Upon Argent Eyrie

High silver-draped ancient crags

slip down to an ink-nectar sea

that reaches up with foam-fingers

toward the peaks at even-tide.

The sullen hoar-frost hermit moon

shakes his round curmudgeon head

and turns away with a silent scowl

while the frigid but laughing stars

dare to cajole the falcon-kindred

nesting secure upon Argent Eyrie.

Through sleepy-slits, the raptor young

peer out from within a dream-stupor

upon a multitude of glittering eyes

leering down from the night-darkness,

rodent-spectres come to haunt them

in their slumbering, or so it seems

to the little ones who, with bellies full,

shudder under the privileged warmth

of maternal-wings, and hidden there

close tight their bright and tender eyes.

Ennui

The murmur of conversations

between white walls, the

half-second silent pauses,

the bland delicacies, the opening

and shutting of eating mouths,

the subconsciously audible

breathing and much shuffling of

feet, the eyes puffy under harsh

light, the burst of outrageous

laughter over some half-hearted

humor, the still and vapid air,

the sighs.

Late Morning

A withered woman sweeping the floor.

      An open window full of autumn light.

The distant ringing of many bells.

      Dry leaves rattling on crooked limbs.

Eggshells in mud outside the door.

      Crows squabbling over a slice of bread.

A cool wind bending tall grasses.

      A glimpse of grey in the western sky.

Foreign Land

[From The Songbook of Sgt. Robert Jameson, RAF c. 1920]

Waves upon the sand.
Don't be such a foreign land.
You speak but I don't understand.
Waves upon the sand.

I look into your eyes.
I see diamonds fall from summer skies.
Above the waves a seagull flies.
I look into your eyes.

And it's so beautiful to me.
It's all so beautiful to me.

Something has begun.
Underneath a golden sun.
Rivers to the ocean run.
Something has begun.

And it's so beautiful to me.
It's all so beautiful to me.

You take me by the hand
and lead me to a foreign land.
You speak and now I understand.
You take me by the hand.

And it's so beautiful to me.
It's all so beautiful to me.

O what dark wind

O what dark wind worries these funeral leaves

and sets them rattling under a scowling moon?

The most withered and aged tremble and fall

when touched by the cold wraiths of autumn

who drift unseen through the shuddering weeds

to bring fragrant sighs from the dying world

and to wail with banshee voices in the night.