Omen

Although I can’t summon one,

I sometimes do notice

an Omen knocking

like a children’s choir in the distance,

a single leaf waving,

a small sense of danger

or the magnetic pull

of a group of teenagers laughing

raucously, unfettered by lock

and cage and consequence

but free.

Dreamer

Sometimes I cannot learn

any truth for a whole day

until a bird insists

with repetition from its tree

that I listen

and float in her sound far away;

until my heart dances

in clouds high and free

and slows. Then I can

release a little pain

and follow my heart. My fist

opens into to a palm. See

how real I am. No longer a trickster

- a butcher, baker, candlestick maker.

Paradise Lost

‘Why’ - ‘Because’

are he and she

in married bliss

like branch and tree.

‘Why’ gives a poke

to ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘where’

who put up smoke

‘here’, ‘there’

‘because’ runs in

from ‘near’ or ‘far’

jumps a fence

shouts “blah, blah, blah”:

“… and why does Goldilocks dream?”

“Why? Because of porridge!”

“… and why did Adam fall?”

“Because of knowledge!”

I know that look

I know that look, yes, I know it

and - knowing it now - I take it everywhere;

everywhere and somewhere is home

to a quizzical look from you my darling

it’s a clear

gaze I copy whenever I want

to gaze out clearly blue on blue,

one eyebrow raising up at a slant

the other eye planting a question from you

but here’s a secret nobody knows

except you and me and a higher-up good

that such a good look is a look that grows

higher than heart or the sky or a bud

wondrously turning heart into heart.

I know that look, yes, yes I know it?

Magic

Ask a little one about crossing a bridge

(I mean the smallest Billy Goat Gruff),

knowing a Troll’s gonna cut up rough;

or Goldilocks - ask her all about porridge.

Riding Hood’s not afeard of a big bad wolf;

neither three pigs tiling a roof

and Jack pivots on a hero’s bones

when he burgles a Giant’s home.

Isn’t magic a form of belief

that there’s land beyond swirling water,

corporeal trust, any release

of the cladding of homestead, a totter

onto one stone - and hope for surprise:

that the next one, and the next one, will rise?

Words

We watch a little Shakespeare play;
so many words
quilled by hand into a story,
crazy and spoken and heard,

prancing and playing, mascara
running down cheeks
of an audience laughing and actors
speaking out in tongues that speak

and the ladies behind in their chatter
‘..he never! …is that what she said…?’
more important - the words that they natter
than from any old Bard - long dead.

Theme in Red

I stand out - by

spotting green plants with red,

darkening evening sun

into orange and brown and black.

I am called strawberry.

In high summer,

when light starts to cool,

people sit in little circles,

plop me into jugs of ice and Pimms,

talk and sing ‘til evening

when drunken ghosts come out

under rising moon.

I am blobs of tang

and sweetness,

a fibrous pool

seeking entry

into your stream of redness,

blood.