Before the dawn could teach the city how to wake,
I found my face where old relinquishments still burned;
Each breath became the mason of the walls it chose to break,
Till silence knew the man whom suffering had unlearned.
One leaf upon a wintered tree revised the season's claim—
Love signed where time had long forgotten every name.
Then midnight raised a lighthouse in the chambers of my breast,
Whose beam sought not the sea, but all I'd left behind;
My shipwrecked selves came homeward, neither anchored nor confessed,
For every lost horizon had been harbouring the mind.
The future was no country waiting somewhere to begin—
It gathered like a coastline from the tides I kept within.
So now I ask no heaven for a kingdom yet to rise;
The stars inherit only what the steadfast spirit proves.
Each faithful heart becomes the grammar by which darkness dies,
The unseen shore toward which eternity still moves.
The universe remembers, not by thunder, throne, or flame,
But when one inward lighthouse quietly learns its Name.
Weightless love, purified and perfect seek out your place
Floating into the unknowing darkness, in your face
Carry off this lowered head of shame and sin
Bring it out of the blinding damp dark fog harbouring within
Raise it up into the splendour of Your ineffable light
Into the everlasting beauty of Your eternity, without night
Weightless perfect love lift this soul from its depths
Like counterpoint rising in melody ascending in simple steps
On staffs of hymns written to the praise of Your Glories
Sweeping away dissonances of disturbed minds and horror stories
Arrive within the hidden harmony of Your sublime height
Within the mysteries of Your creative genius and might
Weightless purified perfect love, imprinted on everything You’ve made
Shine through the shadows of blinded reason and senses unsaved
We’re here again. They did it with Horst Wessel.
Sometimes it’s best to say, ‘he was a jerk’,
and leave it there. But no, they want a vessel
(forget the human). For the thing to work,
they must invent a grievance that will nestle
in chests already harbouring the quirk.
The predisposed will rise gain to wrestle,
instead of simply burying Charlie Kirk.
When grief became a shadow
It felt as if nothing else mattered
Like a sudden darkness
Raining down upon us
Like sucking the light from our eyes
Like a wound opened multiple times
It follows you like a stalker
Creepily walking behind you
Keeping an eye on your every moment
And when you think you outsmarted it
When you take a deep breath and treasure the moment
It strikes when you are most vulnerable
Stealing your breath
While watching you struggle
The weight of what could've been haunts you
Wishing you didn't give in to the world's cruelty
Whishing you could travel back to the moment
When the world taught you, your skin was a problem
Telling the broken you
You love them
When the world forces you to carry perfection
Whilst teaching white children that their skin equates to perfection
Wishing the world could see
How damaging trauma can be
When you make black kids believe
That they are a crime against humanity
Carrying it to their teens
And through adulthood
believing
A world harbouring their envy
When in reality
It's us They want to be
Everything leads up to this
adds up to this position
where you think you'll be alone
forever but fairly soon if not exactly
next week you will meet someone
in a park or stuck in traffic
They will set your flesh alight
slowly much too slowly and it
will seem like bad behaviour
you will feel as if
as if you are harbouring an infection
You will be together for five years and six months
through violent happiness and time zones
and locations such as
hospitals and mountains
After which you will think you are recovered
having acquired a liquid grace and social ease
friends will say
you seem younger less precious
Now take this pill you must forget
this will ever happen
Blakean ghosts' boasts..frollicking in rollicking
Rolling hillock hosts..ripe shenanigans..perry toasts
Believing in hefty heaving heroes
Hallowed harbingers..halcyon hedgerows
Harbouring tranches of branches..ferry very merry berries
Majestic mosaic montage barge of balletic
Incandescent flowers..weaving wherries
Showering prophetic kaleidoscopic poetic dreams
Streams through towering mesmeric green tunnels
Full to the gunnels..reams of sheens teem..flowing funnels
Bestowing.. glowing transcendent beams gleam kinetic
Luminescent aesthetic barrage..overpowering iridescent fluorescent flowering
Every single one of Mother nature's tendrils tingle
Mingle..saluting seasonal succour..mooting rebooting from fruiting..pukka
Spirit remains young though body ages,
heart harbouring desire for a rebirth,
bringing back next time wisdom of sages,
that blissful and joyful be time on earth,
where presence is always bubbling in mirth.
Refrains replay with memory erased,
with each immersion leaving soul amazed.
An old stone cottage stands on the seafront
Abandoned and alone
Windows covered in sea salt and cobwebs
Its history and story unknown
A small white cottage with good bones
That has weathered many a storm
Now unloved and neglected
Still stands steadfast ,proud, yet sadly forlorn
A large stone fireplace graces the front room
Blackened by the years that have withstood the test of time
Giving warmth and comfort to many a soul
Comfort so sublime
I wonder who resided here
Was it a happy home
Was it alive , full of love and laughter
Or harbouring sadness and secrets unknown
I would love to sit inside this cottage
Light the fire and share a cup of tea
So the cottage could tell me its story
Of life as it used to be
A story perhaps of long lost secrets
One of intrigue and mystery
Or maybe just a simple tale
Of a loving family
In appreciation and gratitude for story told
A cuddle it would be
I would visit time and again for the warmth of its fire
And to share another cup of tea!
as form we sense ego’s response
to the ebb and flow of shifting tides
we dwell in form and so must enagge
whilst recognising that life is but a dream
thus harbouring paradoxical emotions
we are poised for action in surrender
knowing that what will be will be
- in those moments, it shines.
The nostalgia of an upside down
world glinting up through hourglasses of years,
a mark impressed upon flesh; a scar harbouring
simple childhood games inside a jagged
line now faded. Occasionally it flares,
reddens from a twist of skin uncomfortable,
or in the tightness of early morning dressing;
the twinge acts as an echo, a ripple, a call from
back then, years ago, an era lost like sand
through fingers sweaty from summer heat,
lemonade with ice cubes clinking. The scar,
the mark, that narrow margin of error, a
Faultline physical memory running like a border
along my skin. And you were there, holding my hand
- in those moments, it shines.
Spaced Out
Inner Space
Astro projected, in the seventies, travelled into the Universe at the speed of light,
Into my memories hoard, exploring the essence of every solar system.
Experiences come to life, memories created, permeate histories moments.
Memories flash by at lightening speeds, lightening scorches the essence of life,
changing its molecular structures, its psychic abilities, forever altering reality
from what once was, to what is, to what will become a new reality.
A surrealistic vision, once harbouring the colours of rainbows seen through prisms.
All colours of the spectrum, life’s experiences, fading from view, only shades of gray
covering this universe, memories hoard, life’s experiences with, one day soon, a death mask.
B. J. “A” 2
February 6th, 2024
Balefire
What glory is a lighthouse with no storm to weather?
For there is no solace in harbouring a harpooned wanderer
Truth be told, I am the jaded sea-torn sailor
Yet they sing to me and call me the Balefire
Doldrums
Doldrums
Dear doldrums you call…..
In endless seas jetsam thoughts seek out the siren’s forever
Despite smooth tides and the steady marauder
Truth be told, I am the sea-sick star-gazer
Yet the sing to me and call me the Balefire
Doldrums
Doldrums
Dear doldrums you call…..
Washed ashore, these barren lands may guide me asunder
I can forget my qualms in search of treasure
Where windward dreams shall starve the fever
Truth be told, I am the moody-marooned mariner
Yet they sing to me and call me the Balefire
Doldrums
Doldrums
Dear doldrums you called…..
They say the ocean is home to many souls lost at sea
The Doldrums tell me there is no greater death than the one within me
Bitterness a destructive human trait
Harbouring ugliness in a vessel
To escalate….
Bitterness festers in the soul
Injecting hatred into the heart
Creating a black hole….
Walking through the fire that is lit within,
is a tough task.
who lit the fire please don't ask.
The fire is so destructive,
engulfing anything minutely creative.
It is a monster starving,
it is a parasite eating you away.
it is a predator living within observing.
The fire is waiting for you to lose hope,
making you dejected and helpless provoking you to leave the rope.
The courage is in walking and walking,
not stopping when you want to .
once you have walked through the fire,
you will come out new,
not ashamed of your failures,
not dejected with the rejections.
not harbouring hate for yourself anymore,
not picking your scabs and letting it rest and learning to endure.
Down the hot sun,
I crumble down the snowflakes,
One minute,
One tribute,
Let's have a wintry solitude,
Wrapped in a flesher's heartbrokenness,
I derelict this relict calf love,
Squall on this spur,
Am peel in peals...
Scuttle the fondle,
Dottle the dawdle,
Harbouring an everlasting embosom...
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