(I Am A) Half Empty Cliché

as we kiss goodbye
to a powder bruised sky
bid adieu to this
year of denials
stand fast and true
with strength renewed
and prepare for yet
further trials

Lepidoptera

vivid crimson moth
pinned opened by tongue of I
lepidopterist

butterfly hovers
over full bloom ring-a-rose
until the rain falls

Drawing Out

so the solstice passed
can you feel the days lengthen
no neither can I

Nothing New

now the crows set
comfortably
squat
upon on my face
and libido
oiled laughter
serves
a haven, there for them
to procreate

now becomes assured
my place
in the chain
of natural fools
where your
candied floss lies
cast aside
adorned with my
sour dripped jewels

now this ragged dog
ambition hid
behind
hairy eyes
revives the
hoary
hocus-pocus
and dons the devil’s
delicious disguise

After The Dance

wallowing in a post
yuletide fug
that assured stink
of contentment
served in slices
barrel gutted
sweet pain of excess
with loosened belt
and bulging dresses
where furniture shrinks
before your eyes
from your body full grown
a couple of sizes
shared observational
grunts and toots
while the idiots lantern
in the corner
casts its hypnotic pall
over conversation
till one by one
the drift begins
into a snuffling
roll eyed
noxious hebetude

Constant Companion

56 hundred hertz
no coded morse remission
messageless is this
tinned whistle

inexorable hiss
but if no lip stirred
air quivers
tympanic wafer

then what internal currents
pulse and roll to
incite this phantom
cicada strain

Menelaus and Agamemnon

Joe’s stone deco boys
eighty more years here we’ve sat
roaring less and less

Livid

petrol bruised tarmac
like weekend misadventures
revealed by the day

Untitled

smutted thumbprint
upon this eye
sooty gauzed ocular hood
not cloud enough
to eclipse the clarion
rabbit orbed shock
around and found
down
despised clown
fall
fickle
friendship
bloodied fireflies
twitch and prick
the middle gloom
livid hackers
who colour my tracks
these notes mere extracts
no exact
soundings
from fearful iridium
retinal flashback

Humbug – In Jubilo

on the hate-th
day before Christmas
began the phoney war
with the normal
on hiatus
came that inertia
I abhor

Given A Chance

some might call this
an act of desertion
but I expect
with a little sweet coercion
we could swing this round
and write another version
though while it may smack
some of desperation
and it can never return
to that perfect union
there might just be chance
to shore up the undone
footings of that we
once proudly belonged

Oops

when I spoke
those words
you have to know
I was only yokelling
it was all for show
a colloquial jokester
delivering cheap schlock
I didn’t expect
such dislocating shock

Hush

that facet professed
obmutescent as sunlight
you should practice now

Rough

snout deep
cracked badger’s
honey kink
snake in‘n’ baking
‘n’ shaken sac
quick
whip crack a flay
today
the way
you wear those
ankles so well
that far back

a la mode
cherry high
pie and cream
no sweet
reluctance of
bristling itch
searching
eye screwed
incontinent twitch
from mondo
trespassed
hush-pushed niche

Winter Down

bread stuffed, puffed and fluffed
downy quackers coast over
somnambulant trout

while algid weir
tumbles chattertoothed over
this burgs glopped muddle

and oscine carols
burst jocund sweet notes through a
hawkish hiemal spit

Arise

as I explode
into that ecstasy
which bedevils
the lonely
I would that those seeds
could ride invisible currents,
sustained aloft
to the plush shores
of your abiding Amritan
wellspring

Perchance To Die? (Redux)

does a garden dream in winter?

can it garland itself
in balmy memories
or does it quiver
in a febrile cold sweat

tremulous
in its frigid pall
with deadly fingers
around its throat

unsure if this time
it will awaken
in a springtime
phoenix resurrection

or remain entombed
in a solid,
sodden mire
of clod and dreck

Today I drove past fields of wind turbines, not coping with the winter at all (Redux)

Those lordly giants
may bestride the fields
but typhoon arms,
are now forced to yield

Ensnared
by such ironic air
that petrifying blast
of Boreas’ stare

Impotent
turbines becalmed and dumb
skulk shamefaced
under a glacial sun

A Blast of Wind (Redux)

anthracite quilled
this atramentous
flight of storm surfers
hang ten
clear from grasping
wooden claws,
vaunt atop an invisible buttress
amid
hurly burlied
leaf and
twig and
beak
before alighting
high cabled staves,
ebony notes waiting
to be played

The Last Breakfast

it is said that garlic
is good for the heart
but served with stake
in the graveyard dawn
it will thwart all those plans
of eternal return

Fuck Karma

were that I as sinful
as the visitations
seem to mitigate
or that I’d had as much fun
as the punishments
would blindly dictate

Chill

that call
unknown number
voice
of a stranger
flesh
blood
marrow
crackle cold
arctic night-time
winter cold

“there’s been an accident…”

Waking

keen three tone spoiler
digital prod which forsakes
honeyed qarînah

Adámas

frozen
the page needed turning
my hand between her legs
scorned a classical warning
for
that girl got an untamed
grit in her eye
unchained
the proper reflection
of an unalterable sky

Submarine

flic flac

you have me sat here

underwater

where dreams run

flic flac

so speak to me now

what shall you say?

all that you must

flic flac

but waste

no brackish

sorrow over me

flic flac

do not

short change

your sweet heart

flic flac

flic flac

Complimental Drift

sometimes it is dry
as if stepped back
to 1975
from a village nestled
valley side
on chapel outing
itchy backed coach ride

sometimes it’s effusive
all ‘77 punk bluster
arrogant abusive
yet coherent in
its narrative
with arguments
seductively persuasive

nowtimes though it’s coasting
mired post millennial dankness
grey verse in a drizzling
where my petty ego
sits bleating
and I’m convinced
she just can’t be listening

Bah!

expectation
this pregnant sensation
begets a total suspension
of new word gestation

and I, born of conflict,
morals now trafficked
and principles kicked
like a gutter down addict

yes it’s christmas time
rotgut and woodbine
so comes the killing time
for my cogitative rhyme

Hexed

this file is corrupt
and witches clamp binds my tongue
to impotent verse

Tonight

ruffed violet bruised eyes
wincing in the cyclones wake
mask a gibbous loon

The Crystallophone In You

your body could
sing,
like fine cut crystal,
as smooth digital
orbits roam around moistened
rim
ring
like china of bone
finger flicked
with a sonorous
tone
played
as seraphim armonica
such dewy friction
studied devotion
of tactile affection
music for
the soul coaxed from
goblet
dipping dripped droplets
to harmonious pitch
so much sweeter than
chocolate

Did I?

that thief,
foul despoiler,
chanced in the dying hour
left no opportunity for
goodbye

five hundred miles
might well have been
millions
when that arresting call
arrived

no mind how swift
my progress cross
land sea or air all chance
to bid farewell
passed

naught then but to
tear and howl
obscenity heaven bound
while dirty tears
washed

strained grimace
could not recall
whether spoken
“I love you” was
shared

that hateful day
we left before
you were gone
forever lost
beyond

Terror Incognito

when each clock in the house
stops
one hand at a time
not by dumb luck
but by cryptic
design
comes fear
of the kind you can taste
through your ears
pestilent worm
tongue
bitten of it’s own
spiteful fang
yet still it crawls
coils
crushing your lungs

Grimm und Grimmer

could there
ever have been
aught but harm
from such shrew whipped
an abusive storm

where it
lead through
the corpse grass
crumbed trail
of bloodied path

stumbled upon
weather torn
enduring pile
chimney stacked
nefarious smile

that leering
promontory
single tooth
like fabled hag
who feast on youth

sat silent
now this
sated quietus
belies a violence
strewn before us

as kaolin
dry flurried
gilings
bear vestigal token
to fancied grillings

Pants on Fire

I make things up
when I write
just tiny stories
triggered
by a misheard sound
or fugacious sight

Winnerbee

found
one bee
fallen
from final frigid flight
I brought it in
to warm its tiny
venous wings
and to my surprise
it did revive
now what am I
supposed to do
with this buzzy guest
the winter through?

First Chill

through limpid darkness
in thrall of a quarter share
of silver dollar
there unwary flesh
feels the first
capillary bursting bite
from this opening night
of Jokul Frosti’s
freshest advance

The Dark Matters

that wise bard once quoth
“more things in heaven and earth”
never words truer

revealed

seventeen percent
what horror lies hid in that
lost four score and three

regard

those tricks of the night
need more fearful attention
with chances so high

recondite

inscrutable dark
nature in majority
one day ascendant

reflect

perhaps already
mere specimen tank keening
through a darkened glass

Shoulder Pork Ham

one click
dick
temptation
flavoured russian cum asian
first though herbal
fruitful extension
such friendship
investment
one clit-k sensation
new phone
who phone
whore moan
iFone©
fear & gear
solutions are here
hear?
with 1 or more I
full
sim-pull
sinful maybe

Blast

November’s last splash
wet whipped backhand across face
such stinging rebuke

Fucking Fuck (careful I say fuck a lot)

fucking write it
twelve feet fucking
high
write it
so the fuckers
sting like grit
in the fucking eye
just write the fuckers
somewhere anywhere
write it in the fucking sky
just make it seen
every fucking where

Villainy

the malfeasance
villain
is to swallow
easy plaudits
such
parochial praise
dutifully held peer
nearest words to those
wished to hear
dear

such a cost in
air expired
villain
bemired captive
plunge naked
taunted
into the wake of
intellectual diaspora

brain drained
long fled
heartland
spoon fed
red topped reali-tv
could be you scratchery
be low
be common
be not
though
denominator

we aren’t listening
villain
we don’t
cant
wont
factor out the X
oh we do so miss
our puppetry
princess
so…
what do you
count for
villain
sweet self
prescribed
ghetto confinement

Freefall

nearer the bottom
you realise the less it
may hurt if you jump

Proofed

dreams may never lie
they do
most often die
through this conceit
pass
with demeanour
fell and thick of skin
lest
vitreous exposure
of egg shelled heart
makes unendurable
a trail where
once held hands
hang
truth abjured
in withered heresy

Something For The Weekend

Olympic sized
black synaptic massage
swine
diced sliced
blood moulded
bloomed red vine
in thermal distress
golden bounty of
Albion's fields
beaten baked reheated
retried
unfulfilled fowl spitting
in rendered seed bed
feathered fungi popping
butter sweet
with daddie’s dulcet dark
duvet drenching
1/57th of Mr Heinz
pressed sunshine
borrowed from the south
oh yes
English fullness my friend
come join me

Plus Ça Change

reality shifts
minute by minute
as a shadow
in the suns ardent remit

Bottoms Up

this tawny coolness
tock tick toxic keen as the
sharpest dissection

Oh I Don't Like To Be...

under the gaze
of murderers moon
dirty towns
that insult the sea,

such that she

hides away for

the longest part
of everyday,
waft a
sweet
beer
floral
sweat
pheromone laced
lambent neon entrapment
luring
urging dirty moths
lay out their silver
spill briny, tinny vitality
amidst vomitous gore
over what dignity
remains

Salus Carnotense

come captain, sail,
crystal hulled atop our deepest cartography
observe and then fashion a fable
palatable enough to lay at the family table

though do it, I beg, as if mute
with such a silent eloquence
that mouth’s no questions of consequence
instead try reading  the captions

unmask the tension etched deep in the fabric
the text amid the creases burned through the years
of caustic neglect
then, good captain, draft us a new chart

warn us, where be dragons and terra incognita lie,
navigate these doldrums that we may yet be saved

Unsung

our unshackled hearts
are easily lost
as they wander
in a haphazard dance of
bewildered wonder

You Should Try It

I dig to eat
some days
of late
it’s my only guarantee
of food on a table
once amply laden

31.0°N 64.0°E (Then On To The Next)

breaking the neck of speed
rent splintered from
conflict
bluffed zonal comfort
confront
whole organs
now foreclosed
allusion to
eternity
entirely
now
mere scraps
of bloody conclusions
for history’s reckoning

Just The One

and one asked
“are you OK?”
that one said
“do you wanna play
or would you rather me
stay away?”
and they
I daresay
have their own slavering
demons to slay
but regardless gave
anyway
and that kindness
will be repaid

Just Do It

break this glass
carve the nouns across my chest:
liar / cheat / whore
let your cigarettes burn
adjectives upon my limbs
delinquent / base / vile
aim (v) that verb
and plant (v)
your boot in my face
for all it is worth
an imprint
so much more than I

F(b)ook It

fickle and faithless as it is
all forsaken I heed the
cobalt headed siren
expectant each time I enter
buoyed by latest world proclamation
often only to be met by tumblweed dry
oppressive quiet the chorus to my
kismet

Before The Fact

nights like these
when you recoil from my touch
revulsion scored deep
excuse dog-eared
primed ready to go
at page 53
I fear that I will
never again enjoy
the needful tender embrace
of a woman
while I am sill able
to offer back
anything less than chaste
and in some
lugubrious future
if taken to task
about some transgression past
you accusatory “why?”
will need one simple reply
“do you really need to ask?”

Raw Candy

despite the allure
and if I’m to be forthright
the water tested
when the truth is told
I’m only here to fuck with
your beautiful minds…
…except for you

None So Blind

I did not see you there

onion eyed panda

tight in the corner
with your full proof cohort
sucking on the empty vapour

I did not see you there

cold in crumpled sheets
counting the winning lies
harsh knee clenched pillow
lying in spinning divides

I did not see you there

mired in absinthian
spectred familial grief
reconditioning the same
hackneyed lost motif

I did not see you there

I did not see you

I did not see

because
I stopped looking

174

on this or some
velvet morning
wild bulls
couldn’t drag me
from this tragic queen
where dreams
are writ in tangerine
my guilty orbit
around her brightness
one seven, seven one
more or less
but doomed bee my role
in this timeless tragedy
welcome cursed death
dragged swift by the sea

I Don’t Like These Re-Runs

forgotten
gone
dusted
smoked and ghosted
dismembered remembrance
through chemical ordnance
just the discard dog ends
of a long vanished audience

oh! sorry!
I forgot
you never do
each day afresh
new penalty due

Aujourd'hui Pas Amour

today is one of those
hate you days
when all you say
is full of bile
every bark and growl
cruel and vile
yes today
I really
fucking hate you

Vin de Moule

from you
I shall
for you I will
fulfil
and
redolent will be your answer
bedroom wine
fresh flowing
pressed fruit twixt
thumb and four fingers
from fleshly vine
enmeshed embrace
your vessel tapped
will be my bounty
sop soused and sodden
a happy sot
infused by
osmotic transfer
flesh through flesh
comes
jism through plasm

We (View)

she will play fuck
and she understands
that some days I look
but I will make no demands

Grin

I am not damaged
but a wasted soul
whipped and ridden
I’ve taken it all

beyond mere stoic
and self control
rolled every punch
shit duly swallowed

like weathered oak
all storm withstood
stolid but inside
not understood

the depth & breadth
of sad consumption
consequence of
eternal presumption

not mourning having
missed those boats
put it all down to
one long bad misquote

I am hollowed rock
that must endure
the shifting sands
on exposed shore

All Ears

listen
to my nakedness
do you not hear
come closer
tighter sweet
let me whisper it
in your ear
can you not discern
my heart
bossanova
something
other than fear
breath that shortens
and quickens
once our intentions
are clear
you hear it ?
now?
come join
and we’ll spear
the night
as I descry
your nakedness

Just How Grey Is Today?

a battleship sky peppers my
ashen eyes
summer’s sombre tombstone,
oyster grit scratched, granite
elegy lain over smoky pyre

rising as dingy dove soon to be naught
but cinereal ash
all life seems blanched
by grisly lividity pallid,
 heather powdered,
to abrogate all hue and tincture

where the gaudy fusillade
of fall’s chromaticity?
such the capitulation
to leaden neutrality

drab iron clad
slate dust dusk
where even mouse
can stand as vivid array
in this dullest
day of greys

Kitty Say Feed Me

each step
draws a bow wave
into which leap
pileous dolphins
riding the wake

dancing below
my every stride
furled around
my naked feet

constant villous squadron
remora fearless
tangled trampled underfoot

talk about love
though I’m sure
the only variety
is cupboard

If You’re Listening

I could sing of the moon
or write of the sea
but how would those morphemes
acquaint you with me?

that I sleep with the sky
or dream of fishes?
though not one disclosed word
of my broken wishes

so I loose those voices
inside my head
that I shouldn’t inhabit
and share their dread

spitting
shaking
scarring
screaming
swearing
shagging
shrieking
scaring

pluck the light from the eyes
of those who feign closeness
cripple their thoughts and
render them wordless

then I’ll tell you of me
without flowered allegory
but with words that cut true
not just one more hard fuck story

Perished

the circling black
signposts ahead
rummage sale
for nebs and peckers
tossing and tugging
through the years discard
a golden litter
in death still giving
though some escaped
that bargain barrow
settled on pathway
in swathes of yellow
but now stamped as
transient fossil
printed ghost
of shallow relief
atop their concrete host
not burned there
by a sleepy sun
but made shadow by
a perishing fusion
and ex comrades
green and scoffing
still hang and taunt
don’t heed dry rusting
that signals seasons
fast decline
and their coming fall
on winters line

On Hearing The First…

pig from elsewhere
beating the bush
screaming the ream
in the wrong nest
working a sweat
cooking cooking

cuckold cold
if you tolerate this
repeat repeat
compete or die
gotta try harder
man

Not Like One

vagabond beneath
verdant
parasoled
pathways
echoed
chirruping
chorus
exults
from high
lookee me lookee me
and I look
but don’t see
and they call
lookee me lookee me
obviously
talking to me
lookee me lookee me
what urgency
and I can hear
what they need
of me
so tackled tree
branches and bark
painful sharp
lookee me lookee me
climb climb
still the call
through foliole
and parting bract
what I see what I see
branch upon branch
people
like me like me
and I sit and I set
and exult from on high
lookee me lookee me

Prancing Horse

Ferrari?
nah !!!
functional
durable
comfortable ride
but can show
a remarkable turn
of speed
and great control
around curves

It's Where I'm From

it were looking black
but Bill’s mother
coulnt see it
cos it were ovva er
and she’d only scrait
if she could
an I worrent wi’er
any road
she were wi erssen
not summat I were
proud of
but I were puddled
from the ale
and that page owl
I pulled last nate
were reet
up ma street
she larruped hersen
all ovva me
mi duck
am tatered now
but I’ll chuck mi claarts on
and you can gimme a croggie
up road
so she wont be so mardy

Remaining Unconvinced

this passage
never taken
hedonic ingress yet
unwalked
that such deep surrender
coud ever be so sweet
to allow the most
intimate of plunder

Rejoined

c’mon sweetness lets
tessellate our bodies mould
our geometry
like nested tables
slot ourselves neatly away
in captivus lock
it is a dangerous table
at which to feed
but such
sticky fingered
hunger
I’m not ready to leave

End Games

love?
no more now
than filament leaf,
skeletal relief
too long
suffocated under water

tinker tamk tank

tkachuk
iced around boards
inbound honey
thooid howl
and thyestean vigour
what depth
your thymopathy?
no timoneer able
to correct this tiller
and at the tinchel’s mercy
any wonder
become tiqueur
no safe tmema
can tolypeutine
tonlet rescue
for my heart’s
tonus quiet
reliant topomancy
a torporific
tralatition

any of the above may do

hear poet
harken scribe
your heart dealt
living welts
ring hollow
within
without
audience rapt
and trapped
by
word tied
world wise
web

Try Harder

I consider myself
a petty poet
I think
therefore I lie
I drink
one day I’ll die
I love
most days I sigh
I stink
at much I try

Keep It Up Boi

bourbon
wine
scotch
drip
drip
rip
tar
shit
in my lungs
stop?!
fuck no
wait
one more
two lungs should
but
one lung
wood
pine in da hood
no its good
hit me up
coffee
café
coughing
ok
just a small one
say when
liquid
cold dawn
clarified
eye
distilled
…
WHEN!
never
NEVER!!!
Oi!
Michael
don’t stop till
you get
fucked up
boi

Try

so hard
stringing together
worms
stopped turning
today
maggots
rolling
liar layered
off
tongue
dried and listless

Gotcha

what’s under my skin
is such a wonderful thing
so glad you made it

Ripples

serendipity
threw beauty
across my path
“thank you”
I said
“but was it
looking for me?”

and beautiful
exposed
a warm
harmony
witty
and wordy
and a little bit bawdy

then lightning bolt
that moment
of
startling candour
surely not
cross dressing
tax inspector?

thank goodness no!
but facts disclosed
some
might find ugly
cemented
belonging in
the deepest core

30.5 (for two voices)

give me your foot nylon net webbed
take my foot
and arches divine
divine
a sensory trail to meridien mines
my thumbed impulsion rolls a gentle heat
your thumbs yes gentle
to such somatic implosion my hands
your hands your hands
explore your shapely ankle
further?
further!

yes further
yes, yes further!
five painted rosebuds across the way
five more patient
silken suspension bathed fresh
and oiled for my attention
your attention only yours
or take in your hands
let me take you into my hands
another solution?
another solution!

Get Out

I hold no god
there is
no measure
of my sin

how then
do I feel
an evil
deep within?

Downgrade

gilt stitches
handsewn
by androids
assuage
the guilt
twitches,
betrayed
sanguine sap
in cheating
cadaver
with last words
too late
as always
welcome
vitiation
0100100100100000011000010110110100100
0000110011101110101011010010110110001
1101000111100100100000011011110110011
0001000000111001101101111001000000110
1101011101010110001101101000

Lay Down Thine Pen

painting pictures
without words
I would be
a happy mute

Beez'n'Barez

painted myself
yellow
black
yellow
black
not forgetting
white
on my fuzzy ass
that I might
stand a chance
of fooling those
soft coral folds
to permit
my probing search
for a candied hit
proboscis divining
pestal deep
conducted
waggle dance
exclusively
albeit briefly
stigma gripping
six legs tease
a song from
my burgeoning host
vociferate
on a musky breeze

Eating Out

could I interest you in the menu sir
why you silly girl
that’s what I’m here for
good good
our starter consists of clarity
I see
I see
and next?
an entrée made from honesty
generosity and just a little flattery
but for dessert can I tempt you
with the sweetest lies
no no
a little cheese if you please
coffee at mine?
don’t mind if I do

Our Eyes Scales

the dead keep dying
2.35:1
plus hi-definition
but
truth remains hidden
a long held
British tradition
the sum of all these tears
our happy outrage
dispensed through
a brutality
we’ve always revered

Diminishing Trend

I can think of a favourite
way I’d like to wear you
beloved friend
but that might burn a bridge
we could never mend

would happily die a death
by a thousand paper cuts
as I searched for the right words
to say sorry
devoted friend

but don’t pretend
this didn’t hurt a little
behave like your heart
isn’t quite that brittle
my troubled friend

Long Haul

no, I don’t miss you like I used to
after so long what did you expect
but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you
anymore, or any less

Default

hffffffffmmmmmmmmm

and with this sigh the light
expires

just got bored
of explanation
so with that act of exhalation
lookee here y’all
the revelation
that your gods
they all got tired
from waiting
went off to ventures
more exciting
looked through the glass
in bitter reflection
thought
“in our own image?
what were we thinking”

Deceive Yourself

I am sometimes convinced
that their attention is more
than ephemeral

that in spite of all the ego
there is something stops the passage
of the cerebral

in a fog, that
licentious abandon prevents
honest meeting

of souls that belong
caught dovetailed through
real belonging

but then I wake up
in the dusk of my reality
asking who am I fooling?

Animals Watching Fireworks

a llama wandered out
to, maybe, look at he moon
brayed
“holy shit!
the sky is consumed”
so he rushed and he gathered
his reindeer companions
and they came and they looked
really just to indulge him
but replied
“you’re not wrong mate,
it’s a bit of a state
now pass me a corn cob,
some butter and those shades”

You Don’t Know Jack (as well as me)

see
me and Jackie D
we’re gonna spend some
time together
take a walk
down the road called
creativity

feel I’m all about the
throb and hum
causal diarist of
this humdrum
everyday
persistence of existence
with little resistance

yet I want to fly
with that caramel magpie
fish
for marshmallows
from a wyverns eye
even raise a glass
in the devils hallows,
but I’ll let you know
how badly that all goes

and while you're all
waiting
for me to emerge
with another flat stanza
or dirigible dirge
clink the ice in your glass
and have one on me
and wish me throb-speed
through this mashed odyssey

I’ll Remember Remember This Fifth of November

lazy day waking
with a morning wasting
channel surfing
create and crafting
but the afternoon comes
and with it the fun?
so we’ve ridden the iron buffalo
braved the flumes chilling spray
ah yes, this is England
where we come out to play
when its wet and its windy
and its cold and it’s grey
where it’s got to be shouted
though there’s nothing to say
through the nicotine nurture
send the kids on their way
then retreat inside to squared four corners
flying finger thumb traces
there’ no local engagement for
these blue reflected faces
but we’re everyone waiting
for the burning main event
of dragon guarded pyre
one more night of Guido’s torment
and what a conflagration
would have done King Jimbo proud
peeling off the reddened flesh
of us closest in the crowd
the guardian wyrms
they dont last long
fall crashing
in a crackling song
and confused smoky ducks
dodge the fiery sprites
launched skyward
into the not so black night
ill defined blooms
in the distance, smudges
light distorted by this
inferno’s searing vapours

then to our left to our right
it seems all around
trees of light blossom
to a delayed resound
serpents and flower heads
stuff the sky full
to the oohs and the aahs
of this field full of people
and as is always the case
it is over to soon
and in gold embered showers
we’re all headed home
where sausage and onions
slow cooking all day
steeped in hot gravy
are awaiting their fate

Capitol Attraction

come
Lundonia Raga
itinerant girl
fight the urge
of that vagrant call
stop for a while
come out to play
and know this welcome
you could never outstay

from out of the blue
came your timeless aura
but I’ve known you forever
my anam cara
but like foundling kitten
left at my door
your ragamuffin spark
brought me so much more

the sweetest flicker
of your attention
springloads my step
(and much more
I daren’t mention)
and I’d like you
in my life forever
though I know one day
despite best endeavours

I shall watch your reflection
fade from my sight
and I know my dejection
will dessicate and swipe
a vital sap and
the leaves from my heart
but every winters end
must have spring for its start

I

a man
flawed and flesh
neither all that I wish
or all which I should
of wizened wood
but I am

Sub-Prime

still have 17 years
left to repent
of my 25 to life
should have
chosen to rent

Fuck You

buried
buried
so incredibly deep
is where
you’d like to keep
your head
in the sand
forever asleep
or up
your own ass
you self centred creep

La Chaleur

my my my
kitties got it bad
kitty got her tail up
kitty yowls so sad
kitty rolls around the stairs
kitty wants to show you
kitty wants to share her wares
kitty is a cougar
poor poor kitty

Word

imma let my words go
with a natural flow
less rhyme and no reasoning
but with a little extra seasoning

Ponder

stopped
staring stock still
on that bridge over
such dirty depths
I ponder could
I take that last step

send
my body to be
splintered & shattered
in a final flesh strimming
ecstasy of
dreadful oblivion

Timeless

I dreamed last night
cold sweated an immersive fancy

imagined time was solid
built of countless basalt blocks
but here and now was fluid
not governed by mortal clocks

my yesterdays became today
right after my tomorrows
and life ran on a different track
no set causeway to follow

and all my being occurred at once
right then or now or is maybe just about
to flow between the cracks
and cast reality into doubt

See

every time
I look to heaven
the silence is Zeppelin

Junk

I don’t share
because I care
I share
from a despair
that I need
to fill me
and spread
evenly
is maybe
less likely
to kill me
so you really
need to beware
of your dealings
with me and
my sweet talking
poisonous wares

Remembrance

that dress may hang for
eternity and a day
before I let go
and the
grim armoire recoils
at every mortal effort
to steal it’s treasure
while
not one of these four
walls can forget her fragrance
as they bleed her scent
she
who everyone loved
remembered even by the
rooms through which she moved

What's Your Excuse?

no comfort here and
we’re fresh out of strangers
till death us do part
or something else rearranges
how did it arrive
so frigid and profound
life’s frightened excuse
for just hanging around

It's Not About You

I drink as much as I need
to breathe
I think as much as I need
to please
myself
no one else

This Is Why I Dont Keep Friends

you know how it is
thinking
out loud
and worrying
if I might be allowed
about the cloistered confines
the self celebratory
that circle jerk of the
cozy community
seeking out faint praise
for an awakening
dimly phased
so it's
a poets imperative
to turn their acerbic glass
upon themselves and ask
“why?”
and I’ll take that prerogative
and once I have found
my “because”
I will push for my
limitless sky
I might struggle to find
the how
the where
the when
but be damn sure
I’ll be spitting
hot hornets
until my then

My Exquisite Corpse

one hundred years from today
will my spirit dismay
shadowy guardian of generations
who somehow didn’t happen
lonely wraith walking
through blackened ash garden
or as honourable spectre
revered and respected
content in a bloodline
vigorous and sublime

Telling Tales

its good to tell a story
something far removed from truth
as baring your soul in a hundred words
can bring those chickens home to roost

What You Get

I try to write my words
conversationally
and I know they sometimes come out
confrontationally
but I’m writing how I’m feeling so
can you not see
that to couch them any differently
simply wouldn’t be me

Verger

I swam naked in France
a few years ago,
La Plage du Verger,
part nudist beach, yeah, I know

but I did it at the end
where you shouldn’t show
the part where you’re told
to keep it clothed

but I’m not so brazen
as to let it all swing
sunkissed and salty
swaying in the wind

no, grant me some degree
of British reserve
don’t brush me with a reputation
I don’t deserve

I waited till the ocean
had me firmly in her grip
before I let the speedos
triumphantly slip

and so there I was in freefall
all hands pointing south
when it slowly dawned on me
there’s things down there with mouths

who might take a shine
to morsels dangling in their reach
so the trunks were swiftly re-engaged
and I raced back to the beach

Gotcha

startled by a peeping sun,
sky and earth revealed undone
leap apart with shamed abruptness
forlorn lovers interrupted

We Were Expendable

no more rush for the factory gates
or bleary welcomes after whistle led race
no longer the shouts of “what shift you on mate?”
and befuddled replies “earlies, no, lates!”
the comforting throng of familial mass
at the end of each day that held no disgrace
when a days hard work meant a days earned pay
something they somehow forgot to replace
as our livelihoods fled eastwards to cheaper climes
and our citadels of labour fell rotting, debased

What's In A Name

born of sun and lion
I was griffin
protector of divine

but golden youngster
turned to sand
abrasive and malign

Wake Up

I don’t like sleeping
feel like I’m being cheated
half my days stolen

Words Blend

with such singular
vision the only have eyes
may be coloured blind

to the hidden prize
the sub-text in the margins
that fill the plot hole

Ain't Frit

and now  the voices start
those grody sounds that stop your heart

beneath the floor within the walls
the precedent for dull footfalls

calling to us one by one
with no clear sight of saint or villain

a spectral round of hide and seek
directed by a floorboards creak

each time we search there’s nothing there
but of this guest we’re so aware

was it here first? we cant be sure
it wasn’t brought  from distant shores

as never had it raised its head
until that gift from land of Vlad

was carried over our threshold
but did this herald something cold

the bearer of an ancient fear
something as of yet unclear

or are we merely in the thrall
of phantoms more explainable

Please, Shut Up

I’m bombing it,
bombing it
tried to swallow back
the honesty
but I drank too much
my mouth has rushed
and now I got to vomit it
and spread the truth
around my walls
and slowly watch
my kingdom fall
in walking waking faking dreams
with worms of words
that wound and keen

Good Morning

with the cup of your ass
planted firm on my hips
the curve of your spine
pecked by impatient lips
strong arms are freed up
to reach round and caress
while hands do that thing
that you always like best
my love in you grows
as you grind to your rhythm
and before we both know it
we’re in the full grip of heaven

This Soul Will Not Be Coerced

just here for the entertainment sir,
left all that contrition shit at the door
whats that?
an exclusion order restrains my ass
from communion with your holy mass?
I mean those flaming swords, dramatic touch,
but maybe just a little bit too much

see your man made laws they cant prevent me
confronting that holy trinity
and asking “what have you done recently
to help your pet, humanity?”
that silence is a deafening roar
“hey! watch it when you slam that door”
you might get me once I’m in my coffin
but until that time you’re getting nothing

Li

Diminishing Opportunities

every second
one beat gone
sometimes two
and soon
there'll be none

Full O’ Shite

I never could write

when I was
young
drunk
and
shitty

I thought Carole nailed it
when she said

my composted self
was the soil
for the fertile verse
of maturity

but then
here I go
shooting my mouth
again

I have no story to tell
nothing guaranteed
here then but
disappointment

Poetically Active

me
not inside
you
seems the best
thing to
do
while the
energy
pulses
and forms
ready fit
verses
so to
unleash these
urges
as physical
jizzes
would diminish
the power
we hold
in our
clutches

Talkin' It

you got me
rhyming while I’m walkin’
it’s the truth but
whod’a thought it

this addiction
of transfixtion
lends my fiction
an affliction

and my diction’s
deviation
from the station
of inaction

in addition
my reaction
to predictions
of elation

leaves a notion
of devotion,
and affection
non deservin’

Taking Stock

sweet Ariel on the wing
let loose your heart to sing
hold not those chains within
for every end must first begin

Its Hard

I dreamed of you
as I lay
in that half light betwixt
night and day…
then way we played

I composed
a quiet symphony
with my lips
on tender breasts
and eager hips

but my hands
they played a fiercer game
and you drenched
my fingers with
honeyed rain

so when our bodies
finally meet
the shapes we formed
grew firm and tight
as one complete

and this embrace
warm and slick
glides and groans into
something more urgent
than playground frolic

unleashed and exploding
into one another
but then I’m awake
with nought but hard memory
of forbidden ardor

Guile

the quickest way
to lose a friend?
an opened heart
that no longer pretends

this barren cupidity
can be allowed
by the veracity
of my here and now

but that doesn’t
resolve my burning
need for someone
to share these yearnings

Cheap

my heart’s not for sale
its free in a box of your
favourite cereal

Stay Away

today
may be the day
I fall so far
beyond your fair
grace

try as I may
there is no simple way
to spill
those truths my recreant
heart compels

torn, dissolute
and tormented
into explosive
fits through passion
I cannot share

the charming works
harbour such
rapacious sin
this way with words
a beast within

but I fear
no final reckoning
what frightens me
is the pain
that I could bring

to those
sweet souls
defiled herein
by proximity to
my amoral collapse

Pequeños Besos

those small kisses
can mean so much more
than liplocked
tongued drenched
face eating gorge-outs
instead
the tender brush
of lip on eyelid
and gentle peck
down length of neck
that don’t require the lights out
permit
soft grazes
of your wrists and hands
as a butterfly alights
with dewy lips writes
passages of the devout

Stain

I want so much
I’m not entitled to
and lose my heart
in places it’s not meant to go
I cannot give
what I could promise you
and should remove
my stain away from your virtue

October 14, 2011

this golden fall day
offered up a false promise
of springtime renewed

Fresh Delivery

this air smells new found
mine alone
virgin
unbreathed

not the promiscuous fug
of city gas
shared
unsheathed

Fool

my heart opens quick
and warms in earnest fullness
just to be left ash

Elemental

find me
a periodic table
with all the elements
of my life
so I
can balance the equations
that bring me so much
fucking strife

Engaña

me convenzo a veces
que la atención es más
que efímero

eso a pesar de todo el ego
hay algo que para
el paso de las mentes

en la niebla que
el abandono licencioso previene
una reunion

de las almas que pertenecen
ensamblado a través el
pertenecer verdadero

pero por una parte completamente despierto
en la obscuridad de mi realidad
¿quién son yo que engaña?

One of my favourite poets is Pablo Neruda. His poetry translates beautifully into English and I thought I might try and pass something back the other way (I'm not kidding myself I'm any kind of Neruda). I would love any Spanish speakers to comment on whether it really makes sense and if it is at least vaguely entertaining

Lo-Fi

I play my part in the tragedy
that which life calls upon the human race
and with words never right enough
for the evil that desire wishes to write
forgetfulness of who I am
opens the gate to a garden
where fidelity forbids admission

Cada Corazón (gracias a Leslie)

mi corazón
mi corazón
qué corazón no bailaría
a esa canción
pero no convoque a
mi corazón
podría caer
donde no debe
y abra una puerta
en el jardín en donde
la fidelidad

Sweet

piquant October
her delectable bounty
so willingly shared

Here We Go Again

today fear renewed
itself in my quivering
new job first day nerves

No Excuse

this ghost in my house
that lacks corporeal mass
must learn to close doors

A Kind Of Heaven

I remember this kind of heaven
and right now its where I need to be
corner sat in a midnight dive

drum, double bass, piano
with the icing on this cat’s cake
a redhead on the mic.

languid deep sliding
seducing my willing spine
and wire brushed rims coax

maundering ivory doodles
into lovelorn incantations
my smoky angel invokes

she’ll pour her shattered heart
into my icy tall Jack and
I’ll drink deep of her sorrow

until amongst disheveled wakening
I’ll kiss her soft back and wonder
where did the morning go

Really?

disembodied discs
shine silver at the stair top
both cats sat on lap

Lies, Damn Lies & The Weather

the weatherman
lies
you can see it in his
eyes
he tries to mask it with winks and
smiles
and friendly laughter that
beguiles
his speech all ciphers that
disguise
yes, the weatherman
lies

Falling

sepia confetti
as summer’s rusted brides fall
their contract fulfilled

Taxi

bottle poured grey slug
oozes full Jabba manner
then flicks the meter

Lune d'octobre

cold reclines the moon
on her flocculent cradle
in serene slumber
while
icy balefire
distant, beyond distance,
affords chill lustre

Loose Lips Sink Ships

I have a somewhat chequered kiss-tory
never wholly about sexuality
rather something simply more friendly
though my wife she tends to disagree
and thinks my frankness terribly tawdry
that I possess a certain moral laxity
quite often it was people kissing me
a distinction that she failed to see

Such A Price To Pay

cold
down hometown lane
moth pulled
to the beacon blue
thick siren wail of
death’s ghastly debut

cruel
spiteful pother
masked sight
of the wrecking ball
that snuffed my young friends
flavian candle

crushed
sanguinary
grisly mound
flecked with scarlet dew
which grim grey blanket
can’t hide from my view

chill
wires bind my legs
but run
with blood like cold lead
while by the schools yard
I was the one dead

chatter
had preceded me
with news
of corpse with fair hair
many gasped and cried
as I now stood there

class
united in tears
we sang
with dust motes dancing
in sunlit eddies
“Morning Has Broken”

This one of those true moments in my life story. When I was nine years old I came across the immediate aftermath of a friend, called Paul, who was run over and killed while attempting to cross a road in thick fog to get to a candy store on the way to school. We all used to walk alone or with friends to school from a very early age back then. This was the first encounter with death in my life

Original

I,
we,
me,
you
fruit rusted through
the pathogen
escaped from Eden,
damned before even begun

Get On

Forgiveness
doesn’t mean you should forget
like remembrance
shouldn’t cause you to regret

Rest

I dug the hole
that welcomed her home
to the earths resolute embrace
I opened the urn
of her powdered relics
for the wind to blow in my face
I cried no tears
as I laughed with her,
still fooling from some other place
I lay her deep
under roots of wild cherry
for her spirit to surely grace
I walked away
from fresh planted copse
forever now a sacred space

I Am Bad (but you would)

I am fiendish
I am fickle
I will break you
if you’re brittle
I am reckless
I am hateful
I am Cain
slaying Abel
I am feckless
I am feral
And my words are
so very cruel
I am heinous
I am hostile
my tongue will cut
you like a scalpel
I am callous
I am carnal
when I take you
you will buckle
I am scabrous
I’m a scoundrel
but I know you’d still
let me fuck you

Bag It

once green knotty glade
bespoiled by hasty repast
our selfish discard
leaves
wind gathered aegis
now caskets for the careless
in the dirty shade

Enough

for each trigger pulled
another mothers child lies
lost beyond all sight

Spider Town

It’s suddenly
that time of year
spiders,
SPIDERS!
everywhere
crawling up my bedroom wall
racing down my wooden hall
lodging in the bathroom fitments
laying claim to dingy basement

I’ve said before
they don’t agree
with wife
and daughters
all quivering three
but these intruders they abound
not even hiding in the background
and brazenly they chase around
their polished laminate playground

Morning Fog (Wednesday)

Woden clamps frigid
gauze over my hungry eyes
masking all but grey

Wind

roots entrenched
though now
dismembered
haggard stone,
drawn and quartered,
an ancient demise,
suffered this venerable
harvester of wind

looked over
from high
remembered
and risen anew
modern Titans
offer new solution
agents burning fire
caught fresh from the sky

Morning Fog

sleepy Earth breathing
opaque dreams spun gold fire by
the Sun’s waking rays

Autumn’s sharp fingers
roll a coruscate quilt over
somnolent glebe

Bod Teircaill

From below a trail
of floury footprints
aspic set
in the high deep lapis

tired of dancing
the up down round
of rain above
the furrowed ground

Bod Teircaill shakes and
with arms arrayed,
fanned fingers wide,
shrugs of the Earth

catching full hold
of Cymbeline’s draught
he peeee-uu’s aloft
and re-marries the sky

domus phasmatis

that wraith
often
no more
than
backwards glanced
down
dim corridor

legs alone,
nothing
less or
sure
phantom danced
stone
trapped echo

ashen, dusted
vexed
shadow
now reanimate
come
forth
grim memoir

Like Smoke

Weeds

Domestic Godhead

Yes I bake
So fuck you!
If you leave me your wife
I’ll fuck her too

I'm Batman

Dirty towels tied tight
around neck, down back
each little boy thinks
he’s the man come bat.

But terry cloth just wasn’t
fine enough for me
and to my ever patient mum
I did tearfully plead

“Make me a cape
of the darkest black
with that badge so yellow
of my hero’s bat”.

And when next I gazed down
from my bedroom lair
a little girl pointed
and shouted “Look there!”

Then I rushed down the stairs
in my cowl of nylon
stood hand hipped on the street
and decreed “I’m Batman!”

Did I Really?

can I have a singular heart
when my heart’s not in it,
be averse to risk
but never shy of a kiss?

so you thought me sleeping with the enemy
though we weren’t really sleeping
and now you’re keeping me awake
with all your gnashing and crying
all that “how could you”, “I hate you”
and “what the hell was I thinking?”
I thought it was just a friendly kiss
but, well, I had been drinking

we’ve been through thick and thin,
the both of us, and back to fatter
and I thought we’d reached the kind of place
where this sort of shit really didn’t matter
now twenty years long beyond that night
with tankers of oil poured on that water
in our abiding winter of fragile détente
I probably shouldn’t show you this photo

social

liking,
commenting,
following,
tweeting,
clandestine glancing,
surreptitious crushing,
circling,
plussing,
friending,
replying,
social networking
or indentured stalking?

Hello Again

Dawn’s flashlight
scours the high bellied stratus
while retreating billows
feed aurous rays
like the spreading fingers
of a child covering a torch

NO Doubt

so many faces of guilt

but once reason is stripped

and justness is kicked

into the long grass at the side of the road

the mere fraction of doubt

remains doubt enough

to arrest that

which cannot be undone

for no matter how we deliver

a man his final breath

there is no parole

from the singular face of death

Why?

why do I feel?
responsible
for every hurt this world has to offer
why do I feel?
the need
to cradle every broken bird left on the roadside
why do I feel?
grief doubled
for every tale of caustic loneliness
why do I feel?
why do I feel?

Behold

TRUTH written down is truth denied
TRUTH revealed is truth ignored
TRUTH explored is truth defied
TRUTH, once observed,
is truth distorted,
the altered state
of measured fact
TRUTH abhorred is TRUTH

Dawn Redux

From the Eastern Marches
a Battenburg dawn
boils and scorches
the puffed, gilled denizens
swimming through
a pelagic heaven
rising higher and deeper
braided then shredded
by a roaring whisper
laying tracks of gold

Fallen Leaves

the arborary mantle slips,
dowager dry lentigo browned,
to dance tiny pirouettes
with devils of dust & grit

I Should Stay Blind

I look,
but know I must never touch,
this beauteous raven
garlanded with bewitching jet
silken and slick cascading
over her troubled coronet

Morning Reflections

my morning begins
in diurnal margin still
black as my coffee

then

rose and tangerine
a pastel explosion through
smutty cornflower

while

feathered filaments
paint a hazy smudged montage
of smoky misfits

as

speeding on & by
the relentless passage of
steel caged isolation

by

commuter driven
rush of single occupant
selfish luxury

when

rent final grimace
begs bloody reflection on
my fragile tenure

We All Float

And then the echo from beyond

Drowned in the mud pool
Stripped to the bone
You nailed my skin to the dragon tree
But there is no gravity now
No attraction here to hold me down
So count the footsteps as you walk
Hear the dread echo in your heart

Bitch!

A word of warning. A lot of my work is observational and does not reflect the person that is me, especially this one. I have anger but it is never focused in the direction of these words. I'm not sure it works so any comments gratefully received, public or private


do you love me? I love you
if you loved me
you would
a jar
a jug
the pollywog thug
the welt
the stripe
backhand swipe
be a good girl
I told you
I warned you
you’re mine
you cant leave
you wont breathe
if I choose
you might die
then I’ll lie
next to your
fathomless sleep
mine to keep

Flown

Empty timbered cradles
float in the sky
like ruinous piles
exposed on a crag high

above the reach
of earthbound danger
now stripped of all façade
no hint of comfort or cover

an arbour of skeletal fingers
twisted and twitching
in brittle ebullience
threatens to send all crashing

Like, Whatever

Yesterday I wasn’t here
Today I will tarry
Tomorrow I will be no more
This my only certainty

Well I Never

I never questioned that torn photograph
of my young, beautiful, blond mother
sat on a rock with a phantom arm
draped around her slim shoulder

I never understood her eager receipt
of those brown manila letters
addressed to someone not quite her
that she hid with such discomfiture

I never knew until she was gone
even the name of my absent father
that I was officially “bastard child”
of a man they called Trevor.

September Hares

Amid the long shadows
of a furrowed field
sunwashed by a chill
Autumn sunrise
I delight in
the lopsided loping
of those lop eared
children of dirt

Wind Rover

Still,
still,
head stock still
while fingers of heat, raised up
to caress my downy plume,
gimbal me and hold aloft
my obdurate observation
Down
my quilled sweep
rapidly whirs
while eyes track
through grass,
over stone
There!
Down!
I see you now!
I will hang steady
with effortless demeanour
though without
those invisible breathy hands
I could not prevail
Down…
Down…
Drop!
The callous scimitars
that lead me earthward
hail you, bringing tidings of
a singular minacity
though I bear no malice
I have one purpose
Kill!

Burst

Like freshly dug earth
I smell it before I see
that advancing wall

of swarming silver
peardrop bullets from above
singly crystal clear

but at muster
a turbid shock of steel to
sack and claim the land

The Beat Goes On

Disregard
the dogma
abstract
from itself
which still marching
to the
avaricious
blinkered
count of
consumerism
persists in its
relentless pursuit
of wealth

Respite

In my garden I
can physically grapple
those deep rooted anxieties
and thorned dilemma

grasp a real nettle
it’s a place I can show
my true mettle
and should the rhizome

prove elusive or slip
from my grasp
I can chose to dig deeper
or let things lie until

implacable shoots once more
beg my attention so
their basis might be addressed
or buried "de novo"

Enjoy

In a foretaste
of ecstasy
I consider
your firm
plumpness,
rain dashed
and sun splashed,
where my tongue
slips along that
curved groove
until my teeth tease
a tiny stalk
atop your swollen
violet fullness.
Overwhelmed
I split you
and revel
in your entirety,
as your essence
pools a purple nectar
upon my lips

And In No Time At All (testament to youth)

Smoking
Drinking
Toking
Joking

Laughing
Running
Fighting
Fucking

Driving
Racing
Wrecking
Raging

Singing
Dancing
Ligging
Gigging

Working
Bluffing
Earning
Changing

Chasing
Coupling
Swelling
Wedding

Sink

This is the whole
of the swallow me hole
that almost stole
my careless soul

while out for a stroll.
Waiting like troll
this hall of mole
‘neath grassy knoll

which pressed by sole
needed none more to cajole
and greedily bowl
me one fathom below

This Is How It Goes

A thought and a pen
and it usually happens
on a busy road

Drive Around The Corner

A fat morning sun
sat poised on the horizon
ready for ambush

THAT Day

We were all American

THAT day.

A shock stock still

multitude of

mirrored Munch

we watched,

as helpless infants

in an infernal pit,

the devil at play.

While the

corollary citadels

static and inviolate until

THAT day

burned and crumpled,

razed in seconds

what took years to raise,

in a surge of sinew

and iron and dust

We attest that matter

cannot be destroyed,

that from which were are made

will last forever,

but too much that mattered

passed beyond our belief

so our hearts hardened

then you bared you teeth

THAT day

Precious

My sweet daughter
she still skips along
at an age where in many
innocence has gone

Face

I thought I saw
such sweet sadness masked
within the whisper of your smile,
but staring past the ties
that cheese wire our hearts
your eyes betray
a disintegrating lie
and you’re showing me more faces
than a game of ”Guess Who?”

All Our Fears

There are people
in this world
who would kill
my little girl
just because
she was born...

...you finish this tale
of fear that is universal

The Change Is Unchanging

Ululating
black ribbons,
flesh and feather and bone,
ripple the sky twixt and around.

Rattling
copper backed
scarlet jowled rollers
in fear of shot hug the ground.

Flashing
red white smudged
tardy ebony arrows
pack their bellies, Africa bound.

I went to sleep
in Summertime,
I next awoke
to find Autumn crowned.

Contrition

Eschewed
the kernel
which is me,
Free
immolation!
Roll up
take your shot
bring your fires
your bowls of pitch,
the feathers
are on me.

Agape

Consider the dismal
assemblage before me.

Where the pearl jewelled trove
with such beautiful lustre

that which I plundered
amid the bespattered bluster?

August 31, 2011

In sheep cropped pasture
where clouds chase ghostly shadows
sun brittle bones scream

Free Vortex

Not quite the Maelstrom,
Nordic destroyer from Poe,
but when I grow up

What Makes A Poem

It's gotta rhyme
else it ain't worth a dime
though I strongly disagree
with this philosophy...
...awww crap

By A River

Amidst dewy dawning
and distant lowing
scrambling over
tangled root stone bedding

neath hillside glowing
from cloud stalked
cold shock
to sun burst warming

flows river umber
running iced tea
tarnished and malty.
To this tumble

comes happy dog
snout near rabbit deep
wary cottontails peep
from behind mossy log.

While hedgerow and tree
with gummy slap
and spittle spray of sap
shed and share their berry

bees, silver backed
full droning bluster
drain all they can muster
before dragons snap.

Damp ochreous sheep
like tea-bags spent
connote what ferments
this tawny creek

Steaming hummocks
draw up the eye
to a full weighted sky
where the swifts run amok

through a rising feast
and with like minded purpose
the bubbling surface
is equally policed

Soon, oh too soon
throughway is blocked
each gateway fast locked
by authority oppugned

from this unfriendly zone
we turn on our heels
retreat cross green fields
to man's enclaves of stone

Runswick Bay

Through stair-rod rain such
precipitous descent leaves
breath in short supply

Over warm wet sands
swallows run low to the ground
feeding black arrows

Stone finned sharks encamp
below the beach awaiting
careless tourist feet

Wind scoured detritus
rewards each searching foray
fresh discoveries

Wave chiselled dark caves
Invite exploration of
dank interiors

Stone cast dead shadows
ciphers from Earth’s callow bloom
lay broken cast-offs

While the village sits
atop its haven of rock
in pretty repose

Hill fed lees stream down
shit littered weathered causeway
in doleful disgust