In Memory of Sarah King

Had you known your granite headstone
would be flanked by two unknowns
you might have thought it significant;
as yours stands tall like one chosen
compared to their drunken faces.

The tree that shadows where you lay
its sloughed bark being last to view
the moonlights felicitations;
In your day sinewy green with youth
has suffered change like you have.

The proud and leafy head is burnt
broken and lifeless; its blackened
antler branches gouging the sky.
The knuckled roots naked of earth
reshape the form you left behind.

The unknown blistered facing flags
askew upon the biers they mark
wedged between the tree’s webbed feet
is living proof that men must fear.
Names mean nothing to nature here.

Though Earth has held your name upright
slow moving time has wrought its change;
skeletal remains seeking rebirth
remarry to achieve what you could not.
Path to Mecca: world without end.

Published to MasticadoresIndia

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Last Testament of an AK-74

The final words of an assault rifle couldn’t be more honest and chilling. How many more will die knowing only the feeling of murderous metal in their hands?

Comment from Turveen Gill, editor MasticadoresIndia

Tony’s poem speaks volumes about the pitiful truth of war and bloodshed. Weapons handed to youngsters in the name of duty, their lives sacrificed for the supposed good of their nations. But behind the lies and deceit, larger forces are at play, and they climb upon the dead to reach for more power. The final words of an assault rifle couldn’t be more honest and chilling. How many more will die knowing only the feeling of murderous metal in their hands?
Congratulations Tony!

Lay me down, half boy half man,
lay me down, I’m hot.
Burning your hands, I am,
lay me down, I’m shot.
The next round won’t fire.

Warning you, my fresh-faced keeper
you am wanted by the Reaper.

Would have liked to be a plough,
would have made good,
turning earth, here and now.
Would have, and should;

instead, they made me a driller
of bullets, and you my son, a killer.

You praise me, when you’re sleeping,
you call me your lover
but when I’m spitting lead
you call me a fucker.

Crusader, this round’s a bad one,
and I’m overheating. I’m done.
It’ll blow you to kingdom come.

Melting down, I can’t speak now.
Melting down, death trap.
Burning your heart, I am.
Melting down, worthless scrap.

Pray, pity, maker of guns.
Pity the death, of your sons.

Author’s note…

He is a short haired, well-built, who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind the ears, just old enough to buy a round of drinks but old enough to die for his country. He recently left comprehensive school where he was probably, an average student, played some form of sport, drove a ten-year-old rust bucket, and knew a girl that either broke up with him when he left, or swore to be waiting when he returns home. He moves easily to mood music and hip‐hop, and to the rattle of an AK-74 assault rifle.

Ghosts in Breakers Creek

Comment from Turveen Gill of MasticadoresIndia

Tony’s eloquent poetry infuses life and soul into rusted shells of steel and iron, once meant to keep others afloat, now drowned in the tides of time and indifference. Mere objects to some, these ships were once the domain of the living, and carry the emotions and memories from times gone, embedded within their mighty hulls. Haunted or taunted, they rest with countless stories alive inside them.

In muddy mouthed Portsea Creek unwatched
forgotten ships lay beached
dashed and smashed
breathless, cut and bled
weather beaten
picked and broken

by the dockside stooping crane’s bill collecting scrap.

Their final passages over shallows
barnacle crusted bottoms
scraping over shingle
pulled and pushed
by impatient tugs

who know falling tides suckling mud claim tows.

Robbed by landsman
written out of registers
deserted bridges balefully glare
untold memories of purposed lives
men who swore repeatedly

like lovers on heat trumpeting union of engine and steel.

Now their ghosts can be heard
reliving purpose in the night
blowing base horns
heaving anchors
turning their screws seaward

blending rusted hulls to the sea and the never-ending sky.

Portsea creek and its cutting divides the city of Portsmouth from the Hampshire mainland.

Venus Rising

The planets conjunct, portending his birth bade us search on…….

We found him there in Bethlehem
as the charts foretold but not with ease.
Not one well to do house of Arab or Jew
Roman or Greek had birth between them,
no infants male or female could be found
born that auspicious day; or women
nigh to deliver under the star bright sky.

The planets conjunct, portending his birth
bade us search on; visit caravan, tent,
Inn and stable. Divers places all to no avail
until on tavern steps, feet begging to rest
we overheard a shepherd speak,
of how his shelter was occupied by two
well dressed Jews. Man, woman and a child just born.

Yes! –and here he hurried to tell his kin
such peace as lulled his sheep to sleep
and such Light about despite the moonless night
that quite amazed him. A wine skin for his guest
he took, and his sister with a knowing look
on being told, insisted she also would journey back.
He talked of voices of unseen guests.

At once we realised the town full – where else?
Our profession advised; the tavern temptation dismissed,
we had the shepherd guide, our bodies begging for rest.
The pathway hard, our camels bad tempered,
the cold wind swept hills unforgiving.
We talked of turning back, yet could not agree,
urged on by power greater than the body’s sap.

Wearily we arrived, not a moment to soon
and knew at first sight, our year long journey
cross sea, mountain, desert, river and plain
was justified. Our faith upheld, the purpose
before us in the bedding straw, a child
born Venus; the power on Earth to Love.
His eyes; the majesty of the Monarch of Time,

Our strength returned quite unexpectedly, as if
we ourselves had the child’s unlimited power.
In his grasp we placed our gifts, Myrrh, Gold
and Frankincense. We gave news of Herod,
Spoke highly of the child. Held our tongues
in check on futures and bar that journey soon to be
would say this and only this –

“His word and deed would long be sung in praise
ere Jupiter and Saturn swung the sky
and Man in darkness has the voice to cry
Hosanna, Herald of the peace to come!”

Slaughter

this poem brings to light the order of existence, the rules of supremacy. The qualities and characteristics of a living being sets their place in the pattern of life. Do intellect and emotions make humans superior to other species? Is it the strong against the weak, the voluble against the mute?

Terveen Gill of Masticadoresindia writes…. this poem brings to light the order of existence, the rules of supremacy. The qualities and characteristics of a living being sets their place in the pattern of life. Do intellect and emotions make humans superior to other species? Is it the strong against the weak, the voluble against the mute? Let’s not forget that humans are beasts that change their natures according to convenience. Beware!

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And their vacant eyes;

to me dull, relative

brother-like, unto my blood.

Lesser and labelled more the beast

for being servant,

yet I fear

I fit my moulding them

too perfectly.

To moo 

and peer moronically alive 

cross thicket hedge, un-decides

the place of puppet and the master,

their voices turn

the thicket’s harsh of prickles

and point their spears to Man.

I cannot divide the poet

from the brain

let reason coldly justify,

will not take the pound of flesh;

less my Alice

lose the Elohim of Seeing.

Galactically

my one-eyed prism of awareness 

in their field 

sees acceptance as  

instrument of Right Order

in the temporal world.

It takes the fence of our divide

and blends the prickles too 

the slavered green of changing grass

and into focus

brings us less our lying tongue

to the point of light.

The Ribbon of a Madman’s’ Weave

The condemned man is making a statement of purpose, giving birth to his soul (the ribbon of wise) record, which cannot be extinguished by death. The term pigmy bowman is used figurately speaking to describe his captors as hunters of little importance. This symbolic poem poses the question is condemned man mad – or is he a voice of truth? What the poem seeks to do is highlight that small minority of people whose understanding of life and purpose is radically different from others and represents a threat to the powers that be. Except in rare instances the death of such individuals are not recorded to our history -yet their presence whether recorded as madness or divinely inspired has and will continue to change the development of mankind. T.S. Eliot understood that when he said humankind cannot bear too much reality.
Note: the number 8 is the symbol of regeneration.

Granite Sliver
Arrowhead I see you spurned
by Pigmy Bowman
yet you suffice and scathe
the greening mortar…
Mind that delibly records
attempt
my show and outward personality.
This ribbon of a madman’s weave
is the tape of all my saying
small
border thin and compass hand
the clutch and stay
Fingers….
Placing granite slabs to face
their palms of tungsten flesh
toward the shortened eye.
Yet soon
the tongue of this my wise and scrawl
became as fever pitch
and heavy as the hammer held
halfway in arc
deliberating
as the mother would pressing
down urging fingers
in the lock of Isis eye
to the agony that is mother
And now is mine.
Is birth!
The warder
had me carry seven days in labour
waiting…
before the fertilising seed became
and his eye perceived
the ribbon of wise inflicted
with my word and writing.
He stared
examined even to the letter head
lost in mergence to the polished stone
turning, smiled….
Father dimly smiling through the stain of glass
in the
you can never tell
about face….
He left and straight informed the governor.
The hammer struck
the child full born umbilical cut
began to cry….
My eyes were full of faces
demanding
outstretching palms of tungsten flesh.
Their right they screamed
is feeding first
why was I no askance waiting?
They spread upon my word
the slime
and their cement that matched the slab
and then..
Fingers turned upon themselves
they commanded-
called my clutching hand to lease
my living Scribe
this chipping sliver of their granite.
They took.
…. that morning after
before the ashen face
nether time of wanting day whilst less the night
there stood eight mourners
neath the sky bowl blooding red
in their caps of prison grey
and the circle turning tribute
was the Sower spreading quicklime.
And in my cell
There stood another
waiting for the shining mortar’s greening mould.

A Day in the Night of the Walking Sleeper

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Ah! The pain
the wanting all over dilemma
sober reach out
sweet grape of confusion;
a duchess spread out on her savage’s bed
willing her blood
red to the lips of her lackeying male,
neither caring the speech or the stain of his whip.
Taking the seventh
of her seconding breaths at the weep of secretion.

Comes now the concentration;
the apex of arc,
the long-drawn laugh of the physical man.
The peak,
then the plummet of an up thrown stone;
extinguishing fire.
Then the cold
Darkness of Earth
and then the winter of a why gloom face
frosting the smile of devil cares not
into peaceful beginning;
a child in the low of the arc,
weak murmur of problem.

And yet in end it begins;
in the no start never finish real of the spark,
in the still heard gasp
mute echo of Psi fleeing the white.
In the good die young
the crude soldier damning
as with the devils and the un-vowed nun;
the same design.
All blind fisherman in the day-night
casting pearls
from the corporeal banks of unsettled sublimity.

It manifests
as harpoon with a white heat line;
the strongest plus and minus seed.
All charge of the instrument cannon,
Time traveller
to the state of perpetual climax; there
as the spear of the deepest descent.
The finder receiving
the arranged and irrevocable choice
the twin of sex;
Satan-Father coalesced.

A Shepherd’s Tale

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Consider, discuss, decide as you must. A boy
of nine I was, given to play? Yes-
but impatient to grow. A minder of sheep
and goat, not quite a shepherd, you understand.
Arab Jewish Samaritans, lowborn we were
under Roman rule in the land of Moses.

Tent dwellers; nomadic in the Way of the Sea
we moved our flocks from pasture to fold
over plain, hill slope, through mountain pass.
Self-sufficient, our mixed blood had no ties
in towns and we were shunned in cities.
At that time there was much disquiet,

camel borne travellers would hail us
seeking safe passage to Damascus
anxious for news, telling of homes destroyed
of livestock lost. Herod by the sea of salt
in hope of cure, still covetous of power.
Riots and Roman soldiers everywhere.

It was the hottest time of year -too hot.
My father the elder shepherd of our band
decreed we leave the plain of Armageddon
skirt the Galilean hills and drive
to Mount Carmel and fold there in cool caves
the pasture good, the Kishon river close.

Unusual for time of year it rained unexpectedly.
Wet and freshened I explored cave and gully
gaping at rock paintings, sling shooting
hawk foolish enough to target our flock.
When night fell there was talk about events
on the highway, riots in Sepphoris.

Mahmud was our Rabbi, a Samaritan
Who taught us boys by rote from a scroll.
He would disappear for days on end,
reappear warning of wolves, thieves in hiding,
bringing herbs, fruits, figs, salt preserved fish,
feet, hands, and body bruised and bleeding.

But not this time -from the tomb of Rachel
he had seen columns of soldiers, pillars of smoke,
people fleeing carnage, a forest of crosses.
He arrived much distressed. Nearby, he said,
there is a camel camp of Persian men,
star diviners, here for some special event.

So deep the dreamless sleep I slept, when roused
I complained of being woken. My father’s
command to dress was brusque and impatient.
Mother soothingly said be quick no time to rest.
Sheep and goat were want to break the folds
and strange lights had appeared in the heavens.

Girding mantle, grasping staff, sling, and pipe
I joined the men grouped around a fireside
where Mahmud, repeated yet again
to disbelieving ears, of a vision given
in prayer, how an angel of the lord appeared
announcing birth of a messiah to all men.

How he had run to the Kishon River
to impart this news to the Persian men,
and they, exclaiming in response said this
was the proof, the final proof they sought.
And without delay broke camp and headed east.
The river shining phosphorus in the night.

Did I hear a voice as we knelt in prayer?
For when Mahmud said follow me, I knew
the angel would want us shepherds go!
Find the birthplace, give tribute to the child.
More in fear I think, of unearthly things,
Claiming protection of the women folk,

some herders stayed with the folded flock.
For me this was adventure, side by side
my father leading with Mahmud we trod
the Magi’s tracks. An uphill beaten track
Nazorean’s often trod beyond Bethlehem
to Elijah’s tomb. In silent awe we came

to where the light was strongest; there halted
by a well-dressed Jew, then let pass. Mahmud
having yet again spoken of his vision.
We entered a cave, two donkeys tethered
looked at us curiously –and there
in a lamp lit area no bigger than a tent

a babe in swaddling clothes lay in the arms
of a woman and before them, three Magi.
Also, an Arab woman, an older sage-like
Jew and a fearsome looking man whose smile
belied his looks. The air perfumed –a scent
so strong my head whirled with feelings.

We knelt on the hard stone in a presence
of many persons unseen; God’s angels
I know them now to be. We presented
lamb and kid –the best of the litters
we had, and in turn were given sweet wine.
Yet I was not allowed, and she, seeing this

beckoned me to drink from a leather gourd
that hung from the cradle bed, a sweet
warming juice. I drank gazing as I did upon
the new-born baby’s face. Then not asked
but sure of rightness I began to play my
shepherd’s pipe. With eyes closed he smiled,

as if somehow, he had heard me play before.
The tune was new to me and full of majesty,
my fingers moving my brain asleep
I lost all sense of time, only just aware
of his mother’s happy face; the attention
of all that were in that holy place.

As dawn began to show we took our leave.
My father with pride made much of my tune.
There was curious talk about the older man,
was he her husband? Why birth in a cave?
They were not poor, and the Magi had
given gold! There had been talk of Herod,

more so the riots and of Rome’s steel hand.
Yet for all this talk as we returned, the paths
aglow, I sensed my nomadic life would never
be the same again. We had gained in status
been received as equals –us lowborn
shepherds; and feted at a godlike event!
Yet despite this, seeds of doubt took root.

The holy book lost its magic -I questioned
why Jews and Gentiles warred, sacrificial lambs,
the militancy of God. Instead, I dreamed of union
in remembrance of the child, believing
he would one day share our daily bread
forever hopeful that our souls might wed.

Consider, discuss, decide as you must
the burden of proof is a human need.
My shepherd’s tale, straightforwardly said
is to you a plea -that in the body’s Keep
your soul should no longer groan and weep
but celebrate the Love that is Heavens Bread.

November Knives

Photo by Elias Tigiser on Pexels.com
Listen as you read!

November knives
are sharp from rarely cutting trees
with ice
keen to spread the Autumn still
disorderly
too dead leaf mounds and twisted pyres
of broken branches dying.
Angry with the suddenness of death
upon the long-life summer
still gestating seeds
incubating the morrow’s generation.

No respecter steel
of the horny scale stern stemmed anticipate
killer of sweeting herbs laid out of nurseries.
Their strike is totality
the savage straight and understood
unshackled slave
the Left of Azoth’s* court ordained
Murder’s license.
The cyanide of breathing green and making red
writ with freedom and the blessing.

Their respect the reaching hand
smite upon the pale cheek
down-flecked, small bird,
lion hearted solitaire
late and lonely from the crowded nest.
Nelson eye
mistaking promised land
left in folly for the cockfight.

Permission
now the pipe through which the blowing
water freezing
spear-like knives
aim immutably their changing numbers.
Now the form and clearly seen
disguise upon the ugly cripple-noise of air.
Now the Magi calling
spell upon the freezing sphere
for the maiden
less her fall-a-leafing cares
and the pretty snow comes charging
sleeked
venomous with wedding fever.

The negative of burning trees
is born in fire beneath the blackened Guy
scarce the single six
shrivels the dry exhausted
breast of summer
and defers the passing pagan night
to favour dawn a frosted coat.
And is quick
in taking close the negligee
and becoming Charon’s wife.

And yet the Phoenix rebirths
diversifies the one intent so purpose
as the Spaniard
blanket hand before his steel
tricks by sleight of hand
the promise death.
Turns the unresolved
by resolution hand upon itself
to suicide and school again.

And so, the zenith of the black
does not appear
will not give the flawless jewel
beginning’s chance
less the cause of all the living dies
for never having death.

©TonyAshenden

Azoth is the essential agent of transformation. It is the name given by ancient alchemists to Mercury, the animating spirit hidden in all matter that makes transmutation possible. As the Universal Life Force, Azoth is not only the animating energy (spiritus animatus) of all manifest forms of life, but also the inspiration and enthusiasm that moves incarnation intelligence. In the cosmos, and within each of us, Azoth is the mysterious evolutionary force responsible for the relentless drive towards physical and spiritual perfection. The line, ‘the Left of Azoth’s court ordained’ analogies the Universal Life Force as a Monarch, and the court of many forms which it manifests -all of which are appointed, and subject to the needs of the ‘Monarch’. Describing the court as having a Left (and a Right) purpose is giving it a negative (as opposed to positive) action. The Universal Life Force is a creator having the power to make and break, cause or complete, begin and end. The power of Life and Death. The perpetuating cycle of the Phoenix opposes the Left of Azoth’s court.

The Seeking Winds of May

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Down the winding lane I walk
hid by hedge and under bough
that skirl their leafy sounds anyhow
in the seeking winds of May.

Going nowhere with a purpose
talking secrets with my feet
marching to the cyclic beat
of natural worlds at play.

Pausing at the path smooth head
over which the white clouds scud
stopping, watching cows chew cud
hear the dark horse neigh.

Ambition-less, I am asexual
just conscious of my nose
down I go where the river flows
to greet the end of day.

Not wanting less than everything
I sit rod-less on its banks
eyeing the silver fishes’ shanks
oblivious of time.

Then someone overshadows me
Bow in hand, feminine and fey
and about me She draws a line
in the seeking winds of May.

©TonyAshenden

Love’s Weaver

Photo by Roxanne Shewchuk on Pexels.com

The weaver bending arms of twisted knotted yarns
serves the loom and the loom a pattern makes.
And bent upon the stool, his eyes direct upon the thread
between weft and weave, his vision skips.

The shuttle smooth moves through the shed
to the clack of treadles pressed;
feeling more than seeing, every bone reactive
To the rise and falling weaving shafts.

The sun arcs through the window overhead
dying unnoticed in the west and in the cool
unseen light of night, clouds arise to hide the stars.
Bobbins twirling empty are replaced.

He labours not for kudos or for rates.
As every yarn entwines it speaks;
heddle and treadle selecting straighten out
and the loom alive a drumming music makes.

Star and sun dance light within his bobbing head;
the weavers’ needs are met, and the soul unfurls.
Love that has a thousand-silent sounding ee’s
Spins on to weave for all eternity.

©TonyAshenden

Writ of Habeas – Corpus

[A writ to a jailer to produce a prisoner in person and to state the reasons of detention]

Soldier do your eyes have the lights that flash
out of tanks in the face of the snub
of a terrorist gun and in they shine
when his message of soft lead erupts
from the lips of a shimmering barrel?

Do they reanimate a frantic heart
sick of your Karma, loosen the bowel;
trigger the playback of loving regrets
before the balance of blood is lost,
spilling to the ground with slivers of lead?

Or soldier, did you die the night before
in Believer’s Heaven, locked in the crotch
of a dark haired Houri, filched so you thought
from underneath Mohammed’s slippered feet;
virgin and wanting your dissolution?

She perhaps, taking sap that trees the nerves
before the five – first? Aids to earth exchanged
for the bright sight of a plum on the breast!
No doubt your bloodshot eyes and rising smoke
wring a coupling promise from that climax.

You’re a crime soldier, you embarrassed
the breach – you caused it release
in black chamber the redness that wept
the no time that takes time, sputter of pain;
unrepentant, the lover at the head.

Soldier, the lipstick of blood is smudging
your collar, face twists like a child’s’ first clay.
Can you now see who judged and passed sentence
on your innocence? Your slide is the breast.
Soft lead, the mat of your down flowing river.

© TonyAshenden

The Rose that beggars Fantasy

Listen as you read!

My love what cheerless world asleep
in towered keeps and half-lit streets,
waking dream on sullen skies ridged grey;
Lay waste land and cause the grey weird sea
chill the heart of you and me?

What world awoken from dreams
of meadows, water mills, and painter’s scenes,
would tolerate the angered sky, the leaf shorn tree;
the frost that blights the first-born bud, above
the half-closed mist born eye of love?

Oath of God would life not be worth living
were love not rooted deep in giving?
Selfish worlds are drunk, dreaming fantasy;
such men are never found in sight
crossing borders of the Christos Light.

Soft rose whose petal fusing heart will give
attiring the sweetest heart to ever live,
deliverance in the dawning day will come
refusing the permanence of death, and arise
to prove the cause of all the living never dies.

©TonyAshenden

The Ribbon of a Madman’s’ Weave

Photo by Jimmy Chan on Pexels.com
Listen as you read!

Granite Sliver
Arrowhead I see you spurned
by Pigmy Bowman
yet you suffice and scathe
the greening mortar…
Mind that delibly records
attempt
my show and outward personality.

This ribbon of a madman’s weave
is the tape of all my saying
small
border thin and compass hand
the clutch and stay
Fingers….
Placing granite slabs to face
their palms of tungsten flesh
toward the shortened eye.

Yet soon
the tongue of this my wise and scrawl
became as fever pitch
and heavy as the hammer held
halfway in arc
deliberating
as the mother would pressing
down urging fingers
in the lock of Isis eye
to the agony that is mother
And now is mine.

Is birth!

The warder
had me carry seven days in labour
waiting…
before the fertilising seed became
and his eye perceived
the ribbon of wise inflicted
with my word and writing.

He stared
examined even to the letter head
lost in mergence to the polished stone
turning, smiled….
Father dimly smiling through the stain of glass
in the
you can never tell
about face….

He left and straight informed the governor.

The hammer struck
the child full born umbilical cut
began to cry….
My eyes were full of faces
demanding
outstretching palms of tungsten flesh.
Their right they screamed
is feeding first
why was I no askance waiting?

They spread upon my word
the slime
and their cement that matched the slab
and then..
Fingers turned upon themselves
they commanded-
called my clutching hand to lease
my living Scribe
this chipping sliver of their granite.

They took.

…. that morning after
before the ashen face
nether time of wanting day whilst less the night
there stood eight mourners
neath the sky bowl blooding red
in their caps of prison grey
and the circle turning tribute
was the sower spreading quicklime.

And in my cell

There stood another
waiting for the shining mortar’s greening mould.

© TonyAshenden

The Creator’s Confession


There are some words in this poem you may not be familiar with. In order of mention they are as follows:
Hur: Is the name given to the inner core of planet Earth -the primary source of matter and mind root from which Earth developed.
Aster: Is the name of a large planet in the Milky Way which exploded and gave birth to our solar system.
Fohat: Is the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. During the process of manifestation, it is the cosmic energy which produces differentiation of primordial cosmic matter to form the different forms of consciousness, therefore Fohat is the link between Spirit and Matter, subject and object.
The twice & thrice born person addressed by the creator in the last stanza should not be regarded as a pattern of reincarnation, rather they describe a process of soul reformation. Twice-born is earthly reformation, Thrice-born is heavenly reformation. This kind of reformation can otherwise be defined as ‘the camel able to pass through the eye of a needle’.
 
And so to the poem….
You can listen to it here….

The story I am about to tell began
before the first ammonite hardened its shell,
before your blackheart mountains were rivers of red
and swims of clear water had not yet fallen as rain;
before even Hur was cast into Hell
and the soporific dust that held prison his might
had yet to be formed from the celestial storm
of Aster’s last embrace with the stars.

Where Love was lost….

Love is forever becoming; the moment of life
poised unto death, born in the heart
existing apart from all that you know.
Priceless, unreachable, mysterious Self.

The rarest of jewels….

The story I tell begins before tongue,
before the screech, the roar, and the hissing
of elements embattled to make of themselves
creational worlds and Fohat had yet to cause
It has no meaning to you twice-born
until I caused life to know death.
After the cooling Earth formed crust
and the sulphurous clouds ceased their circle,
there I took lung from the water and filled it with air.
After cooling, and the first trees had breathing leaves

souls were born….

Light encrusted with matter in hope of Salvation,
Fish, fowl, amphibia, and latterly beasts.
Yes, they were soul born; amoebic hopes
that by tempest, fire, and the heat of ice
evolved by birth and death in every season.
Taking as when taking must; leaving be,
not having when having was no need.
Yes, I was well pleased with progress
however, success has its own undoing,
Light separated from the Seeds of Soul.
I should have known, identifying Myself
with creation -the cause is of Me
and the cause is unrepentant.

The cause became two -two became three
Mind became Matter, Matter became mind….

And so, twice-born, soon to be thrice,
many times born of my wheel forming heaven
and sired by the captive imprisoned Hur,
there’s no end to your becoming until I cease.
Light and Matter will then achieve peace.

   
    
 

On a Picture of a Nude Reclining

Listen as you read!

The sheen of folded draperies
warm resplendent curves of your bronze
bright body. Your smile an ever
present remembrance, suggest
joyous eyes that never weep.

Through the meagre apertures
of half-hid windows, blue skies burst
and grow their light upon your breast,
the stilled image grasping at my loins
evoking half-lit fantasies

never dreamt of in your head.
Your strange unnatural silence
rather than offending, draws me
trance-like to your wood framed
world. My staring -your silence

causes the consciousness I feel
to achieve in this encounter
the bewilderment of knowing;
you in the painting, the self twice known
I in my shell. a pearl-like stone.

© TonyAshenden

The Water Mill

Listen as you read -for your enjoyment!

Many times have I sat by the water mill
in the damp grass and in the dry
feasting my body upon the wheel splash
slaking my senses;
worshipping buttercup crowns and primrose groves,
my mind free to landscape and sky dream
knowing that havens are hard to come by;
impermanent places.

Coming here when the seasons are fair
and the beech woods sing with bird talk;
caressing my ear with their melodies
giving soul reformation.
Observing the change of winter scarred trees,
knuckles of soft bark renewing torn limbs
the buds of new boughs appearing;
without proclamation.

It saddens me to see the mill is deserted
the paddles seized by chickweed and gorse,
the stream gentle and ebbing away
through watercress meadows.
The miller who might have been head of the stream,
Keeper and Dam Builder has
powdered his hand between the mill stones,
the last yield of flour having long since departed.

The curious have bought the tack of cob horses,
Coriander grows in the cart ruts.
The gate is unhinged
and the mill purse empty of men.
I see green lichen eat the smooth stone
oak lintels sag over moss covered frames,
and I am entranced by design,
composition and colour –and wonder

what plants have rooted and grown
in this silent omnivorous world,
that will seize on my house, empty my purse
and feed on my bone?

© TonyAshenden

The Soma Samaritan

Listen as you read -or just listen!

Last night my instant mind
wraith like uncoiled its luminous head
and like all good mysteries
left my body in bed, warm to the skin of my spouse.
Unsuspected left the house, passing
through walls and other substantial things
seeking no byway to celebrate freedom,
vision only for the ubiquitous presence
of a troubled friend.

Finding the dark and humourless shell
where colours are pale, and sounds deep
as if heard from a well.
In this house where the cry escaped
and reached my ears beside my mate
I see a soul in hibernation,
a maelstrom of movement
in which may be seen pain
of intruders eschewing the Spirit,
a legion of wants suppressing need
the ache of a body seeking to balance
in favour of peace, no matter the price
or the length of the lease.

I am radiation a golden cascade
a silver-winged creature, sensing
soothing the troubled dark shade.
Cleansing, creating, and fulfilling a vow
commanding the sepulchre revive its undead.
Holding the breathing unconscious sweet soul
until life brightness stems from the spine
and flows from the head.

United therein, harmony prevails
purpose and will rebirthed
she is no longer alone.
I dissolve from her presence
and seek my own bed.
Returning to self through sickness and doubt
lying awake, afraid and diminished
a frantic heart upon a humourless bed,
until music from the night shores
comforts my head
and I sleep the sleep of one who is dead.

© TonyAshenden

Senilità

Feel free to just listen, or listen as you read!

Senilità
(As a man grows older…)

Cold turn my putty blue
and let me leave
my sorry self-appointed imposition
state of Senilità,
this shadow of my footstep fear
Frankenstein of my conceit
of whom I aped in sweeter note
as the satire sword
when I was prentice of this night.

Tis the bruise upon my apple fallen,
Brutus to my Caesar,
the malformed child made conscious.
And by my expertise
I have the life-long-game of chess
made stalemate
whose colours now reveal
no substance fiction
belly laughing shallow truth.

All my fear is Senilità
a thousand-tickling tales of doubt
the smallest part of virile statement
easy come by.
The battery of baseless facts that made me man
are the powdered leaves
of a selfish summer.
Now the water of my close
is mixed
the question of you do after death
has burnt this mess of pottage
and shaped me as the begging bowl.

Senilità
You shame of all the Y man sought
accepted scar
and the weeping priest
mortal made immortal bishop,
Pharisee of double mean-less vision.
To the monastery of children
there confess with ease
nonchalance of being server
to the weeping priest
of being Senilità.

Here by the speak of unripe fact
sick the swelling puffing yeast
the husk of all your learning
home to Babel
and name it
grandeur of the Pharisee.
Let your toothless cringing face
be the symbolled skull
cross-boned school of level thought
and one horizon.

No -never
I cannot as tears
as negative I am
the six-aged one life yes man
cry wolf again,
charge the greater part of me
to war.
I be the autumn of the shortest summer
making where to start
my cyclopaedic book of error.

© TonyAshenden