Expressions - if only I could live up to the aspiration

To say what's on my mind - I write. Some say this self expression's right. But say, do I the right possess To conjure feelings which distress? To hurt the body is unkind. Do we resist to hurt the mind? A word's intangible attack Leaves pain and scar without a smack. Words cunning crafted by skilled wright Convert mere thought to magic rite, And if they're framed with dark intent What right have I these thoughts to vent? Phrases woven, spells and charms, Rendering comfort and dire harms, Entrusted with a calming power Or to crush ones inner flower. With bitter words, distress we make, Trailing tangles, hearts we break. In what way is pain of mind Than fleshly torment less unkind? The words that I so glibly write Are wrapped in thunderclouds of might. In form, quite empty, vacuous, soft But dealing lightning from aloft. And so I wish that from my pen No poisons ever flow again. But even as these lines I write With bitter barbed riposte I fight.

Reflection

From long before your birth was fact, A true companion, match exact Other half of your conception Shun his face through self deception. Wrought from fabric of your being Wholly spend your life in fleeing This your shadow - needs no sun - Blind panic'd race that can't be won. Are you so ashamed of your mate To catch their eye, you truely hate? At ebbing moment of last breath You must accept your brother - death. ---------------------------------------- ["All component things are subject to decay and dissolution"]

Knowing

[listen to poem]
 The taste of a lover's lips,
A smile across a pillow,
Deeply inhaled fresh coffee.
These are things we know,
Vibrantly alive.

 A Christmas morning's wild excitement,
Heart skipping first kiss,
The first best-friend of childhood.
These are things we knew,

Once so alive.
Recollections of long past passion
Retelling of a might-have-been
Recalling happenings gone forever.
Stored husks, erstwhile known,
Shades of the dead.
 Rumors, gossip, whispering voices,
Stories passed down fragile chains,
Twisted hints and innuendo.
Counterfeits of what is known,
Golems wandering in the mind.
 Dogma, doctrine, forms of words,
Things we learn to chant and say,
Ornate formal speculation.
Few indeed their substance know,
Stoney forts on roots of clouds.
 Shades of knowing
Murky waters
Fictions Factions Lost in fog.

Afterlife (or after life)

We are the afterlife
Of that which came before.
We dwell in the now
Of that which builds our store.
We are the pre-birth
Of beings ever more.
 Each life a spark
Showered from bonfire heap.
Each life a wave
Cast up from ocean deep.
Each life a head
Cut down in harvest reap.
 One life a bead strung,
Eternity's pearl-string.
One life a dust mote,
Universe's world-ring.
One life a ghost haunt,
Existence's being.
 Look up to heavens
See your fragment-space.
Look across time's scope
Life step in cosmic race.
Look into your heart
Of diamond, facet-face.
 Don't dwell in a vale
With small views, selective.
Climb to a high place
Afterlife's perspective.

Life Sentience

Shimmering opalescence ... Indwelling presence ... Immaterial zephyr Stroking life ... Immanency manifest ... Insubstantial, Stirring worlds ... Field of dreams. All that I am, And more. Entire vault Of Being.

The Goal and the Path

Rush on forward 

Goal in mind. 

Seek the end 

Never look behind. 

 

Present moment 

Dead as dust 

Rush hell bent 

Terminal lust 

 

Meteroic 

Pausing never 

Mad, euphoric 

Surge on, ever 

 

Until at last 

The goal is gained 

All pleasures passed 

No joys retained.

Holy War

These desert bands With mission clear Right to our walls Bring threat and fear. They would not speak, They would not bend. Our death they seek, Our world, they'd end. Their act, God's will Their claims appal. Gives me a chill Fanatics all. For seven days Our lives they knew Family ways The same as you. A deed of shame This day they did. By act they're marked No rite can rid. Our high towers Destroyed and crushed By crafty powers Brought down to dust. Our ruined heaps, Their killing blow. For us, who weeps? Poor Jericho. [Joshua ch6]

Oral Passion

Lingering, lust-laden, bitter bite,
Sumptuous, sensual, strong delight.
The need for more sets soul afire
Propriety consumed by dark desire.

Consuming passion of true gourmand
Perfected answer to all that's bland
Strong noir essence to smell and sight
Deep rich cloying tongue's delight.

Reverencing the taste of passion
With lips besmirched in casual fashion
Savouring its immoral lure
Destroys the hope of any cure.

 
Fulfilment coming to your mouth
From the tropics of the south.
An appetite one cannot sate
For darkest, purest chocolate.

The Disease - dedicated to all sufferers

One sip, it takes no more. 

One taste, it forces wide the door. 

One contact, feel your heart to soar. 

One more, and recklessly adore. 

 

Each wild moment, bold deceit. 

Each euphoric high, a cheat. 

Each fresh shot you'll take it neat. 

Each loose passion, filled with heat. 

 

It's the meaning to your life. 

It's a blade, serated knife. 

It's the fire of joy and strife. 

It's more dear than man to wife. 

This madness is a daemon cursed. 

This obsession, raging thirst. 

This shattered dam, with deluge burst. 

This love, of evils is the worst.

Lightning Coming

Up came lightning, rippling, crackling, And the tender tension grew, All the air was moistly heavy, Racked and writhing, tightly tense. Deep the distant rumbles raged on, Deep the moans and purring passion. Lightning lit the wraith-edged skyline, Waiting, wanting, gasping breath drawn. Static crackled from the tree tops, Shivering shudders shook her frame. On the gusts the storm came closer Driven by each stroke it came. Riven by the lightning striking, Lifted, pulsing, passion-claimed.

Merry Go Round [Samsara]

Born into this life. Why? To live, to sense, to love, But in the end, to die. Vow: never again. Withdrawal's sad pain. Cry, Acid tears. What gain? Ecstatic sweet sensual delights! Fruitless. Nigh insane. Yearning taste and touch of sultry nights. Craving the tender touch of human skin Sweet caress of form, desire alights. Thirsting abyss opens up within. Choose! Now! Drawn down or new dawn? On the roulette wheel of life, one more spin. Another fix - delusion borne. Such pain, agony and rejection By which a fresh life is torn Just the sweet price of resurrection. Swallowed up within the dark From shuddering pleasure's perfection Leaps forth life's sublime spark. Created by the pleasures of the night, Rage strikes ground in ivory arc. Lo, here am I. Behold, the parasite. My world orbiting my life, I come first. All exists subservient to my plight, Let none frustrate my slightest whim or thirst. Now bow before my self-made carbon throne. Chaos and formless void by me reversed, Meaning and shape depend on me alone. Heavenly bliss to evermore endure, Weightless warm dark suffused with mantric drone, Dreaming phantasies of pure rapture. Involution's urgent shove, Bright shaft guides from the yawning aperture, Extruded painfully above. Born into this life. Why? To live, to sense, to love, But in the end - to die.

Nightmare for a long journey

I stood and viewed with horror, Before me, carnage clear. Eternally I'll be haunted By the death cries oh so near. It will stay with me forever That human desperate sound The screams and fatal panic As all that finery was drowned. I watched with rising tears, Relief, escape from slaughter, I stood and watch in horror The grey enclosing water. Brothers, lovers, sons and friends All swept away like dross Now the tears that arose in me Were for massacre and loss. How could I doubt our leader? He was guided by the One. But doubts I had on seeing this, Those doubts would ne'er be gone. He is the One, the power of all The ultimate monarch high And yet in all his wisdom, Dealt out slaughter from the sky. To escape from Egypt's thrall Our cause was right and just. But my heart goes out to an enemy Who was doing what they must. On that day of our relief We saw an awful sight. The mass making of widows By theocratic might.

Alamogordo

The wizened wizards working
On potent powers dismal
To summon forces lurking
Deeply hidden, dark, abysmal.
 Their mysterious enchantments
Unleash a daemon foul.
What calculated conjuring prevents
Its pestilential prowl?
Spinning spells of might
They struggle night and day
To quell its burning bite,
To return its heart to clay.
 From deep down delvings,
Strove the fearsome fiend arisen
And in its wake came hellish things
Let loose from timeless prison.
 The formless fiend with wake of maim
Destroys all love and life.
But the muttering magicians claim
They did not cause the strife.
 “The fiend was not by us formed
We merely let it loose.
It feeds on human greed and hate
These are its nutrient juice.”

 “You wish us to release its power
And curse us when we do.
We laboured long to grant your wish.
The guilt rests equally with you.”

 The commoners and overlords
Point each one to the other.
Grasping all on innocent swords,
Quick each one blames another.
 And so the daemon grows in strength,
A feast around it laid.
Their craft reduced it not one tenth,
By love alone unmade.

In the beginning

Some folks believe they praise the Lord, By telling all in words quite awed, Of how he made the world, pre-packed, Ready-made and instant fact. Now when I look around in awe The things that really drop my jaw Are not what's mummified, unchanging But all the miracle rearranging. Improve, progress and better grow. In that's the wonder that I know. In seeing seed to blossom sprout: Here creation's victory shout. A mind that can all worlds expand From singularity small as hand. Now there's true source of majesty Endowed with cosmic liberty. To shrink down gods to size of man Is blasphemy deserving ban. To credit gods with tiny vision Is to treat them with derision. This cunning snare of the deceiver, There to trap naive believer. When creation's tale was written Already fruit forbidden bitten. But this, like all, is just some verse. To treat as fact, that's the curse. Its simply fuel for the mind. To feed on as own truth you find

Dream Lover

Within her cold and unshared bed The maiden tossed in fitful slumber, Her mind consumed by wish to wed The object of her awe and wonder. She had but once his face espied, As she looked down from room to yard. A love like hers can't be denied, But he knew not, paid no regard. To her delight, in fitful drowse, With heart afire and loins aweep, Her hero did her heart arouse, Crept into bed to join her sleep. His touch awoke what so long slept, The serpent coiled within her womb. His hard embrace she'd fain accept, To plant the seed, and touch the bloom. As dawn lit up the Eastern sky, The maiden woke with pained regret. The lover of her dreams - a lie, And she was still a virgin yet.

Silent Words

Through ages past and more to come Many words of love are spun, Their authors hoping to enshroud With vivid words, love's boiling cloud. And yet what do those words impart, To the innocent virgin heart? Like signs found from some long dead race, That hint at paths they cannot trace. What well-turned phrase, what image bright Can recreate climactic height? What words so sweet or spicy hot, Can bring to mind what taste knows not? The one who knows, though sweet of tongue, To virgin heart sings phantom song. The bud blooms into crimson flower Where seed was sown in earlier hour. To those who know, fine words remind. But all the rest, the words leave blind.

Streams

Into a single river's flow
Only once your step can go,
This a truth, some wisely know.
 But all of life is passing streams,
All return, nostalgic dreams,
Going back's not what it seems.
 Each journey leaves its trail of dust,
You may be left with clinging lust
Or simply worn-out, rotting rust.
 So when we reach our rendezvous,
It is not I, it is not you.
We are two travellers anew.

The Well of Life

Entering the secret valley, 

Drawn blindly to life's fountain head, 

Within the canyon walls, I tarry, 

Their awesome inward press, ahead. 

The cool dark silken smooth embrace 

Of cleft high cliffs that over tower 

Conceals from chance this shrine's pure grace, 

Yet guides the chosen to its bower.

 

The moist warm air thrills, rich with scent. 

Intoxication swift beclouds the mind, 

Of any who would risk ascent 

And hope the deep veiled grove to find. 

Here tangled jungle find, dense-grown, 

Around the sacred path whose way 

By one lone priestess only known, 

An occult mystery, 'til this day. 

Prostrating at the ritual mount 

Upon its niche, my lips to lay. 

This rite of passage to the fount 

Where ever ecstatic ripples play.

Softly Touched

We met across a word filled space.
Our verses writhing interlace.
Where flesh can't join, our thoughts instead
Cavort and grope on cyber bed.
 With cunning words and soft bon mot
Our tongues each others secrets know.
Each consonant crisp stands firm and strong,
Awaiting mating vowel song.
 Carrying word-wrought subtle art
Will my tongue your stanzas part?
Could my phrases, silken voiced,
Arouse you, touch you, hotly moist?
 Will its throbbing pulsing beat
Light within a fireless heat?
From my lips soft words will flow
Giving yours a liquid glow.
 With Sapphic literal intent,
New pleasures for you I will invent,
And seek with rhythmic steady pace
To add a blush to creamy face.
 So, with Wilde, our minds collide
And seek out fun in the countryside.
Exclaim, with deep-filled pleasure horde:
Oh! Your pen is mightier than his sword

Emptiness

From distant past Man has asked "What does it mean?" "What's the goal unseen?" This sad refrain, Of empty pain, Reveals to all A life that's small. As if into an upturned hand Is piled some hard and gritty sand Concealing from the owner's sight A diamond's shimmering radient light. The seeker scans the distant sky, With hope to see some priestly lie, Distracted from present. Look! Within yourself, not musty book.

Intimate Embrace

When I walk into an unlit room I know you're there by your perfume. It comes to greet me waft by waft Diffusing without need of draft. As though in form of tenuous ghost Intangible amorphous host Your presence fills the darkened space, Surrounding all in your embrace. So when I dive into your cloud I am within you, deep inside. Your essence spreads from wall to wall Like woven web its wisps enthrall. Your sweet seductive voice, though fair, Is simply ripples in the air, Compressions driven through the gas Without which no sound would pass. The image of your lovely form By speeding quanta it is borne. It's only what you don't absorb That reaches to my optic orb. But odours are more intimate Free molecules that emigrate. Your substance, loose, my flesh surrounds My very breath with you abounds. In public places we conjoin Each nose in touch with scented loin. No monogamous restraint For each enjoys the others taint. From the room you have departed Fragrance still has been imparted. This privy truth you must allow I still abide within you now.

Ego

An empty field, an open place
Uncluttered, lacking hedged embrace.
An open space, wide, wild and free
Warm sun, wide sky, wind spread – pure glee.
 Then thought arose, original sin,
Who knows from where it came creeping in,
‘If this were mine alone, for evermore,
And I would here abide behind closed door’.
 No sooner had the grasping thought gained form
Than I became assailed by fears, new-born.
‘What if I should lose this chosen site?’
Acid anguish did my whole heart smite.
 What can be done to save my Eden,
How can this paradise be hidden?
Protecting wants consumes my time,
Naught remains of bliss sublime.
 The high, hard granite castle curtain
Ensures my life – and death – are certain;
Titanic efforts raise each ward
None may plunder what I guard.
 Yet when I look, what I grasped has gone.
What sign do I find of freedom?
None.

Green

How can a word, alone and stark,
On such a mission dare embark?
'Green' to one who knows but dark:
What will they know of lawn or park?

What wordsmith could pretend to you
Within their verse was just one hue,
But rather in the mind that knew
Already shades of green and blue.

The thusness of a colour's flush,
Unique to every tree and bush,
It chromatic newness, lush,
Say to ashen verbiage, 'Hush!'

To reduce all such to 'green'
Thin, undernourished - sadly lean.
The very lexicon's too mean,
Squeezes nature - crushed, obscene.

From full sun to thundercloud
With spectral range thus broad endowed
Speaks to the soul but not aloud
Unfettered by mere words, uncowed.

Within a shroud of bark interred
Was Merlin's magic doomed, ensnared.
So verdancy in cage of word
Is sentenced to a fate absurd.

The logos does the soul demean.
Oh, weep for those who see but 'green'.

The Well of Souls

Down in their dark, and fetid, pit 

The well frogs sing and glumly sit. 

They live contented, darkly damp 

Croaking praise to their well-top lamp 

Viewing the world through a narrow hole 

As short of sight as the earthy mole 

Their minds grew narrow, lacking light 

New and strange brought no delight. 

A frog who knew the world beyond 

Had fallen from a wind-touched frond

Plunging to eternal doom 

Trapped within this narrow gloom 

Her fate from many years before 

Was now the stuff of froggy lore 

The half-remembered truths she told 

Into cosmic myths they'd mold. 

 

And now the truth of primal frog 

Was lost inside dogmatic fog 

All frogs knew that far beyond 

Lay the heavenly world of ... Pond. 

 

Some said that on a still clear night 

The sound of Pond you'd hear, you might. 

But what all frogs knew for a fact: 

The means to visit Pond they lacked. 

 

The light and Pond were for the dead, 

So the frog chant rightly said 

Their fetid pit was life-long price 

To spend forever somewhere nice 

 

Down into the well flew flies 

Who hummed in praise of wider skies 

Who told of endless world, immense, 

Bright and free - not darkly dense. 

 

By night frogs sang of the hand on high 

That sent down food from dark blue sky 

They praised with all their visionless hearts 

The power above their lowly parts. 

 

Tales were told of the questioning few 

Rumours spread from those who knew 

Whispered quiet from mouth to ear 

Tales the elders cursed with fear. 

 

Those who asked too loud of light 

Had eyes poked out to help their sight 

Right thinking frogs had a single voice 

'Better blind than make wrong choice.' 

 

And daily came their feast of flies 

Handed down from heavenly skies 

The flies hummed tunes of open space 

And frogs ate flies to show their grace. 

 

Risking life and six-fold limb 

To spread the word to the darkly dim 

The flies gave all and set it naught 

To save one frog in dogma caught 

 

The flies knew how the world revolved 

To rescue all the lost, resolved 

By meteoric living, short 

To those with minds, they amply taught. 

 

Down below in their half-lit mirk 

Each elder frog appeared to smirk. 

While up above, flies hummed of Hell 

And warned the world 'gainst the froggy well. 

  [Dedicated to fundamentalists of every shade].

Addiction

The glint of eye, the charm of smile
And comely curve of body shape
The pusher's pill does not beguile
One half as much to thwart escape.
 The dealer draws to you to the highs,
Dependence silent in the deal.
When your sweet prison is her thighs
The tendril chains desires conceal.
 Each new fix, nails you down harder
Each cosmic buzz, another clasp.
Each tender touch incites your ardour,
Each sweet embrace, an iron grasp.
 Down you crash through floor and earth
Each downer drowns in pits of gloom.
Just one more touch would give life worth
One tender word would disentomb.
 No food or drink is she to you,
Angelic dust of wild excess,
Her fires run through your tight sinew
With flames that leave you bodiless.
 The lust that lights the path to passion
Within black shadows shrouds a ghoul.
The face and form you'd never ration
Feasts on your soul - oh, love-lost fool.