The Furtive Seed

-The Furtive Seed-

Oh restive heart,
Awoken in the dark at last;
All shadows shuffle away,
As heralds alight this torpid sun,
Our bright first dawning day.
Aroused in a gentle sleep,
you came,
with only the wind to whisper your name,
and pricked my ears with a kiss,
that all the years,
from that sad absence to this,
were but an incubation,
a germination of a seed.
The blooming of a tree.
How can I express,
how deep these roots have burrowed?
I must confess,
I turned the soil each night alone,
the winding of the succulence, 
deep, down into the loam.
No shadow was wasted.
The harvest of every shattered dream,
broken in the mulch,
the rotten soil,
the airy toil of midnight worms, a hope.
To dream a tree, a sapling risen,
amongst the golden bough of autumns ruddy cheeks,
to break the crusted earth, make free,
the flaming bush that leaps upon these peaks.
Unlikely seasons do herald a frosted March.
That in the winter snows,
we two may rest a while,
an intimacy of quiet repose,
deep beneath the fleecy covers,
blessed in loves great warmth, two sated lovers.
My Heart, my home,
entice the budding blossom of this love,
that in the spring,
upon the larks sweet bough,
a rhapsody may bring a man a wife,
for you my love, are the budding symphony of life.
This, furtive seed,
we hold inside our hearts,
may spring anew in times not old,
but in the gentle gift of this loving start,
can bring a summers joy from out the cold.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013

The Kiss

-The Kiss-

How fragile this gift,
that weaves it's charms between the silence,
to heal the fractured scars, the dim lit remains.
Whence it comes, who can say,
yet who can forestall it's gentle ways,
the deft eloquence in loves glissading hallways.

Such promise, sweeps into the yielding heart,
an emollient, ripened in it's season,
plucked from off the cherished lip of love,
a succulence of spirit sipped beyond all reason.

This gentle water, flowing between the cracks,
a castle swept aside, left in the past,
succumbing to this ever loving tide.

Your delicate frame,
shivering in the constancy and the bliss,
with every echo of that sad refrain,
love calls your name, a kiss.

These hearts, awoken as of one,
knowing only the amber glow of loves bright star,
that casts the trembling hour,
into the ashen hearth,
the frozen heart devoured in the warmth at last.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013

The Wounded Heart

-The Wounded Heart-

The wounded heart,
fingernails stroked upon the scars,
and all the stars redolently fade into night,
caught in the twilight of an ancient glare,
the soulful, doleful shadows of the remnants of you there.
Trust, tossed upon the frigid flame,
frozen in the icy womb of your infinite eyes,
the sullen echo of a sad refrain. 
Waiting for the bomb to drop again.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013

Come To Me In Silence

- Come to me in Silence-

I love when you come to me in silence;
Though all the birds come with you,
to shower down a rainbow of sound,
with each kiss of opalescent hue;
A rhapsody of lark song breaking through the veil,
as I awaken to your tenderness,
your lips, a shower of feathering bliss.
How strange the absence,
when the last silent wing has flown,
your soft hair, departed from the pillow,
there, where I lay my hand,
between the crook and the hollow,
your resonant warmth summoning me still.
I awoke and looked for a moment through the window,
the last ray of summer, dashing through the cloud,
wondering whether winters cold fingers would be so proud,
or huddled in a mass of softened skin,
would this rainbow still shine,
in the crystal breath of January's frosted pane.
How blessed this kiss, that melts the frozen heart,
A shower of gentle rain,
the dappled iridescence of loves bright rainbow,
born again.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013

The End Of The World

The End Of The World

You ran so fast,
I scarcely saw the footfall,
as you sped in desperation into the past.
A declaration, the spearhead buried deep.
How quickly the numbed silence creeps,
when all those echoed ghosts scream for recognition.
A transgression of affirmation, fear that grips the heart.
There is no way to grow in the dark.
Dreams, they always seem so real when your asleep,
but when the dawn creeps from out that crepuscular light,
the fright of loves awakening, terror of the breaking,
screams into the frightened hallways of the cosseted life.
I saw the comet rise, It was dawn,
and in those nascent skies it climbed so willingly,
as if it's arc would tear a hole in heaven,
but just as the singeing light ascended,
It bent, and down into the sodden earth,
the marshland of rot and damp decay it went.
I turned to you, as you sat beside me in that light,
and in fright I saw your face,
yawning like the chasm that invades this place,
'We're fucked' yes!... that's what I said,
and yet, no fear invaded me there,
Only resignation, as I held your hand,
waiting for the fireball to swamp us in this land.
We sat and watched the eastern horizon burn,
and turned, squeezing each others hands,
as if the end had come.
But it didn't end.
Instead, in quietude, the fire burnt in the distance,
as if the past was being consumed in some wrathful judgement.
It didn't end. So we just sat there, marvelling in the glory.
Thinking this was the final chapter of our story,
Thinking how beautiful it was, in that moment of resignation,
to be sat beside someone we loved at the end of the world.
But it didn't end, and all we did, was awaken.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013

)

-The Dawn Comes-

-The Dawn Comes-

The dawn has come
and autumns ruddy fingers have drawn the curtain wide,
slipped beneath the sheets, to melt with you inside.

This glow, that sheds it's gentle ray across my pillow
comes without trumpet or lyre,
no fanfare to betray the tenderness or desire.

Incomparable, indefensible love!

No Force nor fissure in the dark of that night,
could ever overwhelm this bright dawns first light.
As a fire comes from out the coals below,
like a bursting river, that sweeps across the meadow.

In silence it has crept,
and swept between the winking stars,
that shone so patiently upon this sleeping frame,
as if in hidden silence, they whispered out your name,
and spoke of joys in days to come,
the only herald in that night,
before the light, and love of this opulent sun.
 
I tried so hard to forestall it's power,
the awesome and terrible might.
yet sweet, in surrender, fear is overcome,
I ran with fright, and knelt with none.

Dawn has come, 
and spread her fiery wings beneath my window,
your face, gently kissed upon the pillow.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013

Soft Invasion

-Soft invasion-

Thin wisps of gossamer hair
threaded through the night
Awake within a dream
this trembling soper of delight.

Dark threads slip between my fingers
and all i can feel are your lips
the warm crush of your breath
my heart racing
as if awoken from some sullen death.

You rise in tides
seething upon this shore
a yielding ground, drawn into the depths
a beckoning to get wet,
to soak myself within your warm surrounds.

The tremulous terror of love
kindles within my loins
a soft invasion, we two,
enjoined.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013




Photograph: Artist Unknown

A Late Harvest

-A Late Harvest-

September
the last splay of the bellflowers are in the open field.
The bees, marking time, flitting between each blossom,
long ago made new;
Perhaps more in hope than expectation.
A half blown dandelion rests frazzled against the wild-grass.
It is as if at long last rest has come,
baked beneath the sweltering sun of yesterday.
The grass seeds have blown,
and all that is left are the thin willow husks
rocking stiffly in the wind.
They too have had their day,
and still the bees endless industry,
a golden light for the long night to come.
I saw your face again today,
transposed upon a golden field of yore
- and still the bees, gently flit from bloom to bloom,
A late harvest, the bounty and the gift,
of winters cold store.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013

Letting Go

Letting Go

I sit re-reading texts I had written when in the throws of some madness months ago, although so foreign to me now are the jumbled assemblage of words, they could have been written by another hand in some other life. It occurred to me, as I pondered them, that the intensity and truth with which they were written was rendered meaningless aside from the context within which they were torn. Perhaps this is the trick of life. To dwell within the fire, with all it's ravages and insanity, flickering but for a moment in the flame. Yet, to accept also, that in moments past, those same tongues that seemed of such importance, so all consuming as they licked upon the soul in the existential truth of their passing, are but glimpses of a fleeting eternity of being. A being that in the moment of its greatest import demands it's release, so that we, who dwell within the flame may once again rise in the dawn of our own becoming. Knowing that each moment is a lifetime unto itself, a priapic birth and death, no distant than the breath that spans it's divide. The madness of love is a fire to warm the soul, yet the memories can crush it also, quenching the flame if we do not release it, allowing it to dwell for it's moment free from the expectation of our own desirous need. I read these poems and texts, unpublished and unseen, and wonder from where they have come, like snapshots of a flame in a language rendered meaningless without the warmth of it's time.

 © Richard Michael Parker 2013

Beneath The Banyan Tree

-Beneath The Banyan Tree-

Asleep beneath a banyan tree,
my head resting upon your soft smooth belly;
I heard the warbler tell of springs to come,
of journeys to be taken, frolics in the sun.
Then, in that warm and restive age,
we drifted for a while,
and flew into the branches, hand in hand,
and with a smile,
we picked the choicest ripest fruit,
the succulence of love, full lipped,
the sweetest flesh was sipped, salaciously above.
Then filled with mellow fruit,
a golden glow swam from each face,
and down unto the ground,
we drifted once more in that place.
To settle, so it seemed, into familiar repose,
your heart beat in my ear,
a fragrant sweetness to your nose.
We turned both very slowly,
glimmered eyes one to another,
and smiled a gentle while,
each finger locked into its lover.
The birds within the branches,
sang sonorously above,
while naked down below we lay,
entwined in golden love.
The seed, it grew again in flesh,
and birthed a blessed tree,
the gift we bring to all who dream,
our love divine and free.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013