Sanctuary

The odour swamped the city streets,
The sweet sick smell of recent rain.
In vain I tried not to inhale
The stale engulfing atmosphere.
The clear, black, eyeless puddles stared
And glared in harsh, reflective light,
As night time cries from far or near
Sprang fearful demons in my mind.
The blind, unyielding concrete giants
Defiantly blocked out the sky,
So high my footsteps seemed to shriek
And speak my name with every pace.
No space to run, no time to hide,
I cried inside and thought of you.

The breaking waves like cameras flash
And splash and kiss our naked feet.
The sweet black sky with timeless lights
Ignites the swaying seething sea,
As we mark out the virgin sand,
And, hand in hand, survey our land
And stand beneath the Goddess bright.
No night has ever smelled so fresh.
Enmeshed in love, our souls explore
This shore where feet have never stepped,
And, swept away in rustling fire,
A choir of angels sweeps us up
With cups of golden harmony.
So we transcend both birth and death,
No breath, no shame, no skin, no truth,
Our youth is ageless as the tide,
Beside the bay, beneath the cliff,
As if this world were newly formed.

I snapped the bolt in splintered wood,
And stood there panting on the mat.
The patterned paper, tired and stained,
Arraigned around my single room,
Formed gloomy shapes around the wall.
The pall of smoke and long-cooked food,
Accrued through countless tenancies,
Hung sleazily o’er linoed floor,
Like wartime gas in trenchant hell.
The yellow moon was struggling
To sing it’s way through dirty glass.
But, as I lay down on my bed,
My head was tendered by the dream
Of teeming waves and supple sand.