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1.)
i.
Cobwebbed her face spun
the spell of lechery on moors.
ii.
Fable has it Diana of the woodlands
blinds the hunter who inadvertently
stumbles upon her whilst bathing.
iii.
The hunter and the hunted,
in the labyrinth he does not know,
nor himself from the Minotaur.
iv.
Branches red... green,
returning to roots,
a garden of forked paths,
a strangler in Eden & the moon
alikes memory with her two faces,
her eclipses, her solitary ellipses.
Back to top
Part
2. "CIUDAD DE LOS GITANOS" (Gypsy City)*
1.)
i.
It
is June and summer's
musk
makes my heart heavy,
my
head giddy.
ii.*
Morning
brings the gulls squall,
surreal
beyond the curtained windows,
starting
faint dawn's debate
flighting
harsh and sweet.
iii.
The
trees are ivy clad
in
a laurel bay,
like
ship, mast & rigging
sunk
to the bottom of the sea
floating
in branches.
¡Oh
ciudad de los gitanos!
¿Quién te
vio y no te recuerda?
Dejadla
lejos del mar
sin
peines para sus crenchas. (G. Lorca.)*
iv.
Guernica.
Branches
twist into the moon
a
filament, silver stabs the heart,
here,
where the unnatural electric light
shatters
the naked eye, partitioning
here
and there, and another eye
follows
me everywhere, inhuman,
shedding
dream in deathly pallor.
Theseus
harrows hell having severed
the
umbilical cord of the Minotaur
to
be betrayed by history.
v.*
Somewhere
in the secret paths
of
a springland wood a plastic bag
spews
forth its inners of rags
like
a desecrated corpse staining
the
elfin fern with a black sin.
Tronchados
astros genitales
Pudriéndose
Resucitando
En tu
vagina,
Madre
India,
India
niña
Empapada
de savia, semen, jugos venenos. (O.Paz)*
How
the midges dance and in a blink gone again!
Back to top
Part
3. SUMMER STALKS
1.)
i.
Coloured
rain sheer sleets
on the coned cove
&
in ceasing harp chords ripple waters
at lap in the bay.
I
ascend from the cave, a troved maze
Spiraling
granite and grass.
Green
is the colour of the music,
in twilight.
On the swell of the white wave,
mare in spray.
ii.
Tooth
clawed, bay spread,
dew
lapped, pastel sapped
chestnut
air.
Down
broom days,
damp
dark summer spawn,
left
candlelit room.
Midnight's
smells, mid summer rain,
grey
green sheen dews second
England,
travelling moon hidden.
Into
black wood, brave as a mouse,
still
trod mud, nettled branches, fern
rusted
water light, panic noised brush,
Bird
break, a cornered rat;
but
silent the hill moves on, a slumbering
breast
cloud blooded in
night's
music on no breath of breeze.
iii.
In
the wood only solitude
that
in the blink of an eye,
ceases
to be the is & not
&
yet not & yet be suspended
in
still presence everywhere
to
the evanescent window ear
hearkening
turn of the year.
A
day without wind sighs,
breathes
& whispers through eves
woven
veins of its mysteries
too
intangible to resting touch,
it
possesses heart's rainbow arch
where
solitary figures' shadows crouch.
Summer
stalks on winter's breath
&
flesh on flame trembles beneath
naked
branches churlish fetching,
as
though, milk maids were wenching
like
little red riding hoods.
iv.
I
imagine
an
oak trunk wider than a two way street,
taller
than a three story Tudor house,
again
twice the width its golden boughs,
yielding
there a three colour sorb fruit,
hazel
nut, red crab apple and ochre acorn,
bronze
leaf, ebony vine, mistletoe its crown,
cut
down with the coming of the Christian.
Back to top
Part
4. BLACK ROSES
1.)
i.
Samson
& Delilah.
Samson.
If
time is love, it is also hate,
if
time is first, it is also last,
stretched
between my arms
as
these pillars of names.
If
time begins, it also ends,
as
day night begin and end
in
the memory that binds
as
I bring its canopy down
stretched
between these pillars of time,
and
on either side neither I nor mine.
Delilah.
Nor
mine nor I,
you
Samson are a name,
are
as I now am
as
we stand before
for
you to resolve all
of
him in her of her in him.
We
are the opposites
of
our own lust
driven
by love to madness.
I
am thou and thou art that,
our
hands joined in togetherness,
one
and the same their otherness.
Nor
no kiss can seal
our
wound to heal
not
her him, him her.
Samson
is Delilah,
not
I nor mine,
Delilah
is Samson.
ii.
Frankenstein.
Shelley.
Mary, creation beyond
human
powers, Godlike creation,
must
be seen as producing monsters.
Mary.
Shelley, a poet´s poem must seem
to
him reborn, even God is made in man´s
image,
resurrected from the grave, a
perfect
form, there you must seek its eyes,
ear,
nose, mouth, all of the word made flesh.
Frankenstein,
my own dear love, is your
weird,
who knows no other name, but yours
in
the gilt mirror of crooked butterflies
where
paper boats float with gondeliers beneath
its
arches and children drown in the innocence
of
the first reflected face, to the back of Boreas,
where
the sun never shines.
iii.
The
Hunted.
Silver
birch in the window frame,
a
ragged coat hanging, dripping
rabbit
skin, the doors open
to
split grey dawn, silvery sheen
cobweb
spun as on a loom
lacing
the transparent light
against
dawn bursting bright
as
trained trees bend
whipped
in the rainy wind
at
dawn within ripped to shreds
through
the buccaneered centuries.
Four
winds lift the house,
Shrill
moans shriek the rafters,
bloody
hands grope the hearth
kindling
the charcoal to flame stronger
than
the dawn on the stone floor that lays
him,
as silver birch in the window delicately
binds
the hunted morn in the hunter's eye.
iv.
Black
Roses.
A
pendant half moon
swings
as a pendulum,
floats
on night's breast
like
a winged iris.
Crepe
clouds smear folds
of
scarlet flesh, plume
a
three cornered hat.
Pistols
bloom black roses.
Lady
highwayman, a
cat
with nine lives riding
a
sky of blood, disappears,
creation
eschews, the moon pursues.
Back to top
Part
5. ROBOT STAR
1)
Robot
Star
i.
On
the brim,
robot
star clicks, blinks, bleeps.
Bug
comet,
glaucous
crystal plasma,
subterranean
desert amorphous martian dust.
Amphibian
mucous toad,
amber
skinned rust carbonising planet.
ii.
Robot
star in the harbour of toy yachts,
ostrich
plumed clouds & marionette gulls,
carrion
heralds of cannibalism.
Robot
star in no man's land,
in
the wake of the albatross,
clay
of the dactyl fish boned bird moon.
iii.
A dove floats in blue wound,
impulsed
shoots the wood expulsed
on the roar of cloud, heedless.
a soaring cleft on the breached
clay widening the abyss.
You unload, caught in the absence of what has been:
the trapped winds winding sheets,
the stain in the blue scrolling the day's slants slid
beneath doors, flickering episodes
on the fitted boards, misshapen on the up most crags,
old weird charactertures, liberty of marathons,
covered in bird scraps, shot in the archipelago.
iv.
In toytown planet, tragico,
Comico & parts pathetico
in masks sick, sad & bad,
split & cracked break into
dearth & mirth as the doll
clown faults down upon its
knees & the train in the lane
glides out the station of
distortion searching for
tracks league after league
in the valley of toytown.
2.)
i.
Gilgamesh & Enikidu.
Fish eye window,
snow clouds blow
plains, ice blue
lakes, still, clear,
in mountain sky.
New ice age
melts into soft ultra
violet, blue eyed
Neanderthaloids
roam white haired,
shaggy, icicled,
laying tracks
reach waters
over ridges,
swim through, great maws
devouring fleece,
crystal frays disappear
as they ascend the statues of the sky.
Green horizons
on distant edges,
hulks of mazes
loom, through them
comes Homo Sapien
towards melting blue,
where they will meet,
where they will retreat
to the sky that binds,
whilst birds dive through
seas of blue, until now,
when the sky is in chains.
ii.
York Riding.
Green sap on grey tarmac,
houses cardboard cut-outs,
cluttered gardens foliated.
Pallid hard worn faces peep,
bleat ghosts of old sheep
with winding paths asleep
In lost childhood beds,
where daffodils grew wild
and now stand stilled
In vase doll house tombs,
golden curls and dimples
draw the musty curtains.
Procession of hobnailed boots,
silk slippers and climbing roots
binding rubble crumbling walls,
Paper castles on glass tables,
on this stretch of hills
in shadows of derelict mills.
Atlantic winds mast banners
wave musk of weed overgrown graves
over crazy patterned paths paved.
Back to top
Part
1. SALAMINA
1.)
i.
The
Goddess' kiss
Blooms,
breaks spring
Time
in trees.
Catch
her, if you can,
In
the breezes.
Catch
her as she flees
As
elusively as
De
la ave de rapina
Dives,
soars, disappears.
ii.
Starlings
do not turn to
Silver bells in Faireland
But migrate beneath the ether.
Starlings
are not found in paradise,
But throng the city's halls
And bleaken its prison walls.
iii.
Time
does not heal but to steal,
does
not kiss but to take,
does
not call but to collect,
time
is all in all & time is unreal.
iv.
Let
us no more say Her Story.
Let
us agree to say History.
His
Story not Her Story,
Which
left us long ago for
Worlds
beyond our stars.
2.)
i.
Perhaps
it is Ulysses,
The
hero who paces his galley
To
the rhythm of his oarsmen
On
the wine dark sea rowing
For
Ithaca & Penelope.
Perhaps
it is Ulysses,
Ram's
forelock on brow, gored
Thigh,
returning empty handed
From
the plundering of Troy
For
Ithaca & Penelope.
Perhaps
it is Ulysses,
Traitor,
wrestler, madman
Who
hears the sirens call him
To
the rowing of his oarsmen
For
Ithaca & Penelope.
Perhaps
it is Ulysses
Who
grasps his sinking helm,
Promethean
on the wine dark sea
By
a spell cast upon him
For
Ithaca & Penelope.
Perhaps
it is an illusion,
Ulysses
& his oarsman
On
the wine dark sea rowing,
The
woven myth of an Odyssey
For
Ithaca & Penelope.
ii.
Salamina.
She
walks upon the deck, immaculate.
On
the rent sails and rotted rigging
gulls
cry with carnivorous eye of carrion.
A
skeletal figure at the wheel sways.
Stench
seeps through the hatch,
where
scatter sea rats.
Contraband
prisoners for sale, die slowly.
The
loyal lieutenant of the Flotilla,
who
remains, is now a jaded lover.
The
beads of her rosary glisten like wine.
She
more beautiful than the almost windless,
lipless
sea, the utterly clear sky,
her
voice soft and cold under the brilliant sun,
drinks
water and spares none.
A
widowed virgin of the Captain,
her
name is Salamina,
she
is returning to a bay,
where
once mermaids sung.
iii.
The
Flying Dutchman.
No
refuge of island or bay
Nor
sirens to wreak my destruction
On
the rocks as I struggle bound to eternal quest.
I
am as eternal as the mother sea,
Her
pirate,
Sailing
full riggings
On
her phantom vessel.
Back to top
Part
2. THE SPELL OF THE GIFT
1.)
The
Spell of the Gift
i.
Branch
of Gwydion & Fionn,
Ygdrisil,
Odin's ash bay stallion
on
the white wing of Branwen:
Architecture
of griffin, lion, goat
as
pedestrian as the clouds afloat,
that
he must now wear at arms
pursuing
the hounds on the hill
&
ridden by the hag of the mill.
Driven
from the hearth by ambition
to
seek fame & fortune, as the furies,
witches
three, pursue relentlessly.
His
conquest brings him no recognition
from
the world he's won & lost abandoned,
whilst
at the hearth she is forlorn & hated.
ii.
Let
us honour virtue of idleness,
Let
lips meet & kiss
In
praise of her beauty.
Let
the day be bliss
In
the spell of her gift,
Her
virgin purity.
What
can compare
To
the breath of her air,
Veiled
aura of her presence.
Carefree
as the breeze,
Dandelions,
daises & nettles
Lay
homage to idleness.
Each
day virgin born,
Each
night a bubble blown
In
her dark tenderness.
In
laughter & tears
Let
us pass the dew lit hours,
What
can compare to her embrace.
Let
us lay in sweet idleness
In
white hawthorn & bluebells,
In
the spell of her gift.
*After
Robert Louis Stevenson.
iii.
Everywhere
is May,
Sun
burns through damp hue,
Emblazons
hawthorn spray
From
green rained fury anew
On
soft but invincible clay.
I
follow this spring's summer day
With
all its green wood in bright array,
Remembering
how once it took me away
To
another world, where I could not stay.
Now
all that remains is haze & mystery,
As
this other day, now unfolds beyond the fen,
Across
the bluebell bend & through the gates of Anwen.
iv.
Honeysuckle.
Honeysuckle,
the sweet breeze.
Honeysuckle,
the birds & bees.
Honeysuckle,
sweet memories.
Honeysuckle,
the glowing glade.
Honeysuckle,
the Easter parade.
Honeysuckle,
the bloom & flowers.
Honeysuckle,
the fading hours.
Honeysuckle,
the heart's yearning
Seat
of love's slow quick turning.
Honeysuckle
these tears that slip
To
the deep, to the deep.
Honeysuckle,
the other day
On
the horizon far away.
Honeysuckle
mirage, on a floating comma ,,,,
Back to top
Part
3. FOOTSTEPS
1).
i.
Age
is salt & sand.
Age
is joy & sorrow.
Age,
not time, is tomorrow.
ii.
Sculptured
in wind & stone
to
time's beat, a footprint
lifted
from the land follows
a
dream, the wind in shoes.
iii.
The
trees listen to the winds' messages.
The
wind seeks the silence of the trees.
iv.
Haiku.
Straight
to the flower
Does
the bee suckle pollen
Then
home for honey.
v.
Cat
by a Pond.
Red,
white, sleek & fat,
Paw
poised in singular intent
Awaiting
a kill, shining & still:
A
porcelain icon, immutable feline,
In
the orange sunset, red & white as snow.
vi.
Going
Down
numb
sidewalk glare
skies
shrink in despair
pressing
down in gravity
&
silver obelisk black hearse
windows
escort with libations
from
crib to coffer.
vii.
In
the window the hill crowds
shadows
of obscure resonances.
Serrated,
the leaf turns its feathery
edge
convex in inward flight
tapering
bladed to a point.
viii.
In
nooks & crannies peep
unremembered
dreams of sleep,
whilst
pebble stones glare
words
disrobed that stare
at
me as though I were a
stranger
to their dreams.
ix.
Haiku.
Navel
of the nymph
Protrusion
like a pink pearl
Grit
lining wet lips
Part
4. Out
of White City.
1.)
i.
Sheba.
This
is not Eden,
nor
was Solomon, Adam,
but
he knew your song of the bird,
the
raven, the hoopee & your word.
Heard
you call from your high valley golden
&
came as other kings before had done,
to
supplicate to Eden,
which
now as Pharos & Troy, has fallen.
ii.
Pandora.
Pandora
opens the jar of night
On
the landscapes of my mind.
Lets
forth her winged sprite
In
flight of light to blind
Me
like a star that turns to dust,
As
I glimpse the instance
Of
her face, immaculate,
Perfect
& secret.
2.)
i.
The
leper.
It's
too, too late to remember
the
pale evening's after glow,
leprosy
blinds the albino
now
to the falling snow
freezing
the heart.
Daily,
rags in the ruined hut
decay
& with shadows fade.
Now
only the dead visit
from
the dark side
of
the moon tide hill,
where
stars like snow flakes fall.
Day
after day rags of the leper
in
the hut on the hill fade away.
The
hut of the blind albino,
where
only snow falls & the dead stay.
ii.
White
Sombrero.
Don'
t
look up now, man in the white sombrero
to
the voice that calls from the top of the stairs.
Don'
t
turn on her those pale blue eyes, though
she
calls by name, so sweetly, so joyously, you,
this
summer's afternoon, the one in the hall below,
in
no sense of doom for him in the white sombrero.
She
only wants to see those pale blue eyes, only
&
but once more, before she bids goodby not
knowing
it will be farewell.
iii.
The
Destitute.
Say,
I have gambled my dice,
pokered
my final hand.
My
eyes are of the loneliest hue.
Before
me are the bridge dawns,
my
banner for insurrection
is
a blanket under the arm.
My
peers are too old to judge.
My
children avoid me as the plague.
From
rags to rags &
At
the end of the road incineration,
awaiting
what was once flame
to
become ashes & dust.
iv.
The
Potan.
Vendetta
through the maize & sugar cane,
I
pass between them walking away back to back,
they
had not met today face to face.
Tonight,
one with the face of a young moon
&
one gaunt & grey, will stay in ours &
our
neighbour's hut.
We
will burn the gule, sugar cane,
sifting
the brown toffee silt from the black pan
in
the corn cob burning hearth.
The
appointed time of their meeting
is
already known by everyone in town.
Already
the next Vendetta appears.
They
sit at tea on benches, bullet belts
hung,
in the cafe at the top of the hill.
The
wind is frosty in the brilliant sun
flapping
the chinked planks of a rackety wall.
Shop
shacks run down the muddy hill
To
the Masjid & cafe below,
Where
the other gun slingers hang out.
I
pass between to & fro,
soon
in the maize cane a shootout
will
begin at the exact place
I
passed the day before yesterday,
when
they meet face to face.
Tomorrow
will be the burial
in
the cemetery beside the Masjid,
after
evening prayer. On the following dawn
another
will depart, but only the police will profit,
with
a price on the head of the moon faced boy.
v.
The
Beggar.
No
alms for the bereft,
No
praise for the sand,
Only
the storm, the blast
In
the eyes of the beast
&
the hollow haze
Where
footsteps of the wind
Leave
no trace nor
Memory
of tomorrow.
vi.
Across
a lacquered lateral plain of wood
Rippling
forest plain clouds float
On
stained & laminated winds
Bearing
a galley with laden fruit
To
a figure on the shore
From
the concert skies that pour
Upon
a pallid skull beneath its grin
Clinging
to the ring's grain,
Where
lap at sap phantoms.
The
Argo sails to Lemnos
Far
from Theoa's rudderless
Log
& wild rantings
for
the rosebud Lemnian nymphs
&
on to Samothrace with Orpheus
Questing
the Muse & Her saving Grace.
vii.
Out
of White City.
The
long white Mall, quicken at Hellespoint
The
long shipped day, out of white city.
Cloud
grime on salt bleached lips,
Silt
banks beyond, cries from the spar,
To
the crows with them, cries from the mast.
On
the riggings swarms of children climb,
Their
part is cast, destiny & fate await,
The
python galley puts on its leaves again.
Out
of white city, the long white hall,
netting
for stars, into the estuaries
adrift
with Icharus, ithcus River-God.
The
skeleton in the zodiac spans,
across
the Styx on Luccippean hoof Barak
&
Hesperides, where mermaid sirens comb sea hair.
Out
of the white web clay crackling black lagoons,
where
through toothless grin sings blind Homer
&
from the ghost houses scream the jackal
down
the long white hall, down the long white Mall,
city
of bleach, close to the wind & white corners.
Back to top
Part
1. The
gibbous hunter
1.)
i.
A
window gathers shadows
into
an altered tenor:
tar
scurrying beatled umbrellas,
an
anonymity of shades distilled
in
the rain that blurs thresholds.
ii.
Outside
in the city it is night
&
in places blue light.
As
simple as that the lights
read
right to left & right
up
& down the boulevard.
The
fringe of tree tops
&
memories of a black cat
leaping
up at the shut
window
to pigeons with cocked
heads
pecking crumbs on the sill.
&
outside now the dark hill
beyond
the shabby concrete high rise
&
the almost blackness of the sky
in
the almost blackness of the city,
permutations
on anonymity.
iii.
Awake
with a shout,
life
is but a moment
out
of chaos
&
tempest nightmare
in
the firmament.
Riot
city anonymous,
barricades
bulldozed,
catalyst
of progress
under
libertarian surveillance.
iv.
Life
is the World on the News.
The
world is mad
The
world is sad
The
world is bad
The
world has been had
The
world is sorrow
The
world has no tomorrow
The
world is mortal
The
world is fatal
The
world is tyrannical
The
world is indifferent
The
world is arrogent
The
world is chaos
The
world is robust
The
world weeps
The
world executes
The
world dies
The
world sighs
The
world is enemy
The
world is centuries
The
world is moments
The
world is nothing
The
world is manifesting
The
world is destroying
The
world is corrupting
The
world is turning
The
world is repeating
The
world is suffering
The
world is revolution
The
world is anonymous
The
world is androgynous
Where
beauty bleeds
&
the world is blood
&
the world is the flood
&
the world is incomplete
v.
Intelligible.
The
gibbous hunter
Shrouded
in obscurity
On
frog footed mare.
Back to top
Part
2. PHOTOS OF THE DEAD
1.)
i.
Death
met the immortal Don Juan as a servant
&
implored him that he might follow him everywhere
in
the mortal world as his valet, and the invulnerable
Don
Juan admitted he was helpless without one.
*After
Don Juan. Gonzalo Torrente Ballester.
ii.
Ballerina
in a champaigne glass,
Cherry
lips & sparkling eyes,
Golden
hair: so I sip those
Delicate
toes in bubbling foam
&
down slip upon shining limbs
to
sweet posy blooming nipples,
until
the last sips disappear in ripples.
iii.
Photos
of the dead
are
duplicit by virtue
of
false analogy,
a
poison injected
into
the veins
of
printed ghosts.
Back to top
Part
3. HINTERLAND
1.)
i.*
Aquinas.
Man
is a political animal,
Enter
now the executioner,
Honest
to honest.
Pesadilla
de los padres.
With
whatever is next,
The
diatribe of the fall.
Sheer
the drop,
Pesadilla
de los ninos.
Oh
but I am material girl
&
I'm living in a material
World*
sheer Summun Bonum
Pesadilla
de las madres.
*Madonna.
ii.
Hinterland.
Children
of the New Forest,
save
the trees, save the pigs,
cast
them not to the pit
for
they can spit & swaddle better
than
any human & cud the shrubs
&
like the acorn & the cubs
can
keep the sow through the winter.
Swineherd,
tattooed Cyclopean, beat your tin
&
suffer the little children unto the feast:
Foetus
in dolmen's womb, eye of Horus
in
horned Isis. Gathered at the water
is
the herd germ bringing in the rain,
a
pink & white cloud mattress
washed
to pillows of bleached stone.
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Part
4. This Lantern Masque
1.)
i.
This
lantern masque,
as
though streets were up for lots,
as
bodies in the rain chaos flesh
growing
with the gloom of damp germ,
as
flames of city light myth
the
black hill,
a
masque without a beacon, yet lantern
to
the booty we all share.
ii.
Yeild
to me flesh of tomorrow,
Today
wearies of its poetic lie.
This
image of before & after,
Yeild
yourself soft & tender
Like
a ripe bowl of fruit,
There
might I repose & repast.
Yeild
your flesh & come down
For
who am I to live forever.
Mine
is not a love of anyone
&
tomorrow, you have left me here,
To
each helpless day an absurdity.
Yeild
your flesh tomorrow & come down,
That
love might begin with a meaning.
Part
5. DAFFODILS
1.)
i.
On
the Isolation of Goya.
Was
it their hunger & poverty you painted
with
your pain, a camaflouge etched
in
the blood of the bull? Not worse
than
the gore of hunger Matador!*
You
who went gay in bright arrayed plumes,
who
loved & worshipped a Madonna, to whom
you
were only a friend, as more divine
than
your passion & who was suddenly a crone,
infirm,
old & decayed, when still young.
Your
stroke must flourish his finger on the gun,
a
white sashed, gashed sheet of defiance,
of
despair, a never & ever in time on the canvas
congealing,
devoured by a terrified beast.
As
Oedipus blind & deafened by wrath
you
stagger the cities through, a Homeric bard
with
a placard like a millstone around your neck,
I
am still learning, it said.
*"Más cornadas da
el
hambre".
(The
gore of hunger is worse than the bull's .)
Old
Spanish Proverb.
ii.
Lying
fallow two rooks bird
The
grey cold sky, the barking
Dark
day. Blue bird on silver moon,
To
nest on high in wind whipped
Skeleton
branches' naked music.
Hovering
over their bracken bush
Blazing
through the sweeping spray,
They
break the day's silhouettes.
iii.
Daffodils.
Daffodil
yellow horns
Herald
out the winter,
Herald
in the spring.
O
sun's lovely daughters
Who
only stay to sing,
Spending
a few brief hours
While
we go on a haymaking
&
you play truant with our day
Capturing
the heart on wing
With
many a ditty & elegy,
as
we cling on as badger to shin
Still
you adorn our cemetery.
No
truant for us in this prison
Except
listen to grass grow & you sing.
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