Nine Poems

The Island

The island is sterile
trying to wake itself
with the sound of song

The island is in turmoil
all its songs confused
scratching, layered, barbarous

The island is beautiful
where it is not suffocated
by encroaching blankets of trash

The island is kind
the warmth of hands exchanged
the heartfelt sharing of sufferings

The island is maybe worth saving



An Abandoned Poem

A bad in a squall of rain
The body feeling heavy again
As the world wheels lost in madness again
Trapped inside an illogical brain

The face of the sky is colourless, cold
Like a diamond remembered somewhere in the soul
But revealed to no light, feeling forgotten, old
Old as the horse left to die on its own



A Satire

The buxom girl in the red dress
is tired of pandering socialites.
She would be by Euston station,
propositioned by crude drunkards,
the blare of the lights and stream of traffic
oozing its way through the metropolis
like a coarse projection of vomit.
Where are the grimy backrooms,
the low-lit lights jutted into the walls
and the linen spiked with piss?
Where is the cheap wine, the cheaper cologne
and the lipstick that tastes like wax?
Instead she waves away another tray
of garlicked vol-au-vents,
and stuck beneath the lights of the chandeliers
she sees her life as a satire - 
savage
and amusing
and poignant.



How Tired are We?

How tired are we?
How tired of reality
that we must turn to magic
to splinter the boulder, dissolve the shackles,
et cetera et cetera.

Magicians will end up swallowed in the sea
to keep the young king company.
Bawds and whores may build the churches
and Merlin lay down his staff.

The way is clear after deletion.
The air is clean after completion.

How tired are we.



A Bathetic Riddle

A tired old machine.
We all put into it.
Our breath keeps it alive longer than necessary.

We are not proud or ashamed - 
it is, after all, beyond us.
Even as we die, the old bastard carries on.

Many pray for it to last forever
(although I, without you,
hope it never comes).



A Song of Care

Dead children
blackened and sad
lying beneath the blanket of cold

planets growing in their tiny minds
beset by bacteria
whittling their language from the Sign

Action forked the façade of the world
into love and want
Withered hands sat hard on the table
and thought up a song of care



Land and Contours

(A Prologue to the Book of Job)

In the dank cellar of a squalid society
the young boy prods a wounded rat.
All this work - the fields, the camels,
the tradesmen, the offerings - 
is perennially dirty, starched with sweat
and set to a music of fire - an aroma
pleasing to the Lord.

We could be in Scandinavia, the dark sky
above the dark, white forests. We could 
drink crystal at the fall of evening, which comes
before we have the chance to think,
and tell stories of the goblins in the hills,
and sing songs of the lost Nordic loves.

Instead we're in this dump, gladly breathing in
tar and sand brought here by an ill wind
from Heaven, sent to us by a God who sees
the humour in hatred, and the never-ending
malady of pride, and the murderous price
of hope.



October in May

October invaded May
made me feel homeless again
under a miserly pall of rain

Dark wind swept down the valley
the evenings crowded in
like the old men at the public bar

The wandersome ones, bereft,
strayed the fields mutely
lost in centreless thought

May our kindnesses go
    to those lost in distraction
May our prayers go
    to the cursed, the despairing and the poor
May our blessings go
    to those in ships in the dark
    who cannot see the horizon
    and who navigate the enormous, shapeless sea.



Ill With Words

Ill with words, their coalescent swirl
the gamut, the vortex, the cycle

Ill with being ill, trapped in a bright world
looking vainly for beauty
surrounded by strangers' babble

Ill with constant compulsion
to clarify what is impossible

Ill with Autumn, or Summer, or night
Ill with life and everything

To sleep and never wake
to dream of our love again

To sleep and never wake