-The Mirrored Maid-

-The Mirrored Maid-

The owl replaced the nightingales sweet song,
and spoke in sombre tones a darkened truth,
appealing to the gods of slighted wrongs,
the thunder tongue of wisdom spoke forsooth.

Love rests not beneath the willow,
nor waits beside that ever running stream,
for now his head sits sad upon his pillow,
low, beneath the ground, inside a dream.

Look not into the dim-lit sunken corners,
nor trail the fleeting footsteps in this place,
seek comfort in a gathering of mourners,
for thou bright light has gone without a trace.

For though you look to heaven for an answer,
and woo the countenance lost all too soon,
no bright and airy sun reclaims this dancer,
he left with her, the mirrored maid, the moon.

 © Richard Michael Parker 2012



Photographer: Brendan Zhang

A Walk

A Walk

Walking along the high road, I stopped to take in the spire of a 14th century church, Gothic architraves and reliefs, weathered, silhouetted against the sky, the slow clouds rolling like cotton wool across a light azure heaven. I noted the old elm before the spire as i looked up, and wondered how many others had noticed the spire had been rebuilt,  sporting a masonic compass and square beneath the cross that sat atop the sky.

An old gaslight, no longer illumined in the daylight, stood before the tree, and i breathed in the whole scene, as the mad rush pelted the walkways around me. Ants scurrying about, desperately fighting the time.

Easing my camera from my pocket, i took one of two shots, up into the sky, and adjusted my straw hat, so as to shield the naked sun from my eyes.

I noted an older lady pass me by, and thought for a second that she wanted to say something, but the moment passed, and she moved on, resigned to her silence. So i called after her; 'Glorious weather we are having isn't it?', she stopped in her tracks, and turned, her elderly wrinkles smiling at me from out the years.

An hour later, we had both enriched each others day. I had learnt all about her time in Sicily, and the Belfast dockyards. How she had been evacuated in the war as a young child and seen dogfights in Irish skies, Mafia dons with blackened eyes, and the history of the inception of that shadow organization from the perspective of an Irish woman who had married a Sicilian man, living in foreign lands, with her babies eyes staring into other skies.

'Time winnows us all through its great sieve,
and Shiva's dance destroys even the fleeting memories,
wrapped up in past joys,
and tied in the bow of contentment.
All that's left us are the token gestures in a stream,
passing endlessly before us.

A tipple from a draft of the ever fluid past,
slipping in sips, through the rivulets of your mind.
When even memories, become mixed and mingled,
will you still recall the moment of our calling?

or..., like the passing throng,
washed endlessly along,
will the memory simply pass you by,
swept aside, Lost...
like all those feelings, laughed or cried,
until at last, I too become lost,
a remnant of the past, an unremembered cost.'

Taking the time, to make a little time...

© Richard Michael Parker 2012

No Heart Is Lost

No Heart Is Lost

What is distance to the heart?
No mile, nor hour elapsed,
that ever bore the weight of the departed,
lightened the soul.

For in the gathering time,
pushed down into the womb of the world,
the heavy burden unfurled, grows fat,
gorged upon the marrow and the cost.
The tumid bloated crush of loss.
Bedraggled steps, upon a mountains jagged edge.
The shifting shale of despair,
straining out the seconds into years.
The thousand yard stare,
stretching out the inches into tears.

What does love know of time?
When your heart beat in mine,
did the clock count the ticks, and the tocks of your feet,
as they stepped across the street,
in the steady downbeat of the salty rain.

No... It is the mind that forgets.
Memories purged in a sea of regrets,
awash in a currency of debt.
Mountains, heaped upon the heart, moments passed.
In the quiet space,
a thousand years, and a million miles from grace;

The first twinkle of your soft eyes,
splashed in the luminescence of your smile,
your heart beats within my chest,
and all the mountains,
and the worlds that passed between us,
cannot stop the thundering flood of love.
For you are here again;
Not a second has past,
nor a stray breath, parted from these lips.
All absence, filled in the heartbeat,
of your trembling fingertips.

© Richard Michael Parker 2012



Photograph: Amber Ortolano

Seeds of Love

Seeds of Love

The smallest seed of love, that means everything, is greater still than the great love that means little to those who encounter it; For the seed, nurtured by those who recognize how precious it is, will in time, and care, grow into a mighty tree, that blesses all who dwell beneath its shade and eat of its fruit. But the great love, that means little to those who are careless with it, will simply wither, weathered by the vicissitudes of time. It isn't always how great a love is at the beginning that counts, rather, it is what it means to those that share it, and what they are willing to do to care for it, that truly counts. Some loves are great, and diminish, others are grown from the smallest of seeds and become the mightiest of oaks over time. What it means, is the difference between a rock becoming a pebble, and a seed becoming a tree.

© Richard Michael Parker 2012

A Chinese Theme

- A Chinese Theme-

Chinese lanterns illuminate the passing hours;
The Lychee tree in the centre of our garden
dances in the crackling light of the bonfire.
Souls melt into silverine flowers,
scented with the air of Magnolia blossom.

Racing clouds surround the fullness of our moon,
the silver echo of the dipping suns might,
slowing down, illuminating all to swoon,
portentous figures flicker in delight.

Inside out, we turn the remnants of the past
visible at last, and pass the parcels between each other,
one to another, thrown into the flame,
a phoenix rises, unfettered and unchained.

The Emperor, Empress'd, blessed in this loving union,
unhindered and free, archetypically entwined are we;
Cascading rivulets of love, overflow the cup,
no gate, nor dam to stem this loving tide,
all demands and expectations laid aside.

A star shines in the heavens, illuminating the mark.
fingers delicately held, we turn unfurled, begin to dance.
Entranced, the following of ages, the flood of grace;
captured in the joy that shines upon your face.

Fire art bursts upon the sky, the twinkle in your eye,
mirrored in my own, showered in this love,
resplendent in this garden we have grown.
The shadow and light, the giddy delight of petalled wine,
supped in merry revelry; A zither sings,
the heart-song, of all you have become to me.

Moon, dips below the soft pillow,
dawn breaks, between the lark and the willow.

© Richard Michael Parker 2012

Moontree

-Moontree-

[Prologue]

Atop the bright and airy peak,
a skylark sings resplendence,
for all who come, and all who seek,
her sweet clear notes, 'transcendence'.

[interlude]

The moonflower dazzles with its sparkling refrain,
damp light hovers over sleepy waters held within;
Who is to know the depth of this somnolent pull,
sitting atop cool waters of wishes and dreams.

'Not I' whispered the moon,
shining her silent path in remedy,
for all those sun kissed sparks of ingenuity,
flaming within the hearth, redolent ease before the fire,
an orange glow beneath the shadow of the moontree.

I heard a single bird sweetly upon a bough,
sink into indolent remembrance, a melodious trill,
soft as honey in a late summers sun, smooth and yellow,
overcome by the tincture of dampened joy.
Blue notes, falling like downy feathers upon the ground.

Soft, she bathes her hair in the still waters of his eyes,
a reminiscence of deep sighs in bygone seas,
serene waters reflect the silent passage of a dream,
in gentle harmony, to please, in slow time to dance
upon the waters lip, two souls sip, concordantly.

Sweet bird, have you not heard the moons sad lament,
an echo upon a passive tide, serenading the spheres,
the melody of starlight playing upon a moistened mirror.
The sweeping breath of time,
caught between the longing in those tears,
her doleful mourning and the risen hope.

Does the earth fall from grace,
or replace her silver night,
in that first ray of golden light?
The shrouded gown shimmering in valediction.
Or does the heralds triumphal joy,
turn the tide once more, to dance upon new shores,
to recrudesce from forgetfulness into remembrance,
embracing all in progress, a journey into acceptance.

[Epilogue]

A rhapsody swims within a sunlit kiss,
her boughs full grace to swoon;
Children play beneath the fruiting trees,
born into day from out that moon.

© Richard Michael Parker 2012

Adieu

-Adieu-

And so adieu... Adieu my love!
The forest awaits,
and i can already hear your gambolling gait,

your doe eyes caught in the glare of my love.
Why is it the rejected always hear their names
echoing in some distant hallway,
leaving them the blame?
Clever quips that cut them to the core, say more,
than all the silent words that left them on that shore!
Surrendering excuses to all those pin pricked ears,
doors replete with nails, hammered into all those fears,
scratched into the hearts of the unsuspecting,
a penitent reminder? or just another form of rejecting.
So adieu... Adieu my love!
The forest awaits,
and i can already hear your galloping gait,
your hooves springing into the trees,
the faint rustle of a memory playing amongst the leaves.

© Richard Michael Parker 2012

 

Wally

 -Wally-

funny how people camp in your heart
even the arseholes
the ones you never wanted to see again
the trouble makers
the fear and loathing personalities
larger than life
they flit in through an open window
and camp on your sofa
smiling at you from beyond the grave
you remember seeing them on a hillside one day
firing a make believe gun
throwing themselves in a heap just for the fun of it.
Every time you see them, you think
'oh god here we go'.. another mad cap scheme
always landing everyone in trouble
then they spend the next few years
trying to dig everyone out of it again
and though your heart is cold by then
tossing them upon the step and slamming the door
you cant quite help yourself
when they aren't around anymore, thinking back
to that impish grin, and silly laugh
remembering all the hearts they filled in
all the dreams they made real
even if they were bloody stupid
and fought on the wrong side
like a great chess opponent
that has been cast into life
to battle with you through out your own
you hate them, then you love to hate them
then you hate to love them then you just love them
funny how they break into your heart again
after they have gone
sitting on your sofa winking at you slyly
standing around a stove debating nothing in particular
or everything with passion
laughter, anger, joy, misery,
emotions all born from hearts that sang together
sometimes discordantly but together
life, shared and remembered
that brilliant impish little boy
standing on a hillside with his pretend gun
firing into nowhere in particular
shining in the noonday sun
all the world and life ahead of him
then suddenly he's ten again
and you wonder where he's gone.

-Thirst-

-Thirst-

Slinking fleshy plebs melting in the noon day sun,
slipping between the cracks in the soft tar;
Swarthy asphalt dripping in the heat haze.
Ruddy sanguinated faces,
stare dolefully into my eyes as they pass,
beneath the wide brimmed hat,
wondering why they hadn't thought of that,
as the make-up drips in dollops, sweaty drops,
sizzling on baking concrete blocks;
A testament to a man made mendacity,
no shade beneath the lampposts,
only concretized trees to be found.
The squeezing rasps of smoke filled lungs,
gasping in the florid heat, the only sound,
beside the constant cacophony of the traffics beat,
ever watchful in the shallows of the dark river.
A beach, a palm, make me a date,
take me on a journey before its too late,
the sweet slap of salt upon the skin,
the lapping shore,
seething upon the succulence within;
Oh god! the sea... the sea!
I close my eyes and slip into her cool bosom,
coddled between the sand and the sky,
caressed by every lapping crest,
the stroke of fingertips on my simmering chest;
Blue heaven, dissolving into her tranquil arms,
a cool breeze dancing upon the waves,
the slap of her licking tide,
this thirst, quenched, as i languidly rock,
from side, to side.

© Richard Michael Parker 2012

The Moon, she weeps, before the Sun has risen...

The Moon, she weeps, before the Sun has risen...

...And full,
the moon brought weeping in her waning,
yet nothing would hold the dawn,
or the tears of dark complaining;
The scolding bitter words foretold,
the creeping in that light,
for loves true round is bright and bold,
not scorn from out the night.

The echo of a smile,
traversed the starry sky,
and whispered to the willow,
come follow, while i cry,
for all the joy that passes me,
has hung upon a dream,
and none can come to dawn you see,
lest in their souls ive seen,
the clotting of the bluebells call,
the fiery wreath of sorrow,
and none may know of love at all,
without forlorn tomorrow.
A nightingale, regaled with tune,
while wisps of fairy light,
danced beneath enchantments swoon,
in silverine delight.

A lark, broke through the revelry,
and pricked the ears with truth,
the dawn, it shot across the sky,
and broke the spell, forsooth.
The moon she shrank, and hid her face,
while Phoebus rose asunder,
and shot a golden light of grace,
the horses hooves did thunder.
And ever has it been the case,
when pondering the mirror,
remember, loves first dawning trace,
and wipe that surface clearer,
or fall into a magic spell,
that comes from out the dark,
the simulacrum of loves first light,
reflectance of that spark.

For though she weeps and wails,
in the waning of that hour,
her stories are but tales,
told before true love takes power.

© Richard Michael Parker 2012