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.

Lama

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this the protection you desire?

Moon in Arcos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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…