A holy artefact wrapped up in clouds,
ascending heavenward in a thunderstorm
and during a pail of hale I screamed out "Hail!"
but there was no celebration
in the circumcision of my heart.
A roar crescendoed from darker places
and consumed the fading purple sky,
and a lie beheld the firmament,
an orange hope that flickered when it should have flamed.
I wrote my rites of passage on stone for you,
but how quickly erosion wore them away,
until only the softest fingertips could trace the shadows.
There was so much poison in the way you said goodbye,
the silent ringing of the ghost of a bell.
I burned your face into the ceiling
and I wonder, just a little, if you can see
what horrors you caused to creep into my weathered blood.

Open the door to where you store the pain,
where you sit on your swing in the driving rain.

Let me in to the coldness of your dark,
that yawning abyss untouched by your heart.

Open the chest that conceals your true identity,
weighing the cons with the wrong quantity.

The power you have in this world is fettered
only by your need to never feel bettered,
to have your own invaluable name unlettered.

Don’t hide your repositories from me,
unlock them all and let me see.

I am your ally in this battle, in this war,
hear me tapping gently on your bolted door.
I see the tearstains rotting the bedroom floor,
be brave and I won’t let your hurt any more.

Open the door to where you store the pain,
where you sit on your swing in the driving rain,
your feet off the ground with nothing to gain
by staying up high swinging in the rain.
Don’t forget what you’ve won and what’s still to gain,
open the door to where you store the pain.

At some point, you get used to it all,
the dull buzzing of a heaving sky,
silicon drops falling from dead clouds,
maroon and lavender moons burning up.
Some days, you can taste the desperation,
clinging hard to your mother’s *******,
but you can hear them through the metaphors,
some knife slicing dark from the night.

They’re still dragging knuckles in the mud,
dreaming of disembodied constellations
painted onto a tapestry made of nothing
and hung up high by sheer willpower.
Some look, hoping it’s still where it should be,
some ***** heaven made of antimatter,
touch it you’ll annihilate it and yourself,
so you leave it be and chew your tongue.

At some point, it gets too much for you,
all that noise dragonflying on a war,
bombarding the rigor mortis of sleep,
sapphire and grey pools of romance.
They don’t **** like they do in the movies,
rituals of sweat drained completely of blood,
martyrs of love framed on the walls,
cadavers in bedsheets, shrouds of Turin.

I came at the world with words
dripping with the poison that coated my tongue,
not giving a **** about feelings or consequences.

Until a great monster appeared,
charging out of the dark.
Coming in over ultraviolet rays,
infrared, even the radiated gamma bursts,
heading straight in my direction.

It left me wordless,
barely stuttering through the simplest sentences,
lost to the dark magic held within its claws.
Some great unholy wind blew in,
raising dust devils and Cain in its wake,
ghosts appearing in the Firmament.

Now it controls my fingers when I type,
takes hold of the pen when my desire wanes,
it lives in the ink and creates horrible shapes
with horrible meanings and I can do nothing
but allow it to weave the fortunes of the dead.

I want to take you beneath the tree
and make love with you the way
the earth does with the roots,
nurturing, nourishing, feeding,
helping you grow to be the best
woman the world could ever wish you to be.

I want to see your leaves grow anew each Spring,
little flowers blossoming in dazzling colours,
feeding all around who nest in your branches,
who eat from your fruit, who require your shade.
I want to love you the way only I can,
respectfully, tastefully, eternally.

To be the one who helps you grow
would give me no greater satisfaction,
to see you reach for the skies,
whether blue or black, speckled with starlight,
overcast days with the lightest caressing of rain.
I will be the sunlight you crave,
glowing, warming, comforting.

I want to take you beneath the tree
and make love with you every day.

I’m still writing villanelles for the dead,
for the people with useless eyes.
If only I could write for you instead.

I let them live inside my head
and somehow they speak of my demise.
I’m still writing villanelles for the dead.

As I lay with the weight of lead,
on stormy waters I don’t capsize.
If only I could write for you instead.

I feel this rising sense of dread,
I fear I know what this implies.
I’m still writing villanelles for the dead.

Do you dream of a warm, safe bed?
Only you with the countless lies,
if only I could write for you instead.

I should have listened to what you said
when your goodbye came as no surprise.
I’m still writing villanelles for the dead;
if only I could write for you instead.

Running for cover as the stars came crashing down,
we sheltered beneath the tree as the universe crumbled.

Eternal love, we hoped,
would survive the ultimate destruction.

Past tense, the written crucible of fear,
where the outcome is not apparent.
Is it indicative of what has become?

Alas, I fear the end hasn’t quite happened yet.
Who knows, maybe the future finds a place
to allow us to nest in her bruised branches,
but we are not there yet, always in the present,
racing away from and racing towards the conditional perfect.

I still think of you,
the perfect you,
the you who could smile the worry
from the world.

I still need you,
the loving you,
the you who carried soothing words
in your mouth.

I still miss you,
the midnight you,
the you who could talk the stars
down from the sky.

I know you’re feeling so broken down,
so turn around, breathe in the soft air,
make dreams with the starry skies.

I know your head is somewhere else right now,
visiting another town, but just hold on,
I’ll be there in a little while.

I know you don’t feel yourself these days,
do what your heart says, lie supine with love
and hold hands with fate.

I know you’re swirling in the darkness,
sleeping with silence, enjoy the quiet,
and hear your soul singing.

I know you’ll feel better real soon,
you always do, keep your head up,
sunshine is never far away.

I know this blue you’re feeling right now,
it drags you down, it’s your choice to swim,
I will keep you on the surface.

Mythologies lost to unforgiving sand,
burying the stories of the dead.
Wherever they may rest their heads.

Do you really believe the words they wrote?
There’s nothing there in the twisted script,
between the lines eroded away.

What was your name, at once so familiar?
Not even an echo gives me a quiet rhyme.

I am neither your hero nor your villain;
I am the NPC with a bow and arrows
hunting the invisible.

Hallways stretching off into the heart
of a dark that shifts uncomfortably,
the low grumbling of a formless monster.

Without end, the horror of eternity
reaching for me with dragon’s claws.

How familiar this pain is these days;
how unfamiliar the solace of nights.
I will not battle the coming dark
while I still haunt day’s golden light.

It was not I who built the House,
it was the House who constructed me.

My heart
stopped
for the
briefest
moment,
when I saw
my future
in the
curve
of your
lips

I am not the
product of my
yesterdays, I am
the seeds of
my tomorrows.

I saw nothing but dark
where once you stood so tall.
How much did I lose
in giving it my all?

They don’t see us dancing in the snow,
too busy with their own footholds
to worry about what ours are doing.
I shelter you beneath my wing
when the harsh blizzards whip up
ice crystals like shards of glass,
your head rested against my warm body,
a ball of heat in the coldest of storms.

Angels in the white wilderness,
a pair of ptarmigans finding love
in the harshest of conditions.
We sing for the joy of life
out in the open where everyone is blind.
No one else shares this moment,
it is our own in the beautiful wild.

The heavens revolving around a worried little orb,
poets with wings looking down from above.
They write their sonnets and ballades and more,
thinking, what do they know of death and love?
Those in the flock know nothing of the outside,
oblivious to the wolves circling ever nearer.
The feet of the innocent wade in reddening tides,
saying, what do they know of hope and fear?
Castles made of clouds where angels reside,
hungry for the souls of the poets still living.
Paradoxes written on tombstones where bodies died,
showing, what do they know of breathing and believing?
The tears start flowing and the inkwells run dry,
poets curl up and sink into the clouds.
The writing of elegies where emotions decry,
claiming, what do they know of loneliness in crowds?

Losing out time and time again
but I will find the answer I seek,
whether it be over mountains
or the other side of an ocean,
or at the bottom of my street,
I must hope I find what I seek.

Distance doesn’t seem to work,
no one seems to wait for me,
but I must continue this quest
to find what it was I never had.
Someday soon I’ll get my wish
and hold on to whom I seek.

I had such big dreams,
I could have built cities out of them,
lined each street with cherry blossoms
that were always in bloom.
A million personalities walking beneath them
and I knew every one like family,
and we’d all stop and talk for a little while,
grab a coffee, chat about the universe
and how much smaller it seemed to be getting.

That’s all dreams are, though,
sitting in your head like grotesques,
******* out another reason to be happy
when you’re sitting alone in the dark.
They feed off the serotonin
and keep eating it all up
until you feel sorry for yourself
and wait for the next grotesque dream
to get you through the night.

The music fell from her eyes
and the lyrics curved her lips.
I fell in love with her dark skies
and the fine clef of her hips.

Juniper falling, they’re all bent crooked,
hat stands melting in the wind, night-time,
starlight, firelight, moonlight, candlelight.
She’s grazing sunsets flecked with gold,
he’s hurling rocks at the great untold,
writing words sparkling with ink, bold,
selling his soul, what’s that?, already sold?
Well **** it, sell it again, highest bidder,
canopies never quite reach the sky.

No cracks in the glass ceiling, this is it,
end of the road, can’t get higher, boy,
and that girl is gone, so long, farewell,
cracking her cosmic whip, speed of sound,
sonic boom, punctured eardrums, scream!
Still can’t hear you, give it all you got,
inhale, keep going, like it’s all a bad dream,
**** in the air, grit your teeth, open your throat,
let it all out, **** it, make the ground quake.

The dead don’t rise, zombieless landscape,
all alone, boy, talk high, act tough,
you’re just a kid, son, just a **** child.
She wasn’t yours, sunsets, horses wild,
password required, verification, access denied.
Glitter had her like stardust, gathered up,
lining your pockets, fingers lingering inside,
feeling the sharpness, the smoothness,
keep ******* up, stars still shine, right?

Even they die too, false hope, eternity wrong,
an illusion in the confusion, beautiful delusion,
twist in the contortions, moon rocks soft.
Skip them across the lake, the other side,
out of reach, always sink halfway there,
but keep dreaming, dream big, all that’s left,
waste of an ocean, too big, too ******* blue.
Same as the sky, reflection, reflect yourself,
look inside and find that little piece of heaven
trailing her sunsets, golden evenings, perfection,
but your cancer is her absolute dejection.

Chin up, kid, got a long way left to go,
the sign reads thirty, put your foot down,
flat out, heading for the hairpin turn,
fly off the curve, look down, kid, you’re flying.
escaped your labyrinth, lucky little minotaur.
But that’s just it, ******* with string,
trees bending in dead winds, lost all hope,
come crashing down, gravity your enemy.
Another lost soul, pick up the pieces,
dead shards of nothing, atoms splitting.

Marble heads carved grotesquely,
kissing their mouths with a **** in hers,
oh boy, didn’t you know?, she’s a ****,
looking for something to stop her dam bursting.
Oh poor thing, silly little creature,
that sunset wasn’t yours, you don’t do gold,
too many whisperings, murmurings, memories,
holding on, gotta let go, fingers whitening,
but she sounded so beautiful, ******* siren,
lorelei, songs painted poison on the air.

What you gonna do, kid? Run away again?
Cry in your corner, stupid little *****,
no highways passing the moon, it’s new,
no light in your dark, forget about her.
Moving ahead, skirting stars, black holes,
vacuuming your light, just slip in,
so easy, so easy, so ******* easy,
and all that pain will be gone from here,
say goodbye to it all, what use is light
to the blind who pray to gods of colour?

Gardens with roses, pansies, hemlock,
creeping over it all, eat the berries,
chew the toadstools, you’re too low,
get high!, but you aren’t like that,
too busy chasing dreams, guess what,
THAT’S ALL THEY ******* ARE!
When you gonna learn the truth, boy?
Your head lies, your heart lies,
everything and everyone, all they do is lie.
Silence, forever slumbering, dead monsters,
hunting a condition, your rotten addictions.

Angels on horses, swords made of clouds,
cathedrals, campaniles, made of red brick,
and they droop, rushed by weight, heavy skies,
bleeding their rain like a shark attack victim.
She dances with raindrops, flecked with a spectrum,
revolving as the world, her feet, the ground beneath,
and you, yes you, still dreaming, aren’t you?
It’s cheap and easy, doesn’t hurt,
unless you end up believing them.
Nothing comes true, other lies told in the dark,
when she thinks you’re asleep, I love you.

Creeping, visceral tides of dark
like the vines of black ivy
slithering over his body,
covering him in black,
the darkness his comfort,
the silence his mistress.

He gazed into the abyss
and the abyss gazed back,
the curvaceous jaws
with teeth like scimitars
bit him in half, swallowed,
took the rest of him
into that warm, inviting mouth.

We all have dark places within us
we venture into in quiet evenings,
full of the monsters of our past
rampaging unshackled down hallways,
beasts of bloodlust bearing wicked teeth.

When you find escape in that place,
open up a curtain, draw the blinds,
anything you can do to let the light in.
Tell your demons, You shall devour me no more!
Gather up your knives, your guns, your courage,
and slay the mighty hordes that gnaw upon your bones,
vanquish the mythical foes that haunt the rooms of your mind.
This is hallowed ground! you must yell,
This is my cathedral! you must scream into the dark.

When you have slain the dragon in your castle,
only then may you live the peaceful life you deserve.

Imagine the surprise of the village folk
as cabbages and carrots rained down from above.
Some saw it as a sign of a good harvest,
some saw it as a sign that evil deeds had been done,
a punishment from God for an unspecified sin.
Look at how they run, panic in their hearts,
pushing women and children to the ground,
trampling them underfoot and hurting them.

They didn’t see the lepers sneak into the bell tower
with a basket of fruit and vegetables each.
They didn’t see them climb up the steps
and laugh as they reached the top and looked down.
They didn’t see them hurl their projectiles
into the mill of the crowd below.

So many assume strange events as messages from above,
but sometimes it’s just lepers having a bit of fun.

Pen your poetry to the dead who left you behind,
curse the names and faces who left you in a bind,
listen to the voices reverberating in your head,
and forgive all the words that were never said.

Between the veils of silence you live alone,
living in a house when you crave a home,
the dark rushing in like a great flood,
build your nest in the sedimentary mud.

Be all the things of which you could never speak,
construct yourself from the debris of the chaos you wreak,
spend time with giants so you know your true height,
think how it will be better when you go to bed alone each night.

Whenever I walk across a bridge,
I get the urge to jump.
It isn’t a strong urge,
I always overcome it easily,
but it still worries me
that the urge turns up at all.
What if one day I can’t stop the urge,
if I lean against the railing,
hop over it, stand on the ledge,
eyes closed, the invisible road beneath
reaching up to pull me down?
I’d never jump, I know,
that requires an action,
legs bent at the knees,
straightening legs as I push my feet down
and leap into the air.
But falling…just lean forward
a little bit too far,
convince myself on the descent
that it was an accident.
I might be able to do that.

She left me moon-struck;
let me live in the stars
that sparkled in her eyes.
I became immortal
in the poetry of her skies.

I summoned dark magic with my ink
and now Babylonian demons dance like death in my temple,
but only I get to see the subtle movements of the choreography.
You have no access beyond the doors,
forever looking in and only seeing shadows
as they play on the walls and it looks nice,
completely unaware of the monsters in the room.
Create your stories if you must,
you are nothing but a pillar of dust.

You are made of the remnants of supernovae,
take a moment to let that sink in.
Think of where your atoms have been;
floating through space for time countless,
spreading themselves across a new planet.
Your fingernails may once have been
part of the trunk of a giant sequoia;
your heart may once have been
a few drops in a prehistoric ocean;
you may even have been the tail
of an immense dinosaur, perhaps thousands of them.
You have existed for billions of years,
in one form or another,
and you will exist for billions more.
You are living history, a billion-years long
timeline of mind-boggling adventures.
What an amazing journey you have been on,
what an awe-inspiring journey you have still to undertake.
Take a moment to appreciate yourself,
what an extraordinary amalgamation
of miraculous pieces of the universe you truly are.

There is a lyric in your eyes,
heart beating in a major key,
a song of love to drown the world with.

When did you last dream
of your happily ever after?
Dream again of that beautiful ending.

On our way to the up-high,
where the road is long and winding,
I will walk with you in the down-below.

I wonder if you realise these
words I write are for you;
do you know of my love for you?

Even my heart has a latin rhythm,
my soul coloured with Mayan dyes.
Let me take you to the moon and back.

You are the universe I see,
galaxies in the patterns of your skin,
the birth of a new life in front of me.