The Way of All Shadows.

(i)

In every nook, they lurk,

in the eye light, stalk,

where the way curves.

From the moon falls,

steals faceless

the mirror image.

Thinly divide,

where walls & doors

& floors collide,

 on the shore of the dead.

(ii)

The hand´s grip, the flayed hide,

I do not know the driver´s cry

Nor the donkey´s bray.

Our shouts mingle, the switch

& the hide are my burden.

Half the hand, half the hide,

Who´s the beast that bridles the bride!

Day yokes a shadow, a humped

Form in flickering fanned fin,

A corona for the load. 

(iii)

The one who hides in

a place  of shadows

is trapped.

The one who seeks

there the hidden

is lost.

(iv.)

The jester courts a screen

to an audience unseen,

as though upon a stage

shadows turned on every page.

(v.)

Shades in mascara: no shadow is

lost by the phantom in the glass.

(vi.)

Companion to your host,

nameless shadow in your doom,

could I so command you,

Not to pass, when I pass,

would the world then fall apart,

where I struggle & you slide?

(vii.)

Shadow of the serpent lies

in a sky shed thin as a skin

that glides between slide & divide.

(viii.)

Shadows in the canvass

slide the tension of her curves

to slip into sensuous folds

That reveal and conceal

her nakedness,

her consummation, her birth.

(ix.)

Shadows fall to steal the hours,

fall to steal the face of flowers.

Sing shadow´s a slave, drunk

to the moon,

as silent they vanish, as silent they loom,

who speak more silently than the tomb.

(x.)

Arcadia, Arcadia,

Wherefore art thou Arcadia?

Where was I before,

Where am I now,

Who are we?

It´s a spring day,

Just a spring day.

O to be radiant,

Where shadows wave goodbye.

(xi.)

Two shadows, two moons

Follow my way home.

Until beyond my eye sight

Moon & my head are one,

Where all shadows turn

On the waters of the night.

(xii.)

By the  breeze,

shadows from the stream

are welcome.

(xiii.)

In the gloam

the solitary reaper

reaps its shadow.

(xiv.)

At last mind clears

the burden of the body

& casts no shadow.

(xv.)

Souk.

Quieter still, tethered

Shadows on the hill, than

The bray of the marketeer.

(xvi.)

In the Heat of the Night

Shadows on the path become

dark watery pools, treacherous,

as their little lights afloat on rim,

seized glittering into blackness.