Full moon breaks the rushes,
quivering lips soft whiskered brush the water,
hair line trail traces black velvet muzzle
which moistens, smacks and laps,
heavy glug of oesophagus
tugs water to the bowels of a dread black creature.
The beast drinks deep, shaggy hide
long and twitching skirts agile cloven feet.
His saucer red eyes hold star glow infernal.
Head raised dripping, he speaks a gargling tale
of strangled marshes, dried out mosslands,
shrunken brooks and pools abandoned,
eternal thirst his cruel domain and an endless lust for riders
to sink beneath the skin of a world unintelligible
to one deep as peat and old as the glaciers.
His lips close slapping. His burning eyes blink.
With a fish-like leap he slips below the water.
Category: Poetry
The Wild Ivy
‘The Wild Thyme is Los’s messenger to Eden, a mighty Demon
Terrible deadly and poisonous.’
– William Blake Milton
A traveler,
Twisting outward from eternity.
Hedera helix spiral climbing,
Subtle fibres root the earth, pierce the tree.
Vines entwine an embracing strangle,
Mighty deadlock pulsing path of evergreen.
A traveler
On a long journey,
Cordate faces look out to see.
Draping decoration wraps the valley
Pervading everything with ivy’s mystery
Hanging tendrils sing deafening resonations:
“Joy-lament the world you fail to see!”
I can see you’ve travelled far to reach me
And ask “what message do you bring to me?”
Litter in the Valley
‘If the doors of perception were cleansed
Everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.
For man has closed himself up.’
– William Blake ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’
Litter in the valley-
when people pass by
I see their minds are littered with debris;
carrier bags squashed, squeamishly sodden,
crisp packets tattle in the trees.
Chocolate wrappers with dirt in their pockets
chase like dogs without leads.
Discarded, a full can with a wasp in it,
dead, fermented in the void.
Shattered bottles glass the earth,
cider vessels huge and vacuous,
squeezed shut as if by the jaws of some great mutt.
A sip of vinegar slides along the bottom,
seeps out leaving a stench-
stains on the valley,
a land of garbage.
Cleanse the doors of perception and you will see
roots from the earth’s depth towering upward to infinity,
peppered bark- tan, brown, silver, grey,
tough, rough, notched, spot a gnarlen face.
Feel the clog of loam on your feet,
smells like umber, hidden paths and treats.
The swish of the leaves, damp and orange curls
twitching brown, yellow curve citrine,
amber shells, red night dancers and newly fallen green.
Halt! Hear the intangible snap, see them float,
swaying like boats, turning like sun dials
as bright beams break through the boughs,
raising mist from cold clarity of the stream.
So why crust over this sacred vision with debris,
facies hippocratica, waste site insult to all that is living?
Everything sings, everything feels and dreams.
Open your mind and clear the litter from the valley.
The Sanctuary of Vindos 