Being Under and Down

Knew that sensation of being under and down

Shedding light skin rubbed smudged bunching dull edges

Infinitude left in the moment carries right right the way down

Inner thighs the bruised breath the head rests near the bevel

Undone beneath brow ridge the eye suns in the sundown

Cast arcs reaching far past the cave where heart gauges

Thumps fear beats the loudest the darkest is down

Prise prison til lengthen the sentence lies down

Narrow scent sent long long hallways serious sound

Check echoes of memory the trail follows the ground down

Shoulders relay it follows rolling train of the serpentine spine

Phantom arms yearn for knowledge from every ledge down

No hips hold such blood vesselled in delicate harbour

Sorrow shifts levels tails ripples in destinies down

Marrow and morrow and endless days laying down

Subterranean terrors near carefully sharpened sense

Eyes are streaming dreams in the darkened way down

Shutters of shadows flashing light waves listing in rhymes

Borrowed burrowed furrowed the body smoothes it down

The groove grows the road ploughs rows tossed in dust

Childhead turns in undertows mid time laid down

30 - 11 - 10

Rest My Tired Soul

Rest, my tired soul
At the foot of this falling water.
See the wide arms of softened rock
Woven again into moss and bush
Welcome my small body on this opposite bank.

Hush, my climbing thoughts.
Let the rustle and the lisp of lacy water
Brush my mind away, and listen
For the gulp and the swallow under this
Where bass notes on rocky chambers play.

Sing, my worn-out senses.
See the beak of blackbird dipping
And the scuttling, skipping of his feet
Take a rising path through leaves and moss
All the way up this wet-soaked bank.

Feel, my frozen clay of skin.
Count the waves of ripples swaying
Folding the light towards my feet
The sweep of breeze and green fronds nodding
Yes, I’m related to this scene.

Pause, my moving life.
Study the constancy of this waterfall
The left, the right, the middle paths white
Of milk of Mother Nature’s dream
Casting small boats of fleck and bubble before me.

Warm, my tired heart and mind.
This course of life-renewing kindness
Is written within me too, my body’s tides
Of falling and rising waves of energy
Are held by earth and stream and sun.

19 – 11 – 2010

Hands Loosely Folded In Prayer

Hands loosely folded in prayer
Thumbs touch, resting like lover’s heads
He below, she leaning in, shared
Wonderment in the flowerbed’s
Soft pillow, the day above in blue
And should the night roll right around
Like a counterweight, the view
Of heaven’s host of lights be found.

Hands loosely folded in prayer
Lips want to kiss the cool thumbnails
Two half-moons under shiny veils
And nostrils rest and draw upon
The air and light from father, son,
One hand the parent to the other
The space they share, theirs discovered
A place for holy spirit there.

Hands loosely folded in prayer
Fingertips touch the mountainous knuckles
Like unborn children’s heads to knees.
Before the bosom, one’s childhood suckles
Upon itself in dreaming seas
And so the hands become a womb
Enfolded spirals like seashell rooms
Breath at the foot of the stairs.

Hands loosely folded in prayer
Fingers make furrows across a mound
A fertile world, two roots going down
To elbows anchored near the hips
The space between where eyes like ships
Approaching a bright new world explore
The fissures leading to the core
The fecund treasure there.

Hands loosely folded in prayer
The folded fingers a double roof
The heels of palms the floor, the hooves
Of goats that press on angled walls
Starlight streaming above the stalls
Thumbs move now from lips to forehead
Third eye the star that sees the bed
And the baby cradled there.

18 - 11- 2010