May (2012)

May is the month of things reborn:
Of hope and joy and illustrious green.
The beetle sounds its dreamy horn
And wakes the earth, so long forlorn
Beneath the winter’s frigid sheen.

And now the manna-bringing rain:
Listen – it beats upon the glass
And trickles down the window pane,
Singing a sweet and soothing strain,
And feeds the jewels beneath the grass.

The jewels of spring, in limitless hues,
Ready themselves and burst the ground –
So frantic!  Not a moment to lose!
In floods of yellows, reds and blues,
Purples and pinks, ‘til all is drowned

In a wash of sensual ecstasy!
May, sweet month of blooming flowers,
When all is hope for what could be,
And froths with youth’s vitality,
When lovers kiss through sun-drenched hours.

The sun!  Bright augur of spring’s delight!
Bathing in warmth on a grassy hill,
Young lovers hold each other tight,
While visions dance on the shimmering light
That leave them breathless, charmed and still.

May is the month of things reborn,
Of bursting buds and greening grass,
The healing of the hurt and worn,
Who’ve felt the pain of nature’s thorn
Or thought the joys of life must pass.

And so it is with you and I:
From out the cold and wintery blast,
The frozen ground and barren sky,
The Spring has come for you and I;
The dark of winter is surely past.

Fire and Snow (2009)

There’s irony in the cold and falling snow
Which comes by late December to the North.
It drives us up the path and through the door
To the fires we tend within our huddled homes.

Fire and snow, they balance in the end,
And press us into warm companionship,
Necessity in this four-month land of frost
Where ever and still we live as sojourners.

Yes, there is always comfort in a blaze
Of burning logs, in the fragrance of their smoke,
Which, prayer-like, rises up into the sky,
In familiar faces gathered for a time.

Here in this frozen land we find ourselves,
And here we are drawn by warmth which is our own;
Fire and snow, we balance in the end,
And find ourselves in the others that we know.

Sea Shells (2010)

Forever do they echo of the sea,
As if to mourn for what must pass away -
What never more can ever be.
Forever do they echo of the sea.

We too intone the spells of memory,
Like shells which briefly sing and then decay;
For ever do we echo of the sea
And mourn for what must ever pass away.

Grace (2009)

Pleasure is ever perishing, it fades
And winnows away as it is felt and used;
Though it comes in tempests, glorious cascades,
Its magic charms decline, become diffused
Like ever-weakening memories.  What eyes
Of azure light will never cease to please,
What nubile form forever hypnotize,
Soft skin not wilt, what lips delight with ease
If pleasure is ever bidding us goodbye?
But you shall still be beautiful when time
Has stolen the zealous lustre of your eye,
And he shall still love you, if God sublime
Anoints with Heaven’s light and perfumed dew
His breath of grace upon your love and you.

The Earth and the Wind (2012)

The wind will not be possessed by the lands
That it kisses; its spirit will always be free.
It wanders as far as its spirit expands,
For the wind will not be possessed by the lands;

But the earth never fears, and it makes no demands,
While the wind freely gives what it draws from the sea.
The wind will not be possessed by the lands,
Though it always returns, for its spirit is free.

The Right Path (2012)

How can a path be right before it’s walked?
Or a conversation judged before it’s talked?
The past is gone, the future is obscure;
Only the present is, so make it pure.

Not Enough (2012)

Despite the many hardships they had known,
They tried their best, no matter of the cost.
Their sufferings changed them, greater they were grown –
Profounder for the chance they took and lost.

They tried their best, they loved each other well,
Forgave if ever words came out too rough;
And yet they failed, despite what poets sell,
For sometimes love alone is not enough.

The Lily (2012)

Last night he dreamt a nightingale flew
To a field in the dawn of May;
And in that field a lily grew
Beneath the warm sun’s ray.

The lily rose from the waving grass
And stretched toward the sky,
It danced with the winds that come and pass
And leave us with a sigh.

He watched it as beneath a trance,
For it turned a maiden fair:
The light of spring was in her glance,
And the sun was on her hair.

She came to him so gracefully,
And took him by the hand,
She drew him into that waving sea
He did not understand.

She drew him into that waving sea
The sun had set on fire,
Then danced and sang of what could be
And filled him with desire.

And there upon the grass they lay
Beneath the noon-hot sun,
Passing the hours in lovers’ play,
When two meld into one.

At last, as sleep stole softly on,
She sang a lullaby –
Of evening, night, and of the dawn,
Of the sun and stars and sky.

He did not know how long he’d slept,
When he woke to the rustling air,
But he knew he was alone, and wept
For the girl who was not there –

The maiden wreathed with heaven’s flame
And robed in blooming spring –
With only the winds to sigh her name,
No more to hear her sing.

No more to hear her sing, no more
To dream upon her breast –
No peace until the final door,
And the bed where he would rest;

No more to watch her graceful dance
And hear her lullabies,
Yet ever trapped within the trance
That caught him in her eyes.

He gazed across the golden plain
He watered with his tears,
And cried aloud, for he heard the strain
Of the love he’d sought for years.

And there, again, above the grass,
He saw his lily fair:
She danced on the winds that come and pass,
And the sun was on her hair.

Ten Thousand Names (2012)

When I am silent I hear him speak:
In the winds that rush from the mountain peak,
In the waters that sing on their way to the sea,
In the fire that burns with life’s mystery.

For the winds descend to the valleys below
To gently caress all the flowers that grow
By the light of the fire that lives in the sky,
And the beds of the streams that will never run dry.

In all of his creatures, in all of their places,
I find him – my God of a thousand faces;
In even the tiniest grains of sand
The cosmos is there, like the print of his hand.

This elegant world in its splendour proclaims
That God is but One - yet with ten thousand names.

The Road Goes Ever On (2012)

The road goes ever on and on
By smooth and rough, and straights and bends;
We walk awhile and then we’re gone.

We wake before the warming dawn,
Soft with the dew the morning sends;
But the road goes ever on and on,

And soon by the peaking sun we’re drawn
To race until its flame descends;
We trace its arc and then we’re gone.

The late day follows with a yawn
For all the frantic earth expends,
But the road goes ever on and on;

So when the evening comes upon
The weary world, the road still wends;
We totter along until we’re gone.

At last comes the flight of the midnight swan
That sweeps all things unto their ends;
For we walk to our sleep, and then we’re gone,
Though the road goes ever on and on.

Homeless (2012)

I breathe my grief upon the aerial stream –
The sorrow in my heart that I cannot say;
For what I’ve lost and what is now a dream,
I breathe my grief upon the aerial stream.

The homeless wind sighs back and takes my theme
Of loss, perhaps to her, or where it may;
I hear it passing on the aerial stream,
The sorrow in my heart that I cannot say.

The Call (2012)

I heard its call upon the wind,
A voice of far away
That beckoned me – the wind, the wind!
I heard, but longed to stay.

Yet then I wandered by the shore,
And heard it in the sea,
And there I changed forevermore:
Content I cannot be

To stay with all that I have known –
There is no comfort now.
The restlessness of youth has grown
And weighs upon my brow.

Content!  I hear the distance cry
My name – exquisite spell
Of all that childhood dreams imply,
Which deep within us dwell.

Content!  I hear the waters sigh
Content!  The winds exhale:
Never! though you believe the lie
That life is meant to stale.

Content!  The word is doom to me,
My God!  I cannot stay.
I’ve heard the call of destiny:
There is no other way.

True Beauty (2006)

If I should say with time your beauty grows,
Would I be deemed an honest man or liar?
Experience much proof against me shows:
The gravestone, tomb, and funerary pyre,
The seasons' turn, the augur of the Sun -
To rise, peak and decline - our Sovereign Change;
The lines on cheek and brow not yet begun
To furrow where men's glances still do range.
So call me liar if you deem it just
To make yourself a victim to your age;
But ask if there be beauty we might trust,
Not held to some slight moment on the stage.
Then call me honest when you realize
True beauty can't be seen by human eyes.

Systems of Government (2009)

Monarchy:

Divine is the right of king and queen
To tax me for their drink and bread,
So they can fatten up themselves,
To better shit upon my head.


Aristocracy:

If you are born to the proper blood,
Then you can shit on me,
And I will kneel to you and plead
That you might piss as graciously.


Oligarchy:

The few combine and cartelize
The liberty to shit,
Then shit upon the rest of us
And make us pay for it.


Democracy:

I get the right to shit on you,
And you the right to shit on me,
As long as we can both consent
To shit with full equality.

And So Goodbye (2009)

And so goodbye, and so goodbye,
The time has come to part,
For new journeys have to start;
It is only joy that wells my eye,
Though I may seem to cry
As I depart.

So fare you well, and now farewell;
Fond memories I’ll keep,
Though for sorrows we must weep.
Take from me this little shell,
And listen to its spell
Before you sleep:

It arose from deepest ocean,
And it washed upon the coast,
Where we knew each other most;
It intones a soft emotion
With the tenderest devotion
Love may boast.

So fare you well, and now farewell;
Across the vale and over the hill
Wandering where your spirit will,
Attend to this, my little shell,
And know, in some far dell,
I love you still.

Friendship (2012)

For Valerie

Of all the riches found beneath the sun
That sweeten life, and strengthen us to bear
Our griefs and sorrows, friendship is the one
We treasure most – as vital as the air.
Friendship is a light-filled jewel, rare
And sacred, blazing more when day is done
And darkness comes – the answer to a prayer
Before the prayer has even been begun.
Though such a jewel be buried in the sand
For years, forgotten, lost to every eye,
It never fades; it merely waits the hand
That digs it up and mounts it in the sky.
And so once more this jewel sends forth its light,
And darkness bends before its gentle might.

Wedding Day (2011)

The hillsides smile with summer joy,
The vales with high romance,
While dryads play and fairies dance
In dreaming shadows, round a girl and boy.
He kisses her and leads the way
On this, the morning of their wedding day.

“So many times, my love and life,
We’ve walked this emerald lane,
And after this we shall again,
But ever more we’ll walk as man and wife.
Today we join as way to way
On this, at last, at last, our wedding day.”

And as he laughs and smiles and talks
And dreams across the ground,
She follows him without a sound,
For everywhere he wanders so she walks,
As now beneath the sun’s new ray
She follows him upon their wedding day.

The noontide waxes high and proud,
Froth-full of boisterous fire –
The image of his fierce desire,
For soon their love will finally be allowed;
Yet in her eyes the briefest grey
Passes, cloudlike, across their wedding day.

“My life,” he hears her softly call,
Her whispers brush his cheek,
“I’ll love you ‘til the sun grows weak,
Until the last and final night shall fall.
I’ll love you as I do today,
And all our life will be our wedding day.”

“Until the final night shall fall,”
He cries, “until the sun
Grows weak, you’ll be my lovely one
And never shall the vision of you pall!
We have what none can take away:
A love to live beyond the final day.”

They walk through forest, field and glade,
And by a running stream;
The hours each she sings to him
While lulling noontide slips to evenshade.
Around them now the shadows sway
From winds that moan the dying of the day.

They enter in an ancient dell,
The place their love was born
Before his wandering, lost and lorn,
Where first he sank beneath her lovely spell.
Again he hears that music play
Those dream-like songs, forgetful of the day.

A thousand voices, saccharine,
Suffused with subtle light,
Beguiling musics full of warm delight –
All flowing round him, rich and dark as wine.
Long would he linger, long would he stay
And drink their hymns until the final day.

His senses cloyed, he scarcely hears
His love’s insistent song,
Of how he’s lingered overlong,
How moments somehow stretched themselves to years,
Recalling now to his dismay
That this was once to be his wedding day.

He starts to run.  He knows it’s near,
The place they are to wed,
But all is darkness and heavy dread,
For when he shouts his love does not appear!
Instead he hears her far away
Soft-moaning dirges for their wedding day.

He chases her, but still she fades,
And soon he is alone.
The only sound the tired groan
Of ancient spirits restless in their glades.
He looks upon the sun’s last ray
Fast falling earthward upon his wedding day.

“Until the final night shall fall,”
He whispers, “‘til the sun
Grows weak, we said.  And now it’s done,
Yet never did I dream of this at all.
Now time sweeps on and I decay,
And never shall I have my wedding day.”

He wanders, lost.  He’s deadly tired.
His only wish to sleep
Forever in the shadows deep,
For now the day’s last ember is expired.
He wonders how they went astray
When this was meant to be their wedding day.

He’s old, too old to carry on.
But here’s the burial tree,
The heart of his eternity,
His loneliness and grief at what is gone.
It beckons him beneath its sway,
And there he sleeps until his wedding day.

The morning stretches forth the sky
And kisses warm the earth.
The sun – the mystery of rebirth,
The hope of men who know they are to die,
The eye of God to whom they pray
That He will bless their momentary day –

The sun peers down upon a boy
And girl, who hand in hand
Skip happily through a dreaming land,
So full of life, so full of hope and joy.
They laugh and dance upon their way,
On this, at last, at last, their wedding day.

On Love (2009)

No titanic kiss, no picture-perfect surge,
No sweeping off, no frantic, tidal rise,
As fantasy and cinema would urge,
The instant he peers deep, deep in her eyes.
Love is not blind, though many have been blind
Who thought they loved, but learnt it was not so;
For love is patient, open-eyed and kind,
It sees the stars, past clouds and wind and snow.
Love is the heavenly vault, the starry dome
Enclosing all, the power driving round
The planets; unwavering, safely guiding home
The sailor, sick for his familiar ground;
The dauntless, faithful hand upon the helm,
When seas and storms seem most to overwhelm.

After the Storm (2012)

Awake, my soul!  The storm has passed.
Arise! Arise! No longer sleep –
The storm has broken off at last!

The tempest raged with surge and blast
And swollen clouds to drown and weep;
Awake, my soul, the storm has passed

And spent are the winds that hurled you fast
Upon the tempest’s darkling sweep;
The storm has broken off at last.

Despite the sorrows you’ve amassed,
Heed not the calling of the deep.
Awake, my soul, the storm has passed.

The deep!  The deep!  Its power vast:
It calls, my soul, but do not sleep –
The storm has broken off at last!

My soul!  The suffering night is past,
And you are cleansed; no longer weep.
Awake, my soul, the storm has passed,
The storm has broken off at last.