Out of whom seven devils were cast

I am she, yes the one
out of whom seven devils were cast,
only seven?

Now know myself a free woman
no more a slave, a pawn, a plaything.

Liberated from lust
I honour my being
dress my hair, clothe myself decorously
cease provoking, alluring and sly looks.

I have found my centre,
my anchor,
my still point,
a new trust.

For a compassionate heart loved me
with an unconditional love.
Did not ask my body in return,
or my kisses, entanglements, or services.
Saw through my treacherous insecurities
and brought to life the "who I am".

You can say what you want.
Mutter darkly in your hearts
- we know who she is -
No, No, I say: who she was
        who she was.

Keep your purses closed
there's no gold can buy me now

Black and white

Shafts of white, like moonlight, slither
down the black of tree trunks.
Bright light on the gnarled knuckles
of reaching twigs, is like the glint
of diamond rings on rheumatic fingers.

Seeing can be so deceiving.

The dark of blackness being impenetrable
until light: Spot or
           Search or
           Moon
slices the night
riding the beam into the unknown;
shooting the rapids of time and space
to prove that one is not the other.
Keep them apart at any cost.
For merging is: grey
                      shadow
                      drabness
where pigs can't fly and imagination dies.

The blackness of black:
                          strength
                          fortitude
                          immutable
                          implacable
                          statement of fact.

The white of whiteness: reflecting
                                 refracting
                                 showing up
cannot look us humans eye to eye
save as blackness.
 

Dark Matters

When I was not
Nothing was ...
Whirling in upon Itself
Never still
- an unimaginable vortex -
Dark Matter
a cosmos anchor
unseen
                            unknown
- save by the bending of radio waves -
Till living stardust
calculated
what was missing - was
and behold
what was dark is seen in the
light
of stardust mind.

Ah! So God is not light,
- we have it wrong -
God is Dark
Deep dense dark
womb dark of our beginning
the gravitational pull
the yearning
in each human heart
stardust core.
That knows
               Step
                   by
                     tiny
                         step
                             in light
...that Dark is
and we are called to be It.

And will know It
becoming dust
in dark earth tomb;
not to know what was
but what is.

 
It hurts man for Caroline

He sits there with a "sod-off' look on his face
barely monosyllabic.
No there is nothing you can do.
An impassive black man
over from the west.
Not even my best can raise a smile.

I glimpsed him from time to time
brush and pan in hand.
Wing cleaner, face still impassive.
Not rude, nearly surly
an attitude problem they'd say.

Today I sit on his bed
there's not much room in a cell.
"I'm sad man, I hurt man,
they found her strangled body in a sewer.
What she ever done man,
never had a chance man.
She'd been on the game and into drugs."

He, this impassive man, had stood by her,
given her back her dignity.
Loved her, and uncurled the mess in her head.
"Now she's gone man and it hurts man."
 

On watching tightrope dancers

Pan piped
    and you danced
        parasol in hand.

Prehensile feet
    finding footage
        on taut steel line
            as at home
                as on flat earth.

Pan grins
    ear to ear
        capers
            cavorts
                somersaults
ebullient as sheets
    windblown
        on washing line
    sashaying to some
        silent air.

If you say
    I saw a ballet
    on a shoe string
they'd say there's no such thing
        but
I saw Pan's allure
    draw her - him
    on points
(like upside down pink pegs)
doing steps and splits
daring the steel line
    to say no
but they, defying
    gravity,
and the constraints
of that thin string.
They played freely
upon the strength
of that one taut line
which no way could bind them.

Yet caught me heart in mouth.

 
Earth Music

The core roils and roars containment lost
molten lava heaves and spews forth angrily
surging down the slopes, devouring all in its way

like red hot emotion erupting, the boil is lanced,
the powder trail blazed.
Titans engage, tectonic plates grind against
one another like slow motion cymbals clashing
reverberations absorbed by earth's mass.

Solid ground moves, trembles, shudders
sings like the single ting of a triangle
lost in the flourish of the drum roll.

And today air cleared
the sun smiles on a hazy landscape
shaped by this past revolution
accepting this long term resolution
and the world turns again.

from the collection “Dark Matters”