It is here
in this bottle-necked existence, locked
into days captioned by ticks and tocks,
where time resides in each of us
until it stops,
rotating the same hands
inside the same third dimensional clock;

it is here
where every breath exhaled is a universal kiss –
it is simply one moment and
the space in between this
that binds together our journeys, which,
as uniquely defined as we feel each is,
are all chapters of the same book
we write to reminisce,
primed and pained with the same theme we
create to self-exist,
scrawled by the same pencil, held
by the same hands as we persist…
each of us artists
with the same precise and leather-bound twist

It is here
where we long for real purpose or true faith –
to believe that something
‘other’,
external,
or
majestic
awaits…
but in nothing we trust
yet, cry blame for our fate –
each a different monologue of the same hate;
the same distracting soul state;
the same periodic and prolific bait –
God would not want us, at any rate

It is here
in darkness, arms around each other’s back
that war hangs overhead in stasis,
circling, cycling on a track and
wearing thin our patience
while it leaks like yolk from all our cracks
(we watch it drip indifferently as we huddle tight within our pack)
S
I
L
E
N
T
L
Y
preparing
for the next surprise attack:
we, like wolves, insane
and seeing red with every flash –
our lonely pain inciting hunger,
our deep abyss as black

It is here
in this cosmic explosion,
and it is now just as it was then,
that peace is nought but a tragic parody
of the dreams of passing men,
and nothing changes but the theatre of stars
in lines, in queues, end to end,
enemy to friend to
ENEMY
for decades once again,
consuming pain like greed as our bellies all distend,
living every angle of the lie like it is money we MUST spend,
the broken tales of each of us
portending, true, our end;
dangling one more burden
like a dog-tag for a past we’ve penned
at rest beneath a headstone
in a yard of human bookends

Journey across time with calendar wings,
moments packed like spare t-shirts
and extra socks,
passport in one hand and
a window seat to the right;
an empty notebook penciled by thought -
its white void the clouds
that fuel your glorious lungs

Honeymoon with more sky and fewer limits,
bound at the ankles by freedom
- and spontaneity, by chance -
the fresh juice of destiny
your north in every glass of south;
a stomach full of butterflies
to take you to places the maps won't

Voyage, gift-wrapped in mystery,
each sunrise peeled apart with branching arms;
that new car smell
to steer you upon the magic
of rhyming skies and watercolour footprints -
companionship in purpose
embedded into the souls
of all who climb the peaks of your dreams
beside you

Words I’ve left unsaid
collect like tombs inside my mind,
resting wide awake
without a sound
to pass the time.

Blind beneath the surface
losing purpose, long repressed,
my words now sleep, unspoken,
lacking passion,
unexpressed.

Just outside my reach
my words are hidden, cast from light;
without a voice to feed them
they recoil beyond my sight.

Depleted words
– malnourished –
thin with hunger while they grieve
and when my lips re-open,
they, destroyed, refuse to leave.

Resigned, my words inside
have lost their courage,
weak, deformed;
destined once for freedom,
now detained alone,
they mourn.

These broken words whose author
still retains the will to thrive
return instead to thought form
in an effort to survive.

In fluent tears,
these wordly souls
– admirers from my past –
expire rolling from my eyes
to fare me well at last.

And left with me,
a silence,
for my naked void to dress –
the lingerie of alphabets
strewn high upon my chest.