Bay 3

You and I watched

Tiger Bay fall into the sun

Let it sink beyond the sea 

Where the salmon rivers run.

On the granite quay we stood

Side on side.

“Have I always been here

On this evening edge 

Holding farewell hands

with you?”

I thought but said

“God is long time dead in me 

I am not of the chosen few,

I am my own weakness

My own dim light 

my own shadow blocks my view”

Looking down 

You sighed, 

having heard it all before

“All things must fall 

The bottom must drop out

The whole cannot hold!”

you thought but said

“Ahh my dear 

My tea’s gone cold.”

And poured a libation

Into the dock

Reality is too short to kiss I thought

But said instead

“Do you believe there is 

anything that can truly set you free?”

You answered, “obviously 

I live in hope and you?”

I looked inside myself 

and left the lie to bleed in ‘yes’

Right there on the stones

I left empty headed 

My ship sailed 

No salient point

No seal kissed

The bay 

Transubstantiated

Bay 2

You and I watched

Tiger Bay fall into the sun

Let it sink beyond the sea 

We witnessed the salmon tide run.

“Have I always been here

On this evening shore 

Holding farewell hands

with you?”

I thought but said

“God is long time dead in me 

I am not of the chosen few,

I am my own weakness

My own dim light 

my own shadow blocks my view”

Looking down 

You sighed, having heard it all before

“All things must fall 

The bottom must drop out

The whole cannot hold!”

you thought but said

“Ahh my dear 

My tea’s gone cold.”

And poured it into the water.

Reality is too short to kiss I thought

But said instead

“Do you believe there is 

anything that can truly set you free?”

You answered, “obviously 

I live in hope and you?”

I looked inside myself 

and left the lie to bleed in yes

Right there on the stones

I left empty headed 

No seal was kissed

The bay had faded

Light

Radiance shimmer

blood rose moon rise

illuminating 

The damasked land 

a memory of lost 

mercury light

Reflected silver 

Deflected mind 

perception poured

Into Internal folds of fields 

farms, hedge, woodland

Streams and badger bolt

A deep eternal hallow,

a frequency of thought

A  softing force 

a slow out flow 

falling dream

Like baited breath and owl

Swoop, bat shadow swift, 

And Haunted screams

I miles from home

Mountain tracked

Remote and far gone

In rolling hills

And mountain 

Cradle rocked 

fallen in darkness

Create the image, 

of your sun rising in my soul

Special k

Special k.

It’s been a long long winters day

I’ve been a long long way away

Driving but not arriving home

Always passing others days

Others weeks and others ways

I am the stranger  in the rain

Passenger on the train

Standing by the doors 

shadow in others hours

Distain of the middle class

background artist to others lives.

They glance and look away and

at a road side café 

between 

Coffee cups and sausage rolls

Half Empty plates and wasted trays

I’m the passer by in their eyes

I am memory grey 

the shadow in their story

gods own people

The perfect people

Narrating my own narrative 

never really here. Never really me

Never really coming home

witnessing them witness me

But standing apart 

alone

Blitz mood

Shadows are coming 

rumbling under clouds

Like insidious blitz artillery 

Aimed 

 at my invidious existence 

When the grief flows thick 

and razor under my skin

And I brooding

Bleed Bloody and thunder thoughts

Brewing foul teas and potions.

Looking at others happiness 

And deeply grieve 

Stewing resentment at

my loses

The big guns of envy blast

A half beating beaten heart

I Have wounded me with

Myself

The wreck of my attachment  

I must be my own surgeon 

And counsellor and priest and lover.

I Elder me myself 

I am from the  gutter

I will not surrender 

but 

Rage at the alter of a long dead god.

Rebirthed in every second 

In my breath and tears 

Every shudder and shiver 

In utter defiance 

It is in every syllable 

I utter and the silence I mother.

Mother

Shadows coming 

rumbling under clouds

Like insidious blitz artillery 

Aimed 

 at my invidious existence 

When the grief flows thick 

and razor under my skin

And I brooding

Bleed Bloody and thunder thoughts

Brewing foul teas and potions.

Looking at others happiness 

And deeply grieve 

Stewing resentment at

my loses

The big guns of envy blast

A half beating beaten heart

I Have wounded me with

Myself

The wreck of my attachment  

I must be my own surgeon 

And counsellor and priest and lover.

I Elder me myself 

I am from the  gutter

I will not surrender 

but 

Rage at the alter of a long dead god.

Rebirthed in every second 

In my breath and tears 

Every shudder and shiver 

In utter defiance 

It is in every syllable 

I utter and the silence I mother.

Love song

I cannot tell my tongue 

to tell you

How you are all 

my meaning

my sounding depth  

in a shallow world 

of shallow things

you are all and everything 

I try to articulate 

what you mean to me 

but instead gesticulate the geometry

of the space you occupy 

in my heart

chalice of my thoughts

Here the connection we share

Is rare raw and conscious 

Like a jewel

from some Kipling East.

Jungle glowing. And

The world Disrobes us

to the skin

To be close as close can be

We feel the surface of the seeming

Dreaming world ever closer

explore the inner fleeting

At the depth of being

Where time slips away day to day

Evening by evening

Breath by breath 

Hour by hour 

Each kiss closer to forever.