this man's gaze

Like cake in warm sweetness
Your curves,
pudding for my eyes

2009

My Turn

Turn, the Slate is cleaned
by a rerun to my beginning
an eternity now in moments
This jumping goat
bleated on its last hoof

Ensconced down in the dirty
With face of smiling Sun
The epitaph reads
Before the forlorn witness
That Survived me
living behind bars with no roof

Years bear the grace
But, like an airborne ball
to a ground that draws close
my shadow grows, once distant
then completely forgets this turn

2009

The Grail

It is to this end, Oh Demonedes
I state my challenge
for it is my life’s search, for a voice
that I scour in muck

2009

The Benin Thread

The smell of Red dust
Harbinger of the warm rain drop
Hurrying divers nowhere
Eyeing curved backsides, atop a weaving bike
through fried fish in plantain smells
in a thread that never knew it started

2009

A tail of power

It will swallow you whole
That which follows me
Draws close
So beware not to bestraddle me
for some jaunt.

It that burns without stoking
Hurts without intending
Will slip through the wall
and burst open, your crack


2009

arrow to rose

So in this hour glass
let the sand of light shine upon you
bathe your hopes anew
engulf your moments with wisdom
may you reflect in life's brownness
a picture of gold

2009

Gaia

when my being called to you
from the small of this dusty belly
on the path, your bosom lit for me

and these, the words I chased for
to paint those briefest of minutes
as the day fell through the leaves

 2009

I, who am nothing

Of which of me there is nothing
I pick the scabs from the lip
of this non person
with only a heart
like a black that needs it white
I desire , to receive
a ray of sun
in my open upright bowl
from the creator


2009

It is

Past everything
In words
This very moment
Exceeds the dream
Each step
Has a heart beat
a rhythm to breathe
and a warmth to the feel
as sun rays hit the skin

2003

Somewhere in Notting hill

Backup on my lane
The Spokane officer of the shadows
Waiting on my derelicting sadness
That forgot to do its torture

So as in a journal
I keepeth a daily light
for this recondite soul
to sip of its inspiration

2008

When you decide

If you come in
The door is open
Sit down
By the window
Squint into the wind
around the evening sun
With your pores
Linger, to see what comes

Await the glass of water
Offered up, for thirsting
For the word
That knows the soul
And has nothing
But the hope on its back

In this deceit, a gilded cage
Lies the clenched heart
calloused by fear
until the compassion
to come
when you decide



2008

  

The Unfinished

At the door
To the dark ocean
Screaming the Tao

of Subterranea
of a quest
For a knowledge
In all places deep

Before we relinquish
this hallowed Awareness we keep

When you leave here
Will all that enlightens
Hold up the washing
Be there for you on Monday
Train and highway
Remember to breathe


2008

Self help 101

weakly unreliable
enduringly resolute
opposing voices
for regrets to indulge

sculpted like a rock
in the worldly tradition
in toil, I won’t crack
or abase my definition
if by fate I am peppered
by life's situations

praying for courage
to escape from the blues
on the voyage
to the self
with no colourful hues



2008

So says Martin

we “extends” no arm to a future
Lest the totality, of our failure
Visit upon us a fury
And Chop us to little pieces

Our ship had barely sailed
Before the decades glibly passed
We have awoken in our twilight
Startled, we were ever asleep

because life never conferred
Its blessing upon our dreams
We eternally damage our present
with the iron barbs of regret

2006

Seville Anno Domini

Take this bitter bread
Be the epitome of Spanish cool
take the Guadalquivir
to the oro of the Moors
via its thirsty banks

This is the intestine of a memory
Trying to shit out its pain
for a love that imprisoned hope

We strayed the old paved
Isa , jesu, streets of Santa Cruz
And, the sleeping Infant
on my chest,
colluding, with my dreams
Walking me backwards
On the balls of my feet
To that year of irreducible longing


2006

Solitude

From the smoothness of this papered silence
The warmth of glows
From the places of deep being
breathes the unmentionable
Thoughts in passing view
I love you’s
a reminiscence of old friends
In the orange of a sunset
Were not-I sits
The ethereal onlooker

2004

Lights Absence

Throw yourself
Legs, before body
Arms
Into the stream
And say
with every last atom
That comprises, the “you”
The words
For life
For breath
For dreams
When nothing shines
Where the light once was
I lay me down, eyes closed
heart open



2006

London in and out

O Massive blob
of human lanes
by the muddy banks of the Thames

Private thoughts on the tube
as they sit
hiding behind the evening news

2004

The Kaduna River

The tree complained about the elephant grass
To a mountain awaiting the desert
And before the huts, upped and left the land
The earth had altered its shape.

The rains went on one more leave
Changing the river
once fiery brown
To trickles of clear green
disguising the fate of crocodiles
with the laughter of hyenas

2006

If you come

Will you , sweetheart , provide
Rain water for my parched aloneness
Will I look at your toes
touch your face
And smile
at what has come to me.

I dreamed of dreams with hope
Before the ordinariness of my days
Usurped them
they returned, to hold your hand,
listen as you breathe
and to inhale the world
Around you

2006

So my mind says

So my mind says
greater fear
Is not of the dark
But of quiet


2005

Before the End

To lift fears lid
I tried to face
This.
With pretensions stripped
what flows in my veins
wafts in my nostrils
is temporary

I tried to face
The night, the coming void
its unstoppable certainty
but the worlds bosom
numbed me
reassured me
with the feel of another’s touch

So waiting in this room
Darkened by a cloud muffled sun
Is an empty screen
and a useless hope
of finding a meaning
in the shadows of the Wardrobe
and expose, before the show’s over
The crack in Maya



2004

Inheritance

How I have grown into him
a forehead of deep furrows
carved from years of habitual worry
over unanswered questions

and how, in unconscious moments
I catch myself, sitting
with my legs over the arms of the chair
t'was his favorite position

2003

All things

for every life
birth
for every flight
wings

for every fountain
water
for every song
ears

for every Sun
warmth
for every time
moments

2003

The Solent

fishing rods, floating
like fire flies
when no seagull cries
pierce the twilight sea

and a moonbeam casts
skating topaz stones
from the island’s silhouette
to our amazed eyes


2003

The leaving of Louis

Blue is the colour of pain
the colour of sadness
the colour of the ocean
and boundless possibilities

remembering to cross every T
dot every I
your after life
may depend on it

despite all the philosophies,
beliefs that calm
and enlighten the soul
it still hurts when they go

2002

Like bugs bunny

1. post the letter
2. clean my room
3. wash the clothes
4. Blast to the Moon
5. Turn right at Mars
6. Stop at Jupiter
7. for twelve minutes
8. return to earth
continue to do list

2002

and we quarreled on Monday

I am the black water
sitting still beneath the stalagmite
receiving the steady drops
that form concentric waves

the red baron was my kite
a pathway to the moon
with words you shot it down
while it soared in the dark

In here is the heartbreak
my tears cannot heal
or put out the fire that rages
from red barons crash to the ground

2000

Cocoon

cocoon me in your wrapper cloth
in safety without a whisper
what manner of man am I ?
if these are my most tender longings

The feel of nipple and breast
satisfied my childhood need for nurture
the same craving in these advanced years
for which I find I am thirsting

were is my hero's heart and manhood’s quest
pathetically this guy is asking
so I can win myself that wrapper cloth
and that cocoon without a whisper


1994

Untitled

Down to hades I would want to go
for wisdom is trapped in fire
I recall a haunted but brilliant glow
of an ancient truth gleaming like sapphire

I passed rocky hills and under ancient trees
all witnesses to passing eons
their whispers carried in the tranquil breeze
"quickly, your life is but two seasons"

Ears hear no dulcimer,tongue taste no ambrosia
or any maddening seductions
I'll fan the flame of my hope from a glimmer
by being impeccable in my actions.

1993

So

So untidy, this kitchen sink
So this is how my life can look
So profound a disarray, I can not think
So trapped on my psychological hook

so were the enamel plates in the room
so unwashed and everywhere
so scattered, like a fate that draws doom
so deaf my head, my heart so aware

So the falling rose, so the standing tree
so hopeful but was shattered by an illusion
so confused I thought that I was free
so desperately I now cling to my vision

so I have an axe, I so want to grind
so I face the sun but walk in trepidation
so will a future of wealth liberates ties that bind ?
so to a life of final damnation

1992