HOPE is a subtle glutton;
He feeds upon the fair;
And yet, inspected closely, What abstinence is there!

His is the halcyon table
That never seats but one,
And whatsoever is consumed
The same amounts remain.

by Emily Dickinson

 

Cri du Coeur

 

Oh Man! Oh Woman! Don't let the Sun fade from your eyes!
Don't let this darkening mist descend on you,
With deadly torpor, and despairing lies!
Awake! Break for that clearing in your mind;
Past thickets, twisted roots, the binding vines.
There is a gleam, a possibility, above the gathering blight,
Where Love sustains and carries all before.....Itself.
This is no casual calamity we fight;
That is no earthly light, which, incandescent, encompasses the night.

It ought to be easy ought to be simple enough
Man meets a woman and they fall in love
But this house is haunted and the ride gets rough

from Tunnel of Love by Bruce Springsteen

If I had only seen
Through the silky veils of ardour;
What a killing crime this love can be.
I would have locked up my heart
In a golden sheath of armour,
And kept its crazy beatings,
Under strictest secrecy,
High security.

from The Silky Veils of Ardour by Joni Mitchell

 

I've seen the needle
and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie's
like a settin' sun.

from Needle and the Damage Done by Neil Young

 

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin

The Well

There is a well in Harmland,
I drank from it Sometime,
The waters... cool, beneath the bough,
Would soothe my wavering mind.

It stood in singularity,
A jewel-encrusted clarity,
Arcadian, high felicity,
Within the forest mirk.

There is a well, a mainspring,
I don't know where it lies,
Or how I came to lose that pulse?
My scaled and clouded eyes!!

Alas, the map is lost now,
Thrown out with my youth,
And I am left with unslaked thirst-
Had I but known its worth!

An ill-wind siezed and carried me,
Caught-up, careless, swelled with pride,
To exile: bleached and ground to dust,
Forgotten, ruined, hurt. Denied!

Bitter, bitter is this life,
Under these savage skies,
Unutterable is my thirst...
My speechless mouth, all broken cries!

There is a pool of misery,
It springs forth from my eyes,
It held a brief reflection...
These mirages! These lies.

I stooped and tasted from that pool,
Too deeply drank of loss, of fears;
Surrendered my capacity,
To share with you my tears.


 

If only I had held the course
Had kept my bearings centred, fair,
Had not those reckless paths discoursed
Contracted to this bleak despair!

I go down to the river,
A dried-up culvert, dead.....
But something subterranean flows...
Some deeper river bed?

I'd heard tell of an ancient course,
That follows subtle veins of clay,
I hear...just..droplets...join..disperse,
Yes!..join again..as if in play!

Possessed, I chased towards the source,
Dry, dry as a bone it seemed.
But look! A chasm, deep and cold!
And deep below, a stream!

Feeling - Intuition - blind,
I climbed down on a rope,
'Til touching those dark waters deep,
I quenched my desperate hope.

I woke just then, my heart had turned,
This was the new tomorrow!
The dream like some Diviner's art,
Brought forth my love and sorrow.

I wish you well! I wish you well!
Thrice to the wellspring go!
I wish you love - There - Cast is the spell!
Beyond your pain and woe!

There is a well in Hartland,
Where everything is free,
Love grows there like a mighty oak,
We dwell in empathy.
The birds gyrate,
All intertwined, concentric harmony,
And every utterance is sung
Like some great Symphony.

 

 

 

 

Flat Screen

If I could fist your inscrutable interface,
Rearrange your two-bit, multi-medial dream,
Prise apart your horizontal hold,
You! Infected, two-dimensional primal scene!
Mine is an altogether different view, which,
- As I brandish the off-switch -
Won't be held, or claimed, or framed by you.

 

A Waste of Melancholy

There is a house of gorgeous gold,
And its called the Setting Sun,
And its been the ruin of many a poor chil'...
And me..I know..I'm one..
The gold slips through my fingers,
My fortune all undone,
Like blood it runs, to the reddening tide,
I shall abide... Alone.

 

Melancholy Song

Nightingale, what melody!
Songs of loss and threnody.
Of other lives, of 'might have been',
What makes you sing? What does it mean?.
The leaden skies echo with gold,
Why can't your heart feel more consoled?
The twilight shift...the in-between...
All this I've seen, all this I've seen.

"So many lives, are left untold,
they fall silent and grow cold.
So much injustice unrevealed,
Confusion...bitter rage congealed.
No words allowed, no scenes disturbed,
Its all so utterly absurd.
A trajedy"....so sang the bird.
All this I've heard, all this I've heard.

 

Raunch and Ravelling

I have no rhyme nor reason,
Nor is my heart confined to seasons of the North or South.
My East is too far East for space and space,
Cast in some deeper meridien:
Time unrisen, light unshone upon our dark embrace.
For I am found within your tender arms,
And in your finding me, I am undone.
And what is left of me has just begun.

 

Embroidered Borderline

Your dress was shot with gold, fierce against your hair,
The colours spinning out into this mountain air,
Why had we hiked our grievances this far?
And found ourselves like countries, primed for war?

When you turned your head it felt like winter,
Echoes of goodbye set off an avalanche,
Trapping me up here upon this mountainside,
Looking back at you... as you shimmered like a flame.

However did we rise above the cloudline?
Now your floating off in vaguest outline,
Drifting in and out of what I thought was mine,
If I could just rein in...your embroidered borderline.

I don't know where I stand I must be snowblind,
In this no-man's land, what have I left behind,
Drifting in and out of what had felt so fine,
Why must I cling... to your embroidered borderline?

I tumbled down the tracks, tangled in every hue,
Feeling like the warp and weft had had there end in you,
Unravelled like a thread, still spinning round and round,
What is that we've lost, what is that we've found?

 

Julia

Jewellery.
She has brown eyes. Long dangly rings upon her ears.
She never lies!
She leads me some kind of merry dance.

I spied an icicle.
It was summer, but this weather has become so strange?
I don't know where I am...I drew a map of England twice...
But the line of your face draws me ever northward,
To some more inhospitable place.
Calls, lures, antagonises me on...to a far more distant shore...
This land - with shivering ice to its most considerable core.
Why do I glide across this bleak terrain?
If not for her strong, sustaining warmth, her lilting, touching voice,
With its unfathomable refrain?

 

Misanthropy

Nobody gives me satisfaction;
Just awkwardness, vex and obligation.
What is friendship? Mutuality in selfish action?
Like some fading tyrant...from his castle peering:
Weary, wasted, reeling.
Controlling, disgarding - and guarding. Always guarding!
Alone I wait. I want to be alone...so lonely..
Kind..my kind...kindred...kindled!
Oh Humankind...Oh unkind Doublebind!

 

Life Goes On

If I could change the past - forlorn conceit,
I'd hug you with my heart - so warm, so sweet.
We'd smile and talk, the while we'd while away,
We would not have to face this faceless day,
Keeping all that self-reproach at bay.

Sometimes I think my life is waning fast,
This sun-set of experience my last,
I wish this twilight darkness was the dawn,
If I could change the past...but time rolls on,
And on its wheel I'm chained, and crushed and borne.

And as it is, what's done is done and gone.
I've let you down and you have upped and flown,
And sure, you've got some baggage left with me.
Enough regret! I blow a kiss for free!
And hope we both can beat the rhythm on.

 

My Wandering Eye

'Goodbye My Love', I turned and closed the door,
My Home, my heart, established and at ease,
Like coral waters - lapping at the shore.
My love - Felicia, enfolds me, keeps the peace,
I marvel at the mystery she spreads,
Above, beneath, beyond our marriage bed.
And everywhere is pristine clarity,
Bathed in the sun-drenched blueness of the sea.

But as I move into the world outside,
I find that settlement somehow disturbed:
The colours, movement - newness of each tide;
The shimmering reef, its glistening depths perturbed:
So many fish, so much fecundity,
So much desire to chase, to catch, to see.
I meet a woman - over lunch confide,
Flirtatious games and dangerous asides.
I sense a stirring as of waters churned,
There seems a cloudiness within my paradise?

My train from town - the routine and the miles;
A woman opposite - furtive, stolen smiles.
Our conversation grows each passing day,
And gradually I crave her company.
So many peaches on the swollen tree,
So much desire to pluck, to taste, to see.
And marriage? .... an unwelcome weariness,
The years decay our oceanic bliss,
And entropy the sanctity of flesh;
A blurring into dulled opacity.

At just that point, I felt the carriage jolt,
And savage premonitions spat revolt:
Great waves swelled, cavort before the storm,
The sediments stirred up angry, ghostly forms,
Foundation stones crashed all around the reef.
I thought I saw her smile, but it was grief.
I thought I saw her drown, it was too much!
I reached for her, reached out but could not touch.

Under the lightning shards I dimly see,
The broken wreckage of my own stupidity:
My compromised and rent fidelity;
My vision crushed, distorted over years.
And as I crawl towards what was my home,
Against the hurricane, the lashing rains,
An inward image....spilled out from my fears,
My love stands still before me, turned to stone!
The hurricane howls, destroying all it finds,
The wandering eye....directionless and blind.

The train moved off again: a broken track;
The soothing motion calmed and brought me back,
I felt profound relief, a clear resolve:
To hurry back, embrace her, hold her close!
To still my focus, not to look away!
Stop dwelling on each fault that comes my way,
Withhold contempt - contempt for constancy,
Stop lingering on those things I can't abide,
Those temperamental spats of taste and style,
These things that touch a nerve, that raise the bile.
Her imperfections leach my vanity-
Yet - blemished with our fell humanity,
Can't we accept each other, and identify,
A deeper beauty, strength and dignity?
Stop undermining, worrying at the rock:
The bricks, the mortar, roof, the very floor!
I reached the threshold...pushed the open door,
She stood there smiling on the radiant shore,
I saw her then with eyes of love - set free.

 

Return to Sender

What grief! What grief!
To give up on that trail.
My heart was in so deep:
To give of something....of myself.
Instead I find the usual ruined shell:
My mind cannot endure this vast, unquiet wound,
Expressed as unrelenting, unforgotten sound.
Once more, the long and futile flight into the wilderness.
Oh Wilderness! Oh Wildness! Hear my agony!
How much I longed to give....
But these dead letters rain down on me,
Like mock confetti at some ghostly fete.
They spell the same, familiar refrain:
'Return to Sender',
The seal unbroken on the warmth they once contained.
My quest for love has reached its Wailing Wall,
The echoes of my howling persevere,
They coalesce - reverberating far beyond their natural sphere.
But no page could adequately express,
No pen could ever re-address,
No wall could tame or otherwise suppress,
The raging, savage beauty of my broken heart!

 

The Economy of Love

There is no coin within the Treasury of Love,
That is not minted with the utmost care,
Each individual one, from golden ore,
Brought under Value's gaze, and weighed,
Into the fullness of its worth.
A dozen notes each day are written out,
'I promise to bear', the simple, solemn oath,
Drawn and illustrated like a manuscript,
For something more than just symbolic wealth.

And when the Chancellor sets monetary rule,
Distributing such coin as needs be spent,
He keeps a loving eye and interest,
On what his charges buy, and what is lent.
What we give out, and what we gather in,
Of profit, loss, of dividend and debt;
How these can lead to envy, greed and hate.
And compassion: when nothing else is left.
Diversity within dynamic poise:
That is this mixed economy.
Where each exchange must prove integrity,
And trust. Face-to-face. I to I:
The intersubjectivity of Love's hard currency,

Generosity bestrides the market place,
Cascading from the rich unto the poor,
Whereby those with less, now have the more,
And back the fiscal pendulum must sway,
Swinging silent in eternity,
Distributing anew the good each day:
However much is spent, still more remains,
For Love delights in bringing mutual gain,
There is no stint in closing out the deal,
It has collateral far beyond itself,
With which to underwrite the common weal.

And should corruption ever stake its hold,
Effecting the debasement of our coin;
Inflating notes until we cannot bear;
The market-place mauled by a rampant bear;
Where sublety takes flight - and no-one cares....
The Treasury shall remedies apply:
With ointments of a wise accountancy,
The stringent vapours of frank reckoning,
The healing balms of open honesty.
Until we learn from hard-won history,
And make thieves, cheats - spoil into bankruptcy.
...But then forgive their debt, once they have seen:
Our whole, rude, vibrant, held sufficiency,
Grows out of Love's own free economy.

And round and round the circulation flows,
Sustaining each and everyone it knows,
Investing in the proper tasks of life,
Divesting of those shares that do not yield.
There is no hoarding in the economy of Love,
Save in the plenitude of joy that must accrue:
A vault unto Itself - which yet pours out,
Such happiness to all in its purview!

 

Fog

These are the words of one hidden.
They come as the main mast, haltingly,
Through these silent, doldrum waters.
Rarely heard, not really heard....
Are there words to these thoughts,
Or just thoughtless words upon this tideless mere?
Can they be grasped, if I cannot myself grasp their meaning
In this shifting void?
This unlifting, insubstantial fog,
This ghormless ghastliness,
This formless vastiness of banality?

I proclaim this landless space my country!
Lethargy and witless anarchy are the twin pillars of my estate!
And like a king, I call upon my Counsel:
Where is the clarity that won't prevaricate?
Where the desire that does not delegate?
A burning heart that does not flinch from hate?
Wait!....Was that an echo heard within the breeze?
A whisper of something I once knew? Someone I once loved?
Just then the wind died down....her name, my memory evades.
And in a trice my small rebellion fades,
And numbed diffusion everywhere pervades.

 

Rebirth of a Nation

In a flurry of feathers the golden egg bursts out!
It rests seminally at the central chakral point.
Vigorous, still unborn and yet divided:
One nation, riven by our ruinous past;
Always driven to repeal and then repeat the knell of death,
The nuclear blast.

Each divisive half-self wrapped in half a life.
Radiating its own peculiar, particular, inevitable decay:
One - upthrust, taunting, proud to a fault, and where the line is drawn,
The other watches, silent, unreceptive, taut.
And Force, our common measure, keeps all life at bay -
Calling it 'Strife' and claiming night as day.

Return to us the pulse within our blood,
And let its beat awake our Nationhood!
Hatch-out in life of vision, love and hope!
Or shall this egg be beaten?
And our people bound, once more,
Within the cowering, yellow, unpotentiated yolk?

 

Stain

I have done wrong, I've hurt, I've lost the plot,
I've scattered anarchy, in wilful binging riot.
I've shown ingratitude, stolen, cheated lied,
I might have killed - emotions overrun.
I wish to God it had been otherwise.
I feel remorse, and sorrow fills my eyes,
But now its done, the die is cast,
We needs must put our failings to the past...
But no! Look at this guilty mark of shame,
As if dyed vivid in a tank of lurid blame.
Indelible: this mark of Cain, this most unwelcome stain!

There is a strain of guilt that sits with me.
That somehow intertwines, insinuates,
It is my deep desire to wash it all away,
And yet it clings, a parasite of sly self-harm;
Filtering all experience to its own perverted norm.
Wash away! Wash away! Scrub away...No rub away. Then bleach away the stain....
Of what I was..of what I've done....of what I am...of what I am become.
Clean now. Spotless! Smile! But how....?...a little mark just there...below!
How come I missed? I don't know:
It calls for measures of more potent rank:
A smell so anticeptic that I almost sank
Into the blanching waters of my cleaning tank.
There: clean at last! Now who dares question?... just one little doubt:
About the method and the probity, of how I rinsed it out?
Has my dark stain not simply shifted on,
To spread itself among the maddening throng?
Better to cleanse the drains and rinse away the wrong!
Then start again.

The instantiation of my own dark negativity:
Wrong objectified - which executes my 'song'.
The output: flat, cold, sullen like a dirge.
So harsh, so scouring are the words,
That I no longer find that I belong.
Losing that link to my humanity
.... and surely yours as well.
Like a consignment: programmed, packaged, sent to hell.
And there continues in my own duplicity;
My condemnation: perpetually assigning guilt;
Receiving it with due alacrity,
Revisiting the loop;
For then I can resume my cleaning - endlessly!
Wash away! Wash away! Scrub away...No rub away. Then wipe away the pain....
Of what I was..of what I've done....of what I am...of what I will become.
Clean now. Spotless! Smile! But how....?...a little mark just there...below!
How come I missed, I just don't know?
If...In doubt...Then...Start again
Else...Collapse under the weight of blame

I am that man. That is my damned spot;
We share the same domain, that is our lot.
There is no power, powder, liquid, soap,
Or murder plot - however made, or used or well conceived,
- Or left to soak for one more guilty day -
Can ever shift or shed that cruel stain;
Dissolve that anguish, reveal its real name
It shall continue in its game:
Standing where I've fallen: kicking my resilience down.
Unshifting, unfathomable, unquenchable, untamed:
My shadow shall myself destroy.
And when the masquarade is done,
It will be late; too late to save the rest of me,
And quell the consequences of my own self-hate.

Obsession wears a faux integrity;
For all its moral trials and tribulations,
Its righteous cause is but a mimicry:
Compelling - parrot-fashion -
Robotic, repeticious action, guilt, anxiety,
Unto a savage, broken, charred extremity.
Whereby my cherished limbs are slowly torn,
Or summoned to experience their own necrotic form.
My God! How we attack ourselves, and with what stealth!
Shards of shrapnel, shriek into my mental health,
Pain intense, and yet a part of me!
"Our own worst critic"? - Torturer more like!
And all my lithe, athletic form is stooped:
Stripped bare before its own self-estimation;
Lost, hollow-eyed, suppurating, spooked:
A hobbled twisted frame of immolation.

As though it were unspoken, undeclared war:
Without a gunshot, bomb, or outward sign.
A catastophic conquest of the mind,
Where every little bit of space is occupied;
And every thought blinded, billeted, purloined:
It is a headlong, rushing, existential rout,
Over the calm, given, environment of thought.
And as the alien invasion grows....
Like plaques, they spread across my treasured earth:
So what was fertile mind, and playful mirth,
Is now an anxious drudgery and toil,
Maintaining clay-lined trenches in grey, sodden soil.
And all my hail and honed lucidity,
Sits hunched and water-logged in frail timidity.
Unmaintained: the dying embers of a fire
That once had seized the day.

'Intrusion'. Yes, that is the word;
I am no longer master of my house.
But watch some vicious, persecuting horde,
Secrete into my cursed passion play.
No thanks, no gratitude - relentless blame;
The stopping-up of what it is to be;
The damming of the life that flows through me.
Boxed-in on every side - I have been caught;
The theatre of my war is all played out;
This struggle finds its end in tragedy:
I am the shamed, defeated enemy.

But...from the dregs of past adversity,
I reach for something still unspent in me:
A sort of courage - reckless in a way....
Like Sampson's cataclysmic final act -
I'll grasp the ending, seize the final page:
I've had enough! I'll tear these sluice gates down!
Let waters burst my violated stage!
Sweep over me, and let me swim or drown!
And bring this whole house down. Yes bring it down!
Make this a comedy:
It is my broken self will wash away!
Why do I cling to this flawed sense of me?
It keeps my heart in chains, my mind at bay.
Yes! Let the waters rise, bring on the flood!
Let me be born! I want my liberty!
The guilt that holds me back, just let it go!
I will survive this letting. Let it flow!

 

Guilty

In shame one is found out, but this!
Guilt: is so much more insidious.
More corrosive, more internal,
Whispering its accusing voice; unheard.
And round it - grows the whole construction,
Of my own infernal, self-absorbing law:
My superego - if you can call it 'mine'-
Presiding judge and jury for my 'crime'.
How much I hate his overbearing claw!
This ruthless tyrant perched beside me - docked.
Sadistic crow: who wields as much imaginary power
As I cannot endure....and more.
Knowingly, playfully, mercilessly, accurately.
To all my PIN codes he has found the key.
In one fell, carrion swoop he cost my whole integrity!
All that I'd locked away, I lost - unwittingly.
How foolish our presumptions of security!
I am accused - and he retains, controls the lock, and key to me.
I am to judgement brought; courted, stalked by my mad conscience,
- My chief accuser - who, after our brief, charged, lawless dalliance,
Is marrying me upon my judgement day: and never do us part.
No - not even death can free my guilty heart!

 

Before Darfur.... (following the flight of the Kurdish peoples to the mountains of Northern Iraq in 1991/92)

There's a little girl dancing in a colourful shawl,
There's a thousand more fallen at Halabja's wall.
There's a sadness in her mother's eyes,
When will the Nations hear her cries.
There's blood on the wall, and screaming in my ears,
Smoke bursts nearby, a gathering fear;
An old man staggers, gasping, falling...dies,
My brain is clouding - obscufation, lies.
I smell a gas, a gas called 'compromise'.

There's a ring of love that joins this people;
It circles high beyond the mountain eagle.
Ring in our hearts and still those senseless bombs!
Let us reach out, touch the broken hand,
That points the way, the way to Kurdistan!

Succouring Saddam and not the babe in arms,
We choked upon the harvest and the harm.
The men of steel have rent our human form,
Are there machines to mend what they have done?
The Kurdish cling upon the mountain breast,
The stolen livelihood, the land, what else is left?
The milk of human kindness can't run dry?
No cruelty can grasp those hearts that fly,
Towards the ring of love that will not die!

There's a ring of love that joins this people;
It circles high beyond the mountain eagle.
Ring in our hearts and still that senseless steel!
Let us reach out, touch the broken hand,
That points the way, the way to Kurdistan!

Surging on the icy mountainside,
This desparate sea, this lowly human tide.
Nothing can ever wash away,
The stain, the crimes - yet still you have to pay.
As vultures circle round their startled prey,
The tyranny still bluffs its poisoned way.
When will the World face down catastrophe?
But...every night must yield before the day.

There's a ring of love that joins this people;
It circles high beyond the mountain eagle.
Ring in our hearts and still those senseless guns!
Let us reach out, touch the broken hand,
That points the way, the way to Kurdistan!

There's a little child playing with a great big ball,
Dancing in the grass, laughing as she falls,
Her mother smiles through layered veils of sadness,
Her man stayed on and died, confronting madness.
Rings of hate, of brazen, murderous ire,
Yet how strong your stand, how strongly you inspire
Oh...we could move those mountains with that fire!
Lest we look away, or otherwise forget your stand,
Let your people live and find your home...in Kurdistan!

There's a ring of love that joins this people;
It circles high beyond the mountain eagle.
Ring in our hearts and stay the tyrant's plan!
Let us reach out, touch the broken hand,
That points the way, the way to Kurdistan!

And as you trek the doleful track to Darfur,
Look across and see what struggle came before;
And feel the inspiration of the land!
Let us reach out, touch the healing hand,
A poeple living free in Kurdistan!

 

The Spoils of War

Rue the Day!
Rule of Bane!
This Ruined Day!

My only son,
My darling one!
Our race is run.

Lay in my bloody hands,
Your blood runs through me.
Your dying...killing me.

The victor's spoils,
Dust in my hands!
My bloodstained hands.

 

Mythos and Athos

The stars still shining and the winds blow free,
So many islands scattered in the sea!
The isles of Thrace distilled in clarion dawn,
Cassandra gone. - Our point of no return.
And Athos smoulders - masculine, contained.
No woman climbs that towering mount and lives;
No passion laps the lap which so disdains
The waves that break upon those barren cliffs.

 

Whaling Song

We have too much to fail,
You must remember this;
We have too much to fail,
We cannot let this go.

Or like the wandering whales,
Must we go forth alone?
To search uncertain depths,
So far away from home.

Where echoes greet my sighs,
And only guide so far;
Far from you loving eyes,
Where Heaven only knows.

Where only Heaven knows,
You must remember this;
Our love is all we have,
We have too much to fail.

 

The Return of the Suppressed

I want my mother back,
I want my father back,
I want my brother back,
I want my sister back,
The lemon blossom back,
Give me my childhood back,
I want it back.

Why is the mirror cracked?
Bring my reflection back
I'll mount a cruel attack,
For everything I lack,
For everything you took,
I'll bring it all to book,
I want it back

Show me another way.
Those shady depths of black:
Is that my destiny?
Where everything I lack:
Like some lost reckoning.
Why is time flying back?
It feels so threatening!
How can I get it back?
Its always beckoning.
Don't let them send me back!
Don't send me back!

 

 

Kay (Inspired by the film Sweetie, by Jane Campion)

I thought she was dull and gaunt,
haunted by the years of grimness.
But slowly that dull exterior faded - or grew more brilliant -
Like the lifting veil of mist.
Can one act such composure?
For in acting, one must know: the inner activates the outer?
I thought she was plain Jane,
When the fixed stare overpowered the opening frame,
And lured her Louis toward her grand naivete.
But something else was born amidst the courage of the senses, the mating game.
And as it grew...she threw it off again...digging up what she so dug...
Toil and strife within the garden of love.
Until that Thing arrived that is!
Like the abrupt arrival of an overripened sun:
That racing certainty of absurd disaster; but still, such fun!
How I love Kay's tolerance! Amidst her meanness it borders on generosity.
How I love her eyes! Almost an empty stare - but no compromise, no disguise, no lie:
A deep well of being that rose up and met...
Like tears, as yet unwept; like joy that is not kept.

 

The Treacherous Seas of Love

Lonely. Lonely.
Weighed down: I cannot navigate this human sea:
By the weight of what is just too much...
I long to reach someone: to know them....truely.
But I think they'll never come...to rescue me.
Au Secours! Au Secours!
Can you hear me?
And even if you could: would you understand?
And even if you did: you better had beware - I cannot swim;
Nor can I breathe this watery atmosphere.
And as you reach out to my drowning, flailing form,
I hold the whole world in my failing arms;
And my embrace will only bring you harm:
My eagerness will crush you to the bone,
And we will sink, just like a stone,
Yes, sink just like a stone.

 

 

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

                      from As You Like It by William Shakespeare (Act 2, scene 1)

 

 

 

Background image provided by www.freeimages.co.uk