Just a bumbling bee
who purposely flies
into the same web
he managed to escape
time and time again
even if only
to gaze upon
the hourglass
of the black widow
who only wishes
to bleed him dry

It is July and it is Sunday.
A dark, restless Sunday.
Morning hangs like incense: suspended on the kestrel's wooden wings.

Lucidity is but an inky tumult blotting the night's waning stars:
disparate, faceless grey among a growing blackness.
The smoke of a short-lived fire.

The wind hastens. The arms of a birch fold and the church's vane rotates.
The theatre! The anticipation.
The muteness of the rain on a distant field.

Approaching the red-brick house that burns with darkening rooms:
streaks of silver gilding the margin of it's cloaked black eyes.
A hammer falls on this great, wide anvil:

scales of iron scatter and resonate in the upper atmosphere.
I cannot bear to look.
Not far to the left, at the terminal of a tunnel of some fluted grey fabric,

white plumes rise and expand and shadow at the edges.
I walk toward them, over the ghost of an old rain, to a familiar garden:
heather and clover proliferate in it's borders - they are to be hoed constantly.

Hedges of yew and box are to be stripped of the green coats
spring afforded them, tailored to my will and at my expense.
I fight life and nature equally. Forming a transient perfection here.

Perfection soon to be enveloped by the lavender and the stocks,
then themselves by the bind-**** that has taken to their blooms and stems,
to my very roots. All is sustained by this rain, this depressive dampness.

Night funeral
     In Harlem:

     Where did they get
     Them two fine cars?

Insurance man, he did not pay--
His insurance lapsed the other day--
Yet they got a satin box
for his head to lay.

     Night funeral
     In Harlem:

     Who was it sent
     That wreath of flowers?

Them flowers came
from that poor boy's friends--
They'll want flowers, too,
When they meet their ends.

     Night funeral
     in Harlem:

     Who preached that
     Black boy to his grave?

Old preacher man
Preached that boy away--
Charged Five Dollars
His girl friend had to pay.

     Night funeral
     In Harlem:

When it was all over
And the lid shut on his head
and the ***** had done played
and the last prayers been said
and six pallbearers
Carried him out for dead
And off down Lenox Avenue
That long black hearse done sped,
     The street light
     At his corner
     Shined just like a tear--
That boy that they was mournin'
Was so dear, so dear
To them folks that brought the flowers,
To that girl who paid the preacher man--
It was all their tears that made
     That poor boy's
     Funeral grand.

     Night funeral
     In Harlem.

My soul

frowns as
it drowns

in the floods
of a broken
heart

tearing me
apart

must the
pain

remain
in me

you see

happiness
stays inside

but

theres still
days
where sadness
resides

it hides

for a while

but

when it creeps
i paint a
smile

up and down
days

in and out
phase

cut wrist
death wish

then i see
light

future bright

in the
stillness

of my
illness

i try to
figure
me out

my conclusion...

is pure
confusion

There is absolutely nothing about these words that will, or should, make me famous.

They are just words – an outpouring that means everything to me, and not a thing to anyone else.

You see, I’m not the only person that has felt as though their insides are barrelling down into a bottomless void. I’m not the only one that feels a tightness around their chest whilst they flail inwardly – cursing at their longing in the face of indifference.

I’m not alone in staring beyond seeing at an inanimate object – echoes of significance attached that only make sense to two people, and one of them doesn’t care anymore.

It’s easy to say that I opened my heart – the hard reality is that the invited slammed the door.

It’s easy to say why me, what did I do, what didn’t I do, I did everything… but it’s not what I did. It’s not what I didn’t do. It’s not who I am. It’s who I never have been.

I don’t fit. I don’t fill the mould. I never met the criteria, I invented my own. I was there at the right time – and I was still there, when it was the wrong time. Still waiting, still fighting, still working, still figuring it out.

Apparently it gets easier. Apparently I will move on. Apparently there are fish, in a sea, and I hear that one of them will be right for me.

I see the logic, I am lucid enough.

But I also see him saying “no”, when I ask if it’s me that he loves.

Spirituality without religion, politics without opinion
My knowing soul blinks into the ebbing light
Outrunning the plodding clockwork:
My inner intrepid sprints into the hazy night

All at once, the arc slits the velveteen,
The searchlights are pounding
Their harsh silence crashes in my ears,
My beatnik – she’s drowning

The magician holds a rope ladder
Spun of parotted truths and ink print thoughts:
My knowing soul blinks,
And stays its lonely course