By my own contrivance (or not)
Cloaked in some distant shroud obscure
There was a little fire (I thought)
Floating, phantom angler's lure
Will-o'-the-wisp on brittle ice
Beguiling in its sinuous prance
Waiting for lost souls to entice
With symphonies of fervent dance
With final breaths it doth abscond
An elemental Charon, gone
To the bottom of its frozen pond
And endless sleep without a yawn
Breathlessness of ebullient flight
Effervescent, long out of sight

Your shingled roof keeps the sunbeams out of your head
Greasy grime-stained glass windows tint your cracked worldview
Spite dripping from the meaningless words you said
Time and again it rears its ugly head anew
Tiles misaligned by the slow shaking of years past
Rusted doorknob yielding to splintered wooden door
Vestiges of reason leave your mind all too fast
Eaten by insecurities, razed to the floor
Graffiti and dirt lie intertwined on your walls
Fractured wallpaper peels away in strips and flakes
The answering machine inside holds no more calls
The dusty mould on the tabletop swells and cakes
Broken pipes and tangled wires climb up your side
As varicose veins snaking up your wizened spine
All your flaws leak out and there's nowhere left to hide
Groaning in the wind, your voice hissing "They're not mine!"
Your boarded-up middlesection is always torn
Wind-ripped by desolating gusts of delusion
The flight of fancy, the gloried facade you've worn
Hangs from bitten brick, a decomposed illusion

You see the fruits upon the trees
But nothing of the seeds
The painful rise above the ground
The strangling of the weeds

You gaze out upon the lazy lakes
And hear not the rushing noise
That river water and gravel makes
Feeding it from far away

You simply love the summer rain
But know not of the way
The tears of gods precipitate
Someplace above the gray

You look in wonder at glacial ice
Not knowing how all the time
It shudders and crumbles and it dies
From the burden of itself

I am the earth; I quake and heave
You see mere pools, not reservoirs
Of seeping fury when I breathe
My violent anger from my floors

We were running together, side by side
Slapped by fat droplets of midnight shower
Which burst upon touching our pale foreheads
And streamed as tears down the sides of our cheeks
We drank in the presence of each other
As the wilted trees around us, the rain
Letting the poison ivy scratch our legs
While we escaped from those in people's words
With all the venom coursing through our veins
You untied your hair; it streaked behind you
Blacker and more beautiful than the night
I still remember - I can still hear it
The way our ragged voices would unite
As we sat upon the wet, shining grass
Tilting our heads back and howled at the moon

Lying on my side in bed
Listening
To the sporadic hum of air-conditioner
Out of sight.
Shuffling my legs under the covers
Looking
At filtered glow seeping through
Soft, thin-veiled curtains
Ethereal cobwebs dyed in silver.
I cross the floor and part them
Ever so slightly
For the cold warmth to fall just upon
The edge of the bed.
Pillow-view periscopes
From vantage point
Blurred fluorescence
Against expanse of night.

Two-meter corridor framed by encroaching ceiling,
grime-streaked bricks of once-white pillars on the right,
dim-lit concrete floor underfoot, distinctly squelchy,
lathered with a millimeter of mud and sweat.
Stifled night drafts stir, disturbed,
by the threat of insidious humidity.
On the left, faint whisperings of revelry
escape from the tangle of choking throes
of grinding, grey-grilled gates.

dregs in the teacup
it looks blacker today
perhaps it'd look better on the tablecloth

no
it stains a deep brown
splotchy, disorganised
it spreads so you can't control it

maybe it's better suited
for the whitewashed walls
trickling down the surface
did someone cry?

you can feel the bitter burn on your tongue when you pour it down the sink
maybe it's better left there
don't look

Darkened blue splotch
Swabbed with remnants of night
Liquid opal slants
Almost vertically
Shimmering through car window
Of grey-tinted dawn.

Two is company, three's a crowd
We halt the steep hike, me, myself and I
Solace seekers stuck with each other
Lonely yet overwhelmed and we don't know why
Campfire is kindled; we gather around
Rubbing numb hands and flexing sore toes
Nobody speaks as we stare at the ground
With its half-frozen mud and crackling dead leaves

The flickering embers hurl our shadows
Like blood spatters against the clouds
My marionette falls as its strings are sliced
Cosmic ****** painted on the dying sky
Our riddling commences on the next thunderclap
I find myself asking what it all means to me
Gulping the heady steam of trepidation
Standing on the precipice of the caldera of dreams

It was the sea shallow
Deep with sediment
Memory; adrift in tide
Sand moats and small dams
Crumbling with each pull
Rebuilt before the last sunset
Backwash - cracked shells and polished stones
Some pretty in dull coats
Sea spray salt deposits
Woundless but itching
Caving mounds silenced
Nightfall exorcises the waves
Ghosts surge and cease: lunar
Ebb and tide resumes anew
I shall set down the *****

The playground swing creaks between the hollow trees
No different from the shadows they cast in gloom
Life leaks from grey roots in drops and dribbling streams
Gone like the silence in the wind's raptured screams

We used to play on it from spring to winter
Seeking reassurance in its permanence
Through bitter frost and rain there it would stay
A reminder of the games we used to play

This seat has been barren for too many years
These long-rusted chains on either side crave blood
They curl into nooses and dangle like snakes
To embrace your body before it awakes

Some scrawl the names of people present and past
Some drench theirs in pearlescent candied nacre
Shapes and hues exact, stencilled down to the last
Pretty copies of individuality

There are those who have it forced upon the face
Growing into it, it feels more natural
To don that dress, to hit the gym and say grace
Becoming the things they are needed to be

The flawless surface ever in flux stirs and returns to slumber.

Still others, indecisive, searchful, hover
From pile to pile, over fractalised discards
Picking out their newest favourite cover
For their brittle blandness blushed by exposure

Mine has grown inwards, claws entrenched beneath skin
Reverse quicksand; raking scars old and fresh
Valour marks in the battle I cannot win
My silence percolates. Outside it accretes

It glows in flickers of luciferous fluoroscence, firefly flashes.

Hope is but another addiction to break
Yet this air hangs heavy, toxic to inhale
A frigid gut burn with every breath I take
Soulful tremor smothered in despair's cocoon.

Fingers roam my jaw. Phantom edges they seek
Futility dawns. It has long disappeared
As have the haunting echoes of devil-speak
I have swallowed it all as it consumed me

It changes, chameleon-like, dissolving pixels on a screen.

Is it me, or am I it? It matters not
Its pulse fills my veins with something close to life
Yet I musn't bleed - the fluid does not clot
It leaks slowly like a punctured memory

Inside nestles the tangle of cobwebbed dreams
Silken sojourns unwittingly petrified
Quavering mutedly to my stifled screams:
You cannot, you shall not, you must not come in!

Slip into the viscous stream of starched fabric knowing I belong not here, ever the dissonant clef rattling its bar

Presence coaxes the parched throat but slakes not the gut's burn. I have learnt to swallow the fireballs I fear may wayward fly

Lactic oblivion strains the milk, scrubbing out taints of blossom-red

Speak, so their shunted breaths return trembling to the lips. There is nothing to see, hear, this drum echoes with ghosts you fathom not

Twice weekly I cross over to the past, fleeting high-breasted gryphon among the bright-eyed hatchlings. Then the summons of the bell

Reality strikes as lightning; the boom that trails it is the singed silence of the mute mind

Breeze sighs coyly, ever the temptress
Carressing stalks of intoxicated flowers in contented stupors
Drooling dewdrops, yet virginial to sobriety

Paint on the tiled driveway dresses in dawn
Whiter than white, patches of sky afoot
Wet smell of earth the last reminder of night

7.03 upslope scarce affords a glance
Worlds of wonders skipped in every stride
Morning birds shriek from their green citadels, messengers of war

Heart sighs. There is much cause to surcease.
Mind grips the reins tighter. Perfect Monday weather.

Beach dusk is romance.
Sprightly smooth limbed figures
Barefooted on warm sand,
Bathing in pink sunsets,
Watching tragic beauty descend
With clasped hands.

Standing in the middle of the sea,
The sun looks no bigger than it did from land,
Ghostly noose reeling it down to the horizon.
As it approaches the water starts to boil,
Calcium leaches from seashells
Unbearably hot.
Somewhere out there someone's mother cries
And blood stains the skies.
Complicit in our sight we cover our ears
Standing in the middle of the sea.

Beach dawn is ******.
Footsteps trickle back onto sand
Still hot from night's inferno,
Each grain with a distant soul.
Their bones line our shores,
Flowers in an eternal summer.

To err on the side of caution here is not to try at all
Fold, unfold and refold to stare at clipped wings
With the icy squalls and treacherous winds
Perhaps not to fly is a blessing after all
Tarry not, come whispers from lonesome depths
Subterfuge is no sin for a weary heart
To receive and not give and not come apart
Only the lucky and the naive dare take the plunge
Down the crimson stained ravines in which the fallen still lie fresh
Dashed on jagged edges of lovers' valleys steep
Embitterment on their tongues as the rocks on jellied flesh
Plagued with numbness by day and nightmares in sleep
Lock, unlock and relock this sepulchre of emotion then
Let me out of here and perish with these thoughts
Tread forbidden paths all over their souls
They crisscross like passions and tangle in knots
Unscathed forevermore, immortal be the insouciant