Boding

I dreamt the land unfolded
Green hills devoured, grim harvest blight
Fine estuaries congealed in flight
My kin consigned to dust-mouthed plight
Dread future world remoulded

Caer Sidi

Arianrhod's uncovered head a sign
In cobalt eyes a spiralled shrine
Her lustrous alcazar revolves
A northern realm that death absolves
Ensorcelled light and sea combine

Commuters

Dark glittering from glass and stone
The isle of Indus' Tree
With metalled tide and wind are thrown
Blind legions of the sea

Washed up high upon the shores
They scuttle from the sun
Intent on tracing paths to doors
March mindlessly as one

Each evening the steely waves
Clatter up the beach
On cue the tide of silent slaves
Sweeps out of sight and reach

City River Beach

No holiday makers here with colourful towels to court the sun...

No children with sandy toes to run shrieking into the water...

No mighty roar and raking of pebbles by the voracious ocean...

Just little unseen tides for small unassuming places.

Gutter

Stormdrains sealed with spiteful thirst
Their flinted murals scarred and cursed
To watch through tarmac'd iron-ry
Retrenchant skies to lock-jawed sea

Cuckold

Stone mirror'd heart supports a crown
Fair treason'd face disguised as clown
Once true love now rogue's intended
Grand plans in ignominy have ended
Scalding tears too few to drown

Abaddon

The vast and silent army reach their quarry long pursued

Dark whimsy-driven butchery fanned by ancient feud

Across the ghastly battlefield the red lines raise black cloth

Unearthly tongues now summon dread Apollyon's cold wrath

Transfigured by the frightful spectre waked from voided ground

Powerless, the mightly throng is crushed without a sound

Unseen Dawn

The silvered space beneath the door
So pale with rain-washed moonlight
Weathered panes in flaking frames
Rapt with starshine's nightflight
Spellbound lull before the day
All green life wanes to sward
The moist black earth breathes deep and low
No creatures yet abroad

The Crane

A strong and silent type, he stands above the crowds

The city-dwelling Polyphème that yearns to walk with clouds

Looking for true love, he explores all compass points

The sky globe's promised far horizon always disappoints

And when his tribe are gathered, eerie cries resound for miles

Long shadows on the buildings from these skyward-bound sundials

Depression

Don't save me...
when midstream, I lose my footing
and plummet from the bright into the deep

Don't follow me...
through the black to drown in words
cruelly barbed with bitter tears I daren't weep

Don't stop me...
while I draw the coldest comfort
from this self-revenge that failure justifies

Don't tell me...
that a newly dawning day
will cure despair and pointlessness with denim skies

Don't give up on me...
before the stranger who inhabits
disappears and I awake as if from sleep

Growing

Outside the door of adolescence
Creep the ghosts of childhood fears
Nursery toys now dust and shadows
Fairytales and infant tears

From the house of adolescence
Shines the light of future years
Across the meadow turned to concrete
Behind the hard, soft disappears

Light Pollution

A million streetlights fire the clouds
The city's single baleful eye
Red sky at night delights the crowds
Glares unblinking at the sky
They plod like fatted ants in shrouds
Who not waste not want not why

The Race

Closed-eye'd vigil awaits the sightless moon
Torn oneiric fabric portends a sunless day
Three wind-scoured geldings reach the storm's dark womb
Now Jack Frost's creeping presence must seek another prey

Puddockstool

Small monolith of flesh and stone
Eschews the moon to sleep alone
Inscrutably pale-faced and blind
Dead skin and para-lune entwined
Just for one night, the hayfield's crone

Momentary Light

Bright winter sky spills from a lofty window
Sun-reflected dazzle mirrors centuries of snow
Transcendant other's frosted arrows pierce me
Through my veins regret and bitter bliss now thickly flow

Lily

Pale lady gilt with gossamer
Jaden arms anoint with dew
Her fragrant spinnakers unfurled
To kiss the windswept blue

A House Dreamed

Inhabited by only I
House of my youth rediscovered and dreamed
In perpetual summer suspended

Mother to only I
House which embraced me endured and esteemed
For my childhood kept safe I depended

Abandoned by only I
House once resplendent a dulled bygone gleam
Our easy communion ended

тайга́

Sun-windowed chartreuse our hideaway canopy
Slumbering alder in soft fallen atrophy
Noontide's lost sonants in mantled decline
Intone Benedictus for aspen and pine

Defaced

Sorrowful and silent the custodian intercedes

Aghast to see his progeny cut down like paper weeds

Deceitful armoured paragons decry their earthly deeds

Stolen from their childlike mouths all innocence resigned

Disingenuous pencraft leaves the quislings flying blind

With toothless smiles and pretence are their pockets deeply lined

Winter Library

Rustling rain-kissed far-off gables bid me listen
Musty tomes in yellowed orphic languor float
My age-old hallowed athenaeum must now me christen
Before intoxicated I awake, a drifting sunlit mote

Kunstkammer

By mating song the unicorn betrayed so carelessly

Renaissance man tracks quietly the silver-plated sea

Now narwhal's life and helixed horn mere curiosity

His eyes intent with effort spent, this creature's fabled bone

Effulgence gored with claret, deeds the night skies must condone

A sacrificial gift to his museum's velvet throne

Beguiled

I met a faded man whose face I could not see
He seduced and won my eyes with smiling sophistry
I tried to speak his name, but his monstrous name was me

I met a sanguine man with my face above his cloak
I but uttered from his mouth as mine own began to choke
And in his laughing pupils my reflection turned to smoke

I met my glowing namesake, gave my heart and sweet adieu
Now faded I, hide from the sun that once I loved and knew
A spectator to my life, I am my shadow split in two

Crypt

In our vaulted dome of silence
A stone sword consoles the bride
The crescendo-stricken cyclops
Burns the coffers from inside

Thwarted silent multitude
Await their judgement chime
Curtains drawn around the crib
Red flowers imprison time

Heretical banality
Inseparable and bleak
Forty knights inscribe their names
Upon the sleeping virgin's cheek

Early Frost

The sun embraces tenderly expectant augured land

The earth bursts forth in verdant joy, finds death's encircling hand

Your head piled high untrammelled captures summer's warmest gold

My face immersed in flaxen hair, finds only driech and cold

In childhood's reveries hold dear this cherished fertile land

My feet now bare through lush green grass, find only sullied sand

Your smiling face and loving eyes my hearth and second home

I kiss your soft sweet scented skin, to find that I'm alone

Mental Illness

Dreamt by another, she no longer exists
Autumn winds scatter her millstone life's grists

Hell waits behind holding barbed mask and gown
Surrounded by loved ones, unreached and sucked down

Implacable waters close over her head
Time-misted glass proxies life's pallid thread

Outlander, mother's blind visage en-cloaked
Recoiling child breaks her, last futile plea choked

Betrayed

Fractured by discovery, our subterranean tryst
Misbegotten courage sunders faith with bitter twist
The curfewed lonely landmark constructed here to mask
Treachery at home marked well with teary burial cask

Seige

Slip between the cracks in search of predatory ire
Formless faces gravitate to one remaining spire
Blackened wrecks lie writhing on the battle-weary beach
Beset by silent legions jealous arrows dare not reach

Plucked

The lily has fallen indentured and tythed
The reeds of her bed now so sinfully sythed
Nonchalant harvest feeds ignorants' bliss
Ephemeral blooms presage morient last kiss

The Door

The corridor's nadir where light fades to dim
Last timbered marchland of centuries drawn thin
Closed by the hand of a long-dead unknown
Departed unhurried, on cool dark tiled stone

Gas Towers

Three children by the river stand
Mesmerised by sun-glanced ripples
Fenced in littered scrub-grassed land
Three neglected blank-eyed cripples
Wait serenely hand in hand

Monumental

Scandalise the sacramental
Vandalise the sentimental
Rend faceless judges incidental

Our heritage's spiteful thirst
For stolen history dispersed
Our moral dignity coerced