I am not nude
nor posed
nor pre-supposed
I am not rude
nor exposed
nor juxtaposed
and I’m not crude
or self-imposed.
This matter’s
closed.

What they had is gone,
And all I feel is blankness.
Numbed like some medicated fool
Avoiding their wretched reality.
It’s not indifference or avoidance though -
I suspect it to be more a kind of odd guilt,
Like a fog that pities the landscape
But nonetheless must smother the light below.
Something IS there, but must not be seen,
Something is aware, but nust not be known.
All they had is gone and I’m numb again.
With hollowness, with vague intent
Writing to you under
Postcard-dry skies.
What else can
I do?

There are some who cannot sleep
but I am not one of those.
Maybe it is sunflares, or wireless waves -
or just careless late night revelries
that cause my eyes not want to see,
and crave the shut and hide
from light and ordinary days.
Oh how sweet a fix of sleep might be
for me here counting blinks of hours,
from daylight bounds to cushioned doze.
Maybe I’m just getting older?
Or staring at the screen too long?
Perhaps a candle burned all sides?
And as I cup my forehead in cold palm hands,
and drift awhile before whip-snapped back,
I’m too tired to feel guilt or fully realise
my luck - that I’m not one of those,
who cannot sleep.

I’m an amazing drunk, but rather average when I’m sober.
For it is only the warming hold of alcohol that makes me feel so bold.
From timid to terrific in a few spirited gulps of secret fuel.
Then, I become strong - able to silence rooms with strange discourse
and amazing tricks with cocktail sticks.
Incredible! Such … courage, such bravery -
all poured from a bottle of ferment.
From start to closing time I’m always first
to fall over on the finish line.
Superpowered - that’s me!
Able to trip kerbstones in a single bound —
‘Look, down in the gutter,’ ‘Is it a rat?’ ‘Is it a drain?’
‘No! it’s … Superdrunk!’ ”

Hell, I can even talk out of my arse
sometimes.

Sometimes,
my body is distinct from my mind.
Like a distant robot operating
on boot sector instinct.
There I am, stretching for a drink,
but thinking not of reach or grip
just seeing glass and wine.
Or then, I’m keying the lock
but thinking of home inside
not oiled parts and traffic grime.

Odd that.

One good eye
Is better than the other
He sees much more
Than the lazy one.

One good eye
Works harder than his brother
Not seeing glint
Beyond the squint
of sun.

One good eye
Gazing further,
Sees futures played
Not tired man I know.

One good eye, and I
A friend allied -
Scribbling details
Of his battle not yet won.

The water cries
Through bloated hands
Outstretched to catch
The slamming doors
That one by one
Undo their hold.
They, the nailed souls
Pummelled and bent
Now held below
Like corroded pins
In ocean’s spill
Bleached and sunk
And stilled in fall.
Waiting for the hammer
and its weary call.

Hello blue screen friend
Facing me beyond the glass
With eyes like tent peg holes
Hammered but not holding
The molten spent-wax bowls
Capturing final glow of
Night and time deferred
Poised like patient ornaments
That stare into the firmament
And wait for shooting stars
But sleep before they come.

Upstairs, downstairs, everywhere
Name calling women with cherry lipped smiles
Soothing the nervous, fending trolley clatter roll
Adjusting the silent clocks that see and know.

The muted wait, the bedded and begowned
White faced examined in skipped gaze partner glance
All make do and mend in vertigo swirl of truth
Where one room’s laughter turns.

Notice the polite camaraderie?
Moved through hollow corridors of anaesthetic air
Redolent - like Christmas left-overs
And blank page turn of musty magazines.

The hopeful cold shuffles of the fearful
Toward the tip-toes of the well
Here, there’s no checking in - just trolley spin.
I hate this strange hotel.

Today, I curse my dead-leg soul.
Like a flatlined heart - no spike
or charge to spur me on.
Nothing here but vacant signs
and sombre stares in morning rise.
Like clipboard foolscap waiting
for scrawl from a pen without ink.
Oh damn this weary me!
I feel so numb - so empty,
I feel so …

Torn between
the spirit and the day -
the nightime thought
that stays with me.
Tugged, like
a weary christmas ritual,
still wise and rugged
though - like the last
clear glass on
a scratched bauble.
Where goes this twilight
sort of ponderosity?

In a tiny instant
before sleep,
before dreams
before black;
It is … divine.

Who was he trying to impress?
The splash of him certainly announced some intent
but the tortuous to and fro of his flailing arms
and the stuttered line of his path worried me.
Out beyond the others, on the tip-toes of youth
but lonely in the trawl. Why did he swim,
so recklessly?

You have infected the system of me.
Blocking the corridors of normal operation
like a smouldering fire in the ever green
insidious in the deciduous.

I didn’t know you were in me to start.
Waving for attention like a drowning fool
just waiting to see me waving back
oblivious to your litmus.

Your transmission was beamed deep.
Triggering a change in the process of myself
like a rogue signal without permission
moving the dial to denial.

So here you now are, resident in my veins.
Rocking my steadiness and surety
like a sleepless night-sweat child
harkening through the dark.

What do you want from me?

I’m not,
looking after myself.
Feels like my head’s been turned
inside out. One eye glued and
squinted like a drawstring bag
staying up until the late time.
I’ve been sleeping like a juggler on call
with fumbling hands that drop the ball.
Seeing steps to come but not gone by
auto piloting through the chore of day
This weariness now comes as standard
for these dry bones who need to rest
just can’t seem to concen ——–
——-trate.

He rises firm necked with the sun, calling servants from the day
Dawnbreak’s cry for fervent palm and guile of masculinity
He stands aloud before begins the stir, to service of his ways
Putting all my civil qualms aside from warm vicinity
All men know this potent balm and call - this will that
cannot be ignored. For these are the orders of this king
crowned in ascent, and I must bow to his fertility.

We yearn
the warm flicker
of her anodyne way.
Between tomorrow
and today - she is,
the sopor to ease all.
She carries us over
deep tribulation thrall,
helping us rise above
the sluice of discontent.
She comes to tighten the
night hatches of our eyes,
with their ever hopeful
hinges of slumber,
so we may look
within.