Give me a
Thump, thump-thump
As the day goes by
And I'll know we'll be alright.

Take me somewhere
Slow to breathe
The poppy seed
And I know we'll manage well.

Carry me,
Wind, carry me
On gusts of nectar green
I know we'll live together

When the trees
When the trees
Whisper to our flying locks
I know we'll fall in love

As songbirds.

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.

Fragile creature
Deeply steeped in bags
Of bold red and blue
Black, from lack of sleep
And painful, from want of hope

With cups that help me hear
And lines that make me smile
Social being socializes
And dying beings help the night sparkle.

While I tone, phone
Bring my lofty thoughts
Or else hatred
May be my *****

What can I say,
To rocks picked up by you
Can't I be collected, listened to
Hoped for like those others?

I hope so, I elope for that idea
And I cope, grow forth
Bashful plants turned brash
And flowering with colours not yet seen

Not yet considered by rocks or man

I am a petal.

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.

I felt her on my belly
A well fed boa
Squatting for the day

She writhed as my heart beat
Drawing tighter to my
Pinched breaths

I saw wild eyes, glancing, prancing
Sprites, friends of the serpent,
Laughed, for I had fallen mute

To the forest floor, and lay poisoned
Shrinking before a gleeful crowd
In love with an animal.

And when I knew the passage
I knew no fear
No bitter taste
The rainfall paved ricochets of bootheels saw to that

I knew no smell
Of losing my breath, nor
A shiver of cold down
My spine bared.

Coming out the other side,
The street felt the same
But I
No, I did not.

Wellies
Unfull cups of funny puddlewater
Around the feet and toes of happy children
*****
           Stamp
Splish
          Splash
What
         Fun
A memory of that darling child
Hand around her mother's
Fascinated and absorbed
By those little lakes and worlds
Her little pink coat
And wellies
Keeping her warm as a snug bug.
Stamp-Splash-Fun

She hides among the poppy seed
Sweet brown eyes growing yellow-red
Roots emerging sickly-soft
And ears remembering my rasp -
Rasp she wanted?

She spreads her petals for me
And I see all I wanted
Red coat shed on sunsets of
Pretty skin
So pretty.

She washes with the wind
Eating sunflakes
I don't look at
The black spot on the poppy

Because she's a bloom
Who had stains I never thought of asking for.
Who asks a stencilled crushberry sky
What it will want when it leaves?

When the moon comes up
I feel the old blissful cold
She won't warm me, but
Poppy's make poor blankets anyway

Freckles speckle nothing anymore
And red has fallen silent
I regard the stars she left me
And paint my canvas new.

Whenever I travelled
I saw men living from empty cups
Their life on their knees
Must have hurt

They were given a family
They once must have thought that they would stand
And command the crowds
But they pled to them instead

I saw only once
A woman before an empty cup
Head bowed and belly empty
Call me sexist, but
She was the subject of my charity

It seems to me
The streets are full of those
Who grew to hate life
But she had the potential
To make two lost souls from one

Call me sexist, but
I wanted to raise her from the streets
Lest she raise another
Child of the lamplight
From an empty cup

Pretty poppies
And burnt earth for horizons
Crackling savage against the cool blue
That burns you without and tightens within
Endless green and poppies

I wish I spoke like you,
In red earth, pebbles spilling from my grin
Able to lie as much as gabble
And taste the impatient air
The scent of expectant poppies

Hurriedly, I'd rush back there
And feel the emptiness apart from me again,
That kind of emptiness that lends itself to
An adventure in you
And blushes
Like poppies blush
In turbulent valleys of burnt dirt

When a baby babbles like a brook
All they are is nature.
When a girl surrenders all she took
All that is is danger.

Lipstick stains become tattoos
And a dance for two becomes a seizure.
Relationships become canoes
And a heart two share becomes much stranger.

Oh, you and I, no such thing,
But that's ok, my love.
I haven't seen what life may bring,
But death is more the gentle dove.

Can you laugh at jokes about ***?
Good, you pass the test.
Can you sit and not grow sore?
Good, you're perfect.

Can you be pumped full of *******
And not choke?
Excellent,
You're our kind of superhuman.

Don't look outside.
You're with me now,
And with me
You never have to think.

We're behind the box
Putting no effort in
And leading your lives
With jokes and yokes.

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.

I met her on the road
Exhausted just like me.
I asked her why she's walking
She told me she is free.

I told her I'm a pilgrim.
She warned me, don't forget,
You may be tired of walking,
But your end is 'lejos' yet.

I told her Santiago
Was now my Xanadu.
She laughed and said the Khan awaits.
I laughed and said I knew.

I've seen his horse on hills afar,
He canters while I walk
And Kublai champs his teeth and shouts
His sword spits while we talk.

He wears the forest as a cloak
And chains the wind as breath.
I see him chase me further on
He tracks me to my death.

I asked her where she's going.
To Santiago too,
But I don't seek the spires and peaks
I'm hunting one like you.

He's running as his boots get worn
And I champ my teeth and shout.
He's keeping eyes out to the hills
While my sword point seeks him out.

Her deep black eyes and strong disguise
Bled from her and she stood.
Kublai Khan afore me spoke.
I ran but 'twas no good

She spoke out strong and in a blur,
'You are not my prey.
For many men along the road
Flee demons every day.'

And she roared and drew her breath,
The wind took up her gait.
She took the time to smile before
Her horse flew fast and straight.

I watched her go, still for so long,
The road behind ignored.
I heard the wind blow on before
I turned and saw He roared.

The hill was crowned with forest
Drawn around his back.
He spurred his horse on and the steed
Cantered down the track.

I turned and walked, slow and calm
For I am used to demons.
Though on the road I keep him towed.
The Khan is still the freeman.

We all want to change
Looking on our world so high
We know it's there to be remodeled
And we can.

Peace. Each. Understand.
Is the food to our feelings,
But tools are the torch
To show us the way.

Love, it's bright,
Truth, it's right,
We, don't fight,
But to some, their candle is the gunpowder flash.

Try to build a house and the land must be squashed,
Try to write a poem and ink must be spilled,
Try to say a cliché and eggs must be broken,
But try to build a better world with bullets then people will suffer.

I don't want your world
You, out there who cannot read this,
I don't want to be in a place
Where learning means knowing

That men could be outside the door
Ready to stop your new world
Ready to make mistakes,
Ready to not care.

I'll light a candle for you
Because I wish
It could have been your illumination
Rather than the shared,

Gunpowder flash

Of those mistaken.

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.

A bit of phantom dreaming
A haunting phantom free
A dreary phantom morning
A toil of phantomy

A rock of phantom learning
A leaf of phantom tree
I find my phantom yearning
A phantom just for me

A peg of person
Hanging on my word
Show'd itself to me
Wooden, carved roughly
Surfaced on linen, varnish
Shallowed man.

He felt nothing to me, at me
He told me riddle body *****
I ignored, bored hated words of worry
But felt them myself, little
Anti-anti-anticipations
And trembling lumps of merryweather met us

But we came to a pond, and drank the green green wealth
We spun a little, splashed like ripples do
Onto a blank canvas of a conversation
Muddy murky words came out
'*** *** ***' little bee, buzz for pollen, buzz for me
I couldn't. I'm not.

I'm not another, you're different, distinto
I'm feeling nothing, angsty man,
Through rides and fairgrounds together
I found a lost child, and he set me
I told you who I am and I found me.

Roughly cut, varnished wooden man
Burned in envy, dusted away
I felt nothing, watched his anguish
And figured, hammered, rutted out
A sense of self-belonging,
I guess we don't belong, I guess we make our own self-pity,
But at least we know.

I said goodbye, he did not, I left the day before yesterday
I wrote a confusing poem to figure it out
And people read it
Quietly I confined myself to words and Bibles written for me
For a bitter version of myself
I burned away, burned away,
Burned my, burned my burned away.

My spirit grows with Summer,
And rolls on Summer winds,
Flowers petals taste the nectar
Of thought, of thought today.

Rolling blissly on the heap
Of battered promises from Winter gone
I season my mettle and spice my life
On breathing deep of clouds come low.

Little lives flit freely about
The smoke of tea will drench me better
Than the Autumn rains I find not wanting
Reason to leave, reason to leave.

For I lie rooted, not able to stay
On the world that moves about me,
But for this moment, anchors are light
And my spirit grows to meet the breeze.

Some people hope.
And you?
Some people dream.
And you?
Some people laugh.
And you?
Some people try.
What about you?

Me, I cry.
And you?
Me, I trip and graze my bone.
And you?
Me, I walk and hurt my feet.
And you?
Me, I live on a spectrum.
What about you?

You, you chuckle.
You, you accept.
You, you wait.
You, you absorb.

You are not a person.
You are a sponge.
And when you do not squeeze yourself,
All you will do is take in,
Until you saturate
and split your sides.

You, you do not live.
Me, at least I try.

A sense of purple, royal inadequacy
Siezes me as I gloss truthly spirits
And invent what they tell me to feel,
Pretty woman, pretty thing
Primitive lonely, primitive thing
Don't look into my skull, for
I'm thinking what they pay me for

But lovely is the feeling
That saviours walk on educated steps
Frowns draw well wrought lines of ponder
Ditches of leprosy dug by the brain,

Pariah, well maybe, well just to myself
What it is I'd forgotten what wishes I work with
I'm leaving a nutshell and entering an essay
Donning a thinking cap woven in led

So there, I wrote something, and it came out coherent
Though I've no idea what it said,
My ramblings lost purpose and for that their quest,
But they buy me a future, and for that
I'm happy
Or perhaps I'm easily *lead

Shoulds
Have horns
And ram reindeer with
Thistle bush antlers

I grow
From the seeds of others
Leaf green
As lilac winter tells me.

And the advice of others
Protects
Culpability from
The mouth of a sweet whisper.

Shoulds
Grow fangs
And live in dark forests
I know this to be their opinion.

I live
Longer longings
I rise
With every new day

And they, are still there
Dressed in soft leather,
Stirring teas and
Ready to tell me paths ahead

Predicting the worst weather
Without knowing the storm
They condone.
Advice.

He grows on me
His branch and tree
A stretched out mist
Pet villainy

My rosy friend
My sweet defend
You’re not my mind
It cannot end

How touched we are
To outshine a star
Beneath the stream
The Venom tar

Dance along
My dance, my song
A body weave
Of threads so long

Now check my grip
Now blush my lip
We’re friends so now
Well water sip

As the weight
Of what began to be
Became concrete
About my feet,

As the know
Of what it is to be the other
Buzzed in my under-stood
Head,

As the grit
Teeth and spine
Stuck in my throat, I knew
All this is for you

I’ve passed a little more than time
While I wore my feet to naught
A hundred lives have been and gone
For what I’ve seen as sport

We trace the steps of ages spent
When men were more than fiction
Simple lives and simpler minds
And faith their true addiction

I’m in a place where stories take
The power of the cross
And though the spires may steal my breath
I never felt the loss

For on The Way I took as mine
A shell and wooden limb
And parts of people, gifts so rich
Made my treasures small and slim

I’ve shared myself with men I’ve made
But will never know from there
I don’t feel sad because I knew
It’s not the whom but where

I’ll never find another day that feels the same as this
The time I’ve spent with just the steps; a special kind of bliss
When all there is to fill your head, the rhythm of the road
Your wishes and your broken corpse make light your mind and load

And now I will be much the same
In the before, the now and then
But there’s a trail within my eyes
That leads me back again

Each sunset and each moon reborn
Is on its own Camino
And every way will one day take
Me back to Santiago

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.

It's at times like these,
that I remember the sound of a piano,
skin crumpled within an armchair,
arms wrapped like a present,
and two burning river stones here to hear stories,
It's at these dark times I remember that...

when all was calm,
and time did not stand still, but sat with me, deflated in the silence,
Looking into the fire, we shared deeply,
hoping homely things
would come to us,

so still, so slow, as if we were never born to move,
but sit and watch without thinking,
I remember those nights when all else broke down,
and sat quietly with me watching twigs crackle,
Describing a night solemn
and thick with temptation to sleep, but
somehow never managing it...

but to tiptoe through the thoughts we already had...

I remember that time
When the moon peered in,
anxious to share,
unable to dazzle us,
accepting second place beside the fire
and singing, if silver light could sing,
and I swear I heard it, constantly serene
Hum an eerie silver tune...

hmmmmmmmmm, lightly, haaaaaaaaa...

Even dust does not venture through this space,
gathering around the dull armchair
in every seam listening quietly,
listening peacefully,
As thoughts lap the shores of unconsciousness,
and slowly descend into a dark sleep,
Where even the moonlight cannot reach me
and no troubles can disturb me...

yes, I remember

So it's night
So it's dark
So it's quiet
So am I.

Bathed in electric shadow
I push blues and whites
In cream curdled from clouds
And shades of grey and green.

In politics and paint you're born
'Welcome to the world.
You're going to make someone very happy.'
Me.

So how many days
Can you spend in nights?
Let me know, faithless print
For eyes watch us, praying fondly.

I get confused, often
Spraxically distopic in a utopian person
We'll succeed together
We'll fly on splinted wings.

I can write love poems too, you know,
But I'm only here for the future
So let's wait, together
And work for something we still breath for.

I'm here for you being here for me
And I grow branches in the night's silence.
An ode to breathlessness
And the chill of flush for the quiet.

Hello again.
Oh god, not you.
Me, but does it matter. Do you still care?
No.
Walk with me, lend me your thought.
Very well.

I am born again and you feel the same as past days.
I do.
Vulnerability is a new form of life.
For you.
And you are scared again.
And you are with me.

Does it frighten you, how far you've come?
Yes, where has time gone?
Into me, I am always with you.
My one friend,
Together* Together.
Shall we sink as one?
Of course.

How many days lost into your huddled fear?
Enough to make me strong.
And you are here to tell me all is lost?
I am here to offer you that choice.
I don't want it.

I have come too far for you, I have grown too tall, seen too much, outran you more times than you let on, you are no longer a match for me.
Do you feel brave?
You know I don't, ever,
But I feel ready.

You will need me
When you lose all
And truth is laid bare
You will need me
And I will be here
To **** you in
To steal you back,
Mine,
My very own
Property.

To lose myself in a foggy drug
And cut a misty dream
To blister from the heat between
The love that is as seems

I taste a little bitter
Salty brows of work prolonged
Don't lead me forth on glaciers cold
If you have no heart I wronged.

Shout forthly from the rooftops
And we'll sing like cats together
For you and I we own the moon
And on it planted fields of heather.

For each other for ourselves
Take me out

To explore

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.

'She ain't much of a muse.'

What can I say for you that
Has not already been lied?
Your eyes do not sparkle,
Your smile has long since died.
Your eyebrows are
Painted to be quizzical.
Nice try, but,
I don't think you're listening.

I'll give you a joke, but
You're twice as sarcastic
Your wooden skin covers
A brain made of plastic
I come along to watch and
You come along to see.
Nice try, but
I don't think your eyes make the effort.

I ask you what New Year's means
To you and your future.
You shrug and say,
'I'm sure it will be boring.'

You ain't much of a muse.

The comments of the ocean
Blend nicely with the brush
Of tipper topper dinky dinghies
That paddle all a hush

Ships sailing on the summer current
Keels are black and leery
With barnacles and treasures trawled at sea
They nose ahead worn and weary

I sigh a little on the plinth of my palm
Propped nicely 'gainst the ivory table
And clink ****** cups, you know
Those little things that make you remember

Shame? Not me. When I watch the birds
They hover without shame
Boasting of the clouds they've visited
And castles up high they are welcome to

Take, take, take the spring breeze that simmers in
I couldn't feel the grace of disgust
I couldn't, I'm too happy
With salt ground tea and seemly company.

Howl, dread wind,
Howl your dread loss
Of times when ruddy lords danced merry in candlelight
Of low halls strung with the forest's skeleton
Of the high hills holding beast and other wonders of the night
Howl
For that corner of a peak trough
Catching the rain and cupping it
To the thirsty mouth of the beast within
To the sword of the proud beggar
And his honour in the sky
Which he looked upon from a hill
Quiet on his cold brow
And as he listened
He heard the howl
Of the times long passed.
Howl, dread wind.

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.