Commercial

You made your love conditional,
as if it were for sale,
a contract read and neatly signed;
my heart did feel betrayed.

Dreaming sight

Shadows shorn from shouldered shapes declining,
drawn from rested elbows of the turning path,
draped across the lap of listless sun and sorrowed earth,
casting darkness, mottled, through reflected light,
to hold the image constant, drifting, dappled shades,
which lead the way to distant lure and dreaming sight.

Potential held within the arms of curving branch,
that moment on the road to hope - horizon's call,
where what lies far beyond does promise more it seems,
and yet, is harsh reflected, burning silent on the dusty road,
in contrast sharp and rigid, captured in the glare, unsheltered,
sweltered, aching in unforgiving vision, as freedom is bestowed.

CREATION

There was a place of birthing,
beyond creation's lip,
where angels knitted quietly,
the shape of what is me.

In smiling clicks and sombre clacks,
time's needles gathered yarn,
and chose the place of holding;
brought forth a pattern firm.

I waited on the edge of life,
until the shape was cast,
and called me forth to beingness;
the thread of love held fast.

And in the deep forgetting,
they wrote upon heart’s palm,
the truth of my remembering;
the Soul's eternal plan. 

Thanks

To know the value life does bring,
writ small, or large or bright,
in gratitude to all that is;
therein lies Soul's delight.

Madness

Minutes measured, meaningless, mournful in repose,
scattered yet sequential; lined in shadowed rows,
holding on to memory, fastened tight to hope;
rejoicing in insanity; sucking horror's toes.

Caul holds captive through the days and years,
wrapping close, substantive web of fears,
trapping taut the form of grappling mind;
dribbling sorrow's milk as fate defined. 

Eyes of glass are hidden in the realm of thought,
sightless, seeing, rigid and distraught,
blinking icy screams through day and night;
madness twists frayed ribbon round hell's light.

Dream reworked

Dream in staggered haunting reveals the image set in place,
repeats the message yet again, of something lost
 … but what, is never shown or part revealed in shape,
yet comes to taunt and teach, of memory now tossed.

In time tied to forgetting and pain of ancient cost.
remembering is tangled and broken through the nights,
of something which has happened, left imprint on dark host;
yet  huddles in the hidden realms of shadowed fright.

This loss is ever lingering and trailing through the years,
reality diluted, devoid of rigid thought or form
as something dark and awful, in shroud of unshed tears,
to wrap my dreams eternal, in torn, tormented cause.

Painted pure poetics

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci.


The words did wash like liquid oils,
across the moment's page,
and brushed reality in strokes;
released the form once caged.

With light, deft touch and heavy fall,
poetics painted slow,
and drew the image full complete;
each letter truth bestowed.

In vibrant, rich, raw colourings,
the energy was born,
as painted, pure-form poetry;
gift through voice transformed.

I shouldn't be here

Through dubious days, diluted nights,
and dismal dreams we drew,
ourselves into relationship;
demanded something new.

In tangled trips of heart and mind,
the minutes strangled hope,
tied with frayed, impending need;
crippled inner growth.

Until at last a voice was heard,
yours or maybe mine:
'I shouldn't be here,' rang the words;
the end was soon defined.

Soul work

Soul in suckled sense reveals,
remora-like the flesh, within
the casket of  the Self ;
Spirit long repressed.

Created in this human form,
an ideogram for life,
the wretch reborn eternal;
eclipse in God's bright night.

Can love be unconditional?

Can love be unconditional,
or is it just a word,
belying our reality;
a goal forever yearned?

When there are no conditions,
it means there are no rules,
no expectations, hopes, or dreams;
no outcome can be called.

Whatever stands within the now,
is perfect for all time,
for if it's not then we demand,
some change we have in mind.

To know ourselves so very well,
the conscious and below,
is limited in everyone;
desires would have it so.

And never more than when we love,
or care, or wish to help,
the wishes will be waiting;
they are our deepest Self.

Perhaps it is enough to love,
whatever form it takes,
accepting that we will have needs;
conditions that we make.

Moments

There is no other place than here,
there is no other now,
just moments held in time’s sure hands,
that we can call our own.
It is the living of the day,
the dying of the night,
as all eternal wandering
puts certainty to flight.
To live beyond the moment,
to dream of what might be
throws bitterness upon God’s gift
of true eternity.
So take the now and claim it sure,
as truth so clearly found
and place all thought within the
here, that Life will know your name.

FORGET WHAT I SAID

Forget what I said for it is just words revealed,
and revealing that which must be denied,
for there is no place for such whisperings,
or truths, in the shadowed hauntings of time,
where who you are and where I am describe,
deep and abiding divisions;placements which
will not allow connection or perhaps, relationship....
forget what I said, for it was just willful, wistful,
wanderings of a mind, disconnected, from reality -
torn loose from reason; dissected neatly from
the flesh of hope; cast adrift on salted grief.

Pebbled moments

1.

When happiness does dance within,

so sadness tiptoes close,

reminding of polarity;

not one, but always both.

2.

The Self as truth

can hardly be,

reality as cast,

for life does tinker,

and rework

what we may

see as me.

3.

The world within a universe,

in cosmic calling thrust,

demanding Soul investigate;

that Self can be full cast.

4.

What is does fully demonstrate,

how little we can choose,

that life will seek to remonstrate;

our choice, to learn or lose.

5.

Halfway to where when time denies,

all relevance and place,

and so demands we journey on;

each moment now does trace.

Remembering on Rememberance Day

Those flattened fields of Flanders
scream of battered souls
and muffled howls which pressed
beneath time's tread has crushed
the cry of hurt beneath firm soil.
The heaving shape of shouldered pain
is locked by grasses -green terrain,
which grips and holds imprisoned fast,
the rotted world which once had passed:
in steady tread and huddled roar,
a raging spread of weeping sore.
The silence now holds heavy court
upon the place where thousands fought
and died with no-one there to see
them sucked beneath the seething sea;
a muddy grave which beckons still
with glutinous grin alive and well
beneath the veil of fragile green.

NB: I wrote this in 1988 after visiting Ypres.