OXFORD

Purple voices, rich and rare,
Glowing in the jeweled air,
Handling esoteric themes,
Mysteries like running streams
Dammed with unexpected care
Into almost-answered prayer
Where you’d think no calmness could
In the wildest of the wood.
Thoughts and unknown meanings dance,
Wordwise weave you in a trance,
Darkly glowing, rich and rare,
Purple voices, glowing air.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2006

NEVADA

The light in your eyes is as the sun rising behind mountains in a cloudless sky.
Your smile is like the first rain falling on desert land.
The memory of you is like a long-forgotten childhood song.
Your wisdom is like a fresh breeze springing up, slapping slack ropes against their masts.
Your being gives the seasons to my life.
If you should ever go, and take the sun and rain, the breezes and my youth,
I’d sit in the dark cave of my heart, feeling its dry walls crumble into dust.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2006

MY LIFE TWISTS

My life twists
Dangling in the mists
A spider in the earliest hint of dawn.
My mind roams
Lost in a thousand homes,
Amnesiac messenger still trying to warn.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2008

MOON LANDING, 1969

All the little people
Who lived on the Moon
Went into hiding,
Not a bit too soon.

Nixon promised cars and cokes
And Nixon promised strings,
But they were worse than Communists
And didn’t want such things.

So, in case the President
Got it in his head
To bomb the little Moonies
If he thought that they were red,

All the little people
Who lived on the Moon
Went into hiding,
Not a bit too soon.

They tore up all their houses
And they spread some dust around,
And dug up all the trees they had
And took them underground.

When Nixon saw the mess they’d left,
The craters, rocks and sand,
He said on TV coast to coast
“We’ve reached the Promised Land.”

“Since the week of the Creation”
(As Old Glory was unfurled)
“This week is the greatest
“In the history of the world.”

“Americans” he said, “Revere
“The steps that we have trod;
“This here’s the new Paradise;
“And this time, guess who’s God.”

But what with bombing Communists
And wasting oil and men,
America’s resources
Were back to scratch again.

They cut back on expansion
And left alone the Moon,
And all the little people said
“Not a bit too soon!”

They put back all their houses
And replanted all their trees,
And as they passed a pipe around
They said to God, “O please –

“We know those people are a mess,
“And bound for trouble soon,
“But with a little less, they’d be
“As happy as the Moon.”

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

CRYO LIMERICK

The correct thing to do, when you're dead,
Is have someone take care of your head.
There's no chance of more drama
Without Futurama -
Don't say you weren't warned! Act, instead!

Published online: Transhumanity, November 2005

THE THIEF

More than the actual loss, it’s helplessness
That we most loathe when suffering a theft:
The arbitrary way one daring, deft,
Brass act leaves careful order in a mess;
The knowledge the thief’s wilder and cares less;
The easy way he tears the warp and weft
Of dull security; the insight left
The cosmos can as quickly curse as bless.

Therefore the fears are mostly overblown –
The thief himself causes no loss or strife
More than insurance or day’s work redeems.
But there’s a greater thief, and more unknown,
Who comes each night and steals one third your life,
Leaving no more than fingerprints, your dreams.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2008

GRIM REAPER

The Reaper, with hourglass and hoar locks,
Sees me dreaming of witches and warlocks,
Of doing and fighting,
Of loving, of writing,
Taps my shoulder and says “I’m from Porlock’s.”

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, October 2008

WARRIOR

His armor is silver, his ’chute is khaki,
A grenade on his belt, and a shield on his arm;
And she thinks of the kiss by the loom and TV
And his camouflaged, war-painted lost face’s charm.

He went off with his pals in the longship and jeep,
As brave as his rockets in the boat prow.
And disease, gas and tomahawk put him to sleep….
What is his mouth, to laugh or kiss now?

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

NORTH AMERICAN FALL

The red leaves in the sunshine are
So red! So red! So red!
There are no buried Caesars here – instead,
The dispossessed of all the Earth,
With native wisdoms, human worth,
Bleed through the trees like a reopened scar.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2008

MAYA

When God took Time to spin a length of Matter,
And, nothing at each end, tied the ends together,
He held between his fingers and surveyed
The first cat’s-cradle, and since then has played.

Flames dazzle, dance, and fade to a friend’s face;
Dogs mime all features of the human race;
The willow weaves a walker from the air;
All Nature helps us see things that aren’t there.

To read Life’s Meanings, we must write the text:
What’s Right one day is often Wrong the next –
I’m rich or poor only as I profess,
Must ask your love or hate, for you can’t guess.

If love’s illusion, so are hate and fear…
Why not choose love?, when it’s so great, and near?!

Published: Rubies In The Darkness, UK, Summer 2005