Brindled,

ears flipped inside out
for better hearing the wind
as it flattened rosettes in your hair,
lids lowered to better focus on an unseen squirrel.
The fathomless weight of your glance
settles heavily in memories,
lopes through dreams.

.

.

Maths fascination

As he had predicted,
my Grandfather shed
his slumped shadow, which
reflected again
and back again;
caught in the triptych of mirrors,
skirted with frothing, peach coloured
lace. 
He shrunk himself,
inch by inch -
a perfect mathematical illusion
repeated neatly forever,
a proven hypothesis.

*

(Time is not linear- Paul Squires)

Happy birthday Paul Squires.

I see you. Don’t think you’re beyond seeing, old man, high up there in the larch, swinging your legs and whistling and throwing larch cones at the pretty girls who walk underneath, grinning like a cheshire cat.
I see you.
I hear you, Squires, laughing softly as you stir up a storm in a virtual teacup, as endless and looping as those very concentric circles that you went on and on about, looping and endless. All for fun yet so serious.
Your time machine stands in the corner. Someone has filled it with boxes left over from a jumble sale and wrapped it in christmas lights. We’ll sort through it one day when it’s rainy and we’re bored.
I know you know we loved you, pain in the arse that you could be, linking arms tonight and drunkenly swaying to a strange sort of Auld Lang Syne of Happy slurring purriness, bouncing about in black and orange stripes and doing a crap rendition of the hokey-kokey.
I smell you, uncle, sea salt and cigarettes swirling quietly around the bookcases while I type, mingling with every word~ urging me on.
That piano, the one with the famous musicians, the one where we all took a turn and sang and danced and that duck, that poor, strangely placed duck. I’m laughing now, properly laughing.
Yeah,
all those things.
Cheers.

Samhain

sends forth fronds from the west.
ripped red-ribbon beacons bekon,
the deathcries of sunlight stripe the sky.

Children are restless in their beds-
lulled to dream-laden sleep by
crispleaf lullabies rattling the ash branches~
the dry-breath whispers of the dead.
Mist lingers heavyheaded,
swathed in mourning shrouds.
Worms retreat deeper down,
delving headfirst from the frost
that creaks and creeps, clasping at life ~
shooting crisp whisps of death
through the last tender-veined shoots.

In the murmering woodland
spirits veil the larches with dewspangled
spiderwebs,
taunting the moon with pearls and opals,
treasures left behind to soothe the wind.
The darkening sky lowers its limbs;
soothing the hills with an indigo touch
and a whispered secret of spring.

quartz shard sparks

Heaving granite looms gloomily, through
moonlighty mist drifts.
Here, in the land of hollow women;
bouldering  enormity~shadows  rule the ruinous remnants~

chips from the old, old block; (rage encrusted
and fossil-stamped) crouch in crevices,
learning the ways of their magma-veined daddy.

like a swift.tipped sewing box,
button rocks (Worn away in situ; Scattered love, 
pin pierced with starlight - a measure of days,)
roll away across the spagnum moss.

.

.

sea voyage #2

Dream shiver, frayed lace limbs,
buffetted by thick-mist twists;
(coiling and furling, reforming, uncurling you
into tide scented shadows.)
                                                        your form fades to grey
                                                        swept away 
                                                        dissolved to the spray that sprinkles the deck
                                                        with a world of crystalline sparkles ~

                                                        a strewn handful of discarded stars
                                                        disguise the scars that ripple oak boards,
                                                        each a well-worn truth.

The night heaves to shore
a million sleepers stir, the earth tilts. 

Blinks.

The mist settles a ghost-guilded gossamer on the slates. 
Wet paths glimmer with a golden sunrise glow~

                                                           gulls wheel.
                                                           moonguided tides lap the sand smooth.
                                                           all is still

.

.

.

copyright 2007 ebby.
first published in 2001.

The Magician, The Artist and The Priest.

A tilt of your hat
cast an indigo ocean glow; the sunspangled ripples
crossed your mind
like silver coins spinning on a polished piano.
in your coat,
succulent berrybright jewels~ amethyst, ruby, emerald
dancedeep in your pocket: an inkstained hand
conducting a chinking, clinking symphony
of exquisite colour.
you painted
that springtide-high surging sea:
smoother of pebbles, yet stroppy as a storm,
it swept you away.
the sacrament:
there was nothing inside the intricately carved
Covenant box
but a tiny orchid carved from opal
and the words we put there.

.

.

.

The title has been ruthlessly stolen from my darling friend Paul Squires who has published a poem with the same title in his magnificent, magical work: The Puzzle Box.  I miss him deeply and know that I am not alone.  He was a truly gifted poet who guided many and inspired many more.  He believed that the internet was as worthy a medium for presenting poetry as any other, and worked tirelessly to promote new poets, like me.
His work is everywhere, but specifically here, on wordpress.  You can read more of his work on the Gingatao page, and also on the collaborative writers site The Orchid Room, both of which you can find in my blogroll and also where you can find some of my work which has never been posted anywhere else.
I truly believe that Paul’s legacy will spread like wildfire.  A true genius of our generation.

James

sunshine scented, your
treebark hands from outdoor work
touch me like velvet.

.

.

for iris, with refrain.

.

.

mounted on plaster posing as marble,
cast from pirites dressed up as gold.
On closer inspection the silk is just cotton,
the coffee is instant, the promise forgotten.

this afternoon when the wind rose.

.

.

the grass ocean pours over and over.
one windswept wave after another;
a sea of single stems
bowing froth.topped heads,
politely
turning an ear from the wind’s spiteful tongue.

.

.

This voice,
a bug in a box, a cave-call echo
swept greedily free from the five fathom fronds,
raging, raging.
snap.twigs scatter skiddy leaves bashfully,
hush.
hedges shrug, what is it to them but
a birds~wing bough shake?

.

.

You too should watch this,
tightly wound in your silver case
ruby-balanced and ruled by science,
angry at the wind.

.

.