Beggar

I tiptoe like a beggar
wearing second-hand
ballet shoes.

If you hear me coming
I am ashamed
of my sounds...

The bliss of sodden earth

I haven't seen the Nature spirits for a long time now.

Perhaps they hibernate in fear or shame, or are secretly

reworking the game plan to give us all a shock.

On days where the rain falls sideways I wander out

onto grassy paths and call to our hidden comrades

to forgive us our tresspasses and the ignorances

that seep like poison sperm from beneath our skin.

Really we are beautiful people I wish to tell them,

yet I am not convinced that an easy-tongue will persuade

the gentle wisdom of our soothsayer friends.

I wish they would come back bearing gifts

so that I could show them my poetry collection

and we could laugh like fools and drunken priests

for I miss the bliss of sodden earth, the bursting veins

of a shared and passionate rapture.