sitting in the sun cannot be explained
to those who have never experienced it
mole people who live in dank dark houses
caves, or sewer rat-like enclosures can never understand
the feelings or the joy of this
I don’t relish sharing my yard with them
so am keeping it quietly to myself
The valley
With its flatness
A space between
Abrupt enclosures..
An appearance of
Time and space and
A viewer which all
Seem separate..this
Illusion expressing
A calm beyond
Understanding...
(See photo at: www.polarityinplay.com)
I seek escape from this side of the fence where
Grassy thorns beneath my feet pierce my sole.
Scrambling, ambling, trekking to the freedom
Awaiting on the other side.
I search for pockets in my ascent
Digging trembling fingers inside
its moulded, muddy enclosures, securing each grip
Then clawing my way up until
I grope my way over.
Lest I should fall as my nimble and bruised tendons
fail me and my blood-thorned feet derail me
Let me land with a thud o’er the other side of the fence
Rather than fall on the familiar turf where my body is forever spent
And my mind, broken and bent.
Its the slight waft of rotting flesh
That first hits you
While the smartly dressed
Smiling warden ushers you in,
Through narrow turnstiles
There are rows of enclosures
A maze of them, a maze of the wild
Its like a snapshot of danger
A dangerous predator-laden savanna
Danger enclosed
Lions...
You will hear their shouting matches
Royal majestic roars
Like cage competitions
Even the females join in
While one stares you down
Sizing you up
Like a piece of flesh
(Well come to think of it...)
Some males lie down
Nonchalant
Amidst the noise
The leopard paces in its enclosure
Waiting for its daily ration
While the young buffalo
Grazes nervously,
Its enclosure next to the lions
They have emergency exits
Just in case...
You will spot a Serval cat
A croc, bored
And nervous rare Sokoke cats
Terribly out of place...
Mid February dreams amongst the winds of change
I am waiting for the season to relinquish its hold
like the frost on the rooftops, the snow at my door
sooner or later will be no more...
I am watching the pine tree swaying in the cold sun
dipping its branches, courtesies of a winter's day
A piano plays softly in the background
as I sit here contented as a well fed cat
Mid February dreams amongst the winds of change
From my rocking chair, lavender fields remembered
sun born kisses with eyelet flashes of white linen
suntanned arms raised before a blue, blue ocean
airborne on a surfing board secured as an eagle
like a beach boy I flew, and who ever knew
She came to me like an August dream and
slipped her tiny hand in mine, we became one
like the summer stars in the sky when they bly
from my rocking chair lavender fields, I remember
Winter enclosures well aged in composure I sit to admire
the view, amazed at how everything secretly, expires.
So far, the reddest river
But does not flow forever:
A coursing through enclosures
Vessels furnishing closures…
For journeys should Heart Pump thank:
They would cease, if The Heart Sank
To be left a congealed mass
While owners eyes ‘doomed shut glass…’
Lots of information stores,
Not the same a saint’s and a whore’s;
Medics who checked the river
Could pick out one with fever…
Many things run in the blood,
Some of them unleashed ‘foul flood’
The Best from this Red Fluid ‘Gift’
Which from parents did lift…
On robes Automatic Stain -
Their wearers always in pain:
Means they should face the way home
And for replacement dress comb.
While dealing with blood: gloves,
For even he that one loves.
Summer fog.
The air thick and warm
with a closeness gathering in
the early morning as if all
that it shrouds share
a common breath.
Everything holds together,
birds, water, the pebbled shoreline,
as a cormorant dives
downwards through the still,
its underwater wings stirring
the cloudy strands
of last nights dreams.
I feel it surface somewhere
in me with a shadow
clamped in its beak.
A few early walkers
emerge, pass by, then dissolve
back into the morning without
so much as a ripple.
The fog follows me,
quietly closing up the hole
I leave. I fear if I make
a sound or move out
of this space,
the morning will collapse
into a hot, harsh and angry day,
pushing everything away,
back into the lonely enclosures
of its dislocated parts.
Fake pyrotechnics bloom inside plastic strips.
The night gets colder
as Christmas carols limp on.
I slip away from the dull concert
into the unlit zoo,
sure that among the sculptured
caves and enclosures
beasts pace their plots.
Close by a large animal looms.
I smell the weight of it, a matted moonlight
awake under a thick pelt.
Eyes spy each other through electric bodies.
A restless prowler coughs,
fearful Impressions escape their enclosures
to hunt upon dark lost paths.
I have seen enough, or rather
I have not seen but sensed,
a curious peril nosing my presence.
Grizzly Bear or Bogey beast -
hard to tell.
Behind me
I hear children still singing…
a 1000 pound Hammerhead shark
swims past my cringing mind
on its way back to an unlit aquarium.
His eyes tired with endless sights
Against web's background whites,
Heavied by seas of tips and dots;
All spun and cast by lifeless bots.
His ears deaf to loudest bangs
Listen still to thundering gangs,
Detailing zillion wares of worth;
All distinguished by fiscal math.
His lamed limbs yet peregranate
Between countless errands' bait,
Each more vital than the previous;
Fettered by cords fizzling devious.
His breath and total being all sore
Last collapse under fatiguing woe,
Every ghoulish groan more piteous
Than doom's under-soil enclosures.
And sigh not for he has lived.
Pen eulogistic elegy trimmed
With nifty poets' finest tropes,
On one who nursed tall hopes.
Without the families, the balloons,
the printed animal T-shirts
the walkways grow pensive and narrow
into unknown places.
Occasional security lights create
small pools of certainty.
The darkness in-between the glow
balloons and smothers,
wipes away the memory of laughter
and the excited screams of running children.
Nocturnal eyes hover over perch and branch,
peer from under rocks, watch each other’s lamps,
waiting for tell-tale blinks.
Big cats stir, smell prey. They see through walls
an instinctual stalk and stealthy hunt.
If you are alone in that imprisoned jungle
you will keep on the far side of the enclosures,
try to slip away from the low growls, the panting
and paw padding.
but then the moon comes out from a cloud,
strangely, you seek more of that pacing fear,
more of the thickening air
draw it deeper into your nose,
a snout now muzzling this way and that -
you commence to howl.
On a hilltop not so far from Rhyl
Mother took us to the Zoo as Mothers will
The wind was strong and cold, the air was harsh
Although it was in August, not in March
Vultures in enclosures chained by leg
Like convicts in a prison full of dread
When they vainly tried to get away
I felt their faith and hope dismayed
Who had chosen birds like these to show?
Even God himself would never know
Entertainment,sadism, power
Making people pay and children cower
When we got back to the station I was sick
What cruel minds played such a trick?
Spiral carved spheres on long green stems
brimming with redness
Fiery egos afloat in spring air
Layered petal enclosures, soft cups,
paper thin,
Leaves tapered upward in brisk solidarity
Beneath the sun, unapologetic and fierce
Rebel flowers, masters of attention
Bulbs cradled in mottled ground
To set the spring in motion,
when sight is subdued by a stage of blooms
escape hatch from burdens worldly
from whatever drags us into bleakness
Unblemished red tulips, clumped together,
a shrine
the ruddiness of momentary
that moves your soul
when you are silent
God deserves my wholehearted gratefulness
Of praise-filled worship's gladness
For His grants of gracious bountifulness
Innumerable out of His goodness.
Basic necessities my Lord provides so well
Nourishing my health to the tiniest cell
Even food cravings I'm ashamed to tell
Including a haven of refuge I safely dwell.
Sense of belonging my Father assures
Thru loved ones who are dearest treasures
Comforting, consoling midst pressures
Around love's warmth fellowship-enclosures.
Never will I cease thanking* my Saviour Almighty
For redeeming me from sin's penalty
Securing my soul with life everlasting's certainty
Ordaining me to serve Him by faith with His power's tenacity.
*Psalm 105:1 O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.
March 8, 2019
Is so spectacular.
They're man made places
To show us how aquatic
Things live underwater.
The huge water filled enclosures
Are decorated spaces
For each inhabitant
Which makes them unique
And hospitable.
Children are educated,
While being fascinated,
And insatiable
While enjoying the calming effect of the
Aquarium.
The gift of Rocks
It is a lovely warm forenoon I`m walking around
just outside the village the wayside and filed are
full of flowers in greenness this will not last long
and heat will turn the landscape into yellowish
dejection and the foliage on trees will lose the
brilliance, what remains are stones
a landscape littered with rocks, houses are made
of stone as are fences picked up from the earth
and made into homes and enclosures backbreaking
work but the builders didn`t have watches; how
beautiful water from the well must have tasted. There
are many shades of grey I prefer the dark ones,
where I grew up the landscape was littered with dark
rocks, come to think of it I didn`t move far, yet there
is something safe about stones and boulders they
will not leave tomorrow as my youth did.
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