Mary keeps to herself
secreted within the lidded confines of
pale blue eyes

You can see her
Saturday mornings at the coffee shop
far end of the counter
thin fingers curling around a chipped cup

The others never approach her
the blue band of electricity
not seen
clearing keeping all comers at bay

She talks to no-one
and it always replies

Animated
her head tilts back
and laughs
or she leans in
to hear a whisper

I sat with her once
a hangover bravery
filling my pounding skull
I decided to sit with the weird woman
and learn her secrets

She looked at me
then through
and continued the conversation
with the counter.

I asked her
who the fuck she was talking too

She paused
and her hand disengaged from the cup

She reached over and touched my cheek
before I could jolt my face away

Are you so scared of the truth?
she asked me
her eyes impaling me to the stool

I reached up to take her hand away
and the cold of it held my action

So cold I was sure her skin
had frozen burned itself
to my face and I would walk forever more
with the slap of her voice
imprinted on me

Those pale blue eyes
summed me up
the hand smoothly slipped away
and returned to there place
around the coffee cup

Later
home alone
I asked myself the same question

and the answer is yes

Awakening

The art

Painting souls
on a naked pallette

Dip brush to skin
stroke and touch
the colour runs
dabbed to still
then brought across
in refined movement

A landscape of no completions

Foreground

Limbs entangle
undergrowth
coiling gnarled connections

Background

Mouth pressed to sky
lips rouge morning sun
the ridge of ribs
mountians rising
through thin cloud wisps

Perspective

The frown
the furrowed flesh
warmth spreads in waves
pushing against and away

A gasp
rasping against throat
soothed by
kissed balms of peace
within turmoils burn

Seen and blurred

by scent and sex

The sickle moon
at your throat
catches the light

We are drawn to likewise
inclinations
the way they curve and slope toward
disaster

never straying far from incredible coincidence

You offer although
the word
a shrug of acquiescence

and I accept it from your fingers

The light
disappearing into your skin
to the hollows and gulley’s beneath

I will trade you

one tomorrow for
seven yesterdays

Take more
take all the mornings I have to come

And return to me

the past we had

You never gave me time


Regret is an egret
calling across the mill pond
gleam of tomorrows misted lake waters

The sound
catching in rushes and
swaying them to and fro
pushing a tiny wave
to carve across the surface
striking the mosquito poised
upon the water tension

He takes wing
in search of blood
and continuation

You never stopped to listen

Goodbye
is a droplet
falling from a mosquito wing
to splash on the upturned face
of a frog sleeping

The tongue darts fast
to catch prey
no sound of death
heard as fragile wing
is crushed and consumed

The frog
leaping into the mist
without a splash

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Life is a paper cut on the eye

Go placidly
and no one will remember your name

Peace in silence
yes
Ive found peace
in the still of 7.00am sunday morning
before the fuckers with their lawn
mowers howl down the day
before the chain saw song
before the music drips over the back fence

I have spoken my truth for
a thousand fucking years
and yet
Im a liar by nature

Ask House,
we all lie.


May the dull and ignorant
talk to each other for solace

Let them mumble platitudes
in a slow drawl

Give me a mind
sharper than a pin
in the dick

I want the challenge of rapier wit
I want to think
and be quick silver with you

I want you to speak of things
I know not
I want you to tell me what
it is
what it was
and how it can be

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Vex me and I'll rip your eyes out

I have compared myself with everyone
on this planet
and found me to be astoundingly
lacking in every way
and you know?
its not so bad

If you can accept your failings
you can try to improve

If there are lesser people than me
I pity you
and wish you well

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

The world is indeed
full of trickery


The sting of tomorrow
steeped in the blood of today

I'm rubbing frantically
to remove the pain

tearing up
biting down on all the suggestions
left on my door
post-it-notes from serenity

Smarmy creeds of forgotton monks
as they dipped quill to gall
and scrawled lifes little secrets
for me to read a thousand years later

Was it so good?

Your existence in the cold halls
of monasteries
sandalled feet padding on the pavings stones
to the library
you would place your thinly covered buttocks
on a hard stool
and begin to write

And yet you told me
be at peace
be myself
move with grace amongst those around me


How could you know?

Who told you I was
dishevelled by indolence

Who allowed you to see
me clench fingers into the blankets
and bite back a scream

When the night cloys
and pours thick syrup grey
over my mouth till I gurgle and gasp
and rasp out a cry for help in my sleep

I wish you well also,
nameless smart-arse monk bastard from the past

I suspect your life sucked harder than mine
ever could and yet you offered us a glimpse
of hope in its purest form

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should

Yes

this is true......

Perception is
just the difference
between what you want
and what is


He would find her
out on the strand
the wishes of ages
tangled in her
greyblack hair

She would be watching the water
the way it would curve around the earth
hugging it close
leaving it far behind
and smashing against it
when least expected.

Wanting to touch her
was just something
he lived with
like breathing
it was involuntary
and without it
death waited quietly

He could hear
the whispers of roses on her
the way they spoke
of spring
and what it might bring

Her smile
was a pretty girl
reading her lovers letters

she would open her mouth
and days would fall for him
to scoop up and keep for later

When she was finally ready
to come with him
the ocean heaved
and took them both unawares

told them
how it was
to love the shore

It spread sea shells
and empty eyed fish
for them to see

all the gifts
it had given
a raft
stained and streaked by sun
a buoy
bobbing in the shallows
star fish
drying and fading
and always
the song
the soft sounding lapping call

The ocean explained
how it had sung for the shore
for a billion years

and would sing
for a billion more

or till the sun boiled it away

The echo of clocks


We will write till
the waters are gone

Till parched
the earth submits to sun
and wind
to
becomes lifeless barrens

The dry stalks of humanity
will wilt
wither and brittle

Browning in the baking heat
feet blistered and broken
to fall at last



become
the dust

create the dust

We will write
when we are memory
imprints
left on the skin of dead land

A rusted steel girder
jutting out of the ground

A leaflet
blown widder shins
across the aching plains

Our legacy
the still no air will bring

We will write
till the ink has become time
only marking the passing
the ending held in

the echo of clocks

Whole seasons
are left in your wake

A winter
unadorned
resting in the dust on the mantle

A spring
caught between the glossy pages
of a travel magazine

A summer
spilt on the tiles
spreading to the carpted hallway

A Fall
embossed on your coffee cup
impressions of leaves
and colours

Sarah turning
tricks at the bar
dazzling john's
and jaded drunks
with glimmer shine magic

Spins
a dime
shimmers into the eyes
of a lonely business man

He catches her
reflecting off
the polished mahogany
turns her over and over in his palm
then flips her to dance across the wood

She lands between an empty glass
and peanuts scattered

Slowly stops turning
ass up
face down


Later, when the lights dim,
when the last drunk
has swayed through the heavy steel banded door
with a gentle shove from security to send him staggering
she will tilt to edge-on
and begin to spin again

the smooth surface
of her
skimming silent in the darkness

Someone told me

It was for my own good

The way I cannot speak when
the sun strikes my lips

The way I will not move
when the sound of the sea
grows with the coming of the tides

Someone told me

I was waiting

and maybe


I am

Stepping off


Into a cloudless sky
and there is no one waiting
only you

Ever and only


The sweet refrain you have always sung

I have tried turning away but

Our hands are
covered in graffiti
the obscene artistry of our
desires in towering letters of many colours
the way they spell out your tag and mine
intertwined against the flesh
allowing no easy out

no shameless removal of interest

Tonight
against the back drop of
the blue aching sky
will write our sex
in pastels and marbled hue

Iraq

The war
you know

The way young men are scared from the moment
they awaken at first light
to the moment they lie still and dream of sleep

Bursting with life

A sweet hearts name
inked onto shoulders and chests
a history yet written
a life to be led
and endured and inhaled

Assailed with the scent of promise
they are endless options

There is a number now

one nobody could have guessed

And it grows
it has names attached
sometimes crumpled photo's
images of young men and how they
looked before the day came
with fear and sweat

with blood and piss and shit
as they died screaming

The number leaps out from the pages
of newspapers as you sit and sip coffee

It ticks over
everyday,
another face
flickers into view for a moment
then disappears
gathered into the arms
of statistics
forgotten
just a part of the total
because if you say three thousand
real fucken quick
it doesn’t sound quite real does it?



America bleeds
appeasing the same blood lusting God
who drank so deeply in Vietnam
in Korea
in Japan and Europe
and Bull Run

And every time

it is scared young men
with sweet hearts
in ink across shoulders and chests

who give themselves to the number

Fine grains
we idle in the ebb and flow

I'm not feeling quite so beautiful today


Between my fingers
are thorn spikes
drawing images of disinterest and savagery

Between my eyes
is your middle distance

the place you look as I speak

the place you go as I touch

I told you once
I was created from the sighing sound
of a wave receding
and that soon
you would not be able to splash me
against your bare legs

Perhaps you forgot

maybe it never mattered