The traveler enters a paradise garden created in an alternative Genesis where the we first encounter "the asp of desire". As in the Bible a fatal bite from the forbidden tree of knowledge sees expulsion and degradation "in the world and of the world".
The journey moves to a railway station where the traveler encounters further worldly revelations and bizarre characters makes "resolutions" and vows to be "in the world but not of the world".
However, the "asp of desire" is never far away and we enter a section of "lamentations" as the traveler struggles with lust and sexual desire before order is restored and a return to an ordered garden is possible.
If I had to pick a favorite work this is it...
The Garden at Dawn
Sunlight streams across the
garden as it stirs to life
Warmth kisses every flower
caressing it to bloom
Like a mind opening to
higher levels of consciousness
Bees work the flowers
Swifts swirl in the air
chasing shadows
Treasures wait to be found
where rainbows touch the earth
All is well in the garden
The garden is a womb of life
Even when it sleeps
And darkness envelops
stately order
Each flower knows the light
will come
Sunlight will stream out
into darkness chasing it away
And all will be well in the
garden
Dream Looping
Tiredness always steals my best words
The narrative of all the small grey hours
When I twist and turn in fitful sleep
In my mind, between stray thoughts
Questions wander, like horses
Swimming through alpha waves
As I silently seek a resolution
Pictures peep through the inky veil
Quaint Technicolor films
Play like children of the night
Scurrying between herbaceous borders
Wrestling inside, birthing dreams
I lay picturing your usual smile
So familiar, yet not the same at all
Pulling covers taut, everything is lost
As I return to realms of R.E.M, forget
Like an aviator for ever dream looping
Back to an invisible starting point
Titan Arum
Inhaling the full-glut stench of him
Flower corpse-lord of jungle realm
He graces us with his mighty spread
Of gargantuan stinking petal-bloom
The yawning chasm of his head
Foul interruption, spreading wide
Bloated with the scent of death
From beauty horror breaking forth
Aping these sad twisted forms
On forest floor we’ve left corrupt
Attracting fly from bloom to bloom
All gorged full-heavy on the dead
Compare nature’s magnificence
Revolting flower, jungle bred
With a soldier’s smart butchery
Left behind with cross unread
Hail titan king on tropic throne
No stamen can so tell as this
The journey of life’s flesh and bone
To the corruption of rot’s vile abyss
Frogs on the Dniepr
A sticky calm cloys
the steppe in its humid embrace
As we lay in our
trench listening to the joyous croaking
Of frogs on the
Dniepr
Nature’s subtlety
precedes our storm of steel splinters
That will tear the
sky apart a few hours from now
The frogs carelessly
rehearse love’s timeless opus
Inflating, deflating
their amphibian throats
They will remain
long after we’ve gone
Long after the
volcano of violence has roared
And the earth
erupted, throwing itself skyward
Frogs will still be
here croaking on the Dniepr
A thinker ponders rolled up thoughts
Lying in the palm of a hand
A thinker sits on a rock in Africa
Chanting “I think therefore I am”
A thinker asks too many questions
Can’t be heard for his many words
A thinker babbles Godward like Babel
But would rather soar like a bird
A thinker wishes he could reach you
But we’ve long been too far apart
A thinker would be a lover
A skipping stone on your hollow heart
Afterwards
Time to hammer a soft white nail into your breast
Thickening your voice to a tar pit consistency
Time to rhythmically suck your way to death
Balancing a thousand chemicals on your tongue
Time for me to beg a kiss, a kiss, a kiss
Beg you to bind me in nicotine union
Time for you to inhale me deep within your chest
Then thoughtfully expel me between pouting lips
The Garden at Dusk
It was never about things
But about emotions
As I tend my garden
Of heartfelt prose
I’ve always known
Everything is transitory
Holding memories carefully
Lifting every delicate
Flower to my lips
I inhale the fragrant rose
Of each cherished moment
And let its scent fill my
lungs
Before gently releasing it
And watching time
Gracefully fall back
Into its rightful place
Mark Harris has asserted his
right under
Section 77 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
To be identified as the author
of this work.
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