Virgo

The reach of the outstretched 

Hand to heaven and Earth,

Stretching for the touch

Of love and star-strewn mystery.

My services are offered

As a rose is placed

On the burning altar of life,

Blood-red and beating

With urgency of final breath.

Only when breasts are torn

And gathered anew

Can tears of unspeakable sadness

Wipe the air clean with their

Salty sweetness.

This is the stuff of dreams;

Of broken promises and stones left unturned.

Yet somewhere, between the rocks

And scattered seeds,

Love lurks and sings its lonely song.

What can I offer

You pulsing heart of life?

My breath and daily death?

Bone and beating echoes

Of an original kiss?

Yours is the face I turn to, 

The eyes that shine in 

My own.

The light that holds all darkness.

How is it that this can be?

Stories within stories

And worlds within worlds, 

That wrestle attention

From installed thinking.

Unavoidable is the decay,

Of flesh and fat-wrapped sections.

Yet desperately I must know

What it is I can do.

What is it?

This is the beautiful risk,

Raised voices screaming yes to ‘yet’. 

Uncertainty is all I can fall on,

Trust and take to the bed of my heart, 

As slip I do beneath such waves

That pounding, kiss shores of infinity.

I drown in desperation to serve.

I know I must,

Or turn to dust.

This much is clear.

To pay the debt,

[Dead-reckoned each end of day]

That taking of life’s fat Marrow accrues,

Is the privilege of my heart.

Come then, rain and shine,

The oak and pine;

Space there is

In every nook and cranny.

For from the gaps pours liquid light

Bent bright with a love of living.

Bathe and be baptised

In water that whets the soul

And draws spirit to its oft-licked lips.

This is the Mother and Father

Whose offspring flood this world

With a ransacked meaning.

Their games are deep and deadly,

Announcing  intent

To bring birth in this world

Of a child so free of self-pity,

That flowers bloom in the 

Wake of its swollen footfalls. 

This is THE treasure

Of ancient repute,

Whose polished shimmer still

Is but a raped reflection

Of that I cannot call to word.

Only in silence.

So come, lend an ear

[And heart if you can]

To this voice of ages.

‘Serve and serve and serve again

For when you go

I know not when’.

Now is always the time, 

In past, present or future,

Whose tense is really a tension;

The agitated state of possible departure,

Feeding flames of naked purpose, 

When all is stripped to

The very bone. 

The walls are high and mighty.

I myself built them

And only I can remove them,

Brick by brick.

This in my choice

And yes I choose it.

And now what chomping challenges

Are safe within these boundaries?

I’ve set the guard

To walk the walls and sing

If shadows dark the horizon.

I sleep with one eye open,

A hungry sword by my side,

Whose cut is deep [so very deep]

To the very depths of forgiveness.

Of what am I afraid?

The most painful death

Is NOT living,

A killing of the fear

And fullness of a breaking heart

That longs to swim in the tides

Of your salted bloodstream.

So why cut corn before

Ripeness splits its sides wide open

And stone-dead kill its chance

Of fertile ground?

Your haste for happiness

Keeps you unhappy.

The tail you chase

Will never be clamped 

Between teeth so dark with 

Resignation. 

And when weeds raise their weary heads,

Amongst massed ranks of intended crop,

Please hold their right 

To bathe in the light,

In the rise and fall of your unbidden breath.

For flowers who crown

Their heads with thorns

Reward the still determined bee

With nectar of a noble kind.

Again and again he comes,

To drink his fill and dance

 A drunken ode 

To the sugary delight of intent.

His heart he follows 

To dust encrusted chambers,

Rich with the pollen of deep determination.

And he carries his prize unknown,

With measured beats

Of wings that shine with the 

Stretched polish of

Trustful tension.

Fragile, yes. Yet nothing detracts

From the serious urge to 

Slake a thirst of parched and

Porous yearning. 

This is the risk. To sip 

And slide into crushing awareness.

To strip the flesh and bone, the aching bones, 

Brittle as they may be.

For some who plunge

Beneath still ocean waves,

The drowning is weighted with drama;

A life-fight struggle for breath

Silver-bubbled and slick

With a spastic stretching

For self-preservation.

But what really is there to preserve?

What endures when worms 

Do squirm their way through vacant plots

Of flesh and shrivelled sinew?

This is the question.

 The Alpha and Omega

Of all enquiries.

I may claim I know not the answer,

Yet lying is easy 

And an option attractive to 

That victim victorious.

And you know of the ostrich who buried

His head in the sand,

Buried his heart too

And wept because his day was

Draped in darkness.

If only that bird

With such burning eyes

Had managed to see

What the clouds in the skies 

Were holding for him. 

Their silver silhouetted support,

Brimful and burning with

Bright-shine of impossible beauty,

Blinding to all but those

Who open their eyes wide

For all to fall into,

Was ever and always available.

Their vaporous  forms 

Of finely folded artistry, floating 

Yet fixed to knitted networks

Of essential threads,

Holds memory of pathways to glory.

A remembrance of routes

Alive with the tremor

Of those who trod before

And after

Your arrival at the starting line.

The ways remain open

Tarmac and toll-free.

Yet the traveller’s advised

That certain roads are for certain codes

Of sliver-stamped behaviour.

For rivers run to the sea

And some highways and byways crawl

And then fall into

Dead-ended obscurity,

Smothered by so many signposts.

Which way;

When so many stand and signal

Direction?

Which one;

When so many stretch and grab 

Attention?

‘Follow me. No, follow me.

YOUR WAY IS MY WAY’.

“Silence!” I shout.

An act of war and

Defiance openly declared.

Flags are raised in the midst

Of chaotic clamour,

Inch by desperate inch.

And there,

In storm or breathless

Death of wind, 

They fly in the face

Of all experience, 

Tattered and torn, yet raised

And ready to greet the dawn

Of Love’s illumination.