I want to explore each and every contour of your body,
drive your thousands of roads and meet every face,
take kindness from every city and beautiful stranger,
dine in your hospitality and live like a king again.
I want to colour the map with my own stories,
the names and faces of those I shared them with,
hike a mountain trail and watch a Crescent City sunrise,
get lost in the Idaho forests and kayak the Colorado River,
walk down Broadway at midnight with Miss America by my side,
take her to Great Basin and watch the stars for a night,
go to Vegas and make a fortune at the tables.
People say the American Dream died long ago,
but my dream is as vivid as it has ever been.

The highway here runs to a point
on the horizon that looks so far away
it almost seems pointless in going after it.
The sky is monstrous, deep blue leviathan,
mouth agape, ready to swallow the world.

Thunderheads gather in the distance
ready to battle newer dawns.
The creeping shadows of yesteryear
still cling to the barren soil,
where blood was spilled in the name of nothing,
where land was lost in the spoils of something.
The thunderbird hasn’t been spotted for centuries.

Extinction seems to be a euphemism for life here,
where death imagines paradise,
she who draws pictures in the sand,
summoning a creature long forgotten,
burned up in the curse of the desert.
Somewhere in the thinly-defined contours
of the pale black distant hills,
an old man with a pipe might still dream.

I thought I saw you floating above the asphalt,
but you faded as I approached.
Your form gave way to air,
the mythology of your mirage
believed and prayed to by one.
That’s all your mythology needs,
I wouldn’t share my vision with others,
I’d want to all for my own.

Still the road goes on,
a coiled snake swallowing its tail.
I heard mention of the Ouroboros Trail,
somewhere not too far from here.
Maybe this is it, traveling in circles
far too big to feel, far too big to realise.
The thunderheads are in front of me.
Am I approaching the mouth of the snake?

The clouds grumble displeasure.
A forked-tongue bolt of lightning
bores a hole in the ground by my feet.
The light doesn’t blind, it caresses,
and memories regress to mythologies
as the snake opens up her mouth,
death draws one final symbol,
the old man takes one more draw of his pipe.

Here the mythologies never gave way completely.
Here is where the forgotten gods,
the forgotten stories, the forgotten realms,
all clash for the minds of the few who remember.
Was it the sound of thunder that shook my bones
or the sounds of angry gods reclaiming my soul?

You sit by the window watching nature be nature,
silhouetted against the sunlight raining in.
You appear as nothing but a shadow
but my mind slowly with care, starts to colour you in,
hair the colour of hay and barley, scarlet streaks,
skin the colour of balsa wood,
a dress of burgundy hugging your figure,
your feet bare, making circles in the air.
I whisper your name without thinking
and you turn to face me, smiling,
wondering why I said your name.
I can’t come up with an answer and you laugh,
something so delicate, so fragile,
that I thought it would shatter before it reached me.

Now…
now you’re sitting somewhere else,
somewhere I can’t see but you’ll be back tomorrow,
You’ll be back with more stories
and I will listen to each and every word
as they roll off the tip of your tongue
and journey to my ever-receiving ears.
You’ll tell me of Arizona and a phoenix in the desert,
how the heat gave you intense sunburn
and now your shoulders are starting to peel.
You’d go back, constantly looking to explore.

You are someone who makes her own maps,
draws in new boundaries and new sights,
offers stories instead of facts and figures,
people’s faces instead of country’s names.
Pointing to a blank part of the map,
you’d tell me that this is where your next story will be,
and I fall in love with your passion,
but I don’t travel so I can’t write stories,
so instead I will write about you.

My armour’s off, love,
I have no fight left in me,
I’m too broken to raise arms
and battle my honour.

Pierce my chest, love,
stab me through my heart,
I am done with loving you
and not loving myself.

Take my soul, love,
the colour of lavender,
its glow has dimmed lately
and it wants to leave.

I can’t win, love,
I never could with you,
so claim another victory
and just let me rest.

I take a draw
of my cigarette
and the
way the smoke dances
reminds me of
how you used to dance,
slow and ****,
a striptease of sorts,
sliding that body
out of
the
black dress
like a
snake
shedding her skin.

The glow of
the cigarette end
is beginning
to fade,
and the last ashes
of you fall
broken to
the ground. I
can’t repair you
anymore, I have
neither the tools
nor the patience.
I have to leave you
as I
find you,
and you must leave
me the way
you found me,
looking for you with
another cigarette in my pocket
and no
light.

The words lost their meaning when people started losing their heads,
how they scurried about trying to find new meanings for old ideas.
Not one of them considered to look inside themselves for answers,
too busy hoping some miracles would happen to fall at their feet,
so they could hold them in their hands and show the world it was true,
their slightly deluded extrospection coming true in their own eyes.
It was not to be, however, as the skies turned black as coal
and the stars began to evaporate, and the smog replaced the clouds.
They lost their view of what was great and what was so beautiful,
how starlight had travelled for thousands of years to end in their eyes,
how every atom in their bodies reverberated with the universe’s energy,
how every painting ever painted contained its own secret magic,
how words always had their meanings in poems about love and hate.

These are my heavens, this is my burden,
to hold the world within its bounds,
chained to the void stretching infinity.
I watch time pass and witness the birth of mountains,
observe your nations and empires come and go
like the polluted waves on a nuclear beach.
I watch as you divide your home,
borders separating each other for no reason,
the folly of men with power in their minds
and a darkness so corrupting in their hearts.
I see no artificial borders from my vantage point,
just the blending of ecological systems
in satisfying rings around this beautiful world.

I wasn’t in chains at the beginning,
you portrayed me as such and then it was so,
chains suddenly around my ankles and wrists,
disappearing into the dark maw of the universe,
and you all have the key to set me free.
These are my chains, this is your burden,
to hold my boundless soul in a confined space.
I cry out sometimes and crack the earth open,
blow tempests into your atmosphere
and watch as they spin with the Earth,
and you give them names, how cute.
You just sit there until they pass.

I suppose you’ve all forgotten about me,
too busy with big dreams at small prices
to remind yourself of the burden of being.
I am here, in my little corner of the universe,
holding you up and steady in the cold gloom,
thankless and forgotten and so ******* old now.
My shoulders have been sore for a long time now,
one ***** thought I shrugged, I just shifted my weight,
and all of a sudden, capitalism bounded to the forefront.
I must be more careful, I told myself at the time.
But at least you discovered heavy industry,
your blanket of smog keeps me warm at night.

Think of me sometimes, holding you all up,
whatever struggles you have in your lives
pale in comparison to my duty of care.
One slip of my shoulder and your world,
quite literally, comes crashing down.
Play your music, create your art, write your stories,
they are what you are here for after all,
to share your creativity with everyone else.
If you are overly concerned about being happy,
struggling to sleep as you try and figure it all out,
there’s your answer, don’t say I’m not good to you.
Goodnight, may you live better lives than me.

the children dont get to play in the woods,
the elders forbid it.
there are monsters in those trees,
devils in the roots, former-men in the caves.
children die here like nowhere else,
crucified for punishment
and entertainment in the cold days.

the elder women make clothes
from the skin of dead children
and everyone has a full wardrobe.

they used to
hurt but now
they keep
us warm

today is the sacrifice.
the gods demand it.
all the village is here as witness,
praying and screaming.
they talk in tongues
and the elders speak
in an ancient language
brought to them by the gods.

they take the girl,
crying and afraid,
place her on the sacrificing stone
and cut her throat,
the blood collected in bowls,
passed around and drunk from.

the tanner skins the body
while everyone becomes delirious,
caught up in the customs
of imaginary beings.

her backbone will be
reinforced and given
to the boy with
the broken legs
so he may walk again.

they will feast on the flesh
once the perverts
are satiated.
nothing
ever
goes
to
waste

You are the Chinese dog howling at night,
you are the Greek bat killer praying for light.
You are the Italian bird flying through the open window,
you are the Thai ghost stealing rice after a bad joke.
You are the Romanian dreaming of dark water,
you are the Lithuanian whistling indoors.
You are the German saying cheers with a glass of water,
you are the Brit leaving your new shoes on the table.
You are the Egyptian hearing the low hoot of a distant owl,
you are the Italian with the owl inside your house.
You are the Icelander knitting on your doorstep,
you are the Syrian playing with a yo-yo in the desert.
You are the Russian gifting yellow flowers,
You are the Portuguese walking backwards.
You are the Hungarian at the corner of the dinner table,
you are the Spaniard walking into a room left foot first.
You are the Brazilian putting your purse on the floor,
you are the Cuban drinking el ultimo.

I’m still in love with that first chance encounter,
the sweet serenade of the forthcoming happily-ever-after,
the diamond twinkle in those emerald eyes,
the morning greetings and the endless chatter of the nights.
I thought it was a dream, but this was never such a thing,
the way my dark soul danced with yours and how our hearts would sing,
a melody that had no words but full of feeling,
the miracle of hope and the effervescence of believing.
I fell in love with your boundless grace and unfettered desire,
the way your burning soul gave way to an even greater fire,
and we burned our bodies and melded our minds together,
and we lived in castles constructed of mist in moors of heather.
My heart is right where it was when we first fell in love,
anchored to your distance and a full moon high above,
and I know you still feel the same from that day long ago,
your voice still sings sweetly of all we have yet to know.

Get rid of the deadwood,
they say, these self-help books
ripping me off
and every other sucker out there.
We need all the friends
we can get in this
**** world we’re in.
Forget those books,
marketed for idiots
who can’t think for themselves.
Need help getting far
in this world?
A bit of advice?
Two words to make all those
books obsolete:
be lucky.
Van Gogh, Poe, Galileo,
Kafka and Darger.
Five right there who worked
their ***** off and were left
with nothing but disdain
or poverty or loneliness.
They weren’t lucky enough in this
**** world we’re in.

In her final moments, prostrate on the bed,
she imagined herself flying through the stars,
an intergalactic explorer, discovering new planets
and naming new creatures never before seen.
She stops at a small blue marvel,
flooded with water full of strange fish.
She can’t be sure if this is the home she knew
or the home she will come to know
but she finds it beautiful and tranquil.

In the distance, she sees a giant red star.
During her flight there, she feels a sadness,
as if her body is finally cutting away her tethers
and she is now less attached to it,
the freedom of exploring the universe at her leisure
tainted by the fact she is all alone out here.
She always believed a journey was not worth making alone,
it just wasn’t the same without someone to share the wonder with.
Out here, in the cold darkness of space,
the loneliness speared her heart.

The red star bulged at its equator ready to burst any moment.
Dark spots swirled and danced together on its surface,
growing and cooling and shrinking and disappearing,
new ones soon to take their places.
She flew around to the other side and saw herself,
stretched across the entire surface of the star,
lying on her bed, barely holding on,
wires with clear fluid and blood flowing through them.
In the image, her eyes flickered open slightly.
The star shrunk to a tiny point of light
then exploding in brilliant whiteness…

…gasping for breath as her eyes opened wide,
the bright light above her burning her eyes.
She was all alone in her room,
just a machine beeping frantically.
She was back in her own universe,
all alone with no one to share her journey with.
She cried herself to sleep that night,
her right hand holding her left
and she dreamed of a star exploding,
giving birth to a new her.

All these big houses
with the lights off,
empty of life
empty of love
empty of hope
and dreams
and laughter
and delight.

Where do these houses end
and I begin?

Sailing away on a beautiful boat,
remembering all the pretty lines you wrote,
of love and hope and future bright,
of dreams and homes and white moonlight.
Subtlety is key I have deduced,
my wants are now all but reduced.
Now I realise anew,
all I ever needed was you.

It’s not over yet, I’ve convinced myself,
not yet shall I put you back on the shelf,
because the only need I have right now
is convince you to give me a chance somehow.
I spoke today to the wisest woman,
who said to me to err is human.
Do not assume she cares not too,
she too fell in love with you.

I wish I could write what my heart wants,
but wants are ghosts that love to haunt
the hearts and souls of weak-willed men
but no longer will I be one of them.
I am as strong as the days are long,
but I can still cry to a lonely birdsong.
One day I will prove how much I have learned,
and hope that someday your love will be earned.

I can feel the riptide of my blaggard blackheart
drag me soulless to an ocean current
that whisks me away without explanation
and you wave from the shore
on sand that used to be yellow,
under a sky that used to be blue
and I wonder where all the ******* colour went,

as I spin in an eddy and everything’s blurry
and I can’t tell where you are anymore
and I try to hold my head above the water
but the surface tension breaks
and it’s so cold and dark in here,
filling my lungs with ice and fire

and still I spin around and around
all the way to the bottom,
walking on seashells as the current
tries to push me somewhere else
but I must overcome and try to push back
but it pushes back harder
and harder I try to push it back
but harder it pushes back at me
so I push harder and harder I push
and it pushes harder and harder it pushes

and I realise that this is my life
and it’s all a dream and I wake
in a sweat from the bottom of the sea
and my room looks the same
and there’s colour and life
except for my blackheart,
that blaggard is mine.

I’ve fallen for a black magic woman
and her spell intoxicates me,
tints my world with magic
and I am infatuated with her.
We make love beneath African skies
and she conjures storms
to wreak havoc on my dull days.
Her eyes the shade of mulled wine,
her lips sanguine like fresh wounds,
her soul the steel-blue of juniper berries
and I am drunk on the gin of her tears.
What fool I was to fall in love
with the dark heart of a loveless woman,
to exchange my happiness for her satisfaction.

There is nothing here
but the haunting silence
your absence provides,
the indeterminably
long days the memory
of you offers me.

Shadows of yesterdays
cling to every surface
like the tar of black rain.
Every doubt I ever had
flows down the drains
and blocks every sink.

You are still around,
caught in the folds of
this origami universe.
Sometimes I see you,
peering out of the dark,
looking for a way home.

You are the best you there will ever be,
so ignore the *******
who try to put you down.
****** your knuckles,
get it under your nails
and fight the good fight.
Get off your ****
and kick some instead.
You won’t win them all
but life’s **** like that sometimes,
******* will *****,
******* will bite,
******* will drag you through the dirt,
but rise up and face them,
you phenomenal creature,
you warrior queen,
you man of the earth.
Pick up your spirit
and with head held high,
fight back with your words,
fight back with your heart,
fight back with your soul,
tear the ******* apart.

The blossoms of the pink cherry tree
fall with a calmness through the air,
landing prettily on your coiled form,
this one on your rose red cheek
as you breathe with the universe.
Lying in prayer like an ammonite,
waiting for me to straighten you out,
and I am here, my sweetheart.
Coil no more, reach for the sky with me
and graze the great blue ocean
dangling above our beautiful heads.

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with W.”
“Water.”
“Yep. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with S.”
“Sky.”
“Yep. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with W.”
“Water.”
“Yep. I spy with…”

It just goes on and on, ceaselessly sailing towards another shade of blue.
A cloud, white against the heavens, floats by.
I want it to stop right above me, shelter me from this incessant colour.
It carries on, ignoring my waving arms.

I even dream of it, blue walls, blue ceiling, dripping wet.
Out of the window I look, eyes staring at more blue;
azure, indigo, ultramarine, aquamarine, cobalt and Prussian,
variations on a navy theme.

A storm gathers in the distance, beautiful grey.
Skyscrapers rise on the horizon, beautiful shapes.
A speedboat skips past on the waves, beautiful sounds.
A city offers itself to me, beautiful sights.

Those precious locks that glow like firelight,
they lighten up the brightest of days,
shine my world in darkest night.
Those eyes so blue like drops of ocean hue,
I could get lost in those constellations,
they are the prettiest of views.

Your soul is a mixture of burgundy and cinnamon,
a golden red so intoxicating,
what a lethal combination.
That smile you wear that shows so wide,
gleaming white pearls ‘tween lips,
from the crimson you sighed.

That fire within you dances so well with mine
that I can hardly take the breathlessness,
calm myself with a glass of wine.
Share a glass with me and give a toast to the universe
for bringing you and I together,
I hope our life isn’t terse.

You love good love and our love is true,
it effervesces with beauty,
our lives are born anew.
I left my heart open and you made yourself at home,
and brought with you perfection,
I swear I will never roam.

I give you all the love I could ever give,
you gave me hope in darkness,
a life I could finally live.
Our sorrows have now given way to delight,
I could tell you I love you every day,
I could show you every night.

All those I Love Yous would never ever come close
to how much you mean to me,
your love is a lethal dose.
“Find what you love and let it **** you,”
said Bukowski and I swear
it is all coming true.

I bathe in your light and your angelic radiance,
and I want to recite the poems you like,
and in your arms I’d dance.
Let’s create the finest art the world has ever seen,
they say your home is your castle,
will you be my Queen?

I went out in search of myself,
and on the road I found you,
your heart slowly fading in the gravel,
your soul disappearing in the night air.
I will rescue you from your darkness.
By dawn I will be home,
rapping gently on your door.

Many miles I’ve trekked alone,
walking weary beneath the stars,
and full moons passed without a smile,
frowning at my furrowed path.
Will you rescue me from my darkness?
By dawn I will be home,
lying softly in the grass.

The road was long and arduous,
but in the pines I found your tracks,
leading me from my borrowed grave,
guiding me to a brand new life.
You will rescue me from my darkness.
By dawn I will be home,
calling out your name again.

The nights were long and cold,
my breath clinging to the frosty air,
frost crunching beneath my feet,
the moon above haloed in ice.
She will guide me from my darkness.
By dawn I will be home,
sleeping soundly in the grass.

So many years have passed so slow,
my legs are lean and my body broken,
but my mind has never lagged,
thinking of you kept me strong.
You have rescued me from my darkness.
By dawn I will be home,
kissing your cheek once more.

I hope you dreamt of me each night,
running scared from what I was,
but you were always in my dreams,
piecing you back together again.
I have rescued you from your darkness.
By dawn I will be home,
running my fingers through your hair.

Almost home I see the lights,
the smoke rising out of the chimney,
you by the window awaiting my return,
heart skipping as I emerge from the forest.
We have rescued each other from our darkness.
By dawn I will be home,
in each other’s arms again.

The problem with being
guided by starlight
is that even the glow
of a thousand stars
can’t shine on your path.

They have a look of eternity about them,
but their collective light is so weak.

Sometimes I think my gaze keeps them up,
if I look away, the magic gives way
and they fall to the ground and leave
their shards for us to cut our feet upon.

Tread softly, they loved having our eyes
conjure beauty from such a distance.

I shall sweep up the pieces and rebuild,
the sky looks so much darker without them.
Maybe the poems one day will mention my task,
how much I toiled to battle the dark.

I will arrange them to form new constellations
and each one will possess one of your qualities,
a constellation that flows like your hair,
a constellation that shines like your smile,
a constellation that doesn’t dim when you feel sad,
that gets brighter and brighter, lifting your spirits.

Look up at the stars tonight,
you’ll see me up there,
flitting here and there,
repairing the damage I caused
when I looked away for but a moment.
This isn’t my punishment,
this isn’t my curse,
this is my reward,
surrounded by light that allows you to dream,
allows you to wish upon a star once more.

Wish for me and I will come to you.
Wish for me and I will rescue you.

I can tell how you will live your life
by the way the wind scatters the leaves.
If the wind scatters the leaves in disarray,
your life will be as tumultuous
as the way the wind scatters the leaves.
If the wind scatters the leaves in pretty patterns,
your life will be as beautiful and elegant
as the way the wind scatters the leaves.
Here are the leaves that will show you your life,
a pile soaked with rain and clumped together.
The wind comes in and those leaves do not move,
stuck to the ground and matted with rainwater.
This is how I know you will never change
by the way the wind doesn’t scatter the leaves.

We met up for coffee
as the snow started falling,
warmth in our hearts
and a morning just talking.
I reached for your hand
and you opened it up to mine.
The shivers of outside
found their way to our spines.

We left them behind,
anonymous strangers in shelter,
we found our way home
with our names in red letters.
We kissed so so softly,
kicked off our shoes by the door,
and we found our ecstasy
lying entwined on the floor.

I woke up the next day,
you weren’t there beside me,
and I looked everywhere
but just your shadow I could see.
The snow started falling,
piling up outside my window,
and the coldness came in
when I wondered where did you go?

And I’m still searching for this lost part of me,
this art of me, this masterpiece that was and will always be you.
Come back to me and prove you were not just a vision,
not just a dream one night, a lonely little night I shrunk instead of grew.
My hand’s wide open ready for yours to hold,
come back from the cold, appearing and vanishing in the still of the blue.

“Gonna tell me where we’re headed?”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
“Come on, man. You haven’t said a word since we left. You turned up unannounced, told me to follow you, and here I am, following you, once again, and again you won’t tell me ****.”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
“No, I’m not playing your games any more. This is it. Tell me where you’re taking me. Too many times I’ve had to do this, This isn’t your time, just a warning. You know how many times you’ve said that now? Eighteen. I’ve been keeping tally. Honestly, I’ve had enough.”
“This is your time.”
“Finally, a ******* answer. So, what, I’m supposed to be all depressed now? Too late, you’ve been winding me up for months now, teasing me with this ****. Finally I get to spend the rest of eternity not having to look over my shoulder every five minutes waiting for you to turn up and ruin my day. You know, I hope you enjoy yourself, I really do. You need to be a complete ******* to do what you do. Did you ever have a life, or have you done this for all time? I bet you have no idea what it’s like for us, constantly in fear for when you knock on the door. You just saunter about in your flowy robe looking all menacing, but you have no heart or soul, you’re just a puppet the universe had to create to chaperone the creatures that actually have hearts and souls to some afterlife where we do what we already did when we were alive. Honestly, what is the point of you? Why have life then death then life again? What’s the point in that? It’s just job creation with you, isn’t it? Middle management, pointless to a fine point. Ha ha. Death is a job, nothing more.”
“I have no heart, that is true. You have no idea what that feels like. You get to feel, you get to see, you get to experience love and hope and fear and loss. I have none of that, just the words used to describe them. They mean nothing to me. You can make jokes about me, about how unfeeling I am, but you don’t want this, no one does. You’re right, I never had a life. That is my curse, not yours. You get experience. Death keeps you in check, gives you purpose, a finite time to try to force you all to do good in the world. Without me, without even the concept of me, living forever, you would have no deadline in which to do anything. You people think that if you had eternity, you’d learn every musical instrument, teach yourself every language, travel to every country, love countless men and women, but none of you would do that. You would start tomorrow, and when tomorrow comes, you’d start it tomorrow, ad infinitum. An infinity of tomorrows. Nothing would get done, you would sit all day and stare at your TVs and computers, idling away eternity. We are here.”
“A grave. You brought me to a grave? My grave, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“So what now? You want me to lie in it, stare out of that rectangle at my little patch of sky? Wallow in self-pity, start regretting every little ******* detail of my life? I’m not interested in that. Just tell me what I have to do or where to go and I’ll be on my way.”
“You have already been judged, I have been told the outcome.”
“Surprise me.”
“You failed. You spent your life caring only for yourself, without any shred of humanity for your fellow people. At the moment you died, there were seven billion, five hundred and twelve million, seven hundred and twenty three thousand, two hundred and ninety nine other people alive. How many of them did you care about, how many did you think of when you threw away your leftovers, how many of them did you fall in love with, how many did you help?”
“Look, if I’m not happy, how the hell can I make others happy?”
“By being there. You don’t have to be happy to make others happy. Making others smile and laugh will cause you to smile and laugh. It is infectious. To help yourself, you must help others in the process, it just doesn’t work one way. I have been around since the beginning of time and it has happened far too much. You have failed, as so many before you have. This is your punishment. You will stand here forever, unable to move, staring down into your own grave. This is your reminder, this hole in the dirt. This is the culmination of everything you have ever done, every thought you have ever had. This is your life, confined to the darkness of a grave.”
“Wait, this is ****. I don’t want this. No book ever told me it would be like this. Where’s the fire, the torture, the pain? At least I’d be kept busy. There’s nothing here, no feeling, no company. Why must I be alone? Because I was alone in my life? That wasn’t my ******* choice, it was the choice of everyone else. No one took any time to ask me how I was doing. What happens to them, will end up like this?”
“Perhaps, but that is not for me to decide. There is more than one punishment, those who decide on such things have decided this is befitting of the way you lived your life. I must go now. There are many more souls in need of me.”
“Wait! Is there anything I can do? This can’t be it, I have time left, I can do good.”
“That time has passed. There is no time here. I must go now. This is your punishment; your trial has already finished.”
“So I stand here forever?”
“Yes. Goodbye.”
“****. I don’t want this. I’m sorry! Can you hear me? I’m ******* sorry! Give me another chance, please. Just one more chance.”

Facing northward
Expecting eastward
Suspecting southward
Wishing westward

We are our own universe,
made inside the furnaces of exploding stars.
That is more profound to me than clay.
Clay is of this earth, bound by gravity
to this tiny speck of dust.
We are more than that,
we are made of suns.
We don’t just live within the universe,
the universe lives within us.
Let that starlight out,
let the universe know we’re here
and that we’re good,
we’re kind,
we’re worth having around,
we’re deserving of our place here,
we’re gentle
and calm
and happy
and loving.

We are more than the sum of our parts,
more than empty vessels of atoms,
more than hateful,
spiteful,
jealous,
war-mongering little creatures.
We have hearts that beat
to a rhythm the universe provides.
We are our own gods,
our own devils,
our own sacrifices
and our own dreams.
The universe is waiting with open arms
to welcome back its lost children.
We are the universe observing itself subjectively.
Put on a show worth watching.

There is a constellation in your eye
and no stargazer knows about it.
It has no name, no profound meaning
and no adjective exists to describe it.
Only I know it’s there
and I won’t tell my secret to anyone.

We know how the universe will end now,
black holes swallowing up all matter
until darkness reigns and time slows down.
The black holes will evaporate
once every particle in the universe is swallowed up
and ejected as radiation,
then the universe will freeze and time stops forever.
That is why I have the urge to hold your hand sometimes,
when we look up at midnight and see the stars,
twinkling silently completely oblivious to their fate.
It’s good to feel loved now and again,
knowing how everything will one day be gone,
feeling the warmth of your palm in mine,
battling the universe in a war we cannot hope to win.
We can win this battle though,
a snapshot of the moment where we didn’t care.
These little pieces of time never fade away,
no black hole could ever overcome fragments like these.

Let’s create our own paths,
go where neither of us has gone before,
find love on the rocks of a foreign shore,
find life in the places struck off the maps,
plan major plot points and fill in the gaps.
Let’s walk hand in hand through a forest of pines,
travel the world in parallel lines,
gaze at the moon on a midwinter night,
make love in the grass in her pale light.

Our eyes no longer see black,
colours abound in our wanderlust.
Exploring our love with the stars on our back,
forever moving in our own little universe.

dance for me
dance like death is at your throat
she kisses it softly
fingers through your hair
your undergrowth scent

dance for me
dance like death knows all the moves
hold her hands and
sway to the music
the blaring of trumpets

dance for me
dance like death is your only friend
she kisses your forehead
fingers between your legs
the look of the devil

dance for me
dance like death waits everywhere
look for her always
crawling up your spine
licking your neckskin

dance for me
dance like death wants to *******
irresistible lips
latched on to your ****
******* your love dry

dance for me
dance like death is all you know
she will show fire
smoke in her black eyes
taking you home love

Look up, that’s where you’ll find yourself,
holding hands with the stars and breathing with eternity,
the moon haloing your head and comets in your hair.
You are the dust of this earth, the fire of suns,
a gift of a universe unique, starlight your reflection.
Here is where you were born, a song on your breath
and words to your voice, fire in your heart
and whimsy in your head, dreams of a good life
and the reality of one, the best prophesy fulfilled.
Look up, that’s where you’ll find yourself,
holding hands with the stars and dancing in the darkness.

The first time Juliet stood on the balcony,
she leaned too far over the railing
and fell to her death.
Romeo never loved her, just another girl
who fell hopelessly in love with a boy
instead of a man.

A Norwegian girl, made of snow, looks up
and catches the beauty of the aurora
in her lonely eyes.
She listens to the small waves on the fjord
as the lights dazzle and dance up high,
her hand reaching nowhere.

I fell in love with a wayward heart,
a fluttering butterfly travelling
anywhere but home.
I fell for the siren call of a dark love,
a song penned at midnight,
poetry never written.

This is how the hopeless romantics die,
they don’t leave a body behind,
just sombre emotions.
They don’t mean much to anyone
except to those who can’t
take them with them.

Mountains of dark speckled with the starlight of tiny villages
just trying to keep a foothold on the steep slopes.
If it wasn’t for the howling wind, I’d swear I was floating
through a galaxy with the stars so close I could almost hold them,
make wishes to them and sit there with their soft glow on my face.
I could easily believe that the constellations on the mountainsides
were not just streetlights but the sad glow of forgotten history,
the light taking long enough that they burn in the past,
now gone thanks to time and distance and leaving behind ghosts
that refuse to vacate the place they once considered to be their home.
Maybe an avalanche will happen and these lights will disappear,
and no one but me will ever know they had even been there,
the erasing of an entire galaxy with a single witness who will say nothing,
but will just carry on sliding down his own ***** and forget
all about the little lights that for a moment filled him with wonder.
No marker saying what once was here, no memorial to potential lives lost,
just an echo of the damage done, a gravitational wave with no apparent source,
a destructive blast of gamma rays that seem to materialise from nothing,
no great flash of light that alerts everything within a million light years,
no warning beacon flashing in the dark, telling everyone to take shelter.
There is no avalanche though, and the soft glow of the lights keeps shining,
and I can be thankful that tonight offers no destruction for a change.

death is my paramour, opening up my agèd door
the fish are upside down, a portent for what’s to come
she takes my hand so slightly, takes my soul most nightly
drink up my darling girl, its not just gin or ***

my body lies in mourning, the day is still just dawning
all the eyes are crying, no one shows what’s real
spinning ever faster, life is one disaster
after another one, i dont know what to feel

splinters beneath my nails, this coffin never fails
to keep my body from decomposing every time
eyelids rigor mortised, all i have accomplished
flashes ‘fore my eyes and doesnt even rhyme

say hello to my sadness, my wholehearted medley madness
lying in the dark with no light to show my way
death is my one love, sent from those heavens above
this is out it pans out, my lonely passion play

I am a corpse when I sleep,
and rotten vines grow from my forelimbs,
reaching for an indeterminate point
somewhere in the atmosphere above me.

Nightmares reign in my dreamscapes,
green apples dripping with red poison,
my bed aflame with hellfire
and why will I not awaken?

Something dark breathes hot and heavy on my neck.
Who are you to call upon me at this godforsaken hour?

Summer storms brewed a darkness above our heads,
swelling our egos with the rains of a thousand nights.
The bright lights of the distant city
seemed to breathe in the downpour
as the fire I set in your heart died a cold death.

They say the past generations danced naked
amongst the old stones of the ancients
but you and I stood cold and grave
between the markers of the dead without name.
As lilies floated solemn on a still pond,
the fire you set in my heart died a cold death.

I looked at you and you looked at me,
countless years slipping away in a blink.
All of my hopes extinguished when your gaze lands elsewhere.
Despite all of my longing and wanting,
I still find it difficult to leave this land of dreams,
where the fires we set in each other’s hearts never died a cold death.

As soon as you go online,
your entire being becomes
nothing but a series of
ones and zeros.
You become inanimate,
you become digidull.

The bell rings, signalling dinner
and you all rush to the table,
sitting where your name is written
in front of an origami swan.
Eight of you sitting face-to-face,
and at the head of the table,
Time herself, in all her glory,
dining on the bones of the dead.

You all share compelling stories
from your own experience;
no tall-tales allowed tonight.
All stories follow the same theme,
how you don’t love anymore,
last broken heart I’ll have,
and Time herself, held in rapture,
dining on the bones of the dead.

You are all told to unfold
your origami swan and read
to yourself what has been written for you.
Don’t let anyone else peek.
Time herself wrote them,
taking great care and effort
to make no mistakes whatsoever,
and Time herself, in a shroud of light,
dining on the bones of the dead.

You will be ****** and plucked
and served as main courses
for the next diners due.
You will submit to her will
and her whimsy desires,
she always gets what she wants,
and Time herself, full and tired,
dining on the bones of the dead.

Just where did your black heart go?
I look for it in cupboards, it is not there.
I listen for it in the wind
and hope it beats inside my walls.
It is not here,
it is not there,
it is not anywhere.