Creative Journeys

2010-07-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

cycles of remembrance
do hang on me for a long time now.
I think remembrance creates trust
and trust makes wholes emerge
and perpetuate.

Do you think about trust?

These are the words she wrote me;
a story-girl making paper-planes
of words to fly like storylines.

These are the words she wrote me
to respond to the words I once wrote.
She flies back at me like a full-page mirror
that I read as my reflection.

Little to compensate except for
those storylines that lie as labyrinths
of our lives: stories within stories

where we each learn what is trust.

17.21
9/03/10

2010-07-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

I do not breathe;

breath runs through
me as I be a witness
to its path:

I do not act
although my belief
tells me that I do.

So I think that I act
as forces beyond
compel my movements.

In each thing
we participate
yet in ways

foreign to how
we have been
trained to know.

Eyes open blindly
we choke on air
as we sink to swim.

There is grace
under each stone –
in every breath.

17.00
27/03/09

2010-07-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

Arms holding
in the madness
tight

as wind blows
howls

wraps around
strangles slightly.

I can sleep
although
her body too warm

and sweat sticks
for no reason
against my slumber.

Why she cannot
shed her insistence
for these coverings?

Madness
in the night’s
hot embrace

holding tight
as wind curls

and chimes ring
hung outside
like silver bells.

22.22
23/03/09

2010-06-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

Change comes to the one who bends:

like raindrops that fall upon a leaf,
that trickle from its wet green spout;

I sway and droop with the needy,
with the new – if change is what

is required to be near to you.

14.04
20/03/09

2010-06-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

Here stands a man who cares:
who is open to being used.

Who is ready to receive your blows
when you need to release your scream.

When your anger bursts out against
the unknown and feeds your fears:

let it all burn against the skin of the man
who stands here patiently waiting…

he knows that he must absorb the punches
from the one who cries inside like a child

to understand what it is to be loved yet
too afraid to dance out of the darkness.

20.55
16/03/09

2010-06-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

From where does the change come
if not within yourself?

From the spheres that hang like
baubles in the evening crested sky?

From the sliver of silver fish that
leap from the river to waters high?

From the speckle of worn grass which
tries to show the traveller’s path?

From where and to where, I’d like to know…
Tis perhaps from thy heart

that mysteries murmur
and call as siren song?

22.39
11/03/09

2010-06-14T09:11:00.001-07:00

Your power is as subtle as your
Subtlety is powerful.
Like the unknown alongside of you.

Subtle as it streams along your veins
carrying the carrion call. Subtle as
the Icarus fall which none did witness.

More subtle than the faintest wink,
the driest tear, the slightest pangs
of longing.

Subtle it is, subtle it be. Closer to you
than craven desires or deepest fears.
More subtle, more closer, more within you

than you would ever care to imagine.
This is your power. This is the love
that makes you.

23.41
7/03/09

2009-06-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

man of truth

carries on
carries weight

on through the wars

quietly, little noticed
little said, knows the dead

no contradiction

in opposites
lies the way ahead

looking through glass darkly

same as seeing in crystal glass
when all is clear inside.

10.51
13/02/09

2009-05-28T00:59:00.000-07:00

It’s the thin strip I love:

between horizon and ground
where eyes light upon and linger.

There is a magical shiver that
travels the spine and tingles.

Being human is being capable
of that gaze, of that view.

There is no room that can give
this silent sight and enthrone it

like it really meant something.
Yes it did – yes it will.

Waves pull and sea-folk sing.

20.17
06/02/09

2009-05-21T00:57:00.000-07:00

The continuous search for truth
rips, slits, and soothes…

like a journey on ice it slides
towards the horizon far.

We each a turgid ragamuffin
who dare to bend; stretch

the cartilage or pull a muscle.
Rigor mortis coming in

to teach us a tale or two.
Sun spreads her fiery arms

to embrace, to burn, to bone
each shy squalid heart-excuse.

The rest of us cough like pilgrims
and decant our tales like sherry.

19.57
06/02/09

2009-05-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

You buy into it, you lie into it.
You are the bed you weave.

If it could be different
you would make it different:
don’t cry over what you make real.

We are the beginning, we live our
middle ground, we grow the gold elixir.

Somewhere in the struggle I wonder,
yet I never forgive the plunder

of the self.

22.58
31/01/09

2009-05-08T00:53:00.001-07:00

Body by cool water linger longer by the minute.

It was dreamtime and I was in your space; brown
lashes slapping tanned features furrowed, coyly.
You were seeking something through the meeting
as I passed the moment to assist.

I knew you were looking through for spirit song
in the books lying still, spine name revealed to me;
yes, I could assist.

I will pass you on your way to where you wish to go
if you do indicate, I did say, and I did make my move.

Somewhere in the shadow ether you will have moved on
towards your target immersed in sea shanty song, salt
dried upon your skin to mark the waves you passed.

I would be long gone.

14.42
31/01/09

Hombre

2009-04-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

The traveling man
moves about
because he can.

He's the hombre
of falling leaves;

of time left lying
in shallow pools
bottom of the glass.

17.00
12/11/08
(Madrid)

Fool Defeated

2009-03-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

When there is nothing but silence
coming through the space between
your lips like mysteries,

I know I have been defeated
by the subtlety of language.

When I hear in the still air
what neither of us
has dared to reveal,

I know I have been out-done
by the energy of the heart.

And when I announce my victory
to the stormy winds outside,
to declare myself the victor:

I know I have been the fool
who will laugh til ever more.

22.05
09/03/09

-

Very much alive

2009-02-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

I’m not dead but very much alive.
I have my alibi. I have my beating heart.

I have no diversion or excuses.
I am strong – and I’m coming on.

Yes – I’m coming on.
And the song is getting louder.

It will be sung all over soon.
I am not the only one.

I am not the lone singer.
Soon there will be many.

Then the song will be a great one.
Our future too – bring it on…

00.08
27/09/08

Be Calmed, Be With Me

2009-02-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

I know you wanted to share
so much with me: your dreams
and the rivers that flow in-between.

Yet now it all seems lost; I have severed
the physical umbilical - you sense the loss.

Be calmed, be with me: in this world
all connections remain throughout.

The world as hologram holds us still.
Separated, we grow as friends forevermore.

22.35
31/08/08

where silence dwells

2009-02-10T11:11:00.001-08:00

I don't know how to say this:

my heart is like a vacuum pill,
ready to love, ready to kill.

I stand before the seraphim,
no holy ghost, no ephemera.

I dance the polka-dot in blackest robes,
my heart throbs, my head is hot -

there's a space where dreams come to settle
and silence dwells like night.

I could love more if I tried, if I might.

22.13
31/08/08

The poison chalice

2009-02-06T12:21:00.000-08:00

The poison chalice
sits inside of me,

a loving cup
made of clay.

I drink, I drink,
so heartily
it makes my blood
black as love.

Come again -
if not now
then another day.

Something inside of me
refuses to lie down in the sun
or to go away.

I kneel like a beggar,
hands clasped:

am I praying
or do I betray?

21.40
31/08/08

Electric Vocal

2008-12-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

Peaceness of evening near complete
against the electric vocal storm outside;

melodies of some future scrape against
the slumber of the solemn night.

I am ravenous for the invisible delight
of an opening like claws extended.

12/12/08
00.46

#1

2008-10-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

I want to dance with the great light
Of my being; shards of iridescent filaments
Spluttering and shooting like Aztec darts
From the blower’s breath.

Yet I get these threads of alcohol plying
Their trade in my veins and evening ways.

Out damn poison canals of sherry-wine blood.
Disperse – the warrior needs you no more.

On towards the great tightrope; where
Life dangles like a honey stem
Over the abyss, and wind trickles.

20.41
18/10/08

The Passing

2008-10-10T03:48:00.000-07:00

There's something that I'm not doing
Something that needs to be done.

Like a melody left unsung
A dinner uncooked
Lips left untouched.

As wind through trees does blow
So too I must find the true
Nature of my passing.

11.52
10/10/08

New collection of poetry available to download from here

-

A loving drop

2008-09-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

If I have spilt a loving drop
from another human heart,

I do this from a caring debt
to leave a chrysalis behind

as catalyst to a birth of
some future butterfly.

There Is

2008-08-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

There is a pain, there is a love,
There is a rage, there is the dove.

There is compassion.
There is frustration.
There is the knowing
And the whole unknowing.

There are the stars shining
And the nights closing in.
There is the thankfulness
And there are the years ahead.

There is the flow of love.
And all of the above.

23.19
30/08/08

Imperfect

2008-08-28T02:38:00.000-07:00

We'll get it right in another life
if we don't get it right in this one.

This is no excuse to stop loving
or to love the loving too much.

There's a bigger picture waiting to be sown
through the threads of our imperfect embraces.

22.06
23/08/08

Untitled

2008-08-19T07:59:00.000-07:00

When you sleep do you listen
to your breathing
like a star's internal fiery furnace?

When I breath in and out,
out and in,
I am reminded of the way a breeze
carries along the scent of a flower
and disperses it like pollen.

19/01/08

Night Poem

2008-06-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

We dance like shadows
amidst the embers,
as silhouettes burnt upon
the evening sky:

as a veil
that does not open;

a flickering
carpet of starlight.

Linger

2008-05-15T01:21:00.001-07:00

I speak in song, I think in flame;

I dream of Spanish hills or

distant destinations

where the air is still.

I linger in moments

that pass too quickly

and forget that I was

ever there.

Do such moments ever stop

to think of me; do they care?

I wish to embrace the land

and tip my toe in waters cold,

to laugh along with funny

bird songs, bright and bold.

Yet something makes me feel uneasy,

a little queasy, as if this is not what is done

in this magic-less world of ours where

dreamers are forbid to dream.

Yet still I linger on in moments

that pass too quickly and

forget that I was

ever there.

Do such moments ever stop

to think of me; do they care?

12.36

30/01/08

Beggar

2008-03-13T04:56:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-07T01:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Lama

2008-01-30T04:23:00.000-08:00

I knew it was a dream when you let me hold you close,
touch your neck to heal a pain, and draw close to a kiss.
You said you had told your father that I was like a lama;
I smiled and said I was no lama, yet was glad you thought
of me in that way. You were happy that I came.

I was the happier one, believe me my dear.
It was a dream from which I did not want to awaken.
I could have remained asleep like this for aeons,
or until the spell was broken. Now that I am awake
there is a nostalgia for the realm of the invisible.

Zen of Stars

2008-01-20T07:20:00.000-08:00

My Heart yearns for new food

as does a stream long to explore

new avenues to share its water.

Like a zen of stars I meditate

upon the endless possibilities

that await me and you.

If I am unsure, it is because

I do not wish to pollute the

final great event…

17/01/08

Untitled

2008-01-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

Standing in the rain
I feel roasted
like a chestnut
under homeless heat.

I have nothing but
my own convictions
and my mettle
and my own little
battles.

Contented, I wonder

and allow trinkets of rain
to fall like crystal
jewelry for mistress sweet.

16/01/08
22.25

The Bees

2007-12-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

There is a call (do you call for me?)
and the bees fall into swarm, fly out,
and do not return.

Warriors on the path, no notes left behind,
hive homes turn to dust and decay;
hexagonal birth and wax chambers dried out.

There is a place where the intuition leans towards
with a push and a pull beyond letters or description.
Do not describe what remains hidden.

A silent call amid the rustle of breezes,
a chill, a warmth that freezes,
and the few fly out to swarm anew.

The bees are the beautiful who knew.

9/10/07
11.05

Early fragments

2007-12-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

Some early poetry from 'BLOODHOUND: SELECTED POEMS 1992 - 1995' (click on 'Writings').

BLOODHOUND

I see your face in Everyone.
I see you in All.
I haven't found your body yet.
I'm following the Call.

SHELL

Like little sea creatures
In a shell we lay

pressed against
the pressured air;

too silent to be moved,
showing ourselves
as the layered rock
shows earth's growth
from youth.

Tiny thumb prints of some desire
we wish to encapture

and keep between the flesh,
to seep from our pores

on every embrace
to smell the skin
on every kiss

like honest things.

WORLD ASLEEP

The world is asleep
and often I am one with it
with each millions of eyes closed
and mine shut too:

It is a greater trial to awake
than to make love to your enemy
And evolution cannot touch that soul,
vain with its own busy life,
which does not stop to turn
its silent observation upon itself.

WITHIN THE HEART

The truly man of calm is he
who has a silent turmoil within
his heart.

-

21

2007-12-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

I lie like a scorpion afraid to sting,
so resigned to the shelter of rocks.

Is this the protection you desire?

Moon in Arcos

2007-11-23T04:13:00.000-08:00

I left the moon in Arcos behind
as I flew above the skyline
of a reddened-yellow field of light;

this was a flight from one shifted moment
to the next like a transition that calls
us forth upon another journey.

We shall be known by our actions
in all times

and thus must mark our own passing
in appropriate ways.

15.34
16.8.05

20

2007-11-21T03:24:00.000-08:00

When I think of you I imagine
waves washing over rocks as tentacles,
before resting in salt-rock pools
where the water-crystals cohere,
align, and lie like submerged wreaths.

There are kings and queens in this world:
yet few partake in any remembrance
worthy of your cold, clear embrace.

18

2007-11-08T01:58:00.000-08:00

A great thing of unbecoming is to neglect the shine

Spirit throws upon our mirrored world.

Tis a dishonour to cower in the shade, a shame

To forget the azure allure of radiant soul

Burning brightly like greatest radiation rays

Bursting forth as from sun’s inner core.

There is more that we can do in this world

Of creative, volatile futures;

When we sit quietly like afternoon napping cats

We should remind our souls to stir

More meaningfully and stronger still.

Like resplendent giants of all worlds.

This Tempter

2007-10-25T15:59:00.001-07:00

I apologise for my inconveniences,
for my foibles, my fleshy idiosyncrasies.

Like bearing children, we must care
for the young of our thoughts.
Baby desires wrapped in dark-glass
innocence.

Forgive this tempter.

01.04
26/08/07

The Lover’s Song

2007-10-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

Strip my body to the breast bone
Where starlings may come to cry;
Carve from my flesh a hollow home
For imaginings to come and lie.

As on my body hangs more pictures
Than on a painter’s wall,
So too does your body hang the dreams
That came before the Fall.

I walk the souk a hungry merchant
For passion and for fear;
I taste my lips to your song
For mockingbirds to hear.

I feel as if I was an ageless monk
In lives long past and dead,
Where silence took me hostage
And desire carved my prayer bed.

So now I long for sweetest nectar
As bees taste upon nature’s flower,
For I to learn the starry heavens
And be her finest lover.

12.37
21.08.07

A Secret Path

2007-09-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

Is there a secret path to the heart

Where water tastes like honey?

Is there a silence where eternity rests

Like an embrace that never ages?

Where is the gold if the mines are empty?

Where is Truth if diamonds are aplenty?

There amidst the entanglements of one’s

Own questions lie the threads of an answer.

Ariadne, I was playing poker when you left:

Please come again and re-thread me.

21.08.2007

16

2007-08-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

The feeling comes of being clothed
within another person’s poisoned skin.

Stepping out with them makes
me wear their mantle, their overall.

Robed ‘n’ dressed into a life that restrains,
I do not wish to wear such garments.

Spending too long with the shadow puppets who
ply their toxic life to my soulful play.

Come, shun the human fallout, and rejoice
in the sun of glorious hearty ruminations;

gleam in the sun of shunned garments,
seeming in the good of gunned sharments.

15

2007-08-24T16:05:00.001-07:00

Here for the party, here for the push,
here for the leap, here for the leaving.

Putting the players into precise position,
arranging, re-arranging the strategic battle lines.

Increasing paranoia, rising climatic fear,
they plan to infect us, inject us, poison the Piper’s heart.

Yet we’ve been in on the game for a long time,
from the very beginnings of our serpent past.

They have the scheming, we have the subtlety,
they have slyness, we have the Heart…

14

2007-08-24T16:04:00.001-07:00

And when you wander into unknown places,
what fears betray you?

Walking through spaces of sadness and despair
make a soul weaker, yet is the trick of those tying
us to earthbound robes.

My friends, the secret is out, the secret is here:
It is they who fear – fear our laughter and our passing:
‘what is it you say?’ we ask, as we stroll past
their sentry guards and threshold dwellers.

Do not linger long in their armoury
or they will kit you out in
sharpest steel finery.

Leave them sneaking through bastard bog-holes,
dirty fingers for dirty nose-holes, as we stroll past
their sentry guards and threshold dwellers;

Ragged in light and gossamer dress.

13

2007-07-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

Buried inside me, I feel you stir as a growing foetus

that kicks and gurgles, blowing through an umbilical cord

of sweat and love.

There is some great design that stands monumental,

immersed throughout our human threads,

frozen blood music like snowflakes.

Immersed throughout the cosmos like a piercing love intention.

And the great soul expands as stars breathe,

as an infinitude of shiny breaths giving life

that is endless in all directions.

And the waste that humans make hangs

like dusty corners in rooms of retreat and torture:

Outside the sun glows gloriously,

awaiting our turned faces to catch the warming glow

of gratitude and told-you- so’s…

12

2007-06-20T14:19:00.001-07:00

Is there a space for the place I need to freeze?

If I run through the motions, my emotions, hurriedly,
I run the machine, not my-Self….

Take time out

Step back…

…into carved space, curved place in time,

Against existing in scattered fragments, I gather my

speckled selves like shattered shells on a distant shore,

unity forlorn, unity loving.

11

2007-05-18T04:31:00.001-07:00

Autumnal yellow, pale green leaves
do not ask from where the wind comes and sings,

they sway, or drip with pooled water, dangle
in crisp sun particles.

Energy does not retreat nor deny; tis no traitor,
does not turn its back,

only turns in cycles and continues.

Such leaves asking not nor querying why

yet falling when time to play their part.

A part of knowing the great embeddedness of things.

10

2007-04-10T05:04:00.000-07:00

The answers are embedded all around,
Carried by us too beneath our skin,
adopted by the plasma of our cells…
… all bubbling up and waiting.

The ancient voices call out to us, awaiting an echo…
yet we fall silent: a chamber without resonance,
a call we fail to repeat…

and I’m desperate to sing now,
dying to make a sound…just a sound…

will anything be heard?

Of course, of course…
nothing is left unsung.

No melody at night is alone…

9

2007-03-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

I came down these roads dreaming like a king,
twisting through the avenues as if they were a game…
many books filled the way, ran like the wine over my lips;
the days were an apprenticeship to some kind of glorious renewal -
I wanted the glory of finishing the path like all the heroes of myth…

I didn’t know of Perseus at the time yet like Perseus I was…
Glorified goat-climbing, capricornious up the mountainside…

Some things have not changed … still some kingly dreams…
Hoping to be less vainglorious in the endeavours to reach,

To push through the veils that cling like beeswax upon the skin…
To begin, to begin always, yet moving beyond… winged...

8

2007-02-16T08:02:00.000-08:00

Not missing you, I don’t miss you.
Missing is a shawl that drapes and hangs
over us like chain mail.

So I see you as the missing
...in the spaces I don’t miss…

fostered remnants of air trapped between stitches…

I love everything about us all,
and dismiss what needn’t be or claims to be,
or that which lingers …

I don’t suppose we linger…
not like pilgrims waiting on
for the golden miracle
to dispel their aging doubts.

We are not disabled,

unless we forget ourselves.
Unless we miss ourselves.

7

2007-02-10T04:38:00.000-08:00

Inexpressible.

So why do I write? Can it be contained… I wonder,
as journeys pile upon each footprint, traces of places
provided for our learning…

I am building a doppelganger of myself –
I will donate it to the world.

Take this other me and fill it with all the false personalities.
You’ll never suckle the milk of the true spirit-foetus … not yet,
anyway…

for the time being I’m working in my laboratory
like a modern day Fulcanelli:

I am building a doppelganger of myself –
I will donate it to the world …

Eventually!

6

2007-01-30T14:24:00.000-08:00

Arms that wrap around in tentacles of embrace, as flesh crushed, skin ripped, and pressure pursed against flesh, and more flesh……body sinks into bodies in a moment of respite.The body can be a reprieve for the aches that canker and curse; flesh to bolster against the bane of mighty human winds: come into a peaceful place of tenderness – did I mention my body?

No…it is only a bed for weary bones and head, tis never a replacement for Spirit. Both may lie like heaven’s lovers in loyal embrace. There is no shame in loving if the loving is fair – make no demands. Press for no forced engagements, encounters … slip into spaces where the air is clear.

No time for mockery now: touch of bodies, ease of heart…soft spirits lie and murmur sweet.

5

2006-12-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

Do not be deceived by the tempting moments of apathy,

lurking like gaping holes, like soldier wounds…

there is strength in pressing against the spaces of uncertainty,

in honouring and accepting the passages that bridge more

momentous occasions…

every step is a statement, every breath a victory,

and every affirmation an intention towards a unity…

4

2006-11-18T09:06:00.001-08:00

The light glides phosphorescent across the skin of numerous souls,
touching in its moments those cloistered memories within…

a remembrance carried around and not shaken off,
despite the days of darkness when light is lacking…

it remains like gold in the mine. I have myths dancing through me
as caricatures of some forgotten plays…as endless actors

in a play that never ceases…
what time does another day begin?

Can I caress the endless light as if a lover in her nakedness…
in her beauty skin? I want to crash like pearl-divers into the depths

of some hidden retreat that keeps the secret of our forbidden spice…
I hear silence like a shower now…

it rains on this road of determined feet…
I will not, I will not, I will not retreat…

3

2006-10-29T03:36:00.000-08:00

We are here for life lessons, to learn from the encounters we cross. Like a map from a bygone time, we have previously planned those moments that test us, or bring us joy.

How many of our own moments are accidental…? Is misery the reserve of miserable sods, or insufferability the sanctity of cantankerous cods?

Sometimes its chemical…other times biological. Ahhh…yet the spirit works through every blip of the hormonal nodes, frosting or clearing the glass of our vision…

I have no doubt of its existence, of its presence within me. Around me. Friends and colleagues of calibre mark my passing, and aid my journey. They speak in tongues difficult to decipher by the reasoned brain. With intuition such things are discerned…

Hear me now, as I write these words and look out from my window onto the wet sunlit street below. Is it right that it should rain today?

2

2006-10-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Don’t be fooled by what isn’t, for everything is. There are uncertainties that lie like doormats treaded underfoot; they only wait for a dull mind to adopt them as lonely children.

Be as light as light, and as brave as the wind. Our only failure is our own doubt. There is nothing than cannot be removed, although don’t rely on a painless passage. How did you pay for the tickets?

I am trying to reach for the Pleiades, yet surrounded by concrete. Battered in matter and heaviness. No fear, I will go on.

1

2006-10-06T03:51:00.000-07:00

The days have been filled with a different silence, both caged yet free... I surround myself with music, with smoky smells, with days of wine and the sounds of birds...

I am thirsty for your nearness; battered time in sips.

Moving on with enough space to visit places of past retreat.
Yet there is no room for nostalgia…as the way ahead
beckons me forward like a concubine...

Can you visit me?
Do you know my location, here amidst the conifers
that blanket the shade. Am I in a field that can be found?

Find me? Mistress of myself… is this to be done…?

Dead Flower

2006-05-13T05:06:00.000-07:00

The weight of your beauty
Brought you down,

Forced you to crumble,
Your stalk snapping

As you succumbed to what
You could not keep aloft.

My dear dead flower: you
Uplifted yourself without support.

You aimed high, towards sun in sky,
Yet without aid or dutiful crutch.

And so thy fall is all the more fallow,
For it was a useless loss.

11.39
5.4.06

NOT OF THIS WORLD, BUT

2006-04-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

Not of this world
yet still living inside of it.

Still here
despite my accusations
and my alienation
and my walking shadow.

Not of this world
yet still dressing in its clothes,
still wearing its material robes
and still trying hard to define
love within its folds

despite my curses
and frail condemnation

as though I were a beast
that could not run
but instead turns in necessity
to defend his territory.

7.13pm
10/9/94

A LITTLE DEATH

2006-04-03T15:46:00.000-07:00

The need to die a little in order to understand how to live:

To nearly die, the edge of dying; towards the brink of death,
the edge of living that pummels us for the passion for life.

Such a nearness of death that exists with exuberance for life.

Life should not become a lethargy, trudging through as we do mud.

We are so far from being dreamweavers, from making us understood..
Take this body and break it into beautiful pieces: make this drunken soul mad…

Make this trespasser glad.

12.42
6.2.06

OUR REDUNDANCY

2006-04-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

A perfume lingers in all things: this is their radiance.

Like halos, all inner scents glow.

Light fingers of finery, life reaching out,
And we are brought into the forgery,

A hologram of complicit pieces, we
Share the conspiracy in our sleep.

Moving through our assumptions, our
Errors, we forget there is no gain nor loss.

Nothing matters beyond the becoming:

Our redundancy is the source of our success.

12.58
26.2.06

ENDLESS SUN

2006-04-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

The sun comes a long way
To give us
A touch of its ray:

And it shines for no reward
Other than to give.

Endlessly and unconditionally
It shines forth.

Rarely do we give thanks
Or turn our heads sunwards.

We used to do this, in the
Days of our remembrance.

As sons and daughters we are cared
for continually; even as we whimper.

Merciful Father, compassionate globe;
Our endless sun.

10.51
26.2.06

Something Has Come Through

2006-02-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

Where have I been? they ask;
been so long silent maybe I’m lost
they wonder, yet do not say.
Have I been dying?
Ah, for so long, for so long now:
I’ve been dying, been dying
yet not in the way that you think.

Been hiding out in the Istanbul streets
soaking up the smells of ages, of sweat,
eyeing the eyes that eye you as you pass,
as they all carry experience in sparkling drops:
but I wrote nothing, nothing of it all
yet I never forgot.

Slowly bits of me have been falling away,
shreds, flakes, dead skin that peels and drops,
scabs of the old thoughts, scars of old liver;
yet I’m living on through all of this despite
the silences, the silences you’ve commented upon.

See, I haven’t been writing that much;
I know you’ve noticed the spaces between each word.
It’s not that I’m broke, certainly never broke,
I’m just absorbing every mark, spot, and smell:
and slowly, so very slowly, and in every way
I’ve been dying, been dying,
yet not in the way that you think.

So now amid this silence I raise my hand:
something has come through these Istanbul days,
yet I can’t quite give it a name, can’t name it.
It’s a sight that comes after being blind or a
taste that relays the experience of tasting rather
than just the word. All in these Istanbul days.

So now the hand says it’s time to change,
a moment for moving on, for moving on through,
as if need creates its own momentum. Not want.
Not self. I’m leaving you all now with these words,
signalling an end to the silence with these words:
I’ve been dying, been dying you see,
yet not in the way that you think.

Burning Sun (for Geoff) - Con Dios

2006-02-13T14:06:00.000-08:00

Nearing to the centre
of a sun that burns,
burning sun,
learning how to let
the light of warmth
come in, for to
stay awhile,
making us lighter still.

There’s no space
or a place to
retrace our love
if there’s an anger
swelling in our
most private dwelling.

So let some in
and learn to leave
the Other out,
for there’s no doubt
which taste its best
to be within.

Don’t drink of the
wrong draught, or inhale
from the stale air:
it only sinks, our human
voice to drown.

Get towards the sun
my friend,
a sun that burns
of a burning sun:

learning how to let
the light of warmth
come in, for to
make us friends
drunken with our own
holy ghosts

and a little
lighter still.

Secret Life

2006-02-13T13:56:00.000-08:00

Look at my hands now.
These hands that write,
That are instruments of
my fate also.

They are hands that nobody knows.
Their vision is obscure to others.
My hands work like this in
Their own secret life.

One day I hope they will unite.

Fragments from 'The Man Who Died of Love' - No 3

2006-02-11T06:29:00.000-08:00

(3)

Music is your breath, your soul, your voice. In the churches of XXXXXX I can hear you call in endless whispers of longing and love. You fill the walls with your sound and they echo this radiance back to me as if they too were in conspiracy with your love.

We are all in collusion with this secret you keep hidden only for the precious few. And did you choose me, O beloved? Am I worthy to be loved beyond all previous loves?

Am I beyond the lovers of revolution and change? Am I beyond the love of conscripts devoted to their country’s cause? Oh bounteous one, never let me lie alone.

If I am without you yet am favoured in this world by all prestige and fame, I am still alone: and yet if I am left alone and unwanted by this world but honoured by your love, I will never be alone.

I am just a man drinking in your tavern of grace and made drunk by the wine of your love. If I am clumsy in my drunkenness then forgive this fool.

Forgive this fool for the man that he was. Forgive this fool for the man that I am.

I am made to be nothing beside you.

(The man died several years ago)

Fragments from 'The Man Who Died of Love' - No 8

2006-01-25T14:06:00.000-08:00

(8)

I am a copy, a fake. Listen to me my dear: I am not real. I am an illusion; all that you see is but a reflection of something else. I am just a surface, the thin film of a water pool thinking itself to have depth. There is no depth in me but the thinness of my skin.

In your eyes I see a lake beyond: water of endless glistening that drowns me in my breathlessness. How can I become like you? How can the mimicry of my life lose itself to find the original art? How can this mystery be done, my love?

Can you share with me your secret? I am dying here without knowing; there is no real life for a copycat. There is no true beauty for a fake.

I am a forger. I once convinced myself that I was the great artist, now I know I was only a forger of his name.

How can your mysteries be known, my love; how can the deceiver lose his deception?

Must I wait long for an answer?

(The man died several years ago)

DUMBNESS

2006-01-14T05:18:00.000-08:00

I shall look into your face and remember you
Even when you thought I doubted your existence.

How could you think I was unawares just
Because I played dumb all these years?

Of course I am dumb.

14.48
7/11/05

THE CROSS

2006-01-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

I light candles and arrange the room like an alter

For nothing other than the pleasure of your presence

And my absence.

Welcome to a world where all worlds blur,

Where no distinctions are made between here and now,

The there and then. We all mingle like party thieves,

Crashing the great event.

So I light the candles daily. I am your human prayer.

I see you above my shoulders, an unseen figure not there.

And I love the strength you provide me. You are the cross

I haven’t learnt to bear.

18.25
5/11/05

THE EMBRACE

2005-11-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

Of the embrace,

We teach of times to love. We hope of the goodness.

There is a war raging. There are battle cries. Many will die.

Many must fall for the other soldiers to forge ahead.

There will be chronic times to face. Times of dishevelment.

Out of this can come times of the new embrace.

Lord – is this our sacrifice?

Is this our embrace?

18.12
5/11/05

OH DEAR

2005-11-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

Out to sea again.

Afloat on the waves again.

Splashing for the fun again.

Making silly sounds again.

A boy in the unknown again.

Loving the wetness again.

Crazy in the race again.

Greedy in the salt again.

Going slightly nowhere.

Always heading somewhere.

There’s nothing to stop me here.

Everything to fool me. Oh dear.

18.07
5/11/05

I FOR SURE

2005-11-06T03:43:00.000-08:00

I want you to know that
I don’t understand why the rain
Makes my face wet when it touches.

Does it have to touch?

Whose hand guides nature?
Is the cause of blowing leaves,
Of falling leaves,

That scatter like thin seeds,
Seen as veiled hope for next season?

I don’t fully understand the seasons.
They run, not like children
But aged men of old, wizened by wisdom,

Calloused by experience and passing time.
All will come to pass, yet who knows the
Direction the wind will blow?

I for sure do not.

17.41
5/11/05

A few words left lingering from paens past...

2005-10-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

Our faces speak and our eyes listen. True love loves lovers and true lovers melt form.

When I am with you sleep does not disturb us, and without you I am sleepless.

I am a copy, a fake. Listen to me my dear: I am not real. I am an illusion; all that you see is but a reflection of something else. I am just a surface, the thin film of a water pool thinking itself to have depth. There is no depth in me but the thinness of my skin.

In your eyes I see a lake beyond: water of endless glistening that drowns me in my breathlessness. How can I become like you? How can the mimicry of my life lose itself to find the original art? How can this mystery be done, my love?

Can you share with me your secret? I am dying here without knowing; there is no real life for a copycat. There is no true beauty for a fake.

I am a forger. I once convinced myself that I was the great artist, now I know I was only a forger of his name.

How can your mysteries be known, my love; how can the deceiver lose his deception?

Must I wait long for an answer?

The undone too

2005-10-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

The present moment lasts all our life
and still it is very short.

Fingerprints return to dust eventually –
is this what we want to hold onto?

We mark ourselves by our own passing,
our own internal grading.

I have no regrets in anything that I have done,
and bless the undone too.

23.23
20.8.05

The Promise

2005-09-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

We are in chaos now
and the world asks for our sanity.

Amidst the turmoil that is to come
we must form the islands of harmony
to weather the coming storm.

The rain of confusion will press against
us like a skin of irritable insanity
that raises the waves of emotions.

In all of this there are shifts
to a greater morn, yet work is needed
now to quell that which follows a fall.

We are coming to the rage of our chaos now
and those of us who made our promises
will be called upon to perform.

16.56
16.8.05

Some short early pieces - all from 1992-95

2005-08-28T04:02:00.000-07:00

A STRANGER WITHIN

A man who lives on the outside of his skin
forever
is he who dies being a stranger within.

WITHIN THE HEART

The truly man of calm is he
who has a silent turmoil within
his heart.

INSIDE THE HEAD

Place not one vision between the eyes
but the whole vision inside the head.

RULER

Many wish to be an earthly Ruler, yet
such Rulers rule with a sadness in heart.

BLOODHOUND

I see your face in Everyone.
I see you in All.

I haven't found your body yet.
I'm following the Call.

MAN OF BEING

2005-08-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

I'm looking
for someone

to shred away
the skin

as if it were flaky
porcelain,

to pull out the tender
flesh below,

the rarest of reddened
sinews,

and bring the neglected insides
to the top

like a man wearing his
tissues

tendons and bones as
his mask.

A glorious man of being.

An early poem from around 1992

Moon in Arcos

2005-08-21T03:29:00.000-07:00

We struggle

2005-08-21T03:28:00.000-07:00

So much for the answers, so much for the quest;

did I say I hear voices in my chest?

We have our blueprint, our very own design:

we sigh, longing to hear amongst the grind

of our daily binds, screechings of white noise.

00.11
30.7.05

Losing time

2005-08-01T02:36:00.000-07:00

Here I am;
drinking music, playing wine,
losing time.

I didn’t come here for the fish bowl,
or the food plate, or the sofa.

Comfort and pleasure can be had
yet I have no wish to engrain them.

I did not come here for this.
I did not come here for this.

00.03
30.7.05

Let it come down

2005-07-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

An early dawn rises after a dark night,

just as our own personal djinns are purged

through effort into a new cleansed state.

So too will the world soul be plunged into its

own infernal chaos before light is drawn from

its well of deep reserves and a new epoch

is created from the ashes of a long history of

struggle and strife. Everything will know itself

in order to pass beyond its own weakness.

In the end it is a great plan, a great love.

A wonderful human, divine purpose.

Let it come down.

21.26

10.7.05

Everybody’s place

2005-07-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

As Icarus flies overhead, as wax melts and sunbeams burn,

so too do the brutal acts burn our own flesh and kin:

is this the world we, as single soul, must live within?

If even an individual limb becomes torn from our great body,

so too does each single limb on our own frame ache, as if each

sinew and tendon trembles from the wound of a global gash.

As above, so below. And as over there, so here too.

There is nothing separate, nothing new.

That which affects each other affects us all.

The way forward, to transcend, is a global call.

Each thought, step, sacrifice, gets counted: each atrocity

creates a scar upon our species face. This is not the place

nor time for such ancient, archaic understandings.

Life is in transition – our fate is now in position

for a most memorable move. It is everybody’s place.

15.58

7.7.05

The day London was blasted

Singers of song

2005-07-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

I am the dreamer I have known all along:

I created the song.

I am the wanderer I have met all along:

I wrote the script.

We know what we have always known, yet

left unkindled as a smouldering night-fire –

we are the writers of our own destiny.

We are the singers of our own tune.

Sing out, sing loud, sing on: don’t cower

from fear of misplacing the words.

Life snaps into play like a metronome,

each beat a burst into being, each tick, tock,

a heartbeat of our own begging clock,

desiring to be known, to be known.

Sing out, sing loud, sing strong.

22.34

5.7.05

Too easy

2005-06-29T03:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it’s hard to be good.

But what choice do we have? The alternative

Is not something I wish to consider.

I make such dilemmas here very simple: my own

Kind of black and white. But what choice do I have?

It makes sense that having no choice is often the

greatest freedom of all. Yet this path is too simple

to be easy.

01.47

20.5.05

Cosmic Law

2005-05-31T14:05:00.000-07:00

‘I shall always be with you inside the eternal present’

is a truth I wish I understood:

to grace a trace upon the people we mingle with,

perhaps love, then remember them in their moments

as our tapestry of continuous living.

Such beauty that no earth bound philosophy can capture.

Our forever contact, eternal exposure, is a cosmic law

so sublime it goes beyond what I can manage in my

everyday personal touches, in soft embraces.

23.39

23.4.05

When you’re there, you’ll know exactly

2005-05-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

All I know is that you know the truth, whether or not

You know it now: it is in you, as the cells compose your body.

When you realise you will laugh.

Everything in this life has been played as a recognition.

Talismans to remind us; to jolt; to wake us.

Truth is like a Priest’s hole in one on a Sunday: who can you tell who wasn’t there?

When you’re there, you’ll know exactly. Because you’ve always been there.

It’s returning to a place that is so familiar; you’ll recognise the voices.

The trick is whether we’ll wake.

01.22

20.5.05

The distances between us

2005-01-26T14:33:00.000-08:00

Nothing dies, as the chimes tell
us it’s another year; a new notch
to mark upon what was done, will
be done. Hope resides in all encounters:

even when heart is heavy, when transformation
seems rare; or a gift unforgiving.

It will come. Yet only when the world is ready
for what you have to share.

We bring to the world the tangled desires and dreams
of our inner spheres; to which we view the world without.

No-one is a victim: experiences raise us on a rising tide,
or drop us to some depths from which we drink.

The world is to taste. Stopping too long to put the distances
between us only makes the taste more bitter.

Let us carry on, as foot soldiers to a greater purpose.
Maybe another year has gone, yet time is a taste on
the tongue that we must learn to like, or swallow hard.
Hope lasts for as long as the heart does hunger.

The biggest secret

2005-01-26T14:32:00.001-08:00

It’s the world’s biggest secret
and they’re not telling you:
how sweet it is, and so strong

it’ll blow you away. It will detonate
you like an alchemical nuclear fusion.
You see, it’s not what you think it is,

and you’ll never guess it. Not in a lifetime.
I’d like to tell you, to pass it on. But it took
me so long to get here I’m keeping it for myself.

You see: the secret protects itself, and you’d do
the same if you were in my shoes. So what will you
do to get into my shoes: are you after the world’s biggest secret too?

All together now…

2005-01-26T14:32:00.000-08:00

Out of the mangled mesh our psyche weaves
we have this: our terrain, tract of land, sphere,
that extends from our bodies to reach far,
effusing into all crevices, holes and crannies.

What we think becomes forever known; stored
in halls, records, in other member’s minds as
mimetic lovebugs, or parasites, that pass on
in murmurs, praises, deeds, and stone –

nothing is left out, untouched, or forgotten.
All comes back into our global blood, our
woven air, our hybrid rituals. We feed upon
the crumbs of existed moments, yet pushing

to collate, include, that history which serves
us best, serves us worst. So all together now,
we share the paranoia of our times, infesting
us unruly. When will the Gods come to flush

us out of our trench, like a chariot of Goddesses?

In flux cognito

2005-01-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

I cannot clear my head
around the complexities of a life
still to come.

As does nature’s children welcome each renewal,
I search within endless flux for a way through:

unstable knowing,
broken pieces,
love connections,
embraces within virtual spaces,
war within psychological places,

I seek a way through this web of endless embrace.

We are all here for some end purpose:
to have within some gain to fill us as we watch
a flame that dims at the end of the days,
that does not drag us into emptiness
but fills, cries out loud our living.

In instability do we yearn so deeply
for our claim, our meaning.

The nameless

2004-12-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

Consider this:

Each day a thousand ways to make
our heart feel lighter.

Each life of boundless ways to make
our meaning deeper.

Each moment an endless space to make
our selves closer.

Each thought a given chance to make
our living brighter.

Consider that there is no end.

We live for something
much greater than we are:

in a pool full of swimmers with a longing.

Come – find me. I am dying for your touch.

13.34
6.11.04

From standing still

2004-11-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

If you ask which road I’m travelling -

I don’t know, for there are few signs for me;
there are no skills that will serve me best
when all can serve me well:

perhaps I’m looking for the skill that nobody has?
What will be needed when the time has arrived
will only be known from the ways I have travelled.

Maybe the skill that nobody has is the skill that
always has been, yet needs the road ahead
to make it known: whatever, nothing

was ever gained from standing still.

17.28
23.10.04

There’s a dream

2004-10-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

There’s a dream that flashes in us when it gets watered:

then like a sown seed it seeks to sprout it’s shrubbery hands,
reaching for the sunlight, reaching for the starlight,

shrouded by the soil as an oyster shell.
Yet it lies deep, and forever yearning for green hands
to hear its tender shrill and nourish its calling.

Such a seed is in us all when we wake from slumber womb.
Drowsed by our waking world, with white noise like water rapids,
we hear not the plea to further wake, to further explore.
Such is our world of unkempt seedlings, spoilt and dour,

waiting for the dream to flash, for water to pour.

Rare

2004-09-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

In those tender moments of remembrance
when you felt human in the touch of everything
and all senses seemed to be united:

in those tender moments we feel a thing rare.

23.42
3.9.04

The Promises

2004-09-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

So easy to forget all the promises
we made to ourselves in secret rooms,
in silent places: I’m sorry I pushed
you to remember, to recollect a failure,
as if you hadn’t succeeded or fulfilled
a goal you always said you would.

Your face showed a painful memory:
a moment I caught you bringing-up again,
a childlike image of heroism or idolatry
you haven’t yet accomplished, nor perhaps will.

The child in us lives longer than our dreams.

23.47
3.9.04

Already Within Us

2004-09-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

Does a flower decide not to bloom
when its inner growth knows what is to become?

Nature knows best because it does not ask
the question why, or strive to interfere.

Human life is thwart with inconsistencies,
like chance does play the game of poker.

That which is natural may have a better chance,
if we allow ourselves to listen.

That which can be is already within us:
we are the gatekeepers to our own heart.

00.00
1.6.04

Bought

2004-09-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Very few people say very little;
nothing much gets known except
that done by our own hands;

hands that tie and do not fist.
Hands that collect, and store,
to transmit that which could be missed

by a history that charts myth as fact
and stories full of heroes.

We like our heroes: they look beautiful
and shiny like bought things. Maybe

it’s we who are the bought ones.

23.5.04
23.00

The Reasons Why You Came Here

2004-07-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

          Spending so long planning
                                      where you’re standing,

          you forget the reasons why it
                                      is you came here;

          worse still, infection of the dreaded
                                      earth-sickness

          turns your thoughts to all the things
                                      you cannot leave behind:

          it’s the money, it’s the show, it’s all
                                      the things you’ve collected

          from the corners of your little world
                                      and you can’t let them go.

          Yet what is it that you came for?
                                     That something special

          you always had to believe in, that
                                      reason it is you came here…

         could you really be so ill you’ve forgotten
                                      the touch of love?

Change

2004-07-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

We should have intuited that change is best not be
avoided when it comes to call, crashing on us unsuspecting.
It’s only our normalcy, the complacency of our warmth
that steers us away into our regulatory corners.

So there’s nothing wrong then to be woken from
our catatonic slumber, our onanistic embrace,
to face the new dynamic world asunder…

Or so they say, or would like to say, I don’t know,

except that I’m restless if I stay too long, feels as if
I’m being left behind by the whole human race,
wherever they are heading.

If change is good, why do people die only a few miles
from where they first entered life, or fail to open their
windows on a sunny day, I don’t know…

23.5.04
18.36

Balance

2004-07-16T14:44:00.000-07:00

                   there’s no sentimentality
                             in my glass of wine,

                   only thoughts that come
                             and don’t stay long,

                   that don’t grow into wild
                             imaginative trees.

                   there’s no excess of scent
                             or colour in a rose

                   for beauty is knowing the balance
                             of what is enough.