Ace of Wands
Fire & Desire
And then, at the right time
from the heat of our hands
a love that was old and new
lit up like a torch
burning from the depths
like fire to the turf.
Eight of Wands
BOOM!!
Someone’s heart whispered:
Boom!!!
And everything blew up
The Earth stopped moving
and when the dust settled down
the two lovers stood naked alone
hand in hand, in a desert land
Isn’t that scary?
Would you still like to try?
Queen of Wands
Bracken
You smile and beam
like a young maid
when the wind
whispers your name
Rain sings
the tales of the Earth
to your soft green
ferny flesh
Ancient sap knows its way
up from the hidden rhizome
nourishing your spiral sons
curled foetal croziers
Axis stretching out
trough blade and frond
Sorus keep your secret
eternal life spreading spores
You are precious and wise
as you are old.
Six of Cups
My Naoise
My Naoise,
don’t you know
I only have eyes for you
even if I look somewhere else
I can only see your face.
If the raven shows up
in its black plumage
it reminds me of your hair
When you smile at me
the world is gone
and only you exist, my love
And when you touch me,
My Naoise,
warm blood melts the snow
and we live inside a legend
a thousand years ago.
Page of Cups
Ganymede Ascending
You picked the snow goose feather for your quill pen
to write poems about me
You feel my breath burning in your human heart
but my essence is too subtle for your mind to grasp
You thought you were in Love
while it was Love that was Love in You
You’ll make immortal the beautiful young one
When the Eagle calls,
the sweet cup bearer who made you drunk
will be pouring mead on your cup
Don’t search for clues or reasons
Don’t dwell on platonic delusions
Don’t cry for what you think you’ve lost
For you have only won
Look inside you now
Love Loves You
You are Love.
Knight of Cups
White Heart
Some people
with their panoptic, utilitarian minds
claim that Love is a choice
As if you could just choose to love anyone
They say there’s no special chemistry
“That’s not Love” -they say-
“That’s just Lust”
Well, if it’s Lust
then I lusted you deeply and truly
I lust you so much
and I’ll lust you till the end of Time
I lust for the beat of your white heart
in the palm of my hand.
Ace of Swords
Truth
It is the truth now coming
I’ve been deliberately blind
amidst the fog of many Sundays
It is the truth I avoided
The comet following
its interstellar track
The heavy ball in the bowling lane
speeding up towards me
like an unstoppable slap
It was here inside me
and it was true all the time.
Two of Swords
To my Future by the Ocean
You and I cannot claim a future
all we have is this slippery moment
nearly out of our grasp
I wish this could be us
so in dreams I track back
scattered spaces and words dispersed
to find the thread, something to reel in
but nothing comes out
I’m out of wisdom
Silent drops and white mist
drifting over green ground
I stare at the Ocean
and I’m no longer me
I’m a hermit troglodyte
who never uttered a word
or was able to share
some unsophisticated thoughts
but feels that primal longing
while trying to make sense
of this inscrutable immensity
and another day is dawning.
Queen of Swords
What She Said
What she said
she had said it to herself
a million times before
It was a vagrant thought
which didn’t want to be called
and when she said it
it was words made birds
flying from her throat
wrung and tightened
like a burning knot
it was her last resort
to make the clock stop,
their universe implode,
to bring the story to a close,
cyclic patterns to an end,
to blow the gateways
that balanced the river flow
What she said
was nothing to retract from
it wasn’t meant to hurt
but to free them both.
King of Swords
Gemini
Looking through the window
Night sky stuffed with cotton clouds
I can feel them sparkles cruising
though I cannot see their light
I miss the beauty of that moment
when I felt so alive
Flying dreams disintegrating
as they touched land
My spaceship keeps orbiting Earth
like a homeless satellite
I could even cry if I just wasn’t so,
so very tired
And one last time I imagine
Gemini reflecting in your eyes.
Two of Pentacles
Schrödinger’s Cat
As I walk through Irish fields
where Spring shines
I wonder about Life
Is this all an illusion
This vibrant green is surely
livelier than I am
Aren’t we all death and alive
at the same time
Am I the cat who stayed too long
inside the box and now I know
I’ll never be more alive
than the moment just before I die.
Knight of Pentacles
He came from Sirius B
He came from Sirius B
A galactic knight, mighty like a titan
who could break your head and rip your chest
to make bangles with your guts
in the blink of an eye
But he was vegetarian, so he couldn’t understand
why baby turtles died with bellies full of plastic
just a few weeks after their mum had laid the eggs
in the warm sand
He was the most evolved amongst all the creatures
in any of Darwin’s islands
And as he circled his garden of damaged human minds
philosophising and beating the bush
a star was dying in a cardboard sky
and a young couple was making love
in some sunny place in France
but the only remarkable thing
the only truth
is that they were young.
Queen of Pentacles
The Golden Bear
Just as the leaves fell away
with the first Autumn winds
so did the withered branch
after a long drying time
since the tree cut out the flow
of its greenish vital sap
in order to survive
The Golden Bear tasted the cold on her snout
she dug a cave for her Winter doze
and prepared her body for that brumal slumber
For dawns eight times eight
she fought the river, carving its rocks,
waiting still or dancing on tiptoes
and sifting water through her paws
to feed herself with fresh salmon and trout
in order to survive
the deep sleep before rebirth
and the numbness in her bones
until she wakes up from her torpor
to find six daffodils
and then she’ll know
that Spring has come.
The Hermit
Midnight Lamp
Tonight
I’ll turn off my lamp
until you return the light
of your eyes to mine
of mine to yours
I leave you the dream
that kept me floating
across rhymed universes
and oceans of hope
The infinite sands
of moments of thought
The blank pages waiting
will remain untouched
Steal that story
from the saddlebags of Time
for us to tell again
in another life.
Temperance
Orion
I wish I could still dream
a dream of you where I
just find myself lost
trying to find my guide
in the milky way of your spine
The ghostly desert of your skin
wrapping me in soft warm sands
I hear the hunter’s pulse in my dream
and I wake up just when your name
is about to leave my mouth.
The Star
My Star
You looked pale and beautiful
under the light of my star
Like a silver beam
of mystery and light
reflecting all that I am
You looked pale and beautiful
under that cold night light
but I could not follow you then
so I followed my star.
I. The Sun
Planet Nine
I stare at you, my Love
from a safe distance now
Still orbiting your light
Slowly freezing without your warmth
Hundreds of millions miles away
Past the Kuiper Belt
I witnessed how
Pluto fell from your grace
I might still cause some stir
on this circumstellar disc
made of small remnants,
past lovers of yours
Some say I’m a perturber,
a dark giant of face unknown
Some others pretend
I don’t exist at all
And I say nothing
my beautiful distant star,
my beloved Sun
I’ll just wait in the cold
But I keep rotating,
for with my every turn
I can sometimes gaze at your face,
beyond the Transneptunian wall.
II. The World
Infinity Orchestra
Across the galaxy
in elliptical march,
the stars, planets
and satellites
dance their eternal dance
wearing spherical gowns
to the rhythm
of an infinite melody
spreading mute,
cosmic sounds.