Long Moorish Poems

Flies, drawn to their only sustenance, cloud around my head.
In this cloudless desert sky  - blank, deep-arching cavern of thought  - 
Unblinking  sun stares down but this fire-bird will not fly,
Has no...

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12 BARS

Twelve  brazen bars, one frozen lock!
Confined, sublime, an ancient Roc
endures inside a barren cage,
her catacomb in sundown sage.

Of former days there is no trace
except displays of fallen grace –
Twelve dreams, abiding in her...

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Cro mag non man was a birth of a  nation
Crete led the way for civilized creation
The Etruscans became the first Mediterranean power
Indo Europeans Settled Europe as others cower
The Aryans in India established a civilization
The...

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Bent on reprisal sword in hand
Gonzalo and friends paddle ahead
To Alcácer Do Sal where Christians
By Moors are held
Concealed by dusk 
Disembarking their boat
Toward the city bravely walk
Hiding from view they observe
Moorish girls and men sport...

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Iberia, you took my breath away
with fiery gypsy spirit and romance;
with ancient Moorish history and grace;
with everything there is of you to see;
to hear and smell; to feel inside my soul.
Diversity lives splendidly in you!

The...

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Custard in trifle is not bull-shark infested
Despite popular myth, ah but so easily tested
Pour jelly and sherry, sponge biscuit for bedding
Add fruits of the tropics from trees that are shedding
A dash of Madeira from slopes...

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Maybe the boy is "crazy", but "crazy" for the sake of art.
...You thought: "I can see, I am etched in the boy's heart,
but he is still 'flying,' he is still striving to take off, he...

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Achmed made a marvellous find 
as he walked inside the Bazaar, 
all kinds of mysterious treasures
deposited from near and far: 

A Heart of purest Gold
nestled inside a wooden chest, 
some cobwebs clung to the side
yet...

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They are such  tiny people,
slipping in your blood stream
unperceived as you, crusading, 
ride the clouds and seas
exposing unseen cavities 
within the noble paragraphs our children read,
or did upon the times of innocence.
Semites all, they...

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I.

Seeds for the Earth, bread for the early
Vines for the fields, their fruits for the ones ready to perish
Gates for freedom, walls for a cover
Portals unclosed at king's pass
They bring us the way forward
As ashes...

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Where could you be tonight, Sinatra?
Love and Marriage
Love and Marriage
A chant I heard reverberate
As far away as the length of the waves 
I rode indisposed 
When I was bound
To a remote island
Named Buyukada

The permanent content...

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"Westward, further out ..."

Dusk washes over you
warm like honey 
saltry and sweet
immersed in amber tones of 
apricot alerts and rose 
swirling unfurling peonies 
the blooming silent dancing clouds 
rush over white horses 
crashing against 
bracken...

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You’re entering names into the computer,
a program called Family Tree. Burritts 
and Badgers and Shattucks. How fitting 
that I’m fixing chicken with roots
tonight for dinner. Potatoes and carrots
roasted with onion, garlic, turnips 
grown since the...

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In mid-June's heat, we wait inside the bus, 
and everyone has said their last goodbyes.  
The Moorish boy I’ve come to know is sad.
 He says he knows I never will return.  

The...

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The last sigh of the Moor, King Boabdil,
As he flees the triumphant Ferdinand,
Echoes round slopes of a mist-shrouded hill.
He looks back for the last time at the land
That he once ruled. `Weep as a woman...

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Neck pulsating, close shave shines over whiskers
    Stiff collar pressure, raced anticipation simmers
    Key twist intrigue spurs engine's orange rage 
    Needle throws redline on wide...

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THRUST AND SLASH

A sword in a scabbard, hung from the belt
For the Teutonic Knights, it costs much geld
Heated and tempered but it does not melt
Most blades are l straight and double sided
Easy to draw as...

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dying to myself I saw
a shadow of a man

stranger to himself
plodding over salted pan

true heart lost forgotten
shriveled down a mossy well

a soul's darker midnight
a fearful wood both dank and fell

standing up for naught but living...

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The Flamenco Dancer and The Bull

The acoustics of your snuffle
 is an absolution 
of a descending staccato 
in an E chord.
Behold, my lancing third, 
an urgency to trick you 
with my jalapeño-colored capote,
to mask the...

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Iberia, I long to breathe you in
as long ago I did. . . and then exhale
sangria nights with lace against my skin!
Sweet temptress draped in beauty, you unveil
Flamenco’s soul, exhuming history -
impressions left by ancients...

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Patience,
Don't be greedy this is a 4 course meal save some of your appetite for desert trust me you will not be disappointed

It's the sweetest and most moist 
of apple pie for you to eat...

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Massed crowds of all creeds jostle to enter

Inside cool air and dim light calms the soul

Eyes gaze around this spiritual centre

Built form and faith symbols create a whole

In the greatest mosque squats the Christian place

Two...

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Thine beautiful soul hidden in the veils of flesh
  I have met you on the planet of love

  Oh soul,with the butterfly wings
  Where you learnt this art of seduction?

  ...

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starvation starts with a body 
to fill the cavernous
hollows formed by
out-jutting ribs and Ethiopian
belly:
      thin but distended

a body to warm the concussed
and frightened;
the
meadow lark lying still
on the dew soaked morn
grass
...

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Anemoi, the wind that de-horns goats.
Moorish Melteme, the ill-tempered one.  
Simoom, the lung poisoner.
Rashabbar the black swirling.

The Squamish, the Elephanta, the Williwaw,
thieves that steal babes in their cribs.
Tebbard, the fever wind, it wanders through...

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