Sunset Song

The days of sunset songs
we thought
were
long past

the splash of late afternoon
dappling your skin 
in rust shadows 
a stripe of light
running tall fingers
dipped in dust motes
upon your breast  

You speak

portals open
alternative universes
loom 
starscapes beckon
and seduce
in searing
blazing
star death
in boiling suns
and reverent hommage
to utterance
 

I fall
into your voice
a seeker 
a believer
a truth you never released
never gave up on
or sold out 
to the soulless ones

A vibration 
strumming upon
your tongue 
playing the sunset song 
in all its dreadful aching 
desperate perfection 
and I
the echo
the memory of sound
barely heard
whispering  

me
to you













 

 

Time or not

Time wanders in drunken circles

aimless rotations


The simple mercy of silence
 fails to materialize in
 its weaving wake

We gather sadness
in ever growing
hastily scrawled pages 

the ink barely dry on one
before the next story writes itself
upon us
a flow of disasters and out cast souls

hope and youth
stolen and ripped into shreds of
shocked realization

There are no happy endings
only delays to inevitable
corruption and decay

We are following time
as it staggers into the wall
muttering to itself
leaning against the roughened stone
for support

I would offer it my arm
my patience
and good will
if I thought it would not turn on me
as well

But I know better,
if I stay hidden
shadow its meandering steps
close

but not seen

it will not take me yet

Seeking surcease

Hope is a broken toy on an unmown lawn

Weeds and unmet needs growing through
in twisting accusations
and a face turned away from the truth

I can hear Jen
on the phone from London
her smile
ragged and edged
with regrets
the delay
here to stay

I am
filled with sand
the weight
drawing us down
into the soft grey embrace
of an empty sea

You brought
waves
and white caps

you brought
dried sea shells
and the waters song

The hum of errosion
lapping at my fingers
filling hands with
salt stained seclusion's

Tonight i will dine
on mixed metaphors
and upended imagery

profer it to you
in all its disturbed
irrational disfunction

drink deep of my
my minds last distant
distilled weaving

for I am leaving


no legacy

Vice-Versa #9 @ Poets United

And you never said
nor offered

anything
other than
farewell

The impression of your body
lies sleeping beside me
no warmth or skin
for me to see
simply the
sound of your whispered

follow

And I did
through gray Sundays
scattered
broken
and upended
on the porch

Through scorched
mornings
where the burning
embers of your absence
crested the sunrise
to streak across a discolored sky

There was nothing tangible
no tactile sensation
to lead me to you

Yet
there you are

a suggestion
of who we once were

that unusual couple
as Ray and Jen once called us
with a giggle and a glass of Sav Blanc

Rare gems
glimmering in the diffused
light of late afternoon
slanting beams of each other
carving the porch into
latticed designs
of here now

and gone tomorrow

Connections

A lover

I never had

came to me recently

carried on the vagaries of the internet
she drifted against my picture
and stopped to speak

I do not recognize you
she said

either do I 
 I replied

Then she moved on
sailing to distant memories
on other IP's

leaving me with

a face I thought was mine

and a vague feeling
of unease

Dreams

And all those ghosts
that chase me
round and round my brain

are just the lovers
I never thought
I'd see again 


 

Water

Moon Version 


water waits

patient

sound of splash

lap

upon stones.


Together we remove

skin

bone

question moments past


You told me

water recreates

paints us

in glistening strokes

draws us in

sculpts

liquid clay.


Together

we prepare ourselves

divest

belief systems

and dreams

lives

falling away

in the cool

embrace



You told me

water takes

steals breath

gives serenity

takes time

leaving forever





Original Version 


You told me

the water waits

patient

 the sound

of a splash

wise

the lapping

upon stones.


Together

we remove

ourselves

skin and bone

question and answer

moment and past


You told me

the water recreates

painting us

in glistening strokes

drawing us

in

sculpting

souls

in liquid clay.


Together

we prepare ourselves

divesting

belief systems

and dreams

lives

falling away

in the cool

embrace



You told me

the water takes

stealing breath

giving serenity

taking time

giving forever’s

Together
we wondered
 if it would be quite right
to slake our thirst
on the city skyline

or perhaps
drink in the grit and grime
running in rivers of decay over
my grubby feet and your designer heels

There is a dumpster telling stories to vagrants
snippets of lives and businesses
secreted in the chipped blue painted walls
it spits out stale pizza
and the clues to a murder
with equal ambivalence

The coughing of the street
interrupts and annoys
cars
choking on themselves
trucks
trundling into the earth
moving shaking
making the sound of the street
a deep resonating bass throb

Passersby share nothing
but little bits of the world
Cantonese slipping seamlessly
into the contralto hum of
Italian as converstations come to us
caress us, then move away
to cafe's and cars
to stores with doors agape
begging and luring in
wide open sultry invitation

We settle on rickety wooden seats
made for small bottoms
you look at all the thighs
spilling over the sides

as the coffee arrives
cold
sugary
served with disdain
the pencil thin gay waiter
glances perfunctorarily
at my crotch
force of habit
rather than genuine interest

We become the blur
another splash of colour
thrown against rough brick walls
seeping into the mortar
joining the riot
the cacophony

The skyline dips down
falling into our open mouths

how

deeply deeply

we do drink
 

You are
 the epitome of distance
and I have become
the rumpled answer to
a question you never asked

Nature turned her back on us,
took her warmth and loving embrace
from our lives
and left us
bleached branches
washed up on a dreary shore

A finger
of wood
to jut into the sky
accusing God and his minions
of deceit
of abandonment

of telling lies


You do not weep
so often now
the tears you gave
so freely
I gathered into a cracked basin
to wash my face with each morning
for

your sadness
cleansed not only
my skin

Atonement
or abasement
I have neither
and offer no such simple solutions

I prefer to continue

for continuance
is a beam of
truth
pulling us back into synchronicity

You are
the epitome of distance
and I
the rumpled belief
you can hold onto
a little longer

Ime

The ipod ipad iphone clatter clutter 

a smooth black seduction 
for fingers and minds 
the caress of touch screen 
pulling us to
high resolution dreamscapes

An app a day
keeps sanity away

and we
will never
be alone again

I talk to your down turned face
the curve of your concentration
arcing beyond me
to Ipeeps
and we-don't-sleep
but its ok
face book will be there
when I am dust 
and gone far away 

There is no buzz
nor hum
to warn us
no prickling skin
and stand up hairs
on the back of the neck

All the deepest human
fight or flight 
are dulled
in the soft screen glow
of Iknow

I seek silence
in your voice
a surcease 
a way to implore you
put it down
turn it off
leave it be



You fail to see
that without you
I can not possible be
nor never find
or never know


Ime

The Ache....

Molten gold
glitter burns 
a touch 
and our fingers glow

We draw sigils 
in the empty air between us
runes of yesterday 
trapped echoes of the way
you seared yourself upon me 


The sky burns 

green for copper 
the taste of blood

gold for promise
a price paid 

We spell out
farewells 
in arcane tongues

whispers pulse
and harangue  
sound gathered in 
the raised hand
 against my face 


No
not loud enough
yet love
scream your loss to my eyes
so i can only see your goodbyes
so i can only 
be a reprise
mentioned at the end of days 


 The runes 
flare and fade
our conversation
cinders falling
to cling upon
 bare walls
where once
we hung frames
where once 
you called my name
as I thrust against you

The gold hardens 
sets
a thin metal sheet of regret
 
Melting into you 
becoming me
leaving us
behind 

 













 

Its just grubby

not amazing , not beautiful
as I thought it would be
should be


I am middle aged and tired beyond
weary bones and creaking groans
my soul
an aching muscle
throbbing with the force
of pounding against my own impotence
to change

I can still see magic
hold 
hold that thought
hold that memory 
 
I can still see magic
glowing
in a seared sunset on the horizon
the colours
spill onto the gray oceans upturned face
spread across her cheeks
flow upon her white cap lashes
till she closes her eyes
and the sea
refuses
to see

I can see it but in noway
reach it
my fingers stiffen and swell
balloon into clown hands
all styrofoam smiles
and drooping fingers

I can see it
but not understand what it means now
a distant thing
a forgotten lore
a dream dropped onto the floor
and trod upon by careless feet


 I sometimes kid myself
that all I ever wanted
was to write lovely things
to place words before you
that sing to your cynical ears

that force you to hear the rhythm
and make your soul tap  along to the
infused collection of emotion and image

I sometimes kid myself
that I can still write
the I can push back the velvet caress
of another night
and bring light forth
bring myself back

bring something

anything


other than who I have become

Maybe's are all I have

On Melbourne summer days
everything looks scoured clean
the skin of the city
raw and tender beneath the beating heat

The New Year
too bright
too jaded
you break it in half over your knee
and refuse to believe its burgeoning possibilities

In those rare moments
when we are not inundated with kids
and bullshit problems to solve
I still might convince you
the sky is my lover
I will fling you over my shoulder
and take you to her

You will fight her for possession

and naturally win

no one fights the sky
like you

The pieces of 2012
are not beyond repair

its only early days
and the heat haze
makes you
glow
in copper and gold

I make no promises
though you ask for them regardless
with those hands
that voice
that conviction

Together we sip the dusk
and argue
over tomorrow
the sun tinkles like a wine glass
as it submits
once again

The cities skin
dimples in the cool
gathers the night around its shoulders
and shudders gently.