English | Poetry Lights

REGINA KEY

Farewell

For once just

following our breath

no further than

the point of its dispersal

into the starry ocean

of a winter’s night

aware

that everything counts

and nothing remains

Beginning and end

dissolve each other

in transient silence

What was left unsaid

Will fill volumes

*******

The Goddess

I could be your rock

or a charm

a statue veiled

or a book missing the last page

I could beat the odds

find land that was left unclaimed

and live in close proximity

Not everything requires a name

I could be your beacon

or a dream

probing mantic seductive or grave

or a tree

standing like a prayer

green and impossible

in the desert

a rare flower pleading with the sun

not lasting the night

I could be your sail

at the turning point

of a voyage

duration uncertain

destination unknown

or a breath

like sea air salty and cool

touching your skin as you sleep

sounding the unspeakable

We could be mirrors

revealing and healing two ways

or a passage unchartered

and homeward bound

in dormant answers

to questions

which yet dare not face their meaning

*******

Silent look

of wordless trust

reaching out and

resting inside you

a glance of quiet love

and pleasure

longing to be returned

in equal measure

Whatever meets your eye

so still and true

is happiness

meant for

and finding

you

*******

Turning tides

When turmoil recedes

and the noisy claims

of knowing

what and why

are fading

we may find

that the answers were

never heading for

the frantic questions

but were waiting

in the fearless calm

of ourselves

humming to the songs

of suns moons and planets

orbiting our minds

We may realise

that the tide of life

is simply turning

and all we need to do

is turn with it

and heal

*******

Touching time

I run my hands softly

through the incandescent joy

of this day

like I have never

touched summer before

leaning into its opal song

nothing to hide or explain

still humming its colours

in my dreams

I run my mind slowly

through fleeting eternities

immersed in spectral miracles

trusting the oceans of now

beyond the changing light of passing hours

like I have never

touched time before

*******

Wild Dolphins

Time and again

I stand in quiet awe

as their presence draws near

my human soul deeply moved

at the sight of such synchronised

trust breath and agility

boundless vigour

charging breaching leaping

through the seas

with infinite oceanic eloquence

unrestrained boldness

of intense and smart momentum

Absorbed by this vibrant exuberance

Oh how I crave such spirited freedom

*******

Soliloquy

As I look with slow eyes

nature is a wordless poetry

intense, delicate

powerful, raw

authentic unto itself

and in it I compose

my breathing, organic verse

Here now

partaking in human consciousness

not to own

but to disperse again

from this conductive concentrate

carrying the coding of experience

elsewhere

Some questions arise

with no need

for the gratification

of instant answers

They may be found

in unexpected ways

times or places

or not by me at all

As I look with slow eyes

lights begin to find me

igniting deep inside me

*******

Ruby Callover for Self Easement

Aspire to the higher but

don't be afraid of falling

for what feels like falling

is you orbiting the origin

of your spirit

Hold your fire

Fears, doubts, anger and worry

don't call for punishment

There is such kindness

always ready to embrace us

in our weakest moments

Whatever God is

is never distant

God is a warm coat

in the winter of ourselves

Don't expect yourself

to remember everything

you have been told

Drop the pressure

Allow emptiness

Know nothing

Question everything

including God

God needs liberating too

*******

Cozy hour

Cozy hour of first light
still touching seven songs of dreamy night
without word nor plan nor duty
all respires in tranquil beauty
and somewhere very far away
the strange gruff crow
of tired old rooster
sounds to start the day

*******

Afar

I like to gaze
into the distant haze
because what is near
is already here
New and at velocity
things rise from curiosity

*******

What we miss

Time has taught me
not to be wanting
life not longer
breath not faster

No storm blows the sky away

You can feel safe between books
and dress elegantly
in lavish fabrics
eloquent and accomplished

Head so full
Heart so blinded

We are

what we so dearly miss

*******

The Angel of Silence

I am silence
I frame the piercing lament
of the gull
I stage the blackbird's
rousing song
and mute the turbulence
under predators' wings

I am silence
broken in the coming
of final farewells
petrified in the arrival
of difficult decisions

I am silence
worn out in the barren void
of plundered landscapes
tormented in the voiceless agony
of caged wildness
deadly in the coded intelligence
of viral disease

I am silence
tranquil and intense
in the pure black winter night
bursting with stars
sweet in the warm breath
of sleepy exhaustion
when love is made

I am silence
I am colourless
I am infinite

*******

Luna

Lucent and still

a soft silk glow rises at dusk

No other heavenly body so close

but keeping a perfect alluring distance

revealing as little or as much

as the moody skies permit

secret unnamed features

facing away from admiring eyes

disclosed to the infinite dark alone

Moon is she

*******

Forest walk, Humford Park

Radiant sunlit bluebells
and fragrant wild garlic
covering the slopes
up to fields beyond the trees
and down to the
restless whispers
of the sparkling brook
in its joyful hurry
to join the river
by the giant stepping stones

I felt the heron's gaze
before I turned and saw the slender shape
motionless and framed
by a single beam of sunlight

The path meanders before us
through a multi-dimensional concert

of invisible birds
the silent flutter of butterflies
white delicate wings
with a crescendo of orange tips
and the gentle bassy buzz
of the humble bumble

Ferns uncurling from

their knotty brown cocoons into
lush leafy feathers
of a fresh dreamy green

A lofty forest scented breeze
cools my face
stirring memories of
countless walks through woods
and years and places
of such magic
that words will never tell

*******

Skin

Measured surface of the sun worshiper
Radiant health barometer

Seven much enduring layers
Canvas of clinical pictures, harsh portraits of disease
Landscape of secret wild agility
of adventures had
electrified, contact ready everything risked
Membrane to earthly reality
elastic as space, sense, world and time
Lively dress
Inherited, weathered

and sometimes numb

with unsustainable pain

raw under a racing heart
Seismograph for each internal tremor
Sometimes young and soft as rose
in happiness
Sometimes blue with cold lifeless

grey and pale
dreaming back to tender beginnings
Minute life index
Restless biography
Directory of every experience

Revelation in the unpredictable wrinkles of repeated daily emotion
Millions of inventories

Eruptions chronological and close
in the cauldron of contradiction
Last sensual barrier

before the invisible shell of
supernatural experience

abundant along the meridians of

the fine electric flow
True and responding to every touch
Seamlessly contained inside we are
Perfectly enveloped with neither

ending nor beginning
we feel, however, naked

*******

Wings

Watch the birds
claim indefinite skies
in noisy flocks
or silent solitude
Soaring eagle
Gliding swift
Whizzing sparrow
Plunging cormorant
Hawk poised motionless
in the wind
Starlings in their thousands
articulating the air
in ever changing verse

Above and around us
a constant flux of
winged motion
demonstrates with ease
a borderless world

*******

Free

This day be mine
as I slip from the grip
of the trembling hands of time

and dawdle beyond horizons
and wonder
even beyonder

*******

The Clown

Let my greatest weakness be
the total inability
to give in
to the sadness of it all

With the widest grin
even as I fall
I try to help you see
beyond impossibility

This be my very humble
message as I tumble

*******

Open

A strong peculiar light

shone through the open door

I put aside what I was carrying

and sat in it

soon bedreamed with

a weightless joy

I'm sure someone had spoken of

many years ago

but years mattered not

time became a transparent sphere

and meaning streamed from it

beyond my comprehension

I embraced the mystery

and it hugged me back

Later that day I was told

there had been a solar flare

at midday

there is no stunning photo

to show and share

only the transference

of a strange light

that merged with mine

for an eternity

through the open door

*******

Free Ocean Roamers

They are the ocean spirit sages
of element and power
evolved and complete
in wild integral consciousness
breathing communion
within the tribal law

Vigorous soul companions are they
of the blue goddess
immersed in the fluid authority
of her formidable essence dance
and so at home navigating
this mysterious vastness
of vibrant oscillating intensity
weaving the whisper and lament
of their ancient living song
into the depth of liquid darkness

*******

DIMENSIONS OF SOUND

Unisono

The first revelation
Of my presence: I am a voice!
I am a sound in harmony
And resonance
As sure as my beginning
And my end
Is this voice
Through which I participate
In the noise of the whole world
In its overwhelming fullness
On the spectrum between
The gentlest whisper and
The most urgent cry
I want to be heard
Raise myself detached from and
Above this wholeness of it all
Rising like a wave and breaking
Back into the immense everything

Duet

From the infinite sounds
A duality forms
A counterpart everywhere
Never a permanence
I live in the flowing softness of
My instrumental body
The one feeling
Continually transforming
Taking and passing on impulses
I am a throbbing rhythm
And still that wave
Which is piling up
Breaks and dissolves
Only higher now and more powerful

Triad

I am voice
I give expression
I find language
Articulated from experience
Multi-faceted polish
In temptation and failure
Hope and discovery
And all sorts of letting go
From my own determination
I came into being
Over time
It crystallizes within
A delicate wisdom like hoarfrost From my

winterings

Four tone

Voice expression language Inhabited like a

house
With three floors
By a transparent being
From the breath of life
In the rarest of colours
So quiet and subtle
Constantly striving for harmony
To a song sung together

*******

You can dream at any time
of high open spaces with
a view of ancient oak trees
in a silver September distance
And also of bright yellow butterfly days
that in most tender strength
carry us through our
hardest times
without a doubt and question

You can certainly rave of pictures and

sculptures
that warm us deep down
and let us bloom in
the quiet light of their eternity
ready for life

And then the people with their countless things

of which
their hands sing
at which lives fail and start
People who strike like lightning
into the sea
Kings, jokers, knights, pirates,
saints and thieves
It is allowed that I love them all

*******

Between the lines

Reading books
and recuperate
as if it were calling you
into the depth
of your sore waking hours
which don't find meaning
But there at the clever rhymes bold green

thoughts can
sprout and vine and recover
from the cheerless gloom
You alone will know it
and whoever looks at you
hardly suspects
what is happening
there between the lines

*******

Thunderstorm and butterflies
weary heart
of long good-byes
saints and angels in disguise
quiet eyes and very wise
tender phoenix on the rise
midst thunderstorm and butterflies
entangled bond
that never dies
however hard it ever tries

*******

Rhododendron

In deep thought I sat
near the blossoming tree.
And there in lucid daydream
lifted out of time
we merged into
philosodendron
and rhodosophy
in silent images of harmony.

*******

Graham

We need to know nothing of another
As we talk about this and that
sharing a moment
we really speak in colours
And as our lights merge something else
may join the conversation
and remember us
forever

The mystery of this journey
only deepens
at the final farewell

Now that the last skin is shed
heal friend, and shine

*******

Lastly

In the fading light
of my final hour
I will call over
all the tender expressions
of friendship and love
that came to warm me
in this brief earthly experience
of complexity and meaning
and I will bring
those tales
of glowing endearment
home

May this be the bare hour
of no disguise
nor pretence
the gentle hour
of passing in soft surrender
where one longing fulfills another

*******

Tides of light

Wind and clouds
in playful motion
brush a mild pink
between fleeting blues
and soft grays
into the late summer evening

Permeable floating change
in form and direction induces the transparent

transition
at the flowing boundary of day
into the approaching night
which will be gazing
over us and all
in quiet dark
with countless timeless eyes

Tomorrow is still
at a fathomless distance
Tomorrow is a wispy promise
in the tides of light

*******

Disquiet

As autumn skies
throw the dark load
of their sodden robes
across throbbing oceans
I seek the rock for its silence

But even rocks speak
albeit the slowest whisper
of time remembering itself
in mineral code

I have lost the questions
to the clamour of answers
offered by the gales

Where there was
the vivid presence of gods
upon a time
recommending ways
and destinations
there is now only distance
and mutterings
of indistinct meaning

Silence is a wildering solace
to find

*******