The Ghosts of Past Lives

Like footfalls and hammocks

And snails and cured salmon,

The hoof, then the roe flits undertow,

To the peen of the hammer’s red, red ends

Old gypsum and christening

The newest glad tiding to

Bestow, ill-flavored pathways

Marked by delicately placate hues

Fairy dust and prawn shells

And magicians in stairwells,

That knew the words,

 Yet to stain the cellar’s dwelt

Chamois and lilies

So softly knitted, giddily we

Sip, upon cola and sloe gin, fizziest

When beside tall grass and silted sand

                                    Where a tomorrow’s yet been dealt

                                                      And a future’s yet to dry

A presence can be present, even for the ghosts of our past lives

The Gauntlet of Time

Incisor

         Gauntlet’s thrown

Trails beyond the coil’s might

Tightly strung is carnelian’s light

         Trans-lucent milky

The crystals made from chalcedony

Impostor, so be found, deep inside, shies the arch of trothed pass

         To one’s self, insolence retraced,

                  The fiend, which feasts on veils of glass

Is nothing more than a past-life erased

Tapestries fade

And new draperies take their place

Time’s sand sifts though

But only if you forget to reverse its flow