Contact Lost

A moment of truth

A sticky patience

My thoughts eternal on my lover

Mind rays like radio waves

Pulsing us into each other

Lip sinking, a sign language of hope and despair

It laces the air in equal measures

Unspoken, words cut down

By some verbal grim reaper, a silence keeper

Broken promises writhing on the floor

Like severed worms, flipping and tossing

As the final moments of a restless sleeper

Whose mind fabric parts at the seams

Under the fury of terrible memories and broken dreams

The guilt reaper and his wicked scythe

Covers us like sand and silence with his bellowing cloak

Our last connection has fallen to his final stroke

Sleepless, we lie alone, haunting our rooms

Our muscles limp, locked up in a rigour

Like a heart relieved of its final vigour

We spoke briefly, a moment of truth

A momentary truth

Our words were light and breezy

We lie secure in our convictions, but knowing

Like knowing gravity, that we had given up too easy

Distance Beckons

Distance beckons, my woman

A theatre of memories have assembled

In the hall where souls are gambled

In the shadows a feline waitress with balanced tray

Awaits the opening salvo of the play

The audience are thoughts

That cling to the theatre like limpets

Unshakeable, unbreakable

Watching the tragedy unfolding

Night after night

The players, now drunk, contained by fate

Continue their plight

Like searing meteors arcs of fading light

She is Helen and I am Troy

Endless clashing silver arcs of men and metal

Evening before the blood and dust spray begins to settle

Momentum builds and fills the fields with fires

The monasteries are dark and crowned with broken spires

The wise men have hidden themselves away

In the city of lock and key

Endless empty whitewashed streets

And knives silent waiting

Anticipating, your every mood

Trust no soft cloth and motherly smile

The knives are like steel thorns

On the giant branches of the streets

Under everything

Here we love and trust the knives we can see

For at least they hide nothing

Outside the city of lock and key

Woods of willow

Serves as highways for the returning dead

Immense armoured caterpillars

Ferrying bodies back to the newly wed

Where are the soft days and the soft ways?

Where once stood a fountain bubbling

Now stands a white pillar of rock

It is a mark of battle distance

Not a battle in itself

But merely a signifier of battles past

A reminder in stone

An obscene record of pain

For reasons impossible to explain

The stream is gone

Passing warriors have reshaped the land

Nothing has remained untouched

Not even the smallest and most fragile of things

Have escaped the many marching feet of conceit

Envoke

By eagle and Aphrodite,

I envoke thee...

Lips like summer surprise,

hickory and bark your hazel eyes

to my surprise

I am awakened

and inspired,

and in the moment of your passing

awoken to some God-speed,

that by your indifference

my heart is freed.

Sweet silver bell,

dawn like the age of time,

my spirit has awaited long.

Thoughts of silver deep sublime,

Dragons with piercing eyes ...

my eyes of hazel surprise

don’t they look fierce and proud?

Don’t you see their golden cloud?

Sweep, sweet majesty wild

smile for me, my golden child!

Run with me, for fun alone,

My, how the time has flown.

Do you remember, my friend,

that great, old, emerald tree?

Our house for all from far to see,

a house to which we would flee,

as children

of oak and bark,

of light before the times came dark?

Do you remember,

... our original family?

Love is love,

don’t you think my dove?

Friends are a precious thing indeed

their wilful interaction to idea gives seed...

Lightning strikes of emotion,

long wilful hours of devotion

to agreement

upon the principles

of trust,

we must

take gentle care

and above all beware

of losing feeling

and sensitivity

to the one company.

Vic

Tory (Vic/tory) ...

Now I see, what you mean to me/

*grin

I smile for all to see ...

There is a place

where we are free.

A place where we want to be ...

Flight like Eagles

By aphrodite invoked.

Her sister, Artemis,

golden Goddess of the hunt.

Do you know your brothers and sisters?

You have achieved elegance,

my friend, and I bend

upon one knee/

again for all that watch to see

and wait a while,

to give some mention to your inestimable style.

*Laugh.

Very cool, young lady.

You are

very cool...

The Philosopher

Desert swept winds race through canyons.

Boneyards of the ages, filled with fears

of the last sad days of the lizard years.

Deep red sky boiling, flash

plains once green now covered in Ash,

What great weapon scorched this place?

The Philosopher walks through tribal lands.

The hunting place of Monten,

the last protectors of this place.

His hair is black and white in long flat braids.

He has eagle feathers in his face

and around his belt he wears his blades.

He speaks to the sky in the old language.

Lowering his bag, he unpacks his gear

for he knows it is not far from here,

the place called K’lena.

A pouch of velvet and a deck of cards

A minstrels lyre and the lute of bards,

Small silver tokens and the crests’ of clans

from all over the dreaming lands.

Mystery

The day has danced and the night is young

Red gloves adorned and the violin strung

The audience of the waking land have fled to sleep

As the theatre of the mind climbs from its keep

Doors are sealed and lights are dimmed

The dancers dark and flaxen limbed

Bonechild

I see the bonechild emanate

The sleepy rebellion of the initiate

While the umpire fights back

With a seed and a trap

Trailed the honey

And spread the wine

In reputation art divine

It's a capital gamble

A beautiful bait

Strong men and women capitulate.

Avalon

On the borderlands they knew her

the Lady in Blue,

she who flew beyond all they knew.

The dreaming body

sculptured light

the enraptured wing

of poetic flight,

the setting sun, a plain of fire

an ancient race that dared inspire

a glimpse into another realm.

In Gesti’en they knew her well

upon the great planes she cast her spell,

I fell

In love there first

a radiant burst

of joy,

that all there knew well,

for many had fallen beneath her spell.

She travelled east to Miat’en

the rolling green hillocks

and dandelion flocks

like an ocean

along the borderlands,

replete with colourful native folk

who often spoke

with tittery voices

of the passing of Avalon!

Tul’en, the great manticore veldt

estranged

with their silvered city arranged

in concentric meaningful hoops

and resplendant spiralling loops,

Selveh Sulah, the grand

stand

alone upon a plane

and strain for all the silver

she sighed

and knocked the great loops aside

so great was her spell.

Westward next

by devils vexed

and the high forests of Grins’en.

There she quite fell apart

as an even great spell upon her heart

was cast

to last

for her entire stay

but there too they knew her well

for often would she play

and there, in secret, cast her spell.

She came to Morvi’en

Laughing free

and there did see

a darkling light

in the jungles bright,

that would undoubtedly set her free,

though no-one knows

and she rarely shows

the vision of her journey there

nor of how her soul did fare,

but, tis said

that even there

beneath the jungles cowering shell

that even there

they knew her spell.

Back south through forests light

she continued her legendary, learning flight

into the great valley of Sali’en

and it was there that then

there was war from the bay

Uven’en enmeshed in bloody fray

with a force dark from beyond the sea

a force before which all would flee.

There did she cast her sharpest spell

and all before her screaming fell

as they heard her voice

an unspoken choice,

between life to live

and hell.

So there too they knew her well.

And so now back she travels to her mountain home

Lihol’en,

from which this poem

is delivered true

to the girl who flew

beyond all they ever knew

into a land come to know her well

a land fast beneath her spell.

Come home, little sister, come home.