watch them dance.
see the way the blood trails behind?
vivid footprints, declarations of madness,
a history lain in red paint and black ink
a story, seeping from an open palm
to pool with indifference across the college-ruled stage.
watch them dance.
the impacts, do you feel them?
those collisions of thought and language
wherein reason is sought through brutal force,
berating the ears as they skate and
sprint across the plastic tiled minefield
of truth and bludgeoned metaphor.
watch them dance.

Called back after years away
a voyage once more to the fray
to live amongst forgotten days
to few and far between.

To anxious, nervous, brave that door
re-enter worlds ‘akin’ to yours
to take the plunge to reach the side
of friends you left behind.

To be greeted there by sleeping eyes
and busy hands and nothing “hi”s
but for the girlfriend of a friend
and a kid you never knew.

Bereft of meaning, course, or rhythm
floating lost in my little corner
struck by how great the divide
has grown through intervening years

Triple-eyed,
The mind divine
stumbles o'er its
fetid feet

seeing but not
knowing, what
thoughts there
must be growing, but

ever downwards
does it mumble.
Blinded, that
marble face.

The pestilence of greed and fire
inching winching crux desire
feeding off the lives and livers
rotting in an open grave.
The meaningless and base of choirs
calling to the bed of liars
dreaming screaming down on heaven;
begging for that grand release.
These the sounds and sights of days
gone by, enshrined, in tragic blaze.
Of lovers lost in mingled haze
all strewn and torn asunder.
By mighty men and gods of thunder
raining bombs upon eachother
leaving in their wake the weary,
hopeless, and the ******.

Yet from these ashes grave and barren
from this soil sewn of blood
there comes from under, sleek and shining
blossoms of an open bud.
These blighted fields, clear-cut and quartered,
forests downed in disarray
yet still may feel the light of morn
the golden glow, a new day.
The green amidst the darkness, spreading
life amongst the white toothed rows.
A beauty still, this scar’ed smile.

buried half in half I watch
the crescent of your face,
sunken to the pillow, sleeping
miles from our nearing noses.
Hopeless 'crost this gap I linger
listening to your anxious rustlings,
playing back the hour's horrors,
staring at your one closed eye.
Waiting out the distance
mine own mind wanders
sinking back to ifs and maybes
stewing in the seas of self.
If I'd given you the blankets, if I'd
stayed to hold my own.
If I'd done my part, I could have kept
your heart from aching, racing.