Spider teases the mind

Long-legged spider on the floor -
Haven't I seen you before,
Hanging, unmoved, on the wall;
Though now you go crawling , and all
But fall into the shower  tray
Newly installed yesterday -
Thus to confound your certainty,
Making your path an eternity
Until the generation
Of next year's spider nation?

One from two

It is because to me you are the dearest,
Because, of all, to me you are the nearest,
That I to you am wedded in our one.
Through you I see my longings at their clearest,
And strive to nullify the merest
Chance of straying from the orbit of my Sun,
For in your absence I would be undone.

The point of it

A life of longing is our human lot -
For love, for laughter and an easeful end,
For lusty health  and lasting loyalty
Facilitating action in the world.

A world of dissonance and strife,
A world in need of harmony and peace
To foster reconciliation's cause
And launch society on freedom's course
Through action striving for the common weal
Of co-existence in plurality,
The stable basis of a new-born  state
That shelters all in justice with good will,
And so enables them to reach their aim
Of meeting hopes and overcoming fears
With dear companions on a way too short
Whose navigation differs for each soul.  

Olympic London

A night-time journey with its ending brings
A view superb that like no other seems.
Our stacking aircraft wheels and banks its wings -
Olympic London close beneath us beams.

Like myriad stars in the firmament,
The brilliant lights, far-scattered, clustered, burn.
A tapestry unfolds, an ornament
Towards whose landmarks eyes in wonder turn.

Thus seen from such a vantage in the sky,
The city shows itself in festive guise,
A place where nation will with nation vie
To win the laurel and deserve the prize.

More often should occasion life enhance
With chance encounters  when the spirits dance.

I loved you - three versions

Translated from the Russian of A S Pushkin

I loved you with a love that may perhaps
Not wholy quite have quit my soul as yet;
But let the anguish that it dealt you lapse -
I have no wish to give you cause to fret.

I loved you, word unsaid, in hopelessness,
With diffidence and  jealousy in turn;
I loved you with such truth and tenderness
As God may cause love's flame for you to burn.


Version two

I loved you with a love which may perhaps
Not wholy quite have quit my soul as yet;
But let the anguish that it dealt you lapse -
I have no wish to give you cause to fret.

I loved you, word unsaid, in hopelessness
With diffidence and jealousy anew;
I loved you with such faith and tenderness
As God may grant another love you true.



Version three

I loved you with a love that may perhaps
Not wholy quite have quit my soul as yet;
But let the anguish that it dealt you lapse -
I have no wish to give you cause to fret.

I loved you, word unsaid, in hopelessness,
As diffidence and jealousy would move;
I loved you with such truth and tenderness
As God may grant another give you love.

On the cosmic scale

On one small planet speeding round a star
Events occured which seem to be unique,
Resulting from progressions over time
That surely may take place repeatedly.

And if they did, and if they will do so,
They mark and spell continuance of life
Somewhere, sometime, however they be shaped,
Despite extinctions scattered throughout space
And punctuated by the lapse of time.

Intellegencies other than our own
May one day be our archaeologists.

Late winter mimics early spring

The sunny corner of our garden glows
From winter's strange attempt at spring's first warmth,
The seasonally awkward Sun outshines
Its normal self, cajoling forth the blooms
Of radiant red camelias by the wall.

Above the patio the red kites plane,
Massing up to five at once, all wheeling,
Taking advantage of their airy perch
To spot a movement beckoning below
And peel away, as warplanes do, to dive,
Revealing how some win while others lose
As Easter, herald of rebirth, draws near.

Sleep closes day till dawn

Come with us, Ellie, in your mind
To where clear, burbling streamlets wind
And lakes of limpid lustre lie
Which, in each face, reflect the sky
When evening with its darkening pink
Announces that the Sun will sink
And, with the ending of the day,
Call children from their place of play
To spend the night asleep in dreams
Until at dawn the morrow gleams,
And Ellie, waking in her bed,
Will see again the morning red.

Momentous meeting

How calm you were, and oh how unaware,
While I, on seeing you, knew I'd awaked
From ignorance of what it means to care
Beyond the point where nothing can be faked.

Before of us the one the other heard
How surely did the gaze bestowed on me
Announce outright, without a single word,
The change from minor into major key.

Then when you spoke I yielded without fear
To that sweet music ever in your voice
And swore allegience to a captor dear,
The guardian of my faculty of choice.

And when, with my reply, I touched your soul,
Love joined our separate parts to make us whole.

Wereda sets sail

Afloat again, the quayside she adorns,
Refreshed, revivified, fresh from the hard,
Once more responsive to her helmsman's touch,
Once more herself - Wereda, mistress true.
Impatient to comply with wind and wave
She contemplates the challenges ahead
And readies all her strength to take up way
To wander wide upon the Carib main.

The weather window calls her to depart,
Captain and crew of one have made their plans,
All three are reunited at the spot
Where she was left a half year of that life,
Which now she strains to share afresh at sea.
As skipper takes command and crew obeys
She slips her mooring, coming under way;
The distant isle will edge to her more near
With every mile the wind bestows as gift.
Resplendent in her livery of blue,
Wereda gathers speed while tossing spray,
And relishes the swiftness of her flight,
Rejoicing in renewed activity.

A fleeting thought alarms her racing mind -
What if the crew should forfeit her respect?
But then vibrations novel calm her fears
And on her journey north from Trinidad
Towards Grenada, tropic isle of old,
She senses and commends a finding new -
That love has now embarked as shipmate three!

All the things she is

Diverting Darla's devious, desparate deeds
Leave legions laughing, living lustily!

Deft Darla's doings doggily define
Bold boundaries between berating beasts.

Determined Darla's dainty derring-do
Disolves, disclosing Darla's dare-not-do,

Where, waiting within white walls, wiley-wise
There threaten thunder-throated trotters three!

Reconciliation

Turn back the clock of history to see
What came before and brought us to this time
Where now mankind's imperative must be
To map a journey to a kinder clime.

So, too, the private must confront the past,
Uncertain of the outcome of done deeds
But sworn to prove that bonds once forged will last
To comort, and to satisfy life's needs.

Rewind the clock we set when we first met
To run ahead in harmony and bliss,
Discord and dissonance occurred, and yet
The heat of passion has distilled us this:

Heed well the promptings of the love god's dart
And grant each solace with a caring heart.

A path too common

Loss of love and surfeit of grief - can those
Two be from that same womb delivered, which
Engendered, nurtured well, the very course
Of happiness, commisioned to bewitch?

The accident of termination was
Not willed, with outcome written in advance -
Two bound in love were torn apart because
Sweet harmony was stolen from their dance.

The music lent enchantment with its air,
But one there was whose ear was surfeited,
While hope was left to counteract despair
And tender aid to one discomfited.

Should circumstance permit or fate allow,
What then I felt for you I would feel now.

Approaches of the heart

The life we live, the loves we win and lose
Can test our thinking and our souls confuse
In absence of the vital bond of trust,
Which is the guarantor of what each must
Supply - an undertaking, heart to heart,
That neither from the other will depart.

The hungry ego and the callous will
Require a counterbalance to the thrill
Of danger and allure of promise vain
To stop temptation on its path to pain.
A prospect that for one has deep appeal
May shatter what for two was once ideal.
Those who take thought to break the ties they share
May learn too late the value of true care.

Underwater drifting

Among,between, above and underneath
The coral reefs we drift along apace,
As briskly we are pushed toward our goal -
The diveboat anchored patiently dowmstream.
No call to check direction as we fly,
The steady current keeps us on our course,
Allowing us to pay no heed to time
Beyond the need to stay within the hour
Upon the lapse of which our dive is done.

No time  to linger where the eye may light -
The luxury to dwell must be denied,
What's briefly glimpsed has soon receded far.
And now a newer scene looms up ahead,
Attention switches to a fish, on fire
With crimson colour, flashing as it turns
And runs along the wall like flame,
Then rises up to vanish overhead
Beyond the arching brow that ends the reef.

And now large rocks of lesser height appear
Someway below in open water, signs
Of safe arrival at our rendezvous.
And, as we finish, one more sight unfolds
Two turtles of enormous girth, asleep
Upon a welcome ledge of ample width,
Scarce other-looking than their ancient kin,
And sheltered in the living stone, which grows
In stature as the lives it nurtures pass.

Inspiration

Come, Muse importunate, and stay,
Come with the closing of the day
When work is stilled and fancies play;
Disburse your gifts of word and lay,
And let invention hold her sway
Till sleep accept the potter's clay
And birthing dawn your child display.

Proposal

The life our love before us lays
Is ours to cherish in our sum of days;
The flame we tend to light our way ahead
Will burn the brighter when we two are wed.

Equality of sorts, varieties of "all"

A jaunty song resounds to keep us gay -
We're all in this together, come whay may.
And what poor people gather from this lay
Is that it's time to to sacrifice and pray,
Except for those who manage not to pay
By salting assets safely well away
To hold the greedy taxman off at bay.

Such are the smart arrangements of our days
Which, through their priceless arrogance, amaze.
.

Destiny

With love we cherish life on Earth a while -
To see it grow more old whith each new mile,
And steps that seem forever to advance
Will one day cease their march, beyond perchance.

The destination is the same for all,
The curtain that was raised will hold, then fall
And with the final act achieve its end -
To show us whole the goal the fates portend
And trust to us the time we have to spend,
Whichever joyful path we choose to wend.

Evanescence

No ornament can add to what you are,
The sum of beauty, cynosure to all,
Nor can comparison provide your par,
When finest fancy cannot fail to pall.

Yet time will vent its ire as in the course
Of waning of the wordly powers of Earth,
Whose dominance must lose its vital force
And leave to others space to stage their birth.

Beauties who hold sway all share the common plight
That there's no gain against time's rule to cry
Rebellion vain, for that would mirror quite
The golden globe that holds in thrall the sky.

Beauty's perfection imitates the Sun,
Whose might is sovereign, yet whose day must run.