Between your fingers, pick up a single speck of sand,
You are holding creation, simply because you exist,
Pinch a grain of crystal salt, hold it in your hand,
Swim across vast oceans, float emancipated in ethereal mist.

Listen as the colours of the wind, venture to Valhalla,
As new day breaks, pick ripe apples from a giving tree,
Now you hold life, as Nirvana ripens fruit for Shambala,
Nourish happy children, watch glorious birds fly free.

Can you cup the ocean? Dive to the bottom of the deep blue sea?
Can you fly like Icarus, beyond the distant moon, to the sacred sun?
Can you create a drop of water? Germinate a seed? Make honey like a bee?
Can you sing a sacred song? Find truth where there is none?

Grasp a mountain 'tween your hands, lift it high above your head,
Blindfolded, seek the universe, touch the far off sun,
Generate compassion, where joyful love is fed,
Unify your movement, join that whirling Dervish, spiral just for fun.

If we are one, did we drop the bomb, tearing out our neighbour's hearts?
When we are born, do our new born cries, divulge our karmic fate?
While death grips humankind, does war destroy the lies that only war imparts?
With prayer, can armies lay down their arms, open heaven's gate?

With your two hands, explore Orion's starry belt,
With your two hands, reach out, touch the edge of our vast galaxy,
With your two hands, define this life, tell us what your hands have felt,
With your two hands, simply express, create a new reality.

True thought begets honesty, honesty begets true words, truth in words begets creation,
Destroying Sacred Eden begets godless sin, godless sin begets destruction, begets unholy war,
Void of hope, there is no place for love to live, begetting unholy evil, the wreck of every nation,
Final destruction begets devastation, devastation begets annihilation, begetting hell, what for?

Meditate upon the weight of blessed elephant,
Nurture thoughts, remember sanctified pachyderm,
Ruminate up-on that sweet, sweet scent,
Ponder dexterous trunks, the bulk of egg and sperm.

Satisfy your nakedness,
Resolve your ego's appetite,
Search your heart for sacredness,
Dream every starlit night.

Once you've found that joyous place,
Once you've read that sacred tome,
Once you've glimpsed God's precious face,
Then you've found your blessed home.

I composed the following entry this past February, thinking that perhaps we would have a poetry slam here in the village community hall (however that little slam, dunk, never came to fruition, boohoo, maybe some other time) before the cold drear of winter left us for cool damp spring. Hopefully some of you will find some humour (perhaps even a little chuckle) in the words and lines I have left here for you to enjoy. Cheers! - Joe Carrot in Argenta.
------------------------------------------------------
THANKS FOR COMING OUT TONIGHT

Thanks for coming out this evening,
Thanks for sharing your words with such caring,
Generous words that rose up to the ceiling,
With such feeling and such leavening,
We need words, and if we knead words,
Into loaves, that are baked, providing food,
Guiding goodness, adding cheer, phrased without fear,
For one and all to hear, and that can't be faked.
Thanks for coming out tonight,
Thanks for showing up,
with your smiles and your light heartedness,
though I must confess,
not withstanding,
not with stress or duress,
that I wondered, I pondered,
would anyone show up?
Could any person give up? Their evening?
Leaving - their warm fire?
A comfortable room?
Coming here, to partake and hear in this echoing tomb?
Where hearts are bared,
where naked souls - both fair - and gruesome -
perhaps even loathsome - like manure - added to the garden compost,
where most - household trash and wood stove ash - ends up these days.
But in the long run compost pays,
nourishing soil, void of strife -
cooking pathogens,
from hog and chicken pens - into something - like words into poems - that eventually encourage plants that roam - o'er once barren ground - where a joyous  sound, will be found  - with that fifty pound cabbage and thirty pound squash - so solidly round - and green!
Flourishing in abundance on this nourishing land,
providing food for our bodies - and souls - and like those rascally Bank Voles -
we'll rejoice when we munch that nourishing carrot - and potato - and beet - and then they're on the vine - that glorious red and ripe tomato,
well that just can't be beat!
So these words that we speak, garnished with such power and rhyme - over time - leave their mark - and one day some other ears will sharpen - and hearken - enlightened by glorious words that esteem - life's journey - and they'll dream -
and they'll dream.
Thanks for coming out tonight!

A Poem for Suzie
 
I looked into your deep dark eyes,
And there I saw, I did surmise,
A tender love, a caring heart,
Life's cordial passion, blessed joy did so impart.

Lying there, our beating hearts entwined,
I caressed your gentle face, love poems I signed,
I stared deep into your perfect soul,
I found such bliss, each tender kiss, our heaven's goal.

Stars that night, shone oh so bright,
Our new found love, imparting happy light,
We glowed together, our lips did meet,
Our closed eyes, that magic spell, our hearts did greet.

Sighing, we loved together,
Brushed sweetly by love's gentle feather,
Our soaring souls enmeshed, ensconced by trust,
We flew as one, as true lovers must.

Behold the stars, entrenched by eternal time,
Behold this fate, that seemed yours and mine,
Such treasure found, such wondrous pleasure,
Long awaited kisses, we loved together.

Each day we spent, hand in hand,
Composing love poems, in your native land,
Pan played his pipes,  garden flowers bloomed,
We laughed together, our hearts, they swooned.

Those generous months, as love did grow,
Precious life nourished us, birds sang, our cups overflowed,
Each day we kissed, held hands, love caressed our teary eyes,
Unvarnished honest truth, that priceless gem, sparkled undisguised.

Who would have thought, could such passion e'er refrain,
Distilled compassion, charity and grace, should never wane,
Yet storm clouds formed, a tempest, beseech the calm,
Our words confused, rewrote loves joyous psalm.

Diffused, our melded hearts did break,
I left your garden, packed my bags, my leave did take,
Tears filled my eyes, washing o'er my bleeding, wounded soul,
Flying into the night, across the ocean, I landed where the cruel north wind blows. 

Long months passed, my ears denied your cherished voice,
My darling, my love, my soul-mate choice,
Memories,, emblazoned in my mind, those times that were sublime,
Rememb'ring all those treasured moments, recalling love's wondrous time.

I stared into your deep, dark eyes,
I knew that love was wise,
I kissed you, now I miss you everyday.
My broken heart, still bleeding, wish that I had stayed.

I reached out with my burning hand,
Trying to snuff out this mass extinction,
My flaming feet transformed into burning sand,
As 50,000 species disappear, void of redemption.

Viewed from space, earth appears serene,
Deep blue ocean, lofty cloud, kaleidoscopic land,
Yet far below, a dismal planet, so much unseen,
Modern kind guts the nest, the gutting knife in man's own hand.

Short years ago, accompanied by sweet nature's sound,
Millions lived, Amazon dwelling, rain forest was home,
Noxious gases, warming seas, wild waste, pollution found,
Now each passing year, 50,000 fewer species, under the dome.

Come 2100 A.D., if man is still alive,
If blue oceans have not breached the castle wall,
If birds still sing, if fish still school, if frogs still thrive,
Perhaps human-kind may regard that holy sacred call.

Tipping point, beyond the thrust of no return,
Each sunrise tilts this fragile world towards the chasm edge,
Flat earth was but a dream, hatched in those days of empire concern,
Yet fear, slipping o'er the hidden rim, made men wary of that mythic ledge.

Now the Dodo bird is gone, passenger pigeons, that seemed heaven sent,
Right whales once scarfed untold numbers of fat Atlantic cod,
Mysterious capelan spawned, sated puffins crooned, dressed by nature's skillful bent,
Mutation forms a foreign footing, transmogrifies our blessed pod.

Bright stars, twinkling galaxies, gaseous nebulae revolve,
God's wrath released, let there be light, scribing this hallowed tome,
Yet man's two hands, bewitched by nature's garment, savagely evolve,
Crimes beyond our earthly station, corrupts hearth, destroys our blessed home.

Survival, air, water, soil, a congenial mix,
Constitutes venerated life, sacrosanct by the word of God,
Terror, terrorists, annihilate this hallowed fix,
Hubris, greed, seven deadly sins, court this demonic nod.

Time and space, life too, is short,
Deserts grind man's fallacious faith, the race we ran,
Untold storms raze this once charmed court,
Dogma builds our funeral pyre, resulting in a burning man.

Before I went blind,
I thought that I could see.
One dark and selfish night it came to mind,
my vision was impaired by clouds,
confused by a stormy sea.
Upon waking in the shrouded morning,
as God's blazing sun was setting,
just as that torrid sea was mourning,
while the tide was ripping,
tangling fisherman's lost and twisted netting,
I sputtered, my pulsing heart stumbled,
tripping out of dream's warm bed.
Suddenly, in that stead, I was humbled,
falling headfirst into chaos,
my legs crumpled,
like my being was filled with lead.
Laying there, confused,
on that hardwood floor,
bloodied and bruised,
I swallowed hard,
not knowing if time was standing still.
Is it simply me, or just my abrasive core?
Faltering, with my swollen mind,
my broken jaw, where thought inclined,
where words once slickly cruised,
across my whetted palate,
followed by ticking seconds,
filching proverbs like a waterless rill.
Miraculously, as morning light began to fade,
I gasped, sucking rich steaming marrow,
from deep within the dark moon's secret hidden valley.
In retrospect, I writhed, tasting guarded blood,
spilled upon that ancient barrow.
I tried to rise, wincing,
plunging again, until at last,
my blackened eyes shut,
closing out the pain of that loathsome lifelong tally.
Shutting out that earthly fight,
as heaven's chorus hummed religious lies,
making me shiver, my hot blood curdled,
creaming across that shining floor.
Minutes passed, flowing o'er that broken hurdle,
with its busted ties.
Breathing hard, I counted hours,
wishing, hoping, for something more.
As the drifting sun beamed,
heralding in the vacant afternoon,
tea and biscuits were generously served,
on a gleaming silver plate.
Sipping better brew, nibbling stale considerations,
seeking sustenance and clarity,
my wounded soul flew recon,
reconnoitering across hell's flaming gate,
what seemed my final, tortured fate.
Groaning, en masse, all the souls from all the worlds,
moaning, demanding heaven's parity.
Once a problem, all those challenges,
that honesty and truth compare,
washed up on distant shores,
with their radio-active backgrounds,
curtailing goodness, remanding thoughtfulness,
grinding love into despair,
chopped and flensed, like endangered whales,
drowned by raging cyclones, shipwrecked,
lost at sea in fathomless sounds.
Afternoon waned, inviting sombre evening,
dressed in oil and vinegar,
existing simply that humankind might hail,
departing from the imaginary sun.
Yet streaming consciousness gained a foothold in those rugged ramparts,
tugging at my flimsy heartstrings,
even as those last rays of light left me,
once again in that cold, dark realm,
I wondered if new day would come,
would chance be at the helm?
Bleeding still, I crawled across that sober, sultry room,
towards an unseen door, gathering all my failing courage,
not believing what eternity promised,
chewing on bitter bits that life brings.
Beaten, hopeless, I felt existence quickly leaving,
still, as morning surely comes,
conviction gripped me by the collar,
dragging me forward,
steering me shoreward,
knowing there was surely more.
Unbeknownst, night descended,
bathing me in velvet dreams.
Songs I'd ne'er heard filled my deafened ears,
visions of cosmic joy remitted sin. 
Paramount, the Hand of God reached out,
or so it surely seems.
Such gentle touch, healing first, my bloodied wounds,
brushing my stone-blind eyes with sacred balm,
mercifully silencing that deafening din,
awarding blessed calm.
Thus charitable Spirit hovered over me,
caressed my prurient soul
Holy Ghost, ascended, forgiving,
relinquishing life's dreaded toll,
gifting me such welcome sight,
ethereal air, suffused compassion,
reflecting supreme power, divine faithful light,
illuminating that perfect lotus flower,
life's glorious passion,
unveiling discord's blemished night,
just so I might see.

Blessed words, like Blessed Creation,
Inspired phrases, gifting Blessed Inspiration,
Harmonized letters, free of chains and fetters,
Mixed and stirred and baked,
Never chemically processed or otherwise faked,
Some poets dance steps,
Followed by thumb snapping Heps-sters,
Or Hipsters or Hippies,
Sporting little do-hickeys,
Choosing rainbow colours of hair,
Donning desired garb that they wear,
Depending on tribe, or primal groove,
Oh those poems and songs, how they make me move!

Mental up, time takes no prisoners,
half empty, half full,
we choose our own cup.

Oceans of emotions reef the world,
rivers of tears and gales of laughter, set the stage,
as precious moments are unfurled.

Runes like tunes tell of fortune and strife,
naked, under all, we fumble, or dance, 
through this dreamy, cosmic life.
 
Choose your cup well,
for melodies, and day dreams, like acid,
can be placid or hell.

Shine on, as the moon and the sun, 
climb down the velvet sky,
seek glorious meadows where lions and lambs gently lie.

Ring chimes, eat limes, sing harmonious, 
as the stars tell their historic tale,
pray for peace, time filled with love,
so your soul doesn't stumble or fail.

Exudation

Exude reciprocity,
All familial works,
Magnanimous generosity,
With tricky orgasmic quirks.

Can sun shine any harder?
Could seas rise still higher?
Might wars empty every home's larder?
May revolution expose every lying liar?

Contain dormant blind rage,
Digest emotional yearning,
Lock-up evil in a steel cage,
Remove the blinders so we keep learning.

Salmon fin upstream seeking new beginning,
Arctic Terns brave storms, far north and due south,
Caribou wander rugged taiga and treeless tundra migrating,
God's creation serving obscure reality, hand to mouth.

Instagram a sultry, sleeping world,
Tweet cryptic, mystic rhymes,
Catch bolting asteroids with bare hands as they're hurled,
Twitter blips and bleeps 'cross a silent universe in these arcane times.

Dissolve freedom,
Disassemble all life,
Let blasphemy curtail Eden,
Epitaphs lay discarded by the wayside, flensed and broken by the warlords bloodied knife.

There's a cosmic wheel turning,
Stars duly yield to instant karma in the vastness of this revolving universe,
Planets and moons juggle realms, juxtaposed round suns blazing, evolving, burning,
Buddha sojourns with Brahma in heavenly repose, quietude, sipping sweetened tea, humming sacred chants and Sanskrit verse. 

Round the horn of Mars mounted knights prevail,
Past Saturn's rings, deep into space they sail,
Gleaning golden orbs of cosmic dust, they halt and hail,
God's word, unified in thought and deed, adorned with shining armour, linked by holy chain mail.

Guess the weight of the planet!
Remove all obstacles as ambient order walks hand in hand with virulent disorder,
Stare forever into an oblong sun, mixing myth and mystery, as God planned it,
Compelled by hearts desire, wandering down this timeless corridor.

Dig new potatoes, blissful, as the neighbour's cattle low,
Sit eating peaches under a flashing summer haze,
Mutter murky prose as stockpiles of munitions round the world grow,
Revel in posterity as death counts the dead, plagued by this rancid daze.

All things finally into dust,
Into black holes all wanton light congeals,
Sediments of existence fail and rust,
Alpha and Omega, diligent time forever conceals.

If love exists, if God exists, if intimacy is not crushed,
One heart joins all in this sacred test,
If delusion alludes to character that remains unbrushed,
One world, one planet, one soul, fulfills the quest.

You died on a Tuesday,
Agony ended your life,
Breaking my heart on that blue day,
Your pain stabbed deep like a knife.

In the end you suffered and cried,
Helpless I watched, suffering with you those hours,
Hoping miracles would save you, I tried,
Praying "God grant me courage with your Holy Ghost powers."

Heedfully I attended as precious life left you,
One last breath, your heart stopped in turn,
Grieving, wretched I sat, trembling too,
Death and the reaper I numbly spurn.

I miss you so much I could cry,
Your grave is the place where you stay,
So much strife fills my mind I could die,
My soul whispers words where you silently lay. 

----------------

My loyal companion Tippy came into my life when she was six months old, a rescue dog I fortunately found at the SPCA kennel. She was 13 years, 4 months old when she died on April 22, 2014.

 

Spring! Genetic destiny creating me male!
Krek krek! Krek krek! Krek krek!
Reviewing Crake vocals, I'm known as Landrail,
Hear me calling! See my long Rail neck!

Migrating from Africa, such a long ways I've flown,
Shannon's blue ribbon, flowing o'er that grand Emerald Isle,
Some call me Corn Crake, chestnut plumage I've grown,
Departing, my relations head to Asia, north, along the blue Nile.

Back home in Ireland, exclaiming loudly, "I'm here!",
Hoping to heed, an echo, any answering cry!
Patiently resting! Day into night, sky starry and clear,
Calling! Calling! Hoping for some nesting reply!

Krek krek! Krek krek! Krek krek!
Waiting, listening, croaking krek even more,
Not knowing I'm the last Crake on this broken wreck,
Yes, I'm the final Corn Crake, landing on this far shore.

Yet I call and I call, feathered brethren, please hear,
Not knowing my brothers, they've disappeared from this land,
Night into day, nary Crake's rustle or call, standing long-legged, so austere,
Not one other Landrail, flown home here to Ireland, to nest by the sand.

Still this cool night, bright stars shine, twinkle above,
So still my heart, my calls urgent, pierced by my tongue,
So weep, Shannon River, where Crake's once nested with love,
Such joy is lost, last one of my kind, Rail song still unsung.

Was this God's prayer for us? A terminal plan?
Has creation ordered my species lost?
Extinction, written in heaven, or committed by man?
God's given Grace . . . what mortal sin . . . what ultimate cost?!

Falling snow, every solitary flake, thousands upon millions,
like all the thoughts and dreams of son and man,
each flake, every sleeping vision, thousands upon zillions,
reflecting each life lived, mirroring every unborn plan.

Rangy wild horses galloping through sandy dunes,
scourged from earth in storybook fashion, one last mystical unicorn,
gulf dolphins perishing like ancient civilization's long lost ruins,
purged enmasse by unholy oil, Archangel Michael trumpeting God's Holy horn.

Crisp snow flakes, like corn flakes, freshly spilled from creation's box,
licked by sweet milk and honey under Buddha's Bodhi tree,
strangled by golden rings, fixed round the tame neck of wily red fox,
like streams of sacred light, beaming through the cosmos wild and free.

What thoughts, like thunderbolts, escape this ethereal compound?
Can birds fly when snow falls and errant light is swallowed by black holes?
Does science pose, like Saintly miracles, snowflakes that are so profound?
Will deserts e'er encapsulate nebulae, planting seeds of life in galactic shoals?

Cold snow, razed by death, dissolving into sacred water,
like a lover's tender kiss, a beating heart, installing love foremost,
fluid molding this wheel of life, caressing strokes from a Messianic potter,
Fire Scribe, Keeper of the Gate, resting upright, guarding Heaven's door post. 

Can man ascend this course, seeking lost pearls, shrouded by descending snow?
Transcend thick clouds, blindly stepping across that fiery lake?
Inquisitor's restricting Souls, condemn each one with hateful mortal blows.
Conquistadors seek Eden's Tree of Life, paying homage to that sacred snowflake.

Whence we came, crossing esoteric time and astral space,
rounding Orion's Cross, reciting Divine Words in poetic ways,
spinning midst this Sacred Circle, tatting this fine lace,
confounded by life's stormy trance, while snowflakes drift, when winter stays.

Angel's sing, though not one mourns, while life turns to death,
I promise, I'll always be with you, even upon my funeral pyre.
Water spills life's blood, crossing that sacred ocean, suck my final breath,
frozen crystals fall, making memories, as cold white snow drifts ever higher.

Behold Buddha! Behold Christ! Behold this Sacred Tree of Life!
Behold Heaven! Behold Time! Behold this Esoteric Space!
Behold Love! Behold Compassion! Behold Nature's strife!
Behold Soul! Behold Snow! Behold God's Holy Face!

Amongst my topaz necklace dreams,
Cloaked by my scarlet life,
A blazing Sun climbed up it seems,
Wounded by a silver-bladed knife.

Bearing each heartache's lasting scars,
Rose diamond's ling'ring sorrows never lie,
While Venus sends love notes to Mars,
In turn, Sun fell down an azure sky.

Rememb'ring life's forgotten rainbow dreams,
Midst watermelon days, bliss simply stood,
Emerald memories drift and fade it seems,
As brilliant hope rejoiced, just as it should.