The Sacred Fount
04.02.25
Atop a rocky glen was crowned
A castle wrought in burnished gold
Its doors revealed a sacred fount
For rich and poor and young and old.
The fount sprang water clear and bright
Like crystals in a cavern's hold,
To drink it for the soul's delight
They trudged across the mountains cold.
As they drank, their weights grew light
These weary spirits brave and bold,
Their hearts were blessed with fortune's sight
To see beyond the earthly mould.
The Ancient Orchard
24.04.25
For ageless years, on a verdant hill,
A lonely orchard spread its seeds.
Crimson apples wistfully swayed
To jagged notes from hollow reeds.
A blackbird did once alight
To peck a fallen apple’s cheek,
Searching not for ripened flesh
But a secret hidden just beneath.
You may well begin to wonder-
Were the apples ever so sweet?
Who would know but the big fat worm
Trapped within that nimble beak.
The Visitation
26.04.25 (originally written on 20.06.24)
The wind bore a song from the bosom of distant seas,
A tale filled with as many tears as raindrops in the lofty breeze.
Amidst swaying pines she sang 'tween the wisps of rolling clouds,
Stirring up the gentle streams that drowned out the forests sounds.
She knocked on the windows to wake the children's fear,
She blew out the candles and pulled the shingles clear.
Against her rage, they prayed for the gleaming sword of the yellow sun,
To cut away her sweeping veil and set right what had come undone.
The Night Holds No Scorn
30.04.25
The night holds no scorn,
She admits all streams of thought,
Generously she pours to brim
My cup with a heady, darksome draught.
I drink it deep;
Farewell! You fulsome flickering stars!
Think of me as I of you
From your distant celestial bowers.
Just when the path to dreaming
Begins to seem both narrow and steep,
She comes in gently
To lift me up to the hallowed realm of sleep.
The Debt
05.05.25
Your supple flesh will surely yield
To the limpid gaze of the morrow,
Will you keep dreaming of Elysian fields
Or repay what once you borrowed?
What will come of hoarding wealth
'gainst the weight of these ledgered dues?
When the Hound hears your ragged breath
Will the Saviour reach out for you?
He makes the branches bend
to you, partake of this heavenly fruit;
Its flesh will soothe your soul's ferment
And strike evil that dares take root.
Have you somehow gone astray?
Don't bear this pall of gloom.
Pray, and on that blessed day
He'll deliver us from our Doom.
The Nameless Word
14.05.25
I learned the names of neither birds nor bees
Or flowers bathed in perfumes divine,
No signs beneath the green-gabled trees
That taught me of nature's sublime design.
Vain was my hunt for a lost book of names,
In each leaf containing infinitudes,
No records were found, encrypted or plain,
In journeys unsodden by solitudes.
The towers would show me cloistered delight
To gaze at distant celestial dancers,
These grey hairs turned slowly uneven white
But hard toil yielded confounding answers.
As dawn shone gently through autumn leaves,
Its whispered confessions awakened my mind,
The word lay scattered in nameless sheaves
For turning impressions into shapes defined.
The Shipwreck
20.05.25
We sailed across the sea for days
(Bodies writhing hurling seaward)
We sailed along a fearsome maze
(Fires seething feeding leeward)
We dashed against a rock unknown
(Blood and bones and beams are burning)
We broke beneath the curséd foam
(Pulverising sea returning)
The Gift
27.05.25
The sparrows burst from twig to twig
As hawks descend the dawn-lit skies,
The clouds in tow like masted brigs
That clip the hills while rolling by.
A pair of kites go swirling past,
In curling paths of eights and nines,
For half a beat their sport might last,
When claws unclasp, a truce is signed.
Below, the Spring-fed flowers weep
In crystal’d beads that spark divine,
From tree to tree the squirrels leap
While bees draw nectar from the vine.
This gift with bird and beast I share,
That breathe this self-same native air,
I dig this rain-soaked earth to find
The roots that weave these ties that bind.
The Prince Returns
01.06.25
The rain fell red upon the throne
Beneath the stormy skies,
The king stood gazing from the shore
Till raindrops filled his eyes.
O Lord, preserve our blessèd boy,
O Lord, be by his side,
No tidings break our wayward shores,
No tidings bear the tides.
The Queen devout declaimed a vow
To take the orders grey,
She prayed the prince’s safe return
Across the darksome fray.
O Lord, preserve our blessèd boy,
O Lord, be by his side,
No tidings break our wayward shores,
No tidings bear the tides.
A year did pass like frightful night
In dreams and troubled wake,
Until a ship in morning light
Was seen beyond the breaks.
O Lord, preserve our blessèd boy
O Lord, be by his side,
No tidings break our wayward shores,
No tidings bear the tides.
His armour gleaming in the light
With sword upon his hands,
No rain could fill those eyes upturned
Upon their native lands.
O Lord, receive our blessèd boy,
O Lord, be by his side,
Grim tidings break our wayward shores,
Grim tidings bear the tides.
The Summer Moon
06.06.25
On a listless summer night,
Forgotten in my gilded room,
Lay a fan bearing on its edge
A painted yellow summer moon.
Moonlight swept across my arm
A satin sleeve that lustered white,
Beads of sweat rolled down my brow
Shimmering like gossamered light.
This fickle dream will disappear,
Like glowworms lost in heaven's loom,
The Emp'ror heaves a final sigh
Beneath a yellow summer moon.
The Hawk
13.06.25
For seconds, she lets me affix my gaze
While heaven is steeped in a honeyed glaze,
Her wings must yearn to climb up so high
Towards that red disc that enflames the sky,
But she knows better, in this fleeting game
Her fate is affixed to an earthly frame,
Just like an arrow from Apollo's bow
Must curve to a center where all things go,
While stalking in circles some guileless prey
Or sparring with rivals in heated fray,
Her heart still pounds with an ancient rage
That beats at the seams of this bloodless age,
For taking the reins off the hands of Pan
And fixing her fate at the feet of Man.
The Dreamer
15.06.25
Dreamer, why do you leave?
Stay a while, simmering
In these soft dreams you weave.
This world, so bright and clear,
Spins away, shimmering,
Must sooner disappear.
When the dreams leave your head,
They will stray, glimmering,
With these tears that you shed.
Lay of the Gathering Storm
16.06.25
I.
I sing of a tale which I overheard,
Once in a lay sung by whimsical birds.
The Sun raised a shield that burned so bright,
He blighted the day and burdened the night.
With amber-dipped spears he raked the clouds,
Bending to his will whoever stood proud.
His tyranny marked in each burning leaf,
Gave us no reason for hope or relief.
II.
When even the stones were curled up to pray,
An East wind blew with banners of grey.
Who darkens the day and blackens the night?
Who rustles the wind to this fearsome flight?
The Sun enraged, whipped harder the day,
But those who dare wound must surely repay.
Stood to bear witness the moonflowered leas,
Outpouring rivers quenched the drying seas.
III.
Thunder rumbled, the Sun rose ever high,
A fourfold mantle swept across the sky.
Hammering rain upon the scorching fields,
The Lords of the Storm would not bend or yield.
For three days and nights the battle raged on,
The earth-eating worms recorded in song.
While many a wound bore the sullen clouds,
They shut out the Sun, unbent and unbowed.
IV.
In crystal-laced heart of the stony rose,
The animals grateful, their tears enclosed.
The valleys turned green while burrows unrolled,
Teeming insects watched the flowers unfold.
Victorious clouds in grumbling parade,
Their tridents of light enlivened the shade.
Though the Sun would return to avenge this day,
It was all I heard of the songbirds' lay.
The Evergreen Hill
27.06.25
(This poem was written a day after I returned from an inspiring trip to Meghalaya.)
On an old hill, evergreen,
I watched sunshine sift through leaves
Dipped in an untamed shade of green.
It was a shade that breathed,
Stirring what lay dormant and unseen.
A trail led me downward
To a bower by a stream,
Where leaf and blade
Mixed with light and shade
To craft a mirror most serene.
The mirror showed what could have been—
A verdant vale pristine,
Where my inner self could still ascend
From its endless dream,
On an old hill, evergreen.
The Felling of an Ent
30.06.25
No more can I dream of your steady boughs,
That helped down the child who wandered apace,
No silence now comforts my faithless brow,
That chose to abandon its sacred place.
I thought you proud and so mightily strong,
An Ent, or a god from some mythic race,
But helpless you stood when I did you wrong,
Each strike of my axe disfiguring your face.
Why didn’t you stop me for my mistake?
Or hasten my doom with a cursed spell?
You lie in silence while I cry in wake,
Mourning the end of an Ancient I fell.
To a Paperflower
03.07.25
(Bougainvillea glabra, or Lesser bougainvillea, or Paperflower)
They might think you lesser,
Creeping round the bower,
Show them why I treasure
You, dainty paperflower!
Not in lofty petals
But purple-painted bracts,
You dream on grassy fields,
And narrow, winding tracks.
Back to your beginnings
In knobby, stubborn vines,
Wrapped to ancient cedars
Or perched upon the pines.
Fall unto me gently
Till summer doth turn dour,
Fill my days with leisure,
Dainty paperflower!
The Faerie's Kiss
13.07.25
Wearied by the frayed bonds that tied me to my state,
I left my soft shelter and worries to abate.
I headed for the country with its lands yet untamed,
To awaken my senses and feelings to reclaim.
In the days that I passed looking up at the sky,
Many tufts did I gather from the clouds rolling by.
Spun these tufts into dreams of changing hue and shade,
With the rest I made a bed for comfort by the glade.
On cold nights I built fires that leapt up to the stars,
Swirling blades of amber with their ire drawn from Mars.
One night by the fire came a troop of elven maids,
Dancing to the sweet tunes piping down from the shade.
I rose from my warm bed and sat gazing at the view,
Arrested by the beauty and strangeness of the new.
She saw me gazing and broke away from her crew,
Like a breeze came sailing over grass flecked with dew.
She sang out my name but I had left no wit for speech,
She bade me a sweet smile with an arm raised to reach.
The touch of the faerie was a cool mountain spring,
She unparched my throat just as my heart ached to sing.
I gasped in her red warmth as she bent for a kiss,
My cold lips did tremble for that moment of bliss.
My lips felt but cold air as I opened my eyes,
None stood before me save the far up high!
The dregs of the night were swept away by the morn,
Amidst echoes of elven song soon I would be gone.
Let Not Another Evening Pass
22.07.25
Let not another evening pass
And with it the remains of the day,
Dredge the moments until they last
For they will soon be lost in the fray.
If each sunset that sinks the world
Is the turning of a restless page,
Each dark wave in which we're hurled
Laps the dawning of a newfound age.
Even if the world doesn't remember
The times that made you who you are,
These seconds brief as floating embers
Burn brighter than the hearts of stars.