LOVE'S MYTH

Drenched in silver we are
in this halo of street lamp,
this arena of human conflict:
observed by swirling moths
who mock
the folly of two egos that clash
then tumble in spilt blood.

We've made it our mutual goal to tear
from each others reticence
our own guilty sordidness
that no direct questioning
could uncover,
beneath blame and accusation
misplaced in love turned sour.

Spitting bile, where once
kisses so tender moved Earth and Stars,
scorched body and Soul in a rapture
now consumed by it's own fury
into nothingness.
Is the myth finally exploded?
Can love ever be exclusive?

IN DREAMS...

For Heikki


Wish I could access in each night's sleep
your thoughts.
I long to look, then remember next morning
what I have seen: to transgress privacy
in the vain hope that your dreams
embrace a slightest hint of me.

Your sleep is hope's final resort -
waking hours being a lost cause.
Perhaps if I concentrate hard enough
I can reach you in lucid dreaming
and awaken possibilities of the inconceivable.



Oh, if only there was some escape
from obsession's clutches: the liturgy
of these nightly devotions
that inadequate words now attempt to record
upon this blank page.

I am the condemned prisoner:
unrequited, out-of-control emotions
govern my days
and follow me nightly
into snatched moments
of exhaustion-induced sleep, where
I am haunted by tortuous dreams
that taunt with vivid flashes
of transpersonal awareness.
I see you wrapped in the arms of a lover
not me: an eroticism uninhibited
by primal self-preservation,
but instead honed by hero-worship
into a deadly blade of destruction.
Bleeding into the abyss,
whispering desperate orisons...
I fall.

Someone must have heard -
because you're here with me now
in green. Everything is Caterham green:
team colours, your race suit, car,
the circuit track stretching out
into my future.
And in those pale, pale eyes
I glimpse a hunger
that thrills me to the core.
NOT NOW...please
I...must...not...wake up...

But the dawn chorus
is dragging me
                         back
                                  to
                                       hell.

THE MYTH OF YGRAINE (according to Google)

Inspired by Brian Miller's brilliant poem, "The Life of Brian (according to Google & not Monty Python)"


Who is Ygraine?
She is a mystic.
A soothsayer and analyst
who lives mostly inside her mind,
grasping prophecies
from within it's depths
to see the larger picture
of Fate's intentions:
a destiny of mythic proportions.

Ygraine's
solitary introspection
makes her seem aloof -
a trait some find irresistible.
Of noble de Bois descent,
she is wife to a Duke,
mistress of the King.
Do we really believe her
a mere pawn in Myrddin's plan?

Ygraine
bears Uther's son
in the draughty stone castle
on the Head of Tintagel,
where a legend is born
on this fateful day
that is here to stay
until time expires:
our Once And Future King.

So what of Ygraine
now she's played her part
in Clas Myrddin's story?
With Arthur crowned King,
her status has risen
to Queen de facto.
As for this Ygraine
who stands here before you:
well she is...unremarkable.

Many thanks for the prompt, Brian.
I had great fun with this one!

REMEMBRANCE II

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
we will remember them.
-Robert Laurence Binyon.


If tears are bleeding of the Soul,
then you must have bled to death
alone,
in silence,
unnoticed:
a tragic life story
overlooked, then lost
in the relentless torrent
of passing years.
But in the void,
somewhere in your far-flung future,
a spectral hand grew flesh
and reached out of trauma
to transcend the perimeters
of accepted feasibility...

What can I possibly tell you
of the life after death:
of your eyes set in my face,
your words slipping from my tongue,
your compassion tingling through my finger tips;
or of your Spirit's trans gender contortion
into temporarily borrowed life?
For I am simply your medium:
umbilicus to the World
you cannot leave behind.
Overshadowed,
my consciousness withdraws
as I feel you coming through...

Physical recognition:
A momentary rush of pure ecstasy,
followed by a powerful sense of foreboding.
My Soul grows heavy
with untold horrors
and I'm falling through darkness
into the murky depths
of Armageddon.
There is pain, agony,
unimaginable apprehension.
My nostrils are filled with the sickening stench
of  decaying flesh.
I want to close my eyes
to the sight of severed limbs,
blood and entrails:
block my ears to the sounds
of these screams of agony.
But spiritual eyes cannot close,
nor ears be covered.
Insanity is a serious threat.

Identity has shifted:
no longer female, I am you.
Time, also, is dislocated.
This is the Somme.
It is 1916.
Words struggle to form
in my larynx...
now burst forth
in familiar masculine voice:
"THERE MUST NEVER BE ANOTHER WAR!"

Weakened to the point of collapse,
I can take no more of this ghastly reality -
at least, not in a single channelling.
You understand,
begin to pull back...and yet
I want to throw my arms around you:
to hold on to you for all eternity
and absorb your suffering
into my own being.
But I cannot,
am not yet strong enough.
The enormity of such heart-rending torment
would surely destroy me.
Still, you and I are Soul Mates.
Bonded since the beginning of time,
it is our shared destiny
to overcome these monstrous challenges,
then eventually move on into the Light.
It is inevitable.
We both know that.

You are fading away now
into the ether.
Part of me longs to go with you,
but mortality holds me back.
I am grounding.

Exhausted,
tear-stained
and emotionally drained,
I desperately need to sleep now...


For William Barnsley Allen...so much more than a memory.

 

HERNE THE HUNTER

Nightfall at Windsor Great Park.
Faint echo of a hunting horn
announces the blurring of time...


Phantom-like he appears
out of brushwood and frosted ferns
and all wildlife in the slumbering forest
shake the sleep from their heads - then freeze
in deference to the Master's approach.

An owl hoots in response to his presence.
Then, unseen, it takes to the air,
as animals of every kind
come creeping through the undergrowth
to line His path back home.

This avenue of knowing eyes
observe His metamorphosis:
watch antlers sprout from skull of man
and from within Him Odin rise
to head the Wild Hunt.

Without a sound, they thunder through
the depths of ancient forest
seeking once more that Golden Age
when the Gods of yesterday held sway
and the One was as yet unconceived.

CONQUISTADOR

Conquistador, now the Angel of Death
comes seeking your heart of stone,
is it cursed by the slightest hint of remorse
for the countless cultures misunderstood
that you've razed to molten ash?

Remember your past - that corner of Spain
that, for you, was never enough;
until raging avarice eclipsed humanity
to incite a full-scale insurrection
that exploded across the globe.

To build an empire you would stop at nothing,
so conned from the Aztecs their gold.
Their simple ways incensed you so
and architecture dedicated to unknown Gods
disturbed you, so had to go.

Terrified of your might, they fled and hid
behind barricaded windows and doors.
Such cowardice made you despise them more:
fired instinct to crush any weak resistance,
along with their pointless lives.

So you rode on a brutal rampage and torched
every straw-clad dwelling, then averted
your face from the heat of the raging furnace -
until a piteous sobbing reached your ears.
You looked back...and your stomach lurched.

There beside the embers a cowering young girl,
smoke blackened, gazed up at you.
You lifted her up and felt her tremble.
Her soft helpless body clung to yours,
silently for mercy begging.

Something alien touched you then:
compassion...and a need to be seen
as something other than what you were.
So you lifted her up onto your stallion
and from the carnage galloped away.

Soon the odour of burning flesh
was no more than the guilty recall
of a past in denial and the promise to come -
if she would only believe your lying tongue
when her saviour you claimed to be.

Well, you possessed her body but not so her Soul -
that part of her seemed to know better.
In fact, the thing you now desperately craved
had already perished in the hellish flames,
along with all those she had loved.

So what you held then was empty and cold.
In frustration, you struck her hard.
Was it that for once you had no control
over someone who aroused in you a love
that for the first time wasn't carnal alone?

Or perhaps it was the image of molten ash
in your conscience insidiously smouldering
that drove you to run her through with your sword...
then cry like a baby as her dying eyes
transfixed you in their basilisk stare.

Illustration courtesy of Google Images.

CROSSFIRE

A blazing row:
wounds inflicted
with intent
to damage Soul
and make a dent
in ego's stronghold.

A deadly game
of table tennis.
Each strike
precisely aimed
at opponent's
self-esteem.

Last word:
the prized trophy
fanatically sought,
amid threats
of self-destruction.
Emotional blackmail.

To be the victor
at any cost:
poison arrows
pierce the air,
miss the mark,
injure bystander -

by wishing to be
my lost child
instead of he.
Caught in the crossfire
just because I'm here.