Dream Time Poetry

Stairs start and lengthen more
from the dungeon of despair
to make of every step
a laboured affair.

No man or beast, angelic friend,
or sweetheart of the heart’s desire
can lift the burden, ease the pain,
or change a state of mind.

But there always was and still is
the self that knows no other way
than up with good and down with bad
until [...]

So the tree man and the witch
cuddled up in bubble wrap
safe and sound cocooned within
a world meant just for two.
Sadly so the time will come
when hands of flesh and bone
will destroy their paradise
and place them in a strange place
cold apart alone.
They will move according to
the dictates of sheer ignorance
and pretend at their contentment
from morn until [...]

The grass is green and “squishy” soft
under one and two and many more
footsteps placed just so
and, oh, just so to satisfy
the need of easy passage
to where’re the journey ends.
Little is known of the “far ahead”
perceived as just a dream
but when the grass turns brown
and the ground a hardened mass
footsteps falter, pause, then stop
at the point [...]

Like a golden orb of happiness
the setting sun doth shine
but the sun is moving all the time
here to there and then nowhere
and this movement like a lover
determined not to care.

The not to care an evil “thing”
that grabs me by the throat
and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes,
until I backtrack and retreat
into my withdrawal.
And withdrawal is a shady spot;
I [...]

Only half of all there is
like half a turn, half a yearn,
half a thought, a wish,
comes to one unmindful of
the power of completion.
This power like a furnace burns
to heat up mind’s intent
and send it searching in the rough
for the perfect whole.
I’m rather fond of commas
because maybe there’ll be more
and it’s like I’m finely tuned
to continually [...]

I’m at the base of life’s pyramid scheme
stretched and extended to no good avail
adding some more to the already before
then some more and thereafter some more.
Not good, not bad, but foundations don’t last
when stuck in a whirlwind of everyday chores
that produces a mind devoid of intent
to retreat into the glory of the essential “I am”.
But [...]

When life hurts the heart

It caught my eye one day towards the end of May,
obscured but partly so by wayside flowers wild,
and I paused to feel and enjoy reflected memories
glinting, gleaming, glistening, in the field of hope.

Confused it seemed familiar as if I’d spied before
a diamond in the broken bits of a tall [...]

Winter’s sleeping death will pass like birds in flight
migrating to a warmer place to review its past mistakes
but in the time of ice and snow no blade of grass will stir,
no thunder split the air nor water flood the lakes.

September heralds spring
when birds return again
and when gardens [...]

(Photograph by Frank Bennett, New Zealand)

Here lies the confession of sky
in silence asking I feel
how it suffers and bleeds
throughout its kingdom
the sun’s need to be seen
and passion and beauty known
by all of mankind down below.
And I suffer the beauty in me
forced to witness disease
and the stop/start trails of pain and heartache
inexhaustibly present on earth
until [...]