Digging
How is it in the mortal night
we find such black reflection,
and come to question our complexion
by the dying light?
Throughout the giddy glow of day
we play in blue refraction,
and bright distractions blind our actions
till the shying ray.
Exhausted by denial
we crawl with coiled tails,
and cease upon the meaty pile
where red things go to pale.
Upon the heap of death,
we reach for one last time,
in hope that we’re not just a step
for other souls to climb.
For surely there’s salvation?
And surely there’s a line?
Somewhere within these desperate words
I’m digging for divine.
By my side
If I dug this out in twenty years,
would I remember what it was like,
or understand the feeling that saw me able
and willing to write, even late into night,
after my darling had long since retired?
She rests on my chest,
her lips rise with each breath;
one inch closer to kissing her smile.
Confessed
My hour is dark and wrapped in toil;
awaking stark, but soon adorned
in all the tasks my midnight oil
could not a dent or scratch have worn.
This back grows strong with all I hold –
it’s been so long since lighter loads –
but there’s no song where woes are old.
Don’t dwell upon well-travelled roads.
By dusk I rest,
I’m fully dressed,
the day repressed within my chest,
impressed upon the unexpressed
and writhing words I’ve yet confessed.
—
Deliver me to temperance,
and drive this from my skin.
I’ve long lived full of reverence
for those who live in sin.
Recluse
A friendly fog upon my mind,
it hogs the sheets and wriggles,
so rises me to go unwind
with blades, with ducks and ripples.
At ease, we land, a tea in hand,
the cosiest debriefing.
At once, I’m grand, the freeze disbands,
as trees upon their leafing.
I’m Autumn now; an orange brow
comes loose, for how I tussle
and truce with winds that won’t allow
but one recluse unrustled.
House of Cards
Should I but follow suit,
and play my hand like you,
in spite of everything
I swore I’d never do?
Or learn to cheat at cards,
hold aces up my sleeves,
fake it ‘til I make it,
‘til everyone believes.
Just once I saw you twist
and dare to try for more.
You won, but then retired
to cells with welded doors.
That can’t be all there is;
four suits and royal peers,
sat in hands and waiting
for numbers to appear.
One by one you play them,
and build your house of cards.
But I would rather gamble
than lay in wait for guards.
Save the early hour
The early hour is much more calm;
a void in time split by alarm.
Careful steps in total black,
whisper soft that you’ll be back.
Slip shoes around your stretching toes,
and gently push the door to close.
Fill your lungs with untouched air,
and feel how still it settles there,
as if to quench a thirst unknown.
Alone you know each breath’s your own.
Perhaps the universe started so,
some restless spark just decided to go,
woke up before six, before one, before then,
crashing about, woke every quark in its den,
jumped into its shoes, and kicked down the door,
tore our through the darkness, to seek and explore,
and perhaps it is now settled here in my breath,
or in the palm of a hand that will save me from death.
Apathy
Lulled by false promises of comfort,
I take the hand of apathy
who leads me into a stuffy room,
sits me down,
flicks on the TV,
and shuts the door.
“There,” he smiles,
“isn’t that better?”
“Huh?” I manage,
unable to unstick my eyeballs from ten-eighty-p.
But that truer part of me pulls my head,
the glue stretching from my pupils ‘til breaking point,
then snaps,
pings,
slapping back into my skull
like the starter cord of a lawnmower,
my brain splutters into life,
puffing from the spongy grooves,
a throbbing, greying mass of matter,
self-aware once again,
and knowing that this is no day to be locked up inside.
Like those before
I’m haunted by comparison;
sporadic, transparent anxieties,
ghosts of aspirations I never held
flashing
and torn from consciousness –
a moth-eaten fabric of cotton thought,
too soft, or frayed,
or sodden with apathy,
wrung out in the sink,
swallowed whole by the legacy of former invention.
Wash it down with the rest of your lukewarm beer
(your latest excuse for indecision)
lest you take responsibility for all you do,
for all you are,
and are not,
and could be,
but won’t,
because the only choice you ever made
was to compare distress with action.
They never even had a clue
or planned that it be so,
but made to move as if they knew
and found their ground in tow.
It used to run red
When skin was thin I dug right in
and mined for all I pleased.
Each night I’d write until first light
and wake each day with ease.
I sliced and diced, not once, not twice,
and scattered my heart to the weeds.
It’s true some grew, hell, some even bloomed,
but I failed to take heed of the breeds.
Now callous and dry, my skin holds no lines,
only roughness and a will to secede.
I long to delve deeper, and now know why the seeker
will cut just to see how they’ll bleed.
Be human
Don’t brand yourself the villain;
those burns will scar a drama into every motivation.
You’re acting up to just how bad you think that you might be,
but you’re not wicked or perverse to think or say or look or feel,
to experience your existential, and writhe amongst your world.
It’s a sensory bonanza, full of immaterial rules;
to pander to their censorship is slander to your soul.
Absorb, digest, imbibe, and breathe those hundred-thousand reasons
to ponder, wonder, live and love,
to run and walk amidst, amongst,
to fit between, pass through and through;
be HUMAN, fool. What else? Be you.
Take Flight (Poppa)
Take flight and join your many wings,
go soar with all those birds you housed,
and race the Concorde through the clouds;
don’t stop ’til you reach heaven.
Take care, I know you always do,
you’d tinker ’til the tests ran true,
your measured words were tailored too;
today mine echo out from you.
Goodnight, and rest as you once knew,
although we’ll miss your morning brew,
your laugh before the joke was through,
we know you’ll be happier up there with the weather,
where your silver-pin wings will transform into feathers.
Take care (I know you always do).
Take flight; the sky was made for you.
~ for Poppa ~
Abdicate
It’ll be Winter by the time I even know it’s Spring;
the darker days will steal away the light that Summer brings.
And in a black reflection, I’ll be thumbing through my things,
to find when years felt vast and sheer, and more than casual flings.
If only we’d known it in our youth
and held our reign like Kings.
The walls have eyes
There’s reflection in this construct,
and seeing you in them all glossy,
warped and out of focus,
lowers me into shallow pools
of hidden sideways glances,
as if to verify that your form ain’t really wavy,
like the imitating peering pane that captures and contains me;
allowing me the freedom
to see but not be seen.
This impressionistic window
is all that you have ever been.
Big Fish
What mini Gods who all saw fit
to redesign the grand design,
and tailor nature till it sits
in line with how we feel inclined
on any given time or day;
both in themselves a custom play.
For why is it we tinker?
Custom blinkers
wrapped about our eyes and ties
our hopes to lies and dreams to flies
and bites, hook-line-and-sinker;
no better nor wetter than the common carp –
the great regretter:
“for why a hook about my lip?!
I only sought a sightly sip.
I regret! I regret!
Release and forget,
and I’ll swallow up only my natural set.”
My life (till now) again
I’ve time to heal and mend the ties between old friends,
to reassess my daily spend;
my life, till now, again.
There’s every chance I’ll die without ever knowing why
my better’s best and spirit’s high
when I don’t seem to try.
Come morning, wake from sleep and reap the daily keep,
thy eye is blind and would not weep
nor creep for nothin’ cheap.
With course I must contend, and preach as I pretend,
at least I’ve time to reascend;
my life, till now, again.
Look forward
Traveling backwards on a train
can skew your point of view;
transfixed upon the stitching,
not the pattern made for you.
Remains
To the last, I’m rosy;
with so much left to give,
and not one inch comes undeserved.
I’m left perturbed I can’t give more
or draw this scene for evermore.
It’s time. My line will be
blunt;
what use is there in fabrication,
dressing up an ugly truth,
or pretending coal is gold?
I’m old enough to live life better,
to play love smarter, and know to be kinder…
*
interrupted.
Days have passed since last I cast this thought
toward the rock I caught
my net upon;
another gone,
forget and long for yesteryear
when truth-be-out was without fear.
The line remains upon my tongue;
sung, flung, wrung n’ hung –
the line remains, the fire remains
and stains disdain into refrains that sing
like stings before they’ve stung,
like pins in skin and lightning lungs –
the line remains upon my tongue.