ISLES AND RIVULETS

On your brow, the steppes of Asia
are fetched by deep set eyes.
A colouring distict with mystery
perceives the Polos greeting the Great Khan,
the golden isle of Ciphangu, the sultry east.
I revel in the mystery
of my warm, wet flower.
A pollen bee laden with honey
squirms, embraces with me,
in the abrupt opening of our jar,
serrated edge of the known world.
The air, buoyed and elastic with pleasure, belongs to me.
Tawny, pale rose, your oriental skin
peels back
the tiny veils separating our cultures.
I peer in to find Confucian
lilac, towers of silence,
opal pheasants.
Harmony strains all dogmas.
Rain darts penetrate the gathering pools.
The tiny plastic cup
my life,
inseparable from your hand.
[11]


SEAWARD

Whirl of patterned images,
deep seascape painting
hovering,
rustle, chokecherry
grown in
dark pigmented
stunted cove -
animal growl of pilotless sea,
metallic twinkle of sun
bright, stealing
bitter white
all bird life
rockward;
traces skimming
the intrusion
of pebbly shore,
autumnal night.
[12]


MALINGERING