words can poison.
when young we read fairy tales and fantasies,
fans of fictitious fables.
when "taught" religion we are immediately placed into a mind-trap,
with heavenly reward
and hellish repercussion.
allow independence
abolish imprisonment
words can cure.

Halfway up a mountain
on an ice-bound January day,
I sought to reliquify
a few calorific assets.

I am no fool -
I had been carefully investing
a portion of each meal
in certain holdings
(mainly around the waist).
Of course, I knew the safe route:
balanced diet, carbs, fruit, veg;
but a venture nutritionist such as myself
pays little heed to such extravagant prudence.

Fried breakfasts looked like offering
a quick and reliable payoff
and sure, for a while it worked.
But guess what:
Just when I needed the big windfall,
nothing.
Not a sausage,
if you'll pardon the pun.

"Sorry," a regretful body explained,
"I know you'd think you could call on your investments
"at the drop of a hat,
"but actually they're kind of clogged,
"a bit like your arteries."

Wheezing, waiting
for the mountain rescue helicopter,
I spared a rueful thought
for the taxpayer -
the reluctant buyer
of my safety.

You might imagine I owe something in return,
but I watch the news
and I reckon
I'll get away with it.

I'll trawl the squalor, if you like,
stick blinkers on to hide the fact
that my life has so far been a charmed one.

I can conjure a face,
small, forgotten
black against a duststorm sky -
There's your poverty for you,
And yes, I was there

And sure, I smelt the days old sweat
and can remember hunger as a curiosity
The boy's name is known to me
but I won't share it

Because he was real
but I missed his reality
and I have no right to it.
***** hands notwithstanding
I was just a tourist,
a passing mote of dust
in his drought-stricken life.

I was there for me
collecting picturesque snapshots
which would inform my return
to an undeserved comfort
(but only slightly).

To say he was important,
totemic, symbolic,
is false.
I remember him, that's all -

My boys,
my clean, happy,
here-now boys
eclipse that shadow in every respect.
An honourable assertion
only in that it is true;
and a brief regret that I made no contact
flickers out before
a blaze of contentment,
a bedrock of good fortune
with little to offer
the vicarious seeker
of hard-won wisdom.

as if by artist’s craft, that sky,
a painted bride blushing
her blaze of blistering crimson
like a blossom opened to
a blue black ocean’s kiss
colors bled in slender fingers
caressing wind-blown waters
and united, they melted into starlight

You big bloated orange moon
Hanging there in this heavy air
You have stolen summer
Eaten it right up and laughed

You have opened the night for lovers
You have burped out a sigh
A wiff of smoke; camp fires burn low
Eager for what lies ahead...I dread

After the regal colors of Autumn
Snow will chill my bones
So, gloat now you blighted orb
I will laugh a pumpkin laugh alas...