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

Some ghosts never die.


How do the incorporate
cast such shadows?

You permeate
each taste
each breath and moment

I feel your fingers in my hair
body pressed against me
late at night
when all good people are sleeping
your sex comes creeping over
my skin
in slick indentations

I will thrash and twist
try to resist
but awaken
raging with arousal
and despair
thick on my tongue

I am so much more
than you ever let me be
crushed beneath
the ache of your violence

I am beyond
your control

Beyond the soft fist
the brazen kiss
of teeth and blood


Apparition
dancing behind my teeth
as I whistle your favourite song

I have sat in that room

The one with the simple
lettering on the door

Where all the others
smile and murmur
sound without speaking
just creating the correct background level
through accord

The hum beneath us
the way it carries the day aside
moves us within the required parameters
and delivers us to the conclusions
carefully typed out on the neat
unfolded foolscap placed before us

I have sat there
smiling/murmuring

Although sometimes
you will see my face slough off

just tuck the skin back in place
please
I would hate for anyone else to see

And if I shudder
and begin to move out of perspective

Try to continue
don't draw attention to the
obviousness of my disappearance

I will return
murmuring apologies
smiling indulgences
and sitting quietly

Depressed
no just
collecting tears from
other era's
to keep in a droplet
falling from the old tap
against the west wall

Cursing the morning
how it brings awareness
forcing eyes open
mouth to greet
feet to meet
the earth for another
endless
relentless
remorseless
day

Sweet oblivion
how you call

with silver lips and pouting breasts

How you entice with a beckoning finger
of numb

Embrace me
a lovers naked heat
of empty
engulfing my
frenzied lack of courage

Sadness can be a choice

like cigarettes
like fucking

And still

the still reflections
from a dew dropped spider web
blinding

binding me
with sun

I changed nothing

History
written before I took first breath

and acceptance
given in last exhalation

I have seen you in the act of dying
shying away from the light
the way it calls and speaks

My mouth is the universe
a billion stars aflame and waiting
all hidden behind enamelled jewels

I cannot look at your fine lined eyes

The way time has brought messages
to your skin
left comments and asides
for me to read

I do not want the story to end

so I will not look

And they say media exposure and the internet is not adversely affecting our children.

A story out of Australia

A mildly intellectually challenged girl of early teen age met a couple of boys in an internet chat room.

They all lived in the same suburb, and agreed to meet at the local mall
when she met them however, there was a group of twelve boys,
who forced her away from the mall and down to the local riverbank.

With a DVD recorder in hand, they proceeded to sexually abuse her,
urinate on her, and ultimately, as a joke, set her hair on fire.

Afterwards, they created a DVD of the whole incident,
along with a few other choice things they did
like dropping a flare in the lap of a homeless man, exploding chlorine bombs etc etc.

They created a professional looking front cover and a back cover complete with the names
of some of the boys who took part in it. They then proceeded to sell the DVD at three local schools for money $ 5.00 buys you the kind of sick abuse you cannot fathom these days.

It is not just that they perpetrated these acts that is horrendous, but the callous disregard for
the shame and pain they created with their actions, obviously, not one of these twelve individuals considered for a moment, how wrong these actions were, how damaging to the girl and other people they affected. And it goes further, when confronted with the DVD and the actions of their children, the parents of them tried to shrug off the crime as just a joke, just pranks.

How can we expect the children to take responsibility for their actions, if their parents will not?

Where has the basic distinction between what is right and what is so beyond wrong gone?

Bum fights,
cat fights etc etc are all extensions of the same disturbing trend.

Filming people beating the shit out of each other for entertainment and posting it on the internet is a sickening trend growing in popularity.

Have we as a society become so jaded, so numbed to sensation that we can only find life and awakening through the pain and humiliation of others?

I am sickend
and terrified that this is a world my children will have to live in.

This is as close as I get


The scent of your pain
is distended bellies
ready to explode
a cloud of decay and death
waiting to engulf
and embrace

I have learnt a lesson finally

My fathers belt taught me
that welts heal
aches fade
and if I grit my teeth
the first strike will be less than
agony
and more than I can bare

Feral and skittish
I skirt the borders of the hedge
able to secret within the
curling confusion of branch and twig

There is a Mac truck waiting for me
to make a break for the water
across the road

It has my name
scrawled in absurd
swirling script
flames leaping from the letters
spelling out how my blood will
look in splatter pattern.

I love the throb of its motor
as it approaches though

I have written a poem
in the time it takes to make a cup of tea


And it

is eternal

Quick

In the one moment's hushed opportunity

come to me


I will accept all your frailties
the way petals fall from you
when even the softest breeze
gives caress

Hurry
I see the shape of things to come
and it is distorted beyond recognition

I will agree
to release me
allow the bonds to break
the stern lines of frown
shall disappear
and my face will be the clear
unfurrowed planes of youth
beneath your whispering kisses

Faster love
I see the stars fall
the dead have risen over Sunday
and my pockets are filled with you

I will place
trust on the ground between us
and wait for you to gather it up
into your arms
your eyes
the way you cry when
the guy and the girl get together
in every chick flick ever made

Come
it is time

Deeply personal
yet giving nothing away


I am fully aware of my insignificance

How I blend into the sun-paled patterns
on fading wall paper

My dreams
have left echoes on my children

They have a sense of who I am/was

The way I ran in the sun with the
reverberations of a gun shot
bouncing off the back of my heels

I cannot explain blood
how it coppered on my tongue
and thickened darkly
on the dry earth at my feet

Or how sharp and short
the cry of death is

It does not encompass the loss
the passing
it just ticks it off on a list of lost
and moves beyond

The children know
I am woven of secrets

my shadow never falls the right way
when the sun is high

They have seen my clenched teeth
biting around the tough skin of scar tissue
seeking a way in
or
back

I am accepted
in spite of
because of
my lilting cadence
moving against the conversation

How the slots are never the right shape for me
and yet I wedge in regardless

The gifts I bring

not wrapped
nor tied with ribboned conformities

Suzuki told us

is still telling us

of planet death

and how we should have responded

I taste the dry

and wish we had

I thought I'd write a bit about me but


How much information is too much?

If I told you the way I clip my nails
or
the consistency of the wax in my ear

The state of the nation
from the angle of my erection in the morning

The weather by my popping bones as I stretch

The size of my shoe
just one, you cannot know about both
for each foot is different on each of us
and both have a tale to tell

My favourite colour of underwear
for me
no one else

The times I have wept in total despair
snot and tears running together
a river of hopelessness meeting
on the valley of my mouth

The same number of times I have laughed so
hard my ribs have crushed in and taken the
breath from my lungs

My memory of standing on the edge of a cliff
the small stones shifting beneath my weight
the sun burning into my eyes
and wondering....

why I don’t like pasta sometimes

why I don’t like chicken often

why I will not sing the national anthem

why my hip has a small sickle shape scar


And what will you do with all of this?

Paint a picture
write a story
fill your empty places

wish it into a physical shape

burn it to the soft bone-white arc
of a branch
emblazon my life across its gnarled surface

Or read it
absorb it
and wander on to the next one

How many lifes should we bookmark
and covertly become part of?

Are you part of mine?

Am I part of yours?

If I only had
no time
to tell you
everything.

I would begin with yesterday
red gold perceptions
blurred through the falling leaves
of a cool Autumn dusk

A wicker chair
creaking upon the tilting verandah

The tinkle of glasses
shattering laughter
crystal refractions
rainbow
fairy lights wound around
your bare arms

Wrist bent to accept
reflections
breaking against the tremble
of lips

The dance of hands
adoring contours
shaped and shifting with the
shadows

We wove garlands of days
in wild flower disarray
gnarled branches
secreted within the splashing
color spilling over your lap
to greet me

Then
we bled to sepia
wide grain textures
fuzzy with acceptance
of passing

If I only had
the time
to tell you
everything

I would speak you today

Ravenous
now
as then
the adrenalin kick

want flickers

flame biting warmth
upon coppered skin

The start of each instant
lingers
the fall of time
you and I
reaping a harvest of summers

Today
in its infinite dazzling spark
leaps in cavorted boundless glee

A smattering of words
candle wax drip
heat on skin
each delightful burn
surging over the shameless
coupling of ideologies
we debate Castro
through red wine smiles

If only
I had the time
to tell you tomorrow

An old dog
tongue dangles
on the soft pattering
of dusky days

We are bound
beneath the weight
of memories
a heavy blanket of snow
to snuggle within

The words whispered
hushed rushed
and placed gently
in a thousand voices
loud clarion
lowest utterance

hang over our bed
silver framed needlepoint
carefully threaded
over endless nights
with tired fingers
aching yet resolute
in completion

You are quieter now
as we come to accept sleep
as the final brilliant flash
of a time
so long
and too desperately short

My If-only
slips from worn hands
to land between us
bent
spent and emptied
of time

All the infrastructure
gleaming girders
bordered in gilt
and shiny shiny chrome

The way the city breathes
moves in time to the inhale exhale
of us

The buzz
always

a whining counter point
to the high low pitch of life
and death
played out on neat suburban
lawns fresh mown
or back alley stained cement
where everything smells of wet
and sad and sexed out

We are intricate tonight
in the blue hook flesh neon shine
caught rabbit startle in the glare
only to shimmy sidewise
into a cafe cool embrace
where coffee is the only song sung

I want the distance you promised
from the sweaty human taint
clinging greasy and smearing
my skin

I sip and slip my tongue
between sentences

Waiting on the exhale
to rejoin the mass of tingling
adrenalin thrusting brightness

We covet the night
in all its lack lustre dazzle

blink

blink in the shades of grey blue

Iris red
the
retina's expanding into the dark

And when the light strikes
no pinpoint reaction
just the absorbing of it all
in glorious blinding disaster

My widened eyes
sucking in the vortex
slamming suns
searing imprints
a comet tail
a meteoric impact
burning race memory and history
far into
the
cortex of my soul

Becoming the hollowed impression
a billion swirling dust particles
up-ploding into mushroomed release

Close eyes
see the aqua light
of creation
suffuse

I can feel brilliance grow
bulge
encapsulate and encase
till membranous
we are twinned in the skin of tomorrows verse

Folded into a womb of genius
we weave the energy given from
the graceful fingers of humanity

How fragile
the thin sliver of hope left
to mankind.

The way they look to us
doe-eyed and shivering
with the cool wind
dimpled skin
tautness of waiting

How precious the gift
the amber glow
inclusions of supple interpretations
winding over your naked acceptance
and my final acknowledgement
of how it is
should be
and
might have
been

We rise
on the voices proffered
in joyful harmonies

Lifted above the canopy
of clustered anticipations
to join the sound
the humming ceaseless tone
of earth song
sky splitting and emitting
a high pitched whine laced
in the lavender and rose scent
of a gardens softer tones

Spreading petals of muted hue
across a landscape
carefully planted with
my essence
and the blazing foot prints
upon the surface of my life

left by you.

Make me
in copper and bronze

The flash of sun
sparking from your skin
blinding and binding.

Intricate
the design of time

The way it carries us

Shifting and sifting through
the boundaries of skies

Pulling us through the eyes
of God

You stand on the foaming breakers
as they come to caress

A smile
of curling waves

And I am merely the late afternoon
falling
on your bare shoulders
warm and familiar

Copper and bronze
we melt
reshape
softly hammered
to delicacy
by the sun

Proof of Life



You wear that scent

The one you pull out for special occasions
of flowers and dreams and serious expressions

You wear those clothes

black pants white top
contrasting
light and dark

Death is the sound in the back of your throat
how you cry sob rage and grieve

how you try to explain the sadness
as your tongue seeks mine

The staleness of waiting is on your breath
a long mourning
standing around
with dark clothes and muted sounds

The urgency of sex
primal
coupling across the face of the day


as you weep a farewell

We read each others minds

The waves
of thought
the way they peak and break

roll across us

But I never drown
never come up gasping

Only glide on surface glass
watching the black depths
slide past beneath

And when at last
a shore is reached
the tell tale breakers
thundering in

I will phosphoresce

to leave

a shimmering narrow path
upon the endless blue of you

Waiting at the lights
I see
a young woman at the bus stop
crying

Her hair
whipping in the promise of spring
a chill wind scented with cut grass
and bloom

She stands
distraught
surrounded by traffic
turning this way and that
seeking privacy
on an exposed corner

Her face disolves
the skin and bone
receding
sloughing off
to expose the rawness of pain
how the nerve endings
shudder and shy from the sun
how the searing
can only really jolt electric
when the cool spring morning touches them

I drive on
when the light changes
watching her fade
in the rear view mirror

Our farewell
will be as ambiguous
as every other encounter

Your cell phone
pressed lover close to your ear
whispering the
beckon of Dallas
and all the promises they can give
laid out in a tongue of caress

The party is winding down
chips scattered on the carpet
crushed in

A spilt wine
stain
ignored too long

now a permanent reminder

Your body
curves an S
as you lean against the counter
laughing into the phone

We will not look at each other
yet

Your body emanates
a wave of heat
that strikes hard against
pliable me
bending to you
a genuflection
of bowed will

If I do not look
I cannot cry out
the words torn and born
against all resistance
a baby birthed
in a back alley
and screaming for sustenance

If I do not say farewell
you cannot leave

But now you are
gathering yourself
eyes downcast
so as not to burn me
you kiss others
cheek peck
promises of contact.

Lips warm
yield
a bended knee
of submission
from me

Going Home.



Nothing could

would

stop us

The sagging limbs of night
heavy against my back

Darting through the blur
cars sped to destinations
beyond the reach of my comprehension

We were coming home
through Michigan rain
wind driven through the windscreen
soaking our joy with
sleeting responsibilities.

Your hands
creating a vessel
resting ceramic around
a swelling belly

Beauty is the sound
of vomiting in the morning
my hand
a conduit of care
resting against your back
soothing sounds issuing
from my throat
to float up and against your fear
and drive it back down

We are concave
smooth sides
hewn from black onyx
slicked with humanity
awaiting the font of child


And nothing

could

would

stop us.

Picnic

The Cabernet
warms

The buzz
mingling with bee drone
memorising the petals of the rose garden

Blanket rumpled beneath us

The kids are stepping out
the careless paces of
Gods dance of childhood

the running game
the leaping hiding
dodging laughing complexities
shifting the shape of sound
till its rebounding back across the park
in tinkling silver bell song

And you are warming in the sun
blood thinning
and singing beneath pale skin smiles

I consume your laughter
till fullness swells my belly

I enhance sensation
with a soft kiss completion

We all rode in on a roan

one horse wonders
galloping full pelt into the
disquiet


Why hand me the day?

What would I do with it
but turn it into something tawdry

a cheap mp3 version
tinny sounding and clunky
compared to the vibrancy of its
original form

You have never lost that sheen

the belief system woven around
my dogma

And though
I cannot stomach my own propaganda
anymore

the pamphlets
are still floating down around us

A rain
of delusions

Your day

stuck to my fingers

I have misused the gift

the dream handed me
when I was seven
and could still fly

soaring into the future
with no wings to slow the glide

Tumbling into distortions
allowing the disarray
to alter my passage

I was naked and believing all the rhetoric
fed by the writers of children’s books

How it always ended up alright

How mom and Dad would find me
in the teeth of the Dragon
just in time
and snatch safety from despair

But no

the Dragon bites like a bitch

and no one came

no one at all.

I wrote once of strangers


How they would all be looking
with that devil-in-the-hedges
rough round the edges stare
white eyes of bright omen skies

They would talk to me
and my replies were a balm
they smoothed into their skin
soothing the aches and pains

I became
auto erotica
with a face and no name
something to stimulate the senses
dulled by time and the easy action
of life-tides

And when I became husk
desiccated dry
the empty of a male mantis
sucked and shucked oyster shells
left haphazard on the plate

I finally understood.

You will come back

or not

as is your want


The reticence of today
is no consequence
I will bend it into the shape I need
regardless of protestations

I have gathered the sun
the moon
and all the bodies celestial
into the cupped fingers of my hand


They spin and shimmer
against the whorls of my skin
dancing cool upon the ridged flesh
rotations create
geometric patterns
of random disorder

I'm waiting for you

to ask for the sky back

We went to see seal rock
the hammering forties
slashing against a grey coastline

The surf
bursting apart
flecking the shore in foam
for meters up the beach
hanging in the battered branches of the tee tree
lying contrast on the dark rock
swilling in the thrashing waters


A dirtied salt laden snow speckled landscape

We stood into the wind
leaning against nature

You pointed out the spot
where they had found that sailor
a battered bloated half submerged vessel
lolling in the surf
the foam
wreathing him

His eyes
given to the sea

They say his wife
tore clumps of hair
and wailed like the wind over the dunes

The rising dipping howl

From Russia it surged through the waves
and pushed our jumpers tight against
our torso's
jeans flapping behind our legs
eyes watering from its anguish

I'm rising on the wind of sound
filling my dented skull
with music
throb
beat
drowning out all the rest of the world
in drum bass lead blissful crushing noise

I cannot hear beyond the howling
begging of the voice

I wail
lost in the song

scream
an underscore to the soaring ache

There is nothing else
no sight nor touch
can reach through

Only the pain of reverberations
and crescendo’s
taking me and breaking me into
chorus and lyrical destruction

And it feels
so fucking potent

the loss of self

the damage

the dissolution of a soul

Dissolve me on the acidic
taint of your chords

Shatter my reality
in the four minute blistering skin
of scale and wailing

And for a moment
the crowding is gone

To see beyond

here and now

the lessening somehow

And still

all there is

is sound

the barrage

remorseless

and tender

Covet me and fuck me

with the lick of a guitars flaring

flame

I will never be

never was

the same

Canon creates beauty through the
hands of some media fuck head that got
it right for a change.




Jose Gonzalez has released the song
the colors
sailing down San Francisco streets
bouncing towards me

My mouth
open
my hands
empty

His guitar
is strumming the city awake
the desolation of civilization
a hum

The colors
come
to
into
before and beyond

I am
magenta
and amethyst
teal and beige
a sparrow wingtip black
and a seal alabaster fur

I am
tiger stripe orange
and wervyn ebony
a giraffe in pale brown and white
a Zebra mottled
and afraid

Jose sings
and strums
till I am complete

All the shades
of you

all the shadows of us

all the colors brought forth

in an ink jet splash

She never carried the thought through

only allowing it
to thread into the parted weave of tomorrow

Her hands are plaster
brittle walls
whiting out horizons.

She listens to her mother
nagging into the phone
the words rebounding against deniel
to spin away
break apart
and fall
lessened and distorted onto the carpet
at mothers house.

Later
she will strip down
to yesterday
draw the silver thread of a river
around her shoulders
and await the shiver of dawn

I have brought you offerings

Incense and myrrh
Frankincense and foils of white horse

To lay at your feet

the small white sculptured marble toes

with veins of gold
running random patterned brilliance
through the flesh turned stone

I prostrate myself
and genuflect
palm out

palm down
supplication a balm
to soak in

skin oiled gleaming
reflecting light streaming
from your caress

You tell me secrets some days
how
the nature of stars
is changing
the way constellations
dance
and disappear
only to re emerge
from the stones
or the carved rock buttress

then issuing from
the depthless caverns

You tell me

the obvious

how the Gods

have forsaken us

left us to wallow and wander

the desert of forty days and nights alone

without the sibilant whispers of hope

to sustain us

You tell me

worship

is not in my thing

and leave me

a crazed shaman

stamping beneath the canopy

of eternities frozen embrace

There are a thousand heartbeats
thrumming next to my ear

the pearls of words
the cast of a stone to ripple against the soft press
of your flesh

We shed intentions
pretentions
swept away on the currents of sex
and sentiments shared

I'm leaning on you again
the press nothing more
and nothing less
than everything you ever wanted
and nothing you have ever had

Goad the rise of my skin
into the sun
I strive
grow and stretch
till we are shaded beneath my desire

And the heat will still reach us
as the night beseeches us to come closer

A thousand heartbeats
pressed against my ear
calling me out of this sea shell haven
the fallen raven
swooping one last time

Just this once
we shall write for joy

We hear the world
in three colors

We see your pain
in seven white sails
on a far horizon

We know you cannot
make it alone

And we are
one man
one child
found deep in the thickets
of rain forest green dapple mystery

And we are
so far from home

Watching the sky for a sign

Finding coins beneath leaves

Setting the record straight

Letting rain infuse us
as the changing landscape
confuses us.

And your ship is close
so very close
to shore

So we write for joy

A worn child’s toy
lies on the dusty ground
wrapped in chuckles and
a thousand different dreams

A wrens blue eggshell
empty on the bracken nest
leaving promise and a sad farewell.

A day shorter than we thought
but stretching beyond tomorrow

And we can hear you
jumping ship before she
slams into rocks and sinks

Safe within the dripping fronds
of our ferns
we peer out at you
and wish you safe journey

We write for joy
on reams of plain paper
we scratch moments
and indigo impressions
knowing full well
tomorrow
the page is empty still

You have almost made it
alive
and we are shedding tears
on rich loam
still singing
and bringing joy to silence

Tears


It's fading away

the early warning
of another grey morning
lost within
the scent of your breath

Someone is crying
a soft falling
making the day
blur and shift

Life is painstaking

a watercolour

warped by the sun
then left to run
in the rain

Tears for wishes
each one shed
another promise
spoken and broken
in the same breath

I will paint you
in turquoise and green
a woman
woven of tears
free to leave
but bound to stay
by sadness and a lack of solutions


I have kissed you

tasted the rain
wet leaves
dripping
muddy ground
slipping
beneath me

and though you remain

a canvas painted in clear water

I see you within the colours not seen
a silhouette
beckoning still
beckoning till
I join you in tears.

I stole inspiration
from your throat
took the rhythm
a soft contralto
and swallowed
till your voice
issued from my lips

You have always
been brilliant after 5.00pm
somehow
the shifting weight of the day
slid free from your skin
each evening
and left you naked and beautiful
a vessel to release precious
droplets of superb vocalisations
a spreading splash on the page
then
on my upturned face
a font to fill my eager mouth

I the echo
and
you the words
meant for evermore

I drink
deeper than I should
fill my swelling belly
till I cannot hold you in anymore
and then

and then


I the echo

you the words
meant for evermore...

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

Do you see the mire?

Not dark nor black
nor anything at all in truth


I swirl toward you with stolen
mouths of pleading between my fingers

Brazen
the caress of oil slickened skin

For a moment
you attempt to introduce reality into the equation

Complex structures of
human endeavour
sour the tainted
skin surface of our lake

Do not crack the scum
do not make a sound
lest ripples shudder
and take us apart
disparate surface tensions
arcing away from combining
once again.

Evelyn wakes alone


She turns her face towards the window out through the creeping rose vine
clawed across the latticed frame, the petals casting soft red hue over a grey horizon.

She can hear old Mick barking at the morning, the throaty yapping familiar as it is annoying,
and she pictures the dog straining against the links of chain, muscles tensed eyes wide, biting clouds in half.

From down the hall, she hears Calin stir, his small feet hitting the bare floor boards
with that thumping enthusiasm, and then a pattering tread as he comes to wake her.
She closes her eyes and tucks her smile away, for this is the same game they always play
and Calin loves to think she is a sleepy head still abed as he calls it.

A bundle of warm woollen panama’s leaps upon her and giggled instructions to wake up
are uttered. She wraps her arms around him and draws his shaggy hair against her cheek,
he struggles and grumbles but hugs her back.

Later, as they sit munching slightly burnt toast from the toaster that never quite gets it right,
Calin asks her what they should do today. Evelyn shakes her head slightly and tells
him the world is their oyster to which he replies "How disgusting, oysters are so slimy"

He decides to call Deacon, and after the usual to and fro of who and where, leaves to go over for a play.

Evelyn tells him to behave, and catches the soft edges of his laughter as it trails after him down the road.

She dresses to the music of Sarah Mclachlan, allowing the sad tones to soap her body in foamed
sighs, the water running down her face in streams of cadence. She cries a little, but only a little.


To be continued.....

I'm cutting the price tag off freedom tonight


Rub the grit from my eyes
ease the ache
the forsaken Saturday
bleeding and broken
on the back seat
amongst the candy bar wrappers.

Stacking children in
on top of the crap
strapping em down
to teach them young

Listen up kiddies,
we are all strapped down from
an early age

But they will not listen
for they are seeking destiny
with glowing skin and eyes alight
with a desire to seek out the truth

They are youth
and dreams
woven from the threads of all we know

And I will smile as they grow beyond my reckoning


But I will recall
my naked days
when scent flowed water
across my senses
and touch was a taste
not to be wasted

I oiled my skin in defiance
till I gleamed
and out shone the sun

Your tongue was rough
against the ripple of muscle
barely contained beneath

Worship
is sight of us as we are/were

Collecting moments
and placing them on the bare
skin of your arm

A daisy chain of luck

A borderline of us
between incredible perfection
and where all others reside

By Burning Moon from a conversation with Never :)



Triplicate



As for the third,
try not to anticipate
which face of fortune's cube
will tumble next.

Spectres of memory flicker
from windows and mirrors as you pass,
slide over chrome bumpers and door handles.
Glimpses of what was, or what may be.

Kiss the hem of her gown
and future will glide into fresh
and reassuring patterns.

Something to awaken the moon,
fragmented shells of half-formed wishes
moulded into an orb where all your past
coalesces into the birth of now.

Tie me to your wrist
with a paper kiss.

Elation

the taste of parchment

Wet ink
Indian blue
flowing through

The morning

is burning holes in history
wisping smoke
a coiling pause in conversation

When do you think?

Watching the words leave you
butterfly wing
fragile beating
lifting them into the bright of a
stunning day
to dip and sway
over daisies

lifting above
standard roses winding
in non-standard ways

And I honestly don't know
so I let resistance go
and watch you tie off
the kisses on my wrist.

You pull the two sides tight

the cut

runs into
around
within
and without.

Skin parting beneath
your gentle pressure

Letting the sun in.

I'm not sure

I can survive on a diet
of Bill Hicks
for much longer


My political ethos
is bend all outta shape babe,
the ends have curled up
and sometimes I can see smoke
rising from the center of it
like a little forest fire
in a cartographers first draft

I can reasses I guess


Tell you what

you take the bullshit out of belief for me

pull all those double standards out
wriggling maggot white
shying from the light

Take away that stale adrenalin taste

the moment after you felt alive

the stomach stills

and your mouth dies

Remove the stains
from the pristine best intentions


and I'll come along for the ride.

The cold has numbed
even the distance
from here to tomorrows grieving ache


Crows
caw in unison
weaving a black blanket
across the sky

Alternating echoed insistence

they are feathered in shadow

Cloak the day
in omen

The weight
of ululating cry's
suffocate the sun

We run a parallel course
of disparity

I will watch you create
indentations in the human psyche

and you will blithely ignore me

And for all the
empty words we will not throw
at each over

The quiet

will deafen and distort

Reverberations
rattling windows down
through the ages

We strove,

for red gold links of perfection.

Your words rose

on a thermal's gentle lift

to glide over my bare feet

resting lightly on the dirty street

we called home.

I am the voice

broken on the implacable ridge of difference

Yes

and I

the face averted

to avoid further complications.

Yet we strove,

our metaphors

woven on belief in

unity and a shared breath

exhaling into a mornings soft light.

I am the division

between utterly alone

and the scrawled line in the dirt

you balance upon

Yes and I

the one who slips between

you lips and a pause

in the conversation

The Dream of Comprehension

In the ocean of the sky

she glyphs

the Southern Cross

Gacrux

falls into eyes

Acrux caresses

open mouths

Hadar

burns skin

sinks in

to guide the way

Destination

Oh falling Star

a thought sent

received

To break upon you

Surging tsunami

consumes

Within the deluge

You are drowned

and I

diminished.

Consummation

Flagrant

the taste is naked

curled upon

smoothing wavelets

Your breath

sends spindrift

leaping pale coral skin

salt spiced

dancing whitecaps

break dishevelled between

and within.

Awareness.

The scent

of sea

thick with gulls cry

Shallow

water

warm

To curl

recede

over dry rock

Leave dead star ash

in fading embers

for memories

A gift of us
I bring to you


All the days
I have had tucked beneath
my salacious grin
are yours to

disavow

There are not enough words left


to describe the contorted convolutions
we should be

Wind around us
your history
in all its sad eyed
dog eared pages

I will bring
a weeping man

and you will bring

redemption

I will gather your bones to my chest

hold you close
and listen to the whispers they will unleash

It pleases me
to want this much
to coil within the splash of your desire
and unwind
one complexity at a time

Bring forth the bursting flesh
supine divinity
spread across the sparsely
inhabited plains of my mouth

Gilt in skin
we bronze
and glimmer

All the time in the world

was never long enough

I was given the skill

but not the eternity
I would need to perfect it.

Now
sunset comes
a satin sheet rippling
scarlet folds
to fall upon my silhouette.

I'm hiding secrets daily

death and denial
beneath
socks and underwear
pushing them deep into the
old explorers I never wore because
they were too thick.

You will not find them
because you never thought to look

or perhaps
you just assumed I'd tell you

Goodbye is
the scent of shaving cream
on the collar of a shirt

The feel of an old woollen pullover
when you drag it out of moth balls
to cry on

The photo's
which really aren’t all that good
but when they become all you have
take on the stunning light and shade
of a Monet
the colors blending into
a glorious garden
painted just
to make you weep

I would not wish this
absence on you love

Gather the children
and hold them tight
draw warmth
comfort

Look into their eyes
and see me sometimes

Watch them laugh
and hear me sometimes

I will finish this rush of words

and leave a
poem on the table

for you to find tomorrow

It is 8am,
and the light is shifting
finally.

He would dance in dark corners
a mere shadow's flitting distraction.

Moving in time
to a teardrop
tremor.

Don’t hold back
don’t hold back

And she didn’t,
she tore out handfuls of hair
and wove him a cup.

But he would not drink

He was a mere distraction,
a movement
in the corner of her eye.

Standing still
till rock dissolved,
sand liquefied,
water hissed into history,
the earth laid waste,
and still he stood.

Don’t hold back
don’t hold back

Her cry
echoed across vast
wasted days
and sought new ways to ask
the same questions

Answers,
lost in shifting light.

I am writing this
to find completion to at least
just one thought/thing/event


No loose ends are tied off for me,
they hang with the tips
blood coated and sacred

I swing on the threads of today

Yes, I know your dying
you told me with that voice you use
when you are seeking a neutral tone
but the octaves are scattering from your throat
and splattering against the spotless surface of our relationship

No matter how hard we try to wipe away the residue
it stains our hands ochre
our clothing bleaches out color
and dry empty of verve.

Life is brittle

don’t fucking tell me that

but I know now if I touch you
you will break away in my hands

Bones dry to burn

Skin kindling the flames of farewell

I have pressed my mouth to your tears
and tried to pray you back from the brink

And all the time
you still work and smile
and while away weekends watching the game
and saying things will always be the same

You lie to all of us

You lie to the sky
and try to find the smile you lost last year


I lie to myself at night
when the sweat comes
the gritted teeth of no where to run
grinds my eyes into shards

I have become sand
blowing onto the trunk of your car
so you must always push me away
before you can pack up your things and go.

You will not leave tonight
or perhaps tomorrow

You know I will consume the sweet nectars
of sorrows tart tang
and drown
for all time.

Don't tell me not to worry

I was born to carry the song you never gave voice

I was told to make sure the Universe
would clearly state the brief flare of your life
in a falling stars arcing random journey

And when you look at me
I can see the failing light
gathering dusk behind
the grey of eyes
accepting
while rejecting my inability
to deal

And resolution for us
will be a sod of earth
thrown down the throat of Gods whimsy

And the incredible silence

where once you filled part of me

I wonder where

your writing now

Alone but
encircled by the agitated
mewling of a tabby cat
insatiable hunger
a fur whirlwind
winding up your legs
to purr throb in
the crook of your arms.

Your gaze
slipping easily between
new curtains
and the rotting windowsill
paint peeling to reveal
the secret of timber
in raw perfection

Seek the breeze kid
a caress
barely registers
when it comes
on the gust of change

I wonder why

your writing now

The how of course
a honed pencil
cleaving grey lead creases
of stunning imagery
neatly pleated through
colored light
and sharply defined sound

But why?

the reasons are
caught in your throat
unarticulated
forced back down
to circulate a little longer

You will covet
the title
alone
perhaps
for a time
till the urge to speak
graces those lips once again

And then your voice
will rebound from the cloud
shrouded Mountains
echoing longing
and a half remembered song
hummed
strummed within
and then left to resonate
against the sleekness
of rebirth
you wear
braided into your hair.

In the quiet,

we rise.

Above the misted earth

the pale frost grass

the cobwebs

speckled quicksilver dew.

The air

a cool caress

against bare legs

arms

torso

Your face

embossed into clouds

We trade night

for first light

And dance

the morning alive.

As a child
I died and was raised up once again

On the gasp of northerlies
pressing air into lungs
too shocked to inhale

I lay amongst the tussock
and dreamt the sky would stop
flashing past
the clouds scudding into the dip of the ocean swell

only to sink
regardless of my hands beseeching

I tried to catch the sky
and wrap it in the warmth
of a wind cheaters clutch

So many things
my fingers could not grip

the day

the
layers
of time
I was supposed to care for
and nurture
into the proper contours

Each thing
will follow its course
but I stood outside the flow
and build sand dams to hold the future

There was a cypress pine
I called sanctuary

Beneath a canopy of dry sweet
cakes
and golden dark tea stains
that spoke of goblins
and capricious spirits


I was hewn
from the open wound
of cut wood

The chips flying
ripping awareness into eyes
lowered and averted

The bark stripped away
to expose pulped
belief

We knew wrong
all of us
who resided within
the gnarled branches

We saw it
clearly in the bleeding sap and
the brittle leaves turned
brown with death

He knew
turning his face away
would release the Doves
nesting within.

They had rested there for years,
occasionally taking flight,
to split the sky
a blaze of white.

Please
seemed too small a word
to implore.

Beg
was never enough.

Ask and ye shall receive,
a red gold thread,
woven through the palms of his hands.

The Dove's coo,
echoing in the cold air
of sea spray shorelines
jagged with the knowledge
nothing ever changes.

If only,
the two words
he let fall from pursed lips.

But the Doves would return,
time and again covering him
in bright white comfort
rustle wing softness of
depthless resonance.

They flew wild in his face,
till he became an empty place,
filling slowly,
with lost,
forgotten feathers.

When no one
was watching

he opened the sealed container.

The rest of a life

not lived

folded neatly within.

Taking the first page

between thumb and forefinger

he blows softly.

The words

scattering

rising up

to engulf him.

He plucks one at random

Fear

nods acceptance

swallows it whole

Takes another

Elation

this one bursts into flame

scorching fingertips

his arm

glows witch fire blue

the tiny conflagration

eating flesh and bone

with hungry purpose

The sensation

akin to pain

but so enticingly alive.

The next page

has only one word written

over its creased surface

Accept

and he does

finally

in the moment

he ceases to exist

his resurrection

is assured.