Remembered Kisses

i hardly knew you

yet i had known you

all of you

in that Place

where all the spheres and hemispheres are dancing

Light and Colour

pulsing with the movement of the universe

no Place no Name

no Two

you Are my Dance

flowing through me, Music filling me

when I am empty

earthsong, starsong

leaving trails of light

as the sun the moon leave trails of light

you are my Dance in Summer

Air heavy with the perfume of honeysuckle

and new mown hay

Valerian Dreams

and Shadow of Hawk circling

to take me riding on the wings of heaven

climbing ever closer to the Sun

Dance in Circles! Spark and shine!

Pierce the veil of night

With fire!

A fountain of falling stars

swirls against the blue-black sky

which lightens to the sweeter sighs and rustlings

of Morning come

too soon

you are my Dance of Winter

ice crystals sparkling in my hair

spinning spinning on the ice

in the crisp cold air

Dancing to songs of Death and Hope

of Life to come

the Joy of Rest

the sharp ecstasy of winking out

only to reappear

somewhere else again

my Dance of Autumn

butter yellow sunlight pouring

rich and sweet, air spiced

with the sharp scent of burning leaves

the sere metallic odour of glorious Decay

and the Heat of remembered kisses

your soul spilling into me

flowing over with your songs

you are my Dance in springtime

i open to you

and you open in me

the golden Heart of the Music

warming and awakening life

humming from beneath the earth

along unseen pathways

flowing like waters

freed from Winter’s blessed chill

you are the Dance beneath the Sea

the Dance of dragonflies spiraling in summer Skies

of cool gum-sweet pine forests

of the Queen of Heaven’s radiant Crown

your Songs a Passage

from Light to Light

from Dark to Dark

and Dark to Light again

Ancient, Eternal

Awakening that Love without which

Nothing

 

avatar

you, who were kissed

by the maid, joan of arc

on the eve of her triumph

so long ago

held aloft by your mother

in the air wild

with bells

offered in joy

to her shining lips

      were you branded forever

      with the fire of holiness?

      did your starved limbs fill out

      with the promise of bliss?

touched by the soldier maid

sent straight from heaven

surrounded by angels

and god, the electric

      did your heart swell triumphant?

      was your voice raised in song?

you, who were brushed

by the passage of destiny

kissed by wonder and joy

one bright night in your youth

held

for a moment

by the hope of a nation

      did your soul grow inside you?

      did it matter at all?

 

 

© pkt 1979

Patron Saint of Missed Opportunities

                                                                                  For my Mother

I        

 

a tall cool beauty all legs and delicate bone structure

luxuriant russet-glinted waves of dark brown pouring over shoulders

and before the gleam in her brilliant hazel eyes died for lack of love

she could have been a movie star

the boys had buzzed around as if she were the Source of all nectar back then

                her era Golden                 

her mind and heart at war

a woman breaking Free and terrified

pristine atmosphere, oxygen shy 

she married her brother’s best friend

devilishly dark and handsome

the features of his unsung Native ancestors

cut through the fog of her virginal awareness

quickened something unimagined even

in those bleak post-Victorian days when young girls bled unknowing

sure they were about to die

generation and its means spoken only in whispers

the language of pain and fear

but Love! o Love! a pure and glowing thing somehow

in an age of Photoplay superimposed over the necessities of blood and fire

the first night did not go well, nor many nights thereafter

he had no time

what was the true effect

coming of age in those black & white days of twin beds

and Hayes Acts and whitewash

it seems as if childhood was a sitcom

where Father’s life was a gyroscope of its own centrifugal force

pulling all into spiraling selflessness around it

the definition of nuclear family fails

when the center of gravity implodes

ashes ashes we all fall down!

like the plague

marriages made in après war sickened and died

blackened and burned

children half orphans

grandparents aunts uncles all far away in the atomized explosion

of a mobile society

 

II         

the river keeps flowing

sweet juicy bodies swell on the vine

peach fuzz cheeks, firm ripe flesh

every generation is the First one

sure no one who knows anything has ever Been here before

arrogance innocence or not so much

we see our age reflected in the eyes of our cohort

this Hot music has never been made in all of time

we are the First

until all interventions inventions and no control

the confidence arrogance withers along with flesh

sliding from beneath the skin

leaving paper coating

fragile wizened sagging

whence that golden sweetness

electric juice of yesterday?

the images I see

those vanished

who will not know this world again

(ah well, there's always reincarnation but you never know)

those beads slipped off the chain into the vast heart of darkness

jitterbug jive dancing on top of the world

everything's new unspoiled faultless

Big Band Big Sound

riffs purloined from people so far down

why would they have anything you need?

but they have Soul

will you steal their souls

refill the tanks with stolen fields and jungles

claim their history for your own

wear their clothes their ornaments

can you pray to their god?

she dances

notes sliding sinuously into her inherited body

her burning spirit bread in a starving land

water in the valley of death

the scales fall from the eyes of the year

in crimson gold profusion

Fall away Fall away

buried beneath winter's mast

like a leaf from an earlier slaughter

the hollow shell of a nut

food for worms

can she step out of eternity to touch the living breath again?

Children of the Air

"{They do} not hear;{they} will not look,

Nor yet be lured out of this book.

For, long ago, the truth to say,

{They have} grown up and gone away,

And {they are but children} of air

That linger in the garden there."

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

 

where do children go when they’re grown? 

the innocent photos of smiling faces

are they all lies?

 

we are old we are old

to have those babes come back to haunt our elder time

with their cries and the horrors of their wounded souls

begging to be held and enfolded in arms

as the children they once were

and their dervish whirlings in the world

random strikes as of a hundred thousand knives

the darts of hatred

and unfulfilled desires

not our own but somehow left  behind

to twist like daggers in the psyche

fiery paths slicing through brain matter

slicing through what passes for persona

all a Mask of competence

overlying chasms of flame and flood

the tiny cold emptiness expands and

shuts down joy and light

receptors switched off

blot out the mental pictures

memories

loops run endlessly

of more uncomplicated days when smiling faces

cakes and candles

bare legs and superhero cloaks

made unscripted moments of laughter

spontaneous love and pride

Wait! are those shadows?

are those eyes lowered in some secret grief?

so hard to tell

to remember the exact moment

was there more to that afternoon

than sunlight patterns from the trees

than baby steps and childish glee?

looking back I see more

the lack of complication a lie told to self

in the morning of consciousness

before experience clouded

or embellished a life

certain in the knowledge

that the world would be saved by love alone

© 2017 pamela twining