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A Glimpse From Beneath The Thunder Gareth John Edwards 18 April 2023

2 Tales Of A Beginning ................................................................................................... 8 Quags ......................................................................................................................... 8 Forgiven ..................................................................................................................... 9 Hyde Park Corner ...................................................................................................... 9 The Screening... ....................................................................................................... 10 ...And Where The Trees Meet. ................................................................................. 10 Strawberries ............................................................................................................. 11 Green Park ............................................................................................................... 11 Morning.................................................................................................................... 12 In A Graveyard ........................................................................................................ 12 Sun Light .................................................................................................................. 12 Tales To Remember You ........................................................................................... 13 Glimpses .................................................................................................................. 13 Antipodean Tales ....................................................................................................... 14 Wombat .................................................................................................................... 14 The Pinnacle............................................................................................................. 14 Champagne Flight .................................................................................................... 14 Dark Tales................................................................................................................... 15 Darkening Cinder ..................................................................................................... 15 Sense Of You ........................................................................................................... 15 Island Tales ................................................................................................................. 16 Black Stream ............................................................................................................ 16 And Quickly Reappear ............................................................................................. 16 Another Sea Cleaned Day ........................................................................................ 17 Tales of the Travellers Returns ................................................................................ 18 Then , Now ............................................................................................................... 18 Necklace ................................................................................................................... 18 Another’s Tale ............................................................................................................ 19 You Deserved More ................................................................................................. 19 My Home ................................................................................................................. 19 Why Cry, When The Birds Call Out? ...................................................................... 20 Return Of The Lover ................................................................................................ 20 Warwick ................................................................................................................... 20 Wind ......................................................................................................................... 21 Bouncy Castle .......................................................................................................... 21

3 Horses, Horses ......................................................................................................... 21 I See In The Talk Of Moving Night......................................................................... 22 Another's Dream ...................................................................................................... 23 A Lovers Word ........................................................................................................ 23 When Saying Goodbye Makes Me Shout ................................................................ 24 Munich Sunset ......................................................................................................... 24 For A Blue Sky ........................................................................................................ 26 Angels Tales ................................................................................................................ 27 Friendship ................................................................................................................ 27 The Candle ............................................................................................................... 28 The Hill .................................................................................................................... 29 The Hill .................................................................................................................... 30 Joy That Laps The Sky ............................................................................................ 30 The Bank .................................................................................................................. 31 Summer Song ........................................................................................................... 32 Short Steps ............................................................................................................... 32 The Cold Night ........................................................................................................ 33 Poem Lost ................................................................................................................ 33 The Harbour ............................................................................................................. 33 Horizon .................................................................................................................... 34 Waiting ..................................................................................................................... 34 My Interview ............................................................................................................ 34 Simulation ................................................................................................................ 35 Missing You ............................................................................................................. 35 Sniper! ...................................................................................................................... 36 Just Me ..................................................................................................................... 36 Watch The New Show Begin ................................................................................... 37 Winter Rain .............................................................................................................. 37 Game ........................................................................................................................ 37 Broken Streams ........................................................................................................ 38 When Last We Met .................................................................................................. 38 Passion ..................................................................................................................... 39 Tales From The Late Evening .................................................................................. 40 Choice ...................................................................................................................... 40 And Yet The Snow Goes On Falling ....................................................................... 40 To Be So Close ........................................................................................................ 41 My Country .............................................................................................................. 41

4 The Long Mortal Journey ........................................................................................ 42 Tears That Never Fall .............................................................................................. 42 Black Triangle .......................................................................................................... 43 Echo In A Storm ...................................................................................................... 43 Rain .......................................................................................................................... 44 Fallen........................................................................................................................ 44 The Last Inch Of The Candle ................................................................................... 45 In A Field ................................................................................................................. 45 Tales of Wind and Dust ............................................................................................. 46 At a party.................................................................................................................. 46 Tells You .................................................................................................................. 47 Laugh ....................................................................................................................... 48 Flower ...................................................................................................................... 49 Wind And Dust ........................................................................................................ 50 Streaming I ............................................................................................................... 51 Song ......................................................................................................................... 52 Each Moment ........................................................................................................... 52 Tales Of Joys That Lap the Skies ............................................................................. 53 Rain .......................................................................................................................... 53 Joy That Laps The Sky ............................................................................................ 53 The Moon Below The Sea ....................................................................................... 54 I Remember yYou .................................................................................................... 55 In Zilli’s Fire Light .................................................................................................. 55 Howl ......................................................................................................................... 56 A Wonder To My Touch.......................................................................................... 56 My Love ................................................................................................................... 57 Paper ........................................................................................................................ 57 Incoming Calls ......................................................................................................... 57 Apart.... .................................................................................................................... 58 Another Perfect Day ................................................................................................ 58 Distant Loving ......................................................................................................... 59 One By One On The Bridge ..................................................................................... 59 Lawyers Paradise ..................................................................................................... 60 Bugs ......................................................................................................................... 61 Almost ...................................................................................................................... 62 Then , Now ............................................................................................................... 62 Loving You .............................................................................................................. 63

5 Hot Wind .................................................................................................................. 64 Dawn ........................................................................................................................ 65 The most perfect form of that individual (divinity?). .............................................. 66 Hope ......................................................................................................................... 66 You Must Be Yet ..................................................................................................... 67 Saying why IT makes me shout! .............................................................................. 68 Rapture - Quiet Coming Stillness ............................................................................ 68 Quiet Coming Stillness ............................................................................................ 69 Train ......................................................................................................................... 70 Idea ........................................................................................................................... 71 Lightness .................................................................................................................. 71 Unfolding ................................................................................................................. 72 There Is .................................................................................................................... 73 Hide Beneath The Blowing Snow............................................................................ 74 Deny ......................................................................................................................... 75 Tales Of An Eden Lost .............................................................................................. 76 Hammer.................................................................................................................... 76 Where? ..................................................................................................................... 77 So Near..................................................................................................................... 77 Regret ....................................................................................................................... 78 Grief ......................................................................................................................... 78 Kahlil........................................................................................................................ 78 Well of Solitude ....................................................................................................... 79 Eternal ...................................................................................................................... 80 Sailing into Darkness ................................................................................................. 81 Tales Of My Eden Found .......................................................................................... 84 Dark Walk ................................................................................................................ 84 The Hill .................................................................................................................... 85 & 3 Swimming ......................................................................................................... 85 The Glass Shell ........................................................................................................... 86 The Walls ................................................................................................................. 86 The Seer ................................................................................................................... 86 The Dream ............................................................................................................... 86 The Interpretation..................................................................................................... 87 The First Whisper .................................................................................................... 88 The Silence............................................................................................................... 89 The Wisdom ............................................................................................................. 90

6 The Consuming ........................................................................................................ 90 The Last Time .......................................................................................................... 91 The King of the Fishes ............................................................................................... 92 The Fisherman ......................................................................................................... 92 The Coat ................................................................................................................... 92 Dawn ........................................................................................................................ 93 The Great Fish.......................................................................................................... 93 The First Day ........................................................................................................... 94 The Big Catch .......................................................................................................... 95 The Second Day ....................................................................................................... 95 The Third Day .......................................................................................................... 95 The Fifth Day ........................................................................................................... 96 The Sixth Day .......................................................................................................... 96 The Seventh Day ...................................................................................................... 96 Beyond the Fields She Knew ..................................................................................... 98 The Land of Dust and Winds ................................................................................... 98 The Fields................................................................................................................. 98 The Pilgrim .............................................................................................................. 99 The Knight ............................................................................................................. 100 The Girl She Knew ................................................................................................ 101 A Sense of Thunder .................................................................................................. 103 The House .............................................................................................................. 103 The School ............................................................................................................. 103 The Dam................................................................................................................. 104 The Face ................................................................................................................. 104 The Sword .............................................................................................................. 105 The Battle ............................................................................................................... 106 The Actor ............................................................................................................... 107 The Artist ............................................................................................................... 107 Phaedra’s Journey into Night ................................................................................. 108 Within another’s shadow. ...................................................................................... 108 Lifts my soul into the light. .................................................................................... 108 Within another’s soul. ............................................................................................ 109 She, the very essence of immensity. ...................................................................... 109 To climb with angels into the heart of the divine. ................................................. 110 More. ...................................................................................................................... 110

7 The hazes of the coming midday heat.................................................................... 111 It was not love that gave wings to Phaedra’s spite. ............................................... 112 The coming chills of a cloud free night. ................................................................ 113 Beyond the Moon ................................................................................................... 114 Monkton Wyld Readings ......................................................................................... 115 Lawyers Paradise ..................................................................................................... 115 Sniper! ....................................................................................................................... 116 Sailing into Darkness ............................................................................................... 117 Tells You ................................................................................................................... 120 Another Perfect Day ................................................................................................ 121 Dark Walk ................................................................................................................ 122

8 Tales Of A Beginning Quags First time, “Kiss me", I said. "No", you said - "not here". "Kiss me", I said. "No", you said - "not here". "Let's", I said. Not where - but just the action. "Let's", you said. "Let's".

9 Forgiven In the Museum with the books, all the books, Parades of books and gold curling letters. I see in the in the aisles of display, mirrors of pain, The wound in the reflections from your glasses. Then at last, found below in flickered variation, Spread and pinned, God's word, "Forgive". Hyde Park Corner Walking and talking and playing a game, Here in the laughter a time to stay. A short curve of path and cool grass whispering Into the blown lightless sweep of night. A place to sit, you pull me down, and keep Me quiet, no words, none, not one. From the silence, trails of electric light catch in Your hair, swirl in your eyes, ignite and die. Time to stop, and so "You", you cry, "What?". "How are you?", I say. Then standing, "I'm fine". Behind us, through a speeding window, The corner slowly sinks into dusky night.

10 The Screening... Crew only, we gather, coffee and Chris and Jeff. Crew only, we enter, only Jeff. Crew only, we leave. ...And Where The Trees Meet. On a hilltop, Beaten with use, Surrounded by railings And pink tinged people In summer disarray. Between the roots Shiny with small details, There, where I draw in The dust, an Alpha And an Omega. Look, I said, A small boy with pride In a Universe defined By the length Of a scarf. Look, he did, As we kissed And our feet erased The beginning And the end. Watched, I winked as I held you, And he grinned Embarrassment.

11 Strawberries In my mind’s eye I see you As you turn and stare And smile. The door opens and you are there With strawberries. You place them Beside me. Not a word is said. The door opens and you are there With hot earl grey. You place it Beside me. "Thank you", I said. The door opens and you look at me. In my minds eye I see you As you turn and stare And smile. Green Park Dark in the trees and shambling figures, Some heaped in twos by leaning silhouette benches. Holding a warm shade of night, my hand aches And branches shift into the throw of light. Leaning into the smell of warmth and smoke, Touch of cold nose on brushing cheek, holding. Walking on a hill rising forward into an edge of View, trees crushed and hanging in stillness. Paths crossing, figure passing, gone now, Spinning and falling in the night. Above you, around you, looking down at the Shadow of you, I stop, I stop and remember you. At last in love, the seat beneath the triumph, Arms of bronze outstretched above you and I.

12 Morning "How are you?", we lightly kiss three times. In A Graveyard Time too short, some remaining. A gate, and shade, some curiously watching. A corner, two walls, raised upon stone a throne. A quiet alone, we talk, you smoke, and I tell you How the world can be deconstructed to simulate And analyse and animate. You smile and listen; the sun heats the fabric Of you under my hand, and I find a rose. A corner, two walls, raised upon time. A gate, and shade. Time too short, now none remaining. Sun Light Let the dappling sun in its way Guide you, hold you. And protect you. Every day.

13 Tales To Remember You Glimpses Walking into the larger space, Finding profile, the masking face, Turning into the glimpse of me With slowing thought, and I see, The quickening lift of your eyes And the future fires of my lies.

14 Antipodean Tales Wombat Rounding, in the crust brown earth, A shouldering soldier of the ground. Pushing brother with grunt and cuff, Low eyes, flat snuffling in the mound. What, in this touching and small sharing, What memories of friendship have I found? The Pinnacle From great height, from Narnian map, The rock mountain threw in thrust And held a shear side caught in light. In the small, it had hard footprint, Weathered as a toy, forgotten by all, Lying in Pacific Sea, dwarfed in might. Champagne Flight In the roar of great engines muffled, Without the asking, came unbidden A golden glass of rolling light. In the sight of each small jewel rising, Without the asking, came unbidden Happiness, loneliness, sweetness, A memory of you.

15 Dark Tales Darkening Cinder I was a climbing Fire in the sky, Consuming, Burning All. I was a promise Smashed to earth, Crushed Ending All. I am a lover in Forgotten solitude, Darkened cinder, Damming All. Sense Of You I've heard in the heartbeat of me, Distant thundering from A far-off sea. I've seen in the mist memory of me Gleaming dreaming from A place yet to be. I've touched in the free spirit of me Smoothness flowing from A newfound key. I've tasted in the deep earth of me Tranquillity growing from A new-born tree. I've scented in the perfume of you Hope quickly fading from what Should have been true.

16 Island Tales Black Stream Swirl and twig rushed glitter (leaf edged Rustling with the fallen), dark in all but The sun splashed from high away, above. Petals dash and chance revolve ( slipping Colour startling the lightless), slick in Sable shadowing of wet barks, below. Moving and hoping for more (sharp glints Choosing the grab of glance), wet sounds Losing the chance event, far away. And Quickly Reappear You are flowers floating in my mind, never Stopping, always sliding from one pool of Thought into another, where briefly bubble Captured you burst back into the light And depart, only to quickly reappear. You are flowers floating in my mind, slow Dipping, always slipping from one tide of My mind into the next, where wet swept Up into rolling spray you are sent skimming Into the thunder, only to quickly reappear.

17 Another Sea Cleaned Day I walked on sands marked by others, Rounded softness with hollows blown, And found the waves removing them, Wiped by sweep and charging clear. These shapes had been made by feet, Moving in and sliding down to swim, Of those that I had newly known, Talked to, and in friendship grown. In these vanishing marks I remembered, When far from shore and journey home, The green swirl of snorkelled breathing and Above the roar a small plane leaving. Soon I shall be a traveller flying there, Looking down upon a blue sea cleaned day, Where the next morning would bring the tide, Wash away my softening path and fade away.

18 Tales of the Travellers Returns Then , Now You turned and walked away, I watched and waited until I Believed we had never met. You came out of sunlight into The kiss, so close, and so complete In the loving belief of now. You turned and walked away, I watched and waited until I Believed we had never met. You lean shadowed by door light Into my arms, so quiet, and so held In the loving belief of now. Yet, you turned and walked away, And I watched and waited until I Believed we had never met. Necklace Texture of sun warmed blackness soft in spiral curls filling my hands in descending curves each separate and together and over all these I raised the shells of friendship received as a greeting in welcome from a world away by brown hand and lowered in moves from arm and finger it catches and falls to be arranged and then swinging with one last touch under your hair and there it hangs and it is a history of motion in surf and rockpool and sunlight and it is for you, for you.

19 Another’s Tale You Deserved More It deserves more, Far more than I can give you, For I am now the Wind in the night, A darkness falling. I loved you and Hoped for more Than I should Of you and this Injustice was Mine, all mine. I lived with you, Laughed and ate With you, then Grown so tired Of ancient despair I left you. My Home It was a place to live and grow With branching rooms, and quiet Light corners turning slowly. It was a warm home grown old in Family peace with dusty wiring And rafters filled with settled dust. It was raw stripped and hammered, Pipes, power and sockets flowered, Then wood polished to fresh brown. It was loved and papered, all hung in Fresh colour, with pattern blue, green And yellow, each a thought in view. It was all this and much more to me, A future shape, small voices laughing And now dreams of things never to be.

20 Why Cry, When The Birds Call Out? From the dusk and faded lawns we Returned to eat the evening meal Amongst unfinished plaster walls. The talk was thin, speech lingering, Each with grey thoughts, rattled plates, Dropped sounds and unsaid sadness. It was then the circle ended, a moment In time, a realisation that this was the Beginning of all new things and shapes. We talked in tears, voices sharpened With fear and hope, strong violent Hope and tearing destroying fears. And then whilst thrown along the Lowest stairs I stood towards the night And heard migrating geese crying out. I followed them into the unseen dawn, Looking quickly back, and then again, At her anguish and breaking heart. Return Of The Lover Slow in the grass and New found rain; Finding sight in The sharp bite of A fresh kiss. Warwick Late day spin to Warwick, Moving an ending in itself, To be together and to be away From the worries and thoughts That we had both escaped. Travelling, floating above Dull grey tarmac heat, Driving through summer's Late greening and autumn's First gleam of fiery sadness.

21 Wind I loved and held and was content in the showered wind. Bouncy Castle A girl and I went skipping, went skipping, and running. A girl and I laughed, looked laughing, and jumped. A girl and I bent bouncy, burst bouncy, and smiled. Horses, Horses Elemental flowing, Mouths biting, Harness pulling, Tail shaking, Saddle chaffing, Foot slipping, Body throwing, Flank hitting, Heel digging, Wind whipping, Body moving, Head moving, Arms moving, Horse riding.

22 I See In The Talk Of Moving Night I see in the sharp Detonation of Swinging lights, Rushing speed, and Lose the line that Follows our Conversation. I see in the strobe Sweeping from lit Yellow shafts the Highlight outline of Your glancing Cheek and Sculpted form. I see in the side Dipping swipe of Metal onrushing the Silhouettes words Emerging from the Snaking smoke and Warm darkness. I see in the smile Twitched from your Sleeping lips the Quiet falling of Echo stillness and The long silence Of your last kiss.

23 Another's Dream Its Fractured, Another's dream, With Valleys and Ridged deserts that I can Just feel, But as I didn't live it, And can't Quite Understand it, And will Always Want to see it, I will live with it. A Lovers Word Waking insight and Fading light form Crashing sentences. Which on rising Lift shell soft and Cracking tenderness, From harm, to calm.

24 When Saying Goodbye Makes Me Shout When reality is defined and confirmed By the presence of the other; another In love and flying the wedge of Now and tomorrow. When all I want in my life is drawn By the fingers of my lover And friend. When pain is Breathing without hope And the growing joy of Waking in warmth. When the silence Of my thoughts Makes me ... Shout. Munich Sunset I am here, hotel balcony, high in the tinted light and where Rising around me is the growling, hanging, early night. I am here, MTV sound mosaic, listening to clouds Covering the spreading yellow profile of early night. I am here, throwing fountains, watching bulb crucifix Pinnacles loose detail and trees shadow in the early night. I am here, tolling late bells, watching light point snakes of Shunting cars sprinkling the now deepening early night.

25 The Last Fear Of The Heart Never knowing the last Time of holding still; The last moment when You reach for me and Hold me because you Want me in your arms. Never knowing the last Smell of your warmth; The last slow descent Into green eyes shining From a full heart and lips slowly touching. Never knowing the last Dark shadow of you. The last winding tales Told into the closed Dark time between Passion and sleeping. Never knowing the last Dawn of your sleeping. Never knowing, when Held in my aching arms The moment that is The last time.

26 For A Blue Sky Between this heart And yours Flew an endless summer. Between this world And the next Plunge breathless divers. Between this time And the next I will wait for you.

27 Angels Tales Friendship This is hard, very hard for me. I understand what she says, I Understand what she means and From friendship forgive her. She does not do as she says. She says not, ‘do as I do’, But ‘do as I believe’. So She hurts me. She knows she hurts me. Is it love or the indifference Of one who sits within the Circle of self? Yet I trust her. In our passing passion and close understanding I see What she says. It is still very hard for me. It is very hard.

28 The Candle I had sat looking into a flame, then fallen asleep. The phone rang and I was in the air to answer. “Hello?”. “Hello”, you said as if clocks had never stopped. “How?”. “Poems”, you said, “You have an audience”. “Why?”. “Friends”, you said, “Remember we are friends”. “Love?”. “Love”, softly I said, “I love you little one”. “Love?”, “Love”, later you said, “I love you, love you”. “When?”. “When”, sadly I said, “Will I see you?”. “Now?”. “Maybe”, you said, “Maybe, possibly, maybe”. “Now?”. “Friends”, you said, “Don’t call me”. We had looked into the flame and then fallen asleep.

29 The Hill Beneath waving grass, fanning before a slowing breeze, lies the hill. Silhouette ridges, soft rounding volcanic mystery, solid, eternal, constant shape and form. It is the hill! A trickle falling through the slightest fracture opens with freezing contact into a rushing stream. The stream eases into the mass, channelled by fault and twist, gnawing sharp winding dammed passage. The stream becomes a torrent, suddenly ripping, tearing and pushing into gouged dark chasms. The torrent erodes with the ice of winters flow forming long ages into deep opening caverns. And yet, Beneath waving grass, fanning before a slowing breeze, lies the hill.

30 The Hill In the centre of a great plain Stands the Hill. It rises simply then quickly into The mist of the coming light. Now it is a silhouette against the Distant horizon light. Now it is edged at ridge and crown, Now it is the Hill. Joy That Laps The Sky My well was formed from the Rocks that were thrown from The heart of a new world. It sits now above the tide, showered By soft spray, filled by the falling rain. It was born from fire, buried by Time, filled by other stones and Lifted again into the dawn. Broken days hollowed it with storm And cracked It with shattered ice. Each time it grew deeper, now it is Very dark, a pebble falling would Sink in silence to its greatest depth. Each joy is the moving water Filled with light that laps the sky Each pain is the bite of the winter Cold that buries me further into The silent surrounding earth.

31 For I Am The Prince I want to bear the weight of iron. I want to hold the grip of sword. I want to stand with the hanging Weight of helm and mesh. I want to sling the rim of a shield Against my arm. I want to be as I see me. For I am the Prince. I want to stride against the grass. I want to twist the grip of sword. I want to raise the visor and stare Full into my coming death. I want to raise the rim of my shield Against my arm. I want to be as I as I am. For I am the Prince. The Bank In the desk a hundred scratches Found from fingers pulling Downwards. Leather boxing Files lost, highlight marking, Sadness sorting. Money blue From dye and living, faded Down from hands in passing. Winter darkening, strip lights Hidden, wombed in wood. Bank hushed, forgotten.

32 Summer Song Fine are my days, Long and slow. Sun in the trees, while Looking at you laugh, Touching the curl of hair Beside your ear. Fine are my days. Long and slow. Short Steps The steps into despair are Short And many. All were made with care and the Rush Of now. From the first rain of doubt and Silent Stillness. To the empty quiet of Lost Memories. From the innocence of Two In love. To the courage of Uncertain Dark paths. The steps into despair are Short And many. All I made without the Sadness Of now.

33 The Cold Night So long, So very long, So hard and cruel. We breathe and Die In a Waking dream, And hope, hope and Sigh for The coming dawn. Poem Lost No battle cry, no dust To cover the fallen Twisted form. Only The settling paper, the Drifting scribbles of A poem newly torn. The Harbour Empty of the green harbours Rolling waves the boats lie Fat and dead, pitched as Corpses, washed from life. Dank mud and fishing jetsam Foul flattened mud where wet Rivulets of winding streams Thread like draining blood.

34 Horizon My nights are lost from Your lashing sea, Stilled by the Racing tides, Which rushing towards the horizon, Sweep away from me. Waiting From the shadows, Hidden until the Evening dips into The misting night, Comes the mirror Of my sight. Sitting reflected in The window I see A face in stillness Speaking to me Of the lonely Vigil’s bite. My Interview Bright fears in sitting Arms open, looking the Warmth into another’s eyes. Chiselled words for the Unseen agenda, Performing energy in Radiant personality, Like me, Buy me.

35 Simulation Sharp angle in Glass box office, Desk so open That... I can see the grey Flatness Of your mind. You Don’t dream brightly But sit in a simulation Of your so slowly Blinking desktop Icon. Missing You The book said it, Short page printed Against short sweet Picture, anonymous In it’s reproduction. Yet you say it in the Closed darkness of The wine bar and Phone; and it is the Death of my innocence. I have torn down and Trampled on the flowers Hung in the bower of Your soul and killed The laughing child.

36 Sniper! I tried so hard in that Field of mud and ashes That you made of working. Talk to me, be my right Arm, you said and lied in Deed and then in the Cowardice shuttered by Hard lips crawled across The waste of grey torn Floor between our desks, Lodged the snipers bullet Between my shoulders, And watched my distant Falling form slip slowly From the blackness in Your ambitious mind. Just Me Nobody spoke, Nothing moved, Just me. Or so it seemed: When struggling mud Detonated with exploding Bare white hands that Reached for my face. Or so it seemed: When clinging wet Clay smears covered its Breast and the mouth, First a soft dimpling Opened in a slow Silence to scream. Then gone. Or so it seemed: When still land and quiet Windless day snapped Into silence and nobody Speaking, nothing moving, Just me.

37 Watch The New Show Begin Late, very late, into the New season of his night. Open floor brushed bare Of objects fallen and Thrown by choice. Lights dimming in Black draped corners. All gone, none remaining, To watch the new show begin. Winter Rain Even though the falling rain Keeps the freshness Of the winter grey, It cannot soak the embers Glowing within This perfect day. Game It’s not a game, she tells her love, Then puts his counter out to play. He plays the game, But dares not move, His eyes are blind, His legs are tied. It’s not a game, she tells her love.

38 Broken Streams Sunlight falls upon a cushion, Shines its thread into Broken streams. This had been her pillow, Where he had led her, Then knelt, And in the grass, Now unbent, Loved her. Then, broken by the Crossing shadows, Hearts Flared with words unsaid. The cushions hollow, now, The only slight shape of A departed kiss. When Last We Met I tell her Whilst newly waken, That she has forgotten When last we met. I tell her Of a morning mist, Of a mounted soldier, Reaching down to touch. I tell her Of an upturned face, A turning look that Knew the closing book. When last we met.

39 Passion Finding the heat, Finding the warmth, That flows into his hand, He pauses, and in that slight break In time, discovers a fire, Which lifts him into Her flaming fountain. Then she grips him. Then she pulls him down to Meet her rising mountain.

40 Tales From The Late Evening Choice Lying back against her, Thrown head tilted, He saw the shape of Several years and Found a map of tears. Yes, tears. She loves him but Does not want him. She has his heart, His mind, his hopes And care, but Does not choose To be in love With him. She loves him but Will not hold him. And Yet The Snow Goes On Falling She sleeps away his Waking fear in Small light and Winter dawn. He sleeps away Forgetting.

41 To Be So Close And, in all this, he turned in flames Small licking fires, sharp in their Burning and uneven smoulder. Then, as at a hearth, he would at Moments sit away and with a stick Push the glowing embers over. Returning again, to be consumed, He would flare into the night and Brighten her with his love. My Country My heart is a country Where I wish You would walk. From roots splayed over Sleeping moss hollows in Sharp dawn air. To hanging waves of distant Defined hills blued in The late afternoon. My heart is a country Where I wish You could walk.

42 The Long Mortal Journey Frozen from the long day of Cold north light a halting Figure sends a shafting Shadow toward the blizzard Edge of his sight. Hood edged in frost sparks it Billows breath and walks Across the breaking crust of Snow until it stops; Silhouetted. They pause, and as dragons pant Smoke up into the sharp Bite of the air, stand Hard towards each Others shape. It raises an arm, as does he, and In their mirrored movement They see each other Reflected in their Long mortal journey. Tears That Never Fall I am not a fool; for fools don’t hide their tears as they cry. I am not a fool; for they are not the tears of an ocean rolling wave. I am not a fool; for they don’t roll from my cheeks as single drops. I am not a fool; for they never fall except within the wells of my soul.

43 Black Triangle Imagine a black triangle Sitting on a white, Drawn in line, To make a star. Imagine a small white circle, Behind, and at each corner of The black triangle. Imagine all this on a Field of black. Now imagine that there never Was a black triangle. Just three circles, Each with a subtracted wedge, And three chevrons. So the black triangle was not there! And is this how it was? Was the summer dew that marked the Passage of her feet not there? Echo In A Storm In a bar, in New Orleans. In the storm, so still, Fear flies and leaves fall. The air clears the door, then A distant rolling thunder Trembles the torrent, And throws its spray Into my memory. It was once like this when, Long ago, a rider in a storm Became the ghost you see Within my eyes. In the storm an echo Finds its home.

44 Rain In the rain fear flies and leaves fall. The air clears, then A distant rolling thunder Gusts a fresh torrent Throwing its spray Into my memory. It was just like this, when Long ago a quiet child Became the man you see Within my eyes. In the rain an echo finds its home Fallen A twisting journey of ice Spans a hand width Of thumb and palm. A flung finger angled in a Crease of torn skin points To the coming dawn. Newly fallen this night Another has gone ahead To find the rising sun.

45 The Last Inch Of The Candle We have sat together; so very often. When the last inch of candle starts and the Streets are silent. In these hours the shadows Seem to be so soft. Yet it is in these late Moments that you have seemed so harsh. It has often seemed to me that these are the High tide of your time under a rising moon. It is then that the wind, that blows through you, Lifts the heaving waves of your heart, and Throws them down onto my walls. They shivers at each fresh onslaught, But have never, yet, failed. Now, again, we sit together; and in the Calm of the flame I see another storm. In A Field Flowing, always flowing, From the sweetness of her gaze, New formed dew ran towards the Sea and sat upon her lips. Moving, sometimes tumbling From the finger tracing of her touch, Clouds race above their heads and Shower them with dreams. Holding, sometimes lying within the Circle of his arms, long formed joy Ignites inwards and Tells her of his love.

46 Tales of Wind and Dust At a party She hears - Exploding laughter bring Fast silence to her heart. He hears - Only the whispering Hiss of ever decreasing time. She sees - Moving heads expose a Glistened avenue of cheeks. He sees - Only the marching poplars Long gone quiet fields She feels - Spirit core of stillness possess Him with aching tender gaze. He feels - Half forgotten sun light glints Fall from late autumn leaves. Later, as linked arms move homewards, Her heart treasures the orbit he obeys.

47 Tells You Tells you with a Smile that thaws the Winter from your lips. Tells you with a Kiss that brings a Smile of morning joy. Tells you with a Warmth that thaws the Ice inside your pain. Tells you with a Touch that shapes the Dreams within your heart. Tells you, Yes, tells you, With eyes that love you. Love you, Yes, love you, Through all your hope and pain.

48 Laugh Witty, You are very Witty, and Funny, Very funny indeed. Comfortable, You are very Easy with Laughter and Sharp jokes Delivered Like Needles. Often you jump, Running with words Faster than either of Us would want. Sometimes you are Breathless from Listening to a time Spent apart. Sometimes you are Silent when arm in Arm we walk with No speed of purpose, just, Shopping and stopping From time to time Then you laugh, Soft eyes lit from the Cleverness incarnate Within the span of a Still moment. Then a smile, Fleeting, eyes Lowering with Invading reminder of How few, the Shared seconds are That are spent laughing.

49 Flower So light, So strong, Bending and Bowing in Both moon and Sun born rain So soft, So smooth Fragrant and Drifting in April dawn and Late evening June. So perfect, So complete, Dreaming and Glowing in Radiant pollen and Heat haze crown.

50 Wind And Dust We always fail our glory and Turn our flowers into dust. We always miss the dew and Wake into wind ripped skies. And why? The light touch of petal Feeling brushed brusquely by. The tender reaching of shy Loving crushed without malice. Even the smallest gift of a moments Sharing whirled to lie forgotten. And why? When each is a brief perfection Teased from the hot shadow Depths of human feeling. When each is given as a Gift of love exploding from Life’s wind and dust.

51 Streaming I Flowing, skipping, Over and leaping Shiny rocks, the Deep moss edged, Bough overhung Bubbling whirls Stream endlessly by. And there am I Looking into it’s Dancing flows, Sudden swirling Sharp eddies and Collapsing light Tipped curls. And there am I. Silhouetted darkly. Brief glimpses of Broken features Shot through with Streaming ripples, Which folding into Each other take a Moments glance into Confused oblivion.

52 Song Sound and emotion spent, Echoes die, and in their death Leave mute ripples of effect to Cross once storm blown seas. Now a blue domed heaven rims Each passing line of undulation Which in spreading, is diminished Into diving wave and rising crest. Then, at last, time, tide and wind, Confuse these gentle traces to Roll the hiss of chaotic murmuring Into slow drowning dissolution. From which sea swell whispers At first, Unnoticed Another song begins. Each Moment You deserve better, More than I can give. Though I try Every day to see Each moment as a World of you, And me, And us.

53 Tales Of Joys That Lap the Skies Rain In the rain fear flies and leaves fall. The air clears, then A distant rolling thunder Gusts a fresh torrent Throwing its spray Into my memory. It was just like this, when Long ago a quiet child Became the man you see Within my eyes. In the rain an echo finds its home. Joy That Laps The Sky My well was formed from the Rocks that were thrown from The heart of a new world. It sits now above the tide, showered By soft spray, filled by the falling rain. It was born from fire, buried by Time, filled by other stones and Lifted again into the dawn. Broken days hollowed it with storm And cracked It with shattered ice. Each time it grew deeper, now it is Very dark, a pebble falling would Sink in silence to its greatest depth. Each joy is the moving water Filled with light that laps the sky. Each pain is the bite of the winter Cold that buries me further into The silent surrounding earth.

54 The Moon Below The Sea Rushing through my door, I find a note that says She has left the hallway Mirror and that from this day Reflected pain will not show. Naked I stand before it, Shifting childhood sight Returned from tree and stream, Immersed in iceberg haunted Forgotten frozen latitudes. The startled slats of moving light, Dark projected from window Ledge and close drawn blinds, Slide rain smeared herds of Zebra waves across the light. Quickly halo beams dazzle, As sharp stunning cattle guns Strike into trusting forehead, Leaving my other self-ringed With Another’s lip turned sight. Dead fading eyes slowly stare. As my silent familiar darkness Returns what it can never hide, The broken glint of a shimmering Flat wild moon beneath the sea.

55 I Remember yYou With heart and mind I do thee love With kiss and smile I do thee care From time before innocence failed I do remember you With glimpse and hand I do thee touch With soul and spirit I do thee hold From time before innocence failed I do remember you Then in hill and wood we dwelled Running from the falling dew Then in spring and waterfall we swam Hiding from the evening sun From time before innocence failed I do remember you In Zilli’s Fire Light The glow shine across the table broke Taking with the clatter of glasses A peace and space so hard won. The brightening knife in another hand Struck a gash with sudden wounding Drawing blood and not retreating. The ice glitter of a dozen pain filled eyes Surrounded them as wolves a falling fire Lost in dusk drifting snow bound night. The arcing fire brand thrown by traveller Showered sparks that in falling burnt His companions reaching hand. She in anger turned upon him And in the near dark of closing night the Silhouette wolves crawled ever closer.

56 Howl I just want to cry, howl, and then Sit numb, so hit with pain with all My wits seem to spin down into Tunnel filled with sharp black. No little boy lost, so very lost, has Ever found his way back from the Edge upon which I stand. How can He survive the lonely dark? The time of now has been a long Time coming but here it is and How complete is its weight, how Crushing the sense of defeat. Is this the look of failure, the Haunted look of a beast caught. A Wonder To My Touch Your hair so fine, so long blonde And sheer to my touch. Your shoulders crumple into my Arms strong hold and the Sense of you, the physical you Springs into my mind And then it hurts, it all hurts, It is white sharp hurt, it hurts And in the turning twist of This remembered knife I Stab myself again and again. Your face so fine, so full of love And a wonder to my touch.

57 My Love My home, long filled with dust and dancing light, Is empty except for my soft treading step. Here has been no long lived joyous court of Family rounding into core of easy peace. Her only is a quiet stillness, a place to be, For a while, and then with the hard bites Of feasting grubs, a corpse to slowly fade and die. Paper The paper at my hand could hold an image Drawn by fingers shuffling out the faint Celtic stones that hid me from the past Sacrifice of life forgotten from blunt knife Or define the emerging synthesis of dried Fruit and a monster form stepping from The dawn of lingering but now fading Memories of a dream now stale and gone. Or from erratic marks made at random a Walking pen could create a demon. The paper at my hand could hold an image But like my mind stays still and blank. Incoming Calls Now it starts, Dancing bells that Chime the incoming Calls that like bursting Missiles from some deep Salvo explode upon my desk And beat the grey surface into a Scatter of piled fax forms. When the silence sharply stills The forms of contract lie twisted Into human hells. No hurt is greater than mine to share No cinder of hell fire as cruel to bare None but the curl of her slowing smile The long hard stare of the time she stole.

58 Apart.... There is a second For fear And a second For hope. There is a time To be poorly And a time To be well. There is a season For happiness An a season For Hell. But together, There is Forever, A Lifetime of love. Another Perfect Day Sun rising, Bells softly chiming, Lifting the night from the Dew drenched hay. Paths climbing, Dappled water shining, High into the hills of a Cotswold way. Sun dipping, Shadow lengths flowing, Darkening clouds close a Perfect day.

59 Distant Loving Night light sighing in her Distant crackling voice, “I miss you”, “She misses you”, The twins miss you”, “I miss you”. With the slight sighing in her Distant loving voice. One By One On The Bridge Each day a bridge to hold, Sword and shield rim Swinging. One by one, Hacking, Down. Each command a delegation, Another’s bloodied arm Thrusting. One by one, Cutting Down Endless decisions a forest, Determined challenges fall Damming. One by one, String Down. Dipping sun under a twin horn moon, Until the next dawn light Torment. Now we wait..... One by one, On the Bridge.

60 Lawyers Paradise Light long office, Dusseldorf high, Office cold coffee, Pages piled deep. Knot legal tangled, Guarantees given, Parties withholding, Documents thick. Establishing passport, Identity pocketed, Luck now running, Pen held hard. Ticking in waiting, Watch time checked, Parties converging, Pen in pocket. Now time to witness, Decision sharp focus, Droned notary incantations, At last a signing. “What did you think?”, Lawyer after inquired, Then short inhalation, During drifting smoke. “Nile boat ride”, “Crocodiles basking”, “They too were smiling”, We all laughed. Dusseldorf deep, Fees piled high.

61 Bugs Big bug have Little bugs On their Back to Bite them And little Bugs have Littler bugs And so on...... Ad Infinitum Original inspiration unknown, however see: Augustus De Morgan - A Budget of Paradoxes, 1872, Jonathan Swift - On Poetry: A Rapsody, 1733

62 Tales Of Antipodean Pain Almost I almost, but Not quite, Missed you. It was close. Very Close. It still might be To close an Almost to be A hit. But at least It is An Almost. Then , Now You turned and walked away, I watched and waited until I Believed we had never met. You came out of moonlight into The kiss, so close, and so complete In the loving belief of now. You turned and walked away, I watched and waited until I Believed we had never met. You lean shadowed by door light Into my arms, so quiet, and so held In the loving belief of now. You turned and walked away, I watched and waited until I Believed we had never met.

63 Loving You Sitting here in a Haze of you, You and your White gentle Light, Just loving you. Secret Flash darting glance to Challenge me within the Rules, your rules. Strike hitting table to Point a fact within the Pale, your pale. Then soft mock me to Tell me something Secret, your secret.

64 Hot Wind Hot wind upon a cheek Tells him softly of Her loving heart and Deepening sleep. Hot wind upon a cheek Lifts her horse-mane Hair into a spreading Ragged liquid banner. Hot wind upon a cheek Curls her middle finger Round his outreached Just touching hand. Hot wind upon a cheek Slows his sleep filled thoughts, Which descending into stillness, Leaves a breathing silence. Hot wind upon a cheek Tells the quiet night Of two together, In peace, asleep.

65 Dawn Light summer dawn Brings a floating Morning blackbird Faintly calling. And, Finds her sleep Smoothed eyes Buried in the Crook of his arm. And, Shows his fingers Gently teasing a Pillow creased Light blonde curl Then, Quiet stillness lights Upon her face, From which Fears have flown. Then, She smiles softly In a secret grace, Whilst low motes, Drifting quietly, Are blown into Shimmered halo. Then, In this respite, Whilst still asleep, Her fingers softly Touch his face. Despite, Her pain, Her hurt and fears, Despite, Her doubts, Her hurt and fears.

66 The most perfect form of that individual (divinity?). Far beyond the paths we know lie the Eternal dark dusk blue lands of the Last touch and taste of a forever evening. Hope Hope rushes across a Cloud skimmed broken Landscape from which Occasional ray shafts are Throw onto field and tree. Hope flares from House to barn and Stirs dew haze in a Rippling wave of Wakefulness. Hope runs from Leaf to bough and Burrows into the Sleeping croak of Nesting rooks. Hope gives shape to All things barely Rounded by Evening star and Crescent moon.

67 You Must Be Yet I cannot soothe your demons Nor quieten your heart to love. I cannot change the constant span of Slowly falling, whispering sand which Makes of us islands parted by Wind and wave, by tide and time. Nor can I make each point upon the Globe a neighbour from which, When calling memory and risen love Summon you in darkening rooms, You could within a single thought Step to previous hopes and homes. These things for you I cannot do. If I could, I would. Yet, I can be and am, And I cannot be Other than that I am. Nor would you Wish me in Any other guise. So, I cannot - yet this last I can. You cannot, You can and Must be yet.

68 Saying why IT makes me shout! Within our shared Passing perfection of Timeless now, The Potency of Our shadow Tomorrows Sum to Everything. That is why We may be What we will be, And why IT Makes me shout! Rapture - Quiet Coming Stillness I’m coming home within a Glinting wave of memory. There, to find, lights burning low, Hanging sounds dimming an Early fresh summer evening. Wishes following feet into a Road where we lived and Had travelled from. My feet found the doorway and carried me into the quiet coming stillness of a darkening empty night.

69 Quiet Coming Stillness My feet were coming home with my hope of finding the lights throwing her presence into my life. My feet were following my heart and my wishes into the road where we had lived and travelled from. My feet found the doorway and carried me into the quiet coming stillness of a darkening empty night. Grey Sands Of Nowhere Beach There is a somewhere place where I go alone to slip down grey sands To walk along a nowhere beach. There, and only there, do the lost Screams of wheeling sea and sand Blown hunting birds sound out. Nowhere beach, A place of such compelling stillness, Where each tumble splintered grey Sea cast broken box and toy is thrown. A wave cast torn wreckage of life to be Ground into the ever growing dunes and Shifting memories of nowhere beach. A place of my stillness profound Where nothing lives or falls except the sea.

70 Train You are gone, Not far From me, Except today When rain and Rail and drear Dripping time Expands to fill My travelling. When groups of Unfamiliar faces Hang alien within a Slowly moving night. When bubbles of Soft staccato and Clipped vowels Punch without Comprehension Into the ambient Sounds of rain and Rail and slowly Drowning time.

71 Idea A splinter A shard From a genesis of Fracture A fragment of thought Which spins and Where breaking each Moted beam it Creates cascading Prismatic effects. Complete, Consummated and Consumed It falls slowly Into a fast Quickly growing Darkness. Lightness Dawn light rushing across a cloud skimmed landscape. Occasional shafts are thrown down onto field and tree, flaring them into morning colour. From house and barn life stirs in a rippling wave of wakefulness. At this time, it seems to possess a substance, a fluidity. It runs from leaf and bough into night burrows and onto nesting rooks. It gives shape to all those things barely rounded by star and moon.

72 Unfolding Is a process. It is a state. It is the flux of ever evolving Individual transcendence. It varies inversely as the square of the energy invested. Let this energy be called MU (pronounced me-you). Therefore, Unfolding == 1.0 / MU to the power of 2 Where MU values greater than 1.0 denote a Conscious investment in the sense of I. Where MU values less than 1.0 denote a Conscious investment in the experience of I. Where the norm is a MU value less But never equal to 1.0. Experience of I < 1.0 < Sense of I Where the sublime is experienced as MU approaches zero. Where transcendence is achieved when MU is less than or zero.

73 There Is There is betrayal in the air – From the turned Down eyes to the Pulled back hair. From the sharp Twisted crinkle of Tiny creased irritation: That folds around the Corners of her eyes; That purses lips Down to iced bitterness; and Breathes a shallow Silent death into a Love we once knew.

74 Hide Beneath The Blowing Snow No grip on what caused this time to die – Actually (as usual) I have – But not one I wish to share. A pretence within Which I shall Shelter from the Coming storm and Avalanching anger. A maelstrom which, Once it moves Will not rest Until all that is Weak and Ice spun is Crushed and Broken beneath a Spearing wave of Blinding snow and Knife sharp ice. So until hurt or Prick of honesty Forces me to Explode from Winter lair, I will hide Beneath branches Gently moved by the Blowing snow.

75 Deny Midnight sparks up from late Flames of warming fire. Believe? No! Once. Cold dew falls from the Dead frosts of night. You stood beside him? No! Twice. Grey dawn rises upon an Upturned fear-stained face. You knew him? No! Three times. Denied.

76 Tales Of An Eden Lost Pressure Deep fathoms green – pounding heat Short aches of air – black shapes dart Hear them bay – we have them beat! Why won’t they die – and let us eat? Deep fathoms black – glint of gold. Fins slip by – teeth grow bold. Hammer Hammer - Down to find the Kicking fear of a Midnight alone. Hammer - Bent to shape the Aching Silence of a Stories ending. Hammer - Tap to hear the Fading echo of a Finished tale.

77 Where? So close. A moth wings Silent touch to Completeness. A floating dawn Haze of quiet Understanding. So Near So near to A taste so bland and Yet so pure - So near to A kiss so complete and Yet so far Away from that Floating world of Lost mornings and Entwined afternoons - So completely Spent together Building – What is now – So near to, So sadly, A fading memory.

78 Regret Woman - Look upon my Works - and Woman - Look also upon these Lands that I have Conquered - and Woman - Remember me - and Regret. Grief Grief kills a last hope within a loving heart. Chokes off, stillborn, trust and thrusts away Gentle hands and burns a forgotten promise. Kahlil I woke – and in that Waking found the Name of the Prophet Upon my tongue His words a Whisper of A sighing Distant sea Which in each Rising crash of Star flecked Wave brought Hope to me.

79 Well of Solitude You find me, Your gentle friend, Lost now, far Beyond the Skimming skies Which we - Together - knew. For now, I am here, Sitting by this Well of Solitude Holding - here, between Thumb and finger, So very lightly, the Last mote of our love. Now released. To fall and Catch a last Glint of light Before being Lost into the Quiet echoes of an Endless night. You find me, Your gentle friend, Sitting by the Well of Solitude

80 Eternal Strong is the tree that Bears my world within its Boughs. Clever as the fox whose Claws slash my chickens Throat Quiet as the sands whose Measured fall tells my Time Eternal as the flame whose Burning consumes my hopes and Heart

81 Sailing into Darkness She Was not a gentle soul – No scented potpourri, but Spitting beef sausage Pie and wild berries hunted From bracken moors. For She, I think,, Did not love life But maybe, just Maybe, she Loved me. Indeed in my now Fading memories Of a life defined by Brown clicking Patent heels, And Strength - support Stockings - and a Hard sharp mouth, I realise that my Recollections Made of her a Shape - an obligation - A kindness spent to Earn the favour of the Gods, and maybe Time

82 For I had known her only as a Symbol composed of Childhood clay and Fashioned as is a Childs want from the Ill fired bricks of Whispered drama, Gifts, bitter lessons, Long walks and her Enduring love. Yet It was not this – Despite my own Family and desires - Which gave me to her Fading fitful life, Nor was it a duty - an older Obligation not discharged - But rather it was some other Greater phantasm of Sense and Justice. So Was it this that gave her My time when older and Her health failing, I drove Time up a freezing road and Fog bound lane to care? Was it this that gave her - Command over mind and Heart - power of the ancient Over their children and all Future first born?

83 Yet As she raced ahead of Me into infirmity I wondered at the Slow collapse of her shades Against an inner sun and Saw her descend, step by Step into a calm confusion Where the circle of her Turning restless mind was Circumscribed by entropy, And Where the space between Sunlit entrance hall and Heavy kitchen door became a world - her world, the world - then gone. Somewhere she was lost – Sailing her spirit world Into an ever-darkening night – And at some moment – Whether it is a deception Of The inner sight – To another – To all others – Her sense of self was Forever lost.

84 Tales Of My Eden Found Dark Walk Sudden light marches through Slanted, deep lit boughs, where Old earthy logs smell thickly in Moss green descending night. Slowly you turn within our new Spun web of dancing orbits to Glint within a flaring star Rimmed glance of tenderness. Suddenly, slowly, so very unexpectedly We kiss beneath a silhouette of trees. Sudden light marches through Slanted, deep lit boughs, where Old dreams merge into the Unseen edges of fallen night.

85 The Hill A domed roof of taunt earth stretches Into a swirl of breeze waved grasses. There, With sun and falling pollen, late Afternoon sinks into slow dusk While, High above, pinions flutter in a Ragged swoops of haunted swiftness. There, Quiet waving strands of your hair Fold around my curling fingers. While, Hearts quietened by a sense of now Rise with the smoke of drifting pollen Into the promise of a deepening dark Blue, ever expanding, hope of horizons new. & 3 Swimming Not in the Quiet shine of Slowly lifting Boy’s voices, Nor in the play of Drifting horizons that Float through the Haze of willow hot days. But in the quick Flashing silver that Foams across their Thrashing muscles, Which in streams of Pink reflected bubbles Beat nature into buoyancy.

86 The Glass Shell Smooth whirling green bubbles embedded in a twisted cone of filtered light. The Walls Long shimmering heat waves rolled the walls into sand and sky. Grey sky, dunn sand, flecked with olive and streaks of irrigation. The Walls of the city of Sarkhan rose and fell around the ancient rock of the Citadel. Inside small window pierced masses of masonry fought to cling from The Walls up and into the very steepest slopes. Here lived those who could never question. There, above, walked those who ruled and served. For no King lived here, only the fourth Prince of His third wife. She was his morning and his evening, and her favourite son was his hunting moon. This was a city in His eye. Here he stooped to linger in the high gardens as he journeyed to Basra. Here he stopped to feast and give gifts as he returned from victory in dessert or vine grove. This was Sarkan, close by the Tigris, close by the heart of the King. The Seer The last trumpet of the fortieth hour still lingered in the late gold of the deepening day as the Handmaiden poured water on the clay. It was red and slick with nuggets of blue crystal. She poured and they flamed in the wash of life. Only three fingers, no more, to keep the flow of pigment for her keeper. He was a sunken wreck of breaking life who used her. He was past the high sun of passion, past the fortieth hour, late in the day of mortality. He kept to his own, in all things, his grip on the world strengthening as the winding sheet wrapped itself around his thinning bones. He was the Seer. Eight times each day he painted the lidless eye. Eight times he washed it free of clay, pink rivers of life running over the great face of Hur. Eight times The Shell on His knees was filled with His tears. Nobody tended Hur but him. No other breath pushed the stone as he wiped the film of paint from His chin. The Handmaiden kept the clay, the fire pit and his place of dreaming. She had never seen Him; seen the last light of Mir the flaming Chariot throw His shape onto the walls of His chamber. Only the Seer and the Priest saw this. The Dream Much later, in the fifty seventh hour, the Priest was washed and anointed. It meant nothing to him. It was the time, and this was the ritual. He stared into the distant night fires of the river watch towers. He saw them, but did not, think of them. His eyes were looking into the round of words and symbols that was the name of Him at this hour. He held the sacred Rhod blossom in his left hand and the vessel of dreams in his right.

87 At this hour and in this way, He filled the chalice with the images of His will and the Priest vision for the Prince. He stood in this way until the next hour, placed the flowers into the vessel of dreams, turned away from the night and into sleep. And this is what he saw. Eight great Ziggurats swayed amongst plumes of drifting smoke, thousands of yellow lit windows blazing, deep horns sounding. Fire leaping from narrow horns that soared into black clouds heavy with showers of floating sparks. Deep sea lit between the flashes of racing clouds. A dark leviathan belching flame, pounding the water, racing the crests. A woman walking across a spider thin strutted bridge. Each web a hard bisection of the sacred triangle. A woman walking across a grey horizon of sand and silhouette mounds of hunched seascape. A woman holding The Shell and dipping it into a moon lit sparkle of running tide. The tip of The Shell dug into the back flow of the streaming sound leaving a wake of rippled sand. A woman pouring tumbling light into the first pink clouds of the coming day. And he slept. The Interpretation The Prince was alone and lightly robed. He held no sceptre, carried no staff, wore no crown. The Prince was tired of the night. His was the fortune of the ruler, yet his was the lemon drained of its juice. He had no pleasure of the night, no pleasure in the flower of his wife. He had drunk blood, hacked men, tore animals and still had no pleasure in the night. He did sleep, did not dream, and yet his mind and body were not refreshed. He sat now in the early tint of the coming arc of the chariot of Mir. He looked into the shrouding mists of the plain. This was his horizon and his sunrise. It washed the Citadel. It lifted the last lingering shadows from the Walls, caught the dew rising in smoking tendrils, made rainbows in the garden fountains. This was his each morning until the first turn of the wheel of timeless ritual. His first audience each day was the Priest. Some days he was there in the essence of the chair whilst his body lay in the arms of his wife. Sometimes, like today, he had been ripped from sleep and watched the old man’s lips intone his vision.

88 This was the Priests vision. "His wings lifted me into the clouds of night, and we journeyed into the Citadel of the Fallen One. His engines of war covered the plains all around and His breath spouted from horns of utter darkness. He brought me through this to the shores of a great sea where stood a Handmaiden of low birth. She held the Shell of Hur which she had filled from the sea and poured it over the lands of Sarkan". And, "This, Oh Prince, is its meaning". "Eight times each day the Shell will be taken by the Seer from the knees of Him". "Eight times each day the Shell of Hur is to be filled by the hands of a woman". "Eight times each day the Shell will be poured by the Seer from the window of Him". "This way will bind You, Your Sarkan and its plains to the prosperity and joy that is Your rule. He wishes this". And the Prince listened and said, "Let it be so". The First Whisper Eight times each day the Handmaiden filled the Shell. Her master brought it into the room of pigments. He passed it into her hands, his fingers fluttering like the wings of long dead bird. In this her questions grew. "What is this that I do?". "What is this that I hold?". And, "Why?". The Shell was a smooth whirling green filled with bubbles embedded in a twisted cone of filtered light. It had been polished by time and hand into a translucent fusion of sand. It might have been the cave of a crawling claw ended monster or the art of a one who lives in the pits of flame. None could know. It was The Shell. Each time she lifted it toward the bright flow of liquid its emptiness whispered into her heart. She heard the sea she had never seen. She heard the murmur of eighth thousand words. She heard the questions in the echo of its curling walls.

89 It spoke to her of other lives. This time as she moved it toward the font it said, "I love you". She turned her head toward the hovering shadow. The Seer frowned his agony at her wandering eyes. Not him, she thought. "I love you", it said. She filled The Shell and gave it to the Seer. The Silence The arc of the chariot carved the sky many times. The season of the winds came, and the Citadel stood against the breaking tides of time and force. In all this she was a darkness set in a face of falling rain. An unseen beauty hidden in submissive pain. She listened and never spoke. The Shell changed slowly at first, a passing shadow, a deepening of its voice. Each time it whispered, when the noon storm closed the sky, when the Jochi flower folded itself to sleep. It said: "I have seen the sprinkling frown of the great bear turn into snow". "I have heard the feet of the archers as they crossed the bridge". "I have lived in the flesh of a riding man as he crashed his shield". "I have held his spear as it spun and struck into his falling foe". "I have held his heart as he climbed the hills above the last desert before the sea". "I have been his breath as it thinned in the heat and dried against his battle scarf". "I have slipped through the blood as he pulled the slick broken shaft of an arrow from his arm". And always: "I love you".

90 The Wisdom The Prince looked out. In the haze descending from the hills on the horizon the cranes rose into the bright heat. He looked down to the walls below. From the slab of the Citadel rock a figure appeared on a short stub of balanced rock. It was the Seer lifting a short vessel that threw green light down onto his upturned face. Light prickled in the path of an arc of liquid pouring from the upturned holder. His lips moved. He lifted The Shell and moved slowly back into palace wall. Inside the Seer turned into the room of pigments. The Handmaiden sat in silence beside the font. She was listening for The Shell. It said: "Life springs from the well of hope and pounding blood. Life cracks stone, raises the Ziggurat and sweeps flame across the plains". "Love does not breathe and has no form. Love can grind bone, stop the heart and yet it can create lands without end and throw bridges across the deepest chasm of the souls divide". "Fear crawls on its belly, it's claws clutching the entrails of its victim. It howls freezing the will, chilling the essence of the falling soul". "Anger consumes, flames flaring along the ridge line of the mind. Anger spits erupting tar, biting into the flesh, and engulfing the heart". "Hope spreads from the oasis of His will. It is the unlooked for, the desired, the arrow fired into the dark night its target unseen but wished". And always: "I love you". The Consuming Holding The Shell she saw the flickered light from within the room of the pigments catch the air born bubble spheres in a revolving march of mirrored lights. Each time the liquid of life swept into the vessel they took its hue as jewels the cloak of a King. Under each finger small cities passed from dusk into twinkling night and rose reborn into the coming dawn. Always The Shell spoke. Today it said:

91 "I Love you", and, "Silence is the curtain that covers all and hides nothing. Speak to me". She said nothing for under her right index finger she saw that with each word It uttered a glittering sphere encased in the green wall of The Shell flamed briefly and died. "I Love you", it said. A bubble path following the length of her thumb swept into opacity and oblivion. And then, "I have seen the elephants of the Nomad Kings swing over the dunes crushing all who stood before them. I have seen them, their riders pierced with arrows, their blood flowing down the great sails of ears, eyes sharp in terror, plunge into flame and be consumed". Another swathe of light consumed and was gone. The bubbles fading, some briefly lingering, into the darkness of the room of the pigments. The Last Time She sat now away from the light. She said: "From the darkness my naked body hangs suspended". "From my hands pinned behind me I sway above an abyss of infinity". "Fire rages across me, flame tongues lashing, burning". "I am destroyed, and my flesh renewed. I cry where no ears can hear, no hands can cut me down". Shadows moved towards her. The fluttering hands fold The Shell towards her. It's greenness dense and heavy, it's rim dull and opaque. The flicker of light from the font lit the one last bubble, the one last world. "Love", it said.

92 The King of the Fishes The Fisherman Once upon a time, far away, there lived an old fisherman. He lived on an island covered by palm trees and tall grasses. These swayed in the sea breezes that always seemed to blow out of the wide brown waters that swirled around the beaches. He lived in an old house built on sticks that stood out in the bay of the little village where he sold the few fishes that he caught. He went out in his boat very rarely now. He was content to sit in the sun and watch the distant curl of clouds. When he needed to buy some more oil for his lamp or rope to mend his nets he would rise early, before the dawn, load his long low boat and set off into the still dark waters. He liked to be alone and knew many small bays and shaded coves where he could fish in silence with only the gulls for company. The Coat One day he decided he would go out and catch enough fish to buy some cloth with which to make a new coat. It was the season of the young when the couples would be betrothed by the head man of the village and he wished to be smart. The other old men and he would sit in the darkness and sip fish and nut wine and bite hot ground palm pastries. They would all dress in long black coats with brass buttons and wrap pale blue and rose turbans around their heads. He would watch and wonder for he had never been betrothed. His solitude was his choice and the path of his life. When he had been very young, he had once been sent walking by his parents with the daughter of a fisherman. She was very beautiful and had blushed and turned her head away as the petals of the hibiscus had fallen before their feet. He had not spoken. He did not know what to say. Another day he had been sent to walk with the daughter of a merchant. Again, he had not spoken. After a while his parents left him to his fishing and the mending of nets. He had grown older and richer and then suddenly, or so it seemed, he was one of the old men watching the season of the young. On this day he was going to catch ten fish. They would be the silver fish with large jaws and orange eyes that the merchants would always buy. He could have gone to the gold merchant in the mainland bizarre who kept his riches, but he never spent his money.

93 Dawn The oil lamp smoked up into his sea porch as he doused its flame and stepped down into the long low fishing boat. He pulled his shawl around his thin shoulders for the early dawn was cold. The long pole that he used was wet from the dew and had to grip it tightly as he pushed off from the stilted hut. He could feel the pull of the mud beneath the water into which the pole sank as he pushed the boat forward into the morning breeze. Soon the water was too deep for him to pole the boat and tugged the small sail up into the rising light and settled down to breakfast as he travelled to the bay in which he had decided to fish. It was a long way from the village, and he had only been there a few times many, many, years ago. It was hidden from the sea by a sweep of ancient rock and its mouth guarded by sharp hidden coral reefs. He knew how to sail in. He had climbed up onto the rocky headland and looked down into the bay and memorised the paths of the reef. He would steer his boat with the memories from his climb in his mind and avoid the submerged dangers. The Great Fish The rising sun when it broke between the horizons cloud found him anchored and his nets cast into the hidden bay. He knew the silver fish would rise from the sand in the early morning and he settled back to wait. He fell asleep in the shadow of his thin furled sail and dreamed of brass buttons and the gold thread he would use to sew them onto his new coat. Suddenly he was awoken by the pull of his nearest net. He gripped the ropes and pulled it towards the boat. The ropes jerked in his hands, and he almost fell into the water. It was a big fish! They jerked again and the boat surged forward. It was a very big fish indeed! He cast off the other ropes. They would be there for him to find later, and this promised to be the biggest fish he had caught for very many years. He let the ropes go slack and boat settled back into the water. Then they sprang to life, and he held on, looping them around the wooden bowsprit, and hoped that he would not be dragged beneath the waters. He was a very wise old Fisherman and all morning he played the big fish beneath the waves. Sometimes he came close to the sharp reefs, and it seemed he would have to lose his net. Then he would let the ropes out until he held only the thick knots at the plaited ends. Sometimes the great fish would change direction and he would gather the slightest slack and throw it around the bowsprit, and they would be off again. When the sun was high overhead, the net stopped, and nothing stirred the surface. He drew the ropes into the boat slowly waiting for the next move, but nothing happened. He could feel the weight in the net and soon the first edge of mended mesh appeared. Below him he could see the shape of a monster fish as long as he was tall. A great eye peered up at him as he reached for his killing pole. With a flurry of water, the head of the fish rose up, covered in the prison of the net, until it was higher than the edge of the boat. They stared at each other in silence until the fish spoke!

94 “Fisherman, I am the king of the fishes.” The Fisherman trembled and the boat rocked. He had never heard a fish speak before! “Don’t strike”, it said. Its voice was that of the soft waves pulling on pebbles and slow-moving dark fins sculling in the deep. It paused and brought its great side fins together in a circle. “If you spare me, I will give you a full net of my subjects each morning for seven days.” The Fisherman slowly sat down and looked into the great eyes as the huge head turned first one way then the other. “Where should I fish?”, he asked. The monster opened it fins and swept the circle of the bay. “Here”, it said. “Fish here, just after the first rays of the new days dawning light the water.” It settled down into the water until only its mouth was visible. “Seven days, no more.”, it said. He loosened the net. The great fish rippled the surface once and disappeared from his sight. The First Day The next morning just as sunrise lifted the last darkness from the waves he returned to the bay and cast his largest net. He sat and waited. Nothing moved and soon the hopper flies and baby shrimps played together on the flat, calm, water’s surface. An hour passed and he shrugged. “So much for the King of the Fishes”, he said. He pulled on the ropes to draw in his net. It was heavy, very heavy! Slowly he brought it to the side of his boat, and he kneeled until his face was almost touching the water. Beneath him the net was full of fish! Big fish! Silver fish, blue fish, green fish, black fish, striped fish and fish with red spots and lantern jaws. There were lobsters and giant prawns. Huge shells and giant orange crabs. He stared and stared. It was the biggest catch he had ever seen.

95 The Big Catch It took him many hours to return to his village. He had to draw the net behind him for there were too many fish to fit into his small boat. The other fishermen were amazed. They too had never seen so full a net. And what a catch! The merchants and the villagers crowded around him as he sold each and every one. Their voices rose up into the air above the village like smoke and drifted away into the late afternoon air. That night he sewed on the large brass buttons that he had bought, tucked his blue and rose turban around his head, and went to the night of betrothal. There he sat with the other old men and drank and ate until the moon had risen high into the star filled sky. The Second Day The next morning, he returned to the bay. Once again, the water did not move. Once again, the net was filled with fishes, lobsters, shells, and crabs. When he returned to the village no one spoke. They all stared in silence. That night as he sat on his huts veranda and watched the sunset, he counted the money he had made. It was a lot. Enough for him to eat for a year. It was good to dress in a long black coat with large brass buttons and wear a turban. It was good to be treated with respect. It was good to be the fisherman who had caught the greatest catch. They had all waited for him to speak. He had complimented the young but never mentioned the King of the Fishes. It was his secret. The Third Day The third day he cast a net he had borrowed from another fisherman. It was a huge net. The biggest net in the village. The sun rose and the net was full. This time he could not tow the net behind him, and he had to pile many of the fish in a mountain on his boat. It took him many hours to return. The boat had been so low in the water with the weight of fish that it had almost sank several times. That night he was so tired he had to pay a neighbour’s son to wake him before the dawn. The Fourth Day The fourth day he borrowed the boat of another fisherman and his nets. The sun rose and the nets were full. He worked all day to load his catch onto the boats. Each groaned and swayed close to the lapping waves. When he was close to the village the wind rose and in his fear, he threw many of the shells overboard. They sank into the darkening waters without a sound.

96 That night he offered to pay the neighbours son to wake him before the dawn and fish with him. The Fifth Day As they left the village the Fisherman covered the eyes of the boy with a scarf. He sat in the bottom of the boat in silence. His father had told him to listen to the waves and find the old man’s secret. The Fisherman had borrowed another boat and larger nets. When the sun rose the boy and he laboured hard and after a long day of slippery fish and rolling shells they set of for the village. The waves spilled into the crowded boats and the Fisherman bailed as fast as the wind blew the spreading sails. Once again, the boy sat in the bottom of the boat, covered with fish, and listened to the waves. He could not tell which way they went with his eyes covered by a scarf. That night the Fisherman hired a very large boat and paid the boy to wake him before the dawn. The Sixth Day The bottom of the large boat was lined with fishermen and boys all sitting listing to the waves. Each had his head covered by a scarf. The boat rocked and swayed and one by one they all soon fell asleep. When the sun rose that day the little bay had never seen so many fishermen hauling on nets and piling up fish and shells. Each one worked hard and stared at the cliffs and rocks trying to remember every detail. They would all try and find this place again! The Seventh Day A fleet of small and large were towed into the bay by the old Fisherman. He stood at the helm of the largest and watched the decks to make certain that his neighbours did not try and lift the scarves that covered their eyes. As the sun rose, they stood lined along the sides of each boat waiting with net and stick. The first light that touched the waters of the bay sent sparkles of liquid rushing towards the shore. It swirled around the rising head of the King of the Fishes.

97 “Enough”, is said. It opened its mouth as wide as the bay and with each of its fins, now grown as large as boat, swallowed the whole fleet. “Enough”, it said.

98 Beyond the Fields She Knew The Land of Dust and Winds There was a girl who lived far away in a land of dust and wind. She lived alone in a small white house with two rooms. One in which she slept and another in which she worked. She could not remember where she had lived before this place. There was no other house in the wave of flat brown earth that stretched around and away from her. It shimmered and roiled in the harsh shadows of the high sun. It rushed into icy cold as the light sank into the last rising haze of the silver mists. Then she would sit, tired from her labour, in the pale grey light and watch the changing slash of smoulder at the end of the day. Then she would sleep. All her years were the same. Cold nights washed away by a stabbing sun. Dust shrouded and dusky days running in the winter season into great masses of rising clouds. These would squat across the plain brooding until they swallowed the light. Then sudden rippling knots of flame would smother the airborne mountains and cracks of deafening sound would bring her to her knees. Then the rains would start. Rivers of spears piercing the ground. Floods rising and spreading until frozen by hailstone rocks and white rolling electric glows. Eventually the violence would change into a calm curtain of slow falling rain. This in turn was gathered into the rising winds and dashed against the small house. She lived alone. Nothing changed. Nobody visited. She saw everything and nothing. She felt as empty as the stretching lands that surrounded her and held her. She never ate. Never drank. She felt nothing. She woke, worked, and slept. The Fields She made carpets. Not ordinary carpets. They were made from her hair, dyed by her blood and tears. Each was a dark brown, shot through with pinks, mauves, and hot reds. She would pluck each strand and stab herself for the pigment. Some days it would be her breast or her arms. Another it would be her neck or her feet. Each tuft took its colour from its source. Hot reds from her heart. Pink from her arms. Mauves from her neck. When a carpet was completed, it would hang against its frame heavy with her life and pain. She would cut it dawn and finish it. Then she would take it into the last of that day’s light and lay it on the ground next to the last carpet. The house was surrounded by fields of matted hair and blood. The sun did not scorch them, nor the waters fade them. One day she looked up from her work and saw through the fading light of the late afternoon a figure standing beyond the fields. It did not move. It was clothed in long

99 hanging folds of grey and white robes and a low hood covered its head. She sat and watched. It did not move. The icy cold of night settled across the land. The sun dipped in one last slash of brightness and was gone. She sat and waited in the darkness. The rising grey light of the coming day spread across the fields and still the figure was there. All day she sat and worked. All day the figure stood beyond the fields. That night she watched until stars rose. She could not see the shape of the figure, but she knew it was still there. The next day at dawn she laid aside her work. She left her house and walked towards the figure. When she reached the last carpet at the edge of the fields she stopped. It said nothing but pointed at the covering beneath her feet. It was the last that she had made and was a pure hot red. She rolled the carpet into her arms and lifted it towards the figure. It pointed at her side and towards the ground. She put the carpet down and stepped back towards the house. The figure moved towards her and onto the brown earth where the carpet had been. It pointed at the one on which she was now standing. Again, she rolled it into her arms and placed it aside. Again, it moved onto the now uncovered ground. They did this many times until they were standing at the steps of the house. It was near evening now for there had been very many carpets. She turned away from the figure and went to her bed and slept. The Pilgrim The next day she awakened to find the figure seated next to the frame where she made the carpets. She sat before the frame and reached to pluck a strand of hair from her head. A hand came from the folds of the figures robes and held her wrist. Another pulled back the hood and revealed a man. He was neither old nor young. His face was lined with age, yet within his eyes shone the inner light of youth. He was darker than she and his hair was like a ravens' wing. His eyes were black and his nose straight. “I am the Pilgrim”, he said. He plucked several of his own hairs. He bent his head and tears fell into his hand. Each dark strand turned to a twist of moving colour. He gave her the first. “Begin”, he said. So, she began a new carpet. At first, she could not see the pattern. It was no design she knew. Slowly it formed from her fingers. “Look”, he said.

100 She saw that it was a girl. Her head was in profile, looking left towards the doorway and where she had first seen the Pilgrim. Her left eye looked out from the carpet and into her. “Rest”, he said. Each day they made a new carpet. Some were small, others large. All were pictures of people that she half knew, places that she half remembered. The Pilgrim often appeared in these pictures and so did the same girl. As she worked, he would sing. She would join in after a while. Then there came a day after they had finished when the Pilgrim stood and walked to the door. “You know how to make these carpets now”, he said. He turned and walked into the silver-grey mists of the evening and disappeared. The Knight Each day she would fashion her own designs. At first the strands of hair would turn easily into the twisting colour. Soon however her tears would hardly change the dark curls. The carpets became brown designs with a picture darkly seen. One day, after she finished a carpet as dark and flat as a starless midnight, she looked up and saw a figure beyond the fields. She rose and walked along the path cleared through the carpets until she stood before the robed figure. Its head was covered in the same way as the Pilgrim, but it wore a cloak. This was brown and green, shot through with lines of deep-sea blue. The figure followed her until they reached the house. She turned and saw that it had pulled back its hood. “I am the Knight”, he said. He was young with a long round face and short dark brown curly hair. He wore mail and bright armour and in his right hand held a sword. He walked past her into the darkening house and sat next to the carpet frame. He took a candle from his robes, lit it, and stared into its flame. She went to her bed and slept. The next day, as the Knight watched, she began making a new carpet. This time her tears turned her hair into the colours of a far-off summer day. They were slow greens and shady browns. Warm yellows and flat bands of spring lit blue. The carpet was a tale of a timeless place beyond the fields of matted blood and hair.

101 From then on, as she worked, the Knight would tell her of the stars and shining clouds that swept around her world. Each day he would tell her of small creatures that lived in the deep mines of the earth and feasted on the juice from gemstones that they plucked from the trees of molten rock. Each day they sat and worked until one day she looked up and saw beyond the fields the figure of the Pilgrim. The Knight rose and moved into the shades of the room. The Girl She Knew The Pilgrim came and sat beside her. He looked at her carpet and then at her. “Let us make a new picture”, he said. She cut the last carpet from the frame and began again. This time as her tears fell into the strands of hair the twisting colours were different. Some were bright red and midnight blue. Others were of slow greens and shady browns. As each tuft was knotted the carpet took its form. But there was no picture. The carpet was a flat brown field. The colours of the Pilgrim and Knight had mixed and cancelled each other. She looked at the Pilgrim. She turned and looked at the Knight. Both watched and waited. She went to her bed and slept. The next day she began another carpet. This time she looked at neither the Pilgrim, nor the Knight. She sat and her fingers flew across the frame. A picture grew before her. It was neither half remembered, nor was it from beyond the fields she knew. This time it was a place she remembered and in it was a girl she knew. It was her, before she had made carpets and lived in the white house on the lonely plain. She saw mountains in which she had played as a child and woods in which she had ran and laughed. She saw streams in which she had swum and clouds that in her imagination she had turned into great winged horses. She saw herself as she had been, was now, and would be. She looked up. The house was gone. The flat stretching land of dust and wind was gone.

102 She sat on a bank of flowing green grass beside a river running with slow ripples and golden leaping fish. On either side sat the Pilgrim and the Knight. “You have found your home”, said the Knight. “You have found yourself”, said the Pilgrim.

103 A Sense of Thunder The House Far away, up in the northern hills, lived a boy. He was often alone, but he didn’t mind. Wherever he went his thoughts went with him. He stayed with his family in a large house surrounded by copper birch trees and great rhododendron bushes that crept in close to the windows. The House rambled along cold corridors that opened into unused rooms. Beneath lay the great cellar. They were lightless and full of soft black dust from ancient mounds of long burnt coal. Sometimes at night he would stand at a great marble desk in the furthermost room of this subterranean labyrinth and burn bright chemicals. Some would flare up into orange and white sparks, throwing his shadow back into the dark doorway. Others fumed clouds of purple smoke that would lie thick and oily. When he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, up in the long silent attics, he counted the spiralling steps. Then he sat at his window looking out into the silhouette of the great walled garden and watch the stars. He knew them all, even the faintest. The Seven Sisters, the great red Betelgeuse, and the dog star Sirius that rose just before the moons light was warmed out of the morning sky. The School Sometimes he travelled to a School far from the House. There he learned the names of the elements and count the particles that whirled around their invisible hearts. He sat in the library and read of the Greek Heroes and the Romans who built the roads and conquered the world. The Masters wore long black cloaks that swept around their legs and spread like the wings of huge crows. Some were silent, grim in the teaching. Others jolly, lifting knowledge into his mind like the rising buds of spring snowdrops. He could feel the small green tendrils of fact open into him. Leaves of words opening and uncurling. The first glint of the hidden white flower. The last stretching of the living experience filling him and passing into the early morning mists of understanding. As he grew, he became more aware of his own inner silence. When first he felt its shape, he thought it a natural part of him. It would be as it was in others. He watched them but they did not seem to sense it. They would laugh, joke and tumble into the actions of others. It was only his.

104 The Dam Outside the House he would play in the streams that ran bouncing from one fallen log to another. He would drive sticks into the leafy mud and plat twigs around and about them. The water would divide and spurt, carrying the weakest away. Slowly the dam would thicken as he wove more and more into the wall. Sometimes he would have to brace larger sticks into the wall to hold back the rising water. One day, as stood back to watch the white bubbles spraying out into the lower stream, he saw the shape of the silence. To him this was his first thought. His own first thought. It wasn’t an emptiness this inner silence. It was both a presence and a lack. It was the pressing water before the dam and the falling away beyond. It wasn’t a single shape, it was two. From that moment everything he saw and felt was as the water of his dam. The Stars were bright because of the night. Absence was the opposite of presence. They were the same! Neither could exist without the other. In the beginning he would often forget this first thought. As the seasons carried him along into the first growth of a beard, he would stray from his first thought. He would not be aware of his inner silence. At times he was a stranger to himself. Sometimes, however, in the quiet of the House he would see his own reflection and be reminded. Slowly this became one of many thoughts. Some would hold like the twigs that were fully woven into the dam of his mind. Others would be swept away. Slowly his inner silence took new shapes. Each was more detailed than the last. The Face One day sitting high in his tree house, built far up in the boughs of a great copper beach, he looked inside his mind and saw a shape looking back at him. It was the face of his inner silence. It did not speak. It was half-formed. It had no body, no hair. Just eyes, nose, and a mouth. The edges blurred off into the dim light of his imagination. It looked at him. He looked back. “Who are you?”, he asked. It did not reply. He looked up into the clouds moving high above him. He saw their shape against the blue of the sky. Without the sun they would have no form. Without the dome of the atmosphere, they would have no shape. They were formed from water. Water gave the blue to the sky. The sun draws the water from the sea. Its energy lifts the water into the sky. The cold of the sky forms the clouds. The sun gives them form. The sky

105 gives them shape. The clouds falls as rain onto the earth and flow into the streams, into the lakes and into the sea. Around and around, again and again. He looked into his mind, into his inner silence. “Who are you?”, he asked. The face was gone. It did not answer. The Sword Another day and he was alone in one of the long grey silent attics of the House. He was sitting at his window watching the quiet autumn rain falling across the great walled garden. Quite when he knew he was not alone, he did not know. He gradually felt the presence of another. He looked around. No one was there. He closed his eyes and there was the other. It was his inner silence. This time it was the sense of a full standing figure. As high as he, it looked like him. Yet it was not him. It reached out putting its arms around him. It disappeared and then reappeared, both within him and at the same time beside him. He felt its form surround him. He felt its breath upon his cheek and push from within his own chest. Looking down he saw his hands clench around a shape he could not see. He could feel its metal. A ridge against his thumb and forefinger. He felt its weight. It was his. Looking up he was alone. “Where are you?”, he asked. The rain fell, darkening the slick granite of the great walls. The trees rustled against the slow gusting wind. The light greyed into the dipping suns last shine. “Where are you?”, he asked. In the darkness nothing moved. He sat listening, breathing. Quiet without echo stretched into the House. He was alone and yet he felt something. Another presence somewhere close. He looked down into the dim light that lit his hand. His fingers closed around a remembered shape. He could sense its metal. Looking up he was alone.

106 The Battle Often from that day he would sense the other form. Sometimes he saw it in his mind as a figure striding across a wild grass hill. A torn grey cloak was pushed back across its shoulder revealing a breastplate and chain mail. In its hand it held a sword. At other times he would feel the weight of the sword in his own hand. He would raise it up and half see the sharp hair width of glint from its edge. He knew, somehow, he knew, that the other was in danger. Its face was grey, mouth straight, turned down in despair, willing determination. He knew, somehow, he knew, it was going into danger and pain. He knew it faced death. He knew it would die. The Nightmare Then there came a time when he no longer lived in the House. He moved with his family from the House, away from the streams he had dammed and the great walled garden. He went to live in a city built of grey stone carved from a deep dark granite quarry. It was built at the mouth of a wide river that ran into a flat, cold, grey sea. Above all this was a pale deep sky that carried the winds from far beyond the waves. From places of slowly shifting mountains of blue-white ice and the trailing curtains of the northern lights. At night in his dreams, he would see sheets of flame leap across high black hills surrounding a long dark lake. His inner silence would see through his eyes the inferno. It reached high up into the forests from the edge of the water. They would run through a darkening wood. He felt the pain of breath forced from exhausted lungs. Pursuit. They were chased. Running with others. Looking round he saw others leap and fall. Half-words shouted. They were his. They were running with him. It was always the same. No beginning for the rout. No ending, just a sense of distant thunder. A vision that lit up his eyes in the early light of each morning. He often would sit looking into himself. Feeling the shape of the remembered nightmare. Feeling the terror, they would sit looking at one another. “What happened?", he said.

107 “What happened next?”. The other would not answer. The Actor In his outer life he would see the world now as two forms. That which he could see and the other which he could not. He would look at others and sense at first the skin, then the bone, then the inner shape that his silence saw. Other people would be full of changing monsters and shifting shapes. Some inner forms would be so close to the outer that only the glint from a hidden eye would betray another presence. Many would manifest themselves as bearded warriors, gilded courtesans, or dark clouds of unformed mind. A few would disappear entirely. The boy befriended others who put on plays. In their acting they would form their inner silences into the persona of their adopted character. These would shimmer and harden as their imagination gripped the part. All things and others were a parade of forms. Sometimes these would be separate, clearly seen. Mostly the world was a shifting ghostly montage of faint illusions. Through all this he would sit and look into his inner silence. “Why do we see this?", he said. “What are they?”, “Is this my reality, or yours, or ours? “Who am I?” And as always, the other would not answer. The Artist One day many years later the Boy became an artist. He drew and painted his inner silence. His dream images were near in form to what others sensed. They could feel the shift in shape. They recognised their own living ghost. Always the painted light would give it form. Give it shape. The pigments brushed onto the canvas would flow into a picture. The image expresses the inner silence, lift his mind into a new understanding. Painted light would give it form. Give it shape. Around and around, again and again. “Why?”, he would often ask his inner silence. The other did not answer. In the distance he could feel a sense of distant thunder.

108 Phaedra’s Journey into Night The thing is, it takes time, you see, time – time to inter-connect within a constantly emerging multitude of evolving contexts. Location, position, implicit and explicit meaning, all bear down directly upon each rippling spark of chemical fire that is our consciousness. Thus, is creation, thus is life – thus is the divine born and reborn within each individual wheel of predestination and freewill. Within another’s shadow. Have I felt your shadow fall over my senses before? Some other’s shadow perhaps? I know the sound of your footfall and have felt within my mind’s eye the twisting momentum of each new step towards revelation. So, have I known your shadow before? No, not you – there is no you – no object of which to say ‘here is this man’s loci, or ‘here is that woman’s place’ – but the shadow projection of you. To be - is to be one simultaneously with the emerging complexity of a total sense of self. Art, all Science, Literature and Sport – indeed all endeavours – are a constantly evolving manifestation, at any given instance in time, of a total collective belief and an individual commitment to a shared reality – the sense of now. I choose therefore your shadow, for it is not you, but an abstract projection of the self as an object into and onto whatever reality is spinning through my mind. So, have I felt your shadow fall over my senses before? Or is it that the shadow that you cast, at one moment in time, is simply like another’s? One whom I had known in another time and from a previous joining of two souls – and that your shadow in that instant of us knowing each other was but a flickering mimicry. Maybe the one with whom I had previously joined was in their turn projected onto my senses in a state like another’s, and so on, and so back into the darkness of all my beginnings. Maybe all our beginnings. Maybe your shadow memory will in turn be mimicked by another – or be cast by chance into a briefly glimpsed sense of the familiar. Lifts my soul into the light. Here is a new day. I watch it now glimmer across field and silhouette and am aware without changing my stare of a cold dark blue dome of star points dying above and around my head. It is a time for counting, a time for sensing the patterns within a life. The fears from the dark time before the coming dawn still haunt the edges of my mind. They trail their ripped and still-born shrouds across my growing resolves and though I tear each one from its clinging grip of my wakening, still I know that each will haunt my sun filled hours.

109 There, the caw of a rook rising up! Shortly, as if after a pause for inner prayer, it is answered by a murmured stirring from bush and tree. A single treble whistle lifts like smoke into heaven as if it is Earth’s answer and leads the chorus of the creation dawn. No drama here claims this unfolding, just that single herald Rook and a brief beating of unseen wings. Then almost imperceptibly, a quiet lingering slowness seems to fall across the freezing air. Nothing across the whole expanse of horizon seems to move and yet – there, the slightest breath of rising hoar mist startles the shadowed silhouettes into flight and lifts my wakening soul into the light. Within another’s soul. So, nothing, nothing, nothing is. So, there is no edge, but the sensation of an edge - which despite the immediacy of death, of stabbing, plunging, ice cold hurt beyond the expression of howling pain – there is an envelope of experience that contains within it a beginning and an end - but where each begins and ends cannot be placed at a moment, an instant in time. The grey dust counters give this a shape, one that sounds its knell in every man’s art and every man’s scope - a bell curving profile of events having a definite existence - nothing else can be discerned by another of another’s probable experience. However, each feels pain and another’s pain as a shape projected from a hidden source through their own finite sense of now. All that can be felt by another, of another’s pain, is the impact of that shadow cast as an event into and onto their own, It is in this mingling of shadow and haloed lights half seen, half felt, we share experiences and another’s events - and only when we turn into that shadow land with our whole focus of mind and a selfless giving of our soul – our very essence - that we can begin to join with and be within another’s soul. She, the very essence of immensity. Now a mote, so small and so very high above my head, flares into a brief silent detonation. Another, then yet another sweet birdcall descends from a clear dawn sky to fall across my rapture. A flick of rapid wing beats and then, IT is here – the rising moment of rebirth for this lost land of hidden mist filled shadows. A split firebrand crack of golden light seems to dance upon an instant of lancing time – to jump, to jumble within a moment too short to call an instant. For it is the She – our Sun – still not there, you understand, but refracted around our world by frost light and its edge mirage. It seems, like liquid to inundate, to insinuates itself into the

110 sleeping world - which stirs at its touch like to one caressed in sleep by another - in love. Then She is here – She, mother of all our ancient hopes hidden now deep in the rust eaten dreaming helms of forgotten warrior barrows. She, mother of air, water, and earth. Fire itself incarnate. The breadth of Her presence as it fills the sky is the very essence of immensity. She becomes the sky and all its colours - a tint of rose bleeding softness into which spreading aquamarine meanders and spreads to flood tree and bush with ambience, and which climbs overhead to banish the last late stars. She bursts across hedgerow and sleep twitched hare to trail glitter in the wake of a late wandering hedge pigs. She is here – and now the grass leaps up from its flat shadow paleness into rivers of silver mist - each blade a sword of sharp righteous jihad raised in homage to re-birth, a life each day renewed. She is here – and the trees give up their silhouette to become sky filling shapes of outthrust leaf clad limbs - to become her handmaidens, which in the rolling back of the rising river mists from dawns first breathe, dance within her caress, and offer up to her their morning prayer. To climb with angels into the heart of the divine. Why – beyond the spin of each day’s twist into the grave – do we strain against the short leash of mortality? What spirit so possesses the soul that we jerk within its embrace into a dance of self-deception and poorly-perceived nobility – seeking to manifest ourselves as this man’s saviour, and that woman’s incarnation of an ideal. To seek to be so defined within our own compass as the embodiment of righteous self-worth. More. Why are there so many souls that would seem to be un-encumbered by anything except the vaguest sense of the righteous now – to so little grasp what they could be, if they only sought to climb with angels into the heart of the divine. Or is it that this perception is but a flaw within myself – a lack of inner completeness, an arrogance, an inability to perceive with my mind’s eye the inner outreached spirit arm of each and every individual as they hope for salvation through personal revelation. Is it this flaw within us that quickens each loving reflection of self-found within another into so early a spirit grave – each hurt given and taken, wound with cowardice

111 and a failing of the spirit, into a shroud that becomes corrupted within the slowly rotted influences of our own self-delusions – our eyes filled with the ghost light of ego, prejudice, and pride. More. Is the light of this world so dim that it fails us when most we need to find our way? Is it not that we fail to light this world with our own spirit – to hoard our flickering heat within a dwindling circle of greed and animal pain. Is it not that we fail. The hazes of the coming midday heat. She - now hanging high above the rising mists, riverside and marshland clouds – begins to stretch her heat into the coming day. A spray of grey, white tipped, wings beat across a parade of willows. A red-breasted, cock headed robin, gleams at me within one dark orbit. A pheasant ruffles a strand of dew-drooped grasses. And – a beat – like a slow unfolding of an ancient fugue, opens slow chords of heavy tone, and beats back the last lingering shadows of night into the burrows of mole and worm. Here is a new day the world proclaims. Here is glory – a new day – eat, drink deep of its waters, breathe it’s pollens and feast upon its promise. For anything – anything, truly anything can be. Life can be brought out of nature’s unfolding within the ancient dances of courtship, of display, and the pain that is the heritage of all creatures that would birth the next, and the next generation. Here. Forever - life after life. Forever - without beginning, without ending. Love without condition – within an orbit of quiet order that marches on with no need to question. Slowly, heads bent down into the smell of earth, a herd of cows emerges from the last lingering fingers of mist and grassland cloud. One calls, her throat urging on the glint of the river. Another replies – her voice drowning in the first hazes of the coming midday heat. One by one each cow seeks the cool of damp river moss and bank side pools.

112 A last quiet lowing seems to say that all is well within this span of nature’s realm – then all is still. It was not love that gave wings to Phaedra’s spite. Imperfection – what is it? What is its essence? If one can say that animals know not imperfection, indeed cannot know imperfection, then the ability to perceive imperfection and imperfection itself must lie within us. How do you know imperfection? How do you know the difference between perfect and imperfect? Can perfect be – or is it a state only dimly perceived by a lazy mind as an absence of irritation within a sphere of an experience. Is perfect an absolute without an anchor in reality – any reality? When her stepson rejected my namesake’s love, she accused him of raping her and hanged herself! Is the perception of a state of being, the experience of a state of being - or indeed a state of being - so possible of an absolute, so possessed of the essence of absolute, that deceit, betrayal, despair and self-annihilation can follow from it? I say no. It was not love that gave wings to Phaedra’s spite and launched her into those last days of hate, pride, grief, and destruction. I have heard it said that Love and Hate are but the different sides of the same coin. How can this be – no simile can be but the inexact expression of a lazy mind. I have heard it said that any manifestation of human affairs embodies the essence of a human condition. Let it be known that no language – no event, manifestation, artefact, or expression by one, or many, can contain within itself the Genesis of its own creation. We are all turning shapes dimly perceived within haloed shadows. We are all swift moving reflected ripples of flowing light mirrored within and through the essence of our own and other souls. We are all beyond our own ability to conceive of ourselves – how then can we then begin to touch the face of another soul from within our own blind ignorance?

113 The coming chills of a cloud free night. Afternoon waxes into the first hints of the coming chills of a cloud free night. The cows have invaded the fields again - free at last to wander within the rising heat that swells up from the day-baked ground – free at last from the flies. Only the occasional swinging flick of tail and eye lash beating hints at an occasional irritation. Now there is a freshness in the air – a stirring amongst the topmost leaves of every tree - a sense of almost urgent movement amongst the high flung clouds that even now seem to thicken the horizon and on occasion eclipse the harsh tree filled outline of shadow cast upon hedge and ground. Here a bobtail of white betrays the urgent rabbit quest of a life soon to be prey. Here an armada of slowly sculling black crow shapes wheel across a distant view. There - a splash of leaves and urgent flight. There - a bee ambles in drunken flight – battening its wings into foxglove heads. There - a fox stalks onto a grass bank and pauses – frozen foot half lifted, ears upright in focused meditation. Pace forward and stop. Freeze. Head down – triangulate. Focus. Pace. Gone. Patter out of sight. Afternoon wanes – grass ripples in a sheen of sheet pearl. Pollens rise, and slowly – so very slowly, the light that now surrounds me tints with the first hints of sundown honey glow. Sense of Now So, what can be said? That we live within our shadows dream? That all is without absolute form or substance – nothing, nothing is – or was or ever will be? No – I think that we live within a sensorium of perception defined by an evolution that requires an illusion of the absolute. Danger and death do not respect the perception of life as a dream. No, these are often events whose edge is sharp and whose claw or tooth slashes without differentiating between the lesser or greater degrees of imperfection. So, we live within a world defined by need as one with edge – yet one in which – with reflection – is indeed a shadow cast upon and within an ever-changing sense of self, and an ever changing sense of all those other senses of selves that surround us.

114 A collective belief and commitment to a shared reality. A sense of self within the now. Beyond the Moon Golden hazes fill the world. A flood of deepening dim light streams through the air and gives a lie to the burnt starkness of midday. All now is peace and slowly drifting strands of hay. High in each treetop, one by one, the topmost leaves catch each twisting glint of She, our setting sun. The slow winding breeze tosses each treetop into a final wave of tender leaving. Sound dims and each cow cough floats to me from, what seems, so very far away. Light dims into molten gold, shot with sapphire. She has gone – now only the darkening, last remaining, rim-lit orange cloud are witness to the final moments of the departing day. A crystal night blue deepening into black horizon, hazed by a tint of aquamarine, seems to leap up and swallow the sky. A flash high above is the first star of the early evening. Another, then another, glows into existence close by. Low down – angled slightly towards the skies summit and framed by black tree silhouettes against an almost black horizon – the Moon drifts into its wan existence. There – the call of a barn owl lifts beyond the now unseen woods. There – a faint bat call and swooping shadows swing too fast to follow and are suddenly gone. There - a tiny voice of sudden extinction cries against the fall of night and the dance of death. Night falls. The Moon rises. I am finished my journey into night.

115 Monkton Wyld Readings Lawyers Paradise Light long office, Dusseldorf high, Office cold coffee, Pages piled deep. Knot legal tangled, Guarantees given, Parties withholding, Documents thick. Establishing passport, Identity pocketed, Luck now running, Pen held hard. Ticking in waiting, Watch time checked, Parties converging, Pen in pocket. Now time to witness, Decision sharp focus, Droned notary incantations, At last a signing. “What did you think?”, Lawyer after inquired, Then short inhalation, During drifting smoke. “Nile boat ride”, “Crocodiles basking”, “They too were smiling”, We all laughed. Dusseldorf deep, Fees piled high.

116 Sniper! I tried so hard in that Field of mud and ashes That you made of working. Talk to me, be my right Arm, you said and lied in Deed and then in Cowardice shuttered by Hard lips, crawled across The waste of grey torn Floor between our desks, Lodged the snipers bullet Between my shoulders, And watched my distant Falling form slip slowly From the blackness in Your ambitious mind.

117 Sailing into Darkness She Was not a gentle soul – No scented potpourri, but Spitting beef sausage Pie and wild berries hunted From bracken moors. For She, I think,, Did not love life But maybe, just Maybe, she Loved me. Indeed in my now Fading memories Of a life defined by Brown clicking Patent heels, And Strength - support Stockings - and a Hard sharp mouth, I realise that my Recollections Made of her a Shape - an obligation - A kindness spent to Earn the favour of the Gods, and maybe Time

118 For I had known her only as a Symbol composed of Childhood clay and Fashioned as is a Childs want from the Ill fired bricks of Whispered drama, Gifts, bitter lessons, Long walks and her Enduring love. Yet It was not this – Despite my own Family and desires - Which gave me to her Fading fitful life, Nor was it a duty - an older Obligation not discharged - But rather it was some other Greater phantasm of Sense and Justice. So Was it this that gave her My time when older and Her health failing, I drove Time up a freezing road and Fog bound lane to care? Was it this that gave her - Command over mind and Heart - power of the ancient Over their children and all Future first born?

119 Yet As she raced ahead of Me into infirmity I wondered at the Slow collapse of her shades Against her setting sun and Saw her descend, step by Step into calmed confusion In which the circling of her Disordered mind slowly Came to an uneventful end. And Where the space between Sunlit entrance hall and Heavy kitchen door became a world - her world, the world - then gone. And at some moment in that time, To me, to us, to all, it seemed, That she had sailed into darkness, Beyond an unknown horizon, Over an unnamed sea.

120 Tells You Tells you with a Smile that thaws the Winter from your lips. Tells you with a Kiss that brings a Smile of morning joy. Tells you with a Warmth that thaws the Ice inside your pain. Tells you with a Touch that shapes the Dreams within your heart. Tells you, Yes, tells you, With eyes that love you. Love you, Yes, love you, Through all your hope and pain.

121 Another Perfect Day Sun rising, Bells softly chiming, Lifting the night from the Dew drenched hay. Paths climbing, Dappled water shining, High into the hills of a Cotswold way. Sun dipping, Shadow lengths flowing, Darkening clouds close a Perfect day.

122 Dark Walk Shifting moonlight marches through Slanted, deep lit boughs, where Old earthy logs smell thickly in Moss green, descending night. Slowly, you turn within the Orbit of my holding arms, Eyes glinting a flaring star Rimmed glance of tenderness. Suddenly, slowly, so very unexpectedly We kiss beneath a silhouette of trees. Later, much later, Shifting moonlight marches through Slanted, deep lit boughs, where New dreams merge into the yet Unseen rays of a new days dawn.