Your cries I will hear not
Not from your bell towers
or your minarets
Your inner chambers
or from your public places
For
There is a child crying
It calls me by my name
you hear it not
You say that thing is not mine
So I say I know you not.
Words for the Wise
The wind used its agile hands
grabbing words from my mouth
made it tumbleweed tumbling
across a never never land bridge
to the home of the mute and lost
hoping to bring words to the wise
and silence the all knowing.
Castaway
I traced the skin of your back
like an explorer charting a map
a beautiful new blue ocean.
Where I discovered an island
fitting in the palm of my hand
it became home to me.
In endless hours of the night
when your heart beat drums
a new life raft next to me
Pause
In the solitary silence,
engraved in the empty space
between the beginning
and
the ending of your pause,
my entire world collapsed,
over the edge of the universe.
Autumn Rain
Street lamps with grey heads bowed
Stoically shed the cold midnight tears,
abandoned by drifting autumn clouds
unable to carry the burden any further.
Creating glittering babbling streams
carrying away the last stubborn grief,
painful words of discarding goodbyes,
to a wide forgetful ocean of yesterday.
The Practice of Now
I saw a single word dropping silently
into a quiet and unimportant moment.
Where it cut through the dark surface
of the still and reflective pond of I am.
Rippling a perfect pause of awareness
between a breath a sound and a to do.
Drawing forth with calm effortlessness
the light of being present to the now.
Light and Dark
How long will you demand this veil?
This mask of superficial purity, white?
I want to rip into this suffocating lace.
Tear it from my tortured beaten face.
Revealing black haunted eyes to light.
How long must this macabre act prevail?
Come to me my lost and reprobate angel.
Liberate me with your love in dark places.
Let me bleed into the white empty spaces.
Bless my union in the dilapidated chapel.
So that I might be resurrected to the night.
Divinely ordained in pure black and white.
Autumn Bedroom
Golden lava-flows of stars plunges
in waterfalls over the edge of a bed.
A faithful fan performs its Sufi twirls
cloistered, as is proper, in obscurity.
Whilst the guitar whispers love songs
an audience of plants listens in silence.
Soft cotton covers hug my naked skin
like the warm touch of an absent lover.
Gratitude dances on my heavy eyelids
as I drift into a sleep void of storms.
Orphan (Revised)
In a small waterfront bar in the old Cape of Good Hope,
a place created by the gods for lost souls and orphans,
we drank warm melancholy cocktails out of old bottles
wrapped in cheap brown paper bags to hide our sin
when your soul unexpectedly spilled in from the cold dark rain.
A thousand miles away I lift my eyes to the clear blue skies
and remembering and wondering about the crossroads of life
wrapped up in the inaudible plea drifting up from your voice
wordlessly telling me of pain that the universe holds in my heart
because it sees you and wants to throw its arms around you.
Weeskind
Daar in ń waterkant bar van die ou Kaap
Die plek van verlore siele en weeskinders.
Drink ons warm drankies uit ou bottels,
begrawe in goedkoop bruin papier sakke.
Jou siel val laat nag in uit die koue reen.
Nou kyk ek hier op na die ope blou hemel,
ek onthou, maar wonder oor ons kruispad.
Daar is ń woordelose roep in jou stem,
en praat jy onbewustelik jou pyn met my.
Die heelal hou sy asem op in my hart,
dit sien jou en wil sy arms om jou gooi.
imaginal 