Oh, where has that god gone?
Oh, what has that god done?
How shall we live alone
that once depended on
a heavenly father who defended us
and now is made superfluous?

Oh, where has that god gone?
Oh, what has that god done?
What can replace
that heavenly grace?
Can ear or hand or eye
supplant its mirthless majesty?

Perhaps it’s not that god has gone
but rather god has been
replaced by many other gods.
Unholy gods, ungodly sods,
who offer no exemption
from time-past sin’s redemption,

but just provide a shining light
to illumine a fearful night,
colonized by miscreants
and similar recipients;
and what remains in that confusion
is nothing but a vast illusion.

There is no plan, there is no haven
to escape from images engraven.
The trumpet that was played by god
is merely a connecting rod
to nothing but a shooting star
a sound drowned by Satan’s guitar.

So often the god that we thought great
is ******* of no more than hate.
We see them in all walks of life
with gordian knots that lack a knife,
or weavers of a nautical shroud
more shocking than a mushroom cloud.

I would choose to have it gone
that secular phenomenon,
that we might build trust up again
far from the place where corpses reign,
to somewhere safe for everyone.
And now I vow my verse is done.

I love the susurration
of sibilant sounds.

The word “bliss”
is blissful.

The word “fuss”
is fascinating.

The word “stress”
is surprisingly soothing.

Tennyson has long enchanted me
with his sibilant Lotus Eaters.
His land of streams,
some like a downward smoke,
slow dropping veils . . .

His sweet music
that softer falls
than petals from blown roses . . .
and music that brings sweet sleep
down from the blissful skies.

I am enamoured
not with the sounds of silence
but with
the sounds of sibilance.

I wake still and far too often
with the all-too-slowly
but oh so evanescently
fading memory of her voice.

Ever since that odious event,
that heinous malevolent and
deafeningly persistent
drumming in my head

that disturbs my sleep
distracts my thoughts
and haunts the daymares
of my diminishing life.

The blaring, blasting bluster,
the eruption of molten viscous sound
that barks, yaps, yelps and yowls,
that sounds, resounds and reverberates.

How can I escape the cacophany
that threatens to enmesh me?
How can I return to the
tranquillity of a serene silence?

Poetry is like
the stars one cannot see
in the daytime.
It is a sense of fright
in the night.
It is metrical
but does not need to be
symmetrical.
It is knowledge
that precedes sentience
but lags behind
sensitivity.
It is fuelled
by consternation
and ****** by
flocculation.
It is ambiguity;
it is obscurity;
it is enigma.

There we were
on the grass
legs threshing
and thrashing
fondling on the grass
stroking on the grass
hands searching
and seeking
and finding . . .
Stop it you fool
now you’ve scratched me!
Should have cut my nails,
should have been gentler.

I try to draw an angel
drawing on the wall
with wings outstretched

drawing patterns on my chest

painting the sun
in a trance
and drawing down the moon

I try to draw your face
from memory

Until I draw my final breath
death
shibboleth of shirt
worn outside the pants

There was a time
when words appeared
mysteriously, magically
magnificently
upon the previously blank page.

And then came
a period of total
dissatisfaction.

I would read them once . . .
and then again.
And suddenly
involuntarily
they would cease
to make sense.

I would say to myself
“I can do better”.
And then –
“Better than what?”