‘I belong to this
And you belong to that
Here is a line in the grass
That you may not pass

You stay on that side
I stay on this
Here is a laminated card
Without it life is hard

You talk in that way
I talk in this
Those similar I hold dear
But you cannot come here

I have this symbol
You have your own
Three colours on a rag
You have an uglier flag

I am one type of person
You are a different kind
Our kind cannot be mixed
For our categories are fixed.’

Nations – what a load of old *******.

An injection of self, a reflection of self
Orphic explosion, in this brain of mine
I touch the sky, my shaman-self lifted
To realize some kind, of undefined divine
My soul wants to soar, although some parts to plod
Among the grey citizens of order
Dull thumpers of the one, dull god

(And as I come to fear, the night, boredom
And my internal extremes, the hyper-brain
Says ‘enjoy this, though it ends in a crash
You were dead before, so live and fear not death’)

Somehow free of the hate that claims others
Oh those self-defined, self-refined prisons they create
Only to lament their loss and deny their place
In the ranks of bile, and spite and hate
Maybe to cloak themselves from the leviathan-machines
Which provides their plenty, as the global south screams
Their ****-eating hypocrisies, judgemental non-philosophies.
And I have landed among their pretention, problems hidden
Beneath the rug, the armoured iron carpet
That supports the weight of their bloated heads
And blood-drenched souls.

Seven hundred thousand refugee

Sail across the distant sea

I want dem come for company

For in my own land, me refugee

No passport many years

No job twenty years

No home a lifetime

Come and join me refugee

In my own country.

Dis your country too

What done to you, by colony

Accept dis apology

Come settle, make me glad with glee

My new friend, no more a refugee.

Little peons slave and toil
To afford their bread and oil
Think themselves independent
Enriching landlords with their rent
‘Never mind’ their want to say
‘I’ll soon be on higher pay’
But rich or poor when clock does chime
They see how slight they have of time!
Still they plod on the machine
Ruled by bosses, sly and mean
Stuck in themselves they cannot see
‘Oppression don’t happen to me.
It hits brown folk in lands afar
I’ve a wife, a house, a dog and car!’
But halt ye peon, stood alone
How much of your self do you own?
Naught! The rich man rules your fate
Steals your labour for his estate
By the time you’re thirty, grim and worn
Your dreams are dead, hobbies all gone
Your soul is grey, your hope is lost
To feed a parasite your cost
All for that foolish arrogance
Pushing down those without a chance
You gave your life to corporate *****
Whilst mocking those on benefits?
Ha! How cruel this web of law
And the warped logic you never saw
For all rulers are ******, after wealth and fame
And you got played at their power game.

So pull your head out of your ****
Stand by your fellow, and your class!

To the depths I went
Always brand in fist
To find what made these paths
I thought I freely trod

What illusions waited there
To upturn the ship of tranquillity
What machine within worked
To hide the shadows
What lies came in dreams
To veil the truth

And the soul’s guardian, to protect me
Stayed loyal to false master
When it should to my ambition alone cleave
And my song venerate

An ocean lays at my heart
It is still or stormy
Of its own wild freedom
But now I can sail it
For I am bound
To the friends of true depth
Who understand what I truly am

The illusions in me, games of the mind
Shocked for years, shaken in fear
Of harsh words, of the street, of night
The evidence now piles against it.
I have earned my honours
In the heart of the woods
And was always of bliss
And was always of bliss
Gentleness is I, peace is I
Merriness is I, truthseeker am I.

And expression, oh expression
The truth, the lie
From my pen flutter, in cathartic flourish.
These thoughts trapped you might release
These bounded philosophies, between
The unbreakable wall of my skull
Set free, through the tendons of my hand
Unto the pressed, pulped tree.
Humanity, caged, has but one freedom
Infinite, boundless, mind surpassing matter
The words, in stream, resolving truths
Dissolving lies, fantasy and reality in one.
Those who express, know its true value
To nurture empathy, sharing the journeys of others.
The future is neither bleak nor hopeful
Like the cosmos, it is an unwritten page
For our minds and imaginations to jot
And scrawl, and pen, and scribe, and articulate
And write, and write, and write!

Souls of the sun
Our gentle master emerges;
Fain light to banish Winter
And warm the hearth.

Radiate into every corner
Of these cold-soaked bones
And lend me radiant hand
To rise again, beneath you

God-King of the firmament
The one true god of Earth
The sun, the sun!
You are returned!

The two gates are open me
Normality, and chaos
I know my feathers well
Shifting between colours
My eyes hide guile. I slide
Between worlds, intuiting social rules.
I am not proud or humble
Except for when one suits me
For normality requires a yoke
And it important to find one
At your size. And chaos,
Is just that, chaos
Unbound, the ultimate hubris
Of an individual, creative will
Which, like slender candle
Scorches itself to nothing
Out, out, burn, burn
Leaving only a pile
Of melted wax it calls art.

So do not
Fear your dual
Nature and be
Not trapped in
One or the
Other. Cross bridges
Of darkness and
Cleave to light.
There is no
Truth in this
Cosmos but that
Of ‘all thing
Are’ and no
More.

Dawn of change
It is always so
Endless dusks and tides
Breaking against star-foam.
The law of all-things
We long to forget
Is that everything passes
Time devours all
And humble humanity
Tiny upon the floating rock
Is no different
To the dust and gas
Of deep space.
We may quail
At our transient destiny
We may shudder
At our fleeting fate
We may lament
Our lack of infinity
But to do so would be
To stain the sacred present
And forget the true nature
Of you, of us, of her, of me.