such an enrapturing magic spell?
It's so far to fall from swinging on a star!
It's so far beyond nearing crescent moon
     when you wish upon a star  

Thereupon struck by a bewitching bolt of starlight;
Dropping asudden as a shooting-star!

    Rolling like trailing thunder;
        tucked and tumbling ―
             somersaulting,

           celestial rumbling
blossoming with an unearthly joy

A nascent winged heart splayed bare,
soars upon cresting wind waves;
    dreaming of that shapeless  
          w h o  o  o  o  s h ―
         gathering beneath
        ~ uplifting wings ~

  Suddenly ― gliding freely,
       winging gracefully
  upon wafting star drift glitter;
lilting lightly upon the arising cadence
of nightingale's melodious fluted song

Nightingale sings sweet April perfume
beneath the star shed lamplight twinkle

... and it makes no difference if it's only a dream
    if my heart had wings


imagined by:   Jesse Stillwater

We conquer all worlds,
Sweet creature: melt my soul,
freshly thawed, vulnerability exposed.
Eager for unbridled wickedness,
within lilting rhythms of your magic.
So inviting, such interwoven seduction,
I discover that you are indeed, She.
The Mistress who cannot be denied,
so take my hand, I shall guide you,
while you, Dark sweet demigod,
Guide me to intoxicating magic,
magic that is you: and you alone.
Pour your evil charms upon me,
Stoke dying embers of my neglected power.
See the flames rekindled;
feel the comforting ice of my being,
savour my destructive cold fire.
Let me soothe you in return,
offering delicious despicable deeds.
Havoc wrought in your name.
The demonic glow inside grows,
until I fear nothing, Dark Mistress.
I am exalted in this vile inferno,
A conflagration of our own creation.
Dark destiny shall not desert us,  
but shall become the favoured guide.
I shall never be without you,
Dark Mistress, and together,
We conquer all worlds.

© Paul Chafer 2014

Out here in the fields of the distance
whither the wind blows the silence further afield;
roughhewn footprints show a windswept pathway  
from whence feral feet lightly trod   

Only the passing whispers chase after the gypsy wind:
that the silence be in quire, placed aloft like a sigh,
pealing through the gentle sway of sweet grass' hush

There are no walls need echo an evanescent wind-song
as each breath of earthen psalm vanishes
lilting into the crystalline quietude colour;

The callused patience still held in these hands
is frayed and tattered, but hope heals stronger
than a ream of paper wings to fly away

And I'm mindful I'm not alone again, lost in
a lingering silent storm — pensively listening —
enraptured aneath all the big skies hold
 

                    Jesse Stillwater

There was once an artist and a poet.

The artist was renowned throughout the land for his sublime skill with the brush, his superb eye for colour, his ability to define the truth of nature with each stroke, bringing the canvas to life in a glorious cacophony of colour. People looked on in awe as he painted, watching the scene come alive as each moment passed. When he put the brush down, there was a hushed silence and many watchers shed a tear at the beauty of his creation.

The poet was also held in the highest esteem. He could captivate an audience with his magical use of words, his lilting rhythms, his passion that created a vivid tapestry in the mind’s eyes of his enthralled listeners. He transported them to wondrous places far beyond the imagination. And when he spoke the last word of the last verse, his audience were silent in their admiration of what they had heard, overcome with the emotion of his words.

Then one day it came to pass that the artist, now grey and of rheumy eye, realised he could no longer paint the vibrant beauty of all that he saw around him. He was distraught at his loss and resigned to die as his very reason for being was lost to him.

The poet too, after these many years, now old and grey succumbed to deafness, no longer able to hear his own voice, so felt no longer able to speak in his rich lilting rhythms to create the wonderful soundscapes and journeys of the imagination his words had done. He too was distraught at his loss and resigned to die as his very reason for being was lost to him.

And it happened that the artist and the poet were in the same town, sitting side by side by the oldest tree, neither aware of who the other was.

A small boy saw them there and with the innocence of a child spoke to them. He spoke first to the artist: “Why do you look so sad?” The artist, hearing the child’s voice but not seeing him, reached out a hand and asked, “Who is that?” The boy replied, “I am but a boy but I know you are sad. Tell me why.” The artist turned his head toward the sound of the boy’s voice and said, “I was a great artist but now my sight is gone and I can no longer paint the beauty of all that there is around me.” The boy then asked him, “What are you doing here?” to which the artist replied, “I am waiting to die as I have no reason to continue living.”

This puzzled the boy. He turned to the poet and asked him, “I am but a boy but I know you are sad. Tell me why.” The poet did not respond because he could not hear the boy speak. The boy tapped the poet on the arm and he looked towards him and the boy repeated his question. The poet could see the boy’s lips move but for him, no sound came out. Yet he discovered he could understand the boy’s words. With huge effort, he spoke although the words were no more than a rasping whisper to the artist and the boy for the poet could not hear his own voice: “I was a great poet but now my hearing is gone and I can no longer hear my voice, I am unable to use the magic of my words to create wonderful worlds of the imagination.” The boy then asked, “What are you doing here?”, to which the poet replied, “I am waiting to die as I have no reason to continue living.”

The boy thought about this for a moment and then a wonderful idea came to him. To the artist he said, “The poet can still see and he has discovered his voice again although he can no longer hear the words he speaks, but you can. His words can describe the wonders of nature that is all around us. Let him use his words and you can paint the images he puts in your mind’s eye.”

And so it was that the artist and the poet worked together as one; the poet speaking aloud, describing the beauty that was all about, and the artist, painting by touch the wondrous scenes from his imagination.

The crowds stood in rapt delight at the poet's words as they were transformed into wondrous images on the artist’s canvas. And the boy stood amongst the throng and smiled.

A walk through lilting breeze
Down memories of old,
Alone with thoughts of you
In sunset's sinking gold.

The boundary blurred by love
Where flowing hair meets wind.
In every calloused step
Those images rescind.

The echoes of my feet
A heartbeat brings to mind;
The old familiar friend
Now seashells in the tide.

Some call it moving on,
While some in madness hold:
But call it what you will -
The story stays untold.

Steven my boy,

We coasted into a medieval pub in the middle of nowhere in wildest Devon to encounter the place in uproarious bedlam. A dozen country madams had been imbibing in the pre wedding wine and were in great form roaring with laughter and bursting out of their lacy cotton frocks. Bunting adorned the pub, Union Jack was aflutter everywhere and a full size cut out of HM the Queen welcomed visitors into the front door. Cucumber sandwiches and a heady fruit punch were available to all and sundry and the din was absolutely riotous……THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS UNDERWAY ON THE GIANT TV ON THE BAR WALL….and we were joining in the mood of things by sinking a bevy of Bushmills Irish whiskies neat!

Now…. this is a major event in the UK.

Everybody loves Prince Harry, he is the terrible tearaway of the Royal family, he has been caught ******* sheila’s in all sorts of weird circumstance. Now the dear boy is to be married to a beauty from the USA….besotted he is with her, fair dripping with love and adoration…..and the whole country loves little Megan Markle for making him so.

The British are famous for their pageantry and pomp….everything is timed to the second and must be absolutely….just so. Well….Nobody told the most Reverend Michael Curry this…. and he launched into the most wonderful full spirited Halleluiah sermon about the joyous “Wonder of Love”. He went on and on for a full 14 minutes, and as he proceeded on, the British stiff upper lips became more and more rigidly uncomfortable with this radical departure from protocol. Her Majesty the Queen stood aghast and locked her beady blue eyes in a riveting, steely glare, directed furiously at the good Reverend….to no avail, on he went with his magic sermon to a beautiful rousing ******….and an absolute stony silence in the cavernous interior of that vaulting, magnificent cathedral. Prince Harry and his lovely bride, (whose wedding the day was all about), were delighted with Curry’s performance….as was Prince William, heir to the Throne, who wore a fascinating **** eating grin all over his face for the entire performance.

Says a lot, my friend, about the refreshing values of tomorrows Royalty.

We rolled out of that country pub three parts cut to the wind, dunno how we made it to our next destination, but we had one hellava good time at that Royal Wedding!

The weft and the weave of our appreciation fluctuated wildly with each day of travel through this magnificent and ancient land, Great Britain.

There was soft brilliant summer air which hovered over the undulating green patchwork of the Cotswolds whilst we dined on delicious roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, from an elevated position in a medieval country inn..... So magnificent as to make you want to weep with the beauty of it all….and the quaint thatched farmhouse with the second story multi paned windows, which I understood, had been there, in that spot, since the twelfth century. Our accommodation, sleeping beneath oaken beams within thick stone walls, once a pen for swine, now a domiciled overnight bed and pillow of luxury with white cotton sheets for weary Kiwi travellers.

The sadness of the Cornish west coast, which bore testimony to tragedy for the hard working tin miners of the 1800s. A sharp decrease in the international tin price in 1911 destituted whole populations who walked away from their life’s work and fled to the New World in search of the promise of a future. Forlorn brick ruins adorned stark rocky outcrops right along the coastline and inland for miles. Lonely brick chimneys silhouetted against sharp vertical cliffs and the ever crashing crescendo of the pounding waves of the cold Atlantic ocean.

No parking in Padstow….absolutely NIL! You parked your car miles away in the designated carpark at an overnight cost….and with your bags in tow, you walked to your digs. Now known as Padstein, this beautiful place is now populated with eight Rick Stein restaurants and shops dotted here and there.

We had a huge feed of piping hot fish and chips together with handles of cold ale down at his harbour side fish and chip restaurant near the wharfs…place was packed with people, you had to queue at the door for a table, no reservations accepted….Just great!

Clovelly was different, almost precipitous. This ancient fishing village plummeted down impossibly steep cliffs….a very rough, winding cobbled stone walkway, which must have taken years to build by hand, the only way down to the huge rock breakwater which harboured the fishing boats Against the Atlantic storms. And in a quaint little cottagey place, perched on the edge of a cliff, we had yet another beautiful Devonshire tea in delicate, white China cups...with tasty hot scones, piles of strawberry jam and a huge *** of thick clotted cream…Yum! Too ****** steep to struggle back up the hill so we spent ten quid and rode all the way up the switch back beneath the olive canvass canopy of an old Land Rover…..money well spent!

Creaking floorboards and near vertical, winding staircases and massive rock walls seemed to be common characteristics of all the lovely old lodging houses we were accommodated in. Sarah, our lovely daughter in law, arranged an excellent itinerary for us to travel around the SW coast staying in the most picturesque of places which seeped with antiquity and character. We zooped around the narrow lanes, between the hedgerows in our sharp little VW golf hire car And, with Sarah at the helm, we never got lost or missed a beat…..Fantastic effort, thank you so much Sarah and Solomon on behalf of your grateful In laws, Janet and Marshal, who loved every single moment of it all!

Memories of a lifetime.

Wanted to tell the world about your excitement, Janet, on visiting Stoke on Trent.

This town is famous the world over for it’s pottery. The pottery industry has flourished here since the middle ages and this is evidenced by the antiquity of the kilns and huge brick chimneys littered around the ancient factories. Stoke on Trent is an industrial town and it’s narrow, winding streets and congested run down buildings bear testimony to past good times and bad.

We visited “Burleigh”.

Darling Janet has collected Burleigh pottery for as long as I have known her, that is almost 40 years. She loves Burleigh and uses it as a showcase for the décor of our home.

When Janet first walked into the ancient wooden portals of the Burleigh show room she floated around on a cloud of wonder, she made darting little runs to each new discovery, making ooh’s and aah’s, eyes shining brightly….. I trailed quietly some distance behind, being very aware that I must not in any way imperil this particular precious bubble.

We amassed a beautiful collection of plates, dishes, bowls and jugs for purchase and retired to the pottery’s canal side bistro,( to come back to earth), and enjoy a ploughman’s lunch and a *** of hot English breakfast tea.

We returned to Stoke on Trent later in the trip for another bash at Burleigh and some other beautiful pottery makers wares…..Our suit cases were well filled with fragile treasures for the trip home to NZ…..and darling Janet had realised one of her dearest life’s ambitions fulfilled.

One of the great things about Britain was the British people, we found them willing to go out of their way to be helpful to a fault…… and, with the exception of BMW people, we found them all to be great drivers. The little hedgerow, single lane, winding roads that connect all rural areas, would be a perpetual source of carnage were it not for the fact that British drivers are largely courteous and reserved in their driving.

We hired a spacious ,powerful Nissan in Dover and acquired a friend, an invaluable friend actually, her name was “Tripsy” at least that’s what we called her. Tripsy guided us around all the byways and highways of Britain, we couldn’t have done without her. I had a few heated discussions with her, I admit….much to Janet’s great hilarity…but Tripsy won out every time and I quickly learned to keep my big mouth shut.

By pure accident we ended up in Cumbria, up north of the Roman city of York….at a little place in the dales called “Middleton on Teesdale”….an absolutely beautiful place snuggled deep in the valleys beneath the huge, heather clad uplands. Here we scored the last available bed in town at a gem of a hotel called the “Brunswick”. Being a Bank Holiday weekend everything, everywhere was booked out. The Brunswick surpassed ordinary comfort…it was superlative, so much so that, in an itinerary pushed for time….we stayed TWO nights and took the opportunity to scout around the surrounding, beautiful countryside. In fact we skirted right out to the western coastline and as far north as the Scottish border. Middleton on Teesdale provided us with that late holiday siesta break that we so desperately needed at that time…an exhausting business on a couple of old Kiwis, this holiday stuff!

One of the great priorities on getting back to London was to shop at “Liberty”. Great joy was had selecting some ornate upholstering material from the huge range of superb cloth available in Liberty’s speciality range.

The whole organisation of Liberty’s huge store and the magnificent quality of goods offered was quite daunting. Janet & I spent quite some time in that magnificent place…..and Janet has a plan to select a stylish period chair when we get back to NZ and create a masterpiece by covering it with the ***** bought from Liberty.

In York, beautiful ancient, York. A garrison town for the Romans, walled and once defended against the marauding Picts and Scots…is now preserved as a delightful and functional, modern city whilst retaining the grandeur, majesty and presence of its magnificent past.

Whilst exploring in York, Janet and I found ourselves mixing with the multitude in the narrow medieval streets paved with ancient rock cobbles and lined with beautifully preserved Tudor structures resplendent in whitewash panel and weathered, black timber brace. With dusk falling, we were drawn to wild violins and the sound of stamping feet….an emanation from within the doors of an old, burgundy coloured pub…. “The Three Legged Mare”.

Fortified, with a glass of Bushmills in hand, we joined the multitude of stomping, singing people. Rousing to the percussion of the Irish drum, the wild violin and the deep resonance of the cello, guitars and accordion…..The beautiful sound of tenor voices harmonising to the magic of a lilting Irish lament.

We stayed there for an hour or two, enchanted by the spontaneity of it all, the sheer native talent of the expatriates celebrating their heritage and their culture in what was really, a beautiful evening of colour, music and Ireland.

Onward, across the moors, we revelled in the great outcrops of metamorphic rock, the expanses of flat heather covering the tops which would, in the chill of Autumn, become a spectacular swath of vivid mauve floral carpet. On these lonely tracts of narrow road, winding through the washes and the escarpments, the motorbike boys wheeled by us in screaming pursuit of each other, beautiful machines heeling over at impossible angles on the corners, seemingly suicidal yet careening on at breakneck pace, laughing the danger off with the utter abandon of the creed of the road warrior. Descending in to the rolling hills of the cultivated land, the latticework of, old as Methuselah, massive dry built stone fences patterning the contours in a checker board of ancient pastoral order. The glorious soft greens of early summer deciduous forest, the yellow fields of mustard flower moving in the breeze and above, the bluest of skies with contrails of ever present high flung jets winging to distant places.

Britain has a flavour. Antiquity is evidenced everywhere, there is a sense of old, restrained pride. A richness of spirit and a depth of character right throughout the populace. Britain has confidence in itself, its future, its continuity. The people are pleasant, resilient and thoroughly likeable. They laugh a lot and are very easy to admire.

With its culture, its wonderful history, its great Monarchy and its haunting, ever present beauty, everywhere you care to look….The Britain of today is, indeed, a class act.

We both loved it here Steven…and we will return.

M.

Hamilton, New Zealand

21 June 2018

let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream
i am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been

to sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen
they talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed

talk and song from tongues of lilting grace, whose sounds caress my ear
but not a word I heard could I relate, the story was quite clear

all I see turns to brown, as the sun burns the ground
and my eyes fill with sand, as I scan this wasted land
trying to find where I've been

pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream
heed the path that led me to that place, yellow desert stream
my Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again
sure as the dust that floats high in June, when moving through Kashmir

oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails, across the sea of years
With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear

let me take you there

Colour Blind

I don't see the colour of your skin.

I see
the colour of your heart.

Is it dark and putrid or
is it the color of a soft and lilting tune?
Is it filled with warm tones,
or cold?
Hues of ice and snow,
or gold?

Do you give or take?
Do you love or hate?

I don't see race or faith,
I just see you-
your energy, your words, your actions.

I see you; I just simply
see you.

A falling feather on the breeze,
lilting like the Seraphim
songs of Mephistopheles,
lured her drunkenly to him.

Lilting like the Seraphim,
she drank his iridescence. He
lured her drunkenly to him,
enraptured in naivety.

She drank his iridescence. He
befouled her virtue, was the air.
Enraptured in naivety
no more, would Eden hear her prayer?

Befouled; her virtue was the air
he stole away, a hunched-up thief.
No more would Eden hear her prayer -
the echoes howling his motif.

He stole away, a hunched-up thief,
a fallen feather on the breeze;
the echoes howling his motif -
songs of Mephistopheles.


Footnote: Passages from folk lore:
Hindu - the peacock is said to have angels' feathers, a devil's voice
and the walk of a thief
Chinese - a girl who looks at a peacock could become pregnant
Islamic: the peafowl carried Satan into the Garden of Eden after consuming him

i remember when my mama took me up the mountain,
she told me,
"now, you are ready."
and pine and oak softly fluttered their leaves at my arrival.
there were yellow flowers,
growing wildly,
strangling the delicate blue blossoms,
made of flimsy roots and spindly bosoms.

i was the youngest in a tribe of
golden skinned people;
dreadlocks, tattoos,
moon cycles on the sides of their eyes,
and hair like cattails whispering in the dark.

with my stomach churning,
i entered the tall, dimly lit tepee.
the medicine man sat churning the ashes
in an empty fire-pit,
and women stood around me scattering
flower petals like
soft skin
all over the red-dirt earth.

his eyes twinkled,
and told me things that he would only let the
dusk unfold.
i took my seat on a white sheep-skin,
settling myself.

as the night grew older,
the fire grew larger,
shapes elongated on the fair skin of the stretched
tepee,
the flames dancing wildly,
smoke drifting up into the
starry dark.

the fire keeper stoked the raging
yellow and orange tongues,
and the medicine man sat with a bandanna on,
his waterfall nose moving,
and his leather brown skin creaking,
as he told us stories of the sacred medicine.

and we sat,
somebody started singing.
my mothers warm frame was close to mine,
and my step-father next to her,
shoulders touching in the close proximity,
intimate, smoky air.

they beat the deer-skin drum,
badum badum *** badum badum ***
in native languages like
roaring rivers,
they sang songs to the medicine,
for the opening of the heart;
their swift and strong voices
rising like smoke and flame.

when the drum was passed to me,
i didn't know any songs,
wasn't aware that i had to know any.
i started to hit the drum with the padded
stick, and
closed my eyes,
feeling the sticky sweat of my perspiring forehead
drip down upon my licked lips,
tasting of wood and dirt.
i sang something lilting
sounds coming from the deepest
crevices of my throat,
being gently pulled from the grasp of my ribs.

the medicine man put pine on the fire,
it sizzled and breath was filled with
sweet and sharp.

when the air was right, and
the night was thick with song,
he uncovered baskets of small,
green and ridged fruit-like shapes.
"buttons,"

the medicine was taking her form, and was cradled
as a native man took it around the circle,
along with oranges.
i'd find out soon why.

i took two, small and light in my fingers.
i closed my eyes and took the first bite.

my mouth was struck, eroding teeth
and erupting tongue
my face contorted from the bitter juices the small fruit
held within its delicate skin,
my stomach churned and i swallowed it down
biting into the orange, skin and all
begging for a shock of zest to take
down the intense flesh of the medicine.

i looked around,
some people were on their third, fourth.
the beat of the drums was constant,
along with the quiet,
restful crackle of the sighing fire.

the second bite was less of a surprise,
and i finished my first one.

it was only at the third bite of the second button
that my stomach refused to go any more without
heaving,
the astringent juices of the
small fruit working its magic on my stomach.

i closed my eyes and embraced what was around me;
slowly swaying in the deep voices of my
family,
mi familia,
'ohana,
and the heartbeat of the
mountain drums.

soon, i felt weary.
my mother rested her hand like falling rain on my shoulder,
and i lay in the warm arms of her
shawls,
twisting around me like snakes.

a traditional rollie was passed around,
made of corn husk and hand grown tobacco.
my eyes grew slow and drooping,
and i fell into the waiting arms of sleep
while listening to the music of
tobacco and wood smoke, hushed voices,
wilting night,
dancing fire, and alive laughter.

my sleep was deep and dreamless,
my body carried to other places by the medicine,
leaving my mind behind.

i woke to rough feet on the red dirt,
and my mother and father intertwined like red roses,
sleeping below the tepee's watch,
my mothers white skirt fanning out like
soft sheets in the summer
walls.

there were goodmorning smiles,
light spreading from one set of a skin to another,
as my family embraced me,
told me they were proud and grateful to me
for sitting with them.

a bowl of chocolate was passed around, along with a crate
of juicy, pink, dawn touched strawberries.
i dipped them in the dark, sweet and rich paste
and one after another,
felt myself expand into the universe even more.
only when my mother awoke,
to sprinkling flowers,
and lifted sky,
she told me that the chocolate held the medicine too.

i made my way across swaying, long grass,
and sat in the sun, sipping tea with a sliced lemon,
making art with twists and curls of my pencils and pens,
listening to the experiences of last night,
the enlightenment,
the sense of overwhelming love,
that was not quite drowning.

i basked in everything,
let the heat soak into my flesh,
the lilting laugh.
somebody handed me a guitar,
and i sang with my chocolate tinted lips,
and let my voice float within and around the mountain,
filling the tepee and the empty fire pit
once more,
with the sweet and bitter tastes of
the medicine
*peyote.

All my life
is waves, expressed as rays,
phases, and cancellations...

...Waving by
and paving over
what I made in other ages

Undulating sway,
disrupting Self,
the Phrase, the Word, the Way --

Nameless, without
shape - within all shape -
all touch, all taste;

One expressed as Two:
compress, expand, repeat.
In balance, truth.

Lilting swells
that break in mind and water,
endless scintillation;

Every word as complex
as its counterpart,
unpatterned ocean;

All motion
the illusion of Desire,
the fire that burns to Rest...

...But only ever
simulates, for trough
but stimulates the crest;

When all my waves
have ceased and found their peace,
there ends my quest.

It seemed so much had been lost.  

So much had slipped through
A grasping hand,
A yearning heart,
A desperate mind
As mine.

The dull march of days present
Was shadowed by the
Gloom of regrets and
Shrieked by a shrill wind at lonely,
Bitter hours.  
What was mine? What was ours?
Gone for good and all?

My love, it seemed, was only
Ever a dark dream.
In my swelling and stinging agony,
Love was
As a locked door
And my heart was a bloodied fist
Beating against it.  
A wraith-like specter of doubt clung to me
With oppressive raiment,
Scrapping over exposed skin
Like course, mortifying fabric.  

Then, from out of a pristine past,
A voice  
Called out to me.  
The herald of an angel
Rung clear and glad as winter bells,
Celebrant!  
The dark narcissus of mortality was
Driven off!
The burial cloak was split;
The stone was rolled back!  

A hope newly found
Surrounds and soars above me,
As a deep, azure ribbon of
Stretching, unending sky!

I am imbued with cheering thoughts
Of our days gone by!
Glories recalled in a moment relived;
Revelries and song lifted with voices
And hearts, stout and full!

Together,
With my beautiful Eurydician queen;
Returned, she was,
From an underworld of time.
We coax and stir
The memories of first passions,
Innocent, powerful and pure.
We are now bending
The arc of our history,
Rending the precious pearl of affection
From the murky domain of
A love denied.  
Renewed and viewed through  
Prismic fractures of sadness
And through the sharp focus
Of blue eyes, in rapt recognition,
Surprised!  

Today is reborn,
Lived again and again,
With each pulse of the clock,
Each beat of my heart.  
The blood within
Is purged of that familiar poison.  

All is potent and refreshed:
You, your face, your voice, your touch, your scent,
Your vibration pours to and through me, once again!
Oh, true friend,
Tender lover,
Gently knocking at my door.
You return from distant lands
Remote and misty,
Bringing light and love
To my lonely shore.
I approach from my realm,
Far removed.  
Age and ages have chiseled
The shape of my soul.
In part, it is smoothed;
Refined with wisdom, empathy, and clarity.
Also, though,
It is,
In part,
Broken, jagged, and cracked,
As the forgotten sculptures
Of ancient empires,
Renowned
And doomed.

Yet I realize, all at once,
That I am not forgotten.  
I am not doomed
To shadow.
I breathe,
I seek,
I still have hope and
Words to tell!
And I still have my love for you!
My life is now freed from that
Sad spell.  

This breath,
This stony soul
(Sculpted by the Artist of Pain)
And this trammeled heart
Trembles in desire of
Your beauty,
Your touch and
Your presence --
Your calming presence,
Bringing levity,
Reassurance
And familiar stories of
Hopeful remembrance.  
From love recalled,
Comes your unexpected
Embrace and
Sweet sign of friendship.

That time of distress has come and
Gone and we turn to discover that
Our tender connection remains,
True and undefeated!
It rises with the earliest song
Of still sleepy birds,
Lilting on the cool air of the morn.  

This uplifting emotion
Again flows within me,
As an angel granting absolution,
Touching me in a place
As deep as first love.  

Welcome!

I see you shining there a translucent water drop
Suspended in animation
From the garden where I lay
I watch your silver glow, in total fascination
Moving to and fro
As within my heart, you play

I hear your tinkling laughter, rise above the trees
Softly lilting in my mind
Find myself within a soulful breeze
Your joyous laughter brings
As your joy and mine
Are combined

A quiet calm is set in motion, as you begin to fall
Enchantment ending in a silver splash
Yet, such joy you have brought into this thrall
Into the garden where I lay
Even though you fell
In a flash

Now I see you shining there upon my yearning soil
Suspended in animation
In the garden where I toil
I watch your silver glow, in total fascination
Moving to and fro
Quenching thirst, in adoration

Puffs of thistledown
floating in the air.

Lovely lady
dark blue plums
and the tracery of lace.

'Toot' says a trumpet
to the cry from a clarinet.

Tinkling piano notes
flowing
lilting, rippling, fleeting
fleeing.

Bows, strings and violins.

Echoes of yesterday
fading into grey.

the story went as though
she'd always known the sea
and trusted in its depth
to mellow any ill, caress her
open lovingkind as in a dream.
and dream she would upon the waves,
having settled into floating reverie.
she'd close her eyes and inhale being
there among herself caressing only
ocean, only breath, all sunlit space
to draw her earthly trials gently out.
softened beachside noise would fade
and let alone her ears to hear
the water oneness dipping clear
and deeper in the troughs, for distance
from the stranded holidays,
the beachy noise of seaside frills
and bear her boyancy to rest
in lilting motion, peaceful cresting sleep
atop an intercontinental,
earthsize water bed.
her trust profoundly spanned
the trans-atlantic rift
and any rift to set apart her undulating
ancient ocean mastery. moon
and sun were kneading vastly where
her snores were lost in starfish whispers balancing
the tidal volume set
to always fill and keep afloat,
or otherwise to wake in
sputters and a salty throat.
her body settles into swinging comfort
napping over waves so deep the shore recedes...
... what bright, kind, clarity cascaded in your dreams?
what heart you had, embracing open quiddity,
never sinking nowness breath alert in lucid sleep
and water surface mystic skyward shallow course?
to merfolk gazing up in wonderment
you limply crossed their bouncing sky,
just another flight of fancy in a world of mystery?
did you dream you were a whalesong
sphering out to carry sadness sonorously? did you
school the many impulse-thoughts to clump and flee
the jaws of time? did you bask in light
and find a shining womb of self
to nurture once again and labor out anew?
did gravity make sense to you?
i float sometimes and live that question true.
sleeping far you drifted out and out and in and out of view
and whistles drowned in gathered drama fear
'my grandma! my grandma!'
screamed my cousin at the lifeguard
sweating ******* and leaping over stroke to spash
into your side a breathless shouting mess for you to calm
and ask 'what's wrong?' and angle slowly back to shore
in fits of giggles, bubble laughter at commotion's reach.
they blink in crowds, standing herdlike on the beach.

and now you swim your last,
another summer day.
like any other i awoke
and fed you eggs, so soft
     (at first it wrinkled my nose),
but taste is strange, and slimy works
just fine sometimes,
like in the absence of teeth.
she never liked her dentures,
     (she said she couldn't taste her food)
and gummed her frozen dinner meals with a smile,
like it was the greatest thing in the world.
     (in fact she'd often say, 'that was the best meal i had ever had',
     and with a force that made me happy to suspend my doubt)
and who am i, judging
that which you select? your pills,
your diapers and your vote,
your shows, your nursery rhymes,
your crown manipulation,
your age?
i use abjection well,
as something not unlike a whetstone for denial.
performing daily rituals i abhor
i retrain and edit, revising social eyes:
dilapidated fictions, safer norms
and mores tailored to a loan
with interest from the self.

she didn't call herself a 'nudist,'
though she lived beyond the fence
living **** for decades saying
'i'll never leave, i love my home.'
we played dominoes 'til noon
'another kind of indoor game, one on a side'
her interpretation of my being there
changed soon, like my aversion
for the liquid yoke she buttered with a spoon.
our neighbors loved her and i,
and to meander down our path,
lay their towels and sit
like all there was to do was visit.
lunched,
she hobbles from her plants back to the sink,
and filling the cat dish, stands
century-old arms akimbo
in the doorway, with a sigh to wake the sun.
being of caretaking was never so fun.
holding hands i help her over roots,
around the rocky sections, through
the easy path and level now
she hobbles sure, the cane a decoration
for her pride at being old and young
at heart and quick at stories overtold
in grooves to satisfy the sense of time.
greetings shower us with beaming smiles,
inching to the sandy edge. denuding,
joining everyone, we stand engulfed
in air. modern digambar to don
a vaster cloth of letting be.
skinny dipping grandma, and me.
the water slips around
her fraglile skin, human driftwood
knotted with a smile.
a grand mother slipping through akashic cracks
to undiscover friends their seeing core.
they wonder at the shore
of hoary plight
and wonder on, once we're gone.

In an instant the sparkle showered me
Bathed in light and energy
Flowing flowing a waterfall of emotion
A connection stretching back in time
A piercing silence
Cloaking me in her calm
Her doors had been cast aside
Unexpected candor, laughter lilting
And bouncing, catching me off guard.
She wasn’t hiding behind the bush
Or running from tree to tree
She stretched the moments
Filled them with spirit
Flew to the rafters and beckoned me to join
I melted in her eyes, molten joy
Ready to be molded
Precious shapes, rare forms
Unknown beings.
I trusted her hands
Gripped me with delicacy
And a lightness of life.
That moment became a day
And that day will not end.

basilisk ****
nonparticular inexecrable exit
art ****
the lips on for breakfast
twilight zip entanglement
meticulous bending and sensual telepathy

fever-sickness
rock 'n roll boo-boos
lilting black 'n blues on the caboose
puppeteering every tasty ***** loose

chews the collar
thighs and necking room
bustling bussers it gives ifs
gets down with

daisy, dior, dkny, grapefruit(purple) to narcisso and pink sugar too

Bliss tainted madness
playing tug-o-war with
January's vacuum
Years of passing down groupies
to the most recent djs playing bad dubstep tunes
and that sickness of seeing iloveyou's abused

Show me your hidden face,
Quiet shivers erupting from behind masks,
Desirous of you to fill the open space,
And to question whether to demand or to ask.

Quiet shivers erupting from behind masks,
Tenacious rumblings of an unknown kind.
To question whether to demand or to ask
Would be a dangerous dance with the conscious mind.

Tenacious rumblings of an unknown kind,
Tables fleeing and chairs sent asunder.
Would it be a dangerous dance with the conscious mind
To let the labyrinth open and the curious wonder?

Tables fleeing and chairs sent asunder,
The costumes strewn on lilting lamps.
Let the labyrinth open and the curious wonder,
Get rid of the bed monsters and tummy cramps.

The costumes strew on lilting lamps,
Show me your hidden face.
Get rid of the bed monsters and tummy cramps.
I'm desirous, you. Fill the open space.

Since I have no other way
And am in utmost need,
Painter girl,
I filch one of the eight lambs
You have made plump with
Green jackfruit leaves and
Thin gruel with paddy bran.

I will take it to the goat market
And sell it in a jiffy.

I assure you
I will not sell it
To any butcher-
The lamb you made chubby
With sweet sweet words
And much much petting
And nice lilting croons,
Mixing and mixing
Greens with browns.


Don’t be sad, painter girl.
I hear you come running
Searching for your lamb and
Cry out “O my dearest one
Who went grazing in the green fields,”
As the sun in your canvas
Sets in the sea and
The saffron blends with the dusk.
And, see your tears mingle
With the black that you wanted
To adorn the brow of
The naughtiest of them.

Painter girl,
It’s all because I have no other go
And it’s of utmost need.
I could have broken into the
Two-storeyedhouse you sketched
And stolen the ornaments in
Secret lockers that even
You are unaware of.

Or, I could have
Palmed the golden girdle
Of the beautiful ***** princess
Whose portrait you made,
The one with a nose stud.
Or, drugged her with my kisses
And plundered the harem.

Or else, I could have
Entered the snake shrine
Guarded by the dark serpents
That you often drew
And fled the country with
The precious jewel.

Or, I could have shot down
The birds that you drew
And sold them grilled.

I could have axed down the
Mahagony trees you nurtured
And sold them as timber.
I could have blinded your Kanhaiah
And made him a beggar
To become rich from the alms he earned.
I could have enslavened his Gopis
And handed them over
To the red light streets.

Painter girl,
It’s not for anything of this sort.
I take just one of your eight lambs.
Sell it for a good price
And fulfill my need.

Now, perchance,
If a new tenant comes to rent
My brain where nothing resides
And if they pay me a fat advance,
Painter girl,
Surely will I buy back your lamb.
And tether it in your painting.
Don’t you dare say then
Don’t you say then
That you have forgotten it.
Don’t you say then
You have exhausted your stock of
Green jackfruit leaves.


(Trans from Malayalam by Ra Sh)

Windchimes
By
Jude Kyrie


The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees
Sometimes it seems like you are here.
Memories now float in the summer breeze.

Aged Confusion brings me to my knees
That I can't find you my biggest fear
The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees

Then I see you gods have answered my pleas.
The windchimes voices brought you near.
Memories now float in the summer breeze

You say the trellis is choked with sweet peas
But your beautiful voice is all I hear.
The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees

The center of my universe is all I see.
Your beauty abundant soft and clear.
Memories now float in the summer breeze.

Then you fade far away from me.
Just the lilting chimes is all I hear
The windchimes lilt in the stirring trees.
Memories now float in the summer breeze

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
     The night above the ****** starry,
          Time let me hail and climb
     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
          Trail with daisies and barley
     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
     In the sun that is young once only,
          Time let me play and be
     Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
          And the sabbath rang slowly
     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
     And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
     And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
     Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the **** on his shoulder: it was all
     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
     And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
     Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
     In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
     My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
     Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
                  take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
     In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
     I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

And again my heart pounced
over skin cold; that pleaded singleness,
with hypocritical beats I bowed to,
to her highness; to her petite shrill,
a debut in partial denial; unpleasant,
as i withdrew with foul felony,
thoughts raced through judging ethics,
while simplicity ****** away the soul,
into a contagious six holed drain...

And I locked myself behind blue bars,
losing the wall I built with sweated palms,
danced did I over viscous black waters,
embracing the world's false desires,
smashed them pretty birds withing their cage,
lost all sense of peace, I go hidden,
in awe of that ever pleasant voice;
I bow again; in silence I ask me
to plant me in her backyard,
water me with her sour scents,
sing me her sweet lilting lullaby,
and embrace me into our little concord!!

Where did the wisdom lay that moment?
that moment when I tasted drops of sweat...
Why would I **** that clown in me?
that played tunes from a gleeful cassette...
When will I lose my two shadows?
that followed me even while I'd regret...

(a puff o' smoke and some silence)

And again my heart, it pounced!!

She'll brew a *** of bliss and then she'll pour it in your cup
She'll dance around the room until the gloom is all drunk up
She's not your normal angel, boy and of that you should be glad
For she fills a parlour naked more than many girls do clad

She's an angel from Newfoundland and St. Andrews knew her well
She's certainly no Flatrock as Tickle Harbour's boys can tell
And Jackson's and Chapple's Arms they both have been in her's
She's even been to Merasheen don't tell the other girls

Her "H"s have an "H" in them and her voice a lilting sound
But if you want sincerity no better can be found
Her love's as pure as dynamite she'll blow you off the shelf
She'll make your whisker hairs stand up and your little man an elf

She's an angel now in Tor-onto, On-tar-i-ario
She moved there when her parents died and she didn't know where to go
Ah, Mississauga knows her well and so does Hamilton
But Toronto is the place to be when she is having fun

She says she works a fancy bar called the Iron Cross Cha-pel
Where pretty men come in all dressed up and cuss and kiss as well
She cannot find a boyfriend there but she has lots of dates
They give her lots of Ecstasy and tell her it's not ****

She's an angel from Newfoundland and St. Andrews knew her well
She's certainly no Flatrock as Tickle Harbour's boys can tell
And Jackson's and Chapple's Arms they both have been in her's
She's even been to Merasheen don't tell the other girls

Under the spreading clouds on high,
inside my skiff I gently glide;
Watching the calming water flow,
while golden skies put on their show.

As I lazily recline inside my boat,
my thoughts and worries seem to float;
While drifting on as in a dream,
my soul connects to this quiet stream.

The lilting river seems still as air,
and peace embraces my heart so fair;
I've carried onward through the day,
and stop where children come to play.

Reflections of my one true love,
which shines in waters of the cove;
Mirrors my life as it should be,
as I set upon the restless sea.

constantly wavering
staggering back and forth
pure grey wisps
lilting over liver spots
on a glinting crown.
after days spent vegetating
sedro woolley has let him go
under family escort.

the first seed
he ever sifted through his fingers
has led him here.
every acre planted
every berry blossomed
every cow cured
every milk pail filled.

now
he
constantly wavering
in the breeze
pure grey wisps
lilting over ferns and moss
under great cedars.
the first seeds
he ever sifted through his fingers
led us here.
he has grown acres of us.
now we stand tall against the wind
as he sifts through our fingers.