City
almost  done now,
the fun somehow has left these streets,
but weary feet are tramping home, sick to death and weary to the bone.

Rtoseberry avenue
postcode EC1 and then
it's gone.

Clerkenwell green,
scene of many unpleasantries leaves me and on to St John's street and
more city feet.

Old street not paved with gold except for the elite and more weary feet tramping on.  

It's the end of another day and the city always had its way with the few and the lucky ones escaped by bus,
not us,
we went hobo on the city street, tramps and dodgy people, feet so sore and where if when we look to see the Shoreditch box park know we are not far or free of Hackney and the night falls dark across me.

I do
I do
Said twice, but in my heart I knew it wasn't so.

I go because I must've been and seen it all before and though I know it's rotten to the core it draws me like a magnet and I am being trawled by some megaline or dragnet.

The streets beat me down and the pirates in this ***** town have stolen me away,
just another bedtime story written underneath the evening stars and just another ending of the day.

it’s quiet and i hear nothing but the snowflakes
hit the fabric on my shoulder
i hear nothing but the paper
burn as my inhale imitates the gust of
wind that guides the cold to shutter skin —
street lights sit above the lit, white-flowered flakes
as they dance to the ground as a group
that whisper soliloquies to the crimson
lobes that hear nothing but the snowflakes
hit the fabric on my shoulder,
a hazy fog covers the air before my face
as it sways from nostril to upper lip —
a sight down to an illuminating ash,
blinking to meet a lid to whited lash —
as the paper burns
the smokey sky is content
with silence and nothing more
than a look to the fields                             MJB

I’m a poet…
Not one of these
rhyme selling
alliteration junkies,
nor a stanza *****, and what’s more
I think sonnets and Haiku a bore
I snore
at the doorway to beat poet’s hipster-ism
giggling internally at the vast breadth
of useless love prose.
I stand examining the sunrise for meaning
seeking the symbolism left in the echo of crunching dead leaves…
mine is not the path for the faint of heart
as I attack with words
every social norm I come across
every cultural drag
and each individual act of stupidity
so as to become the voice of a nation
unheard, unknown,
but existing, none the less –
I am a poet.

billowing plumes of combustible grasses
send  nuclear clouds into the stratosphere  
pillow columns stretch into the ether
and expand against the barometric pressure
of high elevation
sending tendrils of smoke sweeping across the evening sky –
near the fence stands a fireman covered in soot
in one hand a pail of water
with a spout
he looks as calm as if he were heading to the garden
gaily, it swings back and forth on a slight breeze
as the daydreaming fireman stands on the edge
of an inferno –
cars slow and passersby gawk at the spectacle
another season comes to pass
as the grass fields are burned
in the early August sunshine --

course, black, dog hair
from an eleven year old lab mastiff mix
pokes through my salmon button down
reminding me of home
while I pretend to work another day –
sitting in my swivel chair contemplating string theory,
dark matter,
zero-point energy and magnets…
enjoying a slight breeze
thinking about what a mint julip tastes like
and if the temperature and humidity are right
for that sort of affair –
wrinkled slack leg shows the truth
I wore these pants yesterday
dusty Nike proving my enslavement
thank god the sole is pulling away from the faux leather
at least I am not a slave to the seasons –
three week old stubble gives my calloused hands
something to scratch and rub
granting me the look of thoughtfulness
and intense consideration…
I play this up so no one bothers me –

I am shocked that I am here.
Look at this flesh, so thin
So pale
So brittle
Like an eggshell- cracked.
It seems so easy to crush
And yet
You'd never guess the blows it has taken
Without crumbling.
I wonder if I'd be respected if my injuries showed on the outside.
I wonder if I'd be feared.
There is a point when pity turns to fear, you know- when the thought is spawned that something SHOULD be dead, and isn't.
A mistrust forms,
An uneasiness.
I feel it sometimes when I look too long into my own eyes in the mirror
And see flashes in their depths: all the silvery memories of pain
Like little fish, like little blades.
I feel disquieted at the notion
That I can hold a sea of suffering
And sigh out only sweetness.
It's not that suffering has sewn no cruelty inside me-
Quite the opposite, it has been a spark caught on the breeze, and something hot and dark
Rages in here nearly all the time.
But only in here.
I have seen too many hurt souls
Hurt others
And I refuse to do the same.
And although it is extraordinary that I am not ground to dust by the blows landed from outside
What I am truly surprised about is that I have not been shattered
From in here.
I am crueler than most people you've met
But only to myself.
Only inside.
I am like a paper lantern-
All flames inside and soft glow out.
And I refuse to hurt you. I refuse to. That is my revenge upon everyone
Who has ever been cruel to me:
It ends here.
Now.
With me.
I will not let it out, not even if it damns me.
I am shocked that I am here.

At the end of it all
These walls will fall
And the naked truth
Of your misspent youth
Will stalk your night
And bring to light
The shadowed ways
Of your formative days
But shed your fears
And save your tears,
Your past will not define you.