A wizened creature once I met
  Upon a dusty road
As I was hiking thru' Tibet
  Some seven year ago.

A wee old lama, bent with age -
  His brown, wind-burnished skin
Did make him seem much more the sage
  Than th'rosary 'neath his chin.

An orange robe, a begging-cup,
  Bifocals - all his load.
Together we drank tea and supped
  Beside the mountain road.

He babbled in some monkish tongue
  I could not understand,
And flashed white teeth by setting sun,
  And gestured with his hands.

But when the stars shone brightly out
  And night was burning cold,
He gazed up, silent and devout
  As stone - steady and old.

At last I fell to weary rest,
  My blanket on the ground.
I may have dreamed, yet I attest
  I heard a chanting sound.

At dawn I woke, and looking 'round,
  I found my camping chum
Who smiled at me without a sound
  And down the trail did run.

My eyes in morning light may have
  With drowsy senses toyed,
But I will swear that down the path
  There ran a laughing boy!

May 15, 2003

A girl's portrait seen in the morning,
As fresh to the eyes as sun's rising
Soft orange on paling blue.
Post-colonial youth in her summer dress
And white hat -- red ribbons in her hair,
Caught before flowers.

None of my portraits show such
A gentleman in a boy, as there's a lady
In that girl. I have not lived enough.
To come only some score of miles
In as many years; 'tis scarce milieu enough
To frame so telling a pose of me.

But the cares of the world are in her now
As they are in me. Do I give credit
For the hint of that girl, and cheat
Myself of like advantage?
Warm but weary this early morning,
Have my cares tried me no less?

You and I made a happy day
Of youth in the city. And tho'
We knew ourselves no purer than this city,
With its sad-shameful-rushing life --
Still for a moment, you sat on flowers,
And I was a young gentleman
   With a clumsy bouquet of daisies,
   And my five-year-old's kiss.

February 25, 2005

O what a Story we'll tell them,
   You and I
of watching the evening Sun float orange
   below the Mountains and above the Clouds
of dancing across the Night, bodiless and free
of how we sang at the Stars
   and they embraced us
how we cried for lack of Words
   and laughed, because Words were no use
how we flew to Eternity, and swung past Forever
   and returned with grief-tight Heartstrings
for Eternity was too small for both
      of I loving You
      and You, loving Me.

August 19, 2004

Tell, what are we? Each but a bird
Frail wingèd motes a-fluttering
And song so faint as can't be heard
For all we aim at thundering

What world is this? 'Tis but a hall
Yet bright with candles flickering
Bleak Time lurks black without the walls
And silent, waits, while snickering

The shutters op'ed to darkness be
To heartless aeons beyond count
Nor may light e'er hope to see
But aught without, or night surmount

From whence came we? There is no name
Known for that vastly distant fount
Afore our souls laid bodies claim
For where they did in birthing mount

Yet here we are, we motley flock
Though close - sad, lonely, terrified
Broke free to light with joyous shock
We squeak (call'd - 'laugh') at time defied

Be some amongst us, risen up
They; lauded, envied, deified
While others drink the other cup
Who weep as though they ne'er had cried

Though some flapped hither from the dark
Swift-arrow'd, others brokenly
Swan, tern or eagle, gull or lark
Came all with fearful urgency

And though we feel such homely fit
In this inept community
We hover e'er, and none will lit
For flapping we've an affinity

Yet comes a day when each, his wings
More heavy grow than's bearable
Each rapid, fleeting moment clings
And wearies incomparable

The window, where once all came in
From vastness inconceivable
And long forgot, yet now begins
To beckon, and seem usable

So presently each bird deigns leave
This hall's enfolding sanctity
While wond'ring new can scare conceive
What calls them to Eternity

Quick horror, waked deep in the breast
Is spurred by such insanity
But - tiny, helpless, at our best
We bid them leave, whom ne'er we'll see

Each but a bird, each 'ere long flown
To aimless, wand'ring limbo
And all the life that each has known
Was but a beat, 'twixt windows

November 21, 2002

Not 'til your spectacle of colour had ended–
Your bright face slipping behind the curtain of the horizon;
Nor 'til the rich, golden green you threw upon the trees
Richened and darkened into silhouette;
Not before your glow had drawn on the azure,
The cerulean, lapis, sapphire and midnight
And the shades at last were too deep for my eye–
Only when your pale reflection in the moon
And the lesser stars were all that remained
Did I look down at my shoes, and kick a stone,
Turn away from the west and the irrecoverable day,
And, hands in my pockets, step towards the morning.

What a glorious fortification!
This wall on the old city - what history it has seen!
Crumbling with age, the flesh,
Dry mortar rotting away
From the bones of it, the weighty blocks.
Worn smooth without by wind,
Eroded-
Yet still strong and wise, for having known
The separation of things, and so governed.

See how it lurks, that rude
Construction! Unnatural wall, aping cliffs,
Still brutal in its bulk, though - a dead hedge,
Messy but unbroken,
Intimidating in the dark. Its gate, that
Too-small mouth, is fed and shut for night.
Without she waits, and here stand I
Against the cold flank, insurmountable.

May 2, 2003

Nightingale

Her laugh held music
Small and sweet as the bright songs
And the names of birds

War

The world is but a
Theatre; here caper and jest
The ill-famed players

April 21, 2003

Plunder

Why, loving Nature
Do you talk of Bounty or
Wealth, as if Jealous?

January 30, 2006

In a low room,
In a dry land,
In the dirty dark,
In an alley
The student kills the master over a woman with
A knife in the back, the way he was trained.
Now the blades still dance in his head
Waiting
Waiting

In a basement,
In a lazy city,
In the flickering light,
In a computer
Lies the line of code that will topple governments;
A self-mutating virus, the next generation,
The bits dancing in a magnetic cage,
Waiting
Waiting

In a hole in the ground,
In a steamy jungle,
In the dirt,
In a metal box
A guerilla hides a piece of the hate in his soul,
A fragmentation grenade, six ounces of TNT.
The worms dance slowly in the dirt above,
Waiting
Waiting

In a vial,
In a laboratory,
In the clean, dead glow of fluorescents,
In a centrifuge
A brilliant mind sees his life work.
A fragment of DNA, invisible bottled death,
The molecules dancing, coiling, spinning,
Waiting
Waiting

In a sealed cave,
In an abandoned mine,
In the year ten thousand,
In perfect silence
There is the truth of mankind, a marvel of technology,
Fifteen megatonnes, in the dark,
Perfect, dormant, soft with dust,
The atoms quiet, gently shivering,
Waiting
Waiting

August 21, 2003

...

When in search of inspiration positively lyrical,
Dictionaries and thesauri seem so antithetical.
So, the application of conjecture theoretical
Is quite inconsequential in all matters dialectical.

One thus functions readily as the source of aggravation to
Luminaries numinous exalted by their nations, whose
Mastery of language evokes terror and elation (Few
Admirers may aspire to sound but thereto in relation crude).

We regardless author stanzas awkward and voluminous -
Masticating consonants so dangerously venomous
That critics in defenestration expedite away from us:
To them our opening verses sound not musical but ominous!

Therefore let vocabularies unendowed not temporize;
Encapsulating beauty is no pastime for untutored tries.
Poetic genius is solely congenital, and not a prize -
Fallacies and lies, the stock of those who exhort otherwise!

May 14, 2003

I

That I can be overtaken by music -
   Made to resonate in my very bones;
That I can be filled with rage -
   So much so that it spills out;
That terror may transfix me;
That I mourn the minutes of the day, yet
   Seek the passing of the years,
   My coming of age;
That each face holds minutiae to ponder, and
   Each moment is a sea of such faces -
I take this as proof that I am inadequate
   To the vast glory of being alive.

II

What is mastery?
What is-
   Control?
Can any infinitesimal thing not overwhelm?
Do you truly believe your life is managed,
   That things are mapped out,
   That you know what you need know?
How so, when every thing has a need to be known?
How so - have you closed yourself,
   Lost your curiosity?
Have you lost your mind?

III

You told me once that Israel was right,
   That Palestine was right.
You said you had a definite political stance.
Did you know that fifty people can
   Shake hands twelve-hundred-and-fifty times?
You said you understood the Balkans -
   How many hairs are on your head?
You told me big business was evil, and
   Activists were anarchists.
You feel you know what sort of person God is, and
   What he wants you to do.

IV

She tossed her hair and laughed.
She said I was misguided,
Dared call me immature,
Confused (I'd told her I believed in general
   Values, but couldn't judge cases).
She said to take a position,
   My way or the highway.
I asked if we were at war
She said I had a right to an opinion, so
   I'd better hold one.
I asked which one.
Well if it's not mine, it's wrong.

V

I can't find it.
Am I not grown?
I can't find anything solid.
Am I weak?
I can't find the lines that divide things.
Am I blind?
I think I can see;
I think anything can be a gradient,
   Like the sunset -
I think there should be a billion axes
   On every spectrum, but
   I can't tell you where they are.

VI

I'm lost and I think it's beautiful.
Nothing is steady, and I love it.
Am I strong?
Maybe.
Maybe I really left the womb, and
   You just want back in.
Maybe she's encasing herself,
Maybe.

VII

Listen to me, I said to her,
Hear me out.
All I'm trying to say is this,
   It goes like this.
You're wrong to think you can be right,
   And right if you feel
   You're always a little wrong.

June 15, 2003

why do you look to the future?
your shining goal,
the gold at rainbow's end,
blinds you to the rocky ground.

why do you lean on history?
the wisdom of ancestors,
ritual and tradition,
bring you to known ends.

your ties to your hopes, they are a noose.
they will choke you! cut them!
your obedience to the past, it is a heavy chain.
it will drown you! cast it off!

instead live in the present
which will neither lead you
   where you have been,
   nor where you were going;
but will keep you
   exactly where you are.

October 15, 2004

I dread women, for I have given them cause for revenge
  By searching with knowing eye for weaknesses;
  By attending to them with conscious craft.
Willingly showing fanged smiles, and allowing
  The cunning eye-gleam to be for fondness taken -
Knowingly moving them with a puppeteer's deft touch
  Upon the body-strings and the heart-strings -
Slyly in sweet whisper cloaking goads to cast myself
  Light of their days, and ache of their nights -
To a tune of my choosing they I made them to dance
  And revelled in the clever play of my power.

But on some unchosen day one will come to make me
  A willing slave through my own cynical craft.
Though I see the net cast in her whispers,
  Still it may ensare me and seduce my mind.
Though I find myself bound, I would strive vainly
  To be loosed from the twitch of her gentle threads.
Though in her smile phantom sharpness and venom I espy,
  Still she may sting me with feverish desire.
I will be held thrall by my weakness, without power
  To help myself. I shall yearn to dance for her
  And parrot the tunes which she makes me sing.

May 15, 2005

I

There's the Salt Road, the Spice Road, the High Road and Low one
The Whale Road, the Silk Road, the Iron Road and Gold,
The Sky Road, the Sea Road, the Northwestern Passage,
Each road's called a name it alone ever holds.

Each road has its lore of songs, stories and dances,
Which are danced by the campfire or watering post,
And ev'ry great road is known most intimately
By the weary old feet that have travelled it most.

II

Thro' vast quiet forest, wavy prairie or ocean,
Thro' mountains, great snow-dusted silicate bones,
Thro' high silent halls and sun-ravaged desert
Each road traces lines through its natural home.

Each road has its camels or oxen or horses,
Its lorries or tankers or thundering jets -
And prized are the men (or in some cases women)
Whose touches and voices can handle them best.

III

Countless inns, campsites, wayhouses, clearings and harbours
Offer sleep, food and comfort; dice, love, gossip and drink.
In the face of minstrels and lovers and barmen
Each road has more signposts than the unseasoned think.

Each road has great villians, and still greater heroes,
Who've braved the worst weather or done the worst crimes.
Great gamblers there are who name Luck as their lady -
For she's brought them the risky routes dozens of times.

IV

It's taxes, or armies, or foodstuffs or tradegoods,
Or moving the mail or the government man -
That the travellers care for it's a separate issue;
Each road's got a cause for the distance it spans.

Each road has its throughways of shouldering traffic
And long lonely stretches or solitary ways.
The fairs and great cities draw the travellers together,
While the dead-ended tracks lead the mapless astray.

--

I have seen many roads, read and heard of their wonders;
I've fallen in love with their twists and their bends,
But it pains me there's some that I may never travel
And some I may walk without reaching an end.

April 1, 2005

O! what sweet death is Sleep that softly comes
To stand in cloying darkness 'side the bed,
When th' heart's slow beating sounds of distant drums
And drooping lids shroud eyes in drowsy head.
The meager ghostly light of moon and stars
That casts not shapes but shadows by the door-
It darkens shelves and chair and desk and drawers
That clear at noontime were but are no more.
Enchanted lashes fall across the gleams
The shadowed room fades black and falls away
As reason'd mind gives way to thoughtless dream
And beck'ning peace submerges soft dismay.
If Sleep apes endless slumber, 'tis not known;
Our lives are not as days, new-dawned, once flown.

March 26, 2003

Sure as detergents sting the eye,
   The white non-smell of soap -
To Fido's nose must reek of lye;
   Your cleanness is a joke!

February 23, 2005

That angry grove in th'ancient wood,
With primal oak-trunks girded 'round -
Devoid of man and beast it stood
With rampant grasses on the ground.

That witching grove in daylight shone,
With harsher light of younger sun.
By time abandoned, th'evil lawn
Does never feel the seasons run.

That self-same grove in moonlight glares.
Its stone of ancient sacrifice -
Like bone in grass the slab is bared;
Forgotten sorcery's device.

For in that grove, alone there claws
A twisted tree that rakes the night.
The frozen starlight never thaws
Those stony branches' twinèd height.

In silent grove's too-empty air
Unquiet spirits cluster thick.
On night's far side the ghastly fair
Rails loud against that monstrous trick -

Which in foul grove their lifeblood spilled,
A crimson flood on verdant floor.
The naked tree their nectar swilled
Up through its granite roots and pores.

Deserted grove, for ages left
Hidden deep in oak-wood's heart.
Yet will persist the reek of theft
Until the staring stars depart.

April 29, 2003

Nor did traitorous Judas have the gall
To scrawl his name upon the bloody Cross
For all to see; nor did Oedipus,
Once blinded, mark his father's stolen hall.
This criminal, who sawed through oaken bone,
Thought otherwise, and left his oblong spoor
Atop the several feet - he meant a lure
To advertise his brutal trade, here shown.
No joy I find in death of healthy trees -
The hacking, sawing, tearing of green boles,
Felling that which else would stand for years.
No, reason cannot to me show degrees
That justify in canopies huge holes
Or naked trunk-stems like that fractured here.

May 15, 2003

How holy thinkèst thou thyself to be!
Thou art but blood and dust and brittle bone.
What virtue doth thou claim as thy sole own
That mayst so loudy rail and rant at me?
What arrogance, what pride, what vanity!
To be, as thou art, of the world and yet
To list, as thou list, straight alone to get
Up o'er it, in unique impunity.
I daily err, eke thy fate is to,
I know my flaw, while thou thy same deny.
I hunger not mine nature to bely,
Whilst thou, to be thyself, are loth to do.
   Canst thou not see thy fault is thine to mend,
   Lest bitter be thy life, and quick thine end?

January 23, 2005

Curling itself around the hoary walls and
Chimneys, squeezing out thin threads of smoke;
Testing its tongue in doors and drafty halls --
Cold snout on naked cheek and opened throat.
Prints the span of cities freeze the walks,
Flushing wind-bit with sharpy breath, and
Wreathing breath with vapours as we talk, it
Seeps through frosted panes whene'er we rest.
Within its glassy bulk the light so leaps, in
Blues deep, whites bright, crisp'd to tear the eye --
Stars wax bright in night's more inky deep, and
Lamps spill golden rays to pierce its hide.
   Round the equinox it sports and plays,
   Then lolls about 'til March, and runs away.

January 30, 2006