We are mules,
Moving matter here and there,
While men in suits and pristine
Combed hair,
Wax shined shoes
And a plastic smile,
Say  "no, not here, there!"
Followed by some monotonous management bile:

"Yeah Ted, great squash game
Your blue sky thinking will pave the way!
Yeah bye..."

"Christ, that guys lame"

The office applauds and cements his fame,
While the mules keep ambling on,
Moving matter that doesn't matter
Until the last days light has shone.

Seven deadly sins, they say,
Those vicious voluptuous ways
We shall all share and spend our days
When the devil is at our door.
For I am guilty of six,
Perhaps more.
And if I plead as guilty
Than I wonder what you say?
"Oh none" said ever so sweetly
In the glowing piety of the day.
But what would we mutter
As the shadows come to play?
And light is but a memory
A silhouette in dark decay.

Would we lust for the last
Vestibules of light?
Would our greed lead us toward
Rage and pride?
Would we fight to the end
For that last bastion of light?
Treading over fallen fables,
All to escape the night?

If life is a ride
Then I wish for it to cease,
Just for a moment
Let its chains release.
Let all of its highs,
And all of its lows
Roll solemnly off the breeze.

If life is a game
Then show me my red card.
The training never helped,
The fight was much too hard

If life is a race,
Then let me fall behind
As the dust from all their feet
Creates a storm and casts me blind.

If life is to be conscious
Then confine me unto sleep.
Mind locked in the tallest tower
Forever out of reach.

If life is to be loved
And to love again in turn.
Then rip this failing organ
From my chest and let it burn.
For these are some life lessons,
Those lessons hardest to learn.

A light in the dark
Shadow of your former self.
Red iron rusting.

"Connect your charger"
My phone commands, I obey.
The power was off.

Turn the other cheek!
I did though my pride was stung,
Then you struck again.

We shall sit upon our throne
In all its debauched desire.
Tapping beats upon the arm
Inwrought with gold and iron.

The court may sway
Curtains draped askew.
The courtiers façade
Shall fade anew.
Those lips that spewed
Sweet suckled honey dew
Shall slather and harden
As truth comes to view.

It comes not in words
Or sweet music to our ears
But rings from steel,
Sharpened by our fears.

It's hard to let go,
When we have so
Little to hang on to.

All those seeds once sown
Never took shoot to grow.
The soil that was tillered
And tethered to your heart
Lays fallow, unkempt,
Scorched away and torn apart.

Yet,

Even the ash that fell
Like autumnal rain
Will, with time, be blown away.
With time and space to grow
The land can breath
The heart can sow.

You tell me to study hard,
Get a good job.
Be as sharp as a rat and you'll go far.
Make your money,
Settle down.
In that big city life
Or quiet country town.

You tell me rock and roll
Ain't worth trying for,
Yet its better than these religions
People keep dying for.
I don't want to line somebody else's pocket,
As they hoard their gold away
In a bank vault and lock it.

You tell me life is just one big joke
But I see nobody laughing.
People in gutters
Cold alone and broke
As so called stars sell their souls for
Diet Coke.

I am a criminal,
So you and the papers say.
They would put me away
For countless nights and days.
Tucked away "safe" in jail,
All for the choice of herbs I inhale.
That they would only have their way...

Yet I am no marauding mobster,
No gangster for hire.
I smoke in the evenings
When daylight is fleeting
And withdraw to my rooms to retire.
I am no plundering pirate
Pillaging your private property.
I go about my day,
As right as I may,
You will find no evil protégée.  

I am spoken in the same breath
As delinquents and undesirables.
The infamously unfavourable,
Mire on our tireless society.
Well I am tired now,
Fatigued.
I've grown weary of living
In your narrow minded
Make believe.

Yet I leave you be.
Keep to mine and own.
It is you who lights the torches
From high deluded throne.
It is you who crafted and rounded
That perfect stone,
Hurled with such indiscrimination
Always many, never alone.

Each night now I wonder,
When I cross that imaginary line.
Such fools we've been,
The waste obscene,
Who really commits the crime?

Our skin is like a canvass,
Etched upon by the lines of age.
Its tale is told by the scars that unfold.
Some made of sorrow,
Some born of rage.
An unturned page, ripped and unsold,
Tossed into the fiery blaze.

At least it kept us warm.
For the winter was rough,
The land cracked and torn.
The trees lay barren,
Bark scorched, for ever more.

Turn the page and start anew!
Yet still the scars remain.
We look ourselves, for now at least,
Though we will never be the same.

The smile beneath the shadow
Of our eyes, anointed red,
Can never belie what we have endured.
The hopelessness of being burned
From a trial by fires warming allure.

So although the flesh may falter,
No longer to be found anew,
Our eyes shall burn with a fiery purpose.
Till the day life's debt is due.

Too lazy to live.
Too much a coward
To die.

I lost my mind
Yet found a god.
Not yours
Nor Abraham's
Nor one I've met before.

It came between this world
And the one that lies beneath.
Reached forth with countless arms
That sought to caress relief.

It did not make the world
It merely rolled the dice.
We were a fluke of sorts.
An unexpected development
In the petri dish of life.

It is a scientist you see
That tinkered with what would be.
No omniscience
No omnipotence
Just a conscience none too clean.
For it despairs as much as we
At the horrors that have come to be.

I see now it has no power
To alter what has begun
No more than we can
Alter the colour of our sun.
Once I would rage at the sky
Calling yours a Sod.
Now I understand
For I have met Oh,
He/she/it is now my god.

These cells that define
The limits of our person
Stand stubborn in the face
Of all sense subversion.
I know not why they see I
As a suitable host,
For their generations of kin
That come and go.

And yet it appears to be so,
That they stay so in row.
Formed to the image of ourselves.
The further we delve into the
Third eye of the realm
The less we are sure that we know.

All particles shall glow
As one.
Circular motions of electrons
Anon.
Come one, Come all
Through winter or fall
And see 'Tis naught but a ride,
The curtains cast aside.
The swell of realities tide
Fades into obscurities' mind.
Till nothing is kept
But shadows left behind.

Just four digits,
'Tis all we need.
They suffice in
All our great times
Of need.
Used to acquire
All that we greed,
And all in the name of
Simplicity.

Complicit with our memories
A potent source of insurrection.
Never write them down for
Amnesia circumvention.

They keep us safe at night,
Tucked up in bed all tight,
As they hold a klaxon right
Against our temple.
A mental barrier
Nothing more.
Neither cage, nor
Fortress wall.


We must try our best not to be a fool
And use the first four numbers
That we learnt in school.
We should strive to abide the golden law
And never use
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.

Today I put down the pen
And raised my sword,
To charge down a path forlorn.
Past a river of scorn
That lies in the shade of
Humanity torn.

Branches that weep
And overhang this road,
Stand sentinel, skeletal and cold.
They whisper to us yet we shan't be told.
Now far gone from all moral code.

There are no good intentions
Once cursed by interventionist actions.
You sir shall taste my steel,
Eat well, for tomorrow you will
Dine on your final meal.

The trail of treachery is long,
And shall last till all bitterness is gone.
All that now remains
Is a feeling to try explain.
The thought that lies dormant in my head;
What's done is done,
No good can come from the dead.

With a sigh,
I put down my sword.
And withdraw my pen once more.

The words that flowed unchecked yet tidal
Lay dammed by life not calm but idle.
Serene is a dream for these words of water
That slipped through the fingers of another man's daughter.
For life plays heavy on liquid minds
Which dwell too long on the swells of time.

Yet when the moon shines true,
Reflected in that greatest hue,
Horizon of the deepest blue
Deep within our minds.
The words torrent, cascade and surge
To purge unworthy from our sight.
Waters rage, fires billow.
Carrying carrion far into the night.