I will not write a lullaby

to soothe unsettled
half-finished conversations
we almost had

You are surrounded by freesias
and a home not of your own making

I am surrounded by light and sound

immersed in the only things, which offer
purchase on uncertain ground.

Yes, I know fragility
it follows me close
always stepping in time
to my tread
scraping the skin from my heels.

I will not give the sonnet release

For that moment
is time
stolen
kept inside a stained-timber cupboard
and bereft
mourning to be the song
I have not yet sung

God and I,
we argue constantly

He will not give me a sign

And I will not become his Angel
on earth
hoisting the flag over a lack-lustre humanity
too jaded
by faded banners

You will laugh
at me
for you always have
with that throaty chuckle
your eyes filled with
seven blonde-haired girls
dancing to the sun
falling down one by one
to smile at a sky
dotted by myriad interpretations.

I only want to hear you say

Yes f*ck it, it is important

But you will not
because you are not so sure
anymore

Your tread is faltering on the
church steps
the crumbling banister
gritty beneath your seeking fingers.

God and I,
we argue all the time.

He speaks
through the hubbub
of my life
telling me
I will leave something for history


But not if I don’t write it.

The impasse
broken in a small stream
of invective
leaking through the fissures

seeking light

The Fading Man.


And when we both knew

that farewell was not optional

I finally saw the cracks


A mosaic
painstakingly glued
together over the years

Glaze splitting
tiles tilting into the sea of tears
you hid behind your back
where I could not see them.

You became
a wall fallen
in ancient Babylon
the base relief
still visible beneath dust
and sand
and an empty handed beggars cry

You become
the trail I followed
shards and sanscrit
spread upon the gasping land
each step bringing us closer
to conclusion

We wept
and the sky replied in kind

and it was good.

I am the bones

picked over

left to bleach beneath
a sun who refused me twice

A rib poking rude into the sky
jutting till she cannot ignore me

A femur
polished obsidian
sold in a chinese market place
to a man with a small penis

Later
he will rub my ebony rigidity
against his flaccid shame
to rise again

A skull
staring still
accusing eternity
of owing me more than
I received
less than I deserved.

My scatter
sinking slowly

beneath the tread of sneaker

the crush of man

the tooth of feral

crush me soft
in your maw
pulped
and spat out
for tastier fair

We distill
the language

Clarity
is truth

Clear beyond the boundries
of inflection

Nuance implied
no lie contained
within

No lie
without

Words sifted
of impurity

Till only the orginal intent
is exposed

Meaning
gleaming under scrutiny

Our imperfections
gleam white-gold in the late afternoon.

I am still
your beautiful boy

You cannot see me now
hidden as I am
behind the mountain of baggage
you have accumulated

I still have
your secret name
embossed into my wrist

The whole world
really doesn't care for us
as I once believed
even the tall soft grasses
I would tell my lies and truth to
have become weedy and disgruntled

We have no format
to call uniformity
on any other day
I can find you naked and screaming
at mongrel dogs on the street
your breasts pressed to the windowpanes
a smear of sexuality
caressing dust

Arms flailing
in ever widening arcs
till you blur
and whirr away

a dragonfly in search of a clear sky

Chasing shadow dreamers
over a sulking city streetscape
in diving leaps

Seeking confirmation of the obvious
in denial of obscurities

And I

Hold on for dear life
face pressed into the iridescence of
your wings
the thrumming beat
my heart
the lurching uncertainty
my choice

always
my choice

I can accept irrelevance now

Depthless shadows

dapple and strike

beaming dark

through the canopy

of cypress above

Cloying

the scent of pine

assails senses.

You have arrived early

softly softly

your body

wrapped in the past

then oiled to gleam with

tears carefully gathered

from other years.

I never thought

naked could weep

Yet here

beneath time

you create rivers of yesterday

fingers unadorned

releasing fresh water fish

eels coil and writhe

to life,

zithering mayflies

dart and die

on the white sand banks

And when you finally speak

I am buffeted

finch's wing

beating gently against

and within

For now I know

for you have told me

I am but a thread

on the tapestry of Man.

Beneath the sunset

you struggle to imagine

I continue to write

pointless sonnets

on crumpled paper

The words are

halving

splitting into shorter sentences

meaning streams away

in bleeding black ink rivers

sliding off the page

to soak my thigh

I reach through the stanzas

seeking connection

in a statement made

then left to fade in that sunset

you will never know.

Once you tasted my

tart cheese and wine images

the mulled sensation

settling soft in your belly

easing the loneliness

for a time

The colors

of a brown and brittle landscape

swirling

just before your eyes

motes of new green shoots

blazing into you

My pen drying out

to scratch the page

tearing through

to find you

And so he set aside

all the things he

had ever desired

and replaced them with vague

images of a woman

wrapped in ice.

Not so nice

the thought she

had frozen solid

two thousand years ago

He could still clearly see

the wrens

which would rest on her bare knees

in the courtyard of a king whose name

mattered not

and matters less now.

I have come to court thee

he had said

bowing his head in respect.

She whispered his name

letting the syllables leap and dance

upon rose gardens carefully tendered and

over the wheelbarrow upended in the shed.

He watched his name soar high above the parapets,

flash silver in a fading sunset

and explode to shower them in dying petals.

I will leave soon

he said with a smile

all the while

dancing to the left of her perspective

constantly making her turn to see him.

If you leave

I will die

she replied with one

chilled tear resting beneath her eye.

But he did

and she did.

And now,

with a match cupped in one hand

he had come to make amends.

Title : Conversations with you.


You came
with ravens chattering
the streak of wisdom
for all to see
so
shameless

Streams of women
flow from your lips
river cries
carried upon black wing
to crease the sky
so that man
with his many oiled fingers
cannot smooth it down again

Beautifulterrible
uttering charms
of change in silverstone purity
beneath mouthed obligations.

Carve your visage to
my skin
so I too
may speak with ravens

Burning palm
I am
scorched by sun

You
have given yourself
to the sea

to leave me
bereft of contact

I cannot react
the sun in my hand
slowly dying

Immersed
lying on the waves
white cap dancers
prance over your skin.

We
Gods of different persuasion

Raising the gift of Ra
I press Sol to my lips
to sear the sky into my tongue.

You
Poseidons child
run wild over distant shores
across breaking waves
into sea shell song

And all along

I was the one
with the sun in my hand.

One millennium at a time
We turn to sand on the rigid spine
of dusk coming

Immersed
in the musk
of sex and the sea

If I don't stop to think about it

I can still give a little

This outpouring
this soaring high above the parapets
arms outstretched to catch the wind
to steal the sky
to save the world

I will embrace it all
our fall from grace

Humanity below
in his seething boiling
lustfilled indecencies

I can take it all
swallow our failure to aspire

drink deeply the sea of despair
we have built one lake at a time
filling constantly with the lost
the broken
the ones no one has spoken for

And if you give me your weak
your meek

your motherless children seeking
in the wilderness

I will allow them to
come through me
to you

a voice
the sound
at last found
within the star spattered colours of my skin
will pray for you
will sing for you

will at last
find solace in flight

Together
I and all the world of misery
will climb the rungs of heaven
to reach
beseech
and screech to be heard

And the word is not God

the word is mercy

Have mercy

I have

and I freely give it to you........

We seek redemption
in skin

A beginning
winding softly to completion

You will make me weep
at last
and it will be release
and it will bring an ending
to unsurpassed loathings.

I could never understand
why I was given to you

One who was born of grace
to grace this battered earth

You a
beacon
wand
and guide

And I
a shadow clinging

I sing your lyrics
a voice cracking
and dry
surging around the words
seeking understanding
yet

understanding nothing
just the beauty
the clarity
of your pristine
trust implied.


I draw your design

etching hope on the pavement
in chalk and crayons blunted

I scream at windows closed
to make them see

I drink rivers of Styx and wine
look into strangers eyes for a sign
and crystallise
glassy stares into something more than
accusations within the reflections
of windows smeared by grubby fingers
and disparities.


And through it all
you held your chalice above me
a drop of acceptance to splash
and soothe the thirst
I croak from

I will spill it all
eventually
the upending sending
droplets to shatter against
the confirmation
you never sought
but always thought would come.

The sum of my life
held in your fine fingers
interlaced with sacrifice
you will not avert as I was certain
you should have done long before

But still
I will pray
against the coming of that fateful day


Deny me
and you will make me weep at last

I’ve been kissed
goodbye by the Moon

Her farewell fell

in silver bell tinkling song

to lay her sad fingers upon my cheek

I tried to speak
but she took my words
and wove them through her hair

I tried to explain
but she said I could never come back to her again
after tonight

And tonight
was stars without the blaze
just ashen grey fall away

just broken strands of fairy globes
hanging limp in the garden

And the Moon
is stripping off suggestions

And the Moon
is naked in her own light

bathed by the sky
and the tears I cried
when she said we could never become


But we did become
without her knowing
I remember showing her
all the scars I had carried
forever and a day
I remember
the way she took away yesterday
and replaced it with a blurred vision
of tomorrow in all its
one colour splendour

In all its new born foal utterances

In all its second chances

And the Moon
is stepping out of herself

And the Moon

is fragility and serenity
climbing over my tongue

I am
the winding of time
ill considered and redefined

I am lost
in the stratosphere
I trying to be near

but never quite clearing the tree tops

The sound of denial

is the grinding of teeth

The sound of farewell

is the soft tread of a thief
across my roof

And the Moon
will soon submit to the sun

For he has come
with trumpets calling
with my protests falling
upon deaf ears

For he has come
for her

and I cannot even find
the portal where goodbye awaits

And he has come
burning down the gates of our secret place

to leave me deathless
dying

and worse

not even trying

anymore......

I have sorted through

the dusty corners

stirred spider web memories

to flutter and spiral

around us

Amongst the stained dog-eared

leaflets of time

beneath crumpled yellowing

news clip cut-outs

with graining pictures of

faces best forgotten

lest we forget

I found

and found

and kept finding

a word

a phrase

a single line scrawled

across the page

There are fuchsias in the attic

growing up between the floorboards

creeping to the filtered half light

streaking through shingle gaps

reaching

beseeching

clawing for the simple warmth

of sun

Your

shadow is moving

sideways across

the nailed packed boxes

darkening old photos

to slither slide

and creep up my thigh.

When your

face is against my throat

I will not speak

yet the sound

will cross from me to you

in vibrations

to make skin ripple

to make flesh dimple

to offer resurrection

of creation

We crave and

are not craven.

A glint in fist

the point sharp

you wrap a wrist around mine

and whisper

push it

Together

we thrust truth into my eye

And wait