as beautiful as a star,
as beautiful as the night.

i.

shadows of a dark world
the stars are cut out of paper
their blues unwinding the skies.

ii.

night drifts and drifts
its luminous notes
driven against a burning
bridge.

iii.

clouds scurry and break
shiver along like silvery rivers
fold origami corners onto
the breeze.

iv.

tragic stage of a darkening world
i dream of flowers, i dream
of the sea.


v.

your love sings out
and i am happy once more
bathed in dark rapture.

luminous, like an incandescent
star, you fell into my life,

unwrapping me like gift paper,
wearing my fabrics like those

boyfriend jeans you liked
me to put on.

i melted like ice in
the liquids of your voice,

tore open the love letter
you wrote on my heart

and collapsed, an exquisite
and beautiful rose, with the

longing in your eyes, tender
and delicious, every sense

awakened, every joy believed.

i.

summer, with her golden
light and bluebell valleys
sweeps the senorita skies
and shady groves.

ii.

the sea rushes to the sand,
relentless waves surrender
crashing on the rocks
where the raucous gulls glide.

iii.

the moon-sky of summer’s
warm nights brings sweet dreams
and lavender fields, stars
of slumber, ropes of
gold thread like
embroidered silk.


iv.

the white clouds
woven from the rain
hide the sun which
waits for the blue inks
of a summer sky.

v.

small, the bird
painted
on the sky.

vi.


i am jealous of your legs,
crazy in love with your love,
swept up in your arms
while i wait for you to
claim me as your own.

love me i cry out,
i am yours, i am yours,
forever.

ghost-like, the song of syrinx,
seven hollow reeds plucked
to make a flute, a star-wish
where the dark waters ride,
(the horned god laughs and plays),

shrunk to a dusk, the river mute,
her voice trickles over stone
and leaf, branches reflected, pools and
caves where otters breathe, where
drinks the evening dew -

her voice fades like a star as pan
awakes, his pipe brushes her lips,
sings of the infinity of night of
a moon white-layered like stone,
dancing like a woodland breeze.

i lean against an oak tree in a glade
to watch apollo fall behind the hill,
the sunlight in the west begins to fade,
as evening closes in, a sudden chill.
the nightingale sings songs of yesterday
an arching song that lifts my spirits high,
the robin in the branches drills a lay,
as sunset breathes and reaches to the sky.
the sunlight falls in opal on the ground,
a song of heaven, darkness has no place,
the world is hushed with hardly any sound
and i can sense her passion and her grace
  and still the sunlight drifting through the leaves,
  holds back the last of day that darkness weaves.

that darkness weaves, that churlish empty sound,
which deafens moments reaching in their gold,
desire or dream, the chains that hold us bound,
the drowning spirit lifts and then is bold.
while nature rests her head upon the land
and bird song fills the avenues of trees,
her vision is ethereal and grand,
a haunting inspiration on the breeze.
i'll echo songs of summer centuries,
that mock and hint their ebony array,
the wind calls out like wild and distant seas
as through the peaceful glade the light of day,  
   that held its last soft breath of falling light,
   in hollow sorrows dreams of quiet night.

the soul finds solace, time enough to rest,
the beauty of the earth is here to see
and where the light still lingers in the west,
i see a glimpse of sweet eternity.
so blindly now the day will sink and fall,
the light that holds the tenderness recedes
and my lost hopes their last enchantment call,
as that last glimpse of daylight leaves the meads.
while questions of the heart flow like a stream,
with tender echoed strings that fall so far,
as cheery revelations clear the dream,
of softly fallen evening's gentle star.
   so with imagination’s dying spark
   the day so leaves us here the tranquil dark.

love poem
"where love is a wave that splashes on the sand"

when a heart
loves
the stars surrender
to the heavens,
the moon catches her breath
and the avenues
of silence become
voice. i follow the
path to my love,
i die for him,
i live for him,
like a spartan
in the heat of battle,
like a flower in the
mist.

i.

without words,
boy, caught up in the dark,
brown-eyed boy,

as night drifts,
dark in her clouds.

ii.

a tumbling
star,
leaden feet
sink to earth,

drowning stream...
poured from a water jug
a dark, crackling sky.  

iii.

night's thick opiates
glaze,

unmissable sky
sinks anchor-like.

iv.

slumber-heavy,
dreams carried to the stars,
lost time
stretching like a cat.

v.

boy, sleep sound tonight,
brown-eyed boy,

as night drifts
dark in her clouds.

the sky's flowers are the
february stars that brood
like a crashing sea.

moon against moon,
the indigos of the night
wind and unwind.

who listens when the
bright beams tremble?

who listens to the grey night's
powerful song?

the sky's flowers are the
slow river of clouds that
flow away from me,

little paper islands
puffed out like chinese lanterns.

only the stars and the
clouds and the moon,

the boughs beneath, withered
and gaunt, start to dream...

cloud in the sky,
drifting, rose of
the skies, wanderer.

elation, wild heart,
sea of wild stars,
sea, incredible love.

winter sea, wilderness
and wild flowers,
stars burning the skies.

i am jealous,
because all of my
love wants you,

i am jealous,
because my beautiful
love wanted you

rippling like a stream,
sighing like a ghost,
like the waves of the sea i so love.

tonight i want the sea more
than your love, some days
my heart just longs to be wild.

tonight i will make you jealous
of the sea.

sea, soft slumbering
its ghosts green nettles
once woven into shirts,
princess with fingers
badly stung
for love you sew
nettle to poison nettle
bearing the pain
for brotherly love
and as the nettle shirts
are thrown over their
backs, they become
human once more
and the bonfire to burn you
becomes soft flowers,
under a wintery sky that was once
a flock of wild swans.

boy,
jealous boy,
i'm crazy in love
with you,

if i tremble like a
a february leaf,
gold and brown
on the black branched
beech hedge,
where the snow's
fragile kiss melts
the night into
whispers,

and the wind,
wild with its
northern chill,
flutters those
leaves, blanched
like our love-starved
lips of
colour,

beneath a sky
of midnight's sea,

then i would melt,
like this sky
of midnight's sea,

crazy in love,
with my boy
of grey clouds,

who sweeps the
crying sea, with
strange whispering,

who kisses me so
beautifully in his arms

that i sigh and cry and die
for his love,

boy,
jealous boy,
i'm crazy for
your love,

like a star
glistening in the deepening
night where the
nightingale sings
and the grey clouds
drift forever in their
stream-like dream.

autumn melts the skies
her oranges like
bright rouge,
her yellows a
half hidden sun.

the fires of a waking
world, blown by
the branches of the
wind,

forgotten, an
ending sweeter
than the last
fragments of day
that dream as they
fall, caught by the
torn breezes that
scatter the leaves
westward and skyward
like little ribbons hurrying
along a once summer path.

i.

in your love, boy,
a summertime of dream,
a kiss on the winter wind.

ii.

in your love, boy,
a sky of lotus,
a sea that never relents.

iii.

in your love, boy,
a jealous heartbeat  
sweetened by a kiss.

iv.

in your love, boy,
the wonders of the earth
the white mist of the hills.

v.

in your love, boy,
the honeyed kiss of the breeze.

our love,
song of
winter seas and
love breathed in,

golds of love in
our hair,

running to the sea
where summer
waits for us,

sunshine on
our insides,
lips
of honey
meeting
soft as
the flowing
breeze,

love, so beautiful
and pure,
we don't want
to let go,

as we fall
like incredible
summer
stars,
like incredible
gold seas.

cloud floating,
sea dreaming
of the blossoms of
the breeze,

love, the song
has got restless
like the wind,
it is time to
burn the
alleys and
the sun,

the sea sweeps out
songless and
murmuring to
a heavy sky,

roots that have
shrunk, surrendering
flotsam and jetsam
to the sands at
low tide,
cry for the
rain,


spring, no
longer distant,
waits for a
morn of warming
sun,

you, lover of
the spring,
wait for the
crocuses to
breathe
love.

love in the pockets
of my blue jeans
cherries white and ripe
the fabulous patchwork
of sunlight through leaves,
all ivory and ink, the sky
with its summer-sad blues.

i.


the stars do not shine
loneliness presses the air
into a tangle of last years withered
leaves,
loneliness in summer leaves
that whisper to a grey moon
a song of regret.


ii.


dreams of midnight,
cool rain,
songs more alive
than this low-roofed night.


iii.


teardrops like the ghostly moon, lost
against the heart that
flutters like a dark sky
breathing stars.
  

iv.


the mottled horizon
pools into greys,
tender eyed with
soft sadness,

in these dim hours when silence
cloaks the woods and
human laughter disappears

we sink against the softer sky
and the slow fade of moon and
long for dream, for everything
to reawaken and unwind.


v.


we are swimmers heading as far
out as we can get. surreal silver
stars, opening like flowers,
refusing to drown.

'where night is....
monotones of silver stars'

emotions
blues, greys,
summer tied
to our hair,
love on our
lips,
in a moment
we live and die,
kisses of golden
skies,
our dreamy heads
lost in the clouds
uprooted like a
strange plant, we
run to prove we're
still alive,
dance to say we're
beautiful and strong,
like a polished stone
we find ourselves in
weird pockets,
where the air sighs
where our ribs are no
longer a cage for
our breath
where the stars
hang like fisherman's
nets wrapped to
a black ink sky,
strange sea of stars
love so gorgeous
it sings like the
wild storm-grey sea,
where night is....

i.

drunken in my pockets,
the day whispers to the trees that
pin to you, albatross
of a wind-swept sea loosening
feathers and heart-beats in
short, death-caught seconds.

ii.

gorgeous girl of height,
your caves are bright mysteries
your light an elephant's graveyard
of grey.

iii.

bitter note of earth,
you anchor birth
to our eye sockets, unwrap
mint and honey from the hills.

iv.

uneasy mistress,
dark daughter of sight,
sunk into all the corners of the world
you break like string,
you break and i break with you.



v.

vignette of ivy-coloured dreams,
sunny trail, you break my heart and
glue it back, sigh and sigh like a viking raider
conjured out of porcelain
and rose-water.

vi.

warrior of distant planes,
dense harbour of a lonely city,
landscape of water, unravelled
in an instant, a velvet
ribbon tied into a bow.

now cast aside by pyrrah’s glowing fire,
bereft and waste, his wild heart never tamed,
long flown away, burnt out upon the pyre
that winter's teary passion once inflamed.
apollo’s chariot climbs in the east,
and delphi’s altar calls with prayers and songs,
while chilly mortals long for summer’s feast
bewildered by sad winter’s sorry wrongs.
the spring draws near upon the roman shore,
and laughter fills the streams, an aerie choir,
while my new lover hammers at the door
seducing me with roses from the briar.
slow winter pulses quicken and awake,
and love, sweet love, will give and then forsake.

tonight, breeze
of rose,

tide, sweet
river brightened,
falling into the dark,

our love, the
breeze's ghost,
running from
the sun that
slipped away,

leaves in
flight on the
trees, tireless
and wordless,
murmuring
of summer
dreams and
crazy love,

high tide,
the sea's breath
lowering
the sky,
silver cloud
and moon-onyx,

our love,
tonight,
where the night is....

where the night is
a sweetened breeze,

where the night is
the dark, daring
us to go on,

to wait forever....
for the silvery
whispers of the
night to
sigh
for love.

the sky leans into me,
wild-flower and moss hide
in small crevices.

i feel all the freedom of a
woodland flower,
every bright inch of my being

blossoming from the stem.

the clouds rush in little rivers
their whites billowing like shirts on a
washing line, small temples of god.

i think of you, and every
muscle remembers my love
while you dream of the sea.

she wanders through the forests and the groves,
her bare feet scarce upon the mossy ground,
as day sinks into night without a sound
and sunset fills the skies with pinks and mauves;
and like a restless breeze she wildly roves,
a love-lost woodland dryad, summer-crowned
and who could ever guess where she was bound,
or why the sea so whispered near the coves.
her eyes as bright as a white-feathered dove,
beyond the river, near a sheltered tree,
she rests awhile finds lilies for her hair,
their flowery mist no prettier than she,
(enchanting in the hearkened, vibrant air,)
her heart soft-brimmed with longing and with love.

i saw a white hart in
a wood,
gorgeous before the
night he stood,
delicate, like a pearl,
wild and untamed,
a graceful flower
of the breeze
where autumn leaves
drowned their
sorrows in mossy
streams,
as surreal as stars
melting their blue
in september seas.

the sea murmurs of moonstones
and loneliness, every breath
the drowning dark,
every leaf of its emerald
tree, a whisper, a cry of
sorrow, a silver dream.

as we
loom
our hands

tethered
like a
cat's
cradle to
the sky,

a slight shift
of foot and
the landscape
scatters
drunk
as the blue
seas of the
cloud,

the tide
strides to
the open shore,
wind in her
arms,
salt on her
breath,

every step
decadent and
rebellious,

every sip of the
wind an icy
storm,

and the sky
hangs like
a pendulum
in an old
grandfather
clock,

calling out
crazy minutes,
breathful
seconds,

i stand next to you,
knock on the door
of the airy sea
stare out,

curve like
an echo in a
cave,

a handwritten
poem, carved
out of air

while you,
boy of dream,
kiss me like
a wild sea,
restring the
broken violin
of my heart.

i.

roses in the dust,
winter-love greys, shadows
of a lost world.

ii.

i was much smaller than i thought
and the sky
a rounded dome,

a cathedral of light
with stone arches

river-green pillars

and the blue-green
emotions
of dream....

iii.

imagination
waited, an
opal star
blown against
the tide.

iv.

all i could see was the
blues and greens
paper blushed,

clouds and watermarks,

watery daylight
like a glistening pool

as if the sky
was a stained window
and there was
no fire,
only a scattering
of light

only softness
of the heart,
only the magics

of its mirror mists.

v.

like maple leaves
fallen in a
stream filled
with moonlight
in the rivery
nets of the soul.

i longed for you
but i couldn’t find you
for shadows,

the moon shone weakly in the
december cold,
my shirt washed out
like a blowsy cloud,

everything singing
of winter ghosts,
time just an illusion,
**** frost like
a sharp indigo blade,

bleached out at the seams
like a whale bone
the threadbare night
unwound,
layers of grey shadows,
lustreless,

my lips yearned
for your lips,
my legs for
your legs,

the roses of the
sweet night
a flowery mist,

but still i could not
find you and my
lonely heart
raged like a
raggedy storm.

clouds unwind
bring winter
in their white breath
dissolve and murmur
to the sea-sombre skies
of the scurry of wind
and wave
of the tumultuous
ache of the night
its oceans
its impenetrable
depths
its shore-slumbering
lights, in the thick
folding of winter
mist
the wonderment
of cloud.

i'm crazy in love,
like a jealous, stormy cloud,
in love with your love.

i.

night,
smudged
like the
moon-inks of
mascara,

dark waves,
torn below
the ephemeral
mists of
the sky,

course grasses
scrape the paths.

ii.

in a second
of life,
bulbs with
their pearl-
paper
baubles
nudge
the earth

announce
themselves,
whisper they
no longer
hide in
the cold
that they
never feared
the dark.

iii.

sky of flooding
blossom rests,
whisper of spring
in shadows of
warming isles,
coast of riotous
song sweeping
its way along those
sandy paths.

iv.

boy, we
were here once
before,
so long ago,

i'm dissolving
cloud-like
in love,

memories of
our hearts
their crazy
love, those
emotions like
dance and
desolation.

v.

the emotional
blues of our hearts,
emotion, i will
never forget,
love like a midnight
sea sweeping out,
how i melted for
you, sea, star, night-
cloud of love,
beautiful boy.

the song of a leaf
scattered on the winds
of dream
imagination-lighted
to crisp gold,

the steep arches of
the night,
blown open
a fire-rose
dreaming of
love.

in your love,
flame-roses,
seas of eternal summer,
the sweetest fires of
the heart.

in your love
clouds like sweeping rivers
dark caves of storm,
gold magics as bright as a lamp.

in your love
a wish to hold me forever
desire so strong
that i submit to your will.

in your love
more love than i can believe
emotions like the wildest seas
crazy desire
poetry that melts.

in your love
the winds of passion
burning
summer breezes
light as a rose,
me fainting
with pleasure.

in your love
a love that will last forever
joys, beautiful in their rose-paper
deaths,
seas so wild the wind blows.

in your love
your heart gold
my heart blue
emotions like dreams
so close the passion melts.

i.

light in lazy pools
patches of shadow
like closing doors.

ii.

i float
like a ghost
open the sky
like a love letter.

iii.

a bird hovers,
shudders to
a sky that
unwraps its
dreams like
inky pools.

iv.

greyer than ghosts
that kiss for my
lips,
that trembling
of my heart
just for you.

oh, caverns of the moon so cold and dark
beside the trembling waves that drift and spool,
where urchins cling and breezes blow so cool,
such stony blackness vaulting in an arc.
upon the thorny land you make your mark,
beside the sea, that undulating fool
who clowns around and gathers in a pool
upon your doorstep, ocean green and stark.
and something draws me close, a story told,
fantastical, where hidden paths begin,
a dragon's secret hoard or horses white,
who foam like sea-spray in the frail moonlight,
(surrendering night's depths that brood within)
or some lost world bright crowned in ornate gold.

summer has burned up,
blown past, the thermometer
sinks stone-like, its silvers
dulled in metal tombs
no longer spiking red.

the wet leaf hangs lower
on the twig, the bird balances
on the branch, the day
fragments, its grey clouds
flowing under swiftly
closed doors.

the sea sings of
all my sadness,
i hear it in the waves that
beat relentlessly,
in the sky that dreams of softness,
in the sands that stretch like golden tides.

cave of wonder,
the black ivies of the sea,
the moon-shadows of
the shore.

i.

the sun burns the grass and the ferns,
they melt under a bright sky,
roughening, like the tongue of a cat,
the grass with its brown sandpapers.

ii.

the flowers pray for me and my
watering can, on a dirt track
the water splashes and the earth
drinks deep, the trees shiver
at the thought of water, their
branches sway, this is to dance -
leaves with patterns scattering -
leafy shade and pools of bright
sun.

iii.

drawn out of the air a drawbridge
of breeze raising its portcullis and
suddenly the heat is bearable,
shadows and sun like a patchwork
quilt.

iv.

we wait for summer, tender-eyed,
smouldering in the heat, the trees
like colossal statues of bronze
stretching branches beneath the canopy
of a green sea in a dream spun
from ebony.

v.

i kiss you, grazed by this
orient sun, my heart
seeking yours, my
legs longing for your legs,
my limbs threading
with yours
while summer
sings of her forgotten
ghosts.

you can only
imagine my kiss,

i am a mirage,
the glossy night
blown into
stars,

i am a phantasm
in the autumn frost,

layered like
the night’s soft
cloud,
a stream of
golden leaves
crisp in the quiet
air,

i drown in the
water of the stars

i faint, a ghostly
apparition
you can
hardly
sense in
the dream-like
surrender of
our love,
arousing our
limbs,
kisses like
the flowers of time.

grey mists over the sea
desolate skies
dreams of the skies.

i.

i await
the sudden
awakening
of colour, in
the straw air
the clouds of
yellow flowers
wrap the
forsythia in gold.

ii.

the land is
ivy and moss,
thick-blades
of grass bend
in rain so
light that the
grass hardly
weighs down,

the rain is a
bare breeze

a time-surrendering
blossoming of air.

iii.

you said,
i love you
and it meant
more than i can
say and
i cried for joy.

iv.

boy, with your
brown eyes
dark with the
wild brooding shore,

your touch is
fire on my skin

and i brood too,
wilder than air.

v.

a bird sings,
sings of wilderness
and beauty
and that a heart
must be free.

the white
sheets of the
sky are still
in their mists.

wrapped into you, my love,
i cannot be closer,

the rains flood the rivers
with their green
summery banks,

nettles in the dead land,

a hint of the sun,

kisses, unforgettable,
lips made of falling seas.

closer than this dream
of summer,
closer than your fingers
linking mine,
we melt like
candles,
burn like the night’s
distant stars.

the poetry meanders like
a pleasant stream
singing of autumn leaves,
    
breath as tranquil as a star in
the blue night,

our margins gather space
wait for the poetry to emerge
like trembling smoke,

our love rushing to wake
to gather songs of an
october sea.

carnal scattering of
root and banished leaf,

merely human, the day
spreads maple leaves
like dark gusts of wind.

i.

the grey ghosts
water to the sky,
pond to the
breaking air,

the blues are
cloudy
islands and
stars, lily pad
gold-green
dream of monet-
light.

ii.

love drifts,
scurries over
the water like
a dragonfly,
her wings the light
flowing, melting
in its breathful
streams

falling
falling
in the delicate
colours of
spring with
its tide-like
ebb and flow.

iii.

i held you
close and you
were the
aching spring,
the bright
opals of the moon,

i held you close
and all i could see
where the blues of
the pond, the
snake-silver
stream of starlight
and flower,

you were the
aching bronzes
of the rivery
pools, the still
water's paradise
of blue and white.

iv.

capture me
in the cloudy
isles of
the bright
lilies,

i am the melting
light, the frail
bloom with its
zen-like peace,
church of quiet
air, hopeful stream
of ache and light.

v.

ghost-enamels
of impression,

silently, the sun
sinks and the golds
of spring blossom
like a spell.

like stars, her eyes following the path,
time moulded into its caves
the sky with its sapphire-mooned dome,
the rustling trees where the fast
wind swore and shook each crooked branch

here beyond the houses and the well-kept lawns,
the low walls and scrolled iron gates
the sounds of the night a bat’s wing,
the sagging wind gusting, smoke
peppering the sky from chimneys in a thin flame

or the jagged ice of a jaded moon
where the horses in the woodland
shook their manes, grey-eyed like
athene and her owl, untired as
a fog-spun sea, relentless and alive,

the trees and their ghosts around her
she held her breath, bare feet weaving
along the sandy track, dress flowing,
her arms covered in bracelets,
her lips, coral-pink, brushed in peppermint,

free to dream at last , eyes swallowing
the dark lines of the trees, hanging the dusk
from her eye lids, singing of the sweetness
of the night and its ragged clouds,
the raw dust of the moon.

her dreams were blue pools, the night
with its midnight leaves, her
heart longed to be free, to wander
through the trees as wild as the
horses with their stone-like manes

and sweeping metal hooves, brushed
with the inks of the sky in the shadowy
woods where everything was still but
not still, where the moonlight carved
its name in the woken tree.

i.

the grass in the meadows
has grown high,
it melts like an emerald
sea under the sun.

ii.

summer stretches
robotic and angular
everything larger than life
sunshine and the childish rains
pouring stormy drops
on the window.

iii.

the sky is perfectly white
the cloud is an unbroken
line, no dots or dashs,
no hyphens or metaphors.

iv.

i dress in the morning and
undress at night let the
pools of the night tether me
to the sky.