Stop walking on fences and choose a side
Know where it is that you tread
The times are a changing at full force
There is no time to play dead

Now's not the time to hold anything in
Nor to hold anything back
Best to know in what you believe
Before you come under attack

Best come down from those fences
And walk wherever you choose
With no voice of your own
You will surely lose

They tell me that it's toxic
a bit like voting
Brexit,

I tell them go
and frack it and
tell me how it feels.

Try again
why again?

do it and do it and
we can get through it
to try and break through,
the old habits make me
want you
even more

so
what's it for then?
to try again?
why
again?

The answer's always the same
try again, and
I feel **** Whittington's pain
in the trying
the doing
the toing and dying

why am I here?
what is it for?
old habits and want
and I want you more
then ever

it never rains
but that's a lie.

Sunshine's just a climate affair
one minute there and
the next
wonder where.

ah but we live in the Hubble
and telescope trouble
that's of our own making

I'm staking a claim on
Whittington's cat
let him feel the pain,
try again
turn again
burn at the stake
why again.

Should I dye my hair?
try a different colour?
get a fuller, but what
kind of figure would that be?

Stay the same
melt with the pain
try again
what's the name of
the Doctor that locked
ya in here?

think it's done for now and
so I take a bow
and leave.

The witch’s hour approaches-
What an unearthly time to be alive,
To open your eyes in fear,
To shut them back into illusion.

In your tired veins, yesterday’s sorrow sneaks through;
Do they burn with numbness?
Does the air caress your venomous pores?

This girl is a witch;
A witch is a saint,
For all the saints have confessed
To having sinned.
Can a god resign?
Can he seek forgiveness?
I hold him in the palm of my hand-
Tired creature,
Old with time,
Dark with worry.
There are no resurrections left to save
What is to be forgotten anyway.

The witch’s hour passes by—
The almighty can be put to rest once more;

Sleep in a mattress of distress,
Slip in oblivious bliss.

There are  fingerprints burned
into these kilns, leather hands

held  waists of women
with wide hips, who gave

birth to gaunt-faced children;
now, the bricks lay across

America’s streets,
forgotten.

The champion boxer
turned alcoholic

wandered the town's
railroad tracks until death.

After the funeral
his wife spent

her days thumbling
through newspaper

newspaper clippings
awaiting his resurrection.

return.

My tissues typed,
wired and sound
tested

waiting,
a waste for the longing I taste
in my eyes, on my tongue, on
the tips of my fingers,
time
lingers in doorways
on dull rainy days
waiting.

It's kiss and tell and
the road leading to hell
has peen paved with inventions
conceived in dark dungeons,

I'm on the back foot
burning the lights out,

if there's hope then I
hope that it finds me.

Crows feet
creases
lines of least
resistance

you tell me beauty fades,
misleading?

beauty takes us further down
the forest paths, passing dreams
that we
once splashed through and
to timeless glades where
beauty shines through.


In withered vines that once held promise
of the finest wines
time's ceaseless quest?
arresting beauty?

Shoot me
if I'm wrong,
but
doesn't beauty linger on the
flaming fingers of a dying heart?

A part of who we are is to see where we are,
sadly
there are those who never get that far
or get only
as far as the crow flies.

He said his Christmas Eve was good
in his recliner, TV cranked,
drapes closed,

bottle of Nyquil in one hand,
remote control, in the other,

waiting

for NBC News
to end and football
to begin.