You are, the iridescent butterfly

With your wing-swish, who stirs the gentle ether,

 Creates the draft that braves the Caribbean trade-winds,

And kisses me with the warm sweet sea breeze off the coastal reef.

O:

Me, the cheeky Clown Fish,

With my tail-swish, who moves the aquatic,

Creates the wave that braves the mighty ocean whitecaps,

And caresses your tired feet with the warm salt water of the great Oceans.

O:

Love, our love, is the innocent dormant acorn,

That will create the next great Oak,

And push the yakking pines aside, to stand proud and alone,

Head-high, boughs wide, and shelter our children from the world’s soak.

:

As long as butterflies fill the sky,

And fish swim the sea,

Our Oak will stand proud,

And under its shade we’ll be.

As overused as a tired cherished sweater.

Lost in a madding crowd like

The whisper in a bloody heaving arena.

Tired, commercialised, slack!

As hollow as the old fallen Oak

Surrounded by a forest of ignorant Spruce Pine,

As far as the eye can stretch.

Bereft,

A cold breeze amongst empty trees, merely a rustle and gone.

How can a word so worn and smashed do justice to the depth of feeling

For you, my soul mate – so entwined into my psyche?

Mine own psyche to be consumed by mine own psyche.

Cannibalised – sliced, diced, consumed by the rolling monster.

Lost in the serene orderly clutter,

To be scavenged like a corpse to vultures.

‘

And there I’ll be pacified for hours by Willow-the-Wisp,

Or turn up for work without my trousers, or

Give up quite stoic the turmoil of the rational world.

And in my bliss I’ll find solace in the rational calm

Of my neat madness.

‘

Please, Grandpa, I don’t want to be one of Nietzsche’s Sleepies,

Nor engulfed by the frenzied crazies of Heracles and lose all I hold dear.

What scares me most, Grandpa, is to fall -

Fall beyond the slate cliff and into the inky depths of Plath’s bell jar,

To walk with you unequal.

‘

Reach out for me, Grandpa; stay with me as I cling on to all I find dear.

Beat away those eyes, hands, and black fingernails that claw at my body.

Press the egging echoes that rise like bubbles of sulphurous air from my deep

Conscience. Save me, Grandpa! Save me from mine own mind,

Before I fall to its simple allure.

‘

Grandpa, I beg, never leave my side. Let your spirit hold me close.

I feel the day approach where I lose my desire to stay.

And that time will see the moment when I forego all my chattels for -

The quietness, the sleepiness, the deepest despair,

That fate whispers as my true destiny.

Think of the ocean.

No, the sea.

Off a near Caribbean island.

Okay, right, now think of a boat.

A sailing boat; with silver shrouds and high mast.

And just you and me aboard.

Now, Princess, think of the night.

A moonless night with an army blanket sky,

With glitter silver sprinkled across it.

Perfect!

You’re at the helm with me.

I’m holding you tight, keeping the ocean’s chill at bay.

Listen, smell, a breeze – soft,  sweet,

Off the sleeping reef,

Wow!

Look up.

The stars:

~

Choose one; I’ll have it cut for a golden ring thet you might wear; with pride of place.

The uncontrollable smile that tightens the cheekbones

      and fills the body with a Shakespearian sonnet;

         On a Mills and Boon swoon.

‘
And yet its source is amazing! Electro-chemical autonomous response

   to the things around us that we are destined – nay programmed – to feel.

      One kiss and we are filled with a painter’s determination;

         Our purpose to connect, our destiny to replicate.

‘

It’s not that I don’t feel it.

   It’s not that I don’t understand it.

      It’s simply that the mechanics dulls the sparkle of the miracle;

        That nests within the scape of affectionate resolute wealth.
‘

The cold machinery of Darwin, Freud, Plato,

   all conspiring to explode the deepest resolute sureness

      of feelings that are so personal, so emotionally wrapped up;

         Shaped by humanity’s thymos, our need to be loved by all others.

‘

So what’s to be?

By Cameron Macdonald

________________________

Me, me, me!

Ego, fill my tummy!

Ego, I am cold!

Ego, go get mummy!

Ego, I need a hold. 

‘ 

You, you, you!

Id, I’ll get you food.

Id, I’ll get you hot.

Id, I’ll get your mummy.

But not until I’ve thought.  

‘ 

Now! Now! Now!

Ego, I am starving!

Ego, I am ill!

Ego, I am dying!

Ego, get my fill! 

‘

Hey, hey, hey – there.

Hush little baby, don’t say a word.

Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.

An’ if that mocking bird don’t sing,

Momma’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

‘

________________________ 

By Cameron Macdonald

.

Standing the age of time.

Erect, defiant, proud!

Surrounded by the salt of sailors,

Fighting to survive the rising tide.

‘

Grey birds overhead battle Seth’s ocean winds,

As cycles of life tumble

Into the diurnal patterns of Khons!

But, alas, all under their influence crumble.

‘

Now, since time, the black knight stands

Shoulders square to the raging torrent

And the great white charioteers that

Charge to battle and take what they dare.

‘

They hawk not a single molecule from

The great warrior’s granite hide.

And in defeat they recede, regroup and find -

Never will this proud obelisk kneel to Yamm’s tide.

‘

So be for millennia before, and millennia to come,

That mighty twisted black gnarled block,

Like Osiris, will face the wrath of Time’s charging mares,

And each day will cheat them his beating heart of rock.

‘

 _______

Nineteen years              

                     When we first met,                                  

                                              A hill we found 

                                                           That we did set.

Around that hill

                       We did make,

                                          A fence of wood

                                                              That’s kept us safe.

And in the centre

                       Of our mound,

                                   A tree did grow

                                                        Up from the ground.

A tree that we

                       Did raise with love,

                                           That shelters us

                                                                    From storms above. 

Over our hill                    

                     The sun has woke

                                                 And in short time

                                                                        Twilight has broke.

And under our tree

                         We have lain,

                                           Watching day & night

                                                                   Wax and wain;

During long summers

                             We watched Monarchs fly,

                                                     Around our heads

                                                                        Under Heaven’s eye;

In the cold of night

                          When the Sun was misplaced,

                                                      Flasks of light

                                                                          Have kept us safe. 

Under betroth                         

                     A decade ago,

                                           Juliet’s mansion 

                                                                Became our own.

Our shelter of walls,

                           Roof, and doors,

                                              Has been our castle

                                                                  Between the wars.

It’s kept us safe

                        From the winter wind,

                                                   And given us the strength

                                                                                       To face the world.

And in that mansion

                          Built of love,

                                              We are close

                                                                  As hand in glove. 

Sometimes by day

                           We close the blinds,  

                                                  They’re the times  

                                                                       We want to hide.

Other times

                     We set them aside,

                                               To find what lies

                                                                       Beyond our eyes

.And now and then

                             The world we could see,

                                                           Was not as nice

                                                                            As it could be.

Those times were hard

                             We could have split,

                                                 Yet we’ve stuck together

                                                                                  Through thin and thick. 

And now the heavens 

                                Have moved with zeal, 

                                                           A new life we see 

                                                                                   That we can feel.Joy!

A rose is planted

                                 On our hill,

                                                 And now we find

                                                                            A life to fill.

Our rose we’ll feed

                             And water well,

                                                   So day by day 

                                                                          She will excel.

And with a fair wind

                                 Behind our shroud,

                                                         Our baby ‘ll grow

                                                                                    To make us proud. 

Yet, alas, some day

                              We’ll have run our race,

                                                               And we’ll cross the fence 

                                                                                           To a distant place.

And on that hill

                                Our child we’ll depart,

                                                             With love in mind

                                                                                      And love in heart.

And that mansion

                              That we did build,

                                                          Will always be strong

                                                                                            To shelter our child.

By Cameron Macdonald 

-

Imagine this:

A place so large it won’t

Fit the universe.

A place so dark it won’t

Stop shining.

A place so quiet it won’t

Still the air.

A place so lifeless it won’t

Stop breeding.

‘

A great circle with no end,

A beginning without a start.

A conclusion without standstill,

A perpetual random art.

Infinity in everlasting motion.

A casual spin, then ordeal.

A result! Survival for the best,

Oblivion for the reel.

‘ 

From this multiverse where time Is void,

and all events come at once,

Infinite universes are spawned,

And countless a verse lost.

So came a cosmos so profound,

That no fathom could be plumbed.

Intelligent design had to create,

With laws so precisely fashioned.

‘ 

Sharp purpose there may have been,

To have created laws infinity.

 From that perplexing countless spin,

Many a universe began of the turn.

With that helm set in place,

Those that failed were lost to time.

And those that did survive the spinning trial,

Outlived the others like spruce and pine.

‘ 

So we the bugs on the needles of pine,

Like the white orb, thank the croupier.

For with that spin we are greater than nought,

On one tree that is of the forest’s line.

And if a creator there has to be!

Pity pray me this end:

Is the arborist our maker,

If all it did was create the trend?