She was born into a red dress
Because the day was passion and strain
Her father kissed her while
Her mother bore the pain

She had a white blanket
Because she was calm
And she hugged it so
Tranquil and amazed at what she saw.

Her school uniform was grey
Because she missed her mother
And people talked to her
On the playground.

She graduated in a black gown
Because she was scared of what was coming
And was lost in the night
School had not taught her how to expect.

She met him in a blue dress
Because her feelings were between
Some loathing and comfort
And she managed to smile.

They married in yellow
Because the sun could not stay smug
And the moon was her companion
Like him that night.

She gave birth in a red dress
Because the day was full of passion
And she bore the pain
While her husband kissed her new one.

And she gave her a white blanket
And she saw her away in a grey uniform
And she watched her graduate in a black gown
She saw her marry in yellow.

And she died in white
Because she was calm
Because her old one was there
Because she had done well.

A man spoke to me, not my friend, but still
His words were gilded and I listened
And as he raved, his brutal demeanor
Surprised me, and two more voices came.

They had no wings nor halos
Their hands were free of pitchforks,
But they spoke as we have seen, and said,
This This man man is is precious insane.

My head vibrated like the drum they took it for
And my ears cleaved in two
I tried to listen to the man before me
But I was too deep in my own beliefs.

For he seemed bad and good
Fun and frightening
I could not decide where I stood
And the man leapt on me

With one hand he shook mine
With the other he teared at my eyelids
I did not know what to do
For he was acting according to my plan

He left me warm and cold
Unsure of myself
And I slept there
Until I knew what he was

He was the voices
The terrible decision to make
For neither he nor I could decide
If he was a killer or a gem,

For we were both men.

I have a cat
Black as midnight
With a tail strong
From bristling and curving into s-shapes.

He came to us younger and firmer
Fur thick with the muscle of the cold
From the hunt for somewhere else
And he was hungry.

My mother said he must have been beaten
Because he had learnt to fear a hand from above
So we stroked him from the side
Asking meek permission.

He learnt to recognise my shoes as
That one thing which brought love
And could not be human because
It did not shout.

I changed my shoes often when I learnt this
So that every day it learnt to love someone new
And now it fears no human
And sits warmly at our sides.

We called him Bagheera because
We know that he comes
From a dark jungle
Where only the strongest of heart can survive.

She told me she's an artist
And it was sad to see
Her mouth make 'Umm's as she thought
Her brush strokes torturing me.

I didn't love her, no indeed
But she was good and so I feared
That one day she would have to find
That pain would oft 'umm' as it neared

One day she made my portrait
It was not good but I suppose
That for one who 'ummed' and erred
It was beauty in dead clothes.

One day she called me seeking feeling
And comfort with soft words
She failed to sell a painting still
But I just ummed and erred.

We did not speak for many months
But she came back one day
At my doorstep children stood
About her by her way

She asked me for forgiveness
And I begged it in return
For few may sell their paintings
But good people never spurn.

Waking up with a brain that sticks to the sheets
It must have leaked last night '***
I'm resting on a puddle.
A full bladder can't get me out of here.

Breathing deep and feeling your thoughts diluted
And yawning, though you're still half dreaming and
You could swear that this shirt wasn't on you before.
Why are you at work?

Coffee jumpstarts your heart, but you heard it misfire.
Your clockwork legs and arms wind back up and
You try for another day. The air outside your bed is
Cold.

You find your way back with miracle eyes
Just before you lose your softness
As you crash into the cotton shores
You're blunt once again.

A boy turned to me in class and said
'I'm going to be an astronaut!'
But he thought not of rocketships
So I ignored him.

A girl turned to me and said
'I'm going to be a good person.'
And she smiled so
I believed her.

The adult turned to us and said
'I'm going to be your teacher!'
But she thought not of our minds so
I ignored her.

I turned to their backs and said
'I'm going to be something.'
And they saw nothing in my eyes so
They laughed.

I don't know where they are now, but
Many are not on their set roads, for
I would have seen them and
Walked with them hand in hand.

I saw a whisp of beauty woken
Its dragon eyes stole out from treasure
It roared, wide mouthed, no teeth in gums
And fixed on me with window eyes
I watched it flutter, not swoop indeed
Its wings were of hummingbirds
And I marveled at its probuscis
And it wondered at my soft skin


I felt
My peace float from me
My eyes turn yellow
And crack like old paper
My cheeks shrink from cold.

The beauty flew away
I knew not where
I was left with the treasure it had left
For I had won
But I missed the beast
And wished
It had never woken.

Lance in hand to seek the land
Where he may do some good.
Lost his mind, but fate divined
He'd meet the life he should.

Horse at foot he rides to put
His lance in giant's hearts
But no one's said that they're all dead
They leave him from the start.

It's oft' like this for those dismissed
From societal norms or wishes
We lead them on and watch them don
The spear that's not for fishes.

Perhaps we should try to do good
Like the madman we egg on
For though good books bring laughs and looks
There's a sad tale with each Don.

'Do you understand the incredible godliness of a straight line?!' my madman said to me.
'Not quite,' I said, 'But I am not beyond hope to instruction."

'We cannot see a straight line in our world,' he said, 'But we thought of one nonetheless. Something came from nothing, ex nhilo, ex nhilo.' he said.

I watched his logic at work from my place at his right hand.

'Have you ever tried to draw? Straight lines are hard, try drawing a sunset. Try to draw your hand.'

I did, though I'm not sure it was his intention.
It came out wrong.

'Look! LOOK. You see? The heart of the world is but a skewed imprint when we draw it. You cannot see the world, but the lines and shadows of the world are there, and it would take a lifetime to truly draw them.'

My madman took the pen and drew a perfect sunset, with my hand clasped around it, as one would grip something so fragile, so quick to vanish.

'There are sketch lines in all we see, the world is creating a drawing in every microsecond, every heartbeat creates universes.'

His hand shook and the pen fell, ink at his feet and his hands. He looked upon them.

He rubbed the ink on his palms.

'The world is the greatest artist... And we?'
He lay his hands on the page before him, and the truest image of a hand he could ever draw was in front of me. I saw many sunsets in his fingerprints.
'We are the imitators.'

I smiled, and my madman smiled back.
Or at least as close as he could come.

I hammer down the iron blue
And feel the stone in hills I threw
A giant's tome in slate is wrought
The dragon's breath is surely sought

And with the flame and grey hill soul
I toil to make my body whole
To giants time may not take lives
But our body falls in loose demise

I build myself an arm of slate
A slated cage will separate
My slate heart and my slate lungs
My life will lead from where begun.

These hills are home to more than me
Bees and deer and wolves at times
I look down at my forgèd limbs
And see the grass has grown there too.

I roam the fields, but find my feet
Are reluctant to leave the soil they meet
I sink to my knees and find that I
Am now the hill beneath the sky.

Millenia pass, my sleep is long
Until some years when something's wrong
Strange beasts have come with clever paws
To take my slate for homes and wars.

I slumber still, giants are slow to rise
But count my word true, and count it wise
'Fore long I'll rise and take it back
And your slate beast world will fade to black.

I slept in the forest and the willow watched over me.
Her roots ran deep, heavy in their drink
So that not her strength nor watchful eye should falter
And her stem hair should fall nonetheless.

I slept in the forest 'neath the willow.
Her fair arms outstretched so all would see
Poplar, Yew and Oak would see she protected me
And I slept well, yes I did.

The cold night air bit not when it saw whom I kept as company.
The damp earth kept its spittle away
For 'neath my tree I slept peacefully
Until the good morn' blessed us both.

Wear your heart like a golden brooch
Shine it so all see
Your goodness is as you would be
Your courage is itself beyond reproach.

Darwin knows, some try to say
That the weak should fear the strong
Well this has gone on for so long
Can you honestly say you like this way?

I propose you think on those
Who live in darker minds
Their hatred builds up and then blinds
Them from the hard path each has chose.

I met a man who said to me
Love is like a destiny
I met a man who frowned at me
And he was neither glad nor free.

Love yourselves to love another
Love your sister, love your brother,
Love the man who scowls at you
For in that heaven may be true.

Another robin hopped behind my window pane in light
He cocked his head and put his dread in my heart which pulled so tight
My poem of the past made robins seem quite grave and dim
His vengeance burned out from his breast and shrill it came from him

His size surprised his anger as it swept beyond his beak
He hopped up to the glass and watched me like a circus freak
His deep black eyes gave quick surmise to my suspicion of his hate
I closed the curtain and sat back, contented' till a later date.

I lay back on the sofa pack
And heard my heart abeating
Beating
Beating
Beating
Boom Boom Boom

I sat on my legs and finished the dregs
Of the tea that I was drinking
Drinking
Drinking
Drinking
Down Down Down

I breathed in a sigh and ****** my head high
In the silence I was living
Living
Living
Living
On On On

I watched my bones melt as I poured out and felt
The eternity I'm still waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
More More More

Tick Tock Little Clock
Let's make this our pact
You'll take me to the time I want
And I swear to you we'll act.

She never spoke of sanity
Normal never lost her lips
She thought not much of clarity
Preferring to speak with hips.

She never thought to tell me
How memory was in her hair
It curled and fell like weeping willows
But never felt so fair.

She never wanted to explain
How her footprints left the ground
How she walked the clouds and drank the rain
Why she still looked at me when the sun was with her.

Though she left quietly I still recall
She told me why in her hands
She held me like she was about to fall
And fall she did to lower lands.

The starling rode the tree
And weathered out the storm
Though his mind had set him free
The wind still lashed his body

Atop the tallest cedar
He held fast upon the branch
His courage was his leader
His teardrops froze and broke like lightning

His nest fell with empty eggs
And he forgot to say goodbye
As he stuck fast with sureborne legs
And forgot to watch it turn to dust.

His gaze went deep into the heart
Of blue flashes of the sky
The nest of the treetop built for the art
Of the titans of the light aloud.

He let the night speak free its mind
For his was much the same
The tempest shook and roared and whined
While the starling stuck fast




The breath was lost and the sun came back
But the bird was not ready to feel relieved
He wanted more of the punishing black
To make him feel he deserved to forget.

'Hold the candletip to my fingertips', she said
Shuddering under the weight of heat
And my incredulous stare.

'Do it'. she ordered, and I did,
Believing a love without identity would last as long,
'Cut off my hair.' she shouted

I did, it stuck up short
Cowlicks on her forehead
'Enough.' I said. She shook her head.

'Squeeze my chest, love, and don't be gentle,
For I shall know in the heave of my breast.'
I did and she cracked within under the hate of how much I wanted.

'Now, take my words-'
'What?'
'Let me finish.' she said

'Take my words and give me yours,
We can share one voice,
My God we can.'

I took my words,
Though it was agony to rip them free
And she received them without thanks.

Her hair short, her words shorter
Her chest flat, her fingers flatter
Before me a mirror stood

I tried to see her face, but only hated mine
And told myself I would never see her again
I realised too late her difference was what made me love her.

The gloom of night gives naught but green
In trees that gather closely in
Their leaves and fruit fall in their lean
At their feet my cheap gifts of tin.

I motion for them to take back
Human plunder
They wash back their green seas and
Make clear that some roots don't grow back.

I don't know if I want children
I don't know if I want to give light to
Another smoke-filled soul of lost purpose,
Another one who has to face what I did.

What if my child were a man?
Then he would know that
The whole world is his challenge and chance
Tells he must be found lacking.

What if my child were a woman?
Then she would be afraid of street corners.
Betrayed by her own body's secrets,
Dragging its conflict for her whole life.

What if my child were intelligent?
Then I would know within them an
Explosion of terrible realisation awaited.
They would wonder why I watch them cautiously.

What if my child were not?
Then they would have the bliss of not
Having to know a better world is far away,
But they would never be asked for their say in it.

What if my child were like me?
Then I would weep, and they would wail.
Lament our cursed flesh and
I would apologise, God I would.

Some people need children to have meaning.
Some people need children to know love.
I hope I don't ever need, because
They scare me more than sickness and health.

I walked a summer day, warm and fair
Thirst my only burden, and lightly so
For all was light before the sun
I found a rabbit upon the ground

He lay on the soil, shivering
Despite the bright he grew cold
Beside him a hemlock plant was cut
I stayed with him till the end.

I sat in the buttercups and poison leaves
And spoke to him.
'I am sorry, wise friend, for you who knew all
Could not make a gambit of this ****.'

I lay him to rest and walked on, the thirst taking hold
And met a fawn, poison creeping through her too
Her legs shook, I held them tight
And spoke to her.

'Alas, many of you, wise friends have fallen to this evil,
On this wonderful day I feel nothing but remorse
A fear of what has befallen you,
Why did you not run?'

The fawn, sharp of eye and tongue, yet deep of heart
Said nothing, though her eyes were full of words
I lay with her and read her pity
'Til the very end.

Lastly, taking my throat in dry anguish
I walked on, the heat now unbearable,
The path lay ahead
With broken souls of wise thinkers

I heard, in my anguish
A hoot, and looked up
An owl on a branch who did not cry
But could not fly for torment

'Why have all these great beings fallen?'
I asked him, sour of tongue
He could not speak, but pointed
At the old forest, which was no more

In its place, fields of hemlock stood
Before it I could not, and wept.

'You see, dear human, our forest is gone
And with it our world and our souls
Your kind has committed what we would call wrong,
But you would call reaching your goals.

With nothing to eat, they fed on the stalks,
With nothing to drink, they drank of the sap
Great thinkers and knowers these walkers of walks
Are fallen at the claws of your trap.'

And with his words in my mind he flew from his tree
And fled the fields for the sky
Above me the mountains, below me the sea
My thirst was such that my eye

Sought out some water, but such was there none
Just hemlock, and that I did take
I drank of the sap and like them I was done
Like my own kind my life was forsake'.

The quality of a person
Is seen in how they eat
The truth if their nature
Brought out in their jaw.

I hear smacking of lips
Open mouths spitting pulp
And I revile it
For the soul within is evident.

Don't trust those who devour
For they have lost all thought of quality
Don't trust those who defile
For they think only of the sustenance.

If you should meet one
Who takes food slowly and though
Nourishing the body is a craving
Still finds the joy of it then,

You have found someone who finds
The beauty in the daily
The cycle of the living
The poetry of the world

Keep away from those who stuff their mouths,
They think only of their pleasure
Love those who eat well
Goodness is their meal of days.

I may have a nose
Succumbed to the stress of suction
But I can still smell a rat

I may have a mind
Fogged by the forest of forgetfulness,
But I can still remember to be forceful

I may have ears
Ringing with the rigour of revenge
But I can still hear your repentance

Illness is in the body
My mind is unaffected
Let's talk
And tell only truths.

I like to think
Of our effect on flats
Of the change we make
On buildings of cold brick and steel

I look at houses, strange to me
And see the dead glass in the windows
I like to think
That to someone it is home.

It's a testament to humanity
That we can make buildings mean something
I like to think
Of how we give our world a story.

We give concrete and wood
The memories of a family meal
Of nights before a fire
Of a first kiss.

We are as important to what we see
As what we see is to us
We are the wind through the forest
The cricket in the starry night.

Don't believe me?
Look at an abandoned house.
There's nothing quite so tragic
As a doorstep never used,

Without a memory to bring it to life.

Tucking you under my arm
Fonder than a child's embrace
Your wooden limb channels breath
From my chest to my fingers and into space.
Singing.

Cold at first, but we warm together
My hands through what could be called hair
The black teardrop falling between us
As we share each other
Crying.

Let's take all the air about us
And shake it like the mountain's rage
Let's take the ears of all around us
And whisper whatever we want.
Strumming.

It's all we're here to do.

'Do you want to go to a club?' he asked her.
She nodded and might even have smiled
He couldn't tell from
The gloom of her smartphone.

The club had a band and they played all the night
While she was playing Zombie Fight
The crowd got too crazy, and soon went to rush
While she was playing Candy Crush.

Her boyfriend got bored and went for a look
While she was checking her Facebook
He met a girl and he did the deed
While she was checking her Twitter feed.

She went to find him, looked up at the band
Wanted a member to hold by the hand
But they were all taken by girls who could try
While this girl just looked down and checked Spotify.

On the way home she saw a lady
On a Youtube vid' called 'What you've all  paid me.'
The people who watch her all make her life good
Be like her? The girl wished that she could.

It must have been hard
To have waited by the phone for so long that
You forgot what its ring sounded like
You forgot whom you were awaiting
You forgot what it was to have a conversation

You just watched the plastic
And slowly grew older
Unplugging yourself from the wall
And dying with the phone.
Your call of pain and being alone
Nothing like the one you anticipated,
But how would you have known?

I started lifting weights
Because I feared the very few I called friends
My inadequacy became my focus
My weakness became my strength.

I would have stopped a long time ago,
But for my love of the time spent
With just me and my challenges
All thought of hate and defense lifted away

I stopped thinking of exercise for my body
It was now for my mind
And it was that which gave me the confidence to
Never fear again.

I was able to look into people's eyes and
Know my mind was not timid.
Strength of the body was just
Coincidental.

So, really I suppose that it's irony
My great fear
My great inadecuacy
Led to my greatest reason to smile.

I walk to the radio
Turning it on
Music's playing, I know
A very good song.

It starts off so quiet
But gets louder so
That before I can fight it
I'm lying down low

The notes all rise free
Shooting stars through the beat
The rhythm's the sea
And on the sea floor I greet

The singer speaks out
From a clam shell castle
The guitar wails and shouts
While it's part and parcel

To the harmony choir
Of light and of sound
I float in the fire
While the sky becomes ground.

And the last thing I remember
From the music I hear
Is the warmest December
The summer in my ear.

I believe in Déjà Vu
More than I believe in God.
A warning to myself
Of things to come
Seems more likely than anything else.

For after all, whom do we worship but ourselves
When we pray to a deity, aren't they what we want - Power?
When we worship the catwalk, isn't that all we want - Beauty?
When we laugh with someone, isn't that all we want - Goodness?

I ignore the church bells
I listen to the voices in my head
Telling me that
They saw this all coming
So they did.

It doesn't make things easier, but then
What does?
Déjà Vu.

I grew up in a house with white walls
The light shined through the brighter
Every happy morning
In my bed beside my brother.

When my Dad first drank
Dry rot found a nest
We moved into a house with cream coloured walls,
Without my father.

I saw the cream walls turn blue
When I broke a pen on my brother
And the ink became his blood of this fight
We moved into a house with purple walls

I saw the purple walls turn grey
When we all got our own rooms
And we all chose the same colour
As we sat alone.

I moved into a house with black walls
When my life dragged me away from them
The light shone through the darker
Every unhappy morning.

My house was small
It was damp and it was dark
I heard a knock at the black door
And light came in with you.

We moved into a house with white walls
Every morning a birth of new sunlight
Every happy morning,
Waking up beside you and smiling

I don't ever drink
I keep a watch for dry rot
And our walls stay white
Forever.

Like those who've lived neath the umbrella
And ne'er learnt to hate the rain
So those who've been safe together
Are keen to build with pain

If they had met the eyes
Of a man holding a machine gun
That would have been the demise
Of the destruction they seek for the sake of fun.

Don't wave your flags and say to me
The state is old and pointless
I've lived with comfort happily
Why do you want to destroy this?

Anarchy is the seed of the fools
Who're born and bred beneath
The umbrella of states and their 'tools'
Their rage their comforts bequeath.

A tapestry couldn't do life justice.
Life is like staring down a cloud
Until it has bowed its head to earth
And you put your hand to its brow
Cool its fever and
Give it colour.

Then walk within
And paint yourself on the layers of mist
Life is like your own reflection in thousands of droplets of water
Life is like your grunt echoing in a canyon as you try to climb down.
Life is like your smell as the wind takes it away to another.
Painting myself into a cloud,
I wrap myself inside it and
When I am done with whirling its frozen suspension about me
I tuck myself in
And sleep well.

That is life to me.

Childhood is awe
Youth is uncertainty
Adulthood is steady realisation
Middle age is bleak acceptance
Old age is beating or succumbing to all
It all depends on what you did,
What crazy suicidal tendencies you had
When you were uncertain about everything.

Insanity is a gift
Few relish like you
So if you are unsure of your footing
Don't wobble, dance
If you are unsure of what you will find
Don't stretch your hand out, charge forth!
****** noses, cringeworthy memories and broken relationships may spew forth, but
Nothing
Hurts
Like
Regret
In
An
Unnused
Insanity.

If I told those
Who knew so little
Of another world
Who knew our tales one thing, it would be

That Thor is real, but he has become something to sell to us
That Jesus is real, but he has become something of a conflict
That wars are real, though to you I'm sure they seem insane.

I don't know you, and you don't know me, humans of the Otherworld
And by the rules of our game that should mean we hate one another.
We live by some standards, but sometimes standards build empires.

I want to tell you,
That some of us don't wield hammers,
But pens.
There are those of us who
Hear about a fight and
Run to break it asunder,
Some of us,
Really are heroes.
I've never met many, but I know they're out there,
Distant humans on a distant planet,
I guess we're both
A little detached from humanity.