Don't Wake Me

  
"Look," she points,
to the sky,
and the trees,
and her smile breaks out
in truth
and freedom...
but they can only see
a field.

"Just lie here," she sighs,
on the wind
with her back in the grass
and the fairy-king,
- like a horseshoe,
glittering -
and dancing,
in her hair.

And she lets as much
time pass
as she dare,
before she wonders: "Do you hear that?"
And the whole world looks
straight at her,
as if she were nothing less
than a black hole
on the edge of space
and she laughs across
the sunlit plain;
she giggles, like the stream and says,
"If I dream now,
don't you wake me...

to save the world,

for the end of days,

please;
don't ever wake me."

Rievaulx

         

Good day, old friend, it's been

some time,
but like one
gone
almost blind, I feel I am home;
for your stones have owned, moments,

of my

prolific life

without question or promise

of warm

safe nights or moral comfort...

...and I have always known,
your walls
had eyes.

You remind me now
as I sit on your carvings
of basest cravings long fulfilled;

you recall heaven

spilled in sunshine, on stone,
and things and hands long since cast from
my bones, and as I
trace my fingers on your
crumbling face
my own reddens for a lack
of restraint, in what was once,
holy space,

and I lick my lips and mouth

that name
and remember how we sullied
your tunneled drains.

Our backs to your sand, as the
swallows
flew over,
surrounded by moss and daisies
and clover, with filthy water
at our feet...
I see,
only now,

 - the first time I have been here since -

that as beautiful
as we thought
our act of defiance,
and freedom,
to be,
our supposed, sublime serenity
(and imposition)
was nothing here -
for it could not compete
with thee.
   

      

Written on a Leeds Savage Club Sketchers' Excursion to the stunning ruins of Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire...

Dream of the Hungry Heart

   
So you and I,
we talked about this before...
about what is and isn't
formed, in a fleeting instant.
And I guess now, all
we have to go on, is instinct,
and it will become
about those stories
I tell
to soothe you to sleep.

And as always,
you will say to me;
"keep talking,"
long after
you've begun to weep
for all the freedom
in the dream I mention;
for the purple stars and the big,
white stallions, we'd ride there instead of cars,
instead of trains
and noise
and painful life,
and I've told you all you have to do,
is take my hand and dive,
head-long
into tomorrow,
for I have borrowed a parachute,
to catch you
when you fall;

and I know I'll be beside you,
if you do...
for today, I find myself without you
and I miss
your heart's hungry call.

Inspired by a friend who taught me that I don't have a monopoly on dreams! :) 

Beyond the Bedroom

       
So I wonder why
it gets
this way, when there’s talk of nothing
but maybe and days
that seem to last
forever without touching,
without seeking
and seeing, and clutching at snatched moments
of instant satiation. And I cannot tell you it’s different
to the basest things
offered by creation,
for there are few
noble reasons,
I feel need to be near to you. There are few moments
where anything is due but general,
mutual
appreciation
of beauty
and pleasure,
of fate and desire,
of lovers, and liars, and of
this tiny furnace,
that seems ever
to burn in me.

Shut your eyes now.
Do you not see what is bare
and ugly truth?
It is all for want of having you,
and for bitterness when I do not.
It is all for a watched
kitchen clock that has never
struck past eight. It is all for the nights you were hours
late or never there,
for a watched phone that didn’t ring,
and the love songs you promised
but didn’t sing, if indeed
they were ever written…

…suddenly it looks very fitting,
(in its jumps and starts),
that pulling away, you should seem to me
not whole,
but as several
glowing
parts.

The Life of a Woman

(From Genesis to Deuteronomy)
    
See here, woman, how thou art unclean
of flesh, and all living wickedness art in thee,
but still, see, how thou art loved the same
and made as one with man,
made from him, no less,
born of earth and rib in Genesis,
as daughters have rights of sons.
See how thou art done well, by an honourable
God, despite thy vileness and thy sin?
See how thou didst begin in all deceit and gore?

See also how the mighty law protects thee
and defiles thee,
see how thou art free and guided
into chains. For thou shalt not kill, woman,
but thou shall be maimed
for thy whoring, and thy adultery…
…lest, of course,
thou be guilty…or be not.
And no sons wilst thou have begot
‘less in pain and misery, for thou deservest,
as the one who yeildeth first unto the serpent, and led men astray -
thus shalt thou crawl ever as he,
upon thy belly all your days.
And men shall be as angels yet, in My image,
to rule upon you for all’s sake.

The Gateway

The screech of the gate now,
fitted her mood,
for she could not rid herself of you,
and she found she was screaming
right on queue
for there was no more falling left to do.

In putting the unholy threshold through,
she had nothing but scars now
on fragile hands
that bent and folded to your every demand
that rolled over and bled upon command
and she could not care
much less
if she were damned
forever
for her part in this.

She threw back her head then
and welcomed your kiss,
though she knew it meant nothing but death –
beginnings and ends were both met
in a single, sweeping taste…

she trailed her fingers across your face
and left her perfume there –
stuck,
like black smoke,
to your skin
and hair.

And the screeching of the gate resounded,
like the sound
of lobster
in a boiling pot…

…to call
these
waters
‘hot’ was not nearly fair…

…by far the gravest danger
was that;
to kill or be killed;
for reward of you,
she dare.