Windswept

Seagull, mid-flight,

blown from its track,

caught in a gust of wind,

never finds its way back

but where does it

plan to descend

or if rather the case

did it have any ends?

I'd hope to think

it was fine chance

that took hold of its wing

and control of the dance,

for when you're caught

(feathered or fur)

it's rather the sign of

circumstance in the air.

Visit to a Friend

The trees still lacks leaves.

They resemble elderly men in the daylight.

Soon the hairs will regrow.

The airplane in the sky that is so distant

is visible now.

The doorbell remember me.

Freight cars are loaded and offloaded.

The baggage that is one's soul is expanding.

It thrills with its duties.

The perfectionist worries

watching his shadow grow.

Train Carriage Confessions

I find it no coincidence that you seat yourself here,

beside me,

when there are empty rows available.

Equally apparent, is that I am caught by the same instinctive attraction—

my attentive gaze greeting your curious glance

towards my pen

then

into my eyes.

Neither of us, with our timid temperaments,

have the intrepidity to initiate a decisive action of discourse, and so

I sit here

half-wishing your peregrine eyes

would pass over my obstructive shoulder

and read these confessions,

knowing them to be as true

as the light I can perceive inside of you.

Estuary and the Ebbing Light

Forget my thoughts floating down the river,

let the bank pick up stray reeds and algae

like an unrestrained dog owner with boundless and bundling

love. Let there be darkness,

allow the mouth to open up and pour brackish water

into a grey pool of jagged generations.

Clasp the sky's air, wiggle your dirty toes,

splash your knees, sing to the birds, tell my thoughts

to stop swimming upstream, where they might

find the source to be furiously underwhelming.

Floating Above Water

You approached like a red balloon
against the cerulean sky,
carving your certain way through the clouds
to catch my  sun-spotted eye.

I tried to avoid your burning gaze
hearing of the damage that could be done
but nervous glances downwards met
the placid reflection of the sun.

My tense disposition knew one way
to maintain an amiable shade,
so I smiled into the ripples
of all the paths that I have made.

Then I stretched up on to my toes
reaching your form with a pin,
and hearing the pop I closed my eyes
to immerse myself within.

The Final Stretch

A variegated verdure of tendril-like veins

vesuviate their stillatitious sudor.

Sweat sweeps down sinew strengthened trunks

with each strident stride; with each replanting of the roots,

engraving an ephemeral power

against the pot-holed pavement.

Natures' tempest, with its own truculent power, contends each giant step—

torrid torrents transfluent to the fluent pounding.

Yet each droplet,

each beat,

each step

fades...

until the spirited spurt of a storm with home in its sight

reaches the final

S        T        R         E         T         C        H.         

Flyaway

In memory, of the child

who bounced the ball into the field

and though he searched, he realized it would never return.

While the grass and the earth choked it

the child stopped and turned away for ever.

He moved on — It remained.

Cloud Walker

I dance only with colours

but the world's all black and white;

I laugh a lot in dreams,

but I can't say that of real life.

So I dwell on the threshold

of phantasmagorial bliss—

noctambulating my nepheloid nights

with feet rooted in the sun's kiss

Please Take Care This Winter

The fields resemble a landlocked lake,

the roads — a slithering stream-like snake.

An aquaplaning aquarium

that insists we take caution and test our brakes.

But the flow will always come and go,
so why let it force our pace to slow?

We're just another mild hysteria away
from a couple of centimetres of melted snow.

Specular Glare

The subsided winter sun
shimmers on a wet, winding road.
To my left, the fallen giants
kiss the dewy grounds
on a forest's edge—
and to my right,
a great body of water
consoles the other side
with a soft silent stroke.
The sun's specular glare
threatens to down my drowsy retinas
until the sanguine sunset
ceases the suffering,
reminding me that all is beautiful
whether we start or end our journeys.

Open Door

I wrestled against the whirlwinds
which strained against my every stride.
They sent dark thoughts flying wildly
to convolute and then collide.

The vacant precipitous road
that I must ascend to get back
ran with a drowning deluge
that only amplified my mind's attack.

Yet just as I was about to break
and fight against the storm no more,
my eyes averted to a yard
in which there was an open door.

The door ajar filled me with hope,
it was no entrance to be ignored,
such was its power to entrance—
the threshold for the house of the Lord.

I had walked by that church countless times
but had always noted the door to be closed,
yet I found shelter when I needed it most
and my darkest flaws had been exposed.

Perhaps that door was a sign from God,
or just a fateful union of mind and time in tune,
but if that door was left open for a reason,
the Lord know's I'm thankful—I'll be home soon.

Smudge

Rust rubbed into the black card-sky.

Bleak streetlights, a child's grubby fingertips

which smudge the silence with sounds soaring by,

joining the dots from thirty second clips.
And so the rhetoric realisation echoes a retrospective cry

but the hand that forms cannot maintain the same grip,

I smudge the anxious smile away from my diminishing dye

and extend the same stroke to my wind-chapped lips.

A Step in the Right Direction

The moon's bleach illuminates ultra-violet freckles
on your exposed shoulder-blades
as your furrowed frown searches for meaning
in the leafy silhouette of your frame.
You step into the forest's mouth and the silver halo,
which had orbited your crown, falls and fades
and with the bleaches kiss, restless thoughts are cleansed,
all wild and rash becomes tame.

Obscure Junctions

Spanners can so swift and suddenly spring;

the coils of life leap like a jack in the box.

We cannot say what the next day will bring

so we cannot be prepared for life's shocks.

The fog on the path obscures the cliff top

but we have no choice but to walk blindly,

hoping our feet don't reach the sudden drop

and, if they do, the fall treats us kindly.

We should not become bitter about the road

for it too leads us to places of joy.

This route can take us to places so broad

so we should walk; and both rise and fall enjoy.

The twists of this network can lead us dazed

so open your mind and become amazed.

Drive It All Over Me

Swimming in the salmon skies

on a Sunday afternoon.

Speeding to where softness lies

when conclusion comes too soon.

Shading in consonant sounds

to dissonant melody.

Sliding through the sun-kissed mounds

to valleys of strawberry.

Smiling upwards at the storm

with its purifying bliss.

Gazing towards my distant home

and the dreams of its soft kiss.

Stay in the Light

Monsters exist in the shadows;

and the shadows exist in my mind.

Sometimes the most fearful fabrications

are the one's we're hoping to find.

We're often told to chase our dreams

but not to follow nightmares into the black.

Let the monsters lurk in their dark

and we may find the light we lack.

Lost Guide

You've always been the greatest monument

that could guide me back to my door

when the stubborn, sullen, stormy skies

wish not to take me by the hand anymore.

But your sweet signs never seem to shine as bright

now that my lost soul is most in need of support,

and I haven't the faith to take shelter

in an institute where its guidance needs to be bought.

Won't you offer me your loving charity

with no thought for your own welfare?

Won't you take my hand and softly skip along the street,

proudly displaying your understated care?

All is Fair in the Kingdom of Ungdom

Sunshine eyes and a melting magenta smile,

make the most of the morning of youth

and radiate your love with its innocent truth

and bask in its willing warmth for a while.

Take a moment in the shade if you need

and watch your flowers of confidence grow

but do not let too much pride show

or it will weave and grow wild like weeds.

Let the rising guide your path towards the west

and your butterfly feet will float fair and free,

place your stepping stone sugar in the stream of tea

and spring across to the next ripening quest.

Poor Foal

A young foal bounds about

in the green pastures of youth.

Playfully racing the April sun,

it trys to beat the rays to the end of the green

as though dreaming of one day

becoming the speediest stallion.

Yet it strikes me

-ironically, as it will strike this poor beast-

that it is not a sense of achievement

which inspires its young legs to bound

but the cruel whip of life

which forces progress.

A Journey, of sorts...

A soggy cigarette butt glides through stroboscopic sunspots,

pushed back from the destination intended by its flicking fingers.

It ambles slowly, floats

against a concrete barrier that stops large things

from entering the sewer.

It cannot find a small gap to sift through,

and kissing the leftmost jutting concrete tooth,

it flees the gaping mouth of sewage

and comes to rest on a riverbank.