Cocoon

In your love
I lie
Cocooned
Against the world

You shelter me
Calm my fears
Still my restless eyes

I awake
Stretch my growing wings
With my eyelids shut now
I fly

Silvertips

Lazy red nails
Freshly blooded
Reach mindlessly;
Each finger parts
A knotted problem
In the tangled black
Caressing into obedience
Each recalcitrant lock.

Your fingers turn to puppeteers hands
My mind and body and soul
Jerk in time to your tunes
But you shall not remain
Unscathed, my love

As your fingers trail
Down to the dying ends
Where the pigments fail now
To declare their black mastery

The red blood of your nails
The alabaster lushness of your skin
Are stained by the colour of my rich revenge

Silver seeps from my sideburns
Through your fingers
Into your soul

Mirage

On the ground
The winds of change
Reach their questing fingers
Towards the black edifice
Of governance

It stands tall,
Invincible
As the people stare
The wind finds a chink
The structure quivers
And comes apart
A mass of shivers

In a slow dance
Fragments fly
Democracy's ashes
Fill the sky

As the ashes swirl
They rustle this refrain -
When the winds have died
What will remain?

Depression

On the bed
Beside me
There's a hole
In the pillow
For your head
It stays cold now
To my touch
An abyss for my eyes
And my wandering mind

And in the early morning
With barely concealed delight
When the sun streams in
To suffuse my world
With dancing rays of light

The hole stays still
As deepening
Shadows fill
The space
You left
Behind...

Betrayal

Memories
Of your mouth
Muddle my mind
They roam
South
With disdain
The fabric strains
Little signs I hide
From prying eyes

My fingers roam
The seat I'm on
The hard plastic
Is now your skin
Your tongue flickers
And skims within
Crevices hidden
By my clothes
My memories of you
Coming alive
Every moment
Of the morning after
As my face holds
Absolutely still

Or, at least,
I hope it does...

Avalanche

An avalanche of loves
Descends upon me
It catches me unawares
They catch me unprepared
And tear me into pieces
Of sudden longing

Caught up in the storm
I'm divided
As my eyes reach out, sightless,
For your lips,
My arms, questing for your fingers,
Have left my mind behind
Which hears only your name
Roaring relentlessly through
The destruction
Each bit of me, separate,
Is caught up in a panic;
Yearning for rescue
By a different part of you

But the avalanche is you
Removed from my world

Your absence is my maelstrom
I go to pieces without you.

Stars

Can you hear the stars
As they wind on slowly by
They twinkle softly overhead
I hear them through your sighs

The Kiss

I can feel your heart
A bird beating hard
Against the ribbed cages
Of your breast
Your eyes echo your need
For escape
But I must close
Up the spaces between
As I lean
Almost in a dream
Drawn in by your breath

With blood on our hands

Some of us must have
Blood on our hands
For the redness to
Bloom innocently
Upon other cheeks

Love is born out of the debris
Of wounds
Borne by strangers

Flowers bloom
In ruins
Beauty rises
Among desolate things

Shall we lay waste then
To the worlds we've built
And risk destruction
At the prospect of love?

Girl from another world

The girl from another world
She turned to look at me
Her face framed by a smile
The shock of it lingered
For a little while
Till I happened to look up
I looked into her eyes
And there I could see
The weight of a thousand lives

We stood, rooted for a while
Exchanging stories, longing, and smiles
And then, before long, I stood alone
My eyes crinkling fields of mirth
Sprouting from seeds that she had sown.

The Lovers

For in this cruel world, you see
There is no space for you and me
We build little worlds of our own
Forsake myriad lives unknown

Memories of tender touches
Of kisses, and loving clutches
Begin to take the shape of sin
With time, they become lost in
Illusions of knowing what we do
In words that negate me and you

Innocence is such a fragile thing
It does not last the thoughts we bring
The prejudice of reason kills
The tremors of love lie stilled.

Each thought that rang out clear and true
Each act of love between me and you
Is consigned to pasts we never knew
And lost in a murky moral stew

As we pretend to know, and grow
We snuff out life itself, you know
And so many lovers, so many songs
That almost lived, now lie stillborn.

Sacred

And shall we go then, you and I,
To dance upon the edge of a sigh
And let our rhythms come undone
Forgetting the worlds that go and come
In these whorls of learning and regretting
Shall we dance?
On the knife edge of the sacred
And cast useless worship to the dust.

Ephemeral

I awake with thoughts of you in my head
From the detritus of dreams upon an unmade bed
You rise
Your fingers linger
Languorously leafing
Through the tangled mess
Of my hair
And with the coming of the sun
You leave
Melting into the sudden light
Vanishing like a sprite
With just the ghost of a smile
Left behind
Playing upon my mind

Of what use is time?

Of what use is time
Except to drive divisions
Between your mind and mine

Of what use is time
Except to say
That this belonged to yesterday
That the world has changed
That tomorrow belongs not to today

Of what use is time
When what was said during the day
Is no longer valid at night
When we turn to wrong
What once was right

Of what use is time
When we use it to define
Why we must no longer meet
Why the years must make walls
Between what must now be sour or sweet

Of what use is time
When the years no longer allow
Declarations of fondness or love

Of what use is time
When I must no longer play
The games I used to on another day
When I must no longer run as hard or fight as fine
Oh, then, what use is time

Of what use is time
When you cannot be mine

Of what use is time
But as shackles for your mind

When your words are gone

When your words are gone
When your words dry up
And nothing rhymes any more

When the day awakens
Without a song in your head
And you lie blinking
Soundless, in bed
And no more poems emerge

What then is there to remember
But death

then you smiled...

The day was bad
The day was long
I was left feeling
Like I didn't belong
I felt like a beetle
By a shoe defiled
All crushed to a pulp
But then you smiled...

I was dropping bombs
I was oozing hate
I was burning people
With acrid distaste
I was losing my mind
I was getting all riled
Snapping at shadows
But then you smiled...

The world was harsh
The world was tough
I wanted to give up
I had had quite enough
I was about to lash out
I was about to go wild
And smash it all to pieces
But, just then, you smiled...

There was no end in sight
I was fresh out of hope
I was jerking on the end
Of a really long rope
At the end of my tether
I would not be beguiled
When you were walking by me
But then, you stopped, and smiled...

What love...

What eyes shall hold your eyes
What mind shall touch your mind
What wistful dreams arise
What vows shall we rescind

What hand shall link in yours
What heart quicken to your beat
What kind of hooks and lures
Shall make the sour turn sweet

What time shall bring, who knows
What fires shall light your stove
What arm shall wind in yours
What love shall find your love

When you're in a lousy mood...

When you're in a lousy mood
You can try
To cry
Or sigh
Deeply
And then implode
Or you can explode!
Either sink in
Wallow in sin
Or burst out
Do something loud
Go north
Or south
Just dont stay where you are
And brood
When you're in that lousy mood

How many lies?

How many lies
Does it take
For a heart to break?
How many lies
For the world to shatter,
For the ground to shake?
Does it really matter
How many lies were spake?

I sometimes wonder
If every word
I ever heard
Was a blunder.
Whether my ears
Or your tongue
Were to blame
For the game
This love became.

How many lies
Must you speak
Before you realise
The harm that you do;
That words are like glue;
That if love is blind
Words are the ties that bind.

How many lies?

Scarlet Love

The whips of your words
Lash about me;
From head to toe
I am afire
With your devotion
To the notion
That this is love.

The knife of your tongue
Stabs, withdraws
And plunges again;
Each spreading stain
A questing limb
Reaching for another
Until I am trussed,
Enveloped within
Your scarlet lust.

The Winds that Wait

The winds hold
Poised
Silent and still
Above the steaming city
Where rivers of sweat
Flow
The oppressive heat
Grows

Waiting for the breeze
Below
The still air spies
Hopes that arise
Steaming up towards the hill
Where the winds wait
But then they dissipate
Too much time has stood still.

In waiting for the moment
To foment
The winds of change have died.

Violin song

The violin sings
Of ineffable things
As the night falls away
Giving way to the grey
Dawn
The sun rises
To the sound of strings
And I must dance
To the tunes
Of forgotten songs
To the rhythms
Of worlds long gone
To the memories
Of places belonged
As the violin sings
I am it's strings.

Waiting

The horns on the road
As I wait for you
Beat time with my racing heart
And build to an anticipatory
Crescendo
Just waiting
To explode
Into the night
An impossible
Firecracker
Of descending
Smiles
           *
        *
     *
   *
  *
  *

Involuntary

When the wind blows your hair
Against my cheeks
The smell of you invades
My senses, strikes deep
Down to primal corners of my brain
Beyond the limits of the sane.
Then
My synapses firing
Out of control
Drive my lips down
To find their ground
Without sin
In your skin.

Animalese

On some days I'm a cat
I prowl alone
And if you smell
Right
I'll rub your limbs
And purr for you
But if you show unseemly
Delight
I'll leave
Walk my own path
Away from yours
Through the night
And warm your toes
If you're still
Nice
The morning after
And meow for you.

On some days I'm a dog
Big, shaggy, happy
With a big wet tongue
That longs to drown you
In love
You could rub me for days
And I'd stay
And tremble at your
Touch
I'd roll for you
Gambol for you
Run and fetch too
I'd be your happy slave
Your delightful knave
I'd warm you like a stove
Smother you with love
And bark and bite for you.

On some days I'm your bird
Chirping happily away
On a perch
In a cage
My performing stage
As you live out
Your life
Ignoring me
For days
Feeding me
By the way
Behind your bars I stay
Yearning in song
Yearning to belong
As I chirp for you
And tweet for you
I pine slowly away.

On other days
When I can
I will also be
Your man.

Your new friend

I met him yesterday
Your new friend
We didn't have much to say
He looks content

I laughed with all the rest
Telling jokes to quench each sigh
And I passed the acid test
Through the night my eyes stayed dry

But across the room
I watched you for a while
And I noticed in the gloom
He never made you smile

Yes, I watched you for quite a while
And not once did he make you smile.

Dead City Blues

The children play
As the city grows
In the gutter
And the garbage
The children playing
Among the crows

That baby in the corner
Sucking on bottlecaps
He smiles happily at me
Scratching at his scabs

Everywhere I turn
The children play
On roofs, on ceilings
Where the paint is peeling
While the city churns
The children play

If the whole city burnt
In the ashes you would see
At every corner of every street
Where the burning bodies lay
The ghosts continue to play.

Poet

I bleed words
Upon eager sheets
I pour my soul
Upon parchment
I turn my hungry heart
To ink

I sink
Words with teeth
Into untouched leaves
And smear them with my grief

Old Friends

The words flew fast
And laughter too
As the wind ran ripples
Through our hair
Two old friends met suddenly
After a long and silent while
The intervening years
Evaporating
With a smile

How familiar seems magic
And how rare
When it's no longer there
Moments in time
Twinkling like the stars
Against the canopy of the past.

On such nights
Before mundane tomorrows
The starlight illuminates
The relentless sky of sorrows
And papers over seas of sighs
With twinkles in our eyes.

Lost

I'm just a drop in the ocean
I'm just a shadow on the ground
I'm just a small, shimmering grain
Where the endless desert dunes abound

I'm a rustle in the distance
I'm just the breeze upon the plain
I'm the glimmer on the waters
I'm that tear in the pouring rain

And I am so lost, love
I'm so lost in your love

But I'm just a flash in your eyes
I'm just a ripple in your pond
I'm the wistful note in your sighs
The glint of sun upon the fronds

I'm the whispering in your silence
I'm that world of yours that came undone
I'm the past that you've forgotten
I'm just a ray in your setting sun.

The Fool's Song

I have squandered splendidly
All the life in my years
Scattered to the summer winds
All the inconsistent tears
Filled up every moment lived
With the forbidden and the damned
Filled my world with laughter
The others did not understand

I have danced with fiery abandon
To the beat of my own inner drums
Sung songs of love to those who hate
Mooned and lampooned the small and great

I have poured my tears upon the earth
When the world rollicked in senseless mirth
I have nursed the ones whose hope has died
Have boldly spoken truth to those that lied

It's been a foolish life, they say
But they have lived not even a day
Known neither laughter nor tears
And lived only for their wages of fear

My fool song sings with the hopes of the earth
With the horrors of death and the pangs of birth
A contrapuntal harmony of joy and of pain
Thrown to the wind with an ounce of disdain

Come then, and sing with me if you dare
Sing strong and free and clear into the air
Sing of fearlessness and laughter
Sing without a care for the morning after.

Elegy

When a person dies
It's so easy to be nice
To praise and eulogise
The things that they have done
To cover up with lies
To compare them with the sun
To say they shone so bright
Though the truth be otherwise
To call them misunderstood
Then to call them great
To conjure perjurious love
From out of your hate
It's so easy to be nice
When a person dies.

I long for the tenderness

I long for the tenderness
Of gossamer wings
For the wondrous touch
Of tenuous things

I long for the tenderness
Of shared dreams
Of fingers touching in the night
Of faces marked by delight
Of eyes that gleam
In silent adoration
For the quiet love
That grows
In silences

I long for the tenderness
Of joy and laughter
Of mirth that sings
Of foolish things

I long for the tenderness
Of April showers
Slow drizzles
Gentle as the mist
When glinting droplets
Left by the breeze
Of heartfelt sighs
Like dewdrops lie
Upon the ground
Without a sign to mark
Their passage down

I long for the tenderness
Of strangers
In the night
For fragile threads
And connections
For moments of light
In the forgiving darkness

I long for the tenderness
Of gossamer wings
For the wondrous touch
Of tenuous things

When true love dies

What thoughts were mine
What dreams were yours
What words should rhyme
Which ones turn to prose
How do we decide
When true love dies

How do we separate
The tangled webs
Of our lives
When true love dies

What comb, what brush
What hallowed hands
Can untie the knots
Can unhook the strands

When true love dies
When the doors are closed
I don't know what is mine
I don't know what is yours

Lust Song

Would it be enough then
To talk to you of your luminous skin
And so to unleash that beast within
To the possibility of some better end

Hopes, like butterflies, arise
Fluttering their way into life
With every movement of your lips
Moistened, parting with every sip
My eyes, like desert crabs, then crawl
(Across softnesses that, incessantly, call)
Thirsting for a touch of mirth
Within your eyes, or better still
A lust to equal the rising tides
Of wantonness beneath my eyes

They roam the softness of your neck
Yearning, like a bird of prey
To swoop, and peck, and rip away
To quench each rising wave of need
Within some thoughtless word or deed

But, caught up in politeness's creed,
We share pleasantries and mundane things
In words, under layers of etiquette and tact
The odds against desire lie stacked
As my fingers flex against my thighs
Railing against the masks and the lies
My mind roams with a tongue of it's own
Down the hollow of your back
Into every little crevice and crack
Under the fabric it wanders alone
Questing for answers like a thief in the night

Like a man struck suddenly blind
Hankering for the touch of light
These metaphors stretch and blow my mind

Under such rites and rituals bound
We do not traverse unfamiliar ground
While our hearts make mad fantasies
Our minds find ways to mask our needs
Squelching the yearning and the sighs
With words that are considered wise
We engage, spar, spin desires base
And then we go our separate ways.

Period

Your bloody towel hangs
Limply
By the side of the bed
While I lie beside
Limply
Bleeding inside
The knife of your stress
Cuts me deep
Every time

Every month
I take your wounds
I bleed for you
Partners in despair
It's all that's there
Between us now
Between me and you

The bloody towel
Lies mute beside
Drained of all the tears
We two have cried
Caked with the blood
Of drops that dried.

Animal Love

You snarl
And you bite
There's fear
In your eyes
But your cries
Say you care

If I dare
To test your lies
I get bitten
And mauled

But your sighs
They keep me
So enthralled

And then you purr
In merriment
Your laugh
Ringing
Out over the world
And you mewl
Your love
Into my ear
Croon your lust
And win my trust
With your wayward ways

I'm lost in a haze
Of longing
My eyes misting
With belonging
By the time they clear
You're long gone
On the prowl
For some other Tom

I lie awake
Listening
To the sounds of the night
Licking the wounds
That are in sight
But the ones inside
The parts that crooned
Lie desolate now
And howl
At the moon.

To Viktor Frankl

And so he burns
The bright spark
Shining his searing light
On everything around him

But to burn means
To be consumed
From within

Valentine reverie

The sunlight artfully arrayed
On your sleeping form
Mottled patterns of vanquished lust
Are not what I miss
My long gone and almost forgotten love
Your moist and welcoming lips
Those hypnotic bewitching hips
As we danced to our own song
As we burned ourselves to belong
Just don't hurt me any more

The memories are gray and fading
And I hardly remember you at all
But as I lie awake in the morning
When the ides of February come calling
For some reason
It's the smell of your hair
That I recall

I remember the way you lay
Nestled against my nose
But not the colour of your skin
Or your soft voice whispering
The practiced lies that befall
The fatal bliss
Of lovers in the morning air

Yes, I really wouldn't care at all
If I didn't miss
That smell of your hair

I'll be your mirror then

I'll be your mirror then
And you'll be mine
We'll play with our reflections
In ways so sublime
In our pools of longing
That've never seen the light
We'll light a candle to belonging
I will revel in your sight
As you will in mine
And it's all we'll need
To play and probe and be
Until the end of time

The Engine of Democracy

And so it came to pass
That the ones who knew
Had to bow and scrape
Before the ones who blew
Hot winds out of their ass

And that became the shape
Of the engine of democracy

The voters were cattle
The voters were sheep
They forgot how to battle
And remembered how to bleat

With the cattle on the trail
The lone wolves stayed away
Hid in what was left of the jungle
As the sheep had their day

It's now all gone - it's gas and manure
The grazers have left the land bare
They're mooing and bleating in unison
Still demanding their rightful share

The shepherds drive them to market
The shepherds drive them to death
They buy them all with promises
And they buy them all with debt

While the knowing ones must hide
And kowtow to the shepherd clans
Be carried along on the tide
Of fodder feed and cowpen plans

The great big engine chugs along
So blindly down the track
They call it the light of democracy
But the whole train is painted black...

Cold refrain

Shiver
Shake
In pleasure
As the cold wind blows

I
Who am used
To the light
And the heat
And the sweat in my pores

I love the cold.

Sweet
Welcoming cold
Like a lover's arms
You envelop
My soul

I love the cold
And cloudy days
When my words mist
In so many different ways

And my breath
Is lazy smoke
Swirling through the haze
Of lazy days and hope

Oh cold!
When you are gone
You shall be
The lover I never regret

In coming days of sweat
And toil
When days bring to a boil
My body and my brain
You will be my refrain

The way you slipped through
My blood and my bones
And every other part
To make my mind your home
And settle in my heart.

Quatrain

I wrote this morning's song for you
Your face was in my mind
Your body left its mark on me
But you left that note unsigned

He said, She said

He said - you are so fair, so nice
That my body is yours for free
If you will hold my soul for me
She said - I ain't falling for your lies
I know that every body has it's price
And I know that yours is not for me

And so they stood in the sunlight
Their longing ebbing in the fading light
Their eyes said every word
That their hands did not dare
When he reached out for her mind
He found only her breasts were bare

He said - Would you hold me for long
Would you hold me if I were wrong
She said - I would if I could
But I really don't want to belong
I mean - don't get me wrong
But I'd really rather be owned
For the shape of my body
Than the state of my soul

And so they made love in the light
And left the darkness inside
To be alone with the night
That lay behind their eyes
She said that that was great
He said he was getting late
And they went their separate ways

Untouched by the unsaid things
Their sanity lay on broken wings
That they did not care to heal
What's not said you did not feel

He said sometimes it's better not to fly
She said that's right, let's just let things lie
I prefer to be safe on the ground
To being a bird in flight
It was the first time, they found
That they'd agreed that night

They made up with their tongues
For each song they'd left unsung
Then he said ciao
And she said goodbye
And they left each other
Standing in the light
Knowing in the end
That she was right
That every body has a price
That they'd paid it with their lives.

Revenge

The night is cold
Cold as your smile
The day you stole
The light from my eyes

The lies you told
With practised sighs

To the tune of goodbye's

The days are warm
Warm as your thighs
When you welcomed me in
With soft mewling cries

But the nights tell the truth
They say what's inside
Yet we pursue the day
Without a disguise

One day I'll be warm
When your day has died
As you shiver in your storm
I'll pass smiling by

Our paths will then cross
And coldly I'll smile
The day that you've lost
The light in your eyes

To lies that were told
With practised sighs

To the tune of goodbyes

the sweetness of pain

writhing

in the sweetness of pain

silences growing

in vain

broken bodies

impaled

on sweet torture

we lie awake

dreaming

half mad with desire

for the lost

causes of the heart

we’ve played our parts

the music ends

before it begins

again

Would you

Do you live
On borrowed thoughts
Or borrowed dreams
Does your real self speak
In only quiet screams

Do you watch too hard
Do you see too much
Do you find that you spoil
Everything that you touch

Do the words out of your mouth
Come from books that you've read
Has every thing you believed
Been stuffed into your head

Does every answer you find
Come from someone else's mind
Are you too scared to heal
To find what you really feel

Do you mistrust yourself
Do you doubt all you do
Do you suspect yourself
And find things askew

Would it matter very much
If I tried to help you find
That you could trust your body
That you could trust your mind

Would you push me away
And scream out songs of hate
Would you rip and revile me
Would you say that it's too late

Would you repel and fear me
If I wanted to get through
If my fingers trailed compassion
Would your world come all unglued

Would it matter very much
If I tried to help you find
That you can trust your body
That you can trust your mind

Electric

Her hand reaches out for mine
Her long slender fingers clasping
Palms scraping
Her flesh squeezes mine
More intimate than a kiss
Are your hands, my love
I think, with a shiver of glee
That races up the nerves
From my palm
The quiver takes my spine
And shakes it like a leaf
In the laughing wind
The touch of her palm
Reaches my eyes
A teardrop lies
Unclaimed
Behind the lid
As behind that again
Within the dark depths of my skull
A brain stands still
As lightning flies
Each synapse fries
In a sudden declaration of love.

Around the eyes

Around the eyes
Crinkled skin
Shining lights dancing
On the pupils within
What else is there
What else is there

The people walk
The people work
Faces set in stone
They walk alone
Searching for glee
Buying love for free

Chase the big things
Be led by the nose
Around the circus ring
Chase highs and lows
Live life on a dose
Stress and adrenaline

But in the corner there
Sits the man who doesn't care
He's not lost in worry
For forgotten sins
He's caught in the moment
His world is a grin

Around his eyes
Crinkled skin
Shining lights dancing
From the pupils within
For what else is there
What else is there...

Half Past Twilight

It's half past twilight
The ancient one squats
In the smoggy half light
Of that hole in the wall
That the purveyors of concrete
Call a window

His mind lingers
Around nothing at all
In a faraway place
He sometimes calls home;
His mind meandering
Around half thoughts...

Rising from his lips,
Seeking out both
The open lighted spaces
And the darker spaces
Within, he exhales
His memories
And his hopes
Mingled together
In the smoke
Of burning dreams
And burning schemes
The mise-en-scène
Of a life consumed
Lived half past twilight
In a place called home.

New Year

And so it ends...
That year is gone
Those pages torn
Rift by the ravages of time
Those paths we walked
The dreams we stocked
And fearfully chose to decline
We've left that world behind
And but for memories
All the lives we lived
Lie lost around the bend
And so it ends...

But now time is new
And things begin again
With lingering kisses
To soothe and mend
The wounds opened by the past
As things have died
New things will arise
Some must awake with a start
To live new lives
With shining eyes
And a newly indestructible heart