Last night
there was a poem
in my head
curled and laid,
thinking about the day
rolling around my bed
“Enough of rhyme”
this poem said;
think new ways
choose new words to say.
Awesome and tiresome -
closer than you think
the poem said
and last night
that omen
turning in my heart,
felt like
prey catching pray,
all bowed beneath
an old moon calling.
“Come now threads of sleep -
for I am caught”
the fleeing poem said.
≈
He started life as a liar
pretending to know
pretending to be -
it was a game
and it was fun.
It was a shock
when he learned
people believed him,
and so, he began
to believe himself.
That was then.
Scribbling like inky flies
fallen onto barren sand
they are dribbling their grey ice now
draining to souls, pouring thoughts
from the dumb to the numb
and with blessings of the wise
their black milk flows
from the nipples of fools
to mouth-gasping shoals
they’re stealing succour of verse,
curdling the subtleties of words
shitting out their facile turds
and I watch them, circling like flies
turning truths to vacant lies.
It’s hard for me to recognise -
which one of them am I?
blink blink
can’t write
tonight
and most nights
come to that.
and come to this;
this space
think think!
used up by things
blink blink
and it’s
gone.
I’m
just a bonsai
I change -
watch me grow
not too much
~edit~
but enough
s t r e t c h i n g ,
change shape -
~paste~
patient nurture
tend and care.
~cut~
reader
keep me
from
~paste~
brutish
hands.
~snip~
I stand,
on what I said.
Why do you
dig it up?
Apparently
you instinctively know
the right decision
ten minutes before
you make it.
What were you doing
ten minutes ago?
what was on your mind?
Was it inevitable
like a twisting bird
waiting to land?
You were
wondering weren’t you
and now,
you read poetry.
The answer,
is still
no.
You
want
to fight
and I will not bite
and you argue all tonight -
know now I just will not bite
life is more than fight
flight from torpid shite
and understand
I will not bite
and therefore,
will not
write.
This is where the rhythm is
this soft pushed bounce before the strokes
this snapping beat and accent too
inviting ghosts of crack and groove
and low my vantage swoops to dash.
This is air this rhythm fizz
this friction heat this hot-coal stoke
this movement out and pocket in
enticing hosts with smack and move
and slow my heated pulse is hatched.
This is prayer strong this rhythm is
this once hushed ounce now pounded smoke
this balanced rush to fevered few respect now due
these beats compounding rough with smooth
and now, a vintage Zildjian splash.
It’s just a word,
that’s all it is.
Not so very different to
the others.
In fact, there are
171,476 choices
we could also
make.
Just another word
amongst the multitude,
that’s all it is -
just a word
and we’re struggling now
holding tweezers
over dirt.
It’s just a
word,
It’s just a word.
It’s just a stupid
word
We are too
ashamed
to say.
i am full
swagger swelling
bloated even
and i am vain
and i am pumped
balloon edged modesty
moon-faced travesty
spoon ace
mastery
think
the fullest thing
a womb maybe
dam water lees
and log jam
milk shake
wheeze
think now
a dust world bus
stretched like a saddlebag
but not like us
like uterine kin
fit to burst
like sunset
rust
and now
the highways
midnight bound
and i am full.
it’s pictures
in your mind
i see
just think
when you read
me.
Words
are warriors
let them ride
over mountain’s teeth
let them climb
let them leap
like ghosts over the dunes
over sands and traditions
raised against ignorants
peeling skin of sycophants
mouth breathing falsehoods
with dead machines
only numbers describe
but never heal.
Words are warriors
let them run
between fallen honours
let them charge
let them roar
loud amidst the halfwits
with their door sniggering
doomed meat stares
never seeing stars.
Let them loose
among the dumb and damned
let them out
let them free -
speak to the idiots
line dancing in blood.
Shred ropes of shock and awe
before ask and lust for more.
Dead must be hypocrasy
and words must fight.
Now stop the war.
It feels like
you are nudging me,
pushing subtly
on a hotpan pepper
not quite cooked
and always,
I am terracotta red
swirling into
white.
It feels like,
you are touching me,
cells whirling -
twisting vapors again
like old-hooked pike
and always,
I am led
though kissing nil
but night.
It feels like,
you are tempting me,
feintly waiting
like un-lined paper
parchment smooth
but always,
I am ink and splatter
squirming into
spite.
And on we go
To end of shows
Where no applause
Cuts pause
In words
Like nervous birds
Now resting here.
Have you heard?
The poet is dead.
Silenced in descent
Of crouching night.
Forgotten now
By mortal winds
And things that speak
To breathless souls
Or hearts entwined,
Out amongst
The nebulae.
But don’t be sad
For errant voice,
No longer felt
And whisper stilled.
Thoughts, are such
Temporary things.
When you hear
This poet is dead -
Carve some words,
In stone.
Words
are a waste of time -
they’ve certainly occupied
too much of mine.
Shouting like pushy folk in line
from A to Z, demanding attention
in fray with clatterered heels
and sullied cries,
bold suggestions -
like Jazz sax strayed
too far from melody.
But it’s not I don’t enjoy
their crowded company.
No, far from it, I do -
I truly do and always will.
Where would I be
without our dialogue?
And beauty, and wonder
and other joys?
It’s just … I begrudge
the mechanics of these things -
these *words*.
They just can’t resist
trying to sneak their influence
beyond what I really want to say.
Words come with baggage you see.
What I think, what I write,
and what I speak -
it all gets ransomed by
dragging needs to express
and be understood,
to offer degrees of meaning.
In reality though,
not, the real me.
Oh I have drunk enough,
and swallowed, and gulped
then spat through grins.
And I have splashed my eyes
shook humbling sodden cloth,
felt shivers start within.
And I have dived to swim,
against the current’s sway
with limbs that struggle on
but know not what they see -
this most divine commodity,
this precious thing
that links our souls.
And I shall waste
no more.
All of you bloody poets
Who do you think you are?
How dare you feign to speak
For puzzled souls like me.
And just because you aim to voice
What I only sense inside
It doesn’t make you right,
It doesn’t mean you’re qualified.
You say the things the way you do,
To make me try and work things out.
Stop questioning the way I feel -
Start writing about you,
And who the hell,
You poets think
You are.
In all I’ve said
I’ve tried to say
In all I’ve told
I’ve tried to tell
In all, I’ve tried.
He left
before the ink
had dried.
Just stood up,
pushed the chair
then walked away.
But not in temper or frustration -
more like quiet, pensive air
such as that found at the end of exams
or when signing mortal documents.
This was determined consideration,
as evidenced by the pen lined up -
gracefully placed with elegant hand
in symmetry with closed covers
and memories scrawled,
like old ledger marks recalled.
But there was deathly deliberation
when he capped the lid and bit his tongue
to stop the thoughts that leaked
on paper trails and trials,
that lead to you and me.
It was not good for him you see;
this opening of secret boxes,
this butterfly chase without a net.
This nakedness of soul before an ocean -
it hurt just a bit too much.
And so he sighed and left
before the ink
could dry.
Hoist your sight above the lashes
weighing like cross-roped crates,
their cargo pressing down
upon your eyes.
Why - when there is much more
to see, to experience, and to learn
must you focus on the hatches
and not the sky?
Why?
Nuance.
Now there’s a good word.
A sense, a feeling
of sophisticated subtlety.
Like something you can’t see
or touch, or taste
beyond mundane reality.
Something you can’t quite place
or an underlying philosophy -
perhaps what you might call
intrinsic personality.
Not quite sure and not quite there
like quiet tones in painted air.
But definitely everywhere.
The signals of distinction
I often miss in the meaning,
in the mystery of all
you mean to me.
Obvious really…
I
like,
punctuation.
It really helps -
to frame the words.
Like breaths and sighs,
and pauses - reigning track of thought.
But then, sometimes, it’s frustrating;
stutter and muddle - jolt and bolt.
Things come out …. fractured
and staid. But then again -
I’m getting there.
Wherever,
that,
is.
Hunched
and squinting,
at the screen.
I lean toward
your soul within.
Bunched
and hinting,
what it means.
Slim rewards
are everything.
God, save us from the dullards
And the pedants and the mean
Give us strength to rise above
The cloying webs they weave.
Send cutting winds that blow
The ties of their mundanity
Let them follow wiser ways!
Reminding all of our humanity!
Lord, steer us from awkwardness
Away from oafish push and shove
Take doubters and the unkind sane
Move them like the wings of Jove.
Give us joy in our creativity
So then we may again believe
In you, above and willing on -
And caring for our frailty.
I wanted to write
but now I’m not sure.
Do I feel sweeping and
glorious or mystical?
Should I forgive my vanity
and doubt, clasp together
opposite arms in poetry?
My eyes are tired,
and so are my bones
and without caffeine
I cease to be.
Why bother?
What is it I feel
so driven to say?
I really don’t know
(and tonight I don’t care).
We can sort this out
another time.
Words,
like butterfly dust,
blown as windseed
ether-cast thoughts.
No more than breath,
thrown to skyhold
clasp of sparkle stars.
Mist and cloudsong,
feeling’s balm -
like heaven’s never
rain.
I shall leave some words
for you to find when I am gone.
Words from the secret one -
written thoughts not dared to voice.
Words from the inside -
sculpted from imaginings,
into real, tangible things.
I will leave some words
for you who seek
a part of me that’s
left behind.
She asks for Dandelions
but all I have is words.
Words like lemon, mane
or honeysticks
and beaconed yellow
fireworks.
Words,
they might resound
like sepal, petal, stamen -
even floral formula
diagrams.
All these stretch
to summer ankle fields,
near quietened sphere
of where I am.
A peerless raindrop caused the flood
Like a black cell in the cleanest blood.
This was the blink that turned to sleep,
The final rest to scythe its harvest’s reap.
This was the smear that blurred the sun
Through squinted looks that told us all
In whispers fanning flame of days,
Dried, the youthful leaves of one
Who once, could silence crowds.
With heartbeats and a single breath
Like a newborn calling the world
A tiny thought to change us all.
Such is the power of words.
There is nothing,
but this addiction.
This driving force
it forgoes good intent
to stay away, to just ignore
this all-day ache that grows
from worse to worse
and back again.
I don’t want
to speak
to you tonight
of moon or chemistry,
of souls or complex minds,
but I am marooned
by instinct’s pull
to bow again to you -
the reason for these
stumbling words.
We kiss like Chinese fish
Like loaded inkbrush strokes -
Circling grain and ancient turn
(The kind you see in father’s books).
Like loaded inkbrush strokes -
We are dipped and saturated
Playful, but disciplined in arc and flow
Swept below the dark-watered lilies of night.
We are dipped and saturated
Circling grain and ancient turn
Swept below the dark-watered lillies of night,
We kiss like Chinese fish.
This is formally the begining
Of the longest poem ever written.
It will skip from serious to flippant
From prose to rhyme and back again.
It will change from classic style to free-form wild
It will twist and turn like a twisty, turney thing.
It will do WHATEVER it wants (or your own mood dictates).
Anything goes, but you must bear in mind -
This poem must never end.
This is difficult to write
I prefer to flow and not to know
for you, my villanelle tonight.
Complex are you in your delight
that vexes my words that grow
This is difficult to write.
Men like me do not normally invite
such discipline of thought to show
for you, my villanelle tonight.
And to you, this must be slight
but me, I need to take things slow
This is difficult to write.
We’re near close of rhyme that fights
and traps words in this fixed tableaux
for you, my villanelle tonight.
And so it must end, this debt I owe
the spurs I earn and then forgoe.
This was difficult to write
for you, my villanelle tonight.
I want
to write
I really do.
But tonight
it doesn’t feel
quite right.
I want
to speak of her,
hair blown
like faerie breath,
brushing cusp
of summer air.
I want
to tell you -
the bees
were out today,
saluting
stretching
sun.
Sadly I must
leave this
for another
day.
Stop reading now.
This poem is not for you.
It’s for someone else -
someone close,
someone who goes
behind the meaning
of these words.
Still here?
I thought you’d stopped.
Well maybe you and me
could talk another time?
There’s nothing here
for you today -
for you that feels,
for you that walks
along the lines.
Please - leave now.
I need to be
alone.
I was thinking
about Neruda and Rumi
and all these other folks
who I’ve never read.
Feel like such a phony -
I must read more
before I’m dead.
Hello and sorry.
We havn’t spoken lately have we?
I’ve been too busy being selfish
digging around in my own sodden mine,
not thinking about you and things
you are also looking for.
It’s very difficult you see.
Sometimes, I just have to go
into myself, burrowing through
the lumps and bumps - digging
beneath my own world.
You know what?
The very next words
will be just for
you.
Staring at this blinking curse,
I don’t much feel like writing tonight.
But still I’m pushed and pulled,
by what is now habitual.
This is a mad obsession,
that has chosen me,
Before, I was ordinary -
not enslaved by this … poetry.
Just one more line, one more thought,
One more punctuated night, to drive
the nagging demons from my mind,
then I can rest in peace - forgetting
poems that are never, quite right.
Finally we find more than words
And they sing like wineglass bells
Beneath the cold stoke of night
That calls our circumvented soul
Deep as moss, high as swallow call
Like wistful sighs in the steamroom
Or a child’s lonely cry in the mall
Buoyed against our wanderings
More than tone, more than sound
Your voice alone was waiting
With such wisdom to be heard.
Just a quickie,
nothing meaningful.
Us, mutually together
for a moment or two.
Just you and I, sharing
the company of words,
but craving more than
a one line stand.
Poets are weirdos.
They can’t help it, they just are.
Not for them the bravura strange
Of painters, or stucco bloom
Of eccentric musicians.
Poets are just plain …odd.
Look at them - shuffling thoughts
On scribbled worry scraps
Memento pointing treasure maps
Of found ideas on midnight notes
Squirreled safely away like eels
In the pockets of a hobo.
And then, they speak!
How many words are there
Hiding behind the trees
Lying on dampened clay
Like pieces of fallen sky
Downed amongst the leaves.
Who feigns to voice
Our once danced swallow call
Now earthly staged before the night
Who notes these patterns bound
By silvered threads of awakening
Unpicked in meanings found
And now, the warm caress of … this
Our fumbled hold in nature’s furl
Like passioned gulp of lover’s dew -
Overflowing, with everything
I need to say to you.
Fifteen
minutes
and counting
That’s all
I’ve got
But don’t watch
the clock
I am tapping
on these keys
waiting
for some thoughts
to come to me
But now ten mintes
is all I have
that’s less
than I had
before
Where did
the minutes go?
Oops - now it’s
down to eight
and they’ve
gone again
Thing is,
I can’t be late
or make
people wait
Whilst I’m on seven
then I should
perhaps surmise
or offer
finishing lines
maybe
then wisely save
the final five
for edItIng
and cut ‘n’ paste.
Who knows?
There’s three to go
and now I’m
feeling low
Have I said
anything of note?
Have I spoken
to you?
Too late!
I’ve stopped
tapping on the keys
Waiting for thoughts
to come to me.
This is temporary
of little consequence
a small thing
minor in relevance
a stop-gap thought.
Inconsequential,
indeterminate,
unimportant.
Please ignore.
My meltwax grin is all
I have to share tonight
about the situation I am in.
Me, leaning forward - shrugging
in gallow grimace hold,
before the tightened fate
of our humanity.
I know too well,
this scaffold smile, holding
optimism’s flame up high.
A fading beacon in the gloom,
like dusk kite in the crow of night,
or slowing twist of last leaf fall.
This is all I want to say.
These
are
the
many
standing
parallel
like
snakepine
bones
or
druid
stones
in
landslip
line
these
are
the
sleepers
laid
with
fingers
like
matchstick
burns
and
dry-clench
knots
in
twisted
twine
these
are
they
that
mark
the
complex
track
that
shape
the
pensive
oxbow
slack
so
stand
and
contemplate
the
end
so
push
away
the
first
to
learn;
there
are
many
many
folds
to
you
and
I.
This is where
I set the record straight.
Where the ills or innocents of the day
get just desserts in front of you - the judge and jury.
Line up your forfeiture of events and thoughts,
Unpick the complex truths of what and whom you see.
Examine the motives that lead us here.
For you, are the studied voice of reason,
that prosecutes, yet defends
and speaks for the accused.
I am poetic.
I am a poem.
Not as complicated
as perhaps I like to think,
but maybe a bit confused.
There’s a contradiction
between who I am
and who I want to be.
Here’s to the sons and daughters of the black crow quill,
with their moon soaked scrawls that never still.
I adore these scratched iterators of positive intent
moving through scribbled situations,
calming worries mere mortals
must ferment.
If life is trite - an open book,
all crooked texts and ink splat truths,
then these souls of word illuminate
the stilted ways in which,
we often look.
Oh, the whispers we might hear
if we stayed silent in the noise
listening to the audience
and not the sound of
our own voice.
Thank you, you are right.
You have taken the time
to try and understand
what I’m about.
But I’m too embroidered.
Crossing the gap
where telling turns
to puzzle talk.
Hiding.
Behind riddled knots
just for show.
You have reminded me -
forget the vanity
of words.
Words,
are the chickenseed
of thoughts flying low.
For clipped wings,
in the coop on the hop
of circumstance jumping
weasels in the wire.
A means,
to candle the eggs
in our tenuity
of doubt.
There’s a poet in the city,
bringing the lungs of emotion
to silver glass and steel.
Instant soul for the nervous,
throwing off corporate robes
wearing pressed badges of
attentiveness to the wonders of grind.
Suited hearts wilt under his proxied duress.
They say; “Bravo! This IS emotional,
look - we have the graphs
to prove it.”
Close
your eyes.
Picture the way
these words stumble
down the page. Visualise
the shape and form of what
they say. Evoke strong feelings
within yourself at the mysteries
conveyed. Just close your eyes
and imagine…
Quick! Call the word police - there is someone writing poetry
Now! Arrest this voice that speaks direct to you but not to me
Without use of approved tools such foolishness should not be
They are raining down emotions - without embellished decorosity
Stop them! Sharing these thoughts. It’s too straightforward and easy
To fix such frigid magnetry and fit it in with greeting card mentality
This uncultured wordplay must cease! A chair without studied carpentry
A hunk of brutish wood that was once a useless, untamed tree
You must! You must! Ignore this common prose - for I, will not be moved.
Note: This poem features the self reflecting use of irony. No actual poets were harmed (or are addressed) in the making of this piece.
I am running out of words
like an angler on the bank,
trying every lure and bait
to cast and pull you in.
Stood on trampled ground,
where full of net has been
and scratching furrowed
brow to second guess the
wind.
I see bob and weave below
the surface of the pond,
spying ripples on the turn,
and the places they begin.
But there’s no rise of water,
or breaking in the spray.
So now I leave this seek and
strive for paddled shadows
of your fin.
Ah well, if not this evening,
I can wait for another time.
A new approach, a subtler style
and I may yet haul you in.
My words found here
swing like rusty chains
snaking from boat to anchor,
all reeled and spooled
then rattled into shape.
Each link - an utterance
through mud and silt
crying resolute but timeworn,
as iron against the ancient
clawing salt of tide.
Many things I’ve said
are hard to pull aboard
this small ship seeking
departure for currents bold
of faster, deeper seas.
But steadied - as now
through connection’s bond
in multitude of wisened strength.
I speak, and feel - these words.
Heaved by a crew of many.
I
am
vain
to think
these words
might resonate.
All pride misplaced
in the done but not the
doing. Technique is never
mystique, and clever words
alone are not enough to speak.
So let us both agree, to watch these words unfold anew.
In the being, in the seeing,
placed in the now - life’s
glorious nothingness.
Layed out for view
and framed by the
mystery of next
- the point of
fellowship,
between
you
&
I
Every letter bold
blood deep vanity of want.
All heal my hungry ache within
beyond glass and wire.
Every inch of my being craves
for you to read on.
Don’t stop.
I am iambic jazz sax played
no hidden skill unsold
I wield a shining
word-axe blade
to cut my word tax paid.
The notes I play are multitude
performed with athlete’s guile
triplets wrote with attitude
all inches to my mile.
Yet still I need you to approve
this struggle with the word
and though you state my prowess proved
there remains a part of me unstirred.
I pine for you to play along
I think you know a better song.
These words are made of rock, crudely fashioned.
Tools to sculpt a larger stone,
such thoughts are chalkdust on the wind,
far and rudely blown.
Here I go again,
turning word tricks,
for the poem pimp.
Lying on my back.
feeding the habit,
of an addict soul.
Every word you read,
is my release.
Purge this emptiness,
let me satisfy you.
Want me.
This is a door that you are passing through,
every word you read is a degree of openess,
textured and ancient veined,
close it when you leave.