A poem simply sounds the bell, of that which words could never tell.

AT LAST

Only since man, has there been a better plan,
As we pushed through darkness, towards the sun,
The flowering of that timeless seed,
At last, at last, has just begun.

THE DREAMER

We import
The world of open eyes
Into our dreams,
And lend the dreamer
A definition
He does not own.

GOOD FORM

Your vision of me
Is my single covering,
And mine, of thee,
Thy soul's only modesty.

HATCHING

Can we piece together again
Our confinement,
From the laughing fragments
Of its shattering?

STRIP JOINT

Would you strip away
All that is warm with hope,
Mysterious,
Full of promise,
With the scalpel of your curiosity,
Pare me to skeletal bone,
Enchained forever by your sight,
Your eyes,
Your knowing,
A camera, to steal another soul,
A cage, repealing flight,
A pot, in which to miniaturise,
Is that who you would have me be,
A confirmation of mortality?


WHATNOT

A potter,
While glazing
The outside
Of his pot,
Is amazingly
Glazing
The inside
Of what's not.

HIGH TIME

A tide is rising high within,
Of a vast, reflective sea,
That hides with love,
Yet fast begins
To uncover eternity.

OLD WINE

I remember knowing
Warmth & desire,
Glowing embers
Of long distant fire,
To share a pillow,
Limbs entwined,
A new flavour
For an ancient wine,
As passion stirs
From banishment,
Wearing
Its ill-fitting coat
Of chastity,
Its wild obsession,
Shunned,
Its myopic vision,
Unwelcome,
Its choicest words
Best left unsaid,
Still unspoken
Inside the head,
Hoisted,
In their own
Eternal wondering,
Perhaps discretion
Is the better friend,
Without beginning,
Or pointless end.


ECLIPSE

Chased
By the shadow of a cloud,
A hair's breadth
From eclipse
By solid darkness,
Liquid gold,
Sweeps across
The vast field
Of time.
Her brush,
Eternity's horizon,
Her medium,
Light,
Framed,
Only
By this moment,
Love's workings
Unfold.

RUN OF THE MILL

Sails turning,
Wheels churning,
The mill complains,
Unaware
That its real yearning
Still remains,
To feel the will
Of water and air.

DUCKS & DRAKES

Chosen with care,
A rounded flatness,
Befit to spin,
These stones,
These words.
Set in motion,
Loosed,
To a brief,
Rhythmic flight,
A skip, a skid, a skim,
Bouncing out
From the shore,
Yet all too fast,
Only the footprints linger on,
An arrow-head
Of expanding rings,
Point toward the last,
Marking the place,
The moment of sinking,
As words that play
Upon our thinking,
Can only trip
Across the skin,
Until, all spent,
They drop within,
Beneath the superficial layer,
Heading down,
To bed of prayer.


MIRACLE

As a shell upon the ear
Close pressed will bring the sea,
Within my heart, so faint yet clear,
Is whispering to me
A voice in kind to silence near,
A zephyr stirring constantly,
As soft as only I may hear
Yet recognise with certainty.

Lucid, though no word be told,
Insistent as a drum,
The burden of its message holds
A distant, sacred sum,
Another region of my soul
Is calling me to home,
For it be one, yet not the whole
Of all it may become.

BREAKFAST

The unseen breakfast
Deep communion
Patience
A silken stillness
Worn by the cat

Hunger appeased
Spoon by spoon
Tea circling
A clock
Stakes out the silence.

THE GARDEN

Walking the garden of my mind,
Every moment,
Might I find
As a kite to fly,
Each wakeful one -
On currents, rising,
Kissed by the sun,
Gifts of warm possibility,
Pulling up playfully
Higher than high,
Tugging and lifted
Beyond to the sky,
Where today's but a whisper
Down in the trees,
Of wishes unfolding
Blown on by a breeze,
Where dreams can begin,
And reason descends
From along the sharp ridge
Where the garden ends.

BEHOLD

Where lies the beauty of a rose,
If not arising up in you?
And where the course a river flows
Beyond that source to know it true?

Then nature's art is none at all
Save we distill the greater part,
As music charms no vacant hall,
Thus, love fills an absent heart.

THE POINT

Tomorrow tries
To stare at me
With its unseeing eyes,
I am a threat still,
A predator
To be fooled yet again
By the blind roundels
Worn on its wings.
Yet, there it is,
Tomorrow,
Impaled,
By the fine points
Of the conditions it made,
The ludicrous dreams
It carried in its heart,
Pinned to the plump,
Dusty velvet
In a collector's drawer.
Those lifeless wings
Will fly no more,
Their promise
Broken yesterday.