Why

I was the tiny living lung
of the Earth.
I was breathed briefly,
its exhalation
and we were one.

What more can I say?
Love paved the way
before I came,
the planets wanted some sun.

The universe awoke
and it wanted us to know:
an exaltation to time, and sums.

A Poem for My Sister

From so painful a beginning
come endless forms
most beautiful
and most wonderful....

Slapped into softness
by a loving hand,
you're the girl who saved
a homeless cat,
its back like a time-trodden
council flat fag-pocked rug.

You nurtured it to health 
and it lived for ten more years.

You became the girl
who'd be the apple of
the world's eye: kind
to the elderly, talkative
to anybody. Beaten 
by bullies' jealousy:

your looks a poor veneer
for them to rag on,
but your soul - the thing
they so coveted and wanted
to spoil - remained pure
inside that airy-light grace of yours.

And now you're an auntie.
You'll be a good auntie.
You'll be a mother one day.
And you can prove your own
worth.

But what of me?
What do I do?

Well this is it.
Here's a little piece of me.
Take it. It's of no use
to me anymore.

You can't break a gift:
the gesture echoes on
for ever.

For the Four-Fold Man

Blake, Blake, burning bright!
in the forests of the night!
What eternal hand or eye
dare form the Tyger of thy mind?

What the hand? What dread feet
did make the mind which four-fold sees?
And in what raging furnace hour
came the hammer to forge thy power?

Blake, Blake, burning bright!
You bless us with your piercing sight!
Surely now these satanic mills
must crumble, leaving meadow'd hills?

Tomb of Stones

Bewildered, adj.: to be lost, 
physically, mentally, emotionally; 
to be confused, overawed, dazed...

Tempted, wandering amazed
and lost, the Jesus-Lion
seeing heavenly visions, stirring
and slurring vision, bewildered
in the overbearing wilderness
he breaks open into light: 
makes his decision.

Astonished, adj.: to be amazed,
overawed, to be overcome with joy;
to be turned into stone...

And so Lott's wife turned back
staring in wide-eyed double-vision
at the rain of hell-fire dripping like
Mars onto Sodom and Gomorrah.
'Woman,' says Lott, 'I told you
not to look back - you never bloody learn.
Abide your husband - wait your turn.'

Petrified, adj.: to be frightened, shocked,
overcome with paralysing fear; to
be turned into peat, frozen in time...

And so the Bog-Man, lost in the marshes,
his side flowering with a wound,
lay himself down on the spongy salty earth.
The rising tide enveloped his dying body.
His eyes gazed up at the cold night, pleading.
But mockery: he's twisted into history.
A contorted muddle, caressed by peat.

And so I'm rusty, the whole thing a disaster.
This language wants to eat itself up. Old invalid
tongue, rid me of this Tomb of Stones.

July 20th, 1969

And so man's phallus was 
projected up, up into 
the stars: Apollo, the 
chief of the Pantheon,

the void filled up with
the cold, hard penetration
of machinery.

The moon, Diana, hung
up there, waiting. Waiting
for her man.

And so he stepped out
from the Lunar Module,
surveying his prize.

'This is one small step
for a man, one
giant leap
for mankind.'

But down below, Gaia
gawked up in confusion.
'But what about me?
Did I play no part?'

Man's illusion turns.
The Earth turns.
Man turns 
against his mother.

The Serpent in the Garden

                                               The

                                                    serpent

                                                       in the garden

                                                         has coiled round you,

                                                              around your feet.

                                                         It’s found you in

                                                 your apple orchard,

                                          naked in the blossom:

                                  a full moon in full

                            bloom. It’s licking

                     the tongue of air,

                             your scent a fragrant

                                   streak of hair.

                                         It hisses, hiss hiss hiss hiss

                                                    but what it means

                                                            is kiss! kiss! kiss! kiss!

                                                                        You’ve put it on its belly

                                                and it’s beguiled, writhing dustily

                                    before your beauty’s sapphire aura.

                        There’s a taste on its fork now

                                    looming. Drunkenly, it rises

                                                coiling, question mark to

                                                             exclamation, straightened

                                                                    out, tall and proud.

                                                But how? gasps the man.

                                The shaman-woman,

                                        soothing, says,

                                              Easy: where

                                                  once was snake,

                                                       I made you

                                                                     human.

A Thousand Words

How much can be unsaid
in a word or phrase?
Such as, you look wonderful.
What I mean to say is,
When you dance, it's like angels
possess your body. Your small
heels send me heavenwards,
and your gaze is softer than the
bristling haze of the touch of corn.

And when I say, Goodbye,
what I really mean is,
I don't know what I'd do
if I never saw you again,
if I could never hold your hand
again, if you never bestowed on me
again your smile. And,
Please don't ever leave. Please,
don't leave me.

And, I'm happy.
What I mean to say is,
I know that things must change,
that time catches us and we're caught
in its sway, but the present here
is eternal. It stretches on eternally.
Let me be caught in this moment
with you for all time. Nothing could
ever remove us from this. Not even
death could break us apart.

And when I smile, I say all that.
And maybe, one day, sitting in silence,
we'll read the novels of our eyes,
the hushed stories of our mouths,
to each other.