Always

-Always-

When you find yourself in that dark place,
and the breath leaves you for the light,
and you wonder where you might
catch a breeze again,
a silent ease, to lend a helping hand,
a gust, to take you to some other land,
look no further than a simple thought away,
for I am there, with light and air,
and in that moment of consummate loving care,
you will know, you are not alone.
Breathe my love,
For I am with you, always,
your hand in my own,
souls forever lifting one other,
until this breath that we share,
picks you up, and as light as air
sweeps you to the light,
a feathers touch,
true and bright,
always to know,
it is together, that we grow.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Artwork: Julie Bergman

Sometimes

Sometimes

Sometimes,
when you have found what you are looking for,
and lost it again,
serendipity plays its card,
and you find what you never expected,
in a place you have never been.
Sometimes,
you have to stop looking,
in order to be found.
Sometimes.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011


Artwork by Inner Voice Art

Gossamer

-Gossamer-

World weariness,
the heaviness of sacrifice and waiting...
the beaten down heart,
that longs to feel the giddy spinning wheel of love
flow through every gate.
To dance replete,
a joyful song
resounding in the meadows of childhood
lost for too long.
To meet,
reborn in the arms of life's living love,
the tender mercy of God's great gift
to each and every one.
A mate,
to measure this timeless gambol and gate,
to skip in sweet line,
from this moment
to forever resigned...
to know joy once more,
to fly upon diaphanous wings into an open sky,
twirling in the sunlit presence from above,
in gossamer airs that only two may know,
in love.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Blossom

 -Blossom-

Sweet supple lipped blossom,

of love gently given,
resplendently shines now,
in two hearts arisen.
For when in the morn
we remember the lark,
with hope and with love,
we kindle that spark,
and find in each day,
that follows the night,
souls that have wept
now dance in the light,
swept up together,
to slip in sweet time,
to the rhythm and pull,
of natures sweet rhyme.
My supple lipped blossom
of delicate hue,
this fragrance of poesy,
delights in just you.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

A Whorl of Love

A whorl of Love

A whorl of love,
for my sweet petaled flower.
This poppies tail,
that tells of the hour.

Recounts a sweet tune,
in a rhapsodic haze,
of two loves made whole,
in glorious ways.

Drawn from the hearth,
of dark Morpheus's dream,
and swept to the light,
in a rapturous stream.

Retold in remembrance,
as the curtains unfold,
of fates wind that's blown,
through these fields made of gold.

This head that drooped,
in a breath, split asunder,
seemed like a death,
as it sank and went under.

I glanced for a moment,
back up into the light,
as I drowned in the water,
submerged, without fight.

To find that our fingers,
were locked in embrace,
a heavenly light,
shone from out your sweet face.

Enraptured in blush,
we rose now together,
light as a breeze,
to float like a feather.

For you came with a lightness,
so giddy with joy,
imbued with the grace,
great powers employ.

As if some great spell,
had magicked you there,
Persephone found;
Demeter's great care.

I scarce can believe,
how we laugh in this light,
when moments before,
death and woe, were our plight.

From whence did you come
my sweet anodyne maid?
faithful and true,
this great love you have saved!

Success, rest and beauty,
are our gifts now to savor,
the alms of remembrance,
reborn in sweet ardor.

For now I recall,
what once was forgot,
that true love arises,
from burnt ashen's lot.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011



Artwork: Jim Patterson

The Naming of Things

'The Naming of Things'

How do I say; 'I love you'?
How in the naming of things does the motion begin?
the swelling tide, this great ocean,
that fills my heart so full, I drown a little every day inside.

The day you left, and the naming of things receded.
Half names, in a half lit world, half a sea away,
swirling within this maelstroms grief and doubt,
Oh god!, I tried to speak,
I tried to speak them, but only half words came out,
half sounds, half formed,
receding into a silence again, still born.
Half of me, half a world away, half night, half day.

Where does this come from? This, tremor within?
These words, silent, half heard,
night waves smashed upon this reef,
cast into a rolling sea,
filled with an endless grief,
toiling, twisting, crashing into one another,
until all that is left of them, all that is left,
in this seething mass of foaming heartache,
is a shoddy flotsam bursting upon the surface of things,
fractured remnants,
fragments of craft washed upon this shore,
never to speak, never to sail, never, nevermore.

It is the silence, that gnaws upon the bones of discontent,
eating into the marrow of self worth,
until all that is left is a cracked empty shell,
and the hollow of brittle bones,
stirring in the cauldron of this vacuous stillbirth.

There comes a moment in every life,
the hammer fall of silence,
that cracks the loving egg,
spilling the yolk into a briny sea.
There comes a moment,
when you either live, tied, or die, free.
There comes a moment, when you know,
these ragged ends will never be whole,
broken shards forever shattered,
never to mend, empty and hollow,
holding nothing but the sea that they swallow.

There comes a moment,
foul in that tempests grip,
awash in a howling gale,
remorselessly torn in a heartless rip,
when that leeching sea begins to pull you down,
that you either close your heart, or you drown.

There comes a moment when you know, just know,
if you go under again, you will never resurface,
torn between the drowning heart and the loveless.

There comes a moment, when all things must be named.

How do I say; 'I love you'?
except in the naming of things,
the naming of things that I love,
for it is you that I love, and in loving you,
name you, my love.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011



Artwork: 'La Jeune Martyre' - Paul Delaroche

Gold and Blue

I sat in front of you yesterday, wondering what you might make of all these piercing eyes, dumbfounded gazes, and exhibitionist sighs. I waited in turmoil, my head spinning in the energetic rapture of that place, and slowly, willfully, entered your world, the return of grace, as autumn might reclaim the land from the violence of summer storms. The bombardment of Gainsborough, Titian, Constable and Turner, bellowing in my mind. 

As i sat before you once again, like some penniless and penitent supplicant before his master, i cast my mind back to the open field beyond the cloistered halls, and the simple room on the second floor, the hidden sanctuary, in our hallowed St Remy. The golden wheat flowing in the warm airs of an early autumn day, the birds, hidden in the cypresses, thrilling with the joyful youth of life's first summer, safe now from the excesses of that untempered heat, the fire in the luminescent sky, that burnt the swollen head, red. The cool blue clouds shielding all in a shroud of penance, free from those foreboding skies and Arlesque cries, banished, but for a moment, as the paint dried in the wind; The wind, that called my name, an offering of calm before the beckoning swirling harm might start again. 

The reaping would soon occur, and in this thought, i found a silent ease, a moment of timeless peace, awash in the quiescence of that place, the fountain in the courtyard of my heart. 

Until at last, the footsteps faded with the echoing dash of the garrulous crowd, and i was lost again in bliss. Lost, in a field of gold and blue. Baptized in a gentle rain, awash in a salty residue, the company of risen hearts. A flood of calm from out the din, infused within this retinue. The late summer sun, smiling gently, in this golden remembrance of you.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Loves Tender Gift

Loves Tender Gift

A rose is like no other flower,

it's petals silken,

deep red,

a heart that beats,

a bosom that is blessed.

I dreamt a rose, it's fragrance sweet,

and in the air, a hue of golden light,

danced upon listless longings of delight.

The bitter sweet tale of loves beguiling ways,

a longing of tenderness,

forlorn in open gaze.
 

Whence this dove, alight and given,

rises from it's slumber, and as phoenix arisen,

drifts upon the aether of our minds soft touch,

with loves tender longing,

to meet!, a gift, so much.

A rose is like no other flower,

it's petals silken,

deep red,

a heart that beats,

a bosom that is blessed.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Artwork by Peggi Meyer Graminski

Grateful

Grateful

The dawning epiphany, in the end,
when all is burnt away,
and into the mouth of hell you descend,
believing there is no other way.

When the darkness consumes all,
and your eyes have lost there sight,
in the depths of that endless fall,
in the pit, you will find a light.
It was not born, nor sent, nor created,
it has always been in that place,
and only in love is it sated,
for that light is a heavenly grace.

We create what we desire,
we either fly upon the wind,
or descend into self serving fire,
it is a choice, and it's yours my friend.

For everything that you have ever known,
every place and every time,
every season in which you have grown,
every step of fateful design,
has simply been a choice,
between the dark, and the light,
between the silence, and the voice,
between your day, and your night.

There are many paths.
Some filled with joy,
some are painful,
but we all get there in the end,
and for that, my friend,
I am grateful.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

What do you see...

 What do you see...

A reflected sunlit dream,
carried in a stream, of sunlight,
across a world,
reflected in a mind, of a girl,
ghosted upon the outer limb of a tree,
a branch of humanity,
born within a memory.

Where do the colours go,
when all else has faded?
and we are left floating in a snapshot of time,
swimming in a summer sun,
upon a swing of our own design.

You looked upon that bough,
bright youth swaying in the wind,
as the glass between us,
an evergreen testament,
to this passage of constancy, gleamed.

Transparent souls, forever separated,
shielded from the wind swept touch of time,
a silver envelope of light,
captured in this moment,
a sacred memory of rhythm and rhyme.
  
© Richard Michael Parker 2011


Artwork by Drunk Love Heart