Hailstone Mind

At night there comes the hooded thing

The thing of dark - of winter bright 

Alone I sit and wonder at it as I have so often prior  

This thing of brooding malcontent, this thing of cold desire 

This thing of broken lust I trust it not? I trust it dire    

These scars are all I have of you so let me love them true  

In wanton heat now glowing I find my time unflowing and the 

Rhyme now grinding down like black space falling inward like
Your atmosphere you stuck me like a pig a piece of cloth a rusting
Cog and now we fly to meet who made this grin like you believe in him and hope  

Little Whispers In The Sky

I sat on the front steps smoking and looking at the black night in the trees, in the forest; a few scattered stars up above, little puncture wounds in the nothing, little reminders of mortality, little whispers that seem to say, "There is no real death."  I wonder sometimes if we build our cities simply to block them out, to turn away from their silent friendship and forget the implications of their existence, building up our own versions of events, electric inauthentic, blasting back into space, rubbing out the atmosphere, making blank the canvas, putting fingers in our ears, pretending not to recognize an old friend at a party. 

Now the train slips up the coastline track, the glorious green of this temperate tropic - trees that grovel, trees that slither, all fresh, all hungry. But I can still hear the chorus in the forest, like something from a hidden memory, incense burning in the magic; the hut standing tall and proud like a gypsy soothsayer expecting you; wooden steps that croaked and a balcony made for soft conversations, little gatherings; and the frogs barking, the owls holding court, the nighttime creatures playing at their wares. We sat among them, cocooned in their warm cacophony, and the smell of wood smoke. I felt safe inside your jumper, and knew you wouldn't mind the stale cigarette smoke I was leaving in the cotton, like a message, little traces of myself, secret whispers, like the stars, to remind you, "There is no real death."

In the Ether Between

Splendid nothing echoing down the endless entropy
Static stars cast like failed gambles
Shadows sleeping like drunks on the sidewalk
Heat that pools in the afternoon -
Too heavy to hold itself aloft -
Treacle thick, golden,
Baking weight;
The city that hangs like a forlorn teen
Food nights and beery afternoons;
And every so often a rape or murder to remind us.
Pretend unknowns -
Souls that have forgotten
Trapped as they are in the
Flesh in the
Clothes in the
Names in the
Memories
Howling out for
Clearer definition.
The forever to remember us as
Broken pixels -
Tap the screen to get them unstuck.
The materialists got the upper hand and
We swoon like a love-struck mark
Sighing at the con-man's every well-delivered word.

Undo

Undo the constraints of skin,
Let the universe expire
And my heart beat bloody in
Your palms,
So then we might know
Once and for all
If it is real.
Or,
If this evening should dip
Into yet another grin of
Silence,
And the skin grow over the teeth,
And the tongue dry up,
And the blood bloom deep in the throat
Of all our nodding
So that the machinations can continue,
And the constraints can hold:

Then let your eyes be like ellipses
That lead to a better version
Of us.

Lessons from the elderly

The little girl is two, maybe younger.  She has olive skin and dark, serious eyes that lock intently on the world and its great variety of things which dance and tumble about before her in all their newness.

She peers over her seat at an elderly woman, who smiles back sweetly.  They play games for a while - the child's absorbing eyes concentrating on the woman's pale skin, wrinkled kindly with age, like old tree bark.

It comes time to go. The woman says good-bye and waves her hand, clapping it like a clamshell.  The girl gazes back ponderously, clinging to the seat, uncertain of the gesture.

The bus stops and the woman steps down onto the sidewalk; the child watches her, silently mouthing this new word, this new sound, 'Bye.'

She mumbles, trying out the one-hand clap, motioning it at the now empty seat. An empty clamshell mouthing silence.

She murmurs it again.

'Bye... Bye... Bye...'

Excerpt from an old notebook.

Writing is like staring at a wall for hours upon hours, trying to decide what to paint it, then suddenly realising you can just knock the whole thing down and extend the room.

The Bold Fantastic

Sweetest dreams of the bold fantastic
Deepest breaths of the purest air
Longest strides 'pon the sidewalk asphalt
Clearest view of the path ahead
Strongest love for the daring cosmic
Freest laugh of the human fare
Mine's a hunger for the wildest beauty
Mine is joy for the living rare