In the sound of oceans deep
caves do swim like whales
giant ears like barrel drums
and hearts as big as sails
a song as deep as waves asleep
on shores of marching beats
where suns do dream of jellyfish
and moons will catch the breeze
in silver nets of manta rays
singing of afar
a song as low as whales can go
inhaling star by star
Your fingers brush against the sky,
trailing sparks as you dream of foxes:
tails of light, etching curtains
into the night
as they run through the trees, branches
scratching the darkness:
soot coming off your eyes
and the light of a million years
falling through the pages of mysteries
setting alive in the moments before sleep
the ceiling of your room
with open spaces and old tales
The moon tastes full
in the late afternoon, a ghost
of better days, over fields
almost forgotten
but the grey is turned
to the brink of gold
by the sinking light of spring, heavy
with winter sighs but buried in lace
and pale blue gossamer,
clouded already by traces
of green and life but hollow still as
the fallen trees in the back of your mind
In a desert of permanent change
the sand tastes different every morning
on the back of salt-crusted hands
its persistent itch on cracked skin
the only reliable constant
There’s rain in the trees behind the clouds, behind the gables under the sea; there’s mist and humididy, a trace of mystery;
there’s rain to infinity
there’s hands unshrouding misty ships:
sail forth, there’s distant worlds to see
in bookend seas and towers of water,
in grassy skies and ice on fire
in souls and stones and warming soup
There’s always a storm in the back pocket of your fraying secondhand jeans and you don’t know where to put it down
safely
so you keep carrying it from breakfast to forest to dinner, until it stirs the heap of clothes next to where you try to sleep and you slip out of bed
quietly
to open the window for it to escape into the cold night, going on adventures in your stead, and cold you go bed and cold you sleep until cold morning
but when sitting down at the table to grab for your spoon you find
your hand already occupied
by another tornado
and sighing you stuff it into your pocket
before the coffee gets cold
There are words, locked away behind high windows, safely stowed inside cathedral ships, never passing the horizon
of lips, never touching the solid ground of the tongue, strange and foreign a land
where other words live and inhabit realms of fantastical creation, realms of history and future and all the inventions made by those thoughts that travelled the distance in long ages, in ships of golden metaphors and singing monologues, in shining armour of syllables and carrying towers of books in a single breath to build their castle homes, beckoning in visitors and spectators to come and see the secure walls of structured text and airy windows of silence, gauze curtains of tasteful sighs floating on the breath of a million conversations
but there are monkish words, treading lightly in shadowed halls within, measuring their pace in heartbeat steps, not rise and fall of metres, cloistered words, not always by choice, some of them fostered
in the halls of high windows and their unspoken miracles of dusty sun
Weigh the anchor and raise the surge
riding the backs of whales
command the ghosts of sharks to carry your ship to the crest of starry waves
up to where there is no up nor down
to steal the hearts of nebulae
which then to set in lieu of sails
to carry you farther
into depths you’ve never sailed
but know from maps dreamed up
in harbourside slumber
and treasured in dull waking hours
when dawn sailed out
without allowing you to follow
so now you cross its way, charging
into the night beyond
and hunt the gold of distant suns
Golden moth-wings in the greenhouse
fluttering against the glass
gentle like rain
desperate like buds in spring
to see the world beyond
frozen panes of time cocooned
searching
beating
wandering
the maze for a door
trailing gold dust
all across the floor
Trading secrets with the moon,
hiding them under your tongue
as you safely carry them across
the border into the next day
and you know their velvet-rough taste
of night-dark chocolate will linger,
follow you down into pillow rabbit holes,
where it mingles with dreams,
smoke curling around mirrors
until all is glassy smoothness
and before you awaken
you swallow them without a trace
starfishskies 