Where are you chickjesus?
Not washed away I hope
by flood of life
and death like dust
on surly breath
over unkind seas.
You once awakened me,
turned driftwood
into useful thoughts
took clay of you and I
and sculpted we.
I hope for you
in the swell
of the cosmos -
are you still looking
for butterfly wings
on the shore?
The sky is taunting us
Spreading its muddy fleece
Smothering the shoots and spurs
That call to sun.
One minute overjoyed
In the glow of spring
But then, snatched -
Like a mistaken banquet guest.
Why, oh why
this grinding pause?
This reckoning of season sums
Beyond patient warm and blue
Greying the clarity of hue -
Our cravings for rebirthed sun
Like cries from fallen souls
With weathered flags and so much need.
So much wanting, so much desire.
All, waiting to start again.
Begone
this stab through skin
and blood towed heart.
This nagging spike of doubt
that strikes and cracks
the gentle well.
It screeches
like cocktail spite
through quiet now unsteady calm,
Scratching edges, stealing entrance
to the wonderful secrets
that are you.
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.
Beware of engines,
Say the men of oil and dust
Working for their fathers,
Sons, before a heritage of trust.
Speaking heat and night of foundry bed,
Telling black and white of early call,
Cathedral spired beyond the fires -
Raising chalice cast from iron trust.
To worshiped stitch of boilerplate
To lathe contented steel - not men,
All bowed before a final wailed hoot -
Not thinking of their labour lost
Or industry not yet turned to rust.
Tell me how
to make the leap,
the hop from here
to where I want to be.
Show me how
to arc my thoughts
to someplace
new.
Help me
scale the hurdles,
jump the fences,
cut the bindings -
banish gravity!
And I promise,
I’ll move closer
to the island
that is
you.
I was thinking about you
All your things in readiness
Held in a drawstring bag
Clutched like pearl and trove
in netted treasure sack.
You, looking so … little
And scared in the blue
Of losing cool and shine
Of forgetting who you are
At the mercy of cold hands
Lying passive and waiting -
How like a fish jumped
Into strange waters!
Minutes rising, countdown’s pull,
Of meeting bloodied dark
Of growing fate through stir
And current that tugs and calls
Like black queen crawfish
Moving in a mystery game.
How cruel such creatures are
That make me think of you,
Sifting the night sounds
Tossing and turning but not moving
Stilled beneath cutting sheets
Of ripple click and midnight tuck
Of care that feels like harm,
Pin-dropped cold in the pool
And drifting, where no-one knows.
But yet, I think of you
And time rushes as if water
Flowing free the crusted hold
A return to whom you know
In joy of being - of belonging
Back to friendship’s spoils
And the untethered laughter
Of good times swirling endlessly
Like unhooked river trout
Playing in whitewater smile.
I was thinking about you, and know
You will race the stream again.
This one’s for the quiet ones,
The ones who sit and wait -
The people leaning at the back
Depended on to take the slack.
This one’s for the mild souls,
The some who stir no wave -
The some preferring calm
To seas not yet as plotted brave.
To reticent hearts, to those
That softly speak - go prideful
In hushed guile and gentle leap,
Over paths on which you seek.
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.
Goddamn freaks!
What gives them the right
to be more enlightened than me?
I’ve paid my dues to humble servitude
and non-dyed collar platitudes.
Their cheesecloth talk and cosmic hop
is mere thrift sale Buddhist eclectic fop.
Arrrrrgh! Such positivism drives me crazy!
Through bleary nights and an empty glass
That’s where you’ll find the promised way
From bar-stool muse to sucker fool blues
In one queasy step - right foot tripping left
Through the urinated alley that is life.
It IS easy - just stumble over here,
and buy another beer.
Please know that yours is not a lost cause.
You will sidestep these horrid, barren gulleys
These concerns ascending though purity’s tears
From here, you will climb still further
Up, through the mist toward sky’s veil
Where some have fallen, and some have paused
Amongst stalagmites chiselled by unkind wind
You will smile at ancient lichen etched in quartz
You will face cold stone’s grimace and find anchor
Beyond knowing and the known, beyond today
Beyond tomorrow and life’s tremulous hold.
There is always the memory of you.
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.
Wiring crossed and timing slow
Confused and dumb with protocols
Of socketblocks and battery slack
One inch forward - ten feet back.
An odd-sock day of coffee stains
And soapy eyes and missing calls
From breakfast spills on muddy shoes
To milk that turns through needled toes.
A scrabble round for peace of mind
From late return of bills unpaid
To black night search for blue-ink books
And here now lost in overflow
Running, from my worried looks.
Nothing here is real,
And nothing is revealed,
For the stirrings that you feel,
are just secrets you conceal.
And nothing here is true,
For the foibles that were you
Became the missing clues,
In the puzzle we both knew.
Nothing more is nothing less
than nothing said.
They say the earth is shrinking.
Like a loose stitched spinning ball
Thrown from backyard stretch to garden hold
Over fence and border row
Through trees and wind and sky
Even across mountains and sea
And there is you, shouting for the catch
Then me, aiming my baggy-limbed throw
And both of us - clutching the cusp
Of the world, spiralling between
The dust on which we shuffle
And our yearning arms.