Painted a devil on every face
Lest he find me unaware
Looked for him in everyone
Looked for him everywhere

Turned every saint into a sinner
In the hell scape of my mind
And on a breath of ambiguity
I’d leave them all behind

But here’s some grace my timid heart:
When trust had only met despair  
Of course you saw a devil
In everyone and everywhere

And now you know with a wiser heart
We are neither gods nor ghouls
but a clumsy dance between the two
We’re all wise men and all fools

We loved the rain for its rebellion on time
The way that heavy skies defied the hour
And the blanket of clouds said rest now
This day is for you
To stay in bed with your lover
Or a book that understands you
The way the sky roiled low and dark
Not to smother or drown us
But to antidote our time poison
And wash us back into that which we are.
Infinite

These feelings we malign as demons
And the ones we revere as gods

Have us clawing at our ears
to mute a painful crucible
And grasping for a lofty comfort which inevitably rots

My hands stretch before me
Fingers Lagging, drawing light
Watching me
curiously watching them,
with their ten knowing eyes.
A thousand snakes
with oil-slick skin
Writhe peaceably together
in omnipotent melody
They do not worry,
about their radiator,
Or taxes, or time.
Passers-by:
Their voices float to me
through layers of sticky amber
Warming their tones
to a psychedelic dance.
The leaves whisper as I breathe,
A symbiotic flamenco
My mother has done well,
I'm told
My son is kind.
My daughter is afraid,
But brave.

I begin; where
you end, I begin

A sun’s
  Throw; The moons
Catch; A vow
breaths
     rise; Blood’s
    Rush; a return

A mother,
an egg; a crack
A fledgling, became
A mother;
an egg; a birth

A falling seed;
Earth; a crack
The sun’s
Throw; the rains
Catch; A sprout
An obstinance
A giant;
A falling seed

I begin, where
You end; I begin

Giant golden orb, primed,
the Scorpions tail delivers her blow
And I, in futile preparedness,
crushed between her barb and the centaurs insecure rage.
Unabashed love the second casualty
as Mars raised his sword 3 times and struck with Aries force,
a tsunami into gentle waters.
Later the fish, the fish in the whirlpool,
he chewed mercilessly,
he was not hungry for flesh but for innocence
and he feasted to corruption.
And I, with bitter hopefulness,
purged the fish through one way inverse fury.
Adrift at sea, the second god of war,
carried to lucent quartz shores,
captured the tsunami for his salvation, dragging her to the desert.
And I, all watery doggedness, laboured for her a thorny oasis
from which the second god of war was banished.
Whence fair daughter of Gaia in refined tenderness,
delivered the gift between life and language,
Blushing song of refuge.

She was safe
on the days she gave the panacea of invisibility for her mothers nostalgic melancholy
and her fathers scalding vitriol.
They were happy
on days that she pushed her abrasively cheerful spirit all the way down
to the place in herself where the too loud things were sent to be ignored.
She was respected
In the moments she feigned premature maturity,
played dress up as the defeated adult version of herself
and sat quietly joyless at the table of the honoured sombre.

Survival for the girl
Became defeat for the woman

The love she sought by becoming the elixir for the woes of those she loved, became the guillotine where reciprocity went to die.