Las Texturas Invernias de Úbeda

Boat

I wonder how I'll transform
this idea
in to something which
others can
see, hear, feel
These red maps course around
secretly and in my roots
collapse, grow, percussive-like
fire lights through my eyes
to yours
to the world.

I wonder how I'll transform
this idea
while the Earth grumbles
oscillating between metaphor
and actual
wild fires burn the everglades
rivers rage like hormones
and we look at each other.

I wonder how I'll transform
this idea
through the smoking mirrors
that show my architecture
I have orbited the Sun
32 times
32 yarns I have told
knitted together for a future
as a present.

I wonder how I'll transform
this feeling
into skin that sits
watching like a dome of stars
I'm grateful for going through
the motions
The crickets' hindlegs are unaware
they're twitching.

The world is a pair of eyes
that sit on me
and the stool legs dig into soil
for answers
And we wait. Or we wait.
Then we wait
Like rotting wood on a beautiful boat.

"Bombard"

For Simon

September came to us like cold Indians
Phantom globes of breath
chugging like locomotives as we travel, separately, amongst
Autumn,
and her hearty grieving leaves
The lemoncurd curls of laurel
On English soil with
heads in a furious Jupiter mist
Trying to forget the goblin
frost that lurks under the prettiest leaves.

The lips of Winter reach even
the iron core of Earth, to
kiss, to enchant the dreaming night of that
season that reaps and moans while
We pluck twigs like teeth from the brown
gums of oak
Building nests of conversation
of memory to overwinter our friendship
Somewhere warm and full
of moving, dancing pictures that reveal what once was,
fleetingly.

Our bones whisper "Sleep, now, sleep"
Retinas playing deceit of that sorrowful sunny
refrain for the paralysing vulgar heat
of Summer is surely plucked for good.
Did we open our mouth wide as heron's wings
to Swallow that Sun hard
to remember all the drunken elation of light
to suddenly find what the soaring kestrel seeks
a satellite hunt for minute motion
in the dormant grasses below
that woefully wave.

''Impact''

You are a precious stone to me
a bejewelled meteor that swiftly flew in
from Saturn, carrying
…spewing Lunar dust
Heady sunsoaked daylight that uncovered my thoughts
like dice, giant boulders gone
I lost face to an upturned dome that sparkled earth
As it revolved slowly like a turquoise record
Taping the ridges it heard and hears
It remembers.

My love shed its romantic shuttles
light years ago
Interlocking fingers turned into hands that swim like the silver fishes
in the course of the same tide
A swell…a shoal of optimism.
We sing, rejoicing water-filled songs that
dance like fountains from ancient dolphins’ mouths
Our teeth still beam and smile always for
more sea, more sun, more love, more sailing.

The wild private world is hidden safe, my love,
from the concrete and tarmac architecture of civilisation
It is watertight
a constant cocoon of wide waxed leaves
an oasis in a bone china cup of our delicate skeletons
Cushioned in animal-shaped clouds that dare the sun
to hide in its blue grease of youth.

Ritual

Etch me in rock and make me live
You are the Lion man
 And you have water for veins
 Your eyes are the caves of the world.
 You see the Sun until it vanishes beneath the anticipation of tomorrow, or never again;
that doesn't matter because we are eternally  embroidered trinkets

like Neanderthal's teeth

Released a verse into the sky
That's all you could ever offer
Versus cicadas chirping their electric flutes and
Charcoal on the walls smudges wood wind, sand chimes and snow drums...
A primal orchestra with lungs as pianos, your ivory rib cage

And I am the foam on the crest of a wave, lapping
You find inside a cavity that was hidden for 10,000 years and still echoes
Wild thyme, honey, ancient figs,  the pristine scent
hums from the glass wings of bees.

Did you walk with the wolves then, or
were you burnt in the fire of knowing too much?
Did you hunt in packs?
Where did all the laden animals go? 
Will they return like meteors into our fingertips so we could
touch.

The next day, I'm a haunted house sailing towards the
giant squid of night
My strange sails like ghostly pillowcases,
billowing with reckless anticipation
A chalky residue of my romantic gene
At least my skull doesn't let me down.

You're the parting in my hair
Caressing me in a beautiful abandoned vineyard
You're precise like spearheads
Yet I prance like clouds of mosquitoes at dusk
All is curls and feather down from innocent vagueries
Do you trust my sketch, lover...architect?
I comb you out of my hair.