that poetry

    evoking acerbic memories
of sweating in a desk at school
reading ye olde english poems
in a classroom under roman rule

allusions across the palette
and writing essays on single stanzas

deep
deeper
snooze fest

nodding off to Elizabethan sonnets
& kipping through Victorian elegies
with Eminem blaring through earphones
rapping hip modern lingo.

Leonardo played Romeo
either Di Vinci
or Di Caprico
for all i know the ninja turtle.

60's sunglasses Dylan
with his
sharp witted
politically satirical songs
backed by harmonica
scatters the crowd
stinking up the room with sarcastic views.

we want artists
depressed
and on xanax
mumbling and grunting
(subtitles read 'inaudible')
sporting face tattoos
lifted out of a colouring book

money
cars
jewelry

gangs
guns
drugs

reality    meets    tomfoolery

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

newspaper printing machine
in your pockets
shoving vibrating headlines
in your faces every minute

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

detached monk
who sold his fiat
living on rain water
grubs and beetles.

Charles Blondin would fall
from that tightrope
slippery *****
                        slinging
religion
reality tv
& *******

fighting *****
                        techniques
rope-a-dope
choke-holds
& undertakers tombstone

jokes
(legal disclaimer
feeble waiver)

t&c's will get ya.

for Lee Miller

// LIBERATED FROM CAMPS //

born on foreign shore
falling beyond the crest of the equatorial horizon
to family washed up in a shipwrecked fleet
while fleeing the camps and tattoo stamps of war.

displaced and placed on a privileged pedestal
i pick and pluck the petals inside my mind
while the compass needle spins in distress
searching for direction and equilibrium.

in a basket with statues of stone faced settlers
and sunburnt segregation lawmakers
the shadow cast in concrete moulds
hangs over me unyielding to the African sun.

cultivating gritty soil in a field of weeds
to sow seeds for wings in the coming season
before taking flight from untarred runways
into skies of cosmic possibilities.

keys to my congenital shackles
and chastity belt of literary aspirations
lie above the clouds in faraway towns
or below the gravel of my local grave.

// REMINGTON SILENT //

under marching fingertips
the typewriter's pitter-patter tiptoed in silence
as if the letters punched were bandits
planting pamphlets of propaganda.

a poet wrote his last stanza in London
under downpour of blitzkrieg bomb storms
crushing the keys and mangling the machine
his words are all the remain.

"Here the crow starves, here the patient stag
Breeds for the rifle…"

I.
With Tongues Cut Out

The knife is mightier than the pen
when the writing on the wall spells out
'hands in manacles
and feet in shackles for innocent writers'
while gangs run the empty streets
leading to overflowing morgues.

Banner shadow play falls over jesters
hanging from puppet strings
at the hands of trigger-happy
self-appointed kings
who write horror scripts
recited by the comedy production
at the united nations of starvation.

Clinics filled with prophets
who flew ignored warning signs
in the darkness of algorithm skies  
designed by gimmicks of  
clicks billed for profits.

Rouge vermillon flags and berets
form a red sea of people
with a full hand of joker cards in a game euchre.
They shuffle rival tables
for first draft deals
fallen from conveyor belts
serving meals of shiny plastic fruit.  

Blue birds plagiarize
and sing the olive branch song
while flying over white nights into a landslide
crash-landing from heights
signed on the first
exploding in tunnel-vision shouting
from left to right
  diverged and reversed.

  II.
Special Needs of the Entitled

Orange jackets dressed in disguise
as multicolored coats
in the town of naked emperors
on their knees
at the foot of a hollow throne.

Fifteen minutes of spotlight
is sold at crossroads
for souls
trapped under mouse mind control
damaged and caged
in happy-ever-after city.

Blue ticks bite through bright lit screens
pulling the strings of wallflower fever
in an echo chamber of partisan screams.

A falling feather in the arctic summer
rises on a pendulum weighed down
by a pinch of salt of the earth
sprinkled with spoons of weightless self-worth
and the nerve to disturb the universe.

   III.
Self Defense Classes  

Purple bags fall in the hands of pupils
seeking dilated nights
with sprinting minds behind wide eyes
in a race of blinkered horses
on a course inside a skull shaped coop
with lanes drawn in sandy lines.

Spiked seats on concrete floor stations
hide behind broken latch doors
in bathroom stall conference rooms
drip
           drop
                        dead
for the water of life is poison
and the medicine is venom.
Your daily dose of choices
lie between the bottom of a bottle
or staring down a barrel
(though red and blue
                                       are but two)
  
A recent review
for 'the last voice of reason' read:
/
too depressed to be iconic
too cynical to be ironic.

    IV.
The Way, the Truth & the Death

Stained glass distorts the view
through cathedral windows,
painting a rainbow over drowning floods
and warping the picture seen from pews.

Thorny-stemmed yellow roses
lie spread across sallow sanatoriums  
at the feet of newfangled sunset beds
    while some envy the dead.

The first visit tore the world apart
with unholy crusades and war.
The second coming will end it all
                        first with whimpers
  then the second big bang.

tangled up in you

she listens to bob dylan,
while in her eyes
i see a constellation.
it has a hold on me
that i am unable to escape,
the way that her loose-fitting jumper
       drapes off of her shoulder
     makes me shudder
  makes me scamper through
my mind to find
suitable words,
to describe
the way that i'm feeling.

she casts a dizzying spell on me,
emotions that's crash heavily
on my soul. i lose control.
i drown in the sound
of her heartbeat.
the melodies of
            'tangled up in blue'
   and the waves of her hair.
her eyes are an lake,
the depths unknown.

what is beneath the shades
of emerald green
is certainly a mystery,
my curiosity compels
me to dive into her.  
the deeper i swim,
the deeper
  i free fall. it's so easy,
after all.
with the unknown comes a danger,
but equally, there is a wonder.
a beauty too magical for the surface,
however,
the majesty of her soul -
is matched only,
by her face.

// Ce monde me réduit à rien. Cela me porte jusqu'au bout. Sans colère, il nie que j'existe. Et, acceptant ma défaite, je me dirige vers une sagesse où tout a déjà été conquis - sauf que les larmes me viennent aux yeux, et ce grand sanglot de poésie qui me gonfle le cœur me fait oublier la vérité du monde //

we exist in a black & white world
where they burn your flag & your pride
if you stray outside the confining outlines

loose cannon jazz leads to blue looks
for swimming upstream to birth cool
in a pace which rips through rule books

black sheep are shot for grazing at night
in a fight against driftwood wearing hoods
instead of uniform peaks, woven in lilywhite

snowflakes aim to form a synchronized shape
& euthanize, medicate & lobotomize
Houdini’s who break or partake in a chain escape

led by lego brick leaders
stacked thick in piles of dimes a dozen
fed stacks to build a kingdom for the one

throw your TV’s through the window of possibilities
& step outside the jars of clay
spinning in the hands of potters plotting a payday by foul-play

follow brave men down the road not taken
where the grass is greener & the air is cleaner
for the paved path ends at a kool-aid drinking fountain.

the blue clock ticks
with poor man marching boots
on a night
unwilling to wave goodbye,
overstaying her sky time
and shutting out
the skipping rope sun,
stealing his moment
in the light of day.

fleeing the scene,
carrying a satin-sack
bag of tricks
over my shoulder,
stuffed with a mix of gimmicks
and chips -
i crawl on my knees
on the lost chord path
blindly
following the hollering
blackbirds song
from the hovering,
hanging sky.

a vision of paradise
adds the last bundle of straw
to the cross i carry
across my broken back
in a one-way
seaside lane
on the beat off track
where a pendulum seesaw ship
swims to the shore,
calling my name.

in a race to save my face
on the spinning globe
roundabout,
the pickup stick paramedics
stop to disinfect my ****** knees
and resurrect me
with a white Gemini ointment.
while pumping my chest and
pressing the creases
of my ***** laundry -
back from the brink
i blink and beg:
**** me,
please.

Among stumbling puffs of bar smoke
strung fumbling huffs of guitar croaks
serpent charmer ******* nylon tightropes
trapeze mastery floating notes seamlessly.

polyphiloprogenitive poet
launching dancing pages on rocket ships
shooting starry winged syllables off lips
dripping rhythmic shaking hips.

Lungs absorbing tufts of juniper soaked
drums bubbling cuffs of marred tokes
tip-toes hover
soft ripples invisible
beer pools stir splashing eager.

puffing chests
burst through door frames -
goggles rocked out
whisky knocked back
heads balloon and winks meet smirks
seeking moon starved warmth.

Voodoo raves
howling smiles
echoing violet cannons

blue suede caboose
shaking sleep,
violent rivers seep
soaking tents

standing knees weak
falling waterfall thighs
dripping secrets

moaning secretes
swamped burning
voodoo rains
smiling howled
echoes.