The songbird’s influence
when voiced in misty breath,
covered in soft lapping oceans
and the salt air that surrounds
the island, yellow stoned, steeped
in history, steep to trace the steps
that lead on high to a safe harbour
in a paradise, that voice, haunting,
exotic and beautifully feminine,
captures my soul
as I listen entranced, as I read
rapt and spellbound;
there is after all
a voice in the blue aquatic sea
that sounds a perfect pitch bell
of the divine and sultry
I dreamt of you, scenic beauty
and waterfall thunder, I dreamt
of you and the forest clearing
in which you beckoned
me to explore, nature blossoming
to the sound of a pair
of butterfly wings beating
softly and in time with my own
enslaved heart, the scribe
never forgets the Queen
of Pharaoh Isle
and the image of her warm heart
in colour laden dreams as
she destroyed the scribe
time and time again,
the scribe always smiles
at the memory with
certain youthful pleasure.
I went away to find myself, no map,
no compass or recollection of what I was
once, what I was failing to be, what I had allowed
to be said without my lips moving,
shut up, lips stitched, lips sewn together
and yet they were moved, like a clever ventriloquist
making a stuffed overweight toy talk;
yet my fluff had started to come apart,
the stitching holding me together
coming apart at the seams…
I went away to get re-stitched,
to get myself back in mental shape,
The sea will always wash away at the rock,
slowly, surely, as tic follows tock
and Time is patient, it will erase
all, one sediment speck at a time,
for Time is all that Time has
and its only ally is the sea,
the promise in crested waves
that gradually flicks dust off the face
and replaces it with the start of a hole,
miniature, insignificant and just like a quandary
in which doing the right thing costs you,
so too does Time and the sea, both
Stuck halfway between the sky and the sea,
I am unsure if the plane circling high
above Mellieha is the speedboat or just
a vapour dream brought on
by not being sure of what is up
and how far down the Devil rides.
They touch the fingers of a god
as they find faith in their soul
is not unbroken and yet in the Mellieha sky
I see the speedboat
flowing out the spilled Mediterranean seaweed
which a tractor, ridden with impunity,
collects at certain times of the day
The cold African winds batter my face
with red dust as the sound
of dead memories whistle
through the forest of boats
and rich men’s yachts and cruisers
named in some Channel Island port
or Black Sea safe haven
and the ghostly sound
rumbles in the Three Cities’ harbour
as the age old Inquisitor looks on
in distaste.
The yacht’s only movement,
the bobble on the aloof and frosty stared
sea, up and down in quarter back tussle,
the owners drinking green tea
I see the Manhattan morning from the dusk
of a Maltese bay and I realise there is no colour,
just black and white memories
with the spectacular vision of off sepia groove thrown
in for effect as I recall days of stories
from the Adanac house and I know that
Time is eating away, burning up, like a Catherine Wheel,
spun by an unseen hand in the darkness
and the fireworks light up the sky
in desperation, in ground down coffee bean surrender
and the taste of yoke screams in heat
The category is now changed,
the box to tick is shuffled around
like a deck of cards in the hands
of a teenager drunk
on sideboard cider, cheap
and trashy, a sly grin of arrogant pissed up
humour, which now says I have found Middle-Age
and I scratch my head in confusion,
is it Middle-Age or is it just a shorter time
available in which to get things done.
Perhaps not the right way,
perhaps the way to see it
is that I have earned the right
The clown,
the man who wears no mask at all,
plays the act of Ringmaster
with such defining grace,
that it seems impossible to believe
that he cannot be seen
for what he is, the terror of a toytown
enthralled by his smiling, almost leering,
inwardly demonic, outwardly man of the world,
sophisticated as an alleycat on heat,
the clown rules all, for he is King
of his own little world.
The Clown is cheered,
the clown is lauded as the saviour
The fireplace of broken dreams
caught alight when you stepped
into the circle, that night of deep
hot wind that blew in from the
Channel and through
our make shift village by St. Malo Green.
Your German boyfriend, Sebastian
by birth but Rudolph now by design,
plucked gently on the guitar strings,
some fanciful song
which you just knew was meant
to enrage the soul,
and the women’s heart’s in the camp
fluttered, whilst we just rolled our eyes
towards the evening sun and wished