As The River Bends

Have I stilled the waters of passion

In fear the dam may once overflow

At times the waves beat on my ribs

Else I hear faint the trickle slow

 

Thoughts are directed as beasts of burden

But feeling rushes where channels allow

Reason waits until the journey’s end

Emotion bends but will not bow

 

A basin drained will permit no life

Yet firm are levees that hold its course

Most seek friendship to contain the floods

Few are those who master its force

A Shard Of Your Light

I saw truth from your eyes

I’ve never read in books

Never heard spoken of

Couldn’t live in any lives

 

I felt it beneath the surface

Contradicting what I say

And who I think I am

And what I held worthless

 

I saw a mother with her newborn

And remembered what it was

But couldn’t remember why

A yellowed page is torn

The Star-Toucher

One evening, as I drew with stick in sand

A stranger’s shadow, darkened my imagined land

Truth’s leaden burden, sobered my famished mind

To fell purpose, body and soul to bind

 

Travelled far, befriending new associates

Talked long, of his star and where to see it

Worked by night, heat and rain betray us

Waited by day, till starlight shine a ray upon us

 

For nine years, we laboured in turns of season

To wizard’s dream, and our offerings of reason

Block on block, a tower raised to the sky

United by trial, mourning friends who in shallows lie

 

The day came, to high heaven the tower stood

In our name, blood and pride in stone and wood

The wizard climbed, to pinnacle gathering will

And leapt, heaven’s pendulum slowed to still

 

And fell, a chasm tore open the world

Time asunder, on black skies red clouds furled

Still we stood, disbelieving the fall of man

Eyes met not, from each other we ran

 

I wandered, from myself and any attachment

Cared for nought, rent possession and garment

Until light flickered, archaic as a dusty tome

I made penance, and headed back for home

The Lodge

I followed the leafy by-way

Autumn’s offerings smeared my feet

Time of year and time of day

Connected where the dead ends meet

 

Smelled the rain and felt the night

As fading light stretched the sky

As every colour descends from white

A shelter’s entrance alit from high

 

As gales raged and terror struck

I half slept in half light shadows

The lonely lodge imprinted with muck

Framed the first ray of morning glow

A Willow At Patmos

I sat below the blooming willow

As the midday sun suggested reverie

Decaying bark upholstered pillow

Shapes and shadows loomed in tapestry

 

A vision formed of an ancient great hall

Golden ornaments reached down from high

Lower reaches trashed and disfigured all

Athena’s statue moved to utter sigh

 

I saw a lion cower in a cage

Saw an hourglass empty of sand

Dreamt of books without a page

On the pinnacle, saw desolate land

 

I spoke with a slave without a master

Who said that doors were made to close

Dreamed his head turned to alabaster

Taken to factory for processed pose

 

A child sacrificed on makeshift pyre

To wild laughter and gaiety serene

I felt electric on the wire

Heard the gentle’s throttled scream

 

A tattooed thug in flowing robes

Pronouncing law with mocking spite

The decent trudge on endless roads

Bow their heads to spittled might

 

Wise men watch a great library burn

Preserve some scrap torn in haste

Wheels of toil forever turn

Spoiled product of automated waste

 

Among the ruins children dance

Without a melody or a role

In bare castles the princes prance

And blind scholars loudly extol

 

Meadows fill with poison air

Paths all lead to whence they came

What once was common now is rare

What was singular is all the same

 

I turned away from unwanted dreams

Evading horrors which scream and stare

In waking hours I search for means

I know not what, I know not where