- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
no-go zone no flies on him
as sleep comes the fly
between chopsticks the fly
after all eggs to lay the fly
in the food-court all are the fly
sometimes verb mostly noun the fly
his name born in flight the fly
the fly is patient with your vanity
waiting on a clock time flies
eyeing the ointment the fly
in summer wind the fly blown
remembering Issa the fly
at prayer time the fly
six carcasses in search of a fly
breaking down the issue a fly
before and after love the fly
speeding through the flight of the bumblebee the fly
giving life to the feast the fly
a fly interrupts the music of the spheres
testing wanton boys the fly
no flies on him the fly
splatted in his own reflection the fly
the fly doesn't believe in swat
to fly or not to fly the fly
in flight announcements from the fly
the fly lays down the last words
dotting an i the fly
the fly takes joy from our sorrow
in communing on the dead the fly knows
switched to flight mode the fly's cells
the fly mops up after a drone
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
'what is truth'?
a journalist kneels
in his desert
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
an embryo
vibrant in the silence
of her eyes
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
A Thorny Issue
is this 'rose'
in all its rose-ness?
how it pierces
into my pain?
how it spills dew
down darkening red?
its hint of breath
in its surrender?
to know this
as a rose
in my blood-beat,
is it in the means
to know it?
or is this the end of knowing
in itself?
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
Part I
word-flesh
is this
bloom
the in-
carnation
of your yes-
terday
Part II
with the breath
of darkness
the word
becomes
Part III
dawn herald
the wordless prepares
its nest
Part IV
in the East
a still point escapes
its birth cry
the long wait of a falling hush
maid in silence
her eyes brighten
with a word
Part V
'fiat lux'
an empty nest blooms
full of grace
a yes word encircles the snake's hiss
luminous dawn
night's immensity
immanent now
Part VI
a call
quiet enough
to ignore
a womb entombing silence
am o
am as
am at
am en
Part VII
in pure water
a word incarnadine
footfall
by lamp light
the all fleshing out
its path
Part VIII
the sound of
a word barely conceived
utter sense of being
enunciating a 'yes'
bone by bone
Part IX
at this hour
when the word is yet
to be uttered, its breath
barely a whisper
when brooding wings
overshadow you
with a stillness, far beyond
any possible eavesdropping
when your waiting
rises to it,
enfolding
its mystery
when, for all time,
all waiting
comes down
to this:
a sublime silence
putting its roots down
into the earth of you
a cloud
of unknowing, now,
so irreversibly
your flesh
Part X
spring awakening
a hyacinth overflows
night's immensity
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
A Way with Roses
eyes arise in bead chant dawn
so long a decadence counting down
rain drops beading on mystery
my head space stretches wider between each
in darkness voices trailing off the decades
now and
at the hour
of our hour
nativity
our other son dead
from birth
nightly tryst
we explore the spaces
in each other
our voices shell-borne doxology of the sea
in darkness fingering mystery
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
Lenten fast
I dwelt on nothing
while light changed
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
training wheels for the inso(mno)lence of being
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
the blueness
of a colourless sky
it was legendary
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
deep valley
forest trees today
sound of the sea
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
with autumn ripeness
a redness quickens the sky
from its lethargy
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
by autumn light
the this and that of nows –
it all makes sense
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
falling cadence –
the silences a cicada
lets slip through
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
autumn issue . . .
haiku guardians
litter pathways
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
stormy sea –
brooding over Sado
the milky way
reinterpreting a hokku by Basho
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
maris turbati –
quiescet super Sado
via lactea
reinterpreting a hokku by Basho
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
in the light
from which light casts
a mere shadow
for Svetlana Marisova (17 March - on what would have been her 26th birthday)
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
a shadow seeps
from a stream in the trees
the silence of God
for Franz Wright (18 March - on the birthday he didn't see)
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
breaking even
the equinox splits
our differences
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
holy fire,
burn away the seeming
of dream-rise
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
autumn leaves
not now but then
when winter comes
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
mud-baked
a phantom dwelling
under the basho
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
trumpet rally
evangelicals summon
their golden calf
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
tapping still
against my eye-lids
cave-red palms
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
breath pause . . .
a moment's suspension
in monotones
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
autumn rain . . .
I write myself out
of my haiku
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
a race memory relaxes into its present tense
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
autumn morn . . .
a monarch rises up
its gibbet
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
autumn rise . . .
rustles of the past
in the wind
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
wine-dark eyes . . .
across a drunken sea
purpling grapes
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
selfie-bait
t(w)ittering behind
fanned fingers
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
all in all
an ocean washes up
in birth cries
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
left behind
a prophetic utterance
of its ending
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
now and then
I become the wake
I leave behind
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
Lent deepens –
will stones stave off
this hunger?
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
Lenten light –
I see by it now
what I am not
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
by starlight
the quintessential
dawns in sleep
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
where tribes clashed wails wind through the blood
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
in darkness
birds trill towards
what's still to come
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
while still new
on the compost heap
rot sets in
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
at long last
where the buck stops
mountain spring
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
moonless night
the centre everywhere
without relief
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- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
locked away
the sparkle in the eye
of an ancestor's image
- Details
- Written by: Stephen Bailey
- Category: March 2016
fear of what?
this manic extinction
of darkness