Dance my bitter brother shadow
I will show you a bigger world
Than your two dimensions know

Softly falling out of favour
I find the web a touch too human
Perhaps a book holds the answer
Instead

The Inward Life

The inward life
The hidden lamp
The caged soul
Forever placed beneath
A cold potter's sky
He said the crown
Is too heavy for fists
And His words grasp
A ponderous universe
So He would know
Still I find my eyes
Gravitating navelly
And I am left a-peek
Beneath fired clay
Aching for the feet
To place light
In every dank corner
Of the whole wide room.

The sign was painted hollow
Like the waves of a cave
But I was a shoal of fish
In a sea of incomprehension
Awaiting the shark

If you only ever look at your feet
You'll never know where you are walking

My Afternoon Friends

Summer Cicadas
You grew young with the year
And sung cadence
As afternoons disappeared
And strolled back outside
With winter in their sleeves
Catching at the falling flowers
And crispening the leaves

Summer Cicadas
Praying on the holy trees
In sombre regalia
For the season's solemnities
Buried by an Autumn puff
Wrapped in gossamer gown
Till measures that you metered out
Pass beyond the sound

Dust the age off your good cheer
I'll fix you up another crafted beer
We can pretend time flies
Off with our luggage
While we forget to care

Pull up a folding chair and sit down
And tell me of our hopes that didn't drown
My, my the oceans were rough
Since back before a hope was enough
I'm glad we've got a few to hang around

In the Promise

To slumber
And not be tossed about
Like an incomplete formula
In the mind of a mathematician
Is a good thing
The solution
Lies in remembrance
Of the Promiser.

Diligence and stepping stones
Make your position sure.
Be forever one step forward
From where you are.
Peter would agree.

The pretty, honest, ugly face
Without makeup
Keeps the mirror clean
And the soul's windows
Open to the fresher air.

Boys shouldn't put it on
Anyway
But it helps, when looking
Through someone else's eyes
To keep the bigger scars
Under covers

My work-day smile
Gets heavy in the long hours
I keep it buttoned on
In case anyone should stare

I've been told to roll the stone
Or at least peer into the cave
But it's hard to face my Maker
With just mine,
On the chance I won't be recognised.

I found a shadow
Deep than fear
I found a spring
Where the water runs clear
I found a path
That leads up from here

I am going to make that book.

Confessions of the Finite Man

I hear you knocking on the sky
But I won't fear the crack and fall
So long as I can watch the universe tumble in.

I used to wrap up warm, waiting for phoenix stars to shine.
Scarf curling like a thick safe snake round my naked neck
Anxious of the deepness overhead, that held up my hope.

Contentment comes down in fluffy foreign whiteness
Tumbling to the man who occupies my shadow,
Standing open in the doorway