He kicked off his trainers in defiance
It's warm in here, I will stay.
His home danced its subtle dance
Seducing him with fluttered window panes.

No, darling, mummy said
You will go out there
And face the harsh winds
And the hungry frosts.

Why? You did, mummy
And you have the scars on your beautiful face
Why should I, a handsome boy
Offer my face to the elements?

She sat him down and smiled
Yes, I am weary, the world
Took it's toll, but
The warmth of comfort soon becomes fire

You will stare down the frost and
Let it gnaw all it wants
For that's how dreams are made, my boy
That's how wishes come true

This one, she said, finger on a scar
Was from those summer months
When the grass became the bed
To clumsy, tragic love and I

This one is from your grandmother
When she left me all alone
This one, from my career,
See, it is the deepest.

All of them, all I would have again
For canvas I may be to brutal paint,
But happy I am
That I was painted.

The boy looked up and said
I am a scar on you
She buried him in her eager arms and said
No my dear, you're too soft to leave a scar.

The trainers went on
The boy went outside
And shivered as
His mother watched.

The world I want to live in,
It's that world
Where your childlike twinkle
Those fumes of pink ignorance behind what you'd call sweetness
Never have to leave

As we'd never have to fear
Men behind closed doors
Women behind them too
We'd never think of prisons

An alley where
Our parent holds our hand to pulls us away
Would be alien to us as the day we were born
And painfully born

A world in which
I'd never have had to learn to lie
Where my smile could be taken seriously
And my brother's eyes

Twinkled in all and out
Full of
Misunderstanding
For that thing we call deception

We'd tilt our heads
And smile
To the tears of stories long gone
We'd be the puzzles the past learnt to fix

In my world

She likes to laugh in summer
She likes to dance in Spring
In Winter warm's the butter
In Autumn dancers sing

In June flowers don her hair
In April grow she will
Adance the chance to see the sun
December - member, green is still.

And yellow shouts the solar flowers
While melody passes the birds on pink wing
Across the bright of rainbowed showers
An Autumn-Winter-Summer-Spring

Cosy posie purple heart
Pine cones grow and roots wriggle down
Soldiers, lovers, sippers sing
The aurora more a festive crown

And 'lo, my sib'; take light in eye
Though grey and opaque cleanse the lens
What may share may never die
What may grow stays here forever.

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.

Like painted frogs upon a tree
I feel the poison leak from me
I do not gamble as a rule
But with that hope may disagree

I chained the gauntness, kept the beast
Until it felt at home, at least
When it snarls I shiver less
When it bites I let it feast

Show me more of ******* sap
Sticky, but this honey trap
Is quickly eaten up by me
To venom I’m a porous wrap

It comes, it goes
The gale force blows
But poison’s fickle
The tree frog knows.

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.

'What does a sculptor see in the rock?'
'None, dear child, none and nothing.'
'What does the tailor see in the frock?'
'Naught, dear child, naught and nothing.'

'Tell me, what does the musician see in his song?'
'Little, dear child, little and less.'
'What does a philosopher see in the wrong?'
'Too much, dear child, too much and distress.'

'But, what does a pilot see in the sky?'
'A bit, dear child, a bit and a little.'
'What does the poet see in my eye?'
'Something, dear child, something at least.'

'Daddy, what do you see in the smoke?'
'So much, dear child, much and more than you.'
'And what do you see when your voice shrinks to a choke?'
'Dear child, so much I cannot still scream.'

'I'll tell you what I see, and not for my youth
I see a statue, an elfin body, a melody and truth,
I see the clouds and the freedom to fly,
I see the hope and the faith in my eye.

In the smoke, Daddy, I see nothing but air,
In your choke I hear needless despair.
I grew up to love you, and love you I do
But I can never see things in the same way as you.'

The father, he blushed and spoke out so strong,
'Darling, I wished to be free,
But now I can see that without you I'm wrong
**Without you I cease to be me.'

How to start a conversation?
That's the question, isn't it?
Don't you dare try to tell me I forgot
What niceties bear the *****  of tightness
I'm here, aren't I?

So how are you? insipid
So where were you? cutthroat
So what can I call you murderer
Since you left?

I heard once
You broke formation, and told the wave of indifference you'd call me...
Where was that, that
Stuttering star sign
Supposed to make you divine for me?

The truth is I'm lonely,
But not worn, like
So many rocks in the ocean,
I think I prefer the company of schools of fish
And dark things from the sea
Than... Well
You know

But how to end a conversation?
You're the best at ending things.
Lonely? What's to be alone?
Better, you said it yourself,
Better than being apart.

Spartans had to roam the East
In the land as yet unfettered
Some Nigerians have to find a beast
And **** it to show they've bettered
Barmitzvahs may be tradition for some,
But for me coming of age was looking in a mirror
And realising that I've stopped changing
That I'm just like every other finished piece.

The mark of an adult is seeing a man
And feeling threatened by his size
The mark of an adult is seeing a woman
And thinking dark thoughts inside
The mark of an adult is meeting strangers
And instantly forgetting their name
And instantly not caring.

Many had to tame the wilds to become full grown of old
And we are not so different, we bear a darkness too
We must pass the burning eye of the real world's value of gold
We have to bear the people seeing nothing when they see you.

Skies stretch sparks to light the damp ground
And I watch, chuckling by the lambs
Lapping the waves that smack tastily at their feet
And bring in the harvest for the day.

The sun bows its head
And sea makes its sleep
For it to hide amongst the bubbles
Until the Night claps it awake.

Footprints stretch up the beach made
Of arrowheads and other cobbled things
You're there, you're there
Pulling me to your place.

Warm, shivering houses, of
Wooden overcoats and salty lashings
Made wind by fervent tides
Desperate to huddle in and hear stories

Of your uncle, your father, your brother's ruddy cheeks,
But you have eyes with me
And we lend them together to the fire
To hear of orcs, of brochs and angry kings, far away.

The howling streets meet no one,
And pirates prowl their decks to see
A glimpse of my island girl
As she holds my arm cased in wool

Blond hair crying to the floor.

For I am a story, you see, I know what I have when I have it
And salt, quiet lamp-lit salty living
Make ancient ages while keeping,
The mainland for themselves.

Good thing I have her,
So I can share in what she calls home
So I can lie in the lavender in Summer
And cry with the Winter rain when she's gone.

And thus she went
Leaving behind her the many kind words
And lingering hopes that make all good things seamless,
But which fade like her perfume in places she slept.

When I saw her face disappear
Behind mirroring train reflections
I saw those who stared when we waved
Caught in the crossfire of our connection.

They should know, as all should, how
Our iron-clad love is feather armour
Marking a true knight of the cloth
The world's spasms worn about our backs with many gold brooches.

Such it is to be anointed, to filter all out
With your inestimable standards
Held high for those to see
How much she loves me.

Tracing crumbs on my page
Moving the pencil to meet their point,
But they jump away
Afraid of fixed
Dead certainty.

Blowing them away with a breath
They fly on,
Now impossible to mistake for
The graphite kiss my pencil gives
When I accidentally place it to paper

Gone, like so many,
Crumbs of people met in life
I suppose we are all
Crumbling.

When I was young
I was addicted to my thumb
So older and still
The child in me beat at its walls

Till I threw him away

I was addicted to tears
Sloshing from my eyes
Like the sight of overflowing
Into my family

Until I threw them away

I was addicted
To doing the wrong
To challenge the right in my life
It eventually won

Until I threw it away

And then, in a burning fever
I knew I was too light
Thrown too free
Of all the human chains to each other

Until I picked them up again

So, the long and short
The nutshell
Throwing away sorrows and accepting
Them back, what's my addiction?

I am addicted to playing fetch with myself

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.

It’s often of a christmas time
When words will dance to relish rhyme
To tell the story of demander
Sharp of dress – the proper gander

His monocle peers down at you
An eye for flight and finesse too
He flutters out about your heart
You want him but he’s so apart

Put your treasures at his Tod’s
His feathers flutter and he nods
But you’re so crass, so undefined
Your love for him is leagues behind

While you chase with mollycoddles
He’s dancing with the supermodels
A candle dinner, just for two
He’s sharing with Chanel, not you

Leave him be, for the common we
Are odious to one like he
The proper gander often finds
He’s chased for love by lesser minds

He once brushed his Boglioli
And told me that for Christmas Cindy
Would meet him neath the mistletoe
I should not call him, hard I know

So let this poem serve as warning
Do not follow your heart’s calling
When you see the great demander
Sharp of dress – the proper gander

And now that you are out the way
I’ll wait until that special day
For within the wrapping and the ribbon
I’m hiding ‘till I’m duly given

The postie will deliver me
To his doorstep and we’ll see
I’ll burst forth from the wrapping paper
For Christmas we will be together

He’ll choose me over other women
He’ll show a side he still has hidden
The other girls may chase romance
But faced with me they have no chance

For my ship has one commander
My love’s the world, he’s Alexander
Without him life would be much blander
How I want the proper gander.

My tongue sharpened today

Angles fell off it like classroom fancies

Rationalised to a point, its first act

Was to knock out my fangs from behind.


I stumbled about the house

Slopped through the bathroom door

And foamed at the toilet seat, a

Wave broken over a rim of briny coral.


My salt winked about the walls, around the tap, between the wiped tiles

In the shower head of porous sponge

The seaweed in the pipes crawled up

And drowned me in the sickly sweet.


Downstairs smelt the same, logically the sea dumped down

Underwater fish glided past my window, all with the same

Grim face against the mirrors, aping the ocean

With me trapped inside.


I turned on the same song, fifteen times,

The sound tried to reach me with such ambition

But it floated to the top, belly up in its bubbles

Ridiculous, I scratched the date on the seafloor and entered the kitchen.


Drips everywhere, grease stalactites, from the tiles, the yawning oven, the spatulas

A Cretaceous museum where savagery is kept

In little plastic boxes, with clear peelable lids

A fresh, messy ****.


In the hall the grey light descends through slit windows

Colour settling at the bottom like grit, all the greys so tall

Give the narrow rectangle an aftertaste of dust

Just one keeper before me


It devours my key, hacking as it gobbles

But it does not anticipate my twist

I gut it from inside, it spits its meal back at me

And I swing its limp, dead frame 90 degrees.


Stepping out feels like a moonwalk, with Houston's neutral formulas

Unheeded in my ear, finally I can greet the clouds, that probably escaped,

Like me, fumes from the chimney

Pale and fading away from lack of auspicious sun.

I tried music
Squeezing my head dry of emotion
I tried drawing
Scratching out an imperfect form through the window
I tried to read, but
There were no pages I could turn.

So, I sat back,
And crossed my legs,
Leant my head back on
My hoodie-pillow
The sleepy sunlight fell and
Tumbled through the dust pane
A smile on its face.

All faces forward
And all mouths shut
The meditative silence
Propped up by the hum

And for a moment
If only for two
We might all sit back and
Live in two times of space between
The fretful embark and the doughy step-off

The bus.

A bed in an ICU
Is just an electric chair with cushions
Your broken feet charred and inert
Twitch in your sleep, like you're dreaming of getting up
And telling me you're going to stay
For the memories we'll still make together

And when you're awake
I almost wish you wouldn't be
But I smile like breaking glass
Waiting for the after, the endless without
And you talk for me, as I don't

You're scared, but you can't show it
Because my peace always came first for you
But that won't be much longer
Your full stop is my comma
But there won't be a rhyme tomorrow

What you mean to me
Will be broken into a thousand words
That will fade, like the sound of your voice
To mean nothing, the world you still walked in
The soil I can't make grow again

No spring will set in your chest
But I'll have to greet the winds that take you
To think without the dust
And meet the heart that's left behind.

She sat down
I put the page in front
She merely stared
And painted a sea with teardrops on the shredded wood.

I passed along,
Pencil, charcoal, all that needs free
She sniffed, 'Better?' she said,
'I will feel better?'

Taking up her shivering white pencils
Of thin frail fingers, gripping graphite
Scratch, scratch, like a cat
Wanting to leave a locked room

The grey became black
The dust became mountains
And, she saw in here her life
As the clouds became rains

'But look', I put in
'Look what suns I make,
With a caring hand' I
Pushed a finger into the depths

A sunny print came out

Lisping, she rasped her breath back
And put a hand to the black dirt of the breaking
And made a hand-print;
Simple, like her delight

'You will learn to make
Suns of the shadows,
You will learn to make
Smiles of the silences

Your lines will be straighter
Your circles more graceful,
More curved to your *****
More jagged, if you wish.'

I smiled and she nodded
And watched her last tear fall,
Splashing down with tidal forces of sorrow on the page
An artist was born.

'She ain't much of an explorer.'

Wide eyed, stares go blind when poorly aimed
And you have had much practice,
But still, you miss and shoot wildly,
Afraid of your own fogged visions.

And how, how do you think of
All those wild horizons
Where your hero rides into the sun, but
You're too afraid to follow?

I tell you I'm leaving, you ask me, why?
I tell you I've left.
You call me brave, but I'm not.
You're just too much of you.

You ain't much of an explorer.

Playgrounds became lifestyles when I was with her
Outgrown boots shod, dainty feet sat down together
Sat down for a kiss, I didn't think could be sincere,

Because I have problems,
I have woes the epics tell
But she told me different stories, different
Beliefs in me, hopes for my sunlight
Times spent rushing to find a place to smokey intermingle
To gasp each other's air.

I tried to find her as circumstance ripped her away,
But I'm forgetting her as I write this
Unceremoniously awkward, I hate that word, but that was how we left it.
Was it real? Who knows?
My eyes don't like to invent.
When I let the hoods slide over them,
Down, dark, a shelter from the mist
I see a sunny vale again
Where she might be waiting.

And we dipped in the pool
Slowly, rolling, wholly,
The frozen heat fell like icicles
Smoke hugging our bodies

And we shivered
Jagged, razor, haggared,
But the cold went
And my mouth, open, pulled

The pain may have gone
Or not, maybe, matters not
But we froze together
Feeling space and liberation

Our bodies shook
Our minds, spoke, unwind,
Knowing beyond the cold
There was only mystery.

We're not human
Riding on what waves
The length of our spines will flex to
Shiff ff fting focus as if from congealed lenses, blushing crimson worries

I forgot what I was meant to be told
I lost the talismans given me
Pupils leave glass classrooms
And can't be hoped for any more
Than in the grim mission they're handed, but we're not human

For we aren't sorry, not grieving the passing off of pleases
And the absence of grace
No churches, ties or classrooms push us forth no more
We're no longer human
For we forgot how to spell that word
With every ounce of our body

At night the stars seem far away,
But through the dark is light and day.

It's done, not well, but now at least
the journey is all over.
The world has suddenly become
The bright white cliffs of Dover.
The sails have ceased to billow
And I have to disembark.
The animals have all taken
Their due leave of the ark.

Now the warmth of feeling
Is not sweat on my brow
It's the education stealing
My ignorance of now.
They let me taste the honey
And now my tooth is sweet
But today at least the heather
Is growing in the street.

Grateful? I suppose.
But it just set the mark
Where my animals would leave me
And I would leave the ark.

I sought out
A girl whom I could envy
I sought in
A feeling I could control.

Laughing meltwater laughter
Skimming stones with skipping feet
All together
As if nothing were the same as others.

I sought out
A bond forged in experience
I brought in a little less control
I found myself drawn

To just one more hug.

Don't let's go, don't let's be
It's not as simple
As love and hate
For I was not free

I hold your hand and
Feel the shackles
I stroke your hair and
Feel the web.
Sticky.

I look at my feet
As I trot beside you and
I'm led by sticks and carrots
By my endless want for something
You'll have to go away to give me.

Riding the tide
It waves like a wild arm
Crashing into all we know
All childhood comforts gone

We are accountable for:
Our friends
Our homes
Our lives

Nothing could whiten me
But the truth of the fact
That now if I want to eat and sleep
I have to wring myself out
And watch my spirit flow away

Down the tap

Should you find yourself alone
And in need of someone, for
The first time in your woven life
Call on me, my darling
Call on me.

Should you find yourself silent
And in need of someone
To tremble lips and speak
As if they could not think before you
Call on me, my dear
Call on me

Should you find yourself regretting
The long lost tomes of love letters
And the grin of someone more understandable
Him, him, your him,
Call on someone less, my love
Call on me.

Should you find yourself misunderstood,
Mistaken on your sun-netting mountain top
And you need someone who understands down here
Call on me, my only
Call on me

For I am here,
Feet rooted to the ground you walked upon
Hands hanging in the shape of your shoulders
From which you kissed me goodbye,
I am here, for you,
For anything left of you

If you should find yourself taken
By any other than me,
But wonder, what, what would I have been to you
Call on me, my endless happy mistake
Call on me

I'll never stop listening
I keep my ear out to the wind
And feel your flowered words
Brushing against my expectant glance

On a sunny, cloudy day.

You're across
An ocean swell
You're across
A boat's plough crushing
Waves down down

You're beyond
An island crowned in orange cloud
Seagulls busy dancing tangos
On the greasy wind.

You're way past
The strokes of spits of sand saliva
Of palm trees clapping coconuts
Making feigned horsehoove beats
To bring the waves a shouting match.
Roars clean the salty, dry air.

You've passed,
The shallow castles
Of whale dens,
Keeping ships in new homes
Wooden kin with keels and ribs
Flies and jibs.

You're not here, that's for sure,
But,
I feel you,
Maybe somehow.
I do.

Tell me
Frog stories
Hop along
Boring saviour.

I worship
Something less than your greed
**** a life of envy
Leave me to my hole
Low enemies of the conscious state.

Hop hop
I'm a wall to you, but
Can walls be leapt around when
Detached stakes build higher?

Drunk wishes form promises
Stamp letters,
But shuffle, laughing diplomat,
Let me be all you daren't to.

I want home
I want living
In a female goal
But studies tie my hands

Tell me I deserve  this.

Beautiful woman,
Write yourself in the orchid air
With your flowering hair
And your well matched strides in white trainers.

One-of-a-way woman,
Take your time in the daisy weeds
Or the yellow breeds
You pluck with thumb and four fingers.

Sighing woman,
What did you see in the sycamore creek?
Did the gurgling mold froth pinch your cheek
You stirred with kashmir hand?

Beauteous day, crossed the sky with silver trails
In freckled knots of rebirthed trees
And Summer shown in baréd knees
Of beautiful women in swaying silk dresses.

Afire, alight, the hunting stone
The flame burns down deep through the bone
But none may see the tragedy
Of all the hunts gone fruitless.
I don't know how, it's good for I
To try to fret over the sky
For hope and fate are growth and hate
And now I'm driven clueless.

I saw the light of promise die
Those without eyes fall and cry
But this cold night was watertight
My torch still shone the brighter.
I danced around, with light and sound
And without aim an arrow's found
But now the smoke has ceased to choke
I became more the fighter.

The empty space of battlefields
No more is mine to watch and yield
I left the war, but not before
I had my fill of riches.
My comrades fell, alone and cold
I had to leave them, I was told
Their ghosts may chase me through disgrace
Each one left many stitches.

A brief melee, but now it's passed
The future calls, it calls at last.

Speaking to her
Freezes the brain
With a warmth forgotten
From an age of ice

She tells me so much
About myself
It's a sad story
Filled with luck to one who
Found something more terrifying
And almost as beautiful
As all she is.

Blessings
Shook me in her words
Faith
Filled me,
Separated me
Pasts were forgotten
She brought me future.

Maybe I'll tell her,
I've done scarier things
Faced monsters
Walked for years
She scares me more than the life of a beggar
Than bullets
Than more torture.

I know
I want
I need
What she has

When cowards flirt
Sparks don't fly
Arrows don't fly
Birds don't fly
They don't even sing

When cowards flirt
There's no amazement
There's no tomorrow, or when
Drums don't beat

When cowards flirt
Hope takes a pounding
The heart packs up and
Moves to the throat

When cowards flirt
It sounds like sorry
It sounds like the wind blowing through you
They run

When cowards flirt
It sounds like a boring question
Aimed at making conversation
End quicker

When cowards flirt
The touch on your arm
Is wiping away the drink they spilled
And the tension says later

When cowards flirt
The kiss on your cheek
Stays in the head
Stays on their trembling lips

When cowards flirt
Ash is less subtle an indication
Of flame
Of feeling

When cowards flirt
It sounds like see you never
It sounds like running away
It sounds like thinking what I should have done
And never did

It's a funny thing;
The essence of survival,
Breathe a last breath
Others gave you and feel,
Try to feel
Stretch your arms out
And feel the open air.

I met a man,
And grew with him
He went were I went
And looked like me, like lines of me
His silhouette was my shadow
And I grew to fit him, like worn shoes

Somebody asked me, that day
What I'm passionate about
Survival, I suppose
But I lied, like always,
Truth found me long ago,
But when I find a little more
Like gold buried in montains of green
Of bedrock and mystery, thick-headed and sorry
My hands get weaker
My fingers slip,

Say goodbye to me, every day
It's appropriate
I'm learning something new each time I see you
And I'm becoming nebulous, cloudish
As if whispers don't fit me anymore
Nothing much does,
I'm something dark now
Beckoning
To a younger me.

I walked among fire
And felt the heat,
The hearth the life,
The world a barren canvas

I took those steps
And found white light my pure feeling
Shared smiling lips amongst ourselves and took on lovers
In feelings we took for each other, bundled
Like reeds so thin

We walked together, arm in arm
Pebbles scattered at our feet in the red dirt,
And thought blood, blood
blood can be our cry from now

We took those days in hand
And led them on
Dried their succulence in the sun
Tasted never
Not for their promise.

And that promise wilted, like so many flowers
Those white lights grew dimmer
As we walked towards them through rushes, our fingers
Spider-like on the veil of what we wanted.

We got there, and saw the light was out
The candle never burned, the feeling never lived
Our eyes for what could be
Wetted with what was
And we lived on in the world of short, long days.

A bird flies
Nature throws itself to the wind
And all enchanted bodies
Sleep not tonight

Roaring tides of sea took clouds
As chariots deep and light as terror
Or awe at what could be the last
Wink of lightning on chains of evening

I rooted myself to this bushel
And bore the berry, nature told me thus
For life may be as fruit near fallen
Or rotten-putrid, alcoholic mess.

Driftwood sees me early
And I wake when the storm is over
Not me I told, not shaven me
I am wild now, I have seen the cold.

So woe, those days may live again,
But I will take the razor once more
And live as apes may call themselves human
And live as comfortably as I may after all.
Away from the storm,
But not gone.

We all deserve to have our story to brag about
We all are just trying to stumble through this human fever,
Together.

So,
Hush now, ignorant blessing
Float forward, a smoky charcoal dream
So that we may one day,
Eat our visions.

Well,
Let the whole world dine!
Together

Why does he..?
Why?
Why does he sit at books and read them.
They should sanction him,
Let's go and play football.

Why has he..?
Why?
Why has he not come to the pub?
We're waiting to get drunk.
Let's go get drunk.

Why is he..?
Why?
Why is he the boss?
Did you not hear that he didn't have fun?
Didn't he?

This one knows
Sadness is short,
But so is happiness.
Don't flood your brain with chemicals, he said,
Satisfaction is my drug.

And then they saw him,
Wise to all who were,
Pale skin,
Scarred skin,
Satisfied.

There is a place I think of last
Before each night and day,
Where night is green and never black
When all else turns to grey.

Here the river flows as if
Each gurgle were its first
And bamble sleepy insects might
Adance, alight, athirst.

The moss-hugged giants curl their toes
And lead them down to shore.
Ta-woo, Ta-woo, the tawny goes
Before he hunts for more.

The fullest moon, or thinnest yet,
Contented with its fill,
Grows fat on sight of river night
And lets its bounty spill.

And, lo! Take care! Don't scare it so...
The pearl of heaven falls
And leaps about the laps and waves
While the 'hopper calls.

Sparkling droplets take their rests
By friends lost in the day.
Chatter, chuckle, laugh they will;
Happy, oh so gay!

They wind around my feet, aflare,
Carrying their gifts.
Given all to waterfall
As my mind becomes the drifts

As my breath becomes the wind,
As my eyes become the deep.
As shadows o'er the shallows skip
I shall live and never sleep.