“Who comes home,
At one A.M. on a Friday night?
Aren’t you older than that?”

Who even thinks,
Of ghost lips on a ghost body?
On a ghost beach in a ghost city.

The lines on my palm flow like currents,
They break apart like the tide.
So is this the separation point?
Is this where my life splits off?
Is this my great choice?

Oh but sunshine,
I just want your vanilla kisses.
There is no choice,
Just an angel’s embrace.
And if only you were here,
To make it all alright.
I just want your hands pressed against my chest.

If I shut my eyes,
I am in a tunnel,
My head pressed against the window,
The lights dancing through my eyelids.
If I shut my eyes,
I am transitory.

If I shut my eyes.
I am not here.

But the current has been broken,
And I am forever left on this end of the tide.
Stranded in the cold of winter.

I have you in my sight
Time to take that picture
Saving it with your name
So you can look yourself up

Tell me where you are now
I need to know for your safety
Forget about privacy
Everyone's life is becoming an open book

Film all of your surroundings
to give memories more meaning
You look so much more happier
with that shining bright filter on

Slave of the new media
Need to confirm my existence
So please give me your opinion
to make my wasted days count

Conversations made
through meaningless stares at the screen
Real emotions never shown
Only delivered

Have you heard the news?
Why are you ignoring me?
Because everybody else has heard
about the truth of my lies

After a long stay of depression,
he awoke on his motorbike
beneath a searing rainbow sunset.

The mountains arched silhouettes
as he tore through the highway
in the still-image of youth.

Slow evenings spent unwinding,
numbing himself with changes
and the crudeness of a new tongue.

On the shoulder of Kalasin,
in a nowhere-town province,
he had tasted everything.

Ate with his hands
on decorated tables,
trekked the petrified forest

on Christmas Eve;
somewhere between all of this,
he finally learned to live.

After a long stay of depression,
he rolled away the stone.
Found himself six thousand miles

from anyone he had known.
No one can speak English here.
Today, he learned the word for ‘home’.

i have swallowed
the cosmos
whole.
the resultant morning
sickness informs me that
perhaps i am now its mother--
for a mother may
devour her children but never digest
them. my jaw
splits with the swallowing &
my hunger, never rational,
sets this meal in motion:
i feel it squirm in my stomach
as the acrid burning of gastric juices
sears the sphere of the fixed
stars like cigarette burns
on a tapestry. somewhere a möbius strip
rips itself in two.

coyotes like
magenta-clad twentysomethings
screaming:
singing at the unearthly
hour when I
watched the desert
stars overhead and
now I wonder what else it is they’ve
killed

and maybe if I’d hung enough
dreamcatchers I would have
caught all the dreams that
pulled me past
you (step
into my parlor said the spider to the
fly

but what is it anyway that sticks between your eyelids when you
sleep when you
keep your eyes shut and your mouth
open does the sandman glue them
together to resign you to your own
blindness

be careful with your eyes sweetheart because
too many waterfalls leave
cataracts in their wake.

A shout across spacetime--
infinite
simal beam of light.

The warm overwash of watercolor cadence--
joy of numbers not
patterned together before under your
nameless eyes faceless voice--

When you stand in the wheatfield
the crows sing, too
if you listen.

When you make love to me, you unbutton
     The black jeans of the universe,
You discover worlds, paths, stars,
Dwarves and giants, the viciousness
     Of a blackhole, a machine,
          Swallowing everything.
Yes, you make love to me,
As though to pour milk on the full moon,
     You turn q into d, my love,
          A crochet to a demisemiquaver,
And you make rhapsodies and raptures,
     And records, as I make them envy,
          All the suns.*

© 2016 J.S.P.

How  do  the  tourist's
know  I'm  local.
They  are  always  stopping  me.
And  asking  the  way  to  the  lake.
Perhaps  It's  because
I'm  walking  on  my  own.

Keith  Wilson.  Windermere.  UK.  2016.

Sat  on  a  bench  in  the  park  today.
A  Chinese  tourist  was­  down  
on  her  knees.
Taking  photo's  of  the
daises  in  the­  grass.
We  would  never  think
of  doing  that.

Keith  Wilson.­  Windermere.  UK.  2016.

Comes a time
when the mathematics
of the years
becomes more about
- than +,
÷ rather than x.

When wisdom gained
< vitality lost,
and dis-ease > health.

A good night's sleep
and some energy ≈
happiness.

Living is
tangential
to survival,
and not
necessarily
congruent.