As It Should Be

The battle lost and upon the matted earth

covered with sullen gleaming blood,

Lie the heroes we said would save us.

They raised their lances to uphold our

Sullied honour and guide us from the falling night,

Lances that now lie splintered at our feet,

And oaths equally broken thrown to the wind forgotten.

Nothing is as it should be,

Even though our enemies lie dead and riven

Beside our own gallant warrior heroes.

Nothing is as it should be,

Tough blood was meant to buy our freedom

All that's stayed to hold to hold vigil at the side of graves

Are the colder chains of regret.

Dead Lines and Tissue Paper

              so when you said
                                     'i don't know 
                                     anymore'
what you really meant was
                                     'yes it's over now.
                                      sorry'
couldn't just have said it straight
                          out could you?
                                                     3 letters I tried to mail

                                                     2 of them I set on fire

                                                     the other I tore to scraps.                    
        had it ever occured to you
           that i thought more of it?
            that i thought more of it
                           than you did?
                                                     Part 1 says
                                                        'I miss you.'
                                                     Part 2 tells you to forget

                                                     Me and part 3 says

                                               'I wish you were here.'
                  of course you didn't
                     why should i even
                         have expected?
           cos then you'd have said
                                               'I'm sorry. I don't
                                                know if I love you
                                                anymore.
                                                I don't know what else
                                                to say.
                                                I'm sorry.'
                                                    Now I'm looking at part 4

                                                    The page is empty

                                                    And I'm stuck with the

                                                   opening line because I

                                                    don't know what to say

                                                    To make you answer your

                                                   Switched off phone.

     but you didn't say it that way
                                                    I'm running out of

                                                   murdered lines writing

                                                    'I love you
                                                    I do.'
now i'm left to choke on                and all you've left me is

                  whiskey lullabies and tissue paper  

Your Last Lover

Her arms she raised above her head,

Her eyes they glowed from sheet-strewn bed.

Her lips they breathed and her voice

                                                   it begged.

And sun it flew from my room in the depth of night,

Leaving shaded hands to grope for hidden light.

The sword it

                    fell

                in a shining arc,

A silver line cutting the golden dark.

My eyes they shadowed to that distant plain.

My heart it faltered in the molten rain.

Arresting me, Death drew the cover:

“Casanova, I am your last lover.”

In the Softer Sun

Another afternoon

Sun climbing into the sky over the mountain;

Reminders of summer on the mainland.

I can hear flies buzzing like sewing machines

against kitchen glass.

The wind through the gums recalls rushing water.

Simple wishes to sit and watch

water-hens at the dam,

ants toiling a dead fly,

Capture the light somehow as it falls against long

chopped wood that on cold nights

keeps the house warm.

Somewhere a cock crows,

it must be confused or else its overslept

and simply wishes to herald its own presence.

There is no room for impatience

the world can run its own way without us.

Here all that matters is to 

see the shadows change

while rasberries ripen

in the softer sun.

The Misguided

True: I'd love to hate you.

It's like a cloud falling:

                               silver grey yellow blue,

                               soft wet, capturing cold.

Closed around you and not my guiding light

                               not the lighthouse on a cliff

                               calling homewards to me.

More the lulling river full of suggestion

                               your constructed hopes

                               your blinded desires.

Oh yes, I'd love to hate you.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                               but it's the blind that dream so well.

But you're not my northern star in alien waters,

                               sailing these waters isn't so hard

                               You're for someone who doesn't exist.

Not my navigation or my cartographer,

                              Don't cloud the way.

You're not waiting for me.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                              when you thought my heart was dead,

                              you thought I would take a final leap.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                             like you were some knight,

                             on some imaginary stallion.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                             and only the blind dream so well

                             in the wrong direction.

True: I'd love to hate you.

So take your dreaming far from me.

Politics

Thought of light that burns the sun,
Awakening.
Fires searing softly,
Lapping like waves: an oceans solid returning.
Cliff faces born of desperate hopes
Raised against the shed tears
In the hope to devour some forgotten song.
Inclining heads in one direction
                                          Brainless
                                          Mindless
Drones dredging upwards from the forest floor;
Sparks untouched and unnurtured.

You're Not Mine

You're not mine: I share you with the world.
At first I thought you the hart
Alone and untouchable in a forest of your own,
But now I see my error:
You're the hunter and the world's the forest,
And I'm the hart accidentally strayed onto your path.
What's left is for you to shoot.

Selene and Endhymion

At  the dawn of every day

As the moonlight fades away,

From your sleeping side I go,

Eb and tides: I follow their flow.

Leaving kisses on your cheek

No means left for me to speak;

Only whispers for when you wake,

Drifting to watch the sunligh tbreak.

Open your eyes, sweet prince of light,

And wish agian for swift come night,

When to you once more I'll come,

And dancers beat and singers hum,

Carrying love throughout our song,

To you I'll always belong;

Twixt dusk and dawn its always true:

In the darkness I'm for you,

But at the dawn of every day,

I will always fade away.