I escape to the boat

away from the lull of food and wine

and small after-lunch conversations

out to the cold rasp and lash of salt air

gulping in the clean, clear air in mouthfuls

hungry for horizon

for moments without reasons

for motion without walls, for unfolding

for the happening that happens

because of itself and for itself

like the great plumed cirrus reclining

self-content as Buddha over the Var.

 

Opening the sails

i plunge Vanessa into the black troughs

she comes back head up like a dolphin diving

a free and singular mind

a roaring spirit shunting and nuzzling the water

as city and culture fall behind

my heart soars in sea and sky

exhulting, invigorated, redeemed:

sailing, like love-making, is full of god

and like love, it is the the art of being.

 

Rounding St. Honorat

the tide is deep in the stern, cleaving in the bows

she takes me with her, rolls to one side

and i let her over as far as she wants,

straining for sea, then reign her in, pulling hard

she braces, turning, and comes around head down

the sea is fighting us hard now

I keep the touch light

she responds, thrusting deep into the swell

groaning, ready, i sense the moment coming

and suddenly she sinks down into perfect rhythm

riding flat out, leading the cavalry of white horses

charging the thin line of horizon

and all becomes harmony, rhythmicity, union;

close your eyes, close your eyes

everything is here, close your eyes, be still…

 

Now, full in the open sea

the Mistral heaves her

and i set her down into the black swell

coaxing her firmly westward

toward St. Tropez.

Hushed love

tender like sun-heat against your face-skin

through the plexiglass 

hand in angelic hand

high wordless place over the torn blue world 

heal, reconcile, illuminate

with an around-the-world

ubiquity of reach:

ionospheric sunlight-like love shining

where never was permitted

morning.

 

Hurry love, quickly

down these eso-erotic corridors

before jealous aphrodite finds us in her sky

stride-on with long-legged wings

toward the heavenly clay 

take me to you

in my singularity give me your forms

in my multiplicity make me one

from obsessionality free me

from apathy bleed me and

in the sun-around-the-permitted-world

be me

 

I'll be you.

Grey October rain

washes down dawn Parisian jungles

from interior darkness of train

sun wages war on tenemental widows

scratches to bleeding the elemental pane

and the black blood of rain

crushed from cloud-grape

spits in my veins

​

among the graffitti on red-blue walls

i see the puzzle in a child’s hand scrawled:

‘Why did you die on me Sevaelle?’

​

Mind, wide eyed with incomprehensions

crumbled under the flailing walls

as the sky caved in

black notes rose like crows from the Underground

and u danced while i, cataleptic Idiot,

convulsed and bled on your bed
 

In a skidding jet make notes

on the runway at Malaga

i wake with your name inside me,

full of the peaceful insanity of dreams

knowing I can’t replace you,

nor the mandalas you have called into being

​

There is a moment without compassion

when the matador drives the blade

between the shoulders

and the air is horrible with the slow dance of dying

but you spilt more blood

than anything i’ve seen in Spain

​

Towns flicker by; St. Germaine, Richelieu, Saumur

becoming visible, then graphic, then memory

i try to scream but no sound comes

just my heart beating like a bass

over the wheels of a long train

pouring down south in the darkening of evening

red-bleu

‘Where are you Sevaelle, where are you?’

The Chalice lives in the parched sky

the distance uncertain in the flitting mist

the Blood Sun glints on its lip

the Wind fills full its Cup

 

The world is soaked in Holy Wine

taste oh taste the Healing!

drink life drink and live

outside of Time Place Meaning

 

The Sentence is spired by the Word

life is a soft kiss a rose a sword

but for you me and the invisible sky

Death sits like grit in the Diamond

In the blue-pink sky

the bamboo trees bend

until you can almost see your life:

spirit-forms fleeting in an aching sky.

 

In the free-fall of near-death

out at the edge of yourself

you kiss deeply again

kiss like a song

full-throated

and with all of your body.

 

And you wonder why they have brought you now

into the dreamtime

into the shadowed, fractured world

for you to perceive the truths that shape 

the still-quiet of trees at evening

froth on a pouring stream

ancient sunlights

all colours warm.

 

And the doubts you doubt

are just the Underworld hissing as you rise

hating with its hatred

of all things free and wild and clear

and sending out the Dark Beings of anti-love

to poison and crush you

and the truths you’ve wed.

 

While deep inside the firestorm

the Muses call ancient prayers over you

and the gods that live in all things that love

whisper in you

”This is good my child, this is good”.

​