Subterranean tunnels

in my mind

 

I glide dream

neurons

 

greeting faces

left behind.

 

Long gone lovers

stare,

 

horses graze at gates,

I used to open:

 

pathways take

me deep to

 

powerless childhood,

I strain to breathe

 

fight battles that

I’ve never won:

 

until I wake to this,

crocus blooming

 

another spring

soft breeze promise

 

thaw:

 

& new beginning.

 

 

 

 

 

Wind whips water

Hockney blue

 

white crests

surfers ride

 

sea horse:

 

sand tumbles

from beneath

 

& coral

throws itself

 

against my feet.

 

Wind fans

the heat

 

body brown

lithe follows

 

currents.

 

Isle like

a tea cup

 

in its saucer

of the sea

 

asks me to linger

under Tamarind tree

 

sleep in this cradle

always.

 

Everywhere I go

the women form

 

a cradle………

 

holding hands

across this earth

 

mothers, sisters,

aunts & daughters

 

joined in fragile

strength

 

to bind us.

 

All the places

that I’ve been

 

it’s the women

I remember most

 

looking out

for me

 

nursing sickness

healing wounds

 

like the earth herself

mother to us all

 

enthroned in

solitary blue

 

like some

omnipresent jewel

 

spinning in wonder.

 

Wind ruffles water

ripples on my skin

 

like new silk

 

undulating current

ullalah carries me

 

in ocean’s womb.

 

Sun scorches body

burns to bone

 

fingers sift sand

fragments of time

 

shattered coral

glides through.

 

Eye narrows

to catch flying

 

fish flash silver:

 

later the moonlight

casts crescent shadow

 

mad preacher screams

his song of hellfire

 

waking children

promising damnation

 

still this paradise

slip slides

 

its slice of heaven.

 

 

 

Listen here 

There is a small blue

scrap of sea…….

 

between here & there

between you and me

 

that sea swims into

ocean deep,

 

where dolphins leap

& whales sing their

 

full throat song.

 

Sometimes I hear you

in my sleep

 

whispering secrets

calling to me;

 

it’s early here

the apple tree has lost

 

its golden fruit, & the boys

walk to work

 

listening to reggae.

 

I sit alone

& drink my tea

 

thinking of me

with you

 

& you with me,

holding hands

 

across this blue blue

scrap of sea

 

each & every morning.

 

 

Underwater cover

where the fishes

swallow & glide

 

through pools of

warm subterranean

sunlight

 

bubbles in the

permeated aqua

slide of moonlight

 

Venus like a beacon

shines above fishing

boat, midnight murmur:

 

Monkey in the trees

high tide drawing me

down water to water

 

dissolving refraction:

fish spy me with

taut suspicion

 

unblinking eye;

I float till sunset

another breath

 

another restless

night passes.

 

 

 

 

Shush shush

of wave climb

 

high tide

breaks tree line

 

sun casts a

silver stairway

 

to the sky.

 

I’m tied down

bound in earth’s

 

glory

 

her lover’s touch:

rain on my skin

 

black night when

dreams haunt me.

 

Boats bob

& reform

 

nose to

windward

 

straining on their

anchor chains.

 

Sunset lingers,

an hour, a minute,

 

another second

then:

 

blue orb of earth

turns upon itself

 

& we all go

spinning onwards.

 

 

We will be more

than ‘nothing’

 

you & I

 

Oh Lord of Fire:

you who built

 

a desert of ashes

a prison of your own

 

understanding

unsure of rescue;

 

& I fly always upward

held by foreign currents

 

loathe to touch terra.

 

Each word draws these

strings tighter

 

this net of desire

complex, deep

 

some might say

deadly.

 

Tell me that we will

be more than ‘nothing’

 

that your soul sings

with my music

 

let my

 

skin hum

with new  life beat.

 

Rain in the night

stormy sea high tide

 

deep throb tug of water:

 

morning’s new horizon

too much talk, talk

 

suffocates the essence

numbs the deep dark throb

 

of it.

 

We walk in isolation

pretending to blur edges

 

talk of love tires me

words on a page

 

body’s anticipation

wanting to go down deep

 

to the nub of it.

 

Early morning

light lost to

 

rosy dawn

 

sleep frets

dream wraith

 

phantom echo

in my bed:

 

body needs;

you & me

 

riptide of the

ocean swell

 

pulling & pushing:

 

undulating rhythm.