For my (new) young ones III

little heart that’s in my care,

oh little heart I feel you there,

not fully formed yet,

barely dressed,

oh little heart I am impressed

by how intensely you can love and feel,

experiment with clouds and steel,

leap up behind the driving wheel

oh little heart I’ll keep you safe.

beating strong, you run the race,

determination etches along your face

in lines of laughter,

in scratches of pain

oh little heart it’s not in vain,

just come to me and sit beside,

look, here’s the map; I’ll be your guide,

and if you’re afraid, I know just where to hide -

oh little heart I’ll keep you safe.

little heart you’re so so young

oh little heart it’s just begun

I know it’s scary,

I know it’s dark,

but little heart you’re a kindling spark

and all you need is a breath of love

and your soul will be soaring with the stars above.

yes, precious heart, you’re perfect,

yes, little heart, come,

arms wide, mine are too, wider than I ever knew

they could stretch. make friends

and share your life, little heart:

you will always be safe with me.

The Silent Lover - Sir Walter Raleigh

PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
So, when affection yields discourse, it seems
     The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
They that are rich in words, in words discover
That they are poor in that which makes a lover.


WRONG not, sweet empress of my heart,
     The merit of true passion,
With thinking that he feels no smart,
     That sues for no compassion.

Silence in love bewrays more woe
     Than words, though ne'er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
     May challenge double pity.

Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
     My true, though secret passion;
He smarteth most that hides his smart,
     And sues for no compassion.

by Sir Walter Raleigh

Drive on

a long line of cars sets out
to sail the seven seas
with a cat o' nine tails
ripping at the rear
wheels, which glide
over the horizon like the sun
on a clear day with a strong tailwind of
nostalgia
and melt
into the tarmac
rolling over the hill
 

Hallucinations

Impossible to sketch a mirror

or the sea,

but introspection? Yes, I can see myself

waving from the glassy mirror.

It is the iced froth of my ocean

where iridescent waves of thought travel on steam

trains that race across the depths in a molten blast

of steel swordfish, who would fence on their feet,

if they had any: my mind is as nimble as this

even when a face finds me and stares.

The girl in the mirror observes me silently with

blank eyes that won’t blink, not

when I see the spangled sea-apes dip

their slow hungry arms into her eyes and scoop out

her thoughts as if they are scallops

to be eaten. (By who?) Not when I see those same

apes smack their lips and grin because

her thoughts taste             nice. She will not blink

even as a storm begins to swell, bulging

her eyes like puffer fish. The ocean shivers, contorting

the waves into Charybdis, who swills the waves

of tears as if they were wine and she could

drink and get drunk. I shy away from the girl in

the mirror distorted as waves wash over her and she unfurls

a hand, through the water, through the mirror, reaching, reaching

I blink. And when I open my eyes

the girl in the mirror is gone.

baby

There is a picture on a wall,

of a mother and her child and they smile,

one up, one down

and you can feel the sun

setting somewhere

on the scene,

like an orange, falling off an orange tree,

tumbling,

tumbling to the cold dark ground,

crashing, splitting into shattered shells of what it was,

swerving and switching course

in the gust of wind

on a jungle gym

as up and down, up and down

the child clambers up and down

and says “Mum look!” and smiles around,

beaming as if, on holy ground, any footstep will lead to God,

for that’s what Mum said,

that’s what Mum says now

as she prays for her little angel

up

in the clouds.

Short Ode to a Squashed Lizard

O Lizard thou wast long and green,

With speckled skin and scaly sheen,

Thine eyes were beads of blackest coal,

Thine legs nimble to scale the pole.

And yet, O Lizard, at the last, thou wast slain,

Thou wast squashed full out of bone and brain,

And Lizard, fair one, green one, sweet,

Thine innards were strewn upon the street.

O Lizard how thou mortal insignificance 

Betrayéd mine immoral ignorance,

For until this present accurséd hour,

I had not paused in neither tree nor bower

To admire thou, O translucent glory,

Would that Death had not been so gory.

O Lizard thou hast taught me well

And from thine stony grave do tell

The fables of a wise one, dear,

One whom, when dead, I might go near.

A Tribute to the Splendour of Little Lord Garlic

If I was the Queen of England,
I would issue a decree:
The most outrageous one you'd ever hear,
The most fantastic one you'd ever see.

It would be met with much opposition,
And many would call it a flop,
But once my decree'd been issued,
I'd've rather supported than not.
Because my decree would be marvelous,
It would reform the dullest of minds,
It would send out a light to the darkness,
be better than sight to the blind!

So,
If I were the Queen of England,
I'd play the most fabulous trick,
I'd say that a day should be set aside
to honour the glory of Garlic.

Sparkles

A thousand sparkling eyes blink at me through the wet beads,

Glowing bright yellow as they close in,

Swooping down the wide grey path in ecstatic fury

And then they fade as they pass,

Forgetting me in their rush

And frantically hurrying on in search of some foreign goal,

Private to me, but all of them share the same one

Because they all pass me and carry on with no thought for what they’ve left behind

Though they probably surge along those same paths the next day

And follow the same way as me.

But still I do not understand them

And their silent eyes flicker to tease me as they glisten

In waves of light, and in dark blankets, too.