wing of night

When we make a flower of the moon
and dance upon her streaming hair
to a rhythm of night song
we feel the closeness of living air

Losing self and  busy day's care
at home beneath a longing gaze
we pause... touching as lover's may
 words and breath billow the embers
of warm lips and fire in fingertips;
we touch and bend darkness to a wish--
to be, to stay just this way,
far from dusk and dawn,
beneath the wing of night.

We share the delicate ways
love lingers as if the sweetest scent
on the hand that gifts a rose

Beneath the whispers

Remember the moon
In the wintry night, colors vapor
As we speak; it seems
The air holds the words
The heat of breath and passion
In the closing space between us,
Remember; the moon
Paints the tile roof line
with an ermine cuff.
'Neath bright planets and dimmer stars
I can imagine
the ear of God, listening to their defiant songs.
Like love here with us
they burn  hot in the frigid cold.
Remember the moon
Above cloud, on skin, and beneath the whispers.

overtones

listening--
some moods rise like tides
pulled to obey the moon
and  attend the  constant beauty
of her changeling face 

it can be in the descant fills
between the meaningful lyrics and my memories
it's more than  ascendant major chords
the overtones and sure rhyme end --no,
it is the space it made
and left...with you

A Little Broken...

Once again in an embrace of tender thoughts,
you are there in an air of need, when the body
bends past its bounds, and the brave sounds
of denial, are but flimsy reeds whipped
in a powerful stream.

The eyes that care, and clearly see
the bare wounds and  raw feelings
and once again, you are stronger than you can be
you  do not allow pain that breaks the will,
and will alone connects the jagged seams...
 a little broken

Still you are  the moon in a dream of night
and the beauty that dwells in a dear heart
that holds you always,  in a boundless wish

everywhere but here

I should be forgiven
like the shadow on the wall
i come because you glow within
and stay because i am called

when the light of sun or moon
washes over you, and i am there too
to see the moon and sun...more beautiful

I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls, could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent
i could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud
I can find your kiss in the dreams i left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind
you are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare
i can find you everywhere, everywhere but here.

Speak to me like the voice of the rain
you glisten in the morning like gifts of mists
and when the heat of day falls dark again
every star listens and lifts a tender wish

if i could find a memory in the flower's fold
the scent of an evening long gone bye
drift to timeless place, nothing grows old
the thought of you would lift my eyes
slightly above the petal's edge...and more beautiful


I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls, could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent
i could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud
I can find your kiss in the dreams i left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind
you are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare
i can find you everywhere, everywhere but here
i can find you everywhere, everywhere.... but here

I wake up in the morning and the dew drops form a tear...
I can find you anywhere, and everywhere...but here

The Poem Poem

A beginning risen from the cool, damp ground

into morning’s fog;  as the low clouds spawn

on half winds and notions of air, and filled in sound
rolling surf calling unto the coming dawn

Rising in a subtle crescendo as deep velvet overhead

Bent into a warmer blue in the slow march of the East

And the fog gathered like welcoming spirits of the coming day

As wet grasses and seaside dunes gave up all hope of holding dampness

To bathe with the rest of us in heavy air and morning mists

A clan of deer stood in silence, and slowly began  retreat

Into shades of trees and fern covered crevices

Carved by snow melt streams, fed by overflowing springs

And Moon wandered near, and I could hear

The tinkled beams on the window glass

And in the drifted senses passions wear

I undress time, admit a grudging pass

Such as the times, the early fingers of sun

Brought the forest sounds in to a rising chorus

As the silence that filled darkness lost its hold on mystery

Morning reveals…the world begins to shed night hungers

Wet boot steps shed drops and splatters splashes

the next step that occupies the delicate remainder

As thought holds true as the Pole Star, courage washes

the dust of  the long journey, and yet a bit longer

It is to home, and to a memory of love; where

Tender breath warmed skin and

Eager hands embraced the edges my face

And I was a precious moment.

For what use these determined dreams

And the seeds carried  far as hope believes

She is  the fertile heart of life, and it seems

the part of home that I can never leave

when the moon asks...

The Japanese maple  

climbs the west bedroom wall,

and shimmered  leafy shadows  

vignette my wood-framed leap

at the Powell and Market trolley.

I release the effort needed to stop

A wandering thought that seeks

reclaim, a tense reluctantly past-

and not so much as a scene but a way to see-

filters the crawling light

through  prisms of happiness.

Soon, the neighbor’s yard globe

eclipses the glowing ball of dusk;

the evening meal enlists smiles

of shoulder to shoulder and stolen touches

in the kitchen of that quaint downtown loft.

Even the music has a way of yesterday

and I dance Argentine Tango

with a memory of you;

finding restless air and  a sense of peace

is somehow within it.

For the most unsettling sound

would be the exhale of seat cushions

and thoughts that I would never

find us once again, when

the moon asks to open our favorite wine.

everywhere but here

I should be forgiven
like the shadow on the wall
I come because you glow within
and stay because I am called

when the light of sun or moon
washes over you, and I am there too
to see the moon and sun...more beautiful

You speak to me in the voice of the rain
and glisten in the morning like gifts of mists
When the heat of day falls dark again
every star listens and lifts a tender wish

If I could find a memory in the flower's fold
the scent of an evening long gone bye
drift to timeless place, nothing grows old
the thought of you would lift my eyes
slightly above the petal's edge...and more beautiful

I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls; could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent.
I could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud.
I can find your kiss in the dreams I've left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind.
You are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare.
I can find you everywhere, everywhere but here,
I can find you everywhere, everywhere.... but here.

At wake, the morning dew holds the brink of a tear...
I can find you anywhere, and everywhere...but here

winter...

I fall in love again…

in the bitterness of winter

when waves of cold descend from the north,

and I can see words that escape my lips

in moon bright nights of Jupiter‘s ascent

I fall in love again

because it mattered so much when

it was younger, newer and fresh.

The taste of longed-for lips and the

sweet feeling that flesh mattered so much.

I fall in love again,

when the world around me shivers in frigid blasts

and snow covers the unkempt grounds.

Forgotten tasks are buried ‘neath a frosty cover, and

once again, you are my lover; when

I am the luckiest man, in…

your beautiful, hope filled world.

closer to heaven

The mind is a camera

Keeping the obscure; the shaper

Of a world of sight and touch

And time makes treasures.

 A soft set of chords and words

That keep a moment long past

As fresh as the breath we spent

Skin on skin, when lips could not say

What lips would say, and so

We painted and wrote in snail-foot movement

a wet-stained poetry

It was in a time of full moon and Jupiter

You were the altar for  passion prayers;

So many lives ago…when the heat

Of your breath solved cold winter air

And I was near inner peace...and closer to heaven.

orbit slowly

Sometimes surprised at the brilliant full moon
as if I should always know
when she pulls my eyes to sky and dazzles
in a swarm of memories, stirring hopes
as the scars that remind of the fights I made
the flights taken to rise above the tedium of passing night

She honestly replies when asked of the meaning
of every task, that press down like fogs
falling beneath the cloak of darkness
when cloudy vapors rise like ghosts of dreams.

Sometimes surprised by the pristine beams
that fill the evening yet leave it empty still,
and waiting to be filled by apology for the missing
and the vow to be...a presence in the present.

I do know, for I can hear the tinkled glass retort
when beams fall like icy petals, parting the cold.
Near ground where I orbit, slowly; held by the gravity
of tomorrow, and still I am sometimes surprised,
how she...is the moon.

lesser stars

When we love, a seed deep within
begins to blossom, we reach for
a warmer Sun; we grow
in ways we could not otherwise do.
It is the beauty of love, and it rises into life.

When I see the rain of my care
and she becomes a flower in the desert;
a blossom in defiance of pitiless sands
a rebellion upon the waterless earth
a power to be where nothing else might

We hold a  blessing of time
before the fall into night;
it is as the power of tides
upon the greatness of the seas.
It cannot not lift weight of a world
but it changes the face that holds
a thousand pieces of the moon
and the fall of lesser stars.

heart of love

 

Beneath the sun,
piercing the cloudless blue,
a confusion of  gulls raises
the eyes...

A song of the heart
disappears from the lips,
a thoughtful prayer  left undone.
In the lingered image, the last
of a woman’s eyes, deep and blue;
within that moment
a slow river runs, as it always has,
finding its way –from cloud to sea.

Am I the tree...or the hand that touches it,
Am I in the journey, or its cause...

The dream seems like a vapor
and the world a mere tissue,
I can reach my hand
into a living night to touch cold fire.

Let me awaken -came a whisper-
then lips answered full:
the dream ends where the dream begins
in a heart of love, in arms
that will be empty until I fill
a space created  by a river that flows
so simply from thee to me.

tanka

  
waiting in fallen day
night made a petal's edge 

in the moment I loved you

came as light within darkness
and candled eternal stars

lingers past dawn

In a space that might let slip 
the wisp of an angel's wing
or a moment so mercurial
it passes like a taste on  tongue
You come like the portal of a dream

Inviting as a flower on the wind-
a night scent that lingers past dawn-
the haunting that only plies in memory,
where play wishes we might have made.

You, in a reach for happiness
inspired by the nearness of breath,
are a touch of fingertips and brush of lips
and a rush of feelings that crowd  into escape,
 sounds that steal breath,
and reveal beyond words,
a meaning of loving You.

Caesura

There in the space between

a touch and wanting, in lights of night sky,

over shoulder a search for stars and wonders,

somehow finds a higher use.

When candle hiss and kiss coincide,

an occult of flesh and will,

within a moon-made shadow

amidst invented songs from

near still birds and breezy leaves,

we make a slow, slow dance, and

dawn... retreats from view

unfound stars

I make a future memory
so dear, so precious, remarkable gem
even among a shining diadem, glows
captured on skin

The stars I will find in your eyes
the enduring softness of your touch
the words that will rise from within
and pour sweetly, sounds
in your passion song.

The hints in winds and trees
that follow my steps as I circle within
impatient days, fall of season
rise of season, there is an unchanging air-
an eager breath...my memory yet to be,
curled within each moment... I wait

pictured...(lyrics)

What's in a picture Dear? A memory
a day when your were here and feelin' so near
what is it Baby- the way you wore your hair,
how moonlight kept us there ...or a sight
of you that stilled the air

yes, was that but so much more
it was the breath that came before
words we spoke,  the times we swore
never to be this way...never empty hands
and forgotten books until-- we look at a picture
and find us, oh so long ago but  there...
and in love...still




Lyrics, inspired by a photo of Billie Holiday

Mãe e sussurros ( Mother and whispers)

A vivid wander in the apse,  

an ancient cathedral breathes incense.

The moaned prayers for so many dead

re-echo and sound old pain anew.

How can we forget for a moment;

how does laughter yet rise from

the fullness of our quaking sides?

When the spirit-calls of emptiness--

of cloaked leavings, hidden 

in the silent roar of  grief--

rises like a quick flood in over-soaked ground.

It is always there, the want for those few

we miss in so many times.

Some scars close without healing

for we remember the deep rent and tear.

It phantoms to persist and exist

when we cannot do anything more

than close the sting in the eyes

love poem number 117

have I loved  as I love you?
the air brings  traces of memory
across lips and tongue...an emptiness, felt

in the wanderings of fingertips
the memories of skin, i close eyes
and bring you into a dream unfolding

and in the sounds you leave
an echoed grace, a feeling akin to weightlessness
that rises in notes of birds, in the forest's hum,
lays hidden in the ambiance of a busy street,
where we have walked,  and
made moonlight more tender


( i sight a solitary sparrow on a wire,
and urge him to fly...give wings to my wishes
for it is among sparrows on earth and stars in heaven
that I have learned a geometry of faith)


have i loved as i love you?
no- it is more that i never loved
until loved by you