POEM

Alone

At the edge

 of my manifold shadow

I saw the light

That I'll never see

(Lumière mariale)

All boasting truth

Ends up like those

lettuce leaves wilted 

in the shopping trolley 

Consider the lilies

 of my turd 

POEM

The March robin song

 signalling my renaissance

 from the last defeated

 renaissance.

No more words 

that shine

 like a prop sun 

on the horizon. 

Ah the beauty 

of the ubi sunt moment.

The beauty 

of a suited-up minister

playing a tuneful recorder

to a beggar in the street.

Goodbye

to the hectoring tone

Of my voice 

at any old stone

lion in West End. 

The wooden fish 

that Buddhist monks

Beat during the prayers

Is my life.

Once in many a dream

I hear their Sutra 

enlightening

the many pathways 

 to the blue Void.

Somewhere in the past beckons

the foredoomed meaning

of my next soul.

KIKU-NERI

 

The temple bell rings a cristaline sound

like the mute whisper of the dead.

Clouds of starling swirl in a glow as bright

as the red flame of a baker's oven at dawn.

The sun streams its morning smile

upon the poppy fields. 

Thought-worn and at last 

person of no interest

I knead chrysanthemums into a silver bowl

to beg for alms in the streets.

Far from the tweedy gathering

of soft-cops and merchants de sommeil.

My senescent heart is now a heart of jade

see-through and pure like crystal rock.

I lay myself out to be stared by the stars

Upon the wings of passing shadows.

The stars, indifferent, sideglance at me

brimming over with light my silver bowl.

SHEBA

 

The floor of Solomon's Palace was made

 of the most transparent glass.

The Queen of Sheba- when visiting

the Palace for the first time-

mistook the floor for a pool 

of spring water.

And fearing to get soaked she lifted 

up the hem of her emerald royal dress.

Everybody in the court was awestruck

 watching her hairy goat's hooves

reflected on the glass

like an otherworldly moon

into a pond.

 Sang Solomon to Sheba,

And kissed her dusky face.

POEM

 

The thrill of all loves passes

like the lingering warmth of hot springs.

The trill of the blue nightingale

 in Paradise is everlasting.

Only those who can see

 the black sun of melancholia

glimpse the blue nightingale

as invisible as blinding.

The golden apples of Aphrodite

were just quinces.

STAY GOLDEN...

 

Stay golden, mind of mine, you did well.

Stay in that pensive mood of the sea

glittering at early morning.

Be the soft susurrus of the rain

on the mossy brownstones.

Va pensiero sull'ali dorate

The swallows bear good tidings

from the black sun. 

.

 

POEM

 

In high spring the apples shine

onto the pathways leading 

to the yellow seaside of Devon.

The cows wistfully lowing about

the crows over the scorched grass.

Recumbent on a haystack 

a vagabond takes a sound kip..

Nearby a gunshot started a flock

of fieldfares and herons.

I know the name of every bird

but not their songs.*

Shine the apples green into the dewpond

a cloudspotter gazes at the expanse

of a sky so azure       a peasant woman

-tired of laundry suds  and peeling spuds-

is about to read poems of John Clare.

The lavender scent of the breeze

 makes her sob like a child.

Where be ye going, you Devon maid?**

 

Between a silent pack of wolves on the hill

and a golden moon over the shoreline 

Aphrodite smiles.

*John Betjeman

**John Keats