I have stolen from men
And I have stolen
From God; pawns,
Bishops and
Chess boards, bits
And bobs
That escaped creation
But I suspect it is all
Mostly fraud, or
At the very least
Just mundane and
Flawed,  

Alas, I shall stash it
Without a sound, but
Where do I hide my hoard
If those who come snatching
Aren't far off,

Where do I repent
For my crimes, and where
Does this robber of time
Find himself when the day
Has come to an end
And there
Are no more locks to pick,

When the candles
That keep the rooms lit
Devour themselves
And the night
Comes crawling in,

When the crows retire
Their thieving beaks
And refuse to sing,

Where
Does forgiveness lurk
In this great mess, is
There a church
Behind the curtain
Or has the robber
Laid a curse
Upon that too,

And tell me, does
The devil wear smiles
And glee
When she visits
To ask for the lock
But not the key, or
Is it you
Who visits her
To pay up what is
Long overdue,

When will it all end,
The thieving
And the pleading, the
Hapless exchange
Of leaking plans
From uncut hands,

No one now is listening
And all the ears are closed
To the ******* hands
That touch
Strangers’ hearts
Without a sound,

And now I presume
To ask; when
Can I steal the ark
And watch
As my guilt struggles
And drowns.

The light has dispersed
And migrated
To another crack in the universe; somewhere
Shut off from those
Who are so acutely delirious, a place
Where you can mingle with a docile smile
And weary half-shut pupils.

Somewhere shrouded in half-cut peace
And dwindling creases in bone-white cheeks.

When the light
Has found this place
I shall roam the foreign streets, ducking
My way through the brick retreats
And sleeping bodies, squeezing
Through huddles of gristly hands
That sit upon embers and
Empty stomachs.

I shall
Ignore all this and rather
Look upon the sides of buildings
Where pictures can linger
Of children
Grasping red balloons
Or of husbands
Washing up famished teaspoons, my
Eyes are welcomed by these sights
For they are dull
But they are so very kind.

And, when I am asked
Why I stand here, waiting, on the curb
In my damaged demeanor
I shall say,

“I am crowned Lucifer, fallen
From the edge of envy, shut
Out from the clouded glory, and now
Tasked to seek a question, a
Time-weathered question”.

And the crowds
Will reply in their frayed utterings
And silver-laced mutterings,

“We do not know
The queries you seek, or
Why you stand
Upon the ledge of the street, alas
We do not know what it is
You seek at all”.

And so,
The brick and concrete
Will have to do, it is where
I have made my bed
And where I shall lay
With my wings clipped and
Smile cracked, but
I am not yet dead, only my
Hands which sit dipped
In the gutter, and I natter
And I mutter -

“Where does the Morningstar go
When the gates are sealed
And the couples have gone to bed
And all that can be heard,

‘Am I dead,
Am I not yet dead ?’ ”

These words that I muster
And create (these words
That I bleed and paint)
Take on the form
Of a twin-headed snake
And they let out a snigger
And a slither, intertwined
And brittle, my
Voice passes on
Thinner than before.

When the light has dispersed
And migrated
To another crack in existence; somewhere
Shut off from those
Who are so acutely delirious, a place
Where you can mingle with docile smiles
And weary half-shut pupils.

Somewhere shrouded in half-cut peace
And dwindling creases in bone-white cheeks.

When the light
Has found this place
I shall roam the foreign streets, ducking
My way through the brick retreats
And sleeping bodies, squeezing
Through huddles of gristly hands
That sit upon embers and
Empty stomachs.

I shall
Ignore all this and rather
Look upon the sides of buildings
Where pictures can linger
Of children grasping red balloons
Or of men washing up teaspoons, my
Eyes are welcomed by these sights
For they are dull
But so very kind.

And, when I am asked
Why I stand, waiting, on the curb
I shall say,

“I am Lucifer, fallen
From the edge of envy, shut
Out from the pearl clouds and
Tasked to seek a time weathered  
Question”.

I do not think
They shall believe me
When I try to tell them
And I do not think
They shall understand.

And so,
The brick and concrete
Will do, it is where
I have made my bed,
I shall lay
Wings clipped and
Smile cracked, hands dipped
In the gutter, and I natter
And I mutter -
These words that I muster
And create
Take the form
Of a twin-headed snake
And they snigger and
They slither, intertwined
And brittle
They pass on thinner
Than before.

Today is a crow day, a day
Where I shall mimic
The winged coal, and pick
Deeper at the ground, do
They seek food ? Or is it
Purely to play their role ?

They do not nest
In burrows in the earth, nor
In homes made of dirt, but
They have found their place
In the somber alleys
Of some wrinkled face.

Today is a crow day, a day
To wear a beaked mask
Of prestige, to uphold
My place as a distant link
In the chain, a lonely son
Of shadows and liberty.

I have become fond
Of their mischief, the way
They coo on repeat
At passing dogs and other
Furry things, I think
They only wish to be seen.

Today is a crow day, a day
Where I shall yearn for the wind
And some sharp change
In the weather, I hope for clouds
To conceal my dull eyes
And my betrayed wings.

I have never seen them
Lose their obsidian gleam, are
They careful with their coats
Or is it luck ? Or perhaps
They are the directors
Of all things lost.

Today is a crow day, a day
To stare with guilt
And envy, a day to peck
At redundant trinkets
That lay abandoned
On half-built bridges.

Alas, I do not know much
About the crow, but I have
Noticed when they linger
And when they go, when
They tire and
When they cease.

Today is a crow day, a day
To be whisked into
All the chaos and glee
That persits
Through echoed existence
As this feathered fiend.

Lately i’ve been enjoying the eastside
Of the beach, to the left of the pier,
A mile or two down
Where the people are sparse and
The stones seem plentier, it’s
All so much prettier there.

Dotted about
The seagulls are at rest, cooped up
Into a nest of equilibrium
Between earth and sea, I
Have found myself mimicking
These coastal fiends, as I too perch
Onto the world and wait
But unlike these natives I do not
Know what I wait for.

The sound of authenticity
Hurries along the downtime,
Of late Lennon has found
Himself in my ear
But I do not think he knows
Why he arrived here, and
I do not think I have the
Means to tell him.

This place where I sit, this
Man-made beast wedged
Between two crowds
Of pebbles and weeds, this
Place is where i’ve found
Resonance with time
And all her happenings,
Where I go to watch the
World function as she should.

Middle aged men find
Themselves stripped down and
Engrossed in the cold waters, I
Am in awe of the freedom
They exhibit and
I wonder if they know
Their limits ? There
Is beauty in their playfulness,
For a brief moment
They revert to innocence,
I do not think they came
To impress me but alas
They make me laugh,
Something even the waves
Have failed in recently.

And in these waves,
Waves on the brink of winter
That foam the edges
Of my shoes and spit
Salt and purity at my face,
These waves carry
The sound of a girl
Who cried wolf, I fear
This is only my reflection,
Fragmented between
The ripples, alas
The sea does not stop
For me to ask questions.

Time dances along, maybe it
Is her I see in the ebb and flow
Of the emerging tide ? Or maybe
She lingers in the man
Who owns the red kayak, he’s
Only a few metres from where I sit
But his mind is far off, I wonder
Where he wishes he could be, I
Do not think it is France, for that
Place is much too far, and
I do not wish him to stay in his
Kayak for much longer, but
That does not seem to be
An option.

And the girl will cry wolf, perhaps
This fact of life is why
I find myself glued to
The beach on the eastside and
Not with the free minds
To the right of the pier, perhaps
This is why I grow older
With each visit and why
The middle aged men
Have found their
Youth again.

Summer spent her last breath today,
A breath that still lingers on across the hills,
Filling spaces in between the bushes
That run parallel to the rambler’s routes,
She paints a shallow layer of verdant, kissing
Her mark upon the cheeks of the land,
An annual goodbye before she disembarks.

Autumn speaks, his spit fires off and pushes out
The thin remnants of Summer’s song, the colour
Turns flat, greens become murky, and
The shimmering glare that filtered the leaves
Now turns dull, paving the way
For yellow and rust, and joyless lungs.

Winter drowns all in glitter and white flame,
Burning the remnants of Autumn’s change,
She brings comforting dreams
To the sleeping fauna and staples
The grey flora into the tundra-like soil,
She shrinks the trees, the hills
And the grass
But alas she never lasts.

Spring comes quietly, a drastic change
But she is never boastful of the life
She brings, the blessed births
And the reformed prisoners, she
Breaks the chains of Winter, defrosting
The world and allowing colour
To return; the world is now emerald
And shall remain this way
For ninety days or so.

How do I play with this
Devil-dealt hand. When
Each card ignites at the touch,
Now my hands have become callous
And rough
But still they are clean, indeed
They are clean. I
Do not care to mend them
But I admit
I worry who shall
Comfort them, if they shall
Receive comfort at all.

How then, do I proceed
Through hell, through
This brittle landscape
Forged from badluck
And prescribed
Mistakes.

Perhaps, I shall laugh
As Dante does and
Perhaps, I shall dance
As time has done.