The Royal Wedding

From rough sown seed in bamboo grove

A love was born and still it grows

On London streets and Royal Mile

He held her hand in mirrored smile

In granite cliffs of gray and gold

They whispered secrets, truths untold

They conquered castles, land and loch

Heath and highland, mountain rock

With fire and passion, breath and song

So their love grew rich and strong

Until at last he crossed the skies

To bear the ring and hear her sighs

And spoke the words she'd longed to hear

From that first night he'd held her near:

"Let the Tyne run dry and the Sun grow cold

Before the tale of our love is told

Lets be together all this life

And share our love as man and wife."

Now before us the two do stand

So let us join them hand in hand

Let the veil be lifted, lets kneel them down

Then on their heads we'll lay their crowns

And bless this union here between 

King Richard and his lovely Queen

Wolf's Rain

when the green boughs break and the rivers slow,
and the beaches settle with thick white snow,
we'll walk together you and i,
across the frozen seas of ice,
to where the Earth begins again,
under red moons bloody glow,
and there we'll plant a field of flowers,
lay down to die and watch them grow

The Lovers' Promise

(For Neil and Laura)

Blue-lit eyes spoke silent verse

As wet lips touched in electric kiss

With fingers linked and double breath

The lovers made their first promise

And as the sun arose again

Blood and bone were fused as one

Their vows enshrined in tiny hearts

Beating with the lovers song

With Summer grass he weaved a nest

With gentle warmth she filled their home

And every night he spoke the words

My love, you'll never walk alone

So now beneath these holy eaves

Raised by love in distant lands

Let us witness the lovers promise

To join their hearts and lives and hands

India

India, India,
where harmonium voices drop sweet tears on pale cheeks and mandolins stretch heart strings over tabla skins,
where eagles nest in silent swooping arcs as creased old women thread garlands in the dusty shade below,

India, India,
where airplanes soar into the fiery setting sun and the glowing tips of sandal sticks send curls of sweet smoke twirling into the night,
where marble men meditate in silence, sending out subtle vibrations from cosmic bliss centres in the sky,

India, India,
where the bugals swarm and flock in sunset reverie, scrawling musical spectrums over lavish lake-bed palaces,
where a lonely cow rests beneath the bridge as laughing schoolboys kick a soggy ball around her shit-flecked hide,

India, India,
where snow white ponies graze peacefully on rocky ledges framed by rose pink rhodedendrons and mountain mists,
where golden tear-stained goodbyes swell sweetly in fortress alleyways and honeyed memory, prayer and music fill the dusky, desert air,

India, India,
where sound resounds in smoke and dune and fire is fed with dark moon sweets,
where perfumed mango juice drips down salty chins in rivers of sticky paradise,

India, India,
where monks sip cappuccino in cyber cafes and grinning exiled gods peek out from thick lenses over barb wire fences,
where women squat and scrub and cook and cackle, feeding the fires of the family with their gossip and scraps,

India, India,
where media flesh feasts drive dark desires in the hearts of men, forcing their fists at every flash of gold,
where children defecate in valleys of burning rubbish and acrid, plastic smoke chokes the gods buried in mountain temples,

India, India,
where bearded babas bathe abandoned pups in glacial waters and karmas and corpses are swept out to sea,
where pus swollen infections ooze from the legs of the lost smiling children, cartwheeling joyfully on concrete flyovers,

India, India,
where fields of white butterflies float amongst the building sites and green grass spurts forth from discarded iron girders and piles of bricks,
where armless, faceless, skinless hordes seep from cornerstone to step, their broken, twisted fingers invisible to the stony crowds,

India, India,
where youthless, joyless, barefoot men crack roadside rocks in the midday heat, coughing on dust and chillum,
where ash-smeared, cash-steered sadhus smile and beckon on holy walls with withered legs and glowing eyes,

India, India,
where lion, tiger, crane and crow clear the darknesses of heart and body and let life flow back into westward souls,
where Shiva, Shakti, Ganesh and Rama rule the lands with myth and magic, devotion and rebirth, opening eyes and mouths in sacred song,

India, India, India,
where my heart sings and swells and sighs,
where colour, music, spice and tears overlap,
slipping, sliding, merging into one another,
where all life is yoga and everything is in unison,
connected,accepted,
lucid, lurid,
throbbing, breathing,
a-live,
India.

La Madrugada (The Dawn)

coiled round your spine in throbbing breaths

ankles and knees enshrined

a silent howl builds beneath shallow breast
brimming on your wine locked lips

released by the night

as I remove
redress
regress

remember my name
as you forget yours

close your eyes
let out the light

tucked up in down
you sleep
still warm
in the memory of those that knew you then
before time

with stinging eyes and sighs
i'll wait for you here

under full moon
wrapped in surface reflections
glossy and flat
as a magazine

and amongst the songs of dawn
i listen for
your distant call

Las Alpujarras

High in the mountains, with time growing all around, we walk, like pilgrims, along crunching acorned paths, carved like riddles in the red slate steeps.
The autumn sun shines sweetly on the turning chestnuts, glowing golden against the evergreen and the wind whispers through the valleys, stroking the soft blonde grasses with the secrets of the dusty sky.
Mossy caterpillars creep in silent convoy across the cairnstones, beginning their journey of transformation from silken pine pouches to pollen brushed breeze.
Crickets crackle and pop on the hot stones and the dogs lap noisily from a clean mountain spring.
We rest for a while at a deserted cortijo, lunching in the mid-day heat on bread and olives, freshly picked tomatoes and walnuts cracked on the flat rocks.
Cloud shadows ease like wishes across the sunken white-washed villages below and as our eyes sweep out over the distant horizon, so our hearts are stilled by the soothing sighs of the sierra.

Mexican Love Note

Strung out in sanguine languor

My head in her lap

Her hand in my hair

A gaze ghosts between us

Of liquid green air

Through pools in her eyes

And holes in her nose

The spirit takes hold

And it grows

And it grows