red shroud

the face was more than body

it was an edge

moving from time

and smudged there between the reds

it stood inelegant and obtrusive

one cannot avoid a face

and there under its tempera

a human shrouded as turin

glaring back to front

incessant, insistent

this was no entombment

just flesh and blood with eyes

intermittently blinking

often, ever so, surges

revelations of soul

and a knowing under, neath

 

 

 

the word

breasts to suckle

hands to hold

arms to contain

this is the dream

the inner words

here life is a tree

harbouring its own life

uncouth and derelict

the sentence of a seed

like Poseidon longing for sea

it stands erect and arrogant

as the arid earth its father

arms bequeath its fruit

descend, ascend

a Jacobs ladder

it bends in pain

fraught with denial

manifold and barren

like an empty seed

instead being beckons

and fragile old man hands

hold the young bosoms

beings opens, closes

and thighs are lost

within the circles

the fleshly gestalt

until death and life

alone in words-ship

 

I dreamed of Avalon

stepping into a tintoretto

like entering a door for the first time

enter

waiting for epiphany,

for mystery

wait

ceilings clad in white

while reds beckoning

beckon innocently

innocent but dangerous

i turn and take in

take in the gathered crowd

scanning to see

scrutinise

as if dreams were concrete

eyes alongside eyes

eyes meeting and missing

i wade through the mass

of interlocking doors

passers-by pass

instead of finding

find i not

but i move and will

and insist on inquiring

indefinite but resolute dream

of avalon importunate

consumption

i cannot fall asleep

for dreams will o'ertake

and vanquish me

i bend vivacity apparent

afraid to sleep

for to surrender

is to never wake

 

cannot i sleep

for a dream is o'er

drawn and vanquished

i fall and asleep

until i am all but sleep

for to surrender

is to never wake

glossolalia (tribute to Stephen Crane)

yes, i have a thousand tongues

yes, i have a thousand tongues,

and nine and ninety-nine silent.

though i strive to use them all,

they make no melody at my will,

but ones alive in my mouth.

 

yes we have a thousand tongues

a thousand thousand tongues

and none are silent

their voices stem the tide

the sea, the everytime

stem the melody

stem the will,

voices of joy

in hallelujah

 

yes a word betrays a soul

in innocent timbre

moving in resonance

like an ancient god tongue

calling forth poema

summoning elegant harmony

i have a thousand tongues

and nine and ninety-nine silent

 

if love

to see and never look away

 

in all external grace

i wondered about the day

the drive to work

the circumstance

i noticed but a murmur

i knew that love

were all there was

the need to fall

from grace

the need to stay

to be steady, to be

 

i wonder whether love is

to see and never look away

 

far

i am far from fragile

though i break i will not

be movement

for i am behemoth

and stone , rock

and relevance

i am pegasus

and the resurrection

i am the construct of a thousand constructs

and never built

i thrust and furnace

and oblivion

with negation and meditation

for god declares

and then is gone

and i am bereft of even self

but i am far from fragile

far

i have a theory about doors

they are the remonstrance

of an ending,

their mark is entrance

their shape flight

this one opens

and the next is a ship

fellowship

doors bamboozle me

and then collapse upon

me i take them some

and then never again

soon i will return

to a doorway

where i am invited

like a solemn invitation

to a memory

start prelude now

door becomes theory

candles

they held but a shifting

a too and fro

a neverland

tasked to change

to movement

toward god and apparition

the darkness and the light

their wayward voice pleading

like smoky agents of god

messengers to the shade

 

waxy movements, fragile

in intermittent desire

lengthening until a silent

spasmodic end

concord in the garden

i observe a turn

turning turning

tourniquet

all but absolution in a turn

an evening of circles

circumventing

circulating

until a kingdom returns

as whole as god's

a true as grace

fully encircled

i hold my head

as the sun revolves

an uneasy revolution

for what is steady remains

conversely what alters

mellifluous remains

 

a serpent in a silent garden

injunction

he withdrew

for a secluded moment

his memory holier than before

for attendant drew the breath of god

like a soul mantel's sanctity

transcendent and illumined

with manifold epiphanies

 

he remembered the chamber

and the pleading, oh the pleading

beating stubbornly in the grey matter

beating within the bloody flesh

the searing mnemonic

like a grace deferred

and he held it there

as if all were within its ambit

all within its hallelujah sphere

and without surprise

he knew this, this

he would rather succumb, than exhale

indecent

a man and his blue

like the margins

of an unending sea

suspended by mortality

became harbingers

the kind of prophets

like a god voice detached

and seizing passion

until the bloom

of a thousand seeds

falling into an un forgotten baptism

surrender to a night

as deep as red

in a movement

it was like transferring sense

from hand to hand

the next moment touch became

a kind of sensual truth

demarcated by these limits

inside the sea could not be stemmed

 

and somewhere on that sea

a man adrift

 

poem

i wait to hear

and in that gap

is a lingering doubt

i doubt not me

i doubt not god

i doubt not words

i doubt not love

i doubt not fallenness

i doubt not seas

i doubt not waves

i doubt not light

i doubt not fear

i doubt not longing

i doubt not need

i doubt doubt

the kingdom

insouciant and neon

like a poema on a stalk

intermittent dialogue

the drums in a distant swathe

corrupting all but god

into the night of a fallen one

grasping the fallen

grasping, grasping, grasped

until the god arrives

with an innocent kingdom

some kingdoms

are the stuff of legend

 

a piano stuns with synchronised notes

fugue

bach before god