The open casement by my bed
hears the Georgian shore’s
moonless night,
Listen in the black
close by
the water’s edge,
lapping stones and sand,
Swoosh to sleep,
Swoosh to sleep .
Whispers shush,
small waves sweep back,
as I softly curl
away from shapes
into my own seeped dream,
floating below surface ripples,
spent in my windswept crashes
of breaking foamy fist’s thundering pound,
splashing white on the grey gone day,
surge subsided
now the quiet pumping
under my skin
my own
blood flood shore.
The Big Bang
Could be
The BIG BANG
Was nothing more
Than a cosmic pimple,
On the fifth dimensioned
Skin of another universe,
That burst.
A cosmetic eruption
Making us its Zitizens,
Was it God who squeezed it?
Reflections on an Old Gravestone
Does it matter
that we didn’t know you?
your name eroded,
now ghost letters left
above this graveyard plot,
not remarked by history,
not joined to great events.
But your missing presence in the past,
even just your might have been
walking on this grass,
would by your absence
leave in us tiny empty cracks,
something lost,
imperceptibly diminishing us,
your infinitesimal trace
removed from who we are
Time gives us pictures:
past heroes, nobles and devils,
those we love
and those we hate,
The famous standing out
on temporal painting’s canvas,
We are its fabric,
we, its warped and wefted threads,
a stretched taught plane of plainness
upon which epic daubings stand,
without you there and then
however unremarkable
our own story would be fractured
us, this canvas, torn.
Even while looking upon your place,
our standing present here
drips its instant droplets
of this now becoming then,
moments falling from our lives
absorbed to yours before
our dreaded destined end.
We splash our colours
in hope to leave
our memorable shapes and signs.
Until our story stops its flow,
we add our likely unknown tale,
our own brief and humble history,
to blend with yours forever,
becoming this and all the ground around
of all we’ve been together.
Folding Sky
There’s a folded edge ahead,
a crease in the universe
where the sky hinges back
white puffed blue
on still water’s
reflected space.
Paddle dips glide
afloat, aloft,
pushing white clouds,
magically on my way,
suspended
between up and down,
in my own
ever Never Never land.
Lorna’s Path
The path she took she knew,
knew so well
by her childhood
footsteps padded,
button toed and tiny heeled,
a sole flattened way
below the pines,
a strung winding
trodden line to her friend.
So many times
she travelled
sometimes eyes closed,
bare foot familiar,
feeling brown needles,
soft sand
wandering roots
just where they should be,
route touches of
assuring signs,
breeze wisped
in tree cloaked
rustling forest fabric,
wrapping the nearby
watery sounds.
The same in mind
in other ways as older,
for friends that come and go
and stay.
The Cottage Tap
Out from the broken lattice,
below the white clapped cottage side
water rushes from the sand point well
through the one turn tap,
onto wriggling toes,
beach sand splashes on the flag stone path,
toe and heel track away,
dripping foot slapped puddle shadows,
to the front screen door
that springs and slams,
the damp signs left behind,
from shore side joyful playing paused,
drying prints in the smiling sun,
kissed by the pine scent breeze,
carefree days’ passage kept,
by the flowing time of the cottage tap.
Once through fields of wheat
Once through fields of wheat
he dreamed he ran
exalted by the wind
limbered,
stretching,
stems brushing legs,
and arms
soaring over golden ends,
undulating seed top rushes,
rippling waves
toward the blue from earth split line,
the distant magic boundary
never reached but out for,
exuberant and glad.
“Are you listening?
Sir?
The answer?
I’m not sure…sir.
Anything?
I guess not sir.
Someone else!
Who knows the answer?”
Desktop hard
Sitting jammed,
stopped
waiting
for the teacher’s noise
to speed up,
get out, get away
then a sideways glance –
to the squared glassed outside…
Once through fields of wheat,
he dreamed he ran
again.
Wrting
My fountain pen in hand to press the page,
a tree for thoughts with sap in burly case
to flow its heart for others to engage,
a maple stem for words in ink to trace.
Its root a nib to fill its dark blue vein,
in polished branch alive by fingers’ clutch,
with dripping cut by which it bleeds and stains
upon the paper it pumps my pulsing touch.
Perhaps its pensive pace is waste of time,
a time of cyber signs so quick to say
by rapid speed and easy spilling lines,
rejecting paper, pen and slower ways.
Yet this pen by inky marks my soul contains,
and yearns to pour itself with love again
In the Moon Split Water
You came by me
sparkling,
in the moon split water.
Shining naked
we cupped
our warm
skin dripped
soundings
into one another,
deep.
Wet, slipping
through our lips’
gliding grasps,
lapping love
from the heart pools
of our souls
until ,
all drunk up
in the moon waned
tear drops,
ultimately,
intimately,
in it we were
sweetly
drowned.
The Old Wing Chair
Corner placed,
covered arms curved out to hold,
their wooden hands protrude,
curl, stretch and rest,
from sea green damask clothes,
old legs slightly bend,
claw to the rug below,
waiting,
making room for two
if one is small,
to snuggle in the other’s lap.
Worn in spots,
with traces in its threads
of all the times it held them,
a father .
and a son now grown,
who gazes down upon it,
to imagine he’s still little,
standing looking up,
his father there again,
arms held out to hold.