knife of the night

The moon is the knife of the night
Crescent edged, silver bladed
It's the crack in the darkness
That sheds light
On our flaws
It is the world's excuse for being ugly
For in the night
Everything glows
And looks beautiful
A picture frame
Glamour grows
As the day lies forgotten
The harshness of the night
Is tempered in the softening snowflakes
Of descending light
As the inherent harshness of my sight
Is tempered by your exquisite prose
Your words the silent snowflakes
Of my soul
They are the smile in my morning
And it shows :-)

fevered dreams

The night descends
It's gaping jaws around me
As fevered dreams
Set me shivering

Come and take me, sleep
Do not taunt me
Puncture my skin
Let the world ooze
From me, let my madness
Feed you
Devour me
And in the morning
When the light comes
For you
And you flee
In agony
As my dreams puncture through
Undigested again
Just retreat
We shall meet
And strive again
Lovers in the night
Until fevers take flight
My dreams subside
And you are mine
Or I am yours
For the rest of time...

laughter on the wind

There's laughter on the wind
Tonight
Each gust is a quiet chuckle.
I hear dreams too
Whispering
In delight
Of things that never were
Secret thoughts
Take flight.

Just chase the wind
And let emerge
The hiding words.
The silent mirth
Of the morning
Before the light.

River Moon

If you're a little ripple
In the fabric of the night
Wash your waves about me
And shimmer in my light

Let me be your moon tonight

I'll glimmer in the glamour
Of the laughter in your song
I'll catch you and I'll hide you
As you surge and swish along

Let me ride your waves tonight

I'll shimmer in every quiver
To the cadence of your tides
I'll splash along your river
And wash along your sides

Let me be your rhyme tonight

I'll highlight every crest and curl
Every furrow in your world
I'll play in every wave that sways
I'll be the glitter on your swirls

So let me be your light tonight

Let me vibrate to your flow tonight
While you pulsate in my arms
Surge against me as I delight
In your passionate billowing charms

And let us dance a duet tonight

I'll be the loon that glints
Off your rivers of disguise
I'll beat to the songs you sing
In the ripples of your eyes

If you'll let me be your moon tonight.

Anoesis

5 am 

The city sleeps 

As an engine hums 

A car door slams 

The leaves quivering 

Silently 

Waiting 

For a gust of breeze 

The stillness belies 

The restlessness 

That lies 

Within the breast 
Of this beast 

That murmurs and snores 

Unrest quivering 

From each of it's pores 

From within the ooze 

That this city excretes 

Furry noses emerge 

In search of cheese 

Of rotting delicacies 

To fill their little souls 

Their stomach's little bowls 

Of hopefulness 

That go begging in the streets 

We walked those streets last night 

A friend and I 

Words soaking up the miles 

Philosophies exchanged over smiles 

The throb of things unspoken 

Beating beneath our lives 

In the unrest we find 

The moonlight mingles 

With artificial yellow bands 

The breeze stirs the sands 

The waves stir the leaves 

That hang below street lamps 

A shiver up our cheeks 

A runnel of sweat seeks 

A goosebump down my spine 

Tracing a naughty line 

From nerve-endings to my mind 

Senses in harmony 

Our 5 am symphony 

Completes...

His Voice

He sidles,

                  His tail between his legs,

Wandering worriedly into the light

The yellow circle of jaundiced light

Cast by a solitary lamp-post.

And he stares

At his reflection,

That area of shadow that strangely resembles

Him:

His dog-eared, long-faced, panting visage.

And he lets out a sound

A slight, slow, halting, tentative…whine

And it grows, in volume, in size, in shrillness

Till his whining fills the night

With delight, in his own voice

Not his masters.

And he sits… there

And he whines

The lamp-post, the dog, and his shadow

In a circle of sodium light

A picture for posterity

With sound effects. 

Home

Deep down there, down in the underbelly;
In the place where people in their right minds never go
The darkest of the dark, and the lowest of the low

There is a strange kinship here
Born of that sense of fear
That comes crawling across your skin as you walk
Down the dark deserted paths 

Where silence stalks
You worse than any demon can

The spots, the stains, the scars of endless years
The rusted roads, the potholed steel
The upchucked remnants of each rotting meal
That spot the streets, and the soles of your shoes
As you squelch over the decadence and decay
Of a city...

A city...
That seems so familiar
From yesterdays nightmare
It seems born to life
From your own memories
Gone awry...

As your slow steps
Of remembrance
Turn to run
You start to recognise
The mutant memories
That come to life

Memories of other places
You walked at other times
You and I were younger then
More curious, more open

You ran then
To the excitement of places like

                                      ....this
Places never seen
But warned against
By those who knew better.
Son, don’t go there!
It’s not a nice place, that.
They sell death and drugs
‘Really, Dad!’

Eyes shining, we wandered
In search of forbidden fronds
Of Mary Jane,
And more dangerous
Pills, that sent you up
Flying into the sky
Around the world
Clothed in rainbow colours
Of ecstasy

I searched out such places once...

It’s strange
That today
Home does not seem home anymore
The places i frequent become stranger
As i stay there longer
And then...
In every new city i visit
I find a place just like this
Tarnished, broken, littered with the remnants of broken dreams
Broken screams
Fading screams
Fading, whispered dreams...

And here,
Among the silent whispers
The fading pictures
Of times gone by
Finally...


I find a place that feels like home.

Relentlessly

I can see the gulf
That lies
Behind your eyes
The lies
You sell yourself
The chasms between
What you need
And what you say
The games you play
Within your mind
The way you're unkind
With how you feel
Each crushed appeal
Of the child that died
Living other's lives

Won't you pretend
Just for a while
That it's alright
Won't you come out and play
Let your thoughts ascend
To realms untried
Won't you hold me and say
Things you've never dared
Act like you never cared
And leave that past behind

Won't you just try
To find yourself
In me
Relentlessly

Desert Song

Standing
On the cracked earth
Parched and broken
The vast desolation
Of once fertile plains
I can hear
The echo
Of waterfalls
The rustle of grass and leaves
The mulch fallen between the trees
As I walk among shifting sands
The memories of the land fill me
And I remember
You
Lush as you once were
Your tresses and your smiles
Cascading with life
Fertile

I tread now for the last time
On all that's left behind
As the echo of the wind
Dies softly on the hill
And ceases, forever still.