Grew many trees
from seed

They still stand

It is I who had to leave

Finding a voice
canary singing
in the mine

Finding a voice
prophet crying
on the mountain

Finding a voice
sighing
lovers arms

Scattering of pink petals
On harsh grey pavement

Aesthetics of woman
roundness warmth
loquacious fecundity

Desire overcome
all that remains-

Beauty

Big ego on
small blue dot
in lost space.

Infinity undone
no finish no
perfect end.

This flag unfurled
no wind no
eye no mind
to see
movement
desire
undone.

Lust run down
and flagging
furled folded
and gone.

Mind set free
unfettered
infinite innocence.

Where this arrow
all untamed
should land

Bury me there
in the greenwood

Or burn me on
the mighty river

Or give me to birds
or sea creatures
too fabulous to mention

Where this arrow falls
leave me there untended
time and flying arrow
spent

And I am deaf too
and too dumb to speak
kind loud and slow
to your yearning ear

And also blind too
with distance unsighted
this burgeoning passion
too easily blighted

No language too pure
no dissonant rhyming
no sentence may capture
your precious flower

How can the sun
be silent in
univocal space

An harmony of
spheres with
ceremonial grace

And one bizarre
small planet
humming at great speed

Full filled with creeping
crawling things
disseminating seed

With quill on parchment
scratch to me your love
my love

With ink-stained fingers
ribbon fold your love
to me my love

With blood- drippedink-
well trace your love
across your breast
my love

With humble skill
I share with thee my love
my one sweet love

Before the bang began
this teeming round of
doing, non-doing

Was quiet and calm
the eternal mind.

Begun before the calm
cooled down seared
heat white light

Ineffable rounds
of critical mass
formed-reformed

Abandoned

And left to grow

well yell
yellow bucket

worn rope
convolvulus

bucket leak

morning star
begging water

for the type of cloud
nor name of
flower tree lover bird
nor pet

no name
no knowledge

only this
or that

no this

In the garden
before it was lost,
(come back soon
lost garden),
pepper vines grew around
the sweet fruit trees.

durian fell
sarongs rose,

all was fecund in the globe
of sour tamarind
and bitter herb;
a balance, a unity
of love given and
lust taken.

chilli red yellow green
shone in morning mist,
evening gloam among
myriad leaves clogging the undug pool,
hurting the fish breath
in the old frog pond.

unpicked, the fruit.
unclipped, the hedge.

all my life
too lazy to get ahead,
leaving all my fruit to seed.
let it rot and feed the sand
soil, grow turf beneath the trees.
in this moment only hell and heaven.

On dawn beach
collecting shells

The smell ridden
midden stretching
millenia

How we have lived
how we have moved
no dawn beach
untouched
no homely shell unmoved

Lifted you
by the hips
above my head

Gazed at you outlined
against azure sky

So small so trim
so light I worry
that a breeze may
carry you away

Buried her between the root
thighs of an ancient olive.

pressed the oil into blood-
flesh into food.

our picnic finished a
garland laid in lieu of stone.

one thousand years of gnarled trunk
she blisters in the summer haze
the dip-stream running on.

baby eyes
all the time

every landscape
any face

mirror skies
baby eyes

everything
is new

From somewhere
elegant string
plucked vibrates
gentle waves on
perfumed air

moon full-beam
reflects its burning star.

let me unclasp your gown.
let me unclasp your soul.

And under
some other sun
man seared by heat
pompeiied, seared
in body fat-
slowly
pains-takingly
chick-beaks through
his shell
to sky

looking from above
frail atmosphere
hovers and runs
a swirling course

man ***** in
age-old re-cycled
air
and soars

What gives longevity to
those old paintings
emerging from lofts
lost for centuries
survivors of wars

Whose force makes this live whilst
those manifold perish?

From the kaleidoscope
one jewelled fragment
drops and glows

50 trillion miles away
greetings
to the pixillated blue spot
hurtling round
with assorted rocks
a nondescript star
in a tiny galaxy
on the far side
of oblivion

Calculus shows
the dot may harbour
civilized life

We laughed and laughed
comedic machine and I

Then wondered if you
like us
do battle with your
mind waves

This is all he does
promethean spirit
thief of light from dark

The gods laugh and
thunderbolt for fun
but he has seen
their little game
from high
from far above

Mountain spit
split sides and fall

From some other sun
this puny world
god man
as nothing

Nothing at all

the void
is not void

every direction

spun

hang out the washing!

this springing day

Oh!
the sense of desolation
when the first flower falls

who has these before
a name became the thing,

before your name
came to my ears

who had a way
with you?

not you
nor neither me
not him nor her
nor it.

before a name fell upon
from mother sky,
mother thigh

who, where off this earth
was I?

Sat on grass
beneath a canopy of leaf

beneath the body
seedling grows

fifty years immobile
tree grow high, wide

sitting seeing far
with tree high eye

Here,
at the diaphanous
borderline
between self
and other,

Ego wanders
and wonders

How the fates
and furies
battle out
destinies.

Is it ours
to be one,
conjoined
in time,
or it it yet
a cruel twist?

And even if,
accepting this result
or that

How much or
little
are we master,
mistress of our fate?

Oh we have met before my love
we met and merged before
became one many times before
spring fever shook the
tree of desire and the hot
red mist descended and
lusted in our eyes

Bodies entwined
vine and tree become one
once again in breathless love
come see the parting of the
limbs of tree and clinging
vine venerating old old bark

Oh how have we met beneath the
full budding trees
dripping red dawn the dew all
honey sweet the sweet dew

Sap rising kissing leaves to life
veins throbbing chrysalis
bursting to life the bears
and bees ******* honeyed flower
caressing the breeze oh this is
how we met our endless cycle of
love and being

Natural children we play in
natures rhythm we sing
the day the bright sun-blue day
we sing and whistle the black
night stars into twinkling being

This is how we met full summered
in the honeydewed grass of orange dawn
the unnaccountable wind (whence, hence?)
and yellowing golden crimson leaves
blown by the gleaning breeze to
nitrogen the earth at tree feet

Oh yes my love well met we were
caved furry bears nuzzling the winter
emaciating the cold steel dawn and
clung together in sleepy hungry comfort

In all the rhythm of our seasons
oh how we have met and merged
and being one enfolded
in the breast of world
in the sensuous fall and resolution
of the roundish cyclical earthly ball

Cupped hands
two pair

Two hearts
beating

Your heart
my hands

My heart
in yours

Red, wilted pink
hands
hearts

Hold them
gently
safely

Four hands
two hearts
one love

water boatman oaring
surface tension

lotus floating
tadpole below
snail mudsliding

koi refracting

frog jumps in

SPLASH!

How did I spend the vigour of my youth,
on chasing fame
and riches
and chimera of power?
No.

And somewhat proud I say
of that.

So what lay waste
the flower of my time?

Travelling to stars
outside the
planetarium of skull?
No.

No seeker of novel worlds
and strange practice
beyond sitting on the ***.

With this body encased
in mind did I explore
my globe

In walking and sitting
and standing and lying
in running and swimming
in energy pared
in eating and ******* and sleeping
in sexing and drinking
and library reading.

So tell me old man
of this misspent time
of the hurts you made
and the lazy days

And tell me of the
hells you created
of the good intentions
fallen to dust

And do not omit
the belly laughter
and small kindness
and hospitality to strangers
and open heart
and spirit soaring.

And tell me now
how will the fruit
of time be thrown
into the small basket
of remaining days?

Why what to expect
of a maverick reprobate,
but more sweet lady,
a little more of the same

what shall ye be
old man, dying man?

a dog perhaps, driven
by passion, guarding
the house of master
or maiden

a tree perhaps, stolid
by a river, rooting shooting
flowering and fruiting

a snake old man
slithering and hissing
and tempting the ******

a louse dying man
itching and *******
raising curses all around

what shall ye be
a pebble in a stream
methinks, grinding
sand in the clear
cool water

Took the charcoal
of a burned out star

and scratched a parchment
of atrophied skin

making something new
from redundancy

Li po in his prime
reclined
in silken robe
on brocade couch

Surrounded by jasmine
perfumed dancing girls

Singing out verses
immersed in wine

Gentle river yielding
delicate fish.

Compare and contrast
dingy corner of cheapened pub
with a last pint of black stuff
in a faded seaside town.

Sense of a crumbling life
barmaid checks her teeth
in the shining mirror of
a bald pate.

So to pier end
no sense to leap
only cockles and mud
mud and cockles

And the effluent of
one million surplus souls

I shall have to let you go

Your petals faded pink,
barely staining parchment
your saturate colour unsummered

Those annual visits of
birds, bees, the painted
butterflies, giddy for
our sticky stamens,
spread our playfulness
across the fields

Autumnal colours
your pink, my grey,
wilted, limp, harbinger
of winter and away

Remember flower your
spring stalk, surging power
lifted to air.

You shall have to let me go
my painting, partner
unscrolled, a single
flash, illuminating
lightning

Done and gone

Out of the blackness
milky-white eminence rises
omphalos umbilus of the world
dripping venom and solace
in equal doses

Is not creation myth
of sunrise or moondance
****** charge of being
connection of ether
asserted from nothing

Uncoiled sss thick body
glowing colour grey
black edged scales
vast hood of metallic
green lozenge flanked
by blind yellow flash

Out of blackness the
milky rainbowed cobra
source of destruction
of chaos of growth

Stood on head
ten years
walked backward
on hands
10 years

Of a sudden
flipped
onto feet
face forward
moon face
turned to sun

Three golden headed
dandelion
open to sun

Unseen dandy lions
people scurrying by.

One day on
closed face
turning to seed

Monstrous time
(Daffodil wilts)

(From the crack
In a crumbling wall

One tiny flower
Defies all
wilted pink

Blushing at dawn)

Wildflower dark road
Wet shining rain

Clustered under hedgerow
Berry-red

Walking past-
Fragrance

Air air plant
Roots *******
Only air.

Across seas
Draped upon trees
Taken by breeze

Rootless rootless plant
Reproducing
On air in air
Rootless tree
Envied by even
Dry tumbleweed

When you come to the end time/place
Smash down your house and
Wander abodeless

With no place to go
And nothing to do

Left to themselves
People fall apart

Left alone
Buildings tumble

Order invites chaos
Through the front
Back door

Heaven below
Heaven all around
Empty empty space
The garish merry-
Go-round

Thoughts arise
Expire

Clouds drift
Pour rivers
Evaporate

Stars implode
Radiation

God in his elements

Laughing
Laughing laughing