Dreams

Dawn

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Kingsbrae 12.1
12 June 2017

Dawn

… early morning sunshine
creepy-crawly spider leg rays
climbing over window and wall
my bed-nest alive to light
not night’s star twinkle
but the sun’s egg breaking
its golden yolk
gilding sheet and pillow
billowing day dreams
through my still sleepy head …

… the word feast festering
gathering its inner glimpses
interior life of wind and wave
the elements laid out before us
our banquet of festivities
white the table cloth
golden the woodwork’s glow
mind and matter polished
and the sun show shimmering
its morning glory on garden and porch …

Dawn

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Kingsbrae 11.1
11 June 2017

Dawn

Early morning sunshine
creepy-crawly its spider
-limb rays, as it climbs
over window and wall

My bed nest alive to light
not moonlight nor
night’s star twinkle but
the sun’s egg breaking
its golden yolk gilding
sheet and pillow as day
-dreams cast flickering
shadows black and white
on the cave wall screens
lining my still sleepy head

Mist

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Kingsbrae 10.2
10 June 2017

Mist

Tisty-tosty ,
this morning mist,
white wisps
blindfolding bushes,
draping our world
with silent birds.

Eyes out of focus,
we squint
at shape and form,
mystery in the magic
of movement,
the air a-shimmer,
spider webs glistening.

Long lost sailors
return from distant seas,
dead warriors wake,
our ancestors walk
backwards in time
to greet us
in this mythical
dreamland that swathes
our senses,
wrapping us
in the mystery of mist.

Pan pipes:
a melancholy melody ,
memories
moving among the reeds.

AWOL

 

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Kingsbrae 9.2
9 June 2017

AWOL

Two days ago,
earthworms squirmed wet
through pock-marked puddles.

Yesterday,
they lay shriveled,
dried out and dying
on the sun-warmed drive.

Today,
grey skies greet us.
The sun has gone on walkabout.

Absent without leave,
he has abandoned us again
and left our world
shivering in the shadows.

Will all those dead worms
come back to life
and squirm through the puddles
forecast for tonight?

Tomorrow,
who knows what will happen?
Rivers and seas continue to rise,
water threatens to drown the land,
and we dream of the second coming:
Noah and his spaceship Ark.

Rainbow

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Rainbow

I dreamed last night
that angels lofted me
skywards and wrapped me
in cotton-wool clouds.

The nearest rainbow
was a helter-skelter
that returned me to earth
where I landed in a pot
of golden sunlight.

Red, gold, and yellow
were my hands and face.
I stood rooted like
an autumn tree covered
in fall foliage with
no trace of winter’s woe.

“May this moment last
forever,” I murmured,
as the rainbow sparkled
and I rejoiced in
my many-colored coat.

It’s Over

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It’s Over

The big top’s empty now.
The crowd’s gone home.
The trainer’s put down his whip
and lions and tigers are safely
asleep back in their cages.
Dim are lime and spotlights.
Yellow glow caravan windows
as juggler and clowns wipe
clean their grease paint smiles,
strip off their sequined clothes,
and prepare for bed. One by one,
the lights go out until darkness
rules menagerie and circus.
Only in the heads of little boys
and girls do the dancers still dance,
the ponies still prance, the tamers
still crack their whips and hold up
their chairs to keep wild animals
glued to their perches, while high
above, in the bedroom’s canvas roof
wire walkers strut their stuff, above
white sheets and the safety nets
of Teddy clutched, and mattress.

Weird

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Weird

Weird these words
dropping in inky
drops from pen end
poised above paper:
a variety of poses.

Not for me the key
-board’s voluminous
vocabulary, nor the tap,
tap, tap, fingers on lap
top to search for a word,
an idea, a distraction
just a tap away.

For me, the slow flow
of thought, the clumping
together of the mind’s
pretty litter of ideas
milked slowly, one by
one from a cornucopia:
happy creativity.

Teddy Bear Tales TBT 1

 

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Oppressive-Possessives
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 Teddy Bear Tales 1

 “Possessives are oppressive,” my Teddy Bear whispers in my ear. “I’m not your Teddy and you’re neither my owner nor my master. The world exists without you possessing it. It will continue without you. And yes, I hear you, especially when you talk in your sleep. ‘My wife,’ you mutter, ‘my daughter, my flowers, my garden, my lawn, my birds, my bees, my deer, my house, my grounds, my groundhog, my car, my TV, my team, my Teddy.’ Well, permit me to share a secret with you. None of them are yours. You may think you own them, but you don’t.”

“My God …” I sat up in bed and held my Teddy Bear at arm’s length, staring into his button eyes.

“There you go again,” Teddy stared right back at me. “Whatever are you thinking? Those two little words, yours and mine, are a threat to the universe.”

Sun

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Sun

The sun has decided to take a vacation.
He’s left us and gone down to Mexico
for a week or two. Right now I think
he’s in the main square in Oaxaca.

He’s wearing a flashy, floral shirt
and a panama hat and he’s sunning
himself in El Jardin as he sits in the shade
and sips his ice-cold Oaxacan beer.

This evening he will go to Monte Alban
to see himself set. Tomorrow, bright
and early, he’ll pop over the mountains
to Puerto Escondido where he’ll gild
sand castles and play games on the beach.

I know where he is, because he sent me
a postcard saying “Having a great time.
Wish you were here.” I miss him so much.
I really do hope he’ll come home soon.

Comment: Today is my father’s birthday. He would have been 107 years old. I was thinking of him this morning, how he loved the sunshine, the sea, and his glass of cold beer. He also liked to travel. I don’t think he ever went to Mexico, but he would have loved Oaxaca and the beaches at Huatulco and Puerto Escondido. He would have appreciated the old temple compound and palaces at Monte Alban.  I thought of calling this poem, this ‘very raw’ poem, Sun & Son, but it’s all about him really, the Sun as warmth and protector and father, and the Son as missing the Sun.

Hastings

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Hastings

A cloud on the horizon
no bigger than a small boy’s hand
turns into a sail and then
a sailing fleet,
an armada of hostility
sailing towards our shores.

Shield upon shield the shield wall
binds itself together,
becomes impregnable

Loud the clamor,
the raising of voices,
the heavens split asunder
by a sharp hail of arrows,
closer the enemy now,
and arrows become spears
their sharp heads
tumbling from the turbulent sky.

Fate hangs now on a single arrow
protruding from the royal eye.

Faith falters.
The shield wall, firm at first,
breaks now and the house carls,
one by one,
fall like corn
beneath sharpened blades,
to wither and die as all men die.