Winter Is Not Yet Gone

The drifter by the newstand looks up,

No chance of rain on this Sunday morning,

Perhaps a ray of sunshine will warm his sleep,

Before the cold of night sets in and reminds him

That winter is not yet gone.

She lays in the sunfilled window sil,

In silence to dream her sunlit dreams,

She's a cat and she has no cares,

Only the knowledge that it does not matter

That winter is not yet gone.

Conversations with Characters II: June Granger

You're as frustrating as a wombat, dear June,

Feisty June,

June who always knows her way,

Won't let anyone else have a say.

You're funny when you rhyme things, lady writer,

Collected you,

You who sits writes what you believe true,

Don't let others tell you what to do.

You're hard to write, dear June,

Elegant June,

Stripper darling hating spring

Because of all the baggage it'll bring.

I'm glad I confound you, lady writer,

Prolific you,

Since I'm not what you normally see,

I'm not of your world nor would I be.

Outside our Windows

Here then

A new light for you

A new type of fire.

It's lit up the world outside our windows,

Focused on

Strange roots and bark and tree.

Beautifying

Terrifying.

World alight

Outside our windows.

When I Get Lost

Child of too many worlds,
It's okay to be afraid:
Stranger things have happened to you,
                                   Remember?
Child without a single home,
It's alright to be lost,
Your feet don't have to remember
                        where to return to.
Child beneath wide skies,
You can tremble at the world,
But there is a place or person for you too
                      for you to belong.

Fleeting

My time is made from the seconds it takes
                                       for petals to fall;
A brief breath after a serenade's final note.
My time is made from passers by along a
                                     seaside sidewalk;
A child's laughter fading to adult whispers.
My time is the empty places in cupboards
                       between cups and glasses;
Silken touches of cold star-crossed lovers.

Lash of Flames

The sunlight fills my room

With gold and oranges;

It's like fire is beating at my door,

Not so unheard of in this country

That floods like the Nile and burns like the sun.

That people live here is at first a wonder,

Then a joy.

This country falsely sunburnt in broken visions,

Living radiant in every breath of hurricane

And ever lash of flame.

Murmurs

Drift away on the wings of silence

And carry the murmurs in the palm of your hand

Like memories that you will never forget.

Wake with the morning

And dream of the sunshine in the water

And carry the murmurs in the back of your mind

Like shivers of silver and glass.

Walk with the night in the darkness

That flows around you in eddies and reflections

And carry the murmurs in the core of your soul

So that you may always remember

Who you were before.

Explosive Love

So I thought I saw you today,

We may even have talked!

Conversed is too strong a word

For worded meanderings

Between empty lovers.

Having dinner and a movie

Is just to get us through the motions:

Let’s pretend, play house.

At least we can say

That Spielberg’s done it again.

‘God I wish our sex had that

Many Explosions.’

The latter sentiment left

Unspoken.

Because we’re not ready

To suggest it.

You drove me home.

The same CD as years before,

The same words.

‘…in a brave new world…’

The same words,

Both bridge and barrier

Between empty lovers.

It’s strange though the sky blue

In the middle of night

That you love

That I’m wearing.

Or that you turn

And give me that smile

That brought me

Into Chaos.

That’s no illusion.

No explosion!

There’s still something here.

We’ve just become more careful.

I know you won’t make

The first move so

I move.

You pretend to think.

I lean in and whisper in your mind.

So you chuckle and park the car.

Lead me on.

And before long we’re trying

Our own movie stunts

The kind that’d make us blush.

Like explosions.

It gives us something to talk about,

Made happy by re-igniting the hidden flame.

Us empty lovers

Full

And once more

Content.

Tributes to Roxanne

With Apologies to Sting

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

You wandered down the street again

You fixed up your hair and make-up again

Don't wear that bright red dress again.

You don't have to walk that street, my dear,

You know where it goes and where it leads

Last week you came back with a black eye,

I know you did it cos you thought you had to,

But think about it some more tonight.

You wandered down the street again

You fixed up your hair and make-up again

Don't wear that bright red dress again.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

There's always anger in your eyes and fear

You don't think you know what's coming to you,

But you stand there in rain or stars every night,

I know you don't think you can let it go,

But think about it at least some tonight.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress again tonight,

You've worn it out worn it enough for the week,

There's got to be another way another day,

Why not tonight to think things through?

You wandered down the street again

You fixed up your hair and make-up again

Don't wear that bright red dress again.

Roxanne,

Don't wear that bright red dress tonight.

Roxanne,

Why do you look at me like that?

The Virgin's Never

Broken daylight like sand against my skin;
Rubbed raw at missing you.
'Never' seems so final,
Like Macbeth's bells of heralded death,
And while I know the bells will ring just this once,
The thought of 'never'
Is no imagined dagger but reality,
Here driven into my heart;
My virginal blood then on our sheets. 

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.

Rage

Save words by letting go

and simply following the flow of pen's ink on paper.

Letters curling around fingers turning,

whole sentences that burn down houses

pulverise walls in your mind.

Fire soothing water:

the hardest visualisation,

like happiness.

I want keys to break down heaven's doors

and wreck all love's cathedrals.

Bring them down

Bring them down

and give me what I'm owed.

Providence

Crackling sounds of crisp snow underfoot,
Harbinger of silver linings yet unseen,
Like some broken storm:
A sparrow fallen from providence's high regard
To land gracefully all the same 
Amidst the thorns and lilies of yesterday's forgotten stories.
Haven scorned and blanched in clouded paths,
Non-yellow bricked roadways to lead people over rainbows,
Wishing wells and birds risen from ashes,
Here lie those who fell and were dead,
Will you pay the ferryman to cross our sainted river?

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Gutless Generation

TV blaring video games firing guns

and automobiles,

Cacaphony of clamors and lost coins rambling

Drowning out sermons of book or parent.

Runaway junkie daughter parked on

her corner of street,

Selling wares only the rich can keep;

But Joe Blo'll pay the eleven minutes

and she'll get her fix eventually.

Teenage bumblers hop on a bus:

Theirs is a different part of town

with shopping malls.

Shiny cars line the streets and behind

silver glass dolls display wares only they will wear but everyone buys.

The church is dead and God needs a megaphone,

Responsible adults need shotguns 

to get anywhere with the rotten core of society these days.