stonepoem : 365

I think it was a wise machine that wound
this ball of string as tight as season rings
somewhere it started and somewhere it ends
the whirl of things not right nor wrong - just reasoning
yet ’somewhere it begins’ feels like a pretence -
echoed footsteps wandering round and circling lost
halls of uncrowned kings where no choirs sing -
again not right nor wrong - just reasoning.
Words; the thrum of strands within threads
tight-wrapped filaments beyond permanence
time is now to untangle their intent
entwined within the firmament.

Quit the quiddities let’s just do it
we know what’s in our minds
circling like John Donne fleas
synchronous in hemal feed
midnight hands - whispers apart
like ticks and tocks but of stars
and between is sweet as breath
oh yes, we must breathe!
like never before, but again -
draw angels down from fables
stop words and all they mean
read the libraries of our eyes
sighing like kittens woken too soon
listening to a pulsing moon.
Let’s do it, do it now
let’s get metaphysical.

Skyward,
mouthing Swinetown wind -
raking moon above grey veins,
rattling battle pennant bones
above a once proud clan.
Like airborne spires -
these aspirations
held aloft but not
in vain,
like spines of hope
knowing that they can.
This glowing beast
it will tell, it will show.
Display the mysteries
all should know.
Brothers and sisters!
Imagine a luminous horse
tethered high above the land
I call on you,
support this
plan.

Apparently
you instinctively know
the right decision
ten minutes before
you make it.
What you were doing
ten minutes ago,
what was on your mind -
all inevitable
like a twisting leaf
waiting to land.
You were
wondering weren’t you
and now,
you read poetry.
The answer,
must still be
no.

Like
faces
in a tear
raggededy
rough
as they are
the racing car
lamps of your eyes
tracing, scratching lines
towards the inward
imaginings of selfish ‘I’
whirling in surprise
chasing those that hide
already cold as shudders
break, like new waves in ice
across the movers and the lies
doggedly tough
as they are
like trapped sky cries
wrapped in furrows and twine
there, sighting cloudline
blistered gaze
falling now
with bow and rise -
she’s a strange insect
flailing in a night jar
catching scent of moon
and twilight brings her soon -
tell your pacing heart
these pulses, these flashes
these little arcs of light
they, are just
the start.

Have you seen
the proof displaced
lost belief just wandering
streets, touched past touching
quantums, atoms, molecules
streams as we are lead
in vapours wake
he goes
singing; grapevine broke my heart
let this troubleman be calm
no god, no good nor bad - just him
in mild european air
Real Magic is given to so few
watch closely and know
divine souls find their divinity
in everyone.

This white flame burns
all bad things,
turns mourning into dust
moves morning into dusk
lingers long like lovers
after lust.
Between head and heart
ancient in my breast
there is a fire -
white glow burning
sending powder-ash
sad things tinder-piled
bad things turning
cinder riled.
White flame burns
and everything must go
even things I am scared to know
even thoughts I dare not show -
now I’ll raise a weary hurting throw,
stack all ills of life and set alight
upon this my flame pyre.

And down came rusty stars
raising arms for all to shine
and low we dressed our frownfolk scars
chasing psalms and twisting twine (again)
with dreams but not quite ours
we carry ladders into night
pine the scent of cosmic wine
and then, we smoothly rise
like ancient sparks
like hilltop fire
and now, like cinder’s climb
inclined from pine to sky
we fly above
this awkward,
paradigm.

It’s blank
this space
we occupy
scratching the void
we stare
in articling watch
we see
cold folding air
we share
time spilled sun
we thank grace
more than that
we are here
and we are there
and we fail
and we can feel
we almost care
this is blankness
after oneness
after selflessness
after all.

Disregard all
you have been told
UFOs definately do not exist.
Not the T.V versions anyway,
you know - the extraterrestrial, cosmic yada variety
the advanced beings studying us. All lies.
Time travel transportation is what it’s really all about.
Ships carrying visitors to us from the future
maybe sinister, maybe sympathetic -
who knows, who cares apart from them …
but who, are ‘they’?
THEY are here screwing with the now,
tinkering with the cogs,
bending the levers
backward.
We have been led to believe in conspiracies
but the real conspiracy is what we’ve been led to believe.
What are they doing round here - poking about anyway?
Did one of us do something we shouldn’t have done?
Did one of us step on the bug of what happens next?
Maybe you (yes you) - thinking about changing the future
right now, maybe you changed it as a consequence
just by thinking the world needed fixing,
You created a new one and the old one died.
So our time is an open door.
Tell them! There is no mystery;
Travel from the future
but don’t change the past
and you’ll be welcome
now.

I want to be an effect

but end up misaligned

I want to reflect your respect

but never quite arrive

it’s true

you get what you wish for

at least I think that’s what I’ll find

I want to connect

I want to spark your atom mind

I want your kiss of whisperwind.

Oh god. Again,

I’ve ended up

contrived.

Been a while
since we spoke
of such things
peeling eyes
around thoughts
we circle
in whitespace
and voltrons
sometimes
we are stellar
sometimes
we are sand
and then
we are
gone.

Just for a moment I was a bird
and you were tiny beneath my wings
for a moment swooping circles high
with you below with wait for me to sing
for a moment I was untethered
and you stared at broken strings
for a moment I swear I soared
over reaches of all folk and kings
for a moment, just a moment
riding the joy of winds
you warned I might forget
such things.

We have these evenings here
sometimes crystalline blue
sometimes like silver
sometimes like blonde
in pepper light
and we scurry
and we scamper
until it feels
there is less
to heave.
Sometimes
these evenings -
sometimes, filmset bright
halogen staged for shadows’ reach
pure lit fingers swooping -
down from old moon sighs.
Sometimes this air resonates,
sometimes, like finest sinewave glass
shaking over sheep-bed green
these evenings hear the fears
sometimes they will appear
to anyone who waits
for evenings here.

what’s the difference
between a rock and a stone
thought the ant
pushing against purposes
like a dot - marking sentences
ordering the knots
like a fading spot satelite yacht
no brighter than a spore in the rot
between floors
between the walls
somewhere lies repentance
the ant thought -
not a lot.

Sort of maybe
chewing over things
crooked English teeth
tease chipped-tip flesh
I can’t resist
I bite the mouth
that feeds.
It comforts me -
peeling tender skin,
the kind within, beneath.
There is no rush
so I must desist
to bite this mouth
that feeds.

I watched you
just like you said
watched every twitch
every gesture
every shake
and yes - I could see -
see what you were thinking,
wanting, expecting
you were dipping your smile
down and to the left again
your singing mouth
briefly stilling;
a nod, a tilt,
a subtle slant
and I thought I knew.
O.K - I’ll admit
I looked away -
lost my track
but only then
I felt.
You,
watching
me.

Seeds
need rain
like you and I
disolving soil and
seeping down to earth
once and through again
we’ll go like icey broth
where winter chimes
in want and wait for sun
let us awaken, nourish all
watch each kernel
every disparate husk
writhe and double
push cloy clay and loam
grasp the psalm of storms
and later, balm
of kindle stars.
We are rain indeed
you and I
upon such footings now -
with joy we must fall
and sing this rattle song
to calm and tell of time
renewed, like seeds
and rain
like you,
and I.

Oh Gelderland,
in night I wait for you,
long before the tugging slay
of slate-smudged days.
Are you real or just a dream?
Oh Gelderland,
lying down with evening’s hearth
watching flame and twisting sprites,
hearing coals cracked wide
against my spite.
Tell me again
the things I wish I knew -
before my open eyes forget,
before my loping heart regrets
Oh Gelderland.
Let old winds blow,
like soul of souls on ribbon air
from you oh Gelderland -
come soon your mystery,
come soon.

I’ve seen her too.
Shiny, glassy even.
Midnight holding silver
Whistle to her lips
And the air abounds
With auspices of birds
Glowing like atom’s breath -
Imagined but alive.

Shiny apples tease
With scent of promises
With Summer dusted skin
With polished tone
They sing to me
Perfect veined in selfish sun
and nourished by the want
Of one.

Shiny apples call
Intent on Autumn fall
Intent on dusky hands
Intent on cherished clasp
They come to me -
So rarely caught in hold
and needful grasp.

Shiny apples spoil -
How fate turns them all
How soon they heed
How truth can be
They lie to me
To catch my eye
To hold my mind
No time
to wonder
why.

To be calmer
To try to understand
To dwell and
Know other minds.
To remember all things
No matter how small
To catch the shapes
In blurring wheels
I cannot see.
To try to be
Wise,
Is want to be -
Part of else
Apart from
Me.

What
is this thing -
this commune of souls
we now join?
Like calm weirpool’s rest
after spin of current
washing names
from stones.
You have entered me
and I have entered you
and we are one -
beneath the wind,
beneath the river kiss,
beneath even clefted earth.
And still we ask.

Such is passion you invoke
Much are feelings you provoke
Touched I am by tender stroke
Like hushing flame and twisting smoke
Lush sense knows you have awoke
Like midnight flush on new moon oak
I rush to hear the words you spoke
For such is passion you invoke.

Gather in the sun
Make the most
Before it’s done
Watch ripples
One last time
See the flowerings
Nature’s won
Meditate on how
Summer’s changed
The evening show
And even birdsong
Before season’s reel
And greying days
We all will know
Farewell now
To kind and warm
Before the storm
Before the spike
Of needle wind
And open souls
transformed.

One day the world will stop
And you shall leap the circle’s roll
Though still, the glassy pebbles fly
And angry boulders run down hills
Onto shoulders push against the pull
With wavering urge of spinning tops
And spiralling seeds in final fall
Like Catherine Wheels that call.
And when rounding winds desire
They’ll cease their turn within
For such is fate that shall retire.
One day the world will stop
And you, will carry on.

Look to samphire skies
Where nature’s stations form
Where playful dusk twists sun
And stars begin to turn.

Gaze on, gaze on
Where nations share the show
Where children learn to muse
With horizon twine and flow.

Drink-in the twilight breach
Where souls run to rivered night
Feel winds that rest and contemplate
Then breathe what we all know.

No-one owns the sky.

Who
are we
to pre-suppose
to know that we are those
that shine with special glow.
We are merely they,
that follow normal ways
asking questions as we go
of whom and what we want to be.
And what is this we wonder now?
Who the hell,
are we.

Like
needles spun
from north to south
talking circled hope
and pushing on
like rivers run
from fount to mouth
discarded ropes
below the sun.
And all things done
when we were youth
on scattered slopes
now end before
they have
begun.

Nuance.
Now there’s a good word.
A sense, a feeling
of sophisticated subtlety.
Like something you can’t see
or touch, or taste
beyond mundane reality.
Something you can’t quite place
or an underlying philosophy -
perhaps what you might call
intrinsic personality.
Not quite sure and not quite there
like quiet tones in painted air.
But definitely everywhere.
The signals of distinction
I often miss in the meaning,
in the mystery of all
you mean to me.

Meet me,
at the first dream to the left
after the midnight bells.
I’ll be the one wearing a cape
made from peacock’s pride,
and a satin patch over
the wrong eye.
I mean it!
I’ll be there!
Waiting,
for someone -
someone like I’ve never met
(but have always known).
Someone carrying magic
in the heels of their shoes.
But how will I know
if it is you?

And who put this barrier between us?
It refracts the knowing of who we are.
This splintered view, smudged
and denying the truths of everything,
it diffuses our connectedness.
We orbit such frayed outskirts -
you and I, like lost and aching birds
mist drenched, circling.
Reticent to land.

Every tear that ever fell,
Every night of ocean’s swell,
Every scent and every smell,
And every year drawn from the well.
Every sunset that said farewell,
Every dancing molecule and cell,
Every stone that must rebel,
And on the memories we dwell.
Every peel of moon-tugged bells,
Every flow within the fontanelle,
Everything I shall foretell,
All, but whispers in the yell.

Behind the puppet show
where children never go,
there stands a lonely man
who tugs the strings
that bind the arms
of childish things.

Behind the puppet show
and stripy canvas throws,
lie nervous little hands
with spinnered plans
to hide the charms
that clownhood brings.

Shame you missed the rainbow
I really wanted you to see,
it was like the edge
of a butterfly wing
magnified and stretched
across the sky.
Something about it
seemed so powerful,
so magical. I even believed
that on this strange day
it would curl from me
to you.

There is always something,
something that reminds -
that marks the pass of time.
Like dusky click of clockwork hands
and helpless hold of hours lost,
like the always notching gears
and cogs of slowly whittled days.
Such things remind
of muted fate.

Every baby’s cry.
Every laugh and sigh.
Every question asking why.
All but moves toward
the final hammer call,
and echoed nails bullied down,
then buried under trickling soil
and stone that falls upon the quiet sleep
where creaking lichens grow.

There is always something,
something that reminds.
Listen to the sounds
of passing time.

You are the soft wind that circles
In orbit around my earthly heart
The ceaseless breeze that kisses
But never slows in its domain
Over me, in reign of bounded soul
Over helpless capstone sleeves
My close-eyed hope that waits
For arc and sweep and tilt to I
And change in your trajectory.

As dark as weasel toes that dig for agate glow
Where once were diamonds below deepest coal
Here lie mudcoat stones of mortal kind
Some say as shaded magic cast in starless night
That hides from restless toil of hooded sky
Where shipwreck quiet must leak its hold
Then ride on nightmare’s angry foals
All spitting dust to claim,
Our ill-considered souls.

I am falling like leaf spun in autumn roll
Like a papered plane in downward fall
There goes grace in gravity’s hold
On this air of splintered boards
As if it is not the landing
that really matters
As if it is the
glide that
counts
.

Last night I dreamed, and saw your face.
Framed behind the shutters of sleep
it WAS you, clearly smiling at me!
This was a strange recognition
like seeing an amnesiac polaroid,
and yours, was a composite
of all the faces I have seen.

Was it really you?

There was something I longed to say.
Something carried across the miles,
held close and desparate to be heard.
But as I dreamed and saw your face,
you grinned, and I then knew the real you.
I forgot my dullard words and turned away,
no longer feeling need or want to say.

Oh,
see the high ones play
like red and blue inkspots
in the willowing sky.
There. See them lifting
way above the over-hang
that influences wind
of little hopes like ours.
We try so hard to launch
above the shoulders
of windless days.
But do we feel
despair below the frame?
Do we know
the twisted strings
of innocence and crash?
No! Such earthly bindings
mean nothing to us,
who stay determined.
Soon, we WILL
fly!

A peerless raindrop caused the flood
Like a black cell in the cleanest blood.
This was the blink that turned to sleep,
The final rest to scythe its harvest’s reap.
This was the smear that blurred the sun
Through squinted looks that told us all
In whispers fanning flame of days,
Dried, the youthful leaves of one
Who once, could silence crowds.
With heartbeats and a single breath
Like a newborn calling the world
A tiny thought to change us all.
Such is the power of words.

Maybe I should shout this from a mountain top
But I don’t have a mountain to hand
If I did, it would be a magical place
Sculpted from some rare stone to propel my words
Closer to you, rising highest above the rival peaks
Appearing, as if mist shrouded Tibeten legend -
Now being revealed, but only to you.

If I breathe, I breathe for thee
And every gasp of me doth resonate
With joyful air from ground to grove,
To mackerel sky above and back to me.
I breathe, I breathe for thee -
And atoms that we share agree.

Today,
I lost myself.
Just for an instant,
it wasn’t me
standing there
thinking about
who and what I am.
And for a moment
I was nothing,
but a thought
bodyless and free.
Floating beyond
the soft cage
that is me.

Then,
I remembered.

It’s not
about love.
Or sexuality.
It’s about the way we fit.
Like the turn of stream that clings to mountainside
or heirloom keys in Grandma’s hand
Like pillow dip for tired eyes
or children’s palms at Christmas time.
It’s not wanting.
Or desire.
More like embers in the glee of coal
or clustered stars that sing for soul.
It’s the last piece in the jigsaw
It’s the shipping news at night
It’s the words I wish I’d said.
We just seem to
fit.

The night draws in the blanks
The day has left behind.
For troubled hearts like ours
That pine for rest through sleep
And soul becalmed below
The unprimed stars.
This healing shroud reveals,
The eventide balm that soothes
Us, bruised beneath the satin flags
Of sky like whispering waves -
To moon, upon, unseen, unbound.
Urging flight above the confines -
The brutish hold of gravity,
defied.

Let us talk
about the stars,
and where we fit within
the vista of being.
In which, we go naked -
skinnydipping existance
diving deep
for miraged pearls
in the sea
of who we are.
Let us close our eyes
and dream
of other things,
of happenstance beyond
the dull thud,
the daily numb
of common ways.
Let us meditate
on awakening.
Let us reel-in
the swirling cosmos,
hold its beauty
like snowdust
in our hands,
raise the soma
of life itself
to our lips,
and whisper.
Let us …
understand.

Is he a man?
Or is he a figment?
Like the glint in a raindrop falling
from the lost tail of a speeding satellite?
He soars - acres high, up, above crown of land
like a proud beekeeper ushering safe return
of eve-time honey dance in costumed night.
Us, lost in starmist now beaconed through
to dusk-smudged earth below his subtle touch
that reaches dust, of mortal ground.
Is he a man? A spirit? A dream?
Who knows this truth but he,
who has power to roll tides,
to move minds of lunatic or child.
Even calm midnight doubt of poets
holding shadows back to see his glow
that steals away the clumsy thump of fate.
This hero’s light! It illuminates,
it shows us footholds in the night.
He is all, to all that seek
to know.

Like distant slide
from crown of mountain slip
into very pit of who I am.
Here is vertigo for cliff-edged
hearts like yours that tip-toe
ankle winds.

There,
clutching gravity’s stall
of bloodstream rush,
like freshwater dashed in magnet dance
you move as particles
swirling toward the iron lips
of polar sea.

Through permafrost
and frozen root, gulley cut
and porous bed - the centre
to the core, traveling deep
within sediment soul,
and onto icepools
that only you
can thaw.

Time is the leak you cannot fix
Seeping over meniscus edge
Like muddied ice in stubborn push
Slowly notching marks of us.
Plucked like frets and string
Scratch-scretched and resonating
As waves that flow through sky
In search for sands of you and I.
Shorter than a newborn’s thumb
Curled and clutched like tiger frond
Mewed to world and catching dew
Time falls slow on me and you.

They say the earth is shrinking.
Like a loose stitched spinning ball
Thrown from backyard stretch to garden hold
Over fence and border row
Through trees and wind and sky
Even across mountains and sea
And there is you, shouting for the catch
Then me, aiming my baggy-limbed throw
And both of us - clutching the cusp
Of the world, spiralling between
The dust on which we shuffle
And our yearning arms.

We are
velvet shadows
and dusk plumed
tides of light
like star-torn
wandering chase
from wind sent
moonsong sighs,
sensing call
of crescent arms
through weave
of you and I.
Skyward,
like laughter -
young nightingales
in veiled flight
like hopeful seeds
to the breeze.
Oh we are ghosts
tonight.

Saltbed
shadows slow
behind time
behind me
behind you.

Softslew
seeds sow
beyond mine
beyond we
beyond soon.

Smoothtone
somnolent show
before rhyme
before sea
before moon.

Stonewalled
serpents
suppose.

Now,
she glows.
Like a half-closed eye
soil blacked and dust edged,
cupped in the bowl of my palm.
Like the chalky rhodolite glow
of apache tears in the moonlight;
Warm, not burning - just
comfortably luminescent,
remembering the flame.
I watch her noble stand
against my fuel-less hand
and whistle breeze
to kindle thoughts,
of how we
used to
be.

Here’s to the Moon!
White skin stretched
and surface tuned
like a drum waiting
for rhythmic palms
and curious eyes.
Just look up
and play!

I am seeing less,
but more than Summer’s tired flare
On litmus sky above tapered mound
and rough-torn tissue paper hill.
I fall below the errant wind,
under etched-mist tears big as Oaks
that sense call rippled nature’s bell
and threaded cloud in wonder’s curl.
I feel something growing in this land
See it glow with change and knowing -
It is a time of flow and rise.
These sudden sparks of joy
are freaking me.

Shuffled
On the gold-pan
River swelled
Beyond the bank
The glint of you
Remains unseen
Beneath the gravel
Shunted frame
All but watertwist
Flow of silt caress
And soft motion firm
On change’s ground
Brightest sparkle
In the vortex swirl
Our shaken joy
Of quivered hold
Against the pull.

Step across the Sleepscape
Travel sandman’s track of night
Raise a torch above the walkways
So I may see the light.
Jump the dreampulse arc between us
Ride the curl of torpor’s tail
For you are moonlight’s pillowed muse
In the dreams that you ignite.

Remember how it smells?
See the beauty that is becomed?
Feel the snapback and know this;
You are awakening.

Who sends this black cat
now crossing my ankles?
Dancing over toes,
see-sawing my shins,
like a skittish autumn leaf
circling the root of me.
It brings strange energies -
dark-spirals of attention.
This purring transduction,
making me wonder.

Is it you?
In another form?
What do you want?

All know
blue ivory cover,
and veined ghosts
of storm and rain.
And blood rush wind
conducting orchestras
of leaves, like thread
from endless tapestry.
All towards the slow pulse
glow of every turning moon -
the very things we see
and share.

At night, in the pear orchard -
that’s where I will swoon and roll,
warmed as a firefly - like an ember
blown beyond this life I know.
So high, the guilded memory moon
that glows as if a silvered hole,
through which my wantings rise
then fall, as I am kissed
by dusk and dustlight call.
In time, I’ll mingle with the starlost
leap unbound, in sweet-seed air.
But now, I’ll seek the honest breeze -
and fall in love with tumbling midnight
leaves, like scattered souls.

String controls

the puppeteer

pulled as he

walks to lean.

Fate dangles

a pulley cord,

to the choices

of a king.

Don’t blink or shiver, but I am with you now.
Right at this moment - beamed through the wires,
soft-breathing across the bones of you.
Relax, feel my curious spirit near - go on!
Concentrate; let your shoulders fall
and the worries roll - be conscious of
the tensions sloping down.
Here, let me help. I’m raising my arms,
waving spectral palms your way,
circling with unseen fingertips -
willing you on as you read,
sensing the electricity and flow
of who you really are,
and want to be.

Listen!
You are too young to touch the stars.
They’ve been put beyond our reach
to keep them clean from naive grasp.
Tissue origami in the space wind
should never be unfolded.

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?

I found a four leaf clover
It wasn’t sought - it just occurred
For me to peer below my tread and look for trove of luck.
I’ve wished upon its rarity for payback of my random find
Willing some consideration in the grand schema of being
Yet still I wait like a worn old coin resting on its side
Hoping the blackened cat of happenstance will show
The way that things could fall.

There is a spike of light within the shoal
Kaleidoscope corralled by ocean haul
Left flighted in the right hand swarm
Through co-ordinates unparalleled.
There is genius gold in the gravel bed
Silk patched to old corduroy of earth
Glow worm lit on abandoned track
Mesmerising strayed souls.
Darling voiced amongst the Starlings
You are the earliest, sweetest kiss
Of rain and storm to fall upon
the borders of this flock.

You shine where we are dulled.

Have you ever licked a snowflake
Felt its crystal heart evaporate
Beautiful complexity briefly riding
On a red hot rodeo?

Have you ever blown a dandelion
Seen parachutes of wishseeds fall
Gossamer batalions to the wind
Scattered mission - no recall?

Have you ever heard a petal fall
Listened to golden hiss on air
The roll of nature ventured
In turning of the dial?

Next time you catch the rain
Feel its splish of light on hand
And see the raindrops form
Into tiny oceans held.

Think how complex
we all are.

Here fall stars from lover’s robe
raining down on earthbound foil.
In monarch cloak of night are we
as light above sublime.

Let us navigate these skies
bewitched by rapture’s satellite
for here we chase the dust
of a thousand million moons.

Just hold out your hands
… and fly.

I
am
vain
to think
these words
might resonate.
All pride misplaced
in the done but not the
doing. Technique is never
mystique, and clever words
alone are not enough to speak.

So let us both agree, to watch these words unfold anew.

In the being, in the seeing,
placed in the now - life’s
glorious nothingness.
Layed out for view
and framed by the
mystery of next
- the point of
fellowship,
between
you
&
I

Thine atom,
in contemplation.
The flow you crave is found inside
by calm stillwater, in quiet ebb.
As crystaline scintilla on the folded swell
of glacial ripple and listless tide.
Within you must wait.