Dusk Till Dawn, 2020

​

As so much lies beneath that sun

To starlight, dusk, dawn and night

Embedded in the capsules of my beady eyes

Sets stars and moon and crystal sparks.

So heavy shall I lay my heart at night

And calmly whisper in my sweet breath

That I embrace the arms of death.

Kiss my forehead and let me rest.

Kiss my forehead and give me rest.

For I shall know in this world

That I have acted my part.

And to life I shall say.

With grateful farewell

And fortuitus delight,

With all that sunlight

And that white-lit moon

I beg to differ:

“It is not too soon”.

So, give me that kiss,

That sweet kiss of death

To which I am not immune.

Embrace me stars

Give me rest;

Sunrise to Sunset

Dawn to Dusk.

Dusk till dawn.

Panic on a Global Scale (2020)

 

They say the birds fly South in Winter

To prosperous greens that lay beyond

That stretch of land.

Grass like fingertips to hold their feathers.

Like hands of mothers,

to cradle their young

And protect them from that brittle breeze

That scratches at their peach-fuzz skin.

 

The birds that fly South in Winter.

Away from hunger; cold; neglect.

Will know nothing but the sweetness of intimacy

As they peck and crow in their flocks.

Creating and nesting in that flourishment of growth.

                                                                       But how wrong these birds, that fly South in Winter,

Guessed of their salvation.

As the stretch of land had grown vacant.

Bare of all its crops and gold,

With no Summer sun to bask in

And the absence of

Mother Nature

to nurse them to health.

 

And soon that sunlight had scattered into night,

The remnants of that glorious blue

A thickened black.

 

And that warming blow of

Mother Nature’s breath

Had turned to whispers.

And screams.

And final words of death.

 

As the poor little birds

Could not pay their vital debt

In the deserted stretch.

 

As Monday grew to Thursday

The gaggle had weakened

To all a little more than a dozen.

 

Once plucked-up hens;

vibrant peacocks;

lilywhite doves;

finches and woodpeckers;

swallows and herons;

glorious eagles;

masterful storks;

hornbills and geese and parrots.

Farmhouse owls  

And seaside seagulls,

and dainty cuckoos

And considerable cranes

Had merely become

Drawn out skin and feathers

Over bones and beaks.

 

No longer lifted their wings

To slumber in feathered-blankets.

But burrowed heads in plumes.

​

Days had now moulded to weeks;

Hit and battered like metal

In furnaces to change time’s very frame.

 

Food was no longer plentiful.

Seeds that had once rained down

Were now in drought.

 

Rations were thinning out

In perfect reflection

Of the greying feathers

That moulted like dying snow.

 

All the mother-hens had gathered to feed their young

With all that was left

 

and birds that fly South in Winter

Flocked to the chicks

 

And pecked out their eyes

(the seeds still untouched laid out on the bereft of life).

 

 

As weeks had poured by

That fatal flock had thinned to one.

A small blue Kingfisher,

That had plumped out to a

Roughly the size of a tennis ball.

 

Fat with the crops of his brothers.

Engorged in their flesh and feathers.

Bulky with the bread of their beaks.

 

He was rich and cumbersome

In gluttony.

His eyes bigger than his belly.

 

But

 

That pluck, little Kingfisher

Was rife with loneliness.

 

Polluted with solitude.

 

Plentiful in hysterical fear

Of the empty fields and unrecognisable shadows

That granted him no familiarity,

Or friendship.

 

Craving the caws and crows of his brothers

And the swift chime of their wings against the wind

 

As they fly home in Winter.

Little Ship (2019)

 

Little ship that sails off from shore

To splendid waves, that with buoyancy

set the wooden panels to the air.

Eroded and saturated in salt,

Find stars cast in high shadows.

 

Little ship that carries secrets;

Treasures stowed away in steepness

fill empty crates to the brim,

Only lit by thin stretches of sunlight

And blanketed in decay.

 

Little ship riding ribbons of emerald;

Cuts through melted glass

which splinters that timber body.

The sheet that flutters like wings

Takes the vessel through the sheen

And the wind in its mouth.

 

Little ship kisses soft sea foam

As it dances on the blue,

but will never reach the land

With its breaking banks

That will send it surely

To the bottom of the deep.

 

Little ship once a bold voyager

With battle bridges and mysteries.

Cascaded vibrant waters;

Fought storms with thunderous intent.

But was weighted down;

Sunk and surrendered to an eternal ruin.

Little ship bound your sailor

To stand with stature like a pole,

hands settled to steer

And send the Seven-Seas ship,

And all its jewels,

To a new world.

 

Little ship, the arms that pulled ropes

And in a cabin slumbered.

Readied East, West, North, South,

Now lies dormant and broken.

Flesh torn and gnawed by fish

And entrapped in shell and seaweed.

With the treasures lost and found

Polluting the underwater with greed.

There lies two gold coins

Hiding milky-silent eyes in death.

A fist-sized ruby on fleshy tendrils

Where a tongue once lay.

One-hundred consecutive pearls

Delicately denting into cold skin

To leave purple-green rosettes.

​

A Sovereign’s sceptre and rod

Gloriously reflected in daylight

protrudes upwardly.

Shimmering in the scarlet river

A murky cloud arises

from life’s single cavity.

How to Wake a Sleeping Lion (2018)

 

When dozing in the sunlight,

grass quiet with blowing soft a lion sleeps,

there on that earth so still.

Its mighty chest gently rising,

with beats of heart tuned to slumber,

 

boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom

-will echo the plains that stretch for eternity.

 

If you watch that there creature,

so still

so quiet,

Alone in peaceful serenity

You will see no signs of stalking; preying; hunting.

Just beauty in its calmest state alive with unconsciousness,

Golden sheen of sand-coloured fur,

strands of light shimmering and shifting

In the honest breeze.

 

To wonder How to Wake a Sleeping Lion,

arouse the beast from waking harmony.

You scheme; you devise; you conjure up plans of

battle,

violence

and gore,

So you can delight in slaying the ruler of the natural world.

Like the Queen of the Desert, tearing her from her throne

So no more that chair of gold

To crumbled stone and rubble.

Or fire metal from a loaded limb,

stench of oil and heat,

Like you did to the King of Dreams

because he dreamt of peace.

​

You delight in sinister motives

to Wake that Sleeping Lion

By slicing open its chest,

Ripping tissue and muscle and bone,

Collecting that liquid value in your paper-coffee cup.

 

You hope to tame that mighty roar

With chains and ropes and striking whips.

Render it to forget its kingdom

To become a mockery in your own.

Convince yourself with sadistic merit

That you might be King of 'foreign ground'.

The land you call infertile, dry and lifeless

Because you don't understand its worth

In cultivation, artistry and uniqueness,

only viewing it in numbers and banknotes.

 

You call yourself a Prophet;

Believe you can turn water into wine,

turn eternity into a locked-gated prison.

Barbed walls of unforgiving, relentless imprisonment,

barricades of metal and wire

keeping that there lion amongst the noble grass

Now forgotten ash.

 

With pliers and pluckers pull out

teeth and claws.

Condemn that creature powerless

With its feline gems, diamonds and silvers

of bravery and wisdom

worn upon your neck;

calcium and brutal victory.

Shave fur to forge a carpet for your all-white castle.

Turn its mane into a ruff for your hideous gown,

its head a into a mantelpiece

For your hundred-seat table

where you will forever dine alone.

 

Would you go into a children's playground

With a grenade and let it splinter-off

Into their small frames?

Skin your mother, father, brother, sister alive;

smother them while they sleep

Resting on clouds to turn dreams into smokes.

Would you snap a baby's neck,

To eat from its flesh?

So why go into a lion's den armed with

knives,

binds and guns

when it rests like cherubs in a manger's hold.

Why take its roar, its fur,  its pride

To govern the grasslands of yonder delicacy,

to make a replica of your artificial castle;

already spotted across the globe.

For greed, for power, for joy

To capture those you view below,

weaker than your own.

 

Do not come to me when you are wounded

For stirring peace into massacre.

For waking such there beauty

where it slumbered in its bed.

To expect to go into a lion's den unharmed

When you've taken its cubs; its home; its livelihood.

 

Lions are stronger in a pride,

faster as one.

A strength, a whole of wonder, gold, wisdom.

Man is weak together and alone with nothing

But greed at the costs of other lives.

Do not Wake a Sleeping Lion-

be gentle, protective, kind

and treat there beast with all it deserves-

with grace, admiration, with mind.

Do not walk into a lion's den

to tear it from its throne.

That lion's Kingdom is its own.

Do not steal, take, break, destroy

What earth has declared a home.

Space (2013)

​

Among the black lined sky

Twinkly stars are forever shining,

Their light is so elegant and radiant

And endlessly hypnotising.

 

There amoung the enticing sparkles

A cold ablaze crescent lights the sky,

Standing out among the other dazzling auroras

Its eerie glow seems almost warming.

 

Blackened silk entwined with constellations

Holds a secret of yonder entities,

Their identities still secluded

So seen as our illusions.

 

The spaces between the galaxies

Possess defined planets of contrasting characteristics;

Some hot, some brisk and some too small to exist

But with one we can call our home.

Limbo, (2020)

 

To yonder beyond a beady eye

And expressions past a rearing face,

I wander across that near to ground

In search to flame out in certain place.

 

Chaotic as night seems with no gazing moon

There is a peering universe to spur soon.

Although I will only breathe as speckled dust

No more is my blood metal to turn to rust.

 

Clouds no more ceiling will be my bed

And the trickly sun shan’t warm my skin

But instead a guide for splintered soul

To carry me to where ye begin.

 

My energy roars as teeth shall snap and snare

To bite yet never to catch a when or where;

As to melt as gold into the crumbling soil,

then thy food will never hunger bleed or spoil.

 

I may as a bird spread wild and free

Or wade as fishes through waters still.

Shall crawl as insect for plant and tree

Or prance as tiger with might and will.

 

In truth, wherever thee ponder on vast greens

As corpse or spirit. To be in lightning beam.

I shall be and be I shall

Forever where ever lies

In that infinite cycle to seep in dreams.

“Dear My Love”, (2021)

 

When the sun-rays dance the ground;

sunflower-glows kissing each emerald strand,

I’ll remember your face in summer’s palm.

 

When rain droplets coat the gentle leaves,

atop the flourish of magnificent trees,

I’ll remember how I held your hand.

 

When ocean waves touch the golden sands;

softly blowing against Poseidon’s grain,

I’ll remember how close we would lay.

 

When critters crawls across the earth;

deep in the world far below,

I’ll remember with you I never felt small.

 

When winged beasts take the skies,

gliding across that forever blue,

I’ll remember how my heart took flight.

 

When the ground is thick with Winter’s coat;

crunching beneath with every step.

I’ll think on how we used to dance.

 

When cotton-candy blossoms bloom,

as spring commands life to grow,

I’ll think of each new adventure with you.

 

When autumn paints the world in reds,

and the winds blow their gentle kiss,

I’ll think on the caress of your fingertips.

 

When the night pitches its tent,

and blankets all to sleep,

I’ll think of you in my dreams.

 

When daylight breaks the dark,

and of all life is wide awake,

I’ll love you more each passing day.

Company, (2021)

 

To my oldest friend

I know that you have left me,

but you are not gone

for you sit in the tendons

of my full and open heart.