March 2016
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
with autumn ripeness
a redness quickens the sky
from its lethargy
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
A Way with Roses
eyes arise in bead chant dawn
so long a decadence counting down
rain drops beading on mystery
my head space stretches wider between each
in darkness voices trailing off the decades
now and
at the hour
of our hour
nativity
our other son dead
from birth
nightly tryst
we explore the spaces
in each other
our voices shell-borne doxology of the sea
in darkness fingering mystery
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
Part I
word-flesh
is this
bloom
the in-
carnation
of your yes-
terday
Part II
with the breath
of darkness
the word
becomes
Part III
dawn herald
the wordless prepares
its nest
Part IV
in the East
a still point escapes
its birth cry
the long wait of a falling hush
maid in silence
her eyes brighten
with a word
Part V
'fiat lux'
an empty nest blooms
full of grace
a yes word encircles the snake's hiss
luminous dawn
night's immensity
immanent now
Part VI
a call
quiet enough
to ignore
a womb entombing silence
am o
am as
am at
am en
Part VII
in pure water
a word incarnadine
footfall
by lamp light
the all fleshing out
its path
Part VIII
the sound of
a word barely conceived
utter sense of being
enunciating a 'yes'
bone by bone
Part IX
at this hour
when the word is yet
to be uttered, its breath
barely a whisper
when brooding wings
overshadow you
with a stillness, far beyond
any possible eavesdropping
when your waiting
rises to it,
enfolding
its mystery
when, for all time,
all waiting
comes down
to this:
a sublime silence
putting its roots down
into the earth of you
a cloud
of unknowing, now,
so irreversibly
your flesh
Part X
spring awakening
a hyacinth overflows
night's immensity
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
A Thorny Issue
is this 'rose'
in all its rose-ness?
how it pierces
into my pain?
how it spills dew
down darkening red?
its hint of breath
in its surrender?
to know this
as a rose
in my blood-beat,
is it in the means
to know it?
or is this the end of knowing
in itself?
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
no-go zone no flies on him
as sleep comes the fly
between chopsticks the fly
after all eggs to lay the fly
in the food-court all are the fly
sometimes verb mostly noun the fly
his name born in flight the fly
the fly is patient with your vanity
waiting on a clock time flies
eyeing the ointment the fly
in summer wind the fly blown
remembering Issa the fly
at prayer time the fly
six carcasses in search of a fly
breaking down the issue a fly
before and after love the fly
speeding through the flight of the bumblebee the fly
giving life to the feast the fly
a fly interrupts the music of the spheres
testing wanton boys the fly
no flies on him the fly
splatted in his own reflection the fly
the fly doesn't believe in swat
to fly or not to fly the fly
in flight announcements from the fly
the fly lays down the last words
dotting an i the fly
the fly takes joy from our sorrow
in communing on the dead the fly knows
switched to flight mode the fly's cells
the fly mops up after a drone