Festival of Colour and Light

Fidelity writes with ease beneath your picture
now that love is liquid and rusty chains flake
the colours of love I have for you in a confetti of rain.

Pollen dust hits the water where there is no soil,
swirling my Diwali firecracker in a festival of colour
to canvas, and then to the sky.

This is for a Holi day missed, a day Spring tested Diwali light.
I throw powder at a whiteness, and paint
my feelings. No one can censor this.

Seasonal Ajustment Disorder -edited again! ***

The air is warm, the cool breeze
chills, the sea swells. Surf's up -
tide's high enough for the crash of waves; low though, so the roll
and drag conundrums the beach. Sea's coming in, stones polished,
shells broken, mountains become sand - gangs of parrots
shell pine-cones, a flock of gulls caw...and a herd
of speckled beach towels don't budge an inch.

KImono

Kimono, The Directors Cut, is lost - a version 06

Kimono

Don't say you will slip into something
more comfortable while I drink my milk.
Don't return in a Kimono of silk,
red lipped, chopsticks in your hair
and ask me to touch the material,
to feel the quality of the belt;
if my fingers smell the perfume of unraveling
or the stabbing silver hairpins
diving through the curls of shoulders
and one javelins into my glass,
don't stir slowly: it's so over;
I want something stronger
and pinch up my lip
like sushi, for a kiss.
Unzip me
quickly;
for only one bow
loosens the belt of the Kimono

haiku, tornado

tornado sea straws
supping moisture making clouds
for crazy diamonds

The Magician and me

When crumpled papers rose and hovered the merry-go-round velvet brim of your hat, unfolding dancers in the lightening flight of birds, their spindle stretches were feathered grace -

still shot flickbook seamless movement in a thousand clicks of wing -

and I was a scruffy ball, sat on the pavement spellbound; you, shelving ambivalence, not only for the coins on the bridge, but for a glimpse of wonderment. "Never tell how", you had said, tapping your nose, "leave a smile for later", in no doubt that there would always be magic tomorrow - sure as a loaf of bread, a bottle of ale, and a coin for the tin.

"How on earth did she manage to get there??" Great views always expanded over the brow of this bridge. If this is our very same streetlamp, the echo of flagstone, we would have walked it; the silence, the climb; juggling music scores up the hill to a smell of kerosene; the alleyway, the archways of scarves pouring fountains from my top pocket like fireworks - fire jugglers running their batons over a skin of tongues.

I still look out for you at each festival bar, and one day, there you will be, drinking mead, telling tall stories; and I'll stay, lean against the canvas doorway of the marquee, for the one you tell about the disappearing scruffy ball.


jan08

Motion, edit

Down the channels of The Yangtze, their Snow Dragon
Flower mountain rising to call them home, the stern
prow and bow of the boat slice an arrow through ice.
Motion melts and ripples
surf like mercury to the banks of the shore.
Towards her, he stretches thoars forward,
twisting the paddles back, thin and flat through the mist.
Each arm straightens to come back round, then angular,
dipping down, each muscular sinew of arm and back
pulls, to push the water solids to the past. Their
light surface scratches whirlpool
to swivel in the smoky morning air.
Nature is resting. There's a lasso wind
all ahead like hummingbird wings or the echo
of an absent car passing. Disturbed
they wait for motion to take them to the bend.
Beating wings and slashed air, something snaps?
Sounds of flat skimming stones and the crack
or splash of rope. Inquisitive eyes watch them turn:
The washerwoman and her dawn-light fisherman
notice nothing - their motion unbroken - he casting
lasso nets again and again to whirl and slap
a hand's circle on the hungry glass. And she?
Kneading clothes of dough against a smooth and ragged
rock, then the thwack of sun-bleached cloth against the air.
She shakes each to flutter clean in the slight breeze.
He pulls the oars again and rests. They pause. Their
liquid tracks meet, and they glide in the misty quiet.
A still point; a slow motion's moment of mutual respect

and the exchange of the slightest smiles to mark it.

The kids I know and the upset chair

It is in their art, stories and poems,
and witnessing the good memories
we hang on the classroom wall,
so when a car backfires
and they separate or shatter,
there is the room they are standing in,
and someone there, in the far off distance,
looking at the moving stories in wallpaper, saying,
it's alright, we are all alright here now.
Do you see your chair? Take your time,
it's okay, it is waiting for you.

Under the Oak

There was pleasure, praise, solemnity; horror, pain, and tragedy, drinking from the watering hole at Double Indemnity Creek. They began gathering; filled terracotta urns, burned Frankincense in the shade of the Oak and waited for a storyteller to spread her quilt out on the green. She came, her gait slower than usual, her red hands resting on her guts, her patchwork hanging from her shoulder - and she asked a little one to take it, shake it out, and make it smooth on the soft ground. Soon, men, women, and children from the river felt the sun hotter on their backs, heard the sign that the story was waiting, left their eyes on what they had been doing, and took their ears up the slippery banks. Some exchanged quiet greetings with each other; all found a comfortable spot or a square of the patch, and all waited quietly.

"Big Mother," a child's voice called out. "Why are your hands so red, there, holding your tummy?" and the child's mother shushed the child and scolded, "Hush! Listen with your ears, your mind and heart, child! Now is not the time for the questioning." The child, grumpy, closed eyes tight but placed little hands on a small swollen stomach, sweetly full of sherbet lemon dips bought with a coin from the weekend treat stop at Miss Felicity's general store in town.

From the eldest bough of the Oak, golden in the sunlight and moving to and fro in the breeze, was a rope swing. The child's Grandfather had weaved the rope from luscious grasses, and had dried and burned fourteen strands with wax and fire. And Grandmother had plaited seven in each, making two ropes for the wood plank of the swing. So well it was made that it had lasted lifetimes, and Sam, fed up with waiting, opened both eyes to catch the prop swinging in the breeze.

"Mother! Can I play on the swing while we wait for the story?" and the cheekiness raised gasps and whispers amongst the resting crowd. "Hush child!" the mother scolded, "By Jupiter be still! Now is not the time for fooling around. Peg your fluttering tent to the ground, and wait." The child, ashamed, looked down, and at exactly that moment another child, knowing that it would vex little Sam, got up grinning from a little square patch and sat on the plank of the swing. Sam, distracted by the movement, glared at the child and forgot the quiet.

"Mother! That’s not fair! Why can she play on the swing while I have to sit still, here, fiddling with stones?" Sam's mother, tired of these outbursts, raised her arms to the sky and cried, "By Neptune, little one!" but said not another word. Sam, black with grumpiness, closed both eyes tight to it all, and couldn't help but wish she'd fall.

Stubborn little Sam kept both eyes firmly, and then less firmly shut, until dancing light sparked and petalled each eyelid with trails and shapes. Sam heard incredible music lifting these patterned lanterns into the future, and forgetting a bad temper, smiled at the pictures created. At exactly that very moment, a nomadic old man and his friendly dog came upon the group under the Oak. He had brought boiled eggs and loaves of bread; glanced at The Mother, and shared them around to all at the gathering. Sam opened eyes and was delighted. A ravenous appetite had hit while dancing with eye-lit-lids, and after eating plenty, Sam pulled a golden thread of wheat from tiny teeth, and rested happy hands on a small, savoury-sweet potbelly.

"Mother! Mother! Life is beautiful!" Sam screamed, and the company, mouths full of egg and bread, laughed and laughed under the tree, until the leaves laughed along too, and the boughs shook, the trunk chuckled with fun, the earth moved, and the world spun.

When the gathering quietened and the tree stilled, the storyteller, with red hands resting on her guts, shifted slightly on the quilt. With expectation, all eyes and ears turned and fixed themselves on her open mouth, but not a word came out. Instead, a sigh; a deeply exhaled breath hummed around the crowd and stilled all noise. She lifted her red hands from her guts, rested them face up, and from her palms Sam's very own eyelid dance appeared in full, all seen, there in the palms of her hands - birds, monkeys, lions, snakes, and all the wonderful beauty, there in front of the eyes.

"Mother! Mother! Can you see it? It's fantastic – a wonderful magic show under the Oak!" and Sam's mother smiled, touched both shoulders and said,

"Hush, child of mine! I can't see wonder as you do!" and Sam's heart sank and nearly broke in two. "But, by Love, I do know child, it is you who is wonderful..." and Sam blushed deeply, and then smiled too.


apr/07

Trapeze

...I stopped for a Barman on the sand, resting - a philosophical kind. He debated happiness, dis-ease and The Questioning Mind.

"Are you happy now?" I put my maps down, we drank; watched a couple tie a thin red line between two coconut trees, elasticized and weighted at each end. "Have you ever walked the Trapeze, my friend?" and the Boy stepped up onto the heat of the wire, an artist, his arms surfing the bounce from above. "Yes, of course..." he said, "...but only when I'm in love! Pointless to think of your feet - you must put your soul over there - and go toward it..."

The Girl fell. Again and again she hit the ground. Was her thinking wrong, the red road too long, her strong mind not on the other tree, too often looking down? "She's not in love, but it can be found in the instant she is equal to the stars; the stars and tree will talk - and, like you, she will walk when she doesn't want to be here anymore." I guess he meant love is written in the stars, something like that; I wrapped my maps in a scarf.

We smiled, watched the couple untie the thin red line, watched how they strolled a while hand in hand, down to sunset. Happiness? Of all my footsteps, I'm just so glad we met.



goa

L'Haim (To Life, a toast...)

There is no pain like birth
forgotten under the umbrella
of soft arms,
all the wet, and the dry
wonderment of everything
just as it is, awake
or sleeping gently, since,
every sunny day and storm
is just weather; a blanket, umbrella,
the cradle of safe arms,
the potential
raised into the air, and kissed
to sleep in peace.

Sunsets

Do you know how beautiful you are to me?
You knock the spots off any simile.

For you there are none - you are the sea,
the pitch, the fixed twinkle map, a pitcher
of shooting lasers pointing direction lightly.

Sunsets have written your name
in inky clouds your shape; and I am your page,
a colour wheel watermark running through veins.

If I am to be, it is of you, an almanac
of words and moving picture.

Bus

Quiet women and timid men, hugging
the relative comfort of chairs, eyes averted from shared smells,
their faces at odds; noses and mouths in a curled disapproval,
looking elsewhere.

A man has been knifed. Sliced behind the ear by a boy
who didn't think about the catch-up-crush on the stairs.
One of them is caught, bear hugged down by a drip-red,
blue collared, cut-up man.

Sat him on his lap like a squirming babe.
I didn't see the slice. Usually ride up front
peering through the reflection at the icy road:
I count scarves, hats, gloves, and hoods.

I turned to see the action, and he cut
the condensation with something:
'Why don't any of you do anything?
Are you going to sit and give this world to them?'

Slowly, there became a less reluctant us;
'I called the police,' she said; he said, 'Stop the bus.'

Blessing

Geranium; she says, 'Over there!' and he says,
'Where?' walking on. Silver Princess; Lavender;
'By the light of the fisherman's hut, I swear I saw
a shadow.' Bush Iris; Bottlebrush; Red Lily; and She
Oak down the winding path to sea. She is wearing
Orange Oil and Frankincense, yesterday's scent
a shade undercut. Fringed Violet; Mulla Mulla
and Sundew to the sand, where a woman in Musk
is placing a garland around her neck. 10 Rupees
drop in a shell pot, Chrysanthemums compress
Jasmine fresh and she anoints their foreheads
with powders, passes her hand across their
shoulders, says something; a Blessing of salt, water
and all I can smell is the blossoming air of the sea.





goa

Milo's Yellow Digger

Milo said, "Why's that phone got legs?"
A TV advert and we discussed it at great length.
A perfectly reasonable question as we wandered to the beach.

We fixed our patch, one towel each, in eyeshot
of family groups encamped behind boozy windbreakers.
Boys and girls took buckets and spades into no-mans-land.
Empire building. Construction. Pride on little faces. One
decided on a moat, one on the delightful anticipation of a big wave.
Each hoped for some fairness in destruction.

No one waits on a clumsy foot,
No one wanted a war to break out in the first place.
Accidents happen. The heat; a toddler, an older brother,
an argumentative sister - a slip, a kick, a stick, a disaster.
Always at the moment one wants to control the other.

You sat and watched your efforts plundered, raised to the ground.
Mothers fussing, fathers biting lip, itchy trigger-finger disputes,
and you didn't budge an inch. "What happened?"
I said to your little face, wanting to jump up
and down, on all the other towns around.

"Earthquake. Need a Yellow Digger..."
and you pulled one out of your bag,
began "Vacuation Operations..."
sent in "Ann-balances, neee-naw, Roger-
Foxtrot-Dandy. All Communication's Dead.

Look!" you said, pointing to a handy crab you'd found,
"I got the phone with legs, to run along ahead..."

Surfer's Winter Tonic

Well after riding the surf, when I wash up
on the shoreline of evening, drunk
on the refreshing keynotes in music,
you are like ice,
checking your watch, eyes to the starry sky,
your breath fanning a camp-fire burning
for the warmest brew of full bodied heat,
where you are all night my dream,
the esprit d’escalier of waves coming in.

We rise from the beach mat sheets,
your morning growl animating the verve
pulsing through the day
where you are all day my zing,
the esprit dancing in the waves coming in.

So élan vital you are – this freezing day
was an empty container, all for a full cup of you.
Your liquid thoughts spilt over last night’s blanket,
kick-start my heart racing home
to warm my hands again around the hot pepper vigour
of your simmering medicinal wine.

On Dreaming

Tonight there are petals along the corridors
to your room; candlelight leads
through a world of scent
and you are enchanted by all that is vanishing:
the bag in your hand has disappeared,
a jacket has been unhooked and peeled away,
the walls don't shudder when you walk through,
only door frames becoming metaphor and simile.
There are no moths caught translucent on a window pane.
There are no panes - bookshelves have melted,
catalogues recycled, and forms have become an idea.
The same has happened with every electrical appliance,
batteries do not exist, soft furnishings evaporate
until all that remains is wood, linen, and feathers -
the only objects on the way to an absent window
where you take my hand from under the covers,
curl around my back like a cape - and I wake,
to walk through the snowflakes with you.

Another Chardonnay

And you – my passion – breeze through
These orange curtains like you own the place,
Pad along the cool ceramic floor with fiery strides
To the bar, heating the marble, raiding cupboards,
Growling; and I’m here watching you pace;
Find the bottle, put it to your lips, and drink
Like it’s a long cold winter’s night,
Wipe your mouth, sigh through your teeth,
While here I am, smiling – fisherman’s trousers tied
Around my hips, sun blazing down on the sarong,
Skin listening to those warm sea breezes,
Listening - to a lusty blond called Chardonnay
Tell me my troubles over the rim of her glass eye.
You take another swig; slam the bottle on the bar,
Yawn, stretch like a bear, step onto the porch,
I hear you say - What a perfect name…
Strike a match on the doorframe,
Light a cigar; pick Tequila from the larder…
Chardonnay wants another spiked Pina Colada –
What a perfect name…“And you?”
I reach for the bottle, put it to my lips, and drink
Like it’s a long cold winter’s night, “Whatever
You’re having, Babe - I’ll have the same…”

Serita, I say your sari is beautiful

Serita, I say your sari is beautiful and you throw your eyes to the sky, laugh, push my shoulder, but it is a beautiful turquoise; fades of coral and frayed golden threads snag the fiery sand. Spread out on Gujarati cloth, are end of season hometown wares: spiral shells and stories, t-shirts and tales. You flick antique beads of tiger-eye around my neck, call me friend and take my hand. It fits, so.

Your jewels filigree towards me and we speak of craft; of gems; gold, metal, women and men; of the silver clasps, loops and rings, stamped by authority at home. 'Is he a good man?' I ask, and you say softly, yes. For a moment, your almond eyes have the ocean in them, the fiery sand, and when you turn to me, I can see the green flecks of your back home mountain land. You are feline, elegant, and delicate, and a survivor of lives, an astute businesswoman sat in her beautiful rags.

The shade has moved away from us. We spin the creaky palm umbrella, and a sand-sleepy tanned cow turns and yawns. "No people again today, nothing. Only families of skinny cows, and they don't want my jewels! I try to smile, and for a second, I cannot imagine you bullied by anything, except nature. You need to buy pills for your Angina, and the worry in your eye is a secret.

I feel the tourist appear in mine and look down, but you see it. "For a traveller who frowns; this tiger-eye is old antique; worn bead for Shiva, and good. You will see what you will do, and me the same. She turns a bead. It is quiet here, together. Tonight there is a fire on the beach, and tomorrow, I catch my plane. I turn a bead. "Yes, turn the bead, like that" she says, smiling.





goa

Volcan de Taburiente

from the dock, Volcan de Taburiente
opens her jaw for toy cars to load
all along The Portside Road
where we could be
· stowaways on a truck waiting to board
· a dove watching
· the anchored yacht
· bobbing the spicy evening light
where we could be
· one of a crew of two
· on The Twilight easing in from the sea
· those who leap at the Fred Olsen foghorn
· drawing curtains on shutters
· port to starboard smiles
· resting
· forgetting to go ashore
where I am, upside down
taking these photographs to send you
where we could be
· in a blink of an eye on a cruise ship lit
· like a chandelier constellation
when a squint makes glitterballs and ballrooms pulse
· right-way-up no brighter than Mars or Venus
or where my gaze comes to rest
on the one candle wavering below the waist of the deck
for a woman climbing the galley room steps
· studying a map of stars.


*

She dives like Geena Davis

She dives deep for pearls, shells,
anything - in warm water she is ancient
and always comes up with her knife
between her teeth, like
Geena Davis in those freezing scenes
on a waterwheel, except
she has a conch in one hand, an oyster
in the other, reaching up to you there, set
above the waist of the ocean, leaning over the deck,
smiling, whereas Geena Davis
came out of the water all guns blazing,
blew the killer away. She's diving again
and it's incompletely silent all of a sudden,
unlike the struggling scenes of twisted bubbles and blood
as Geena pulled on the ropes at her wrists;
it's still, you standing there, a pearl and conch
in your hands, waiting for her to surface,
and when she does, no knife between her teeth,
was it to tell you she loved you first?

sea blue crystal

aquamarine sea blue crystal
white light crests roaring air rolling sound
snaking rocks rocking long harmonic breath
tones spilling waves sluicing waterfalls
sweeping volcanic plateau rock pool shore bound surf stretches
leaning impressions traversing stone sarong skin pore cliff

tidal-pull-wash beckoning back to sea jagged shell
rock pool waking life white lightening fireworks sea blue
crystal dreams confetti-ing flowering word shoals
aquamarine to solid indigo darkening depths
opening violet fathoms peddling stretch runners longing
an azure horizon

arching curves returning light-lapis cloud lines sun tints pink
sunset flamingo golden amber flare lavas wet sand dry

rose golden embers white bubbles inhale
turquoise to malachite.


.

sarongs

sarong sling

sarong sling on the beach tattoos from the wrist draped around a shoulder silk enough for a kite against the sky...calm breeze blows ribbon frays silky wing fluttering the feathery palm tree menagerie of birds - no cat except half-a-tail snoozing on the tin roof of The Beach Shack - yawning yoga hot noon Madam Sangria glasses and sun-wrinkles polishes a silver tray, flashes the napping parrots, dazzles eyes inhaling sea bubbles wets lips and the golden nectar beads rolling the icy glass of a nice cold beer soon reflect sarong tattoos draping the painted haiku of shells quietly reading stones at the bar.



if the dress

The busy tailor, and the hardworking seamstress, too hot for May, whispers ‘…hear your woman is wearing her sarong? say they saw her dance flamenco in the square, say she was a diamond kite in the night sky too…seen your woman rough diamond the clouds?…say she laughs in the streets every day a painting – and say it’s scandalous; there were photographs, flash photographs..’

The tailor looks up and smiles, ‘I hear my woman is wearing her sarong like a kite, dancing at the beach in the moonlight while I am working on the ribbons and frays’ and the seamstress blushes by the window embroidering the sash with petals, ‘yes…yes…I’m listening out for her too…’ laying her template on the cloth, no straight lines to cut - ‘if the dress’ she said, the afternoon she wore her sarong to the beach.



Dreamer’s tin of Graffiti Special

“You are a Dreamer!” she says
slightly exasperated to say the very least
the popped Champagne cork
the souvenir magnum smoking the sarong
so I simply take a ladder to the horizon line
lean it against the sky
climb each rung as high as I can
take out my tin of Graffiti Special
write ‘I LOVE YOU’ in huge
rounded letters on the blue
slide down the ladder
becoming a canoe and paddle
my heart out heading for the sarong
now a haiku of shells quietly reading
and if a cloud goes by and the sarong
becomes a Japanese scarf on the washing line
it may be of interest to note a bird in a haiku
calls just before I open the Champagne.


Daisy,

The other day, a complete stranger
ran up to me and said, ‘Let’s
get married! Let’s get married!
and hopped on to my tandem.
Naturally I replied, ‘Miss,
we’ve only just met. Please -
remove yourself from my bicycle,
that seat is reserved for Daisy.”
Mercifully, she obliged and wandered off,
just before Daisy appeared
carrying a shopping bag for her dad,
“Alright Ducks?” she said, “I’m knackered”
and placed her belongings into the basket,
hopped on board, buffed the chrome with her hanky,
and looked just fine, “You take it easy, my love,
I’m as fit as a fiddle to peddle the metal.
You freewheel a starfish.” and peddled off,
hard up the hill; easy-sailing all the way home.”




Wood Stacks


Wood stacks along the beaches for St John,
for luck, for the summer months to come,
for little boats fishing lines home – families
build fire beacons on their patch of turf,
filter the sand, wriggle toes in surf,
and gather, eat together, throw the dog a bone,
sun-kiss tomatoes in the first rays of summer.

Sunset is falling a shawl around shoulders
in a peachy pink blaze when we need golden
wands of warmth. Let it be tassels, frays,
knots in big soft dots swirling on a sky’s silky stretch.
Let it be wrapped in dusk’s sweet breath. Darkness.

Strike a match; tinder kindling ignites tongues
as they burn a fallen tree - roots and juice
of hardwood fizz, eyes of pine pop to ash.
A scent, a last glance in oils - Midnight,
Madrugada - we jump the fires
to find the open arms of friends
and the flames warming the embers of a distant hug.
Never-ending hellos farewells lots of love.

Madrugada, Midnight to morning, couples walk
the hot coals, volcanoes dream of the last time
they were floating candles, each island
alight as fire-circles sparking,
and it seems all a display for the stars
before bedtime, when fireworks bouquet the sky.



The Shawl

I talked about needlepoint with a man from Kashmir.
Embroidering by hand leaves thread behind,
knots, looping pictures of browned fingers
busy through the Monsoon of June.
He told me he would make one for you
and send it charmed: for your shoulders, birds;
and for your arms, branches of Almond and Marigold.
So you will never feel the weight of it,
for the chill of the night or an aching heart,
warming pink falling petals confetti
to a delicate silver clasp,
fashioned by an old hand,
carved in the flowers of Royalty;
and imagined in the breeze, a butterfly ring,
fraying tassels trailing the back of your chair;
a fluttering around your shoulders before it gets there.