If I Thought You'd Care

 

(An ode to a medievalist's struggle with sharing a passion for monastic and ecclesiastic architecture! Credit to the Cistercian ruins of Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds, West Yorkshire, for being an inspiration for yet another piece: your beauty has a lot to answer for.)     

 

I’d tell you she’s older, than countries,

if I thought, for a moment, you cared to share my raptures;

of how she keeps me there

with no more

than the heat in her ancient bones,

how she breathes life into me,

with only her sun-soaked stones of yellow,

and reddening hue, I would want to tell

you, and only you, how her crockets

sit against the sky,

in an azure, sunset, as I taste

the wine, an elixir,

that creeps, deep into my heart,

filled with something burning,

in this place of quiet calm;

where the grass,

grows,

between your toes and time has always stood still – I would tell you

how it looks, for all the world,

just like the window sills,

are in reach from the buttress tops, and how I know,

from countless leaps, they are not – not least to me,

to climb inside,

after hours, on a summer’s night -

or sit, atop her walls,

and capture all of the details too

small and too far away,

envious of the birds that

roost and play, up there, on her broken tower,

I would tell you, hour on hour, bottle on bottle,

on a blanket,

laid where history walked,

how she could expel my tumultuous thoughts, time

and again,

with vaulting that runs like arteries and veins along the

aisles of her roofless nave, topped

by a Romanesque crown,

her dog-tooth arches,

staring serenely down at heavy columns, and tiled floors, turned to dust,

I would tell you of my aching

lust, for the way the light caresses her at dusk, and the stars,

seep through,

the last of the milky light;

the way it lands, tender

and slight, on the jagged edges

of her ruined splendour 

in approaching night…if I thought, for a minute,

you would listen; I would glow, and show you

how her windows, still glisten,

for me,

in the eye of my mind; her walls still painted,

and colour-rich, through even the tiniest find that reminds

of what once was,

and beguiles, with what is still there…

oh, for you…I could talk

a painting with words, on her,
if only I thought you would care.
   

     

Whoever Put The Stars Up

  

Whoever put the stars up, was surely thinking,

of this,

of nights in endless purgatory,

of moments forever missed, surely of times,

with a need

to look

in eyes, across a vast and impossible space;

of longing to simply hold a hand

with all this gentle grace, passed on,

in cherished touch that lets the bad things out…

the aching and the fear,

whoever put the stars up, let them be in no doubt both

far and near, they

are there

to share

when no word nor image is enough,

bodies of celestial treasure,

bound and tied with love, and bounced, from

heart to heart,

gaze to wanting gaze,

the only thing that

carries the gifts, that have no

other way

of getting there or here…from me

to you,

look up, look up and know,

how I wish on them too. 

     

Soul's Mirror

   

Come, place a mirror,

up by my heart, you’ll see secrets it carries

inside. Therein, all reflections of you, are

held, rocked, abide. What colours you

are today, tomorrow;

a chameleon-light responds,

connected to my sinew and bones, pulling painfully, with

lengthy bonds, 

and strong, 

that sit,

in turn, attached, from soul to aching soul,

glittering places, bathed,

in something ever-gold and set apart,

by things it thought it knew,

come…place a mirror, 

all there is to see

is you, 

turning

in a chamber

that dances, when you shine,

throbs and beats with truth, when honour,

pours 

all down the lines of every thing

that is,

and explodes with cherished joy, 

that sits in dark and silent pain,

in moments that the sky

between,

seems clogged with something

thick, and freezing cold,

a wall of icy

bricks I question, and you pretend you did not toil 

in earnest

to place them there - I take them down,

one by one, 

again,

so you can see the mirror, reflecting your own face and heart

and soul, and being,

and I hold it up to you. 

Mirror of my soul;

what cracks yours, breaks mine too.

    

Sheet Space

 

This silent space at the edge of life,

somewhere between, the sleep & twilight, when all

of existence is questioned and slight,

that is where the exquisite dwells; wrapped and bound

with every cell, breathed into being by

the rushing in shells, collected

from a distant

shore… Now, more

than ever before,

a dream-scape in sand and these sheets,

entwined across the hips of sleek, and salted,

summer skin,

the sound of heartbeat, drawing

in, and the scent of pleasures just spent;

paid like pennies for candy floss,

sweet, and soft and tickled across, tender

and sun-caressed curves, moving just as

graceful as

the fluttering,

early birds, so fresh,

and glistening,

like morning dew;

a long embrace denies, the sunrise-golden hue of the horizon,  

the halo cast aloft…

No matter, in night

and devilish things,

we are still too lost.

    

Between The Stars

 

It existed,

between the stars, they said,

empty,

and full

of not much,

void and simple,

time imprinted, at the end of ever

being.

It

was

unseeing, they claimed,

blind, and deaf, and dumb,

a lonely hole, unlit, un-speaking,

no mouth,

no ears,

no tongue.

But you and I, looked up through night,

and saw the stars were not selfish

with light, and the moon,

she was

more generous

still,

she shone across its vast expanse, as if she had

a room

to fill with glow, and gentle haze,

the whole world

of living could see,

and she seemed to cast a gaze,

a moment,

down, at you, and me, and all that space -  

through-out the blackness bright

 - what swam between

the stars,

was filled with love that night,

gentle, pale, and beautiful,

the whole world’s evening sight,

was a beckoning vision

cast by souls, beyond the chains

of life,

they moved between the stars

on beams,

of future and

forever, reminding us that

distance does not, negate being together in time

nor fast in truth,

no circumstance too much,

as they reached across dimensions,

and we stretched our fingers out to touch

them all

with tenderness,

and in unison,

exult and mourn,

ever glancing at the crimson of, the fast-encroaching

dawn;

a time we knew,

letting go was due, of visitors

from another place; a time we made

ourselves safe,

in a castle built of arms.

Wrapped in calm, tear-stained face to mine,

as they receded,

across the  livid sky;

you rested your weary head a time,

and I whispered:

“it was only a gift…”

And there, was born, a new morning,

on our soul-dance,

and a kiss.

    

Stations

what crime? I asked, the first time,

when shoved up to the post, and is it mine?

do I stand here, in lieu of you?

I can hold that pain a while if it means

you won’t hurt – come lay it all

on me. but tell me that’s my purpose,

for it means my soul can see, you intend me

a temporary martyr; we’ve both shouldered

that before,

and Lord,

I know it’s worth it, when you’re too beaten to

bear more, and though disgraced,

I will be redeemed,

as you always, in my eyes,

ever a holy beam and honoured,

in love, and longing, and light,

my sacrifices, willing then, flesh offered to the bite, the sting,

of every blow delivered,

each one landing, taken for you, and though you see me

shiver – keep them coming, master,

strike them all again: rather me than you tonight,

set braced against this pain.

make me your guilt and penance,

and for your sins, shriven,

as ever I make you, for mine,

so desired and forgiven.

our greatest sin is only following,

only feeling,

only falling,

so lead me to the post, my love:

I believe,

and it is calling.