Rough Touch Ropes

I have seen many

Such as he;

Beribboned costume

(More clown than ringmaster),

Cat-of-Cheshire smile,

Loud voice that

Carries no authority.

Yet he will say,

He has borne the sword

From cold fields

To these strewn-with-paper tiles.

I am, perhaps, too used to keeping

Rough-touch ropes tight around

Memories that would otherwise

Have me vulnerable, weeping, cold.

Too used to resisting the

Smith’d-of-gold poisons;

To watching too,

Too many young people

Take their too-soon leaves.

Twenty Fifteen?

When we cross the line –

One that clearly was never there –

A new Adam awaits:

Smartly dressed – en vogue –

Smooth moves,

Voice as stunning clear

As dawn-mountain dew.

Wisdoms, like queens, kings and shadows

Move gracefully on,

Long skies,

Sometimes holding the sounds of bells

Or furious chemical-coloured works-of-fire,

Roll by without sentence.

Tell Me You Knew Him …

 

Where went he then,

This big-hearted troubadour knight?

Where went he in the times he was away?

Away from us, our tribe, our ken?

Which astral, other-world spaces did he ride,

This minstrel warrior

Who wrote the starlight words,

Stories of elf and rainbow worlds;