She has galaxies in her eyes
Her hope could fill oceans, and still have more to spare
When she opens her mouth, birds stop to listen
And rain reverently relents in its pounding.

She has galaxies in her eyes
Her laughter is infectious, a disease you want to catch.
And when she’s sad, you don't know what to do
It’s a shock, because she’s always grinning

She has joy at her fingertips
Her imagination fills libraries
When she sleeps, her dreams manifest themselves
Becoming wonderful stories that you wish to live out

She has joy at her fingertips
A bright aura follows her like a kitten,
And wraps itself around everyone she touches

She has joy at her fingertips
And galaxies in her eyes
And everywhere she goes, you smile.

Flecks of violet, patch-quilt  loofah skin of  sponge-green iris, gold dusted
Emerald  eyes... wet stones in flesh tone, parachute baskets; paratroop lids
Descend... thin paradigms slip ; adrift upon a Seam of Tears. A saline Sea - with
Glass floor; lensing starlight over mint pink trampolines
covered in tiny copper filings,

And two Black Pools that Expand.
Two Sunbathing Night Blossoms -

Dead center. Unmanned...

Her cheekbones encroach upon Cataracts of Vacancy.
Lipid lathes of Lethe ; lips departed... red zeppelins, moist and mute . pontoons
Plump and mindless. Bee stung -
Open.

Soft mimes, glide
Over bleach and stain; over -
bone white; glide
Over Nicotine sigils, hiding -
in off-white
Enamel...

like anonymous petroglyphs for Dentists.
or Rosetta Stones for a lethargic Tongue.



II


Theta-wave turbines, throw rods and spark nods ... as others speak.
She resembles a dream-catcher’s mitt.
Words hiss now, and solid mist, twist the tell o' gram.
Into Fable's Armada !

Fog.... fog rolls in...   She rolls in, Beneath  a New Between. of Chasms
Hazardous grammar spasms, stammering -
Deaf tones of Diction -
All This ....In the Good Ear.
An Ear Of Cornucopias Delete.... The Dry Cob
Of  Annulled
Speech. [ but Morphine ]

Maybe a half-dozen kernels of distinct cream ; velveteen vague...
Or vivid - pleats in pure radiation.
?
Perhaps,  varicose inanities are expiation enough to drown a Kraken ?  Maybe God Happens ?

Let Ampule be the Judge.  Let Pack Mules be Priests.

As Others speak, Our Lily,  decrypts languidly left of linear... dislodged -
from Lexicons ....with long Odds, Against...
She Relents, Relentlessly-  And Utterly

Utterly Regardless...

She aborts pregnant ( .... )
pauses.

All this Fog rolls in... Agnostic.
She Robs
The Cuckoo... She De-bones the Soup
with Disjoint Comments.
And Scuttles
The Broth.

She's all Starlings and Polaroids.... Savage Pinwheels  and Aurora Vandals.

She's  All Plasma...
And Rapture -
with No Handles ...

She's Both Ends ... Burning
NOooo Candle .

A Wee Atlas; Shouldering A Loss
Ever Since Her World  
Was  Dismantled ..  A  Burden ( ... )
Lily
Phantom
Shrugs  

And Random Drugs..Atlantis.

The rain falls softly on the sleeping city…. Cloaked in the blanket of a monsoon lull…. A few stray dogs scamper for shelter as the first storm of the season colours the dawn a deeper crimson…..
The thunder rumbles from the north east…a deep slow sonorous sound coming from the underbellies of the moisture laden atmosphere…..
The soft drizzle forms a hazy blanket of morning mist around the city…..already stirring with the first signs of life…. The resurrection of the everyday work-a-day world…….
The musical tinkling of a bell echoes around as a pushcart brimming with flowers rushes down the street, hurrying to the market…fresh, preened and ready…to be sold to the highest bidder…
The soft music of the approaching storm inspires a boatman, out on the holy river, to sing…… his voice echoes over the bass of the thunder……a plaintive pleasant humming……the nuances of the bhatiali fill up the empty cracks in the morning……
The rain deepens…………the drizzle expands into the monsoons first downpour… pitter-patter sings the rain, reverberating off a thousand tin roofs……the sky darkens……enveloping the dawn in its grey being…..
Somewhere, someone tunes a harmonium…..clears a throat…a hand draws a curtain aside…..
The peaceful reassurance of the daily azaan spreads out from the mosque…..calling the faithful to prayer…..
The flower vendor…now setting up shop, attaching an extra strip of plastic sheet to fend off the rain…. Stops a moment and bows his head as the nearby tolling of a bell and the sound of a conch shell being blown announces the beginning of a new day in god’s abode….
A woman kneels down in a pew…..praying…..the calm of the church mirrored in her peaceful face…..
The rain looks down at the city……..now, half awake…slowly stretching its limbs……..stirring from the depths of a restless rest…………awakening to the jangling of a bread earner’s faith……
The shower relents……..probably giving in to all the Monday morning groans and grumbles emanating from a city forced back into consciousness…..
Finally, all that remains is the moisture on the flower vendor’s tarpaulin and the shadow of the boatman’s song on the rippled river…….

Her tears fade the paper
As the ink begins to run
She'll find no peace inside her
Until her work is done

Her emotions hold her captive
As she writes with all her might
She struggles with her passion
Til late into the night

She has to tell her story
As she brushes away the stains
The poet keeps on writing
As her teardrops fall like rain

A heart that's once been broken
Will guide her skillful hand
She's writing from her emptyness
Hoping all will understand

She writes until she's hollow
Or her heartache finally relents
Her tears become her poetry
Each time the poet laments

PART I: ADRIFT

Madness passed Misery
and bumped into me.
We travel together now,
Islands lost at sea.

Ahead, Tomorrow rides,
pinned to the sunrise.
Yesterday dogs us,
marking our tides.

Empty atolls pass
on windborne paths.
Now homes to only bones;
more dead outcasts.

The Ocean never laments
or attempts to make sense.
We just wander across it
until living relents.

PART II: VAGRANT

Lagoon to lagoon,
harboring my tether.
Giving me shelter
from daily storms.

Lost in the masts,
a paper boat.
Taking on water...
as expected.

A lucky hook
snares the soggy craft.
Dried and opened:
a cry for          .

When no reply came,
a folded flotilla
Whitened the water,
a cry now screaming.

This harbor now empties.
My travels resume.

PART III: DREAM

The sea fades to gulls, and then,
a delta rushed with mountainfulls.
I've become a salmon fighting upstream,
an island lost in a riverbed dream.

A suite of fourteen poems

for Alice, always

I

Cutting for Silage

Seen
on the path close to the field edge
a swathe of green grass cut,
Left
in the wake of the machine
to dry in the hopeful sun,
Rich
in a profusion of grasses,
glimmers of wind flowers,
weeds and tares.

Seen from afar
the cut fields partition this landscape
with stripped overlays
packaging the valley,
dark green rows revealing
the camber and roll of
a naked field shorn,
Dark upon light.

II

Walk to Porth Oer

Where the sand whistles
and windy enough today
for the tinnitus to set in,
we’ll walk the curve of its dry fineness
left untouched by the tide’s daily passage
up and back

before
and along cliff paths,
from the mountain
past secret coves
whose steep descents
put the brake on all
but the determined,
beside shoulders of grasses
bluebelled still in almost June
now hiding under the rising bracken
up and down

we’ll walk to a broad view
of this whispering bay
where below on the sandy shore
dots of children
tempt the slight waves.


III

Cold Mountain

Whether  a large hill
or officially a mountain
it’s cold on this higher place
wrapped in a land-mist,
the sea waiting in breathless calm
where the horizon has no line,
no edge to mark the sky.

Any warmness illusory,
in sight of sun brightening a field
far distant, but not here,
where waiting is the order of the day,
waiting for grass to shine and sparkle,
for bare feet to be comforted
by sweet airs.

Meanwhile the sheep chomp,
the lambs bleat and plead,
the choughs throaty laugh
a shrill punctation, an insistence
that all this is how it is.


IV


China in Wales

In my hermitage
on this sea-slung place,
a full-stop of an island
back-lit illuminated always,
I view the distant mountains,
a chain of three peaks
holding mist to their flanks,
guarding beyond their heights
a gate to a teaming world
I do not care to know.


V


Wales in China

O fy nuw, I thought
my valley only owned such rain,
but here it teams torrential
taking out the paths on this steep
mountain side. Mud
everywhere it shouldn’t be.
Everything I touch damp and dripping.
No promise of pandas here.
And there’s this language like the chatter of birds,
whilst mine is the harsh sibilants of sheep
on the hill, the rasp of rooks on the cliffs.


VI


Boy on the Beach

Heard before seen
the boy on the beach,
a relentless cry
of agrievement, of
being badly done to.
This boy on the beach

following his mother
at a distance
then no further.
‘I hate you, ‘ he screams,
and stops,
turning his back on the sea,
folding his arms,
miserableness unqualified,
no help or comfort
on the horizon he cannot see.
It is attrition by neglect.
He becomes silent, and called
from a distance, relents
and turns.


VII


The Poet

Austere, his mouth
moved so little when he spoke,
you felt his words
were always made in advance,
scripted first
and placed on the auto-cue.
Ask a question: and there’s a long pause

as though there lies
the possibility of multiple answers
and he’s running through the list
before he speaks, his antenna
trained on the human spirit,
full of doubt, doubting even
belief itself.


VIII


A Gathering

Thirty, maybe forty
and not in a lecture room
but a clubhouse for the sailing
look you. And we did,
out of the patio doors
to the sun-flecked sea below us,
here to honour a poet’s life and work
in this village of the parish he served
at the end of the pilgrim’s path .

Pilgrims too, of a kind, we listened  
to the authoritative words
of scholarship where ironing
the rough draft found in the bin,
explaining the portrait above the bed,
balancing the anecdotal against the interview,
reading the books he read
become the tools of understanding.

But the poems, the poems
silence us all, invading the space,
holding our breath like a fist.



IX


In the Garden

He came alone to sit in the garden
and remember the day
when, with the intimacy of his camera,
he took her, deep into himself;
her look of self-possession,
of calmness and confidence,
augmented by butterflies
motionless on the wall-flowers,
and the soft breath of the blue sea,
her soft breath, her dear face,
freckled so, his hand trembling
to hold the focus still.


X


The Couple from Coventry

Young beyond their years
and the house they had acquired
but only to visit at weekends for now,
they drove four hours to open the gate
on a different life, a second home
requiring repairs on the roof
and replastering throughout.

With their dog they were walking
the mountain paths, checking out the views,
returning to the quiet space
their bed filled in an upstairs room
echoing of birth and death:
to experiment further with loving
before the noise and distraction
of children swallowed up their lives.


XI


On Not Going to Meeting

There was an excuse:
a fifteen mile drive
and a wet morning.
He had a book, a journal
that might focus his thoughts
towards that communion of souls:
a silence the meeting of Friends
sought and sometimes gathered.

These experimental words
of a man who felt he knew
‘I had nothing outward
to help me,’ who then, oh then,
heard a voice which said,
‘There is one, even Christ Jesus,
that can speak to my condition
. . .  who has the pre-eminence,
who enlightens and gives grace
and faith and power.’


XII


New Life

From behind its mother
the calf appeared
tottering towards the gate,
but after a second thought,
deeming curiosity inappropriate,
turned back to that source
of nourishment and life.


XIII


A Walk on Treath Pellech

Good to stride out.
Good to feel unencumbered
by the unconfining space
of beach and sea, a shoreline
littered with rocks and shallow pools,
sea birds flocking at the tide’s edge.

Alone he sought her small hand
and wished her there over time and space
so to observe what lay at his feet,
that he might continue to look
into the distance with a far-flung gaze.


XIV


The Owl Box

James put it there.
One of forty
all told but
empty yet.
‘We live in hope,’
he said.

Slung from a bough,
bent and bowed,
on a wind-shaped tree,
a hawthorn blossoming still,
(inhabited by choughs a’nesting)
the box hangs waiting
for its owl, her eggs,
her fledgling young
who are not hatched together
but are staggered as though
to give the mother owl some
pause for thought.

Meanwhile the nesting choughs
tear the air with tiresome croaks,
a bit of rough these black characters,
neighbours soon to the delicate mew,
the cool, downy white of the Athene noctua.

i.

in your love, boy,
a summertime of dream,
a kiss on the winter wind.

ii.

in your love, boy,
a sky of lotus,
a sea that never relents.

iii.

in your love, boy,
a jealous heartbeat  
sweetened by a kiss.

iv.

in your love, boy,
the wonders of the earth
the white mist of the hills.

v.

in your love, boy,
the honeyed kiss of the breeze.

It all goes tha' knows
the memory loss
the failing sight
the sleep at night and
then they put you in a home.

Can't find my own testosterone, it's probably gone as well, but each day reminds me, occasionally,
that at times it's better to look and not see.

Under each rock you will find the place where the enemy sits with a smiling face, the memory key on the odd occasion relents to set me free.

Pontefract cakes and rhubarb wraps, designed to taste nice, are life's little traps.
I fall into it and them, time after time, and after more time I fall in again.

It's getting late too and I can't wait to jump through the mirror that opens the way.

snagged on wheat stalks, no
shoes, a sheet of hair in the sun
everybody can hear me and no
one can hear me, crashing through
the tall grass on a wolf trail, slapped
by ears of corn, the tall grass relents
against me





shush, shush, shush,






but my feet
have never left the ground and the
durum sticks to my sweat, out here
in the wilderness.

Along I strolled a country path
spread with leaves of happy shade,
sunspots sprinkled on the turf,
insects humming in the glade.
 
Towering gumtrees soar aloft
running mauve to whitish tan,
strips of bark hang limply downward
richly capped with leafy crown.
The great bowl squats, it’s fan of
massive roots inumerable.
 
The leaves are wet
and silver sunlight sparks from sheen to sheen,
dazzling those who care to notice
moss so green,
and lacelike in it’s tiny brittle intricacy
 
Sunlight stirs the breeze to eddy
swirls of leaves in turn do bring
the brown eyed blackbird out to sing
his lilting challenge;
blue crisp air.
 
Delightful is the word I choose
to announce my sentiments,
nature in late summer gown,
drab winter in disgust
relents another day with thunderous frown.

Marshalg 
Ferntree Gully
26th March 1969

i.

dusk melts into walls
and corners,
the sun begins to dip,
below the earth
little islands of
light and shadow.

ii.

the light softens,
carries us towards
the sentry keeper
of the blue earth
the night’s noble
gaze.

iii.

rose-wood and indigo,
immense cloud
washed-out like
faded denim,
stars in summer’s hollowy skies.

iv.

as dark as a tinted window
the land breaks free
from the sun, dissolves
into shadows bent
into a thousand shapes
and altitudes
like softening rivers
of the mind.

v.

uncovered, the night
forgets it flowers and its
prisms, relents to magical
seas of black ink.

I have seen the world anew
and never seen beauty like my love
I hunger for her
she is sweeter than honey
kinder than a summer rain
I see her form and know I am unworthy,
to brush her flesh must be forbidden
to consume her is my every dream
the hunger to ravage her torments me
her curves and form are perfection
they grab and twist at all the passions of my soul
my body aches to see her flesh bare and glowing
God created her for me
yet I know I am unworthy of such beauty
so sublime she is that I ravage her at every opportunity
always knowing I am not worthy
my hunger still does not subside
to pleasure her is the pinnacle of my every dream
seeing her in rapture is like ten thousand sunsets
fire and passion calling for the night
her hair like golden strands of silk
cascading across the summit
flowing in the wind like tall grass in a summer field
with eyes deep and mysterious as the sea
blue as the spring sky
her ******* like two perfect suns
dancing through the sky
lighting all the world with warmth and passion
feeding all life as they follow their arcs
her hips and thighs like smooth dunes
formed by the soft wind curving and shaping them to perfection
slow and smooth shapes as only nature can sculpt
with its endless patience and mindless will
at her seat two perfect crescents
moving through the heavens overwhelming the stars
tracing orbits set from the beginning  of time
their reflected light captivates
it consumes me as I bathe in its glory
where the dunes meet, golden fields bathed in the sun
an oasis of plenty awaits
The triune points form its boundaries
at the apex, the drive of my very existence awaits
in the sight of this glory
I tremble and quake
love and lust fill my heart
like being driving to madness
pursuing till she relents to me
opening her body to the rapture I demand
a kiss so deep and sweet
it takes our breath
her lips so soft
the suns heave with anticipation of glory
with crescents rocking the heavens
the earth moves with us
building, climbing, rising into the night
we must have release from this torment and pleasure
It comes like waves
we bathe in oceans of ecstasy
sweet release
sweet release
sweet release
spent and weak for this short time
I can bathe in her beauty without the torment of my lusts
to caress her skin without hunger
It will not last
while it does I will whisper songs of love in her ear
my soul laid bare
not tainted by the lust of my *****
maybe minutes, maybe hours
my torment will resume
but for now
love alone

catatonic patagonia rumbles off beyond the tilt in world spheres unknown unproven
a wasteland
not there, here but who wastes land decides where the waste lands as mist obscures trees like it knows its aesthetic knows the beating heart the focused eye rolling forming subversive lands and wanderings unmasked only by forward march and direct sunlight move like mist feel the fog crawl up rock faces and empty spaces foot calf hamstring submerged in secrecy
shoot bearings lose bearings shoot bearings lost bearings the bering strait rushes further than the south andes get strait to the point the peak the top unfolding dips and precipices, teetering on the edge of identity can't see can't see where what
but the fog relents revealing a why that sits a while then crumbles like a letter left in the laundry or the will to lift both feet from this earth

I
In an instant they knew, as sure as the sun comes out each morn, that their destinies will never be the same again. And they embraced and sat in, waiting for the rain to stop and for reality to wake them up.
It didn't and thus they lay when they were found by the villagers, in an embrace and some say with a smile on their faces. Nobody knew what happened, it seems like they were alive one minute and gone the next...

II**
We closed our eyes and let the darkness consume us. Then, holding hands, we flew to the star in the middle of Orion's belt. We were dressed in loose transparent garments. We found a bed of hay-like material to lie. Our hands softly explored each other while our mouths kissed a million kisses.

'Let's stay here forever', she says. Undecided, her lover relents to the only love he has known. When they awaken, they find themselves in a field filled with strawberries and pumpkin. He grabs some strawberries and feeds his love and eats some. They explore the field hand in hand creating a trail of fluttering butterflies as they walk.
She thinks, I need a bath and immediately they're transported to a gorgeous river where the water rushes at just the right speed to refresh and yet not be swept away.

the star of the star of the morning
is restful and breathful and free

the star of the star of the evening
blossoms dark as a shadowy tree,


the waves drive out far in their rivers
as blue as a star in the sky,

and the darkness relents for her shivers
must finally die.


waves turning and burning and dancing
clouds wandering e'er ever on

and the darkness that finds the new morning,
as cold as stark night's bitter song,


oh, brother who wept for my sisters
no tears as alive as their breath

swept out where the wild sea blisters
and pain knows of death.


wild whispers, wild birds and the fury
of waves that sing out to the clouds

the death then of life that we bury
laid out in the whitest of shrouds


the sea, oh, the sea, how she sings me
a song of a dance never sung

and her rhythms soon calm and placate me
her bell solemn rung.


and sweet love is the journey i strive for
as blue as a mysterious sea

and the love is a fruit full of succor,
and the moment will live e'er free,


you stand tragic as a painting so mournful
alone as a poet who rests,

and the lull of the storms here at night fall
the sea's treasure chests.


the day wraps the night in her roses
and night wraps the day in her sight

and midnight's soft moonlight supposes
that day is a journey e'er bright,


and love was a love still forever
and love had no rose in her bower

for the floor of the sea like a feather
the delicatest flower.

Life bears down
Grabs you by the horns
Takes you head on
It never surrenders
And never relents

All life ever does
Is push you
And so builds
The pressure
Powerful
Insurmountable

You seek only release
But wait
Aren't you master
Of these affairs?
Didn't you drive
These needs out?

After all
Your release is obvious
Aren't there tally marks
Of the flesh
To mark
Every time you gave in

Until finally the desire
Nay even need
Becomes unbearable
Crimson shall be yours
For the low low price
Of weakness

And so finally
At the end of the week
Your tally
Comes out high again

True, best laid plans shall go awry.
Now, sadly, this I've found.
Cheap lies that make the bold heart cry
Make same hearts seek new ground.

Exceptions, though, exist there do
That challenge such a rule.
Cheap metronome my chest holds to
Is proof, the stubborn mule.

The space between my ears cries stop!
We shall not bear such weight.
This ruined mass won't be your prop,
We shan't stay in this state.

To eyes it cries, affix elsewhere.
Out of mind if out of sight.
Then this reply: Yes, we do care,
But can't see through this night.

The fiend that feeds the warmth to all
Has clouded all we know.
Now we have ceased thanks to this gall.
There's nothing left to show.

Alas, it spirals yet more deep
As systems halt and cease.
This wretched force persists to seep,
Its grip I can't release.

My shell and all but blackened core
Evade this awful dread.
The visceral cries I hear no more
As screams are all I'm fed.

The limbs upon the trunk can't live
Unless the ground is lush.
For if the roots can no more give,
The tree falls to the brush.

This heart, my fallen sylvan soul
Is now the fuel for others.
Uncaring lives that dig the hole
Now feed on fallen brothers.

It's company that sadness seeks.
This, others push away.
Unknowingly, their apathy speaks.
Exacerbate: decay.

So though all but what I protect
Still plead for refuge soon,
Its hold upon me won't forget
The love I still exhume.

As time tries to inter this need
That most seem wont to shun,
I still embrace full life's first seed
For that's how I begun.

Forget me not, the love does cry.
My heart replies, I shan't.
Though all within plead still to fly,
Dismiss this hurt, I can't.

So long as though I have control,
We shall still bear this hurt.
For giving up on love so whole
Would cause life to revert.

So though the pain from her deceit
Relents not, to this day,
Forever hold her here complete,
I shall, she's here to stay.

This shroud of darkness is overwhelming
I stumble blindly through it, hoping to grasp onto something familiar
The most powerful of lanterns cannot, will not, pierce this shroud
The darkness, in itself, is alive, moving to engulf this world
Much like light, which only wishes to illuminate this world
But will not, for fear of being extinguished by the darkness
However, there is one torch, one light that defies this shroud
It tries tirelessly to pierce the shroud, continually failing
Until one day, the darkness relents under the powerful gaze, and recedes back
Allowing a single ray of light through
Although the ray is slim and starting to recede, it gives hope
Hope that light will touch this world again
This hope was not just limited to the inhabitants, but also to the lanterns, and torches, and any source of light
This hope became something the darkness feared
It became a force, a force so powerful that is caused lanterns and torches to ignite on their own
Other objects that shouldn't have, emitted a powerful light
The powerful light, which was everywhere, eroded the darkness away
The light triumphing over the darkness
The torch, the one that defied shone brighter than ever in the skys above, destroying any trace of the dark
Soon, the darkness was gone, even the shadows
Save for one shadow, MY shadow
And what a curious shadow it was

And when the fire relents
You will find me
Unveiled by the smoke
Standing unmoved
Un yielding
Un changeable
And the wind will catch my hair
My shirt
My jeans
You will find me unmoved
Un yielding
Un changed.

After all the things
He spent with me… I was
Never a note — a flower — only
A brief connecting flight.
I am not the type
Clinging to security — yet —
What once were fingers
On delicate hand, are
Crooked — Clawing.
Howbeit his snake coiled,
Relents its wring. And slow release…
Relieves my grief.

Black is the seed, and black, the fruit.

The blossom of light an affront:  wrought of nothing,
illuminating nothing, reverting to nothing, the blossom is—
Everything.
And a man contends, endures,
knowing, in his moment, that all that matters
matters not; that in the crowd
he is alone, that in the cosmos
he is lost, that in his writing
he is written. He is a coal, shot hot between voids.
Intense to evanescent,
each pass of a life has a spectrum.

Red is the womb.

Here, at riot’s eye, all bellows howl,
all fires bend to the harlot wind of becoming.
And the nub is a lump, and the lump accrues,
marbles dreamless, in liquor weightless, defining:
Liquid ruby, clinging vine, tallow flower in wine—
the little ogre, caught on a briar, kicks.
Comes a marvelous trophy, squirming and gory,
naked and pendent, blind and grotesque—
wound about the hollows and seams,
spat in a maelstrom:
one more shape in the window,
one more shadow exposed,
in the ****** triumph of light.

Out of the whirl, the faces gather round.
The boy has opened his eyes,
but the infant makes no sound.
Shapes loom to the sides, to the front and rear:
The faces grin, closing in…grow enormous fingers
to point, to pinch—to peel back the veil
and make his eyes scream.
In the dimness a nimbus, a prism, a pearl.
The faces part. The prism paints an image in the whirl.
The figure is a woman, whose seeming lips recite:
“Come sunder the night. Little ember, ignite.
I am mother, I am mother. I am life, I am light.”
But like oil on a rainy day,
the colors blend and wend their way
into the whirl, and there,
subdued, the voice is slurred,
the light, obscured,
and night
renewed.

Here on the lattice,
morning embroiders the tatters of night.
While tall beaded glasses
squeeze melody from melting ice,
the diced and slanting shafts of sun
checker the shadows with tangerine light.
On the sidewalks April’s children run,
but the eyes in the faces see
nephew on the august perch
of uncle’s wicker knee.
Graven in air, the faces shift,
their eyes a flickering stream.
Loosed features drift, expressions run
in subtle strokes of shade and sun.
The stream ***** him in:  swirls of abhorrence,
pools of disdain. Succumbing, drawn under,
he swallows his eyes. But the eyes in the faces remain
watching.

So scrawny it grieves, he eats too ****** much;
ever absent, he is always in the way.
Sickly, quiet, submissive, shy,
he hides when the faces quarrel,
cries when they crack his lie.
Craving love, he learns early to fast;
contriving a limp, he is weaned at last.
What hold wanders here—there are no bridges,
only walls. Every scribe is a master of cant.
The learned are jaundiced, the ignorant smug.
And those who would name his demons,
when maintaining “this will pass,”
fashion their webs of pap and straw.
This animal man is a thief.

Mother,
My world is a stranger.
My eyes are wounds on a mind that will not heal.
I saw more range, more warmth, more mother,
in the dance of sun on heather,
in a single kiss of dew.
Now your urn, blessed bowel, fouls the cedar
of father’s mantel, while he grows blacker,
blending bile with grief and gin.
Those lips that never tendered,
that heart I never knew—mother,
who were you?

Ubiquitous, the emerald **** lies splayed, exploding:
from her pores an eruption, on her belly a rank,
stinking moss. She bleeds life, vomits it,
into bud, into blade; sharing with a passing star
the silent scream of spring.
But here she dreams, perfumed,
a picture of grace, her verdure in groom.
Secluded, seduced, sedated. Churls put on her face
while zephyrs attend to the scent of her loom.
Time purls. The zephyrs flit sweetly,
chasing motes in fibers of light.
Playing tag in the sun, currents weave into one,
near a still-life of mourners and fatherless son.
The figures seem rooted, unreal.
As the gust musses trees, light leaps between leaves.
The greenery breathes. As if shaken,
the scene comes to life:  huddling in sync,
the faces incline, their eyes like slinking thieves.
The young man implodes. He reels.
The tension relents and he straightens. He wheels.
He limps off alone, wind hounding his heels,
the moment too eerie to bear. Sedans trickle by.
A raw widow grieves. But the faces continue to stare.
And the wind pirouettes, finds a wing,
has a plunge, brakes low on a rest,
makes a guarded descent. The breeze buffets markers,
losing vigor and bent, then slips thru the stones
toward the beckoning trees.
The draft riffles leaves, where its whisper is spent
and lost a sigh.

A stipend, a shack, a lessor in wait.
Such are the fruits of his father’s estate.
He breaks no bread, seeks no sweet;
strange dynamics govern his blood,
preclude his seed from the common fire.
Music of amity, refinement’s caress,
are brute concerns; abrasive, obscene.
In his quiet aching way he is whole.
Seasons burst and smolder, surrender and brood.
Their pageant revolves about him.
The years breathe, driving the crowd,
steeping its fevers in jasmine and sun.
Humanity brawls, exalting the flame.
But without him.
And he grays, sinking, certain his pain cannot,
could not possibly, be borne by another.
The silence condenses, sets.
At last even pain deserts him.
But near the brink he hears the nervous hum
of impermanence, feels the white pang of being’s wing
as day succumbs to the fist of night.
Dawn burns deeper, duller,
each beam towing a filament of dusk,
each round of the wheel a salvo
in the stunning of his eyes.

Now the years are mired in sameness.
The day wears on. Guests come unbidden:
Conscience, the despot. Sentiment, the leech.
Misgivings sojourn, transmigrate, return,
as Lonesomeness plumbs his moribund vein,
metastasizing.
Still he rooms with the wind, dies waking,
dreams sleepless. And it haunts him:
All this teeming while an instant, an irrelevancy,
a rube’s view of the pulse careening downstream,
working its rhyme into a billion like irrelevancies.
Here must be real, Now must be sound, and yet—
no sooner are the moments cast
than shape is shadow, and present, past.
Only the day wears on.
Blue is the evening begotten, the twilight of our lives.
Dark gathers, mooring its stain
where a dreamer weighs the deep,
his eyes in ruin, his color in vain.
Only ballast and mind, merely ego and rind,
growing blind as the day wears on.

Down this grim promenade,
a musty wind hustles gaunt silhouettes.
They are loth to be borne;
they are patiently measuring stones.
Eyes leap in their caverns, looks light and remain
on a smudge in the gloaming, a scarecrow with cane,
tapping out his tenure in a cold feeble rain.
And now the purple veins of near-night
thud sluggishly, almost grudgingly.
The black earth splits wetly, obscenely.
There:  something impatient stirs, exposed—
Limbless, sightless, the lamprey rises;
her breath unbearable, her length immeasurable,
her age—
impossible!
Preening *****, hypnotic.
In one vile kiss she is sieve and abyss.
Her bruised lips are splayed, her violet mouth, made,
and her churning, insatiable craw is
pitch.

Out of the whirl, the faces gather round.
Was he hurt? Can you hear me?
But the old man makes no sound.
Shapes loom to the sides, to the front and rear:
the faces glare, stealing air…grow enormous fingers
to ****, to pin—to pull down the veil
and make his eyes seize.
In the dimness a nimbus, a prism, a pearl.
The faces part. The prism paints an image in the whirl.
The figure is a woman, whose seeming lips recite:
“Come sunder the night. Waning fire, grow bright.
I am mother, I am mother. I am life, I am light.”
But like spectra from a dying sun,
the colors flare, are torn, are spun
into the whirl, and there,
subdued, the voice is hushed,
the blossom, crushed,
and night
renewed.

Thanks for reading Faces. NOW PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO READ HERO, A SPRAWLING, GROUNDBREAKING FANTASY FOR GROWNUPS IN TWO PARTS, ABOUT THE FIRST HUMAN TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE PLANET. (BUT YOU MUST CLICK ON THE PROVIDED LINK AT THE CONCLUSION OF PART ONE TO ACCESS PART TWO! THAT’S WHERE THIS TALE’S AMAZING RESOLUTION LIES. But please...intelligent, readers only!)
NOW HERE’S THAT LINK:

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14922744-Hero---Part-One-by-Ron-Sanders


Copyright 2020 by Ron Sanders.

contact:
ronsandersartofprose@yahoo.com

She walks through her garden of words
Choosing them carefully
She lays them all out leaving no doubt
The way it's supposed to be

All of her tears are standing in line
As she prepares to write
The darkness watches, and waits its turn
To hold her throughout the night

A sad song on her raido
Giving her tears their cue
The first one leaves finding her sleeves
As her pain starts breaking through

Her memories flooding her pen filled hand
She writes as fast as she can
Broken and mangled, her mind relents
Remembering her heartache again

Spilling her soul one drop at a time
She stumbles to her bed
Cleansing her mind, her words take their place
Knowing that all has been said

When every worldly sense is severed,
When not a muscle moves,
When our consciousness relents;
                     I wonder - Who Are You?
The time which slides our every moral
And we cannot be untrue,
We have no will to restrict our strength
                     So I wonder - Who Are You?
In the time when nothing holds us back,
Just before we come to;
Is there someone else so far within-
                     That I must wonder - Who Are You?

It's exhausting
All this heat
It rises like the balloons
Full of *******
That promise satisfaction
Like a heavy meal
In your belly

The mercury is boiling over
Fumes that make the hatter
Mad and frustrated
Sad and depressed
Searching for a better tomorrow
But we know it's in jest

The court is full of sparks
Flashes in the pan
That leave you blinking
Unable to focus
Palms pressed to your eyes
Calling forth so many stars
Were struck dumb

Like fireflies in the summer air
They flicker in and out
And maybe if we cross our eyes
Just right, they can focus
Take away our doubt
And fill the glass half full

But this heat is relentless
A fever pitch that's begging for an end
No matter how full we want
Our glass to be, the drops will rise
Condensation clinging to the sides
A mist that relents and moves into the air
A collective sigh of defeat.

But I've been told otherwise!
Past and present, I protest,
And he sneers.
What makes me so,
I query?
And he relents but says instead I'm just

nothing special

And the harsh slap of mediocrity stings
My greatest fear
To be
That nothing person
Face in the crowd person
The deadly sea of in between

I hold my breath 'til you walk by
So you won't see my fear
My heartbeat screams your name each time
While hoping you will hear

My eyes meet yours in silent dance
Blinded by your fame
I listen close to every word
Praying you'll say my name

My body numb, I cannot move
Your shadow touches mine
I long to reach and take your hand
Please give me just one sign

My lips in fear, refuse to speak
A prisoner of my mind
My words betray me one by one
They're just too hard to find

You walk away, my breath relents
My blinded eyes can see
My lips scream out your name in vain
You didn't notice me

less than i should,
i keep these foamy
fog-soaked memories
on hold-
pleading with the gods
"no yelling, not tonight"
and the rain relents

i feel a little safer
with just a few clouds
the stability is warm
unlike my hands,
and the majority of my heart
but i'm still here-
right?

or am i just pretending,
sometimes i do bleed
just to check if i am still alive.
sometimes i don't want to breathe-
that's okay too;
i'm on my journey
i'll find my way