The Ferry man

In the Dark there's a beckoning Candle

Carry my beloved child over
In mists on the malignant moor
Quietly frozen cold dark and damp.
This silence permeates the countryside
breath freezes on the tongue
and the ferryman scrapes his wooden oars

Against the barrel of a boat
on the river, the murky river
scattered bones and pale shadows
of departed souls and lost love
and that ferryman scrapes his wooden oars

Over that cold misted river, where debris is scattered
of soldiers lost long ago in a battle great,
little children born too soon in Victorian arms.
Then tumble old men and women at the ends of time
and the ferryman scrapes his wooden oars

into the mouth of hell itself , haunted and burning bright
Out there in the dark, there's a beckoning candle
waxen limbs and fetid flesh burn vivid
the calling card of this world ended
and the ferryman scrapes his wooden oars

sail away, from this world to the next
perhaps he'll pass over in the storm
To overlook the tallow carcasses
Then safe to haven shores in the arms of angels
But no you pass by and only then to scream
as the ferryman scrapes his oars no more

Guardian

Guardian

You watch,your face granite, a stone,
arms out stretched in a tranquil embrace.
Patches of green fingered symmetry
cling to the feathers of your gown
and still you watch.
Silent in the midnight gloom
your shadow dancing in Gothic stance.

And I lie here in this bed of earth
a reflection of you caught in time,
as the tears of dawn wash clean the script of my demise.
Silently waiting for the day when you will fall
to meet the ground with the breath of an Autumn wing.
And kiss my still frozen lips dressed in summer petal
on the metallic rose bowl of the remembered.

Break down your crumbling solitude
and ever watchful stance
the ravages of ages have not been kind
to that powered marble countenance
undistinguished that once beguiling smile
come and rest with me my tired watchman
to lie in the cool tender earth
And stay in my arms awhile.

A Picture Past

A Picture Past
Sunlight on the morning of my happiness
stirs the fleeting golden memories
of fireflies and fairy wings
that a child glimpses in her grandmothers eyes

clouds of bitter fog
draw a veil over the shadowed demise
of that magical wonder which she once was

And bury deep in thoughts of grief

A proud and fierce belonging
are ties that bind in innocence made
til strings are wrenched in pieces
and memories blown like butterfly kisses

On the winter winds of neglected age
a flight of fancy time moves on
to treasure a new loved one
and a great grand daughter is the newly beguiled

The Gingerbread House

The Gingerbread House

Some call it quaint the liquorice windows
Glace Payne's to hide in in silence
All is quiet in the gingerbread house
each crumbling brick conceals a tear
As tiny hands try to hold together the pieces
of broken dreams and sugar coated insults
The walls enclose and threaten in a courtyard wafer
ice cold the frosting across the gaze
The children line up six at a time
tormented by the gum shoe
a pretty house the gingered bread home
Empty inside the fireside grate
And in the picture perfect garden

No bird is to be found

The Portrait

Portrait

Confusion comes in water colour

a pale imitation of the self
the riot that is in turmoil
delves deeper into the murky pallet

And blend the waters of the perception
a tale in oils on a soiled canvass
till life is art in every line
hold still the fruits of the mind

Mix mauve painted madness
into shades of depression
And all that develops
is the scream

And yet there is something
about the eyes
the windows to the soul
dark staring empty in the frame

That holds the gaze
like a butterfly pinned under glass
sinister yet inviting
the sadness to answer within

Golden Delicious

at the centre of it all an apple
bitten , once tasted never forgotten.
the journey travelled in endless circles
testing the fruit and tasting the bitter sweetness.

unravel the golden yellow peel
to reveal decades of enticing ideas
each a moist melting morsel
in the sea of a rising tide

The apple once bitten destroys the whole
temptation to decide the taster
in the name of science its pip is planted
the tree spring forth the forbidden fruit

And each child anew bites the guilded orb
only to drown in the poison of its knowledge
least we deceive ourselves forbidden is not to eat
passing idea from infant to man
spurned in the candle of a moth to a flame
We bite the apple again and again

The Flowering of little Emma

my seed has flowered in unfolding bud
her skin glows in dew and glittering rain
a child woman born in me
rooted in ordinary soil
how beautiful she became.