When does nature turn to art?
Here he stands,
Raising hot dust from cold
Trying to fashion beauty
From brutish chisel
Strike and scratch.
Passioned blows
Seeking form, in form
Already there.
Not knowing when
These vain stabs cease
Makes him wonder.
We are crawling
Under the beams
Dodging flashlights
Without being seen
Yet still we crane to see
Through the darkened glass
Of who we want to be
Whispering to be opened
To be unwrapped before
The time of what may happen yet
Staying curled up like infants
Ball shadow flat against the wall.
In fear, of what we may become.
Oh, the whispers we might hear
if we stayed silent in the noise
listening to the audience
and not the sound of
our own voice.
The squeaking wheels
Are sluggish as they rust
The stamp of age scratched
On pitted path that’s wandering.
A line that can’t be thread or cut
Like the tin-dented rings of seasons
Marking joyous turn of the sun
Laughing when I hadn’t heard the joke
Or looked inside the strongarm jar.
In a bleached picture of unglued frame
Naked and kinked with over-use
Glasscracked in the prang and crash
Of hoisted eyes and start agains.
Once again, fresh cotton pressure creased
Smooth cornerered in turn and rough
But now in permanent tuckaway fold
Knowing that I am more than old.
I believe,
we are made of keys;
for locks that interlock.
The more I can open,
the closer we will get.
Arggggh! I’m always losing them.
The fallen trees
of who you were
hiding from today
are now an angry dam
holding back the roar and flow
where should be stream
and gulley tempered gleam.
The things you said
just tiny matchsticks in the swhirl,
or riverdust in the swell.
Like helpless ants in the water -
massed behind the downhill pull.
Worry is the purest form of prayer
a mantra in the grey of wavering
the voiced meter of our concerns
quoting the prophets of doubt.
Before sleep,
I heard the tinkering of rain
and it made me wonder.
Where did the first raindrop fall?
On garden, chalk or tarmac path?
In quiet kinship with the ocean?
Bouncing off the shoes of drunken love?
Ahead the fray of cloudburst,
succumbed in gravity of night?
Before, somewhere.
You MUST have felt, or seen, or heard.
The velocity of a solitary liquid crown,
shattering diamond-like in impact tears.
The lead in winter’s swarm.
We were like moonlit kites twisting wildly in chase of stars.
For a moment, escaping the tether and dangle of life -
untiying ourselves in the velvet smooth of night.
Windward held were we - on craving’s warm air.
Soaring vista birds, in follow and blissful rise;
High, above the spooled tail of humdrum days.
I recollect this thrill in flight. I remember us like this.
Lost in the circling entrancement of each other,
tissue-paper light in the eventide.
Thank you, you are right.
You have taken the time
to try and understand
what I’m about.
But I’m too embroidered.
Crossing the gap
where telling turns
to puzzle talk.
Hiding.
Behind riddled knots
just for show.
You have reminded me -
forget the vanity
of words.
There’s a voice
amidst the noise of stars.
Feint, but distinctive.
Sawtoothed in wave
and cackle of ozone.
Sensed among the spark
and spin of planets through
the galaxy, like bats circling
flare-wicked candleflame.
The voice is calling.
Vague, repeating, passionate -
words that want me to understand.
Argh! I just can’t catch the drift:
“… all our youth … ill of you
… oil of hue … isle of yew …”
What is the sky trying to tell me?
Do you hear what it says?
Can YOU work this out?
The road fools.
Innocence and trust
are far away.
You whisper in the engine whir.
Routes pass.
Through hungry night
Grinding me like
old teeth crunched
in ache and hope.
You grin in headlamp gleam.
No room to muse.
On more than road,
or space for touch
or breath of you.
But still I feel you - in the wheel.
O’ when will you devour me?
Turning me endlessly over the flames -
searing my tender heart like a cheap cut
on a queasy rack; hoping to be adored cuisine,
but ending up as drunken, mangled dogleg fat.
The heat and dry baste of you overpowers me,
spoils the subtle taste and sweetened juice of who I am.
The recipe, it clearly states: I need softening.
With marinade and seasoning - patiently prepared,
long before iron grill or flash pan griddled char.
And then, and only then with licking flames of care
will you slowly warm the tender flesh of me.
Who is this ‘I’ of whom everybody speaks?
They do seem very self pre-occupied.
How they feel and what they do,
it means something to them, obviously.
But what is ‘I’ to me and you?
Go down near the pentagram scrawled
where young kids pause and slow-worms lie,
past a weathered concrete pillar box
built to stop the Germans many years ago.
See those Nettles further on, as high as your eyes?
They side the stern-bricked house where
the inventor and his witchy wife … experiment.
Look further across; a burned and derelict mill,
flooded now by the broken branches of summer play,
rising over dusty mounts towards curly bridge of motorway.
Beyond the chalk dip and green hollow hiding
from farmer’s burred curse and arms, on top
of steep verdant incline - pushed logs bramble and roll.
Falling on the bullies stood in flint stream below -
splashing the washpool of boyhood.
She said she would let him know,
when she got there, and he’s
still waiting for a sign.
Sunday, six o’clock; forever,
preparing to pounce on nuances
of a shadow calling - showing
that she made it through.
Prideful in the chore of whittled hours,
marking his bide. Onward, pressing -
noble packet and stamp waste of days.
So now, he eats strawberries
at midnight, smokes cigarettes again.
Catches the shuttered doze and whiskey grey,
of dusk’s vague promise.
Up late, getting dressed even later.
Re-reading the scattered bedside papers
still addressed to both of them.
It’s Ok. It’s Sunday, six o’clock.
Words,
are the chickenseed
of thoughts flying low.
For clipped wings,
in the coop on the hop
of circumstance jumping
weasels in the wire.
A means,
to candle the eggs
in our tenuity
of doubt.
My logic about this is simple.
Your emotions are just too elegant
for me to understand.
My drive in saying this? I can’t swim
in the world around me like you can.
When you dream - I sleep.
I close these eyes of mine
but look at all you see!
The tree and not the leaves,
riding cusp between breath and sigh,
the song and not the singer,
grand paintings in the sky.
I’m counting the notches on the road
of a journey we both share. But you…
You, are already there.
—– withdrawn———
I wanted to write
for someone I know in distress.
I ended up writing about them.
That’s not fair.
These channels are too shallow
to catch this entire granularity
spilled from rippled fall.
Dug out by tired hands that fail
to grasp the strong downhil pull
of all they want to be and do.
The intent of tomorrow should be syphoned
from the silted discontent of today.
O’ will that gravity take care of such
complex and introspective activities!
Only then, might we find diamonds
within the lucid edged furrows
of cool clearwater’s flow.
They see the devil riding
Dead ivy that clings
An inkblot weathered,
In climb over cold stone.
Insidious in ascent - like
Musty damp on the rise above
The otherworld, where urban wands
Spew roots to dusty tenement clinch.
Look upon the spoilt concrete vanity
Flourishing in this city of hasty rise
Watch impatient fall, and wonder.
What do you see?
Someone told me
you were once a bird
that forgot how to land.
With restless wings that ached
to leave steadiness of earthly hands.
In flighted glide (you said) because you knew
that our fitful ways were not for you.
But now, your night and spiralled tan
lights up the room in which I swoon
bewitched - by fleeting flash of interested eyes,
all perch and hold succumbed to slipstream touch.
Someone told me that you were once a bird that forgot how to land.
Now I understand.