Midnight Muse

And what of the moon and stars
What do they do when we rendezvous
In kaleidoscopic bars
Do they go chasing each other across the sky
Winking in fright or delight
Do they commingle over made up histories
Or lie
Do they find solace in the arms of darkly attractive strangers
Or rest quiet, waiting for us to emerge
That they may light our way through the never ending remnants of the night

Burn

The world burns away
With each passing moment
Friends leave,  trudging into the darkness
Never to return
Each blade of grass,  every petal
Withers as I watch,  unblinking

This is age,  I think
When memories must be laid to rest
Given their graves
Their private ceremonies
Their periods of mourning
This is age 

Among the carcasses of my past
I tread, forlorn
Digging deeper graves
Laying loss to rest

The world burns away, but
Burdened with the scars
I remain
Still as the night that burns me.

Scarred

The blade cuts the wielder

The apprentice
Slashes and cuts

The razors edge
Marks his time
To mastery
In cicatrices

For some of us
Life is our blade

My heart is a cicatrix
My mind the blade discarded

_____, sweat, and _____

And this
Is my world
Built with the sinews and sweat
Of my body
Blood and tears intermingled
But not mine.
Oh no,  not mine.

I must be proud
Of my world
Edifices that reach the sky
Nature transformed to civilisation
By my own dirt-stained hands.
With the sweat of my efforts
I'm building mansions over my fears
On the rubble of their blood and tears.

Phantasm

Into morning mist
My breath congeals
In familiar shapes

Each cloudy tableau
Reminds me of you

And just before
My mind can grasp
The metaphor

The swirling mist
Shudders, shatters
Shaken by the shiver
Of exhaled memories
As my lips turn blue

Flowers in the Night

Like flowers in the night
That fight shy of the morning
The silent men await
The coming of stars

In the black despair
A million twinkling lights
Give us glimmers of hope
To the sound of silent screams
But when the morning arrives
There is no sign of life
The desolate plains stretch
On into nothingness
As the flowers lie stilled
Back in their buds
Or as withered petals on the wind

When the night arrives
They emerge and sing
Songs of hope
And yearn for the light

Yet not a one
Will wake in the morning
Not a one will sing
Of freedom in the light.

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...