Manic Waters

So you are the sea, the blue damper.
Behind green backs
the tell-tale wind
had whispered your presence.

My mind streams towards you,
with its mineral problems,
its bitterness.

With my first suck I tasted your salt:
as a child you choked my breath
and tore my toys away.

Tonight an iron lung keeps me awake,
dark arms methodically break rocks
to reach me.

Morning denies everything.

In sunlight your skipping waves
no longer obsess;

sailing boats and fishermen
mask your restlessness;

children play in your
manic waters.

March: 2006

My Milk Immortal

That I was there I felt I knew, admiring Autumn light with you;
its timeless palette opened to us both, you focused on a jug
and bowl, I on a perfect blush, a stroke of oil on a stipple brush.

Oh, I remember such a dance of light and innocence prevailed!
Mortality beholden to immortal line of sight, as she and you and I
and time stood stilled, in awe of silence rendered reverently:

Deferring to your mastery, the milkmaid poured, our humble bowls were filled,
her fingers moved to break our bread, releasing syllables of smell, as petals
bend surrendered to their bee; so too her savory drill of whitened light arced

through awareness, in a reverie of jug and bowl, forever more conjoinedby painterly design, contrasting ochre tones against a skirt of lapis blue.
And by such reverie I dream of you, Johannes; as Autumn has begun,

my bowl now filled with worldly sounds: a clink of glass, a sigh, a shout,
a breath, returned to where all soundings start; as I, not many
miles from you, return, to listen for what stills a restless heart.

March: 2007

Breath within a Sigh

Stripped branches, wild to a grey sky,
move in a writhing wave, wreaking
savage sorrow in the speaking;

grieve the fallen, dampened to cry;
race with the clouded harbingers
of rain! Sea birds, flitted wingers,

leaf-thrown masters of gliding, fly
the high soaring darkening ring
of wind's blustery empowering

to issue challenge: "Live, or die!"
On the point of each passing storm
find beauty writ in every form.

Repressed hearts, minds yet to comply,
follow the rest, as a dark sun
trails to my west, there become one

with those other winged souls who lie
garlanded, strewn upon a breast
encircled by feeling, compressed

in your savage beauty, raised high
against your ragings and now wept
as a love to be made, not kept

and held, as breath within a sigh,
containing secrets of a word
not remembered, nor as yet heard.

April: 2007

Note: This form is a “Constanza” in which the first lines of
each triplet spell an octet which is a verse in itself:

 “Stripped branches, wild to a grey sky,
grieve the fallen, dampened to cry;
leaf-thrown masters of gliding, fly
to issue challenge: "Live, or die!"
Repressed hearts, minds yet to comply,
with those other winged souls who lie
in your savage beauty, raised high
and held, as breath within a sigh.”

Whalesong

Hear ...

In the swell and surf of this endless song,
an ancient wake of my line, comprising

moments and words, worlds out of time

on this beautifully sorrowful Earth, yet arriving
late for her dance, ever waiting for love;

born on the waves of the past, deriving
hurt upon hurt and pain within pain

out of female birthing and by male despising

follow me in from my distant grief
and lay me down on my dying reef,

what use is to living with heart outlet
down a trail of seers whose sun has set?

Make this a verse of my journeying,
culled from an aching harrowing

I have swum and lived these final years,
to come to rest in this vale of tears.

Take this heart where it's free to roam,
leave these shores and head for home

'though body is weary, a breath blows free
in the womb of stars where we truly see.

Oh follow me in to our ancient home,
come to rest in that endless foam

far from this swell of whalesong rising,
tug and pull of hearts' reviving ...

March: 2006