Away

Iced cold knife tip
- burning way through -
Following the line
down the rigid spine
searing a path.


Every step against the tide
- against the tugging -
Wrenching agony
dislocating not only limbs
but self.


Forced a-drift by circumstance
- frustrating agony -
Relieved only by the steps
taken backwards.

Be Still

As the storm crashes over us,

And the winds above howl obscenities

Be still.

Be still.

As the world crases down on us

And the we fall beneath the waters deep

Be still.

Be still.

Be still for they cannot harm you,

Be still for they will not touch

They are thoughts only meant to scare

They are sounds only meant to hide

What you feel inside.

Be still.

While up above all is rendered to ash

And the stars are darkened

Be still.

Be still.

When the sun is gone down

And the moon too has faded into the sea

Be still.

Be still.

Be still for the dark won't harm you

Be still for it will only cradle

You in its arms and rock you quietly to sleep

And in the morning you will wake and there the light will shine.

But be still now,

Be still now and revel in the darkness this night brings,

Be still.

Wait Not For Me

Wait not for me

If the darkness falls

Do not tarry here for long.

Wait not for me

When dawn is come

But pass into the world beyond.

A whisper

In the wind that flows

And follows

The river to the sea.

A mystery.

Unknown song

Carried far from here

You are gone

Too far away to see

Wait not for me.

Wait not for me

If the darkness falls

Do not tarry here for long.

Wait not for me

When dawn is come

But pass into the world beyond.

One of the Roses

So you have found the way through to cold verity,

You search for how to kill it in its cradle,

Hidden from eyes the iced clarity.

And when the road is ended will you still run?

A wandering fool throughout the rest of time,

It will still be a ghost you'll have become.

Your memory will not last but fade away,

Vanishing into the vast pool of Forget,

Where your thoughts will now always stay.

Say you'll never break away or fall apart

Lost forever in this darkest dream of mine

This sweet nightmare of my longing heart.

Confidences

"How do you love a man who doesn't love you?" she implored me incredulously.
"Easily, if he's a good man. With patience, and hope. With understanding," I reply.
"What if he's an evil man?"
"Why would I love an evil man?"
She opened her mouth to counter, but then realised what I'd said,
and silence fell between us and the words were left dead.


"How do you stand on your feet after that onslaught?" I asked her years later.
"Unsteadily, since I loved him, with help, and with pain. I move onwards." she said.
"What if there's no help to be had?"
"Why would you abandon me?"
I realised as the words left my lips, the dumb of my query 
and so then was able to laugh with her at my folly.

Kindling

February seems a long memory
Lost underneath layers of spoken words and cooled sugars
that hang like sweetened icicles from the ledges of our lives.
February seems a distant thought
to be remembered by imagery and melody
savoured till perhaps it is rekindled by a month like July.

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.”

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.

The Bruised Bride

It's the way his hand falls,
                                      catching the light
                                 almost cutting in.
Rapid flashes uperceptable of light shadow light
As his hand moves in front of the desk lamp.
It's the light of a train skittering through a tunnel

dark light dark

His eyes don't move but stay steady and enraged

dark dark dark

It's when the hand lands
                                    then it stops flickering
and suddenly
                                                                  everything is clear
and hazy.

Grief

I see the shadow of the rain as its about to fall,
Gray ribbons in the air like northern lights
Strewn over my vision a mantle of my self-deception.
There are no golden fields or glassy lakes that I see,
Flashing by in half-manifested reality,
The starry starry night gone past tranquil to empty pale,
And all I see is the shadow of the rain.

Ophelia Drowned

Ophelia drowned was beautiful still,
With frail palor and silken skin,
Flower guardians to shepherd her way
From ebb to flow from tide to day.
We drowned her and nothing's the same,
Lost our cause to falling tears,
Blinding aims have slain our goddess,
Doused the stars of fire
Brought the world to silence
Kills his love undoubtable,
Too much water we wept for ourselves
And for our flaws Ophelia's drown'd.

Judgement

Poetry is sometimes lost in its making,

Words lose their meanings inevitably in the despair.

Even the most plain speech fails to matter,

When all I see in your eyes,

                                  smiling so calmly,

Is the flash of the sword behind me.

Stay

Tear me open
             and from my abyss
             take my whole heart
It was yours anyways
             from the start


Rip off my wings
            cast me down from the sky
            kiss me hard
            drain me dry


Until every breath is you.


Let this be our battlefield
           the broken concourse
           of words we could not say

and stay,
             stay
                  from night into the day.

Battlefield

Vulture standing broken amidst the oaken grove,

Graves.

Shoulder sighed in deepest regret and fallen tears shed,

Bled.

Warriors collapsed like children's toys in their last breath,

Dead.

Twigs snapped in the moaning wind dreaming of life,

Strife.

Hollow the drums that no longer echo in mourning,

The battle over.
I cannot say you've won.

Opium Love

Waked falls of water,
Rip shores asunder,
Paradise broken 'n Eden riven,
Chosen 'n done,
A heart's given.

Gilded lines of pain,
Embossed agony,
Xanadu shatters in the tide,
My dreams dreamt,
Murdered pride.

The Marionette

The sun fell down a flight of stairs
and somehow broke the moon,
A train derailed itself today
and ran far and long astray.

I wish there was a button
that I could push for help,
'cos I'm not sure what stage I'm on
or if it's even my line.
Everything's gone skiddledee,
and nothing makes sense.
One screams at me to be away
and yet to be a smile,
Two say wait it out
and wait and wait a while.

I know it's not my place to try
or even my place to be,
But I'd like to put the sun back now
And help rebuild those tracks.
So tired of these woods I'm in
not knowing what I might do.
Just wish I had the words to say
and explain me right and true
That either of you broken
Means I'm broken too.