There was a little boy
once, crouched nervous
on the stairs, in the house with no heating,
his heart black and bare.
It’s the end of eternity;
He’s lost his daddy.

On the battlefields, bleak
with fanfares, furious
flag-wielding in shrieks of despair
and soldiers shedding
their selves,
their blood
for what? -
for War.

Oblivious, with Reality
relayed through a television prism,
the tragedies managed
the carnage rewritten.

And she too is shivering. Her mother
holding her, holding her,
telling her
she loves her
with the radio background
spouting
everything’s fine

but her daddy’s gone:

Blasted
by a mine.

Far away in time
in landscapes
unearthly, where gravity,
where sense, where shadows are defied;
there, only at night
in the stillness, the soft music,
the echoes of children’s cries
make a contrapuntal chorus
amidst the blunt gunshots,
the loss of good lives.

The memory,
the victory,
the double-edged knife.

crushed up
our love, a cloud in the air
like the death of a moth
crumpled in a child's palm,
all passion, all blood
turned to dust

in my heart an absence,
memories snatched;
little silk pieces strung like spider webs
across my chest:
amnesiac
you sob red rain
for love's lack, nothing left
except
that stabbing pain.

But in this bleary life there's billions
left to gain.

Itching, itching
in unending irritation,
eyes puffy and leaking,
spilling salt
over molten cheeks -
bed-bound and awfully weak.

I cannot stand it;  
I am a shell, broken
my pieces are very light
and punctured - not watertight -
I let in a virus,
vicious, with the waves
I languish; only
a withered cord tying me
to life.

For in a few weepy blinks
I might die.

It comes to me as no surprise
this disease -
please, it speaks no lies,
it eats my brain
just like some blind child
that’s starved and so senselessly wild.

No memory, no hesitation,
this is me - alive,
afloat with those ****** bubbles,
those parasites
that gloat and bruise my concentration -
wreak hell upon my mind.

So see me, here,
flattened,
by the potion of alienation
I am pie-eyed, senseless;
a study for your contemplation.

Could we cut ourselves off from our country?
Burn all the books and monochrome rules;
Sever the fragile vessels of history?

I want to walk fast without news in my ear
over hills and fields and so thrilled with fear;
I want to take a tab
of fantastic poison
and see the world lit up
in a kaleidoscope of flags.

Through woods, past trees,
I will kick leaves
and brave a universe of tumbleweeds.
And from beneath a
canopy of luxury
a paradise I see
past the sun, where all is free
and hatred wastes and bleeds.

But everything is not as it seems -

Back home I dream in cut-throat numbers
vile quantities disturb my slumbers.
My identity drifts in the TV;
Jeremy Kyle makes my last plea
as my ears fill with adultery.

And then there are debts
that flash up - my patience cracks
into a pool of anguish.

I must get away,
get away from this madness.

You storm the kitchen like livid soldiers
in hollow combat
brandishing stingers,
no camouflage is cunning enough
to cover up your lethal colours -
sinful stripes of black, yellow.

Beads of ink, eyes of malice
flash as you swipe and violate
skin, in painful ******* - an evil act of love;
hateful wasp, what is it that you want?
What makes you lust for human blood?

You are the waste of summer:
the wretched lowlifes, airborne brats
and savage lads inducing fear
amongst both dogs and cats.

You circle workers
with your vicious sneer, possess
an uncanny absence
of all natural innocence.

Pleasure-seekers and noise-makers,
you ******* of August
buzzing at honey traps;
a sugar addiction your weakness,
your final collapse.

Flailing, you flap about
furious at human trickery;
Immersed, all syrupy
your wings weigh
like lead, and then
motionless you float;
at last, your crisp carcass
black and dead.

The sun loses its shine
in spiralling time
and a world decays
in the greyness of age;
so the saying says.

A lie.

Doubt the blackening
of the clouds in the sky, don’t doubt
the energy in your blood so alive;
all the rain, all the water
cannot wash away love.
Reach for those dreams
you’ve been thinking of.

Blow out the candles;

Your own smoke alone
is making you mad; the chemical
concoction of red, red rage
may be poured, coherently
upon a clean white page. Made safe.

So remain forever, stay
your favourite age; mother,
each day is a dawn,
a fire, a jewel
clearer than a river, rare
as a shower of meteors,
a dream like no other.

The sweetness of love
by night is fated to sour
as the blood drips
like dewdrops from every bower,
your face milky pale
as a lily, deathliest of flowers.

You fail to look at me, you,
steeped in your own greed
without care for my needs,
eyes close as I choke on midnight blues,
the moonlight reflecting
your every hue; those the shades
of parting, the last taste of fruit.

Alone with the trees, each breath of air
is an utterance, a whisper gifted to the wind,
inside recalling the bones
of bitterness and sin;
those the days of torment, sliced skin
on razored leaves. In darkness
it is the flesh alone that heeds.

Stood hopeless; our thoughts like
blossoms strewn upon mud -
blown apart by the shuddering gulf
that drowned us in the flood.