phillip-oneil - Hello Poetry

IS THERE IN ESSENCE A TIME ... Is there in essence a time that seeks to stride? A need that whispers through the false acacias In the cloister calm of this secluded cafe, Laced with the clink of couples' glasses, The breeze in silvered trees, Nodding neighbours And children playing on gravel paths. Is there at work behind the manicured lawn, The Private sign and undulating conversation - A dynamic presence, Pulsing like sunburning blood, speaking of Desire on summer's first weekend? Is there in essence a time that seeks to strive? The summer storm brooding the sight of sun away, The ochre messenger of light on ruddy rooves; The shafts that gild the new green shoots Buff the gold and copper spires. Squalls that blow the day away Trap shaking feathers in the warning wind, Join the indigestive rumble of hill thunder as Heads poke from the cafe windows: Bronzed figures watching the blushing tiles and Watching the light. Watching the light Forever watching for the light.

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Mar 11, 2014

Mar 11, 2014 at 6:28 AM UTC

phillip-oneil

Is there in essence a time ...

IS THERE IN ESSENCE A TIME ... Is there in essence a time that seeks to stride? A need that whispers through the false acacias In the cloister calm of this secluded cafe, Laced with the clink of couples' glasses, The breeze in silvered trees, Nodding neighbours And children playing on gravel paths. Is there at work behind the manicured lawn, The Private sign and undulating conversation - A dynamic presence, Pulsing like sunburning blood, speaking of Desire on summer's first weekend? Is there in essence a time that seeks to strive? The summer storm brooding the sight of sun away, The ochre messenger of light on ruddy rooves; The shafts that gild the new green shoots Buff the gold and copper spires. Squalls that blow the day away Trap shaking feathers in the warning wind, Join the indigestive rumble of hill thunder as Heads poke from the cafe windows: Bronzed figures watching the blushing tiles and Watching the light. Watching the light Forever watching for the light.

25

FROM THE FLAGSTONES This concrete town with no guts, no grit where we can only smirk as galoshered feet slip ‘n’ slide in and out our café where exhalations of icy conversations mix with the fog and cigarette smoke. It’s a damp riverbank town border with riptides sneak currents no watchtowers no walls an escape for the committed or reckless – the next country a lucky swim away. You draw down panelaks, teetering like headstones (that lost their plots a regime ago) pen in flagstones and millstones flower tubs filled with butts and dead dogs tarted up with cans and stencils subjects of your studies in pencil. Nature’s only concession (so far as I can see) is this wedge like a warm slice of pizza - four fall trees jutting out of the bar where dogs curl up in corners and mist pushes in fishermen selling trout - the toxic confetti swirling around the passing procession of Saturday weddings dragging monochrome trains drawn into this twilight fugue whisked by an accordian player, guests laughing back at us while you’re smirking back at them cocooned in wine and tuica almost lost in your sketch smudging *** ash for sky dreamy with relaxed fatigue of travel and infatuation. Your pad’s our field dressing that could work for a while before the gangrene sets back in so I’d like to amputate this souvenir wedge for my scraps book. I watch you listening out for the shanty from the flagstones – about weeds delicate, green, undamaged, muscling through the cracks in the concrete drawn up to the cut where we also look effortless and a little green. Tomorrow we head for the border and only one of us can swim.

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Mar 11, 2014

Mar 11, 2014 at 6:26 AM UTC

phillip-oneil

From The Flagstones

FROM THE FLAGSTONES This concrete town with no guts, no grit where we can only smirk as galoshered feet slip ‘n’ slide in and out our café where exhalations of icy conversations mix with the fog and cigarette smoke. It’s a damp riverbank town border with riptides sneak currents no watchtowers no walls an escape for the committed or reckless – the next country a lucky swim away. You draw down panelaks, teetering like headstones (that lost their plots a regime ago) pen in flagstones and millstones flower tubs filled with butts and dead dogs tarted up with cans and stencils subjects of your studies in pencil. Nature’s only concession (so far as I can see) is this wedge like a warm slice of pizza - four fall trees jutting out of the bar where dogs curl up in corners and mist pushes in fishermen selling trout - the toxic confetti swirling around the passing procession of Saturday weddings dragging monochrome trains drawn into this twilight fugue whisked by an accordian player, guests laughing back at us while you’re smirking back at them cocooned in wine and tuica almost lost in your sketch smudging *** ash for sky dreamy with relaxed fatigue of travel and infatuation. Your pad’s our field dressing that could work for a while before the gangrene sets back in so I’d like to amputate this souvenir wedge for my scraps book. I watch you listening out for the shanty from the flagstones – about weeds delicate, green, undamaged, muscling through the cracks in the concrete drawn up to the cut where we also look effortless and a little green. Tomorrow we head for the border and only one of us can swim.

57

THE HAUNTING The smell of fresh begonias fanned by rooks and sparrows from the black ‘n’ white tiled balcony glowing in a sunset the colourof lovebites then the candle-glow dims in the fanfare of light you switch on from the hall filling the frosted door like cancer announcing another re-run of a once OK drama played out night after night wearing me down with your claims to what you believe is rightfully yours Excalibur arm pointing your ways I’m either paralysed or paralytic, hard to choose as I’m dumbed down by the never ending story of your nightly return mocking the symmetry of your eviction which gave me a callous, relieved joy … I’d put your bags back on the threshold right back where you’d stood with your Betty Blue smile expecting me to invite you in with a pout and a shout about that ******* kicking you out Good God, then as now you struck fear into the very heart of me Is it still enchanting? Do you thrive on eternal return? You linger, shadow filling in the flakes With your useless key before knocking. Stop. You. Again. Shape-shifter Black strychnine swab Running through me like a swallowed blood clot making my emptiness fistula full Listening to your black-bordered rap of funeral amazement delivering your message That you’ll return eery night to reclaim what you say is yours buried in these walls like a tic.

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Mar 11, 2014

Mar 11, 2014 at 6:23 AM UTC

phillip-oneil

The Haunting

THE HAUNTING The smell of fresh begonias fanned by rooks and sparrows from the black ‘n’ white tiled balcony glowing in a sunset the colourof lovebites then the candle-glow dims in the fanfare of light you switch on from the hall filling the frosted door like cancer announcing another re-run of a once OK drama played out night after night wearing me down with your claims to what you believe is rightfully yours Excalibur arm pointing your ways I’m either paralysed or paralytic, hard to choose as I’m dumbed down by the never ending story of your nightly return mocking the symmetry of your eviction which gave me a callous, relieved joy … I’d put your bags back on the threshold right back where you’d stood with your Betty Blue smile expecting me to invite you in with a pout and a shout about that ******* kicking you out Good God, then as now you struck fear into the very heart of me Is it still enchanting? Do you thrive on eternal return? You linger, shadow filling in the flakes With your useless key before knocking. Stop. You. Again. Shape-shifter Black strychnine swab Running through me like a swallowed blood clot making my emptiness fistula full Listening to your black-bordered rap of funeral amazement delivering your message That you’ll return eery night to reclaim what you say is yours buried in these walls like a tic.

42

I went to a funeral and lied I went to a funeral and lied In junk and drink, no grief, Just cowardice and pride. Fear of losing you by my side Losing you to the other side. Fear that shook with the gloved murderer's hide I went to my funeral and shied I didn't want to sleep or hide I just held your bloodless, jaundiced face I couldn't help but feel a fake As two sets of opache eyes Did not pass a tear and cry. Just the shivering hands that stopped your last sighs I went to a funeral and lied I drank and stood in black and could not cry, I strung words and made some ineloquent speech Loved and held but held love out of reach Spoke in riddles, played hide and seek With a congregation of perjured freaks. I laughed at their blindness where my guilt sits. Last night in our death bed where I slept Dry-eyed like your cataract eyes Dumb mouth fish gape In the old flat, my eyes, dry, dry eyes. I didn't hear the trains last night I couldn't hear grief's knock at all There was no knock, There was no wake or ball, just Your bloodless gape and jaundice face Shining yellow plumbed and spent ****** leech-mouthed, dumb, Your cataract eyes, Under clumsy-ashed mascara lids A shy pass in some gothic flick A tetany spasm, no shock or awe. You looked up at me and saw nothing at all. I share some dead shark surprise; Opache, tearless rolled-up eyes And I lay gibbering at your side And laughed and hated your passion and cries King over requiem and bride Healer, dealer, hood and pride Addicting storm and flushed aside. I scraped blood off your chessboard marble floors Wiped the evidence from cold-polished claws I burned effigies of pagan-hates Hoodwinked the sentimental double agent spooks And threw scent off my mistress as a ******* clown. This morning I went to a funeral and lied I could not spill one tear from these witness eyes That watched the hands suffocate your traumatic sighs I went to a funeral and lied Conducted proceedings with the murdering hands’ whys I wanted the last of you, my bride.

0

Mar 11, 2014

Mar 11, 2014 at 6:17 AM UTC

phillip-oneil

I went to a funeral and lied

I went to a funeral and lied I went to a funeral and lied In junk and drink, no grief, Just cowardice and pride. Fear of losing you by my side Losing you to the other side. Fear that shook with the gloved murderer's hide I went to my funeral and shied I didn't want to sleep or hide I just held your bloodless, jaundiced face I couldn't help but feel a fake As two sets of opache eyes Did not pass a tear and cry. Just the shivering hands that stopped your last sighs I went to a funeral and lied I drank and stood in black and could not cry, I strung words and made some ineloquent speech Loved and held but held love out of reach Spoke in riddles, played hide and seek With a congregation of perjured freaks. I laughed at their blindness where my guilt sits. Last night in our death bed where I slept Dry-eyed like your cataract eyes Dumb mouth fish gape In the old flat, my eyes, dry, dry eyes. I didn't hear the trains last night I couldn't hear grief's knock at all There was no knock, There was no wake or ball, just Your bloodless gape and jaundice face Shining yellow plumbed and spent ****** leech-mouthed, dumb, Your cataract eyes, Under clumsy-ashed mascara lids A shy pass in some gothic flick A tetany spasm, no shock or awe. You looked up at me and saw nothing at all. I share some dead shark surprise; Opache, tearless rolled-up eyes And I lay gibbering at your side And laughed and hated your passion and cries King over requiem and bride Healer, dealer, hood and pride Addicting storm and flushed aside. I scraped blood off your chessboard marble floors Wiped the evidence from cold-polished claws I burned effigies of pagan-hates Hoodwinked the sentimental double agent spooks And threw scent off my mistress as a ******* clown. This morning I went to a funeral and lied I could not spill one tear from these witness eyes That watched the hands suffocate your traumatic sighs I went to a funeral and lied Conducted proceedings with the murdering hands’ whys I wanted the last of you, my bride.

55

SPREADEAGLED Bucharest, * Spread-eagled and naked in her crop circle - this one in a sunflower field: she’s a wheel of limbs, some sort of a ******** lusted after by the seed heavy flowers bowing to her curves like drooling surgeons. * She’s finished with running, waiting for the fading light to join the last of her loves, faded with processed proclamations of undying certainty which were a little worse for wear after courting and checked into intensive care soon after. * Love thought it had ducked its obligations, passed again like a heavy goods train in the night, shunted across the border while guards waved it on; interested only in sleep or beer. * But this time she’s making sure love returns, pays its duty and dues and hits its target. * So, splayed aryan and vigorous, apeing a pagan resurrection, she waits for the skydiver who – with precision confidence – happens to be bearing down on her charity target, slowly filling her with his ***** shadow. * She sunbathes under mirrors, she’s a real tough nut to crack. I repeat myself into her.

0

Aug 29, 2012

Aug 29, 2012 at 11:09 AM UTC

phillip-oneil

Spreadeagled

SPREADEAGLED Bucharest, * Spread-eagled and naked in her crop circle - this one in a sunflower field: she’s a wheel of limbs, some sort of a ******** lusted after by the seed heavy flowers bowing to her curves like drooling surgeons. * She’s finished with running, waiting for the fading light to join the last of her loves, faded with processed proclamations of undying certainty which were a little worse for wear after courting and checked into intensive care soon after. * Love thought it had ducked its obligations, passed again like a heavy goods train in the night, shunted across the border while guards waved it on; interested only in sleep or beer. * But this time she’s making sure love returns, pays its duty and dues and hits its target. * So, splayed aryan and vigorous, apeing a pagan resurrection, she waits for the skydiver who – with precision confidence – happens to be bearing down on her charity target, slowly filling her with his ***** shadow. * She sunbathes under mirrors, she’s a real tough nut to crack. I repeat myself into her.

52