ONE ENTERING

ennui’s firmament

mixes like wax

betwixt  separation

between night & day

a new one entering

THE STOVE BELOW

I’ve been burnt here

and not for the last hour

the proportioned figure

ambles past my lust

Here it is happening

but no, she doesn’t heed

what hurts when the pride

does swallow the lower fire

and spits out the prickles

Brittle as her flaxen bones

too tiny for a whole soul

to cling to or to reject whole

No gods to protect

the healing process

of you belly-harm that

skin will compensate

Hoping he’ll never

ask or notice as

my concern must

rule singular

I ask for mollification

for my spleen that burnt bases

so I can repair the rotten riven

like so many never did before

Should’ve somehow known

to have commissioned the courts

but I was six-years old at the time

Burnt on your stove

thinly-veiled, below

beneath the comfort

and the warmth, home

My insularity vocalised

as my biceps sprung

and condensed my heart

to lax and unloaded air

But you’re so slow

to witness your

own moves and motives

it’s no longer repetition

for you or for your killers

STAY UNDER YOUR SHEETS

all these great poets

were bedridden

beyond and before

Keats and Proust

all sleepy-headed whiners

lying supine

on the whitest of sheets

softens the teeming brain

for ripe foggy thoughts

hair upon the pillow

wide and small

brushed aside

renews the white vessel

red coughs cannot undermine

the snowy world

of rising jagged ridges

of shadowed rivulets

completing the foundation

for rocky, runny thoughts

in this haven for shiftlessness

when to read

is only to write

as time is still

amongst the shafts

of the tiny Himalayas

the squirm

we can call a movement

within the discipline

of hospital corners

and the wondrous white

of no-further

yoked by white

these three layers

the dull patchwork

that sighs mediocrity

and takes no prisoners

of ambition

of fame

only the occasional sock

or a particle of dead skin

a tall order

for the gown

of a virgin

(First appeared in Crack the Spine, Issue 4, December 2011).

YOU WILL FLOAT ON YOUR PRIDE

Being very much from the old school of ‘I’:

I beckon, I plead, to see your multiple flairs.

I call back to what is chiselled on my heart

And report the findings for you to undermine

Yourself with. Ugly avarice is given cheap

Garments, by speaking the world’s truth in

Unfiltered air.

Now open up your head, let the breeze blow

Past so many failures of betrayal, leaving wild

Vagaries less distorted. But you have already

Jumped. Although you will float on your pride.

TODAY SHE IS TWENTY-ONE

you drew in from the wrong side

huffing & puffing to collapse

my ribcage & the hollow tones

of the dulcimer ache reward

the elder was no help at all

bent on saddest resignation

that made fun of my efforts

like silence on a battlefield

your tantrums began

where she did trip

two decades earlier

cleaning the stain of tie-dye

from the clever books

she held insecurely

and now we're here

now we're there

handcuffed to the idea

that if I wanted you

I'd simply kidnap you

a story for beer & chips

no steps forward

no steps back

stuck inside a room

with underworked dream-catchers

with nothing to grasp at

but soft pants in the only union

we could command

underworked limbs

underworked tongues

brains that couldn't feed themselves

crucified pride introduced us to

the degrees of pity in love

but left us begging for alms

from strange tenants & twins

your single bed

your single notion

your single act

not planned

as eyes roll, reverse

in no distinction of life

fingerprints on a babe's backside

they all shudder to talk sense

but I rise in anger to accuse

and cry, 'murder!'

at the death & extension

of a child's soul

twenty-one years ago 

today

DWELL LESS

Dwell not so onward into the night

Dwell not so on cracked hearts and women’s thighs

Dwell not so on the undressing of cocktail rump

Dwell not so on the several states of the elect

On that combination so rare

Potent because it’s not really palpable within an hour

Dwell on the airy

Smoky conversation

Smokier love affairs with women you have not met

Inspect insects on their pilgrimage across this page

Before the egotist’s eruption

Dwell not or your wounds will never be licked

By Lamb or Time

(First appeared in S/WORD, Issue 1, Fall 2011).

VIGNETTE IN BLONDE

O for the impassioned gaze

Of your discourse without

The ‘me, mine, I, this, they’

O for your cheekbones

In silence, your body

Alive sans bouncing

Not electrified by desire

The family, the protest

Not by an invidious jealousy

Of all who communicate

Clearly and with purpose

O for your unripe dreams

Of style, your awareness

Of beauty, that nasty verbal lust

For what is on screen, what is hot

To prepare this all to nothing

Thighs tied together in self-respect

And your new explicated life

Which will give me five minutes

More to teach you chess and lose

SPLASH

 

splashed

with the truth’s

glistening

I want you back

like a straight line

(First appeared in Cottonmouth, Issue 29, August 2011).

CIGARETTE BY A CITY BIN

A cigarette by a city bin at 4am

is a liberating experience due

entirely to my placeless wastage.

Six tiny spheres join the rising sun

concentric to Alexander’s Gordian Knot.

Or if there’s another interpretation

of the sculptured mass I can’t pick it.

I’ll look up the artist one day coming.

I just take a stab instead of untangling

names, dates, and hey, it worked for Al.

TO WALT WHITMAN

I cannot travel within your hours

Your seagulls don’t resemble the ones I see

But your large perception

That eccentric, strong, silent swagger

Your words could sustain an ox

Regrow a thick pine that had lost its vigour

Your glory was thinking aloud

Thoughts floating in your frisky bearded smile

Reducing or enhancing all angelic cherubs

To appear like cheap Christmas decorations

Blessed is your heart

Your iris spit infects your ink

Leaving no defacement upon our common air

Though I have never folded your Leaves

And need not

THANKS TO THE THIEF

The right man has been cornered.

His freedom quietly lost,

not five minutes hence

he enjoyed the smoky frost

against his cheek

as a devoted wanderer

of dime stores.

Pocketing the arbitrary trinket,

he strode crookedly towards the exit.

It was an item that no one cared to spare

a thought towards.

He did the proprietor a favour

by purloining such stock,

by offering space

where the customers did

but wince.

Now the browsers did not miss

the garish contrast

between the poorly-carved cherubs

and the opulent chandeliers,

as they noted the distance

between trash and pomp.

The foolish man gave a value

that superseded the stolen item

with its counterfeit charm.