I have raised myself upon the dire pathways
roved cross the soiled skin of dying
swum the churning waters of insanities caressing wave


Clear above the pines I rose,
beyond
the surly shrubs of lower ground
the brink of eternity
beneath me

And what to see

what to see

The spokes of humanity
spinning
brittle and broken
the wheel of life
forspoken
in the dreams of Gods
and men.

I will give Allah
and Jesus
my hands
so that each one may tell me what
it means to sacrifice.

Let their tales be told
in the holding of my skin
against the warmth of history

I will become
the son of the son

The messiah's message

a curled parchment
found within the broken shards of a pottery
sepulchre

a papyrus wish
burnished beneath the sands
of time

I will lie in wait for a time
when the testing has become too much
when faith
and the faithless lie fallen and blooded
by too many lies
to much hate
to little forgiveness

I
the word
and you
the last vestige of mans true purpose
whispering across the sands
of Iraq and Iran

Called to the sun
I will be both choices
I will be
without interpretation
the purity of thought
each released into the baking heat
in their given time

in the eons since.

And you will hear.

I realise you have died
but cannot accept the hollow
at the base of my throat
where once you hung
a brilliant jewel of ruby hue
shedding a glowing rouge
against the paleness of my
shy dependency

There is a spike in my eye
pushing from the inside
seeking egress

The light

torment

diffused
to shed shadow and suggestions

I'm not leaving you

though your ticket
is stamped
the edges ragged and torn
from the book of moving on

It matters not
or so we said
somehow we would cross
the boundaries
staked out upon the shore
of the river Styx
dragging you back
from the clicking bone fingers
the ferryman beckons with.

Air has turned to glass
but does not cut my lungs
as our goodbye
has done

Is it any wonder
I wear that half a smile
hanging off the corner of my mouth
whenever you come around.

I've held a candle
for so long
it has burnt your face into
the palm of my hand

The waxen image
glows
a constant reminder

On grey afternoons
when I allow myself
to wander the hallways
of might-of-been

Empty rooms pass
on either side
and you wait in none of them

There is no mercy in lust
it removes the inhibitions
of common sense
to replace them with
a racing heart
and a throbbing loin.

It makes breathing a chore
concentration
scatters
so many thoughts
winging starlings
startled into flight
scattering in every direction

I can handle it
suppress it

till you come close
or touch me
as you will do
as you always do

At some stage
a gesture so small
a palm against the small of my back
a wrist
across my wrist

Then
there will be

no air



I can hold you in
gasp you into my lungs
and it will suffice

And when you have gone again
I still have you inside

for days or weeks or months

I have waited
for nothing for so long

the lunacy is sane to me

it succours
sustains

feeding an addiction
carefully nurtured over years

And each time I think of you

the overwhelming
nothing of our secret
non event
fills me once more

succours
sustains

Internet


A billion minds linked
through the blinkofaneye

Sitting before the glowing screen
we examine isolation from the inside
the way it seduces us

the way it entices us

Type your words
spill your shame
its all repeated on the next page

Blog follows blog
in an endless trail of shared uniqueness

A million million screams of individuality

all much the same

There is a pretty girl
singing songs to the pavement
her words
an intricate weave of runes
sinking into the stained concrete

Later,
when she has been absorbed by the city skyline
when the velvet scent of sunset
has slid over
to sheave the city
in amber and amethyst

The words will
shimmer and glow beneath the feet
of the whores
who
ply the sidewalks
listless galleons
tattered sails
puffed with capricious winds

The words will rise
up through
laddered stockings
sinking into the flesh
join with blood
flow through the broken
mornings
words of hope and salvation
words of tomorrow's
not tainted
with the taste of deadsex
and cigarettes.

Anarchy for the Middle Ages


Not the colorful lute playing
kind
with the plague and rats
centre to all conversations
large amounts of filth in the streets
and a monarch to die for
all power and no responsibility

I'm talking bending spine
lying supine for extended periods
middle age.

And what will
my anarchic credo be you ask?

Good question
glad you asked

I will smear my white collar
with the blood of disruption

disruption doesn't have blood
I don't care
this is anarchy
go with me

Yes but....


See this is always the problem

everyone tries to reason with me

how the hell can you reason with anarchy???

By its nature
it is chaotic and not at all
given to listening to common sense

where was I?
ahhh

Yes,
I will burn down the churches

well....not all of them obviously
only the really annoying ones
you know the kind
with the smiling young people
rocking along
to Holy Rock Revival music
their mindless happiness
like a spike through the eye
of the discerning middle aged anarchist


And I will wait till they have gone home OK?
taking their smug superiority with them

I will slaughter the opponents of change

err......


metaphorically.....

this anarchy shit is actually rather violent
when you think about it.

I will rethink
perhaps a meeting?

just to sort out the rough edges?

Ciao

I'm writing now because I know
without doubt the moment I stop
I will cease to exist

There are no portents in western civilisation
no circling vultures
no tapping Poe raven's
no Marley ghost
to come at 12 and again at 1


We ignore the earth
in all her mystery and
ancient magic

The way she breathes

the way she sobs uncontrollably

We carve our name into her
of gulley and fissure
with machine
and reckless disregard

We slaughter her children
then our own with equal fervour

Blood
a sign
a portrait of shame
smeared
then carefully
painted across her surface
for all the reavers
to see

And the sign is
Aramaic
Sanskrit
and rap gangster speak

It tells of the coming

it speaks in twisting tautologies
of rune and enchantments

Mouth the words
and cease with me........

I cannot move
and you are fluid
swirling around me
the cool caress of the sea

I would turn my head
but I'm afraid to drown

You answer with

overwhelming flood
deluge
tsunami

Flailing doesnt help
and swimming
is beyond me

Open your mouth and accept
the quiet lapping sound
of your reply

the last sound

We weave in and out of phase
words/thoughts
intermingle with the shared
breath of creation.


Utter one word
I make it mine


Utter nothing
and still
I hear

I can't stand calling you
although
I ring every week


I swallow my tongue
to stop the words
from tumbling as they sometimes do


You never change
age or
alter your singsong acceptance

And I'm hiding emotion
in drivel
slipping uncontested
simulacrums of affection
between the inflection
and discussions of the mundane.

Yet
beneath the sighed intonation
of your ho-hum
there lies the core
superheated
lava liquid and indented with
a billion years of pressure
pushing against
above below
until we can both see the crushed remnant
for what it really is

And what is it really?

I don't forget my sweet friend
I don't ignore
or become blasé'

You are murmuring platitudes
till I lie and sign off with
some imaginary chore
to run/do/execute

Until the next time
I am loathe to call

perhaps Tuesday?

good

talk then....

Each second I watch pass through
my fingers

a journey travelled to the
ending already ordained
long before
when my DNA lay
dormant in my fathers blood


Fate is a child’s dream

Destiny
dog-eared tarot cards
flipped over on a cheap plastic table top

I was told once
long ago
my future was
not clouded by doubt
or confusions


the fortune told
not gift wrapped in
smiling illusion

And though I followed
the meticulously placed foot steps
leading through my life
just as she said


I walked finally
from the smooth paving stones of what-will-be
into the sharp crushed rock edged
uneven tracking’s of might-be

And the air
is much crisper
the bite of cold
a potent reminder

of alive

and how I am

making choices after all..

Find the morning


find the day


find the small sounds
in the back of my throat


Awaiting summer
to bring warmth where lies
the frozen soil
around us

I hate the way
you turn away


When your face
mirrors rain


When your body
shudders into each day
the slender winding S of your back
leaning into a tomorrow without me

I'm letting
sparrows perch
on my outstretched arms
to carry me home

If I come back
will you let me leave me with you?


No

perhaps the question should just hang between us


a bent wire hanger
naked without the benefit of
a dress to cover it.

In spring
mother would wash her hair
with only rain water


Together,
we would walk beneath the cypress pines
towards the rain tank

I would carry the battered pink shallow
tub for her.

We would talk of the day
watch for magpie's
ever keen to swoop and dive upon us.

Slender
she would bend to the rust flecked tap
at the base of the tank
and release the flow

The water came with
its own mossy ground scent
crystal clarity
poured like molten silver
into the bowl as I held it steady
beneath the tap

She would sit then
upon the weathered timbers
upon which the rain water tank sat

Humming softly to herself
she would swing her long black
hair down into the tub and let
the water soak in

Her hair would darken three shades before my eyes

Changing to the most ebony sheen
as the water caressed it and soaked through
the long strands

Then she would fling her hair wild
into the chill of spring morning
allowing the droplets to fly in all directions
landing on my face
the ground
the dying lavender hedge behind the tank

Then
with long fingers
she would squeeze the remaining water out
to splash onto the earth
and soak deep within.

I would empty the rest from the pink tub
and together
we would walk back to the house

I'm fairly certain,
if I shift my weight just a little to the left

my poem will slide off the table
onto the floor
into the cracks
or a pull in the carpet will catch it
and draw it down into the underlay

why do I always say Underlay Underlay!!!
like some smack head with a plan
every time I hear the word mentioned

It isn’t Mexican
it doesn’t even sound remotely Mexican
to me

And only speedy Gonzales said Onderlay or whatever
the hell it was in a cartoon
I’ve never heard anyone else even hint at saying it.

I moved
I knew it
the poem has shifted with the redistribution
and moved beyond the ken of my fingers
you like ken?
Scottish
I have assimilated so many different accents into my mundane
version of English that it never surprises me when I come out
with something completely ridiculous in place of the correct word.


I have played with words for so long
I have become complacent
thinking in my own self absorbed way
that they will always come when I beckon them

And still, every now and then,
I'll slip them into conversations
not the standard 500 most of us use
but the next 500
the 500 people just don’t use
And then I wait for the result
watch to see if the person or people I’m speaking to react in any way

I told a man once,
make it your task to use the word "blithely"
at least twice in the following week

He couldn’t do it,
I blithely explained to him that this is what is wrong with humanity as a whole

no incentive to stretch themselves


The poem has moved off down the hallway now
I can see it peeping round the paint chipped skirting board

I offer it sweet treats of eight letter words
internal rhymes
metaphors to die for

but alas

not
today

Sometimes
the music just
winds down

The notes
stretch
lengthen
into articulated shadows reaching
fingers of sound
across the room.

There are no accusations in song

Regret
yes of course

And that stale taste in your mouth
as though you have bitten
into a not quite ripe orange
tart and bitter
with sweetness
not yet
but almost.

And the strains of sound
gather together
in melodic unity
shifting perception
to bring you to conclusion

You
the rhythm
I thought constant
an endless repetition of my beat
tracking higher and lower with
each unattainable note I strove for

And though I would
clang and belch
discord
still you played the notes
the sound
the words of my song
in perfect harmonies.

But I am the song

dying

and you the echoed resonance
of what should have been.

I am unmade
by the machinations of man

The dream children
are peering from the forest foliage
refusing
to be seen

Weep now
for the broken ones
whose visions
shall not paint our
world in unique colours

I am
unmanned by the actions of man

The dream children
naked in the harsh
hissing light of halogen
caught short of the trees.

Pray now
for the distant one's
sent to the earth
before they graced us
with God's design

I am
unable
to accept
I'm a man

The dream children
telling me it's ok
their elfin voiced song
rising on the western wind
poised to become memory

Forget not
the small one's
who could not
defend themselves

For : Sofia Rodriguez-Urrutia


It took only ten minutes
to tear down your eight years

of building a person


A small white casket
to mark your passing

In Mater Christi
500 weep
raising your lifelessness
above and beyond the
base destruction of your glow.

Six little girls in angels wings
dance down the aisle
to carry you away

Flowers
dying in the gritty
halls of a mall
against the door of
a toilet


I
mourn innocence

Kiss the Night.


There is/was
no expectation

She had told him
her life was not to
be a shabby tabloid
filled with glossy lies
and bullshit dialogue

His reply had been to remove
her eyes
and place them in the teak cabinet
where he kept a trophy wife
nailed to a silver pedestal

She glided through the
blue black
of a bruised night

and slipped quietly into
the still waters of the Moon

Shedding pretensions
sliding glib explanations
down sad hips
she shivered out of herself
into the silver sheen
of midnight and
placed a toe in the sky

The sable rippled
and caressed

murmured intentions
crept feathery up her thigh

She allowed
the cool kiss of infinity
to press against her eyes

And now
here
beneath the diamond teeth
within the breathless moan
upon a well worn wish

she stretched her arms out
and dived up into
sweet
deathless dreaming


There is/was
no expectation
as she coupled with alone
and kissed soft and fierce
the gentle lips of goodbye

Story continued.

Evelyn shakes her head angrily, tears

spraying out to circle her till she is surrounded by weeping.

Turning the shower off, she steps out onto the cold blue tiled floor

and grabs the towel. Closing her eyes, she centres herself, calms with

deep breathes.

Slipping into jeans and a T shirt, she goes to the kitchen, boils the kettle and makes

a steaming cup of coffee. Mid morning now, she wanders out onto the veranda across the creaking old dry planks to her wicker chair and settles in to enjoy the morning’s warmth.

From here, she can see the soft haze of the mountains in the distance, clouds encasing them like a lovers embrace. She lets her mind and eyes roam, over the green fields around her small house, down the rutted road towards the stream.

It had been ten years now, since she last went to the stream, the whispering waters

sliding softly across the pebbles and rocks within. She closes her eyes and allows memory to come to her, in soft color waves of emotion.

It had been a morning like this; she had a day off from her exceedingly dull job in town, typing up invoices for a hardware store run by a man with bad breath and a surly disposition. She had walked out onto the veranda and decided to treat herself to a picnic lunch by the water. She packed sandwiches and wine, fresh fruit, a kiwi and some grapes. Walking down the road, allowing the rural sounds to envelope her.

Old Roger’s tractor throbbing across the way, as he worked on the back nine, rutting it up for sowing, the cawing clatter of the crows as they dove and swooped on the dead cows carcass in the Miller front paddock. Two weeks and still he had not removed it the old bastard she thought, if only he could stop drinking long enough to realise the smell was starting to permeate the whole area.

She heard the pig’s crunch and grunt at Hammonds place, their own particular scent

blending into the miasma of farming smells filling her senses.

to be continued…..

I do not see
colours
as you do


Splash vermillion
or rough shod black
across the arc of day

Found
back against the wall
the whole of the world
falling at my feet


Peel me off the brick and mortar
take my hand
daughter of the second millennium
and lead me into the future scape

A slave to mediocrity
assimilating
or accepting the grey sagging tones
of sameness

I am individual
its not a shout or scream
or the ragged remnants of last nights dream

All about us
is fading hazed blurring surges
of repetition

and still I hold
revelations
in the sweating palm
of my hand

Focus
and we can read
the answers
as they bleed through my fingers