After a cascade of rich, autumn leaves
Petals collapsing into the hands of the Earth-
The wandering trees still, yet grieve
Nature gives all it is worth.

The yearning sky has closed its doors
Opening them for other days.
Sparrows searching in muddy pores
In the glory of the morning haze.

A squirrel scatters, foraging
In the mossy sea of an abandoned field; a pair of gleaming eyes watch
Its burning coat of amber revealed.

Staining the white roses scarlet,
Life gives off a final lingering aroma:
A concoction of sweet breath and darkness, the sorrowful wind as lost as a roamer.

Light is a farewell gift from the darkness- for those on their way to die. Time can not make a promise
So radiance leaves without a goodbye.

Pain punctures the soul into stone
Though a ray of sun still peeks through.
My aching heart is as dry as bone
But the bleeding roses still remind me of you.

Loneliness...


What is it people do-
When they go strolling down Love Avenue
Or rather they walk past it, through it,
But are frightened to open the iron gates of truth.

Pale warriors and knights
Become shrouded in their blight
When they hang their desires on the gallows
and leave the flies to feast on juicy sorrows.

And will Chloris have sympathy
For her fallen divines?
Nay, her lips breathe spring roses;
But her pallid soul lies in the abyssmal pit.

There is no turning back
There is no eternal sap
You can drink from, only a Santorium
That will not prepare your spirit for Elysium.

As I sit here
I possess a seat
At a table
Many would
Understandably
Be scared of.

To spend time
With thyself
Unphased by
Tenors of busy engines
Against humming
Birdsongs in a grove.

From here
Space feels infinite
Not to the touch
But to the sight
That wanders from green
To blue hues in daylight.

Happily disconnected
Yet connected to
The very essence of
My existence
Which troubles
The modern mind.

Pain consumes me.
And I consume my pain
in thousands of junk joules
eating away my body like greedy ghouls.

That kind of sadness
Makes smiles ugly-
to pinch my thighs and waist
and loath the corpse which I traced.

Life became granulated and refined.
Too artificial and too confined.
I saw my muscles melting- undefined.
Now there is little will left to be kind.
I was inclined to push you behind-
Keep you out of my mind.
Stop being blind to your decline.

In dark hours I awake.
I should pace my steps before I break.
Nothing would ever soothe this bellyache.
This deathbed shall be one I make-
From these hands that shake.
And this dirge will quake
the lies I tried hide, behind the snake.

Nomad of Hades,
I have seen her emerald carriage...
And the treacherous path she walks on lingers with hyacinths and crocuses.

With every step of her yellowish limbs
She casts another hero to her vestigial garden
And she inhales the golden dust
That grows from the carob trees of lust.

She wears her lies in subterfuge
Even Mercury is struck by that ghastly perfume:
And let Uranus scatter more fertility into the seas- so that more maidens will fall under her trees.

Her weeping, her weeping!
We ask what is wrong, but her soul lies sleeping. Dormant, indifferent,
In lucid fantasies she cries,
'Have you any dreams for sale, warrior of Troy?'

These women, these women! Are they not content with the gifts and ways we please them?
'I seek to hold the wind,' she envelopes me with her long hands and pleading eyes.

And this is why I flee today.
I gave her what I could: intimacy and a place to stay.
Yet a pool of water lays before me and brass-stained roses all dark and gay!

Hélas, she has transpired and leaves with no delay!

In the eyes of the ocean,
What do you see?
I find myself somehow lost in you
Yet I smile at thee.

Deep Aphrodite caverns
For you and I to rest
And whilst our bodies sink
My hand is stitched to your breast.

Oh, how I could soak in these seas
For an eternity, if not after death.
But woe betide if you drown
And I shall no longer taste that salty breath.

For now the moon shall glow over your silky waves
And light shall dwell in those sunken caves.

Then let me swim one more time in those eyes of yours:
That open in the dark like Heaven's doors.

Out of the ashes I rise;
Blistered limbs, scalded eyes

Like Venus, born at sea
And arrive at shore underneath olive trees.

The rekindling of the fire has set me free- but Zephyrus' wind blows at me.

I Athena and you the Centaur;
You long to hold me, but I carry the Halberd.

I am a creature of reason and wisdom
And You, the outsider of my Kingdom.

And so the only right conclusion is hatred: malice as sharp as Caravaggio and Baglione.

So descend back into Oblivion, Lucifer
For those that abuse, will suffer.

I hear bullets piercing through the dry wind and then I remember my mission: to free those hopeless spirits who have sinned.

I fought for survival, hiding in the grass like a deceiving snake;
Slithering, swivelling, searching;
Searching for someone to lead me to my treacherous fate.

I am imploding with hurt, sorrow, suffering-
That I have contained for too long. Then a bullet fires



straight into my heart.

I loved you all those years
You raised me, shaped me, taught me how to be a soldier.
You were my guide, mother, forced me to overcome my fears.

I feel that fire burning inside of me now.
That fire that united me and you-
Only to be put out by the cruel water of my mission.

You were a patriot;
Gave up your body, life for your motherland. That anguish, ordeal
Still endures in my heart.

And it will be trapped there forever
Until I rest in a bath of worms and mud.

Betrayed by those who feared your beauty. They may known you as a ***** criminal...
But I knew you as a patriot,



Who saved the world.

Her long legs walk-
In    -     out    In    -    out
Of the shadows.
Hips swinging like pendulums-
Left  - right   left  - right,
Creating echoes.

Her cigarette smoke dances around the pyre:
Puff  -  puff, cough  -  cough.
And the tongue slithers like a reptile
Hiss - hiss.

She's lost in the city of Dreams.
She's an L.A woman, L.A woman.
Yet she's a dancing drunk
Sip,   sip,   sip,
Breaking the seams.

Oh, she's dangerous. Intoxicating.
Yeah, yeah.
She's a disciple of Venus
Going to work-

To the brothel she goes.

She wonders what it's like to be virtuous
Pray  -   pray!
But a full stomach relies on the next customer.
Kiss   -   kiss.

'Time for bed, I guess' she wipes off the façade.

And she slips back into the shadows.
With her gold dust, whiskey and...

She's a living hamartia. She's proud.
But her words fail to be spoken out loud.

P  a  r  t  i  a  l

P  r  o  m  i  s  c  u  o  u  s

P  e­  n  u  m  b  r  a  l

Light, dark
In the city of
Grim doubt
Holding your dreams to the sun
To prove that you have won
Sink back into your wealth, Prince.

Or play your 'Ode to Youth'
Under the dew-dripping willows
To end the light to all gustos.

She licked her lips, incomprehensibly
A feverish dew, luminous beads
A mutual alacrity, unspoken melody-
That guides me to search deeper.

Magnetism without polarity
No witness to confess undue crimes
Healers unaware of their divine power-
Now we caress in our velvet hour.

Shackles and chains extinct from our desires
The birdsong and Sun continue their loops;
lacing together under luscious clefs
of bassy tones, arpeggiating.

The second is nigh that my senses explode
I am not frightened by this pensive moment
Let me drink from the chalice, Priestess
And absorb the sacred knowledge.

I may have not known you for long.
But long enough to feel your warm
Embrace, jaunty smile and bright face.

You cradled me when I was a baby-
If only I could have that in my memory.

You came to my new home: smiled because you couldn't smile at yourself: inside.

You spent your days by the beach with your dog, confused at Life, lost.

If only I knew you had no one to turn to. I was here to offer love, more than you could imagine.

I was here if you needed a shoulder
To cry upon, a body to sink into.

I'm glad I didn't see you like your end.
I want to see that happy, joyful girl forever inside my head.

I still feel in touch with you; parallel universes, tying your thoughts on to my dream catcher...

'The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree... with her hand in her ***** and her head upon her knee...'

And as time passes on and you have passed on, you linger
still

Walking rounds among the streets, the country lanes and by still waters.

You were forsaken for your beauty
And now in your name, I will live my life truly.

Rainy days-
They have beauty in them.

The sound of sneakers crunching on thick mud and drenched grass.

The snails begin their fiesta under television skies.

Why sing away the rain,
When we can dance in it;
Become tribal heroes, melt into those big slumps of water.

The horses stay out in the rain,
As do the ants, the birds, the bees, the butterflies.

Their optimism shines brighter in the monsoon than in the baked, arid desert.

And what might you see down that dark, wet alley?
Hydrogen, oxygen, acid rain?
Corroding your joys and desires into abysmal dust?

That is only one side of the story.
The creatures come out in the streets in the rain
Even in the deepest of blues, light still shines through.

And who knows what the day, year, decade, will bring?
But now and again, under television skies, those coloured pixels will form their rainbows.

My lover's lips are tender.
Tendered by the reed from
Which he sings a thousand
Waves and transcends to a
Dimension, which my eyes
Cannot roam without
Confusion or awe.

For the ways in which
He captivates the
Crowds of souls
Who ponder the extent
Of human excellence
Is through the mystic
Vessel of shining brass.

When his blue eyes wax,
Like glassy moons
Reflecting on cool waters
I pause. And breathe.
And float. And smile.
Uncontrollably- full
of warmth.

And even if I was
Letting heat condense
Making my angst
Obvious to he who
Instigates the malevolent
Creature within;
I am immediately at peace-

Not with myself. But
With the thought of
His love, for his craft.
Each and every
Whisper and growl
Is a hue of his
Kindred spirit.

Whenever I feel like
Hanging-



lolling my head, I turn to this book.
Words appear how they are- no more, no less.
The doors of perception are infinite, no boundaries.

I may have stayed up, late, just to write here. Or drop tears on paper like rain drops on lakes.
Smudging the lines, words...

into vast grey nothingness.

To enjoy the world in a room
Full of boring analogies and empathic wallpaper.

Artistic excellence thus dies
And with it my youthful, passionate side
When you're strange no one cares:
Like a customer in a pawn shop has only come to look at wares.

Superficial, empty.

And that ghost of my former self
Comes alive when I no longer care-
If I'm strange, sadistic, wicked.
I die a little inside seeing her joy.

Like the gypsy who comes to worship Mammon; she seeks wealth, fame prosperity;
Because she has no one she can value
She can only put a price on her folly.

Bought and sold, tossed around.
Moving from group, to group:
A nomad, a merchant, a nobody.

Like the Moor who threw away a pearl richer than all his tribe-

I throw away my artistic side.

Freedom is out of reach
And once again I have been swept up on the shore of an abandoned beach.

Indifferent. Garbage. Waste.

The moon is howling
at the wolf now whole.
Inside of my
Transparent skull.

It is the hour of hunting;
Of flesh-eating packs
But what is it they are wanting?
Hare blood stains the train tracks.

Those wraiths are ravenous
They are forming inside my head
Scandalous, ominous
They gather around my bed.

She's the alpha hound
Looks me in the eye:
Showing dominance crowned
And my end is nearby.

Serves 1

Ingredients:
200g of room temperature lies
2 tbsp of chopped-up dreams
1/2 a bottle of wine
50ml of salted tears
300g burnt photographs

Instructions:

Melt the room temperature lies, until transparent. Stir in the chopped dreams, so that you can see them standing out in the rich butter of lies.

Generously pour in wine and breathe in the aromas of a dark, resinous malice. Sober the mixture with the salted tears, to make your potion more savoury for demons.

Finally, present your potion by scattering the ashes of burnt photographs. Drink immediately to enjoy the horror of your creation.

Should I be affectionate,
Or something exceedingly delicate?

Rich in love to the peak where it sickens
Yet exploring to where the darkness deepens

Seemingly beautiful with a lustful pride
My substantial desire for you will grow in size.

Not for petty songs or pure white roses
My hand points to where the problem poses-

a threat to your silky, blushed thighs
Will you expose your most precious prize?

I shall not wait 'til my hair fades silver
Nor to when the sweet fruit becomes bitter

O, now let us rest on fine cotton sheets!
For our passion is boiling and I do beseech

Do not let thy chastity be devoured by worms
Or my sprouting heart will firm

Lady, let us be feral birds!
Pecking away at our fleshy love

Is thou haunted by my sweet pea curse?
Heaven shall judge this yearning verse.

"Normality?" She cried, " 'Tis a rarity!"
"First you powder your visage white
And then dust eyes with 'Black as Night'
Slather crimson on your lips and cheeks and the reincarnation is complete!"

"Left one, two, three, right one, two, three
And spin around in your ill-stared gown!
Blow kisses to the monsieurs and be free for the night is young and you are the clown!"

"Then what, oh, chaste priestess?"
"Why, lead him to the velvet underground
Perhaps lock those rouged lips of yours on his and unlock his garments with that wretched kiss!"

"Oh, my mistress, do not weep!
For it is only right that you are his this week!
Look, your masque is fading like a watercolour and speak to me, pitiful girl, a little slower!"

"I hear nothing, yet your mouth is moving.
We may be weak but we are conjuring
Love's handsome embrace,
So let there be briars of joy on that face!"

"Rulers make good lovers!
And will bring peace to the war-struck lands.
Oh, excitement has filled my body
Knowing that he will wed those delicate hands."

"Thanks be bestowed on you- Priestess of Utopia! You are right, I am the Clown and I shall conceive if needs be and for that, my soul shall drown!"

Turning the pages
Turn the pages.
She's just another lost angel
Lost angel.
Crying angel.
Weeping devil.

So I move on, turning the pages
Would you care for her?
Or turn the pages...
She is no one.
Heart full of stories, mystical magic
Enchanting, dying
Inside her- no one.

She turns her pages
She remembers- the hatred
No one will ever know.

And she's drowning
In a sea of fools
She's crowning
Her own ghouls.

Maybe I'll stop by- some day
Turn her pages- hear her say:
'I never loved you, never loved you.'
Did you feel those dying blues
Ocean, river, dying blues.
Crashing down- the hurricane will bring you down, down, down.

Will I forgive her- my haunting mirror?
She stares at the stars in my eyes-
Say goodbye.
Say goodbye.

Haunting mirror- say goodbye.

Turn my pages
Through the ages
Cut the edges
Face the faces
Leave no traces
A thousand changes.

Your life knows no answer
When you spend your nights
By the sea- beaming your woes to the
Sympathetic waves of reality.

You try to ponder on the future
That was securely balanced on the
Wings of a fallen Angel. But her feathers have shedded black and she
Lives in an obsidian fable.

Do you remember? Under the November Luna which lit an ambience on those reckless lips;
Which still had the repelling aroma of beer and strong spirits.

But just for now- let's meld- become one with the Night Deity, banquet our fates and lost hopes on the false promises of our doomed reveries.

I'll gift you the white feather, the silver and striped pelts of your savagery. I'll pleasure you by saying nothing...

...but you can work out the rest. The demise of your damsels in distress.

So after you have finished feasting on the succulent hearts of your romantic, haughty slaves- you are no longer welcome to the tribe of the brave.

It is not a sin, nor a taint of reputation;
Oh, it is an act of naivity and damnation. I submit, I'll be your green-eyed monster.
But I cannot succumb to resent forever.

So my life knows no answer
But atleast I will thrive through the thick, smog of your lies and fallacious treasures.
Go back to your rakish zoo, your spirits, your hallucinations:
Sink back into your vast carelessness.

But as for me, I will be born back into the sanguine wilderness


And lurk in the umbra.

As I lie on an empty street
I see the city lights glimmering, shimmering
A white light flooding over me
exposing my heart hopelessly.

The city feels clean,
the pollution pure air
I am hallucinating
but the high feels rejuvenating

My head descending into an abyss
The lights are dead in every window
My arms loose and waving singing an anthem
Can nobody see me, am I a phantom?

So I drown my sorrows into a bottle
Curl up into my dungeon
That has been my bed for three years
A graveyard for all my tears

Softly, I dream away
Wishing that one day
I will be in the House of God
Safe and secure.

Something approaches me in the darkness
I clasp my knife under my carcass
An open hand awaits me
Wondrous eyes face me

I collapse into warmth.

Oh, what melancholy
Can describe these cloudy climes
Which the Earth paints an epiphany of folly: revealing your twisted crimes.

I once thought truth was true
Feeling the zest of our embrace
The verdure of our love ceased to be-
No longer grew.

I'm walking down a path of autumn's
Bombardment; broken branches, tossed away dreams.
The cooling gust makes my lips numb. The chill comes from you it seems.

By the brook, there is a whisper wandering, wailing:
'Fear not, the future is near'
But how can I penetrate the smog settling on my blind eyes?
It remains unclear.

I can never win- therefore I cannot love.
I have fallen so low from the clouds above.
I alone, in my selfishness, can please
Beelzebub
And my discardment, shall to You, be the white dove.

Those burnt thoughts,
Contaminated, contorted by autumn's linger-
As we repent our sins
My heart is pierced by your stinger
The tulips rising towards the incandescent sun
Have flourished and bloomed, nature has won.

Or perhaps it always has? I surrender under the grape vine
The sweet taste of your lips polluting mine.
The grass an emerald ocean, dew gleaming like jewels
Yet the world runs on this endless, melancholic fuel.

I am sinking into the Earth,
Your hands following the curvature of my spine
Needless worry, spring has arrived on time.
She brings clarity, forgiveness back into the soul
The birth of the Dead, replenishing the
Old.

Trapped in retrograde, I live the illusion- that we were frozen by Time's confusion.
But all is warm, our feet moulded into the ground. They create roots, foundations, we are bound.

The scorpion's hiss marks my devotion
Quietly, inside, I hide my emotion.

You melt away into the vast darkness...


Then I wake. Covered in snow, white as snow.

In the warm dark depths of you
I listen; my breath creates an echo
deafeningly silent.

I have lounged in here for so long
A lifetime of twilight
Yet secure I am.

Kicking               away
I explore my universe
Your voice creating a vibration across my feet.

Planting my foot into my mouth
Sprinkling the seeds of awakening into my heart; my legs are growing in breadth. Flesh is forming in my chest.


A harsh white light pierces my chamber.

Struggling, I cry to get out.
I lean towards an opening-
Something cradles me, the feeling uncomfortable.

I squeeze through!
Leaving my galaxy forever.