Secret Fire

Nebulous

Give me the Secret,

and I’ll tell you what secrets are

that lie in the heart of formless being,

deep in the heart of a darker knowing

yet  are never told;

that we grow old with and fear to tell.

How can we know who we are?

Or what Love is, beyond passion,

beyond union of forms, rhythm or heat?

Beyond sweetness or ecstasy?

It’s Knowing!

Oh you who beguile

with dark eyes that consume me with fire!

Do You Remember Love?

Do you remember Love,

Luscious at the borders of sleep’s

teasing dreams,

through long shadowed hours;

shrouded in silken sheets

tumbled with longings;

down into the first rustle and sigh of the yawning dawn,

gone the owls hooting, the night jar’s song;

the earliest waking light aroused from shadowed night

two ever as one.

Do you remember Love?

Its scent and feel?

Moonlight

Still under moonlight, silent and serene,

a land half shadowed and half seen -

a vista, tranquil as a sea becalmed,

a harmony, no sound to jar

the silvered waters of dappled light

and shadowed depths where night

yet lingers.

Here and there in milky white

forms of beast and tree and stranger shapes

beguile the sight -

transformed by moon and shadows;

pools become quiet mirrors of the stars,

high in far celestial seas, and galaxies

in a universe of infinite unknowing.

Yet I would know it to its limits!

God alone could tell what heaven or hell

should be there; all appears as dark at heart

as a crystal to an unbeliever’s eye;

no intuition yields a sacred vision,

we are left bereft, unknowing;

moonlight is moonlight

and night a time for sleeping.

Stripper

I’m a looker, I’m fit

I’m a girl with class

don’t you really long

to see me strip to my lycra thong

as I wriggle to the tune of the raunchy song

to a sea of faces in the shadowy throng

of men from the firms in the office blocks

and the pc worlds;

I’m your thing in dreams,

the pliable barbie of your private scenes,

I’m a page 3 pic

that you flip to quick -

an icon from a world where the soft porn girl

is a look-real-pearl that appeases the needs

of the office boys and the men in tweeds.

I dance on the laps

of a whole dirty dozen of leering chaps,

reflected in the gaze of the one who pays

for a scent of my skin and the hoped for fling

of a one-night stand –

reduced to a grope from a furtive hand.

As a pale light dawns on a tired morn

and she finds her way from the reek and haze

of the midnight bar

and the hungry gaze of so many men -

another lean girl from a dirty world

whose stock in trade is youth and beauty that will never last

and she’s teased by the hopes of her youth that passed

too quickly, in all those misspent hours

window shopping in the tawdry malls,

and the shabby halls of imagined fame,

deep in the thrall of glamour from the world

whose profit is the gain of the merchant men

who dismiss her kind as legitimised sin,

whose lust for thrill and salacious whim

have turned women like her to a sexual thing -

a toy for the joy of the boys in the bars

and she wears the scars of her secret shame

as a sexy smile, but her eyes betray

the desperation of the game

that’s changed her name from a lady to a tart

and she can’t get smart or even have the luck

to cut loose now

before the raucous shouts of the jeering louts

claim another fraction of her yearning soul

and she sinks ever deeper in the yawning hole.

But she knows she’s free and enjoying her right

to make her choice and in the sight of the world

she serves, they want her to believe that liberty

is a freedom of trade, and they’re free to enslave

to exploit and use women like her

in the mags and the rags and the sleazy shows

and the grotty little bars where no-one knows

her privacy, her pain or her goddamned name

as long as she smiles and pouts

and flaunts to the louts that hurl her cash,

but secretly condemn her as a piece of trash.

The Beauty

I will beguile you and take you on a journey

to places unknown and lose you ...

And if therefore you feel a part of you is always lost

Know it is because I took you long ago and lost you;

And therefore, too, only I can bring you back ...

If in the cosy normality of the quiet routine of weeks,

The days unfolding a pathway down into old age

Cobwebbed by dusty memories

You have forgotten Love;

The dappled sunlight of dreaming afternoons;

The hot and sultry nights, the beauty of the moment,

Let me remind you;

For I took you there so long ago and left you

And only I can bring you back.

Tilting Windmills

Ranks of new age windmills

wheel in heavy silence

high on the windy ridges.

No old Quixote with horse and lance,

just me in my battered red car,

and bright Quixotic dreams

looking for something.

Pools of shimmering heat

puddle the long hot road

crossing the bleached blonde plains

of vast Castile La Mancha –

where long ages past

so many armies fought and passed

pursuing the Reconquista

south into the lands of light

and Andalusia.

Heat on my face,

light in my eyes,

cadences of sweet guitars,

ruby Rioja and lazy siestas,

scent of jasmines on the wind;

like a lost lover,

like music half remembered

caught on the edge of sound

I dream of you,

how I dream of you,

your fiery kiss

and hot embrace,

your turbulent rhythms

tease the thirst of my longing ...

How much I miss you!

The City

The City with no pity,

hot and hard and thirsty

with multi-million dollar dreams,

and cheap illusions and dirty schemes;

A million screens that flicker the news

of money’s views a world away,

no time disturbs this day,

For the world never stops turning

on a yen, or a pound or a dirty dime,

no thoughts or hopes sublime

disturb the moment’s fixation on the moment

when money breeds money,

a virus in a chain.

Verdant hues of figures that flash before

an endless screen of bonds and cash;

Wealth that never knew a human need,

a dream, a scream of unreality

borne in a heart of greed.

It’s the Real World I hear you say -

Hard as a hungry whore;

Desire deeper than lust -

a need , a must to win

and failure the only sin;

The soul’s reflection in the gleam

of a limosine, an air,

a bold presumptive stare

with the face of wealth

and a heart of stealth;

Ambition with love in chains,

that spares no pains for those daily gains,

For those stocks and shares

and gaudy market wares;

A heaven and hell that turns

on a sell, the tolling knell

of a passing day a world away

The City, with no pity.

City of Lovers

  

Smell of coffee from a streetside bar

in wet streets mirrored with rain and busy feet

tramping by up the Rou d'Anglais

a murmur, a hum of life, a beating heart -

aroma of another day;

turgid waters of the river flow, bridge past bridge and watch

the endless passers by come and go

busy busy traffic down the street,

the roar and blare of sirens serenade

the passing of another day.

Views over distant Paris in the morn

clouded skies and mist, or wind and rain

paint the day in leaden hues -

moody and mournful;

the gloomy boulevard with warm and winking lights

glinting from the ruffled puddles

hurry on the passers by

deep down the busy boulevard

swept by rain and leaves from London plane

springtime in Paris!

A song of streets, a hum of nights,

a celebration of life’s rich pageant

on every corner, in every plaza

at every table in a streetside cafe

where glasses chink and voices chatter -

laughter, a broken snatch of song,

a tune picked lightly on an old piano.

I would leave you behind, but your memory haunts me

City of Lovers and life’s dreamed moments,

of hopes that glinted bright and brief like candles

on the tables of midnight diners;

I would leave you behind

City of Dreamers, of love’s lost moments,

but you wink at me from ancient photos

deep in my heart - that memory’s chasm.

Reflections of Paris