The Mystery Unexplained

The one who never sleeps can never wake
but must forever wait for the dreamer
to pull down a bright cloud of consciousness
into the deep void of insensate dread,
and dream of the conductor of lost souls,
that dark psychopomp, Ibis headed god
or swift messenger, flying  from the heights
into the abyss of eternal sleep.

Unborn he rules alone, between all that
lies above him and all that lies below,
but she, pregnant with possibility,
squats ubiquitous, ready to conceive
from every seed that falls from weeping moon
or virile sun into her moist darkness.
No monster is too foul to call her own
or goddess too fair to rival her power.

Two conjoined, but forever separate,
begat a third, unrivalled in beauty
and fecundity, from their roiling seas,
to make substantial all the forms of life,
but only in the darkness of their dream,
for the garden of the goddess is lost,
spinning in the void, bounded and finite
among the fiery hells of burning stars.

Desiring to be her consort the first
becomes the fourth, ruler of her domain,
Emperor and lawgiver, unrivalled
among her creatures that think themselves real,
but remain expelled from the true darkness
of unbeing, caught in the delusion
of the cubic throne and bound to obey
the arbitrary rules rules of time and space.

Written in the Sands

In imitating God’s long winded hand
the sinuous Quranic script takes wind
on sand as paradigm for truth and wit:
but life’s impermanence embedded there
leaves hoped for heavens nowhere to be found.

Those born into the faith must long in vain
for lost oases with cool waving palms,
displaced by rearing towers of steel and glass
thrown up by potentates grown fat with oil,
and foreign slaves who toil within their thrall.

One son born into this oppressive clan
was dutiful in studies and devout
but, while fortunate in wealth and power,
dissented in his heart and drifted far
from his family’s involvement with the west.

His world of minarets and ritual
now left for barren wastes of rock and sand,
low murmuring of women by water
in cool courtyards of decorated tile
abandoned for coarse cloth and jogging mules.

The bad breath and crooked smiles of his men,
dark eyes gleaming by the fire with God’s wrath,
revealing burning coals of hate within,
fed by left slanted verses, memorised
in boyhood and digested with each bow.

Now, the mountains rise, forbidding of life,
demonstrating the smallness of man’s dreams
and his pitiful span of life and hope,
brief shelter from Satan’s all seeing eyes
until the bane of aery fires rains down.

The only path between two living hells:
the gleaming luxury of worldly wealth,
or some soulless toil within Satan’s mills
was to restore the twin temples of God
in the land of his nurture and his birth.

But first, tear down the twin towers of Satan,
they said, with rising fervour round their fires,
use your wealth and influence with men
to capture and guide his soaring eagles
and dash them burning into his proud den.

And so God’s will came to pass, as it must,
mysterious in consequence, by stealth
the fires of Hell rose up from out the dust
and ravaged all the lands of faithful men
in Mammon’s name and lust for power and wealth.

Wraith like and hollow eyed the Prophet’s man
wandered in barren lands, beset by pain
and doubt, loved by some reviled by many,
knowing the ever testing hand of God
would lead him at last to His paradise.

Meanwhile, a sojourn in some doleful place,
would have to do while further plans were made
to rouse the world from sinful slumbering
and false enjoyment of a failing world,
mired in material faith and godless strife.

Such vain thoughts of glory were soon cut short,
by treachery and bureaucratic thought,
when Satan’s dogs did their master’s bidding,
intruding on his brief domestic bliss
administered the fruits of Judas’ kiss.

Now the right hand of God writes on the waves
another windy tale of hate and death,
and far beneath the pale faced Prophet lies,
perhaps dreaming of a better life, lived
again, but next time not so much in vain.

The Wings of Truth

The child’s eye lights upon a dragonfly,
following the play of light and shadow
along the wayward, darting path of life’s
ephemeral and urgent search for joy.

Tiny prey swarm among the swaying reeds,
dancing above the gently flowing stream,
but the one who sees without yet knowing
lies naked on the pure white river sand.

Only a myopic microcosm
has opened here, a perfect realm balanced
upon the gleaming wings of summer’s world,
crowned by yellow Iris and celandine.

Below, the dancing stickleback flashes
fire and gleams, hoping to lure his drab mate
into a fishy nest of love and dreams,
beneath two tall shadows in human form.

The day wears away into memory
a lost tapestry wrought with the Devil’s
Needle, flashing bright on the wings of truth,
a single joy among the world’s false fruits.

Ghost Train

The night is dark and I am small
but tall enough to stand
next to my father’s case,
battered leather, brown,
in the crowded corridor.

My mother is sitting down,
in fur trimmed hat,
on matriarchal luggage,
grey imitation crocodile,
its belly pregnant with camisoles,
sponge bags and old towels.

My childish world that day
a swaying cacophony
of piled up kit bags
and bracing legs,
wearing khaki or navy blue
and the Few
displaying stripes or wings,
Brylcreme boys in lighter hue.

Outside the window,
cinders spark and flash
with that funny smell
of burning coke and ash
that invokes the sound and fury of
Behemoth striding through the night,
on a working holiday from Hell.


In compartment and corridor
the dolorous air is full of smoke:
the stench of Woodbines,
Players and Craven-A combines
with the rank perspiration
of other ranks,
seeping from serge uniforms
and woollen socks,
brown or grey,
darned in desperation
by yearning wives,
inured to loss and separation,
ground down by force of habit
and frustration,
turning factory wheels
and keeping home fires bright.

The night is warm:
the window’s leather tongue
lolls out long, swaying,
buttoned down for ventilation,
a breath of air refreshing
the Victorian dream,
preserved for each new generation
of travellers in the age of steam.

Nose pressed to the window,
I see the repeating shadows
of the latticed bridges, black
telegraph poles and trees;
red and green eyes burning,
signals raised and lowered by
invisible hands and ties pulling levers
in windowed boxes along the track.

On the horizon Bessemers roar,
licking at the purple sky;
flaming desperation of a nation
facing sure defeat in war
or, maybe, the elation
of unexpected victory.

Somewhere overhead,
the Plough turns the celestial sod
about the ill-lit maypole,
a vacant carousel
without its rider god.

In glimmering cities light fingers
reach out in vain,
feeling for the throbbing aeroplane,
bearing incendiaries to rain
down fire on the Co-Op
courtesy of Heinkel
or Messers Smith and Co,
whistling into mean streets below,
and allotments (to maim
the odd marrow or geranium)
where stirrup pumps and red buckets
stand ready to dump cold water
on German ire and magnesium.

Underfoot the floor bucks and clacks
to the unwritten song of the railway tracks.
Sleeping heads loll and jerk,
Pontoon players brag and smirk,
knee to knee over yesterday’s daily rag,
dusted with droppings from a drooping fag.

Doors slide open and slam,
bodies squeeze and cram
in urgent procession
to the lavatory pan
or distant dining car.

A woman stoops and spits
into her handkerchief and,
with a toil worn hand,
wipes away the smutty smears,
puffed out from iron lungs by straining gears
and blown through the window where I stand.

On towards the North
the iron charivari rides,
shattering the silence of the night,
through England’s craggy spine
and lonely valleys striding forth
along the trans-Pennine line,
into the grey glimmer of first light.

From battered Crewe to Manchester,
Wigan, Huddersfield and Bradford,
the LMS express drags its motley load
into the industrial fields of grimy Leeds
where barrage balloons hang out,
hawsers dangling overhead,
angling nightly for a German scout.

Slowing before the destination,
we wait while the lights are red.
Ghostly figures loiter in the siding
beneath the curving iron shed
or lurk within the murky station,
shunting coal tenders up ahead.

Within the train, sleepers wake,
yawning, stretching, standing,
dragging luggage from the rack,
the weary throng prepares to disembark.

Couplings jerk and clang
and with a last triumphant shriek
and bang the monster comes to rest,
disgorging smoke and oily reek.

Windows crash down:
weary arms reach out,
dangling hands grope
for brass handles;
doors fly open and idly swing,
releasing the damned
from their mobile purgatory
into the Yorkshire morning.

Sixty years after, in my brain,
the travelling ghosts alight again
from their journey into night.
But none remain to haunt me now,

lost riders on that ghostly train.

In the Darkness Reconciled

Born of water, the first element known
to the child is air, in that choking gasp:
earth soon becomes an irresistible
attraction, to mankind as crawling worm.

Fire appears later, as candle or coal,
Quite distinct from the domineering Sun,
it beckons with its warm and flickering light,
but repels the touch with a stab of pain.

The sudden flaring of the pink match-head
informs the child that hidden magic lies
in serried ranks within a brittle box,
out of reach, hidden from tiny fingers.

In October, mysterious work begins:
adults and older children in the know
begin to pile up wood into a cone,
on a dark spot now overgrown with weeds.

A guy is made, from old clothes stuffed with straw,
ready to be hoisted onto the pile,
but kept safe out sight until the time
of sacrifice and celebrating flame.

The why of mock death is never explained,
except as remembrance of dire treason,
but not as the fear of creeping darkness
that must be dispelled by the bonfire’s flames.

The loveliest mystery is left till last,
when the child discovers a pretty box,
all decorated with peculiar signs
whose meaning is a different kind of light.

Within lie the enchanted forms of fire,
each safe inside a coloured tube or cone,
ready to be released from their prison,
ignited by a salted twist of blue.

Weeks of agonised anticipation
pass by, until the day and that dark hour
comes round when the madness of fire shall rule,
and shining eyes behold the Golden Rain,

the burst of the Volcano and Snow Storm,
the glittering sparklers and the rocket’s glare,
all too soon expended until the last
Demon or whimper of the final Squib.

Somewhere else, a Catherine Wheel goes awry
and fails to spin, and a Roman Candle
lets loose voluptuous loads of fiery balls,
among the bonfire’s sparks of falling rain.

The women add their sacred rituals too,
chestnuts and potatoes thrown in the ash
provide a late night supper for their young
and bring the revellers closer to the hearth.

So Hera and Hephaestus reconciled,
participate unseen within the smoke,
inflaming the minds of the very young
to seek beyond the confines of dull earth.

Summer's End

The time of sunlight is now past
and shadows lengthen every day:
you knew the bounty could not last
and darkness would demand its pay.

Gather the fallen apples from the ground,
squeeze out the sunlight trapped within their flesh,
hang some from the rafters and dance around
and try to bite the few that still are fresh.

Sit at midnight before a glass
and hope the one that spills first blood
will come and roll you in the grass,
before the snow lies on the wood.

When the veil between the worlds has lifted
cut good joints from a newly slaughtered beast:
see spirits rise where the smoke has drifted
from bon-fires burning the bones of the feast.

In the greyness of the morning
pick from the ash your cooling stones,
read the future that is dawning
for young virgins or aged crones.

When the children come knocking at your door
treat them with kindness and bestow your gift:
teach them the meaning of November’s lore
before their springtime blossoms fall and drift.

The Sadness of the House

The contents accumulate,

an aggregation of desires,

chosen with economic care

and young hopes of future ease,

only to be discarded

sacrificed on fashion’s altar.

TV tubes morph into flat screens,

their ganglia of wires are pruned

and the once loved leather lounges

are deemed unfashionable,

despised, they no longer please,

their kindly embraces now spurned.

Evidence is erased by paint

of youthful progeny and marks.

No toys litter the dust-free floor,

no boyfriends clamour at the door,

just the third dog waiting for

a visit by the family throng.

Juicers, used once, electric fans,

artificial flowers, pans,

huddle in the attic gloom,

their ruminations scarce disturbed

by thermal insulation

or new air-conditioning ducts.

Below, the beds no longer creak

with joint or lone furtive desire,

but still bear the weight of sleep

waiting their turn for renewal

of duvets or mattresses

or that last journey to the dump.

When the front door slams one last time,

the empty rooms can exhale 

the final breath of occupation,

and listen to the world outside

for the next engine on the drive

to relieve the sadness of the house.