Speak Knight of this foul dishonor you bring,
Unto me, your liege and rightful master.
Of this even the lowly peasants sing.
Arthur a cuckhold, the clergy murmur.
Give me words Man! Why hast thou done this thing
To me, your friend , your king and protector-
Who sat you- my right hand- at Table Round,
And heard you declare yourself honor bound?

My Liege, I am overwrought with my shame.
The woman is more than woman to me.
I am enchanted by the very name
of Guinevere- Sire, pray heed my sad plea-
Of two hearts tortured by Love's burning flame
Of kindred souls intertwined, reason free.
I say My Liege, where doth the man exist
The fair Guinevere's ample charms resist?

Best, Sir, to watch thy words, hold thy tongue fast!
You speak of the Queen, my love, and my wife!
You flaunt the Holy Writ of God at last
And play fast and loose with Eternal Life!
To foul Gehenna your soul will be cast,
to experience neverending strife.
Truly my soul is exceeding bleak.
Guard, bring the Queen that we may hear her speak.

How now my heart, that thy lips quiver so?
And tears besot thy alabaster skin?
Speak now of that which Mordred, base and low
Whispered quick, awash in the stink of gin,
Of the randy Stag and his demure Doe,
Copulating as beasts in the fields akin.
Lady, gaze into my eyes, mark me well
Speak truly now , as your tale you tell.

My Liege, Husband mine! my heart is most frail.
My soul a wasteland of desolation.
Tis true!  I met Lancelot in the vale,
And frolicked we after the setting sun,
As lovers are wont to do without fail
Where the rosy bloom of youth hath begun.
Tis true! I swear to the Good God above,
The brave Lancelot hath stolen my love.

Tis true, all too true, what Mordred hath said.
My wife, my hope, and the joy of my heart
She who I loved above all else hath shred
My life to pieces, bit by bit,part by part.
My boon companion Lancelot now dead
to me as well , who thought himself so smart.
Harken to my words, send for the court scribe
Listen well, hear thy punishment described:

Queen Guinevere, fairest of all the land,
Whose smile doth the very stars outshine,
Who once freely gave me in troth her hand,
With smoldering eyes, and words of love fine-
Creature of God with more of fairyland
Than mere mortal in your very design,
Now Adulteress, high treason thou wouldst make?
Tomorrow at dawn shall ye burn at the stake!

Lancelot, your honor lies in the dust,
Once White Knight, formidable in combat arms,
Tainted by sin and depraved ruttish lust.
The victim of a woman's haughty charms,
Who bleats of love as all feeble lost must
When rude passion ordered reason disarms.
Once friend, now foe, see your base heart's desire,
Expire at dawn, her black soul cleansed by fire.

There is this hell inside me where the flames are mesmerising

it’s shape fits your outline

it grows and shrinks
                                            every time you walk in

walk out.



Tell you what

i’ll be the empty house

and you be the ghost


I’ll keep my favourite illusions about us in tiny glass jars

                                                           ­               (like portable mausoleums)


What do you want for dinner?
                                                         I'm leaving you


Shall we watch The 7:30 Report?

                                                        ­ You’ll never see me again

I’ve made your favourite dessert

                                                        ­ You can keep the house


Did you know you can be crying for years

and not even notice


The funny trajectory of feelings

They rise up      
you take note  

                                they fall away


some don’t fall away
becoming embedded in your bloodstream

and there’s my only enemy right there

inside me

and no matter how much I vacuum the cracks in the floor
my childhood just doesn’t change

but maybe
just maybe

if i do everything the opposite way i was taught i might survive


I thought you were the face of my survival
                                                                ­             (silly I know)
                                        
I thought you were my very own swashbuckling hero
like the one's dreamed up by Spielberg and Lucas

but after awhile getting your hopes up

becomes just another extreme sport

If only i had known

the best way to keep our romance alive
was never getting to know each other

Refunds for emotional disappointment should be a thing


and weddings
weddings should happen under water

the suffocating non-air
can break you in for your future

You’re working back again/What’s her name?

You know, there’s a freedom that comes with being forgotten actually

I can relax and become a mountain again
                                                           ­                 free of perfecting myself

to outshine your golden girls
all of them competing for the crown in your secret world

I would cry about it
but i bought 80 pairs of shoes instead

It will show up on your bank statement

Guess it means nothing
95 or not
Drop out
Drag on
**** up

I hate this potential
Nervous burns wander my skin
Reciting old poetry

Expect nothing
I keep saying
Expect nothing

Remember the morning after
How we bathed in cypress
So we’d live forever?

I talked circles round your neck
And settled in the empty space your body left

Here I am
waiting for the whiskey
to stop being coy
and finally kick in.
Rome is burning outside
but the flames haven't
crept near yet.
Front row seats
to the end of an era
that I'll soon have to pay for.
I can already smell the smoke
and see the angry glow
against the weeping sky.
But I have some time yet
before the air gets hot
and the streets become
screaming rivers of humanity.
Bearing witness now
to the weeping heart
and fate's feckless whim.
Outside, Rome is burning
as the tide of time reaches
out to find the high water mark.
All for a dream
a half formed and
half thought impulse,
the urge to conquer
not a woman or a nation
but the whispers of the psyche.
Soon now the fat lady
will sing her rusted heart out
and I'll see the last great age
fall to the caprices of a power
that I will never comprehend.
Rome is on fire
and in that destruction
might something else
be born?
The histories of nations
the folly of man
the lives of the great
replayed again within
the lives of those
whom I love.
The center is indeed crumbling
and we of the flesh,
we cannot hold.

Lovers in the lines disappearing
Folding fading

Hazy in the midnight
Waning grey

My eyes were flickering lights
Passing stories unsaid
And a comfort I can’t remember

Curve gone crooked
I left my head here
I left my head

Misread your softness
Misspoke some promise
Blurred in the wind

These being the words of a tired poet
desperately fighting to rekindle a dying flame.
This being the end of an era spent chasing shadows
and loving weeping ghosts.

Take this heart within your hands
before the body that belongs to it fades.
Do it now, go on and take it while
the light still breathes in this place.

My time here is ended, if I ever really
was of here to begin with, perhaps more of
a wanderer than I realized in those blue sky
days when our love had a body and a soul.

But you, your time is now and it is a perilous one,
in this world slipping away, turning inward.
So carry this heart with you into the night,
talisman of the old world, last of the fading light.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?