Time, falling

Veined with pumpkin blood,

thin, flat palms pat

the earth.

Parlour room dusts

with evergreen feathers

for the new visitor.

Rounding up another year.

Dog whistling. 

Sheep chasing leaves

as the wind's hand

raises high

a confetti of memories,

dancing while falling.

Time, falling...

Hidden from the hand.

Trodden.

Forgotten.

Broken.

Crushed.

Take off your hat.

We Drink in Amber Bubbles

We drink in amber bubbles.

Remembering the life force you once had.

The life force you alone, extinguished.

Yet,

we fill

our soul

with gifts of time.

Like George Bailey’s guardian angel

who points out

the time George saved his brother, who fell through the ice.

It made George deaf.

The time when your mother dropped the crystal glass and cried.

You swept up her tears.

The time when Mr Gower the chemist lost his son and drank. And drank.

Your watchful eye

prevented him

from mis-prescribing arsenic.

You never told a soul.

The time when you saw old Mrs Fletcher in the shop.

Counting her change. Twice.

You pretended she dropped a note on the floor.

You tapped her shoulder.

She looked back.

You never told a soul.

We drink in amber bubbles.

Your gifts of time to us.

You had a wonderful life.

Sheldon 's Theory

Don't buy me a present...
I will have to get you one back
What a waste of my precious time
I'm like Einstein
Wearing the same suit
He
Not as bright as I
bought several of the same design
To last a lifetime
And died unfashionable

The universe needs my time
Presents are a crime
What do I
Have to prove
With presents?
I don't like you much, anyway
Presents are just
Money recirculated
If I want anything
I purchase with care
I mean, who else really knows what I like?


Instead
Let's talk string theory
don't come near me
I do not hug

Fibonacci poem: Introvert Tongue

One
word
was too
much. I stopped
communicating,
cough, sneeze, hiccup, belch (in private)
angry at my introvert tongue
Nobody listened
They made me

I made me
feel
thick

A Triolet: Sparks


Talking in the dark

Around campfire

desire

Talking in the dark

sparks

of orange glow and energy flow

Talking in the dark


Around campfire

Peachy


Perfectly proportioned peach

bottom

Hidden under gaudy shorts with palm trees

Desperate to be adored, to be pinched

For a warm hand to spank like a peach bongo

For a foot to affectionately kick

For a mouth to take a bite

For a pair of green eyes to covet

Hidden in owner’s bad taste apparel

Not even a faint outline of it's curve

Wasting it's life away

Frame it

Let droves of faces queue up to see it

Behind glass


PPPB 1983

Quick! Get Your Lows Whilst Stocks Last! (Audio Link)

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Love Letter To Heathcliff (audio link)

Night.

On the moor.

Ragged as you were.

I saw you

through the cracked window,

where my dead hand touched yours,

where my name was etched in three on the wooden desk.

Your dark long locks fought the wind,

like your soul.

Heathcliff.

MY Heathcliff.

You destroyed everything…..

Yes, I became a lady, yet,

I loved Edgar, not.

It was always you…

Your face I saw

when I tangled in flesh,

trying to make a hybrid us,

with the wrong man

You walk this earth without me, yet,

I walk with you.

In you.

I look into your eyes of pain,

and I weep,

until you return to me.

The Orgastic Future (audio link)

Gatsby stood

glancing over dark water,

like Kant at his church steeple, gathering thoughts…

Curious tremble.

Arms outstretched towards emerald light.

The orgastic future,

that-year-by-year-recedes-before-us.

Pursuit of a moment;

love frozen in his past.

His feminine jewel, his green, shimmering, feminine jewel.

Sipping chartreuse from fluted crystal.

Daisy, the dainty, docile, debutante, desired by young Americans.

The dream icing….

Surely a man could reclaim what was once his?….

Fifth avenue.

Dust. Car horns. Heat.

Yard-long billboard eyes

of bespectacled Dr. Eckleburg

watch Gatsby hand over

illegal liquor swag

for the mansion across the bay from Daisy…

Dr. Eckelburg doesn’t care.

Traffic lights say green! Go!

Go, go, green, run, faster, green, go, rev, light, run, go, fast

Fade.

Green, go, rev, green, fast, go, go, go…

Fade.

Daisy drove the death car that killed Myrtle.

Daisy let YOU take the blame….

Chartreuse frozen in fluted crystal.

Boats against the current,

bourne back,

ceaselessly into the past.

The Dry Grass Sings

An old photograph

With fancy edging

Yellowed, yet….

Black and white.

Deutchland.

Bielefeld.

A teen Mutti in pigtails with yellow ribbon and a warm smile

Fresh from the League of German Girls

sits on a grey tombstone

among tumbled graves

outside the Liebefrauen kirche.

No epitaph….

Instead, imagined sounds…

a tolling bell keeps the hour

and the dry grass sings,

the hermit carrion peers from a pine tree

and sings, inwardly, the carol of death…

A teen towering over adults,

A teen conquering the wasteland, where

A musical family stand with dark hats,

Long, clasped fingers

and long, noir umbrellas, like stretched bats, with curved handles…

Serious countenances

With genetic, bushy eyebrows.

Eyes, glazed and milky,

Looking just off centre, some to the ground

At the legs protruding

Under black cloth.

Flash.

No red eye

Only red eyes after the war

Comfort Food

So, let me hug you

with arms of freshly baked baguette.

Let me refresh you

with breaths of cool vinaigrette.

Let me seduce you

with eyes of tempting chocolate cake.

So, let me drench you

with tears of strawberry milkshake.

Apfelstrudel

Timeworn café in Berlin,

the parents of apfelstrudel.

Warm Christmastide notes of cinnamon, linger

and anticipation of plunging a fork

into crackling pastry,

splitting flaked almonds

revealing glistening gold

and the scent of late autumn.

Hedgerowild

Haws, hips and sloes

on heath and hillside.

Wine dark jewels

and crimson rosehips.

Dusty sloes pepper canal paths.

Bright orange berries hang on Rowan’s arm.

Magical woodland.

Heathland.

Berryland.

Wise Elderberries know their fate.

We celebrate

with hedgerow liqueur,

majestic jam

and jelly.

Yet,

behind a garland of green

a cluster of shiny blackberry eyes

blink. 

Ekphrastic poetry: Please Forget Me Not

On a bed of green algae

in the river Ewell

She sways, gently

As reeds stand erect in the breeze

Delicate neck framed

with garland of withered violets

fingers splayed

as fritillary floats between cloth and water’s edge

Scattered meadowsweet

Bittersweet

Red poppy with black seed

Pheasants’s eye floating near pansies

Dragonfly hovers over open mouth,

Translucent rainbow wings disappear

unkissed

Please forget me not

Priori

Aspects of reality
which are not supplied by the senses....
like time...
can you see time?
No.
Or can you?
But we are aware of time.
What is time?
Time the elusive
white rabbit runs off
with a pocketwatch
out of sight, down a hole
which leads to...?

Jean d' Insane

When you look at an insane man
all you see
is a reflection
of your own knowledge of what insane is
which is not to see him at all.

To see him
you must see
what he saw
it wasn't me that was crying
it was my eyes

Who is Afraid?

I filled my pockets with rocks

I left you my words on the river bank

To hold, to squeeze, to make sense of my

Existential musings

I am, was, words,

Farewell, ink and thought

Tears on blotting paper

I will find a room of my own

Resting my head on a fluffy cloud pillow

Alternative Motherhood

She mothers in other ways……

The Empress in a robe of pomegranates

calls you

and leads you

into the lush forest

to stand with the trees

as one

and fill your belly with fallen fruits.

Magdalene dries a frog’s wet feet with her long Venus hair, smiles and receives a croak in return.

The Wife of Bath

A deaf seamstress

sits at the table of faeries

crushing scarlet beetles

to dye tiny clothes for her friends.

Aerial sits on the edge of the boat

dipping her pale flesh into the water,

offering a handcup to the kingfisher.

Tempestina waits for the storm to subside

and sighs

as she spots a ship on the horizon.

They are safe!

She cries.

Gaia’s undulations

comfort a crying face

when there is nobody left.

It is dear Ms.Eyre

hugging the earth,

like a mother.  

Laburmum

Me? I’m Mama tree,

I suckle earth

after clouds burst

I lap it up

until it hurts

then I BUST it upwards

through my labyrinthine veins

To sustain

Your pretty buttercup face

That kisses the rain

You carry me on

After I have gone

I remain

Sustain

An eternity in your veins

Our sap the same

‘Til we meet again

On a spiritual plane

Refrain,

Never mind the twain,

Mark, or Shania……?

Hell,

Happiness came!

As the earth sustained

you

with

rain

from my labyrinthine veins.