PinnedMember-onlyGérard Manley Hopkins SJOn this flaming day in June, with such beautiful pagan mountains rising all around, I felt your uncertain presence in this bastion of the Jesuits. I listened, and you, doubtless, overheard, disquisitions concerning the nuts and bolts of your poetry As your real presence crept slowly into my heart, I knew your…Greek1 min readGreek1 min read
PinnedMember-onlyRhapsodyPoetry — If all the days of all the years were made of wine and gold I’d roll them up into the light of intelligence in this one dog’s eyes This friendship across species — a Buddhist mantra – Rocks me like my good old boy, befriends me like the wind. Be with me when the gates fly open — love will enter in. Seek out the Majesty, the shaman-spirit that will be: Come with me to the Paiut Wovoka ghost dance Drive away every morsel of this dirty money-grabbing Respectable massacre of everything that be wild, wilful, wondrous. Artfulness creates resistance to the age of the machine To the algorithms that manipulate us behind the scenes in this stinking world of the machine There is no worth in this two-dimensional world Resurrect the unseen perspicacity and prescience that was once the common currency Of the most illiterate, boorish Saxon.Prescience1 min readPrescience1 min read
Published in The Lark·PinnedMember-onlyWaiting for NovemberHis headstone verses were writ in wineConstantinople1 min readConstantinople1 min read
PinnedMember-onlyThe unsaidWind cuts through this January night Slices like a knife through my meagre clothes. Signs on the road hidden by an iron fog The cry of the wind is all in vain Nothing is the same. I kiss you across this black hole in time. In the old be-jewelled spider-webbed…Unsaid1 min readUnsaid1 min read
PinnedMember-onlyJohn Keats 31 October 1795– 23 February 1821Melancholy’s lack of zest written all over his palimpsest: to die at twenty-five to some will hardly seem to have been alive, but for Johnny Keats and the footloose Cavaliers poetry, music, art, tears were eternal. They eschewed self-pity, untold fears. They tried their best to stay alive In a world…John Keats1 min readJohn Keats1 min read
Published in Poetry Palace·4 days agoMember-onlyA Love SupremeThat long-held sax note- divine makes my soul jus drift away smoke, booze, horse, Then the girls. Sum o’them, think agen man, the flash of the crack o’th drum thumpity, thumpity, thump. He jus stand there in a haze John’s soprano sax, Miles’ trumpet Blowin the blues. All the way To Missisip All the way to me cryin…John Coltrane1 min readJohn Coltrane1 min read
Published in The Howling Owl·Mar 22Member-onlyGiant Stepstaking the day — We take giant steps When we let ourselves go Step into love Step into eternity. Nano steps will hardly reach Outside where full blown life Blows me away from restrictions Predictions. Smile at those trapped By circumstance by failed romance. Instead of taking a walk while spring flowers test the temperature. Too many stay inside, hide away, Do not live the…Giants1 min readGiants1 min read
Published in The Howling Owl·Mar 22Member-onlyStuttererdifferently-abled — It is not the cruelty of children that angers me But that my hesitation to commit the word to air And, aye, maybe, to the ear, the heart, was treated as an affliction By those with the polished shoes and starched aprons; Sometimes I was not even there when they mocked me but I…Stutter2 min readStutter2 min read
Published in The Lark·Mar 22Member-onlyCasting StonesSell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven — Every day a day closer to death I wave that away with a pretended Insouciance that does not convince Me! …Daesh2 min readDaesh2 min read
