Revelations on a Tropical Night

Salango Beach, Ecuador

   

Latin nights, with warm and lazy rhythms,

dusky after sundown

and palms that waved in breezes

by darkening seas;

the soft throbbing beat

of salsa on the beach

calls me back to that time

and those moments sublime

where the air - scented and sweet,

borne of tropical climes

and days of long heat

whispers cocktails and wine

and the sound of the sea

lullabies endlessly.

Stars in the sky mirror the sea

as sparks in the sea of phosphorous light

burst in the night as a ripple of fire

on the crests of the waves

and the deep deep sigh

as the waves retire

leave a moment’s peace.

There I lay in your arms as you breathed in sleep

and watched the celestial drama sweep

in vast dimensions overhead.

A miracle of being came clear to me

as I joined in one with Infinity

one moment, and knew with certainty

who we are and how our base humanity

had fallen so far from divinity.

I felt my spirits soar -

but the moment passed and we at last,

returned back again along the shore

whence we had come,

to the distant sounds

of Latin dance in the shanty town.

Tropical nights in a distant land,

making love on the midnight sand,

casting loose in the naked sea -

those were moments in eternity!

I will always remember the mood of love

as we lay enlaced with the rest of the universe above us;

but most of all, when the dark rain falls

and the northern wind brings an icy squall,

how the warmth and scent of the tropic night

yielded vision inward of a different sight

and Love of a higher nature beckoned me,

Oh moments, sweet moments in Eternity...

This poem was first published as a guest post with Tony Riches 'The Writing Desk' on Sunday, 8th May, 2011. My thanks to him for this.

Strangers and Lovers

Stranger and lover

you are near, yet so far,

I don’t know who you are;

so look in my eyes and

renounce your disguise.

Locked in your world,

beyond a high wall,

so near yet so far -

open the door

and show who you are.

Silent as night,

as an owl in flight

you say not a word;

but your eyes talk of worlds

a million miles far.

I would know who you are.

Lover and stranger,

twin rivers we flow

from mountain to sea -

waters apart

at the end as at start;

how should I know

the being you are,

you are always so far.

Our love was a spring

united as one

as all love should be;

all rivers at last

must join in the sea.

So how can it be

you are so far from me

yet here by my side?

You lay as if stone,

too deeply alone,

touch me and see,

you are too far from me.

Open your heart

and be one of the free;

have the courage to be

one spirit with me.

Silence

Silence borne of timelessness,

hollow in the stillness,

teasing the edge of sound

heavy with the sense of past,

portentous with the birth of future,

all contained within this present moment -

for eternity.

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.