'Paradise we build in this life.....'

Come! Come! Come! Hearken to my gong
And I'll tell you a tale
About the life and death of one
Whose light will never fail.
As dusk's embers burn into dark
And dream spells settle in,
with heavy soul and torn in heart
Come, for I do begin.

(with a single breath it seemed,
pouring fourth into being,
he cast his spell of words)

The late October moon listened
To star songs in the sky
While wide eyed babes cry soft; destined
In frozen earth to lie.
The streets out are silent but for
The crunching of my feet
Alone through leaves of Sycamoor
My mind my fate to meet.

A darkling enclosed shape I stride
Along Old Station Road
And like Odysseuss once spy
Creeping oft black shadowed
Mis-shaped phantoms that tempt me down
Into the depth of night.
I'll move on though to the bell sounds
That heavy nine times strike.

Once, blue moons before that fated
Dark temple ripped canker,
His spirit intoxicated
With lifes rich amber
And whispering secrets bound with love,
He led me to his door,
'Youth's a stuff that dreams are made of'
(Though n'er does it endure)

The Buddha found it 'neath the tree
And a life without sin,
But he sat by me found it free
O'er at the White Horse Inn.
The Mermaid Tavern of its time,
Poets, Fools, Fisherkings,
We danced, souls purple drunk with wine
Of love and life and things.

But having grown too large for all
He took his parting bow.
They hooted at his curtain call
'Life's act is finished now'
O Time! Why in this wretched world
When one stands up so brave
You turn your shoulder, heart hard cold,
Would send him to his grave.

So, on reaching the churchyard gates,
Shadow written and alone,
Our journey's end, the final fate,
I knelt by his strange stone
And read silently his epitaph,
That stone carved text:

'Paradise we biuld in this life
Our household for the next!'