(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