From the vault

Red, White and Green

Lanterns were raised filling the dark night
like planets from all corners of the universe.

Above, stars light the ceiling of Da Vinci's dome.
Fallen snow blankets the earth
warming the iced air
as people begin to forget their other lives.

Horse chestnuts' smells rise from roasting fire,
chanted carols accompanied
by crackling logs.

Hot punch warms chilled hands
as the choir of angels celebrate
the passing seasons
and the advent of a birth.

Red, white and green
adds camouflage to soothe the eye
lending foundation to overcome
an artificial world.

As midnight bells chime,
children dream
of computers, of androids,
and of electric sheep.

The Quack

As he travelled straight from East to West
along a road he knew least best,

he met a man a selling peasants wares &;#64979;
bottles of elixir to soothe all cares.

All ills and ails, all spills and pales &;#64979;
just tuppence a phial, to stop the wails

of pain from breaks or pain from strains
from gout, gangrene, or migraines.

The people came, the people brought
and drank the potions of the new rulers court

as if by Gods hand the potion would relieve
creating a new God in which they could believe.

With wares all sold, the Quack waved goodbye,
heading East to West, to hear new volk cry

for the life of health and wealth the potion brought
unbeknownst to them that if he be caught

he would be pilloried long in the town square
just reward for his panacea of the lair.

Eden's snake had slithered from page to book
and the monkey on his back was all that it took.

Birds of a feather

Braked, bumped, jagged ragged stone.
Buckled fore wheel,
reducing speed,
stopping.

Spinning axle,
centrifugal point,
force a break.

Solid limbless trunk,
colours distinct, confusing images.
No spectators but
a thousand eyes.

Someone whistled,
no air &;#64979; gasp.
I dream.

Dressed into sanity,
perfection,
dream I.

Statue lights,
scales tip heavy bar.
Lose chain link &;#64979; the answer.
I fly.

Old Soldiers

My uniform hangs from a rusty hook
beside my small iron bed.
The broad shoulders now collecting dust
where there had once been a rank.
I never really enjoyed
wearing your symbol of office George,
but society had made identi&;#64979;kit
identi&;#64979;kats.

You made my nerves taut like a wire
and just as keen as a ballerina
on a tightrope.
You gave me pictures
with which to kill
the inner animal from the farm
and with which I had been born.

I have not touched the dusty uniform
since the day I hammered
in the hook;
a long, hard, cool, compressed look
that could have ended
in either direction.

Society had made us accept our duties
without fervour or decline;
without scant regard
for the thoughts that were mine.

I want to wear that uniform, again:
to remember why I had to wait in vain
to take another level up the ladder
of your pyramidal game.
As usual, it ended
in neither direction.

Were our foundations
really so abstract
to the young and to outsiders?

Erotica

She found the erotic postcards, laced
and sweetly packaged in a box,
on the top shelf of the disused cupboard.
Black and white pictures of prostitutes, 1901.

They called them Parisian models in those days.
Stone Orientals in the Karma Sutra.
With them were the words you had written
to undermine the crimes
of the author. Lawrence.

She believed your stream of consciousness
would lead her to a deeper knowledge
of herself, of her sexual inner self,
but your animal lusts
could not rise above the text
with which she displayed
a deeper knowledge of her chaste love;
what it was like to make love to a woman,
as a man, as a man, as a woman.

Herself to him she gave.
Himself to her she gave nothing.

Dialectics or Dualism?

He recognised white in black
black in white
from the Bible.

He wanted to reinforce
light in shade
shade in light
within the rules
of the psychology of colour.

When he tried to reintroduce
white in light
black in shade
in accordance with the
rules of Carravaggio

but he had to restate
light in white
shade in black
for the children.

Passion

A solid earthen form,
conceived by a eyed match
reflecting an emotive dance
of embodied fiery lustre.

Hearth of cores rekindled,
within burning glassed frames
within a shadowed room
of passionate wooded embrace.

Meandering limbs of thought,
flicker glowing firelight
where dampness is dried
by soft blankets of warming umbers.

Meandering limbs of thought,
flicker glowing firelight
within a shadowed room
of passionate wooded embrace.

A solid earthen form,
ignited by a eyed match,
where dampness is dried
by soft blankets of warming ambers.

Hearth of core rekindled,
within burning glass frames
reflecting an emotive dance
of embodied fiery lustre.

Heart of cores rekindled,
within burnt glassed frames
where dampness was dried
by soft blankets of warming embers.

Meandering limbs of thought
flicker glowing firelight,
relecting an emotive dance &;#64979;
embodied fiery lust.

A solid earthen form,
desired by an eyed match
within a shadowed room
of dispassionate wooded embrace.