Through the sticky glaze my
Shattered irises fought the saffron glare, gazing
Through sepia screens to see
Stretched against the cockleshell sheet,
A cumulus spine of translucent cotton;
A triumphant march of innate
Beauty; arching, achingly
Toward the purple pillow of twilight.
The step of the shadow shape marching
Along the imprisoned eye;
The treacle trickle of victory
Beaded on a beetroot cheek;
A microscopic stardrop, shimmering
And dwarfing in a trice
Like this intangible sun simmering
Within my weary bone house
The heavy dew sopped twine
Draping, grateful for the cool, confused breeze
Drifting into this lurid cauldron;
Its sons lifted sweetly
From its skeletal palms
By gentle wind fingers,
Set forth - naive navigators
On a sea of limitlessness
This elastic second, this
Flutter of a half-heartbeat,
This cage of nostalgic membrane
Waxed in isolation,
Where comforting forgetfulness and
Selective recall, reproduce grey, grainy
Photographs of sensory delusions
Wallowing in a honey pot.
The eye in instant blinks
Unnoticed. The second hand cranks over
Unseen, and subtracts from us a wonder-world;
A universe of spinning threads, cloaked
In the cacophony of untruths
Sowed in childhood, harvesting the present.
Stop the clocks
Let the smell of smouldering autumn
Pervade the frost of knee-deep pristine winter
Let June's heavy heat stand immobile among January's dark naked trees,
Invisible, awaiting their first deathly rendezvous
Let Spring shower the desert I inhabit
Let each long, lithe hair, rise and curl,
Claw at and savour what's otherwise lost,
Every moment, every abandoned second
