You stand there in a field
Of gentle grass and daffodil

The butterflies gossip in dances
The breeze sweet as honey
Haloed sun on your head

And I feel you smile at me
So soft, so wanted
Cradling in your hands
My heart

A gory mass of muscle and tissue
Pulsating and twitching
like a nightmare struggling
To tear it’s desperate fingers through its
******, oozing womb

And I lay under you
skin gorged, ribs cracked
Wheezing through smoker’s lungs
clinging on by a few dripping strands
of fleshy tubing

And my hands claw the earth
nails mangled and nerves ragged
But my eyes fix
Enraptured
despite these things scrabbling
at my irises
As I strain
To catch a glimpse
of
your


face

My sleep isn’t silent
I go down screaming
Screaming
Kicking

Because I’m one breath away from
Death
One whisper away from
Eternity

My sleep is quiet
So I fill it with shrieks
Just to make sure
I am alive

You kneel over,
hurling,
hands on gravel on tire stench on rubber
And there, on the streets
blood

Do you feel a pain too?
Right there, in your stomach
A little at the back, to the side
like when you run for a bit and stop and then run again but you forgot that it gives you stitches but it’s too late and it stabs and—

Do you feel it?
You grin at me with carnage teeth
We’re bound, aren’t we
Ritual and bone
Do you feel the needle?
or a cut
or a knife
or a bullet
or a— oh
you don’t feel it

I’m staring at the sky now,
your head’s the moon
your eyes the stars
my blood rain from your storm cloud lips

I— I think I’ve had enough
It’s been fun, I wanna go home
It’s— it’s been—
hold on

My chest is the rotten mouth of dying lion
Yep, crank the clamp wider, that’s right
Bad teeth in the back, come on
Yank it out

I’m still on the road
It’s a crossroads, I notice
It’s the only thing I can notice over the vice on my ribs
and the sight of your back

It’s crowded here
There’s the Hurt, doing shots in the living room
my Breath, snorting chemicals in the corner
the Night, shoving its tongue down my throat
And you, host of the Party of the Century

You walk away, silent as always
I think my veins still swell in your mouth
iron minting you a new silver tongue


I hope you taste nothing else

Give me a dollar until I am dead
Paint the whole sky blue and red
Count out the days until tomorrow
I’ll be waiting
Waiting
Waiting for the rains to fall

Stop the car just to yell at the trees
Close your eyes so you can feel the breeze
Write down your history so that you aren’t forgotten
I’ll be waiting
Waiting
Waiting for the leaves to fall

Line up your books in all the wrong orders
Put on tinted lenses for the city in different colours
Call your brother’s voicemail just to hear him again
I’ll be waiting
Waiting
Waiting for the towers to fall

Burn up old certificates for the fun of it
Eat a hundred chocolates for a golden ticket
Watch every blockbuster here in town
I’ll be waiting
Waiting
Waiting for the tides to fall

Whisper your wishes across the ocean
Trace your crop circles out in the open
Three letter words are hardly important
I’ll be waiting
Waiting
Waiting for the hammer to fall

Break the hourglass to hold the grains
Run after the last train until your chest heaves
Write down your last words on wilted flowers
Search for the den where the old fox hides
Out in the sun, you couldn’t be happier

Oh if someone’s listening
If anyone cares
I’ll miss my own funeral
If it means you’ll be there

Cause I’ll be waiting
Waiting
Waiting for your ***
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting

Live your story free
Unbounded by the world
For you are the author of this story
The protagonist
I am simply a character in your book

Come take my hand
We can get lost in the forest
Raise our fists at the gods
We’ll sing to the whispers of time
And swim in galaxies

Run
Run free
Don’t let them stop you
Don’t let me stop you
Bullets in my head
Blood from my heart
I smile
Go
Forget me
I am simply a character in your book

Sleep my darling
Sink into the dark
Close your eyes
Let go
Don’t struggle
Time will continue
There are worse things to suffer

I should be going to sleep
But the shadows at the corner of my eye
Keep whispering secrets
I never asked for

I’m pacing down the hallways
Of my sanity
Waiting for a door to open
Down at the deep end

The peonies dance a slow waltz
In a breeze that does not exist
And the ivy crawl up walls
Over lamps, over windows

Come sit with me
Next to the pond
You cannot leave
So take your time

Beware!
Beware!
The great Beast of the World
Beware!
Beware!
They’ve come
They’ve come
They’ve come

Beware!
Beware!
The mighty, ferocious roar
Their anger have no limits
Their hunger have no bounds

Beware!
Beware!
They’re lurking everywhere
They lives in those we scorn
And within those ***** throngs

Beware!
Beware!
They’ve come to get us all!
What have we done to deserve this fate?
Such innocence yet we fall

Beware!
Beware!
Gather your gold
Gather your letters
Gather your shoes
Your bread and your butter

Such savagery
Such monsters
Flaming tongues
Knife blade garbles
Seeping into every nook and cranny

What have we done?
But give you a place to sleep?
What have we done?
But give you a way to live?
We are like you
Working in the fields
We only reap a different harvest
Of course not just coal and fuels

What have we done?
But give you recognition?
What have we done?
But put you where you belong?
Your tears are woven into our blankets
We wear your blood in stone
Don’t tell us we stand on the same rock and soil
We live a different birth

What have we done?
But give you food to put on your table?
Of grey water
And rock hard rye
That we found in a rotting corner of our pantry
Out of the goodness of our hearts

Oh why have you come
To lock us in your cages
We don’t belong where you live
Don’t come don’t run
And tear us into shreds
We only did what was right

Don’t come knocking at our front doors
With your jagged claws and yellow teeth
And those swollen eyes and lips
Don’t come and trample
All over our front lawn
And take what is rightfully ours

Heel!
Heel! I say!
What has gotten into your head?
We have worked together so well
You and I
What has become
Of dog
And his Master?

Oh the drums are beating
Beating, beating
Boom, boom, boom

I feel it in my bones
My skin
My teeth
We all feel it
We shiver, shiver

Oh how long the winter lasts
Oh how bitter the wind howls
Oh how loud the drums are
With their rumbling
And tumbling
And never ending marching

Oh we fall
Falling, falling
Burning like ashes from the bonfire

But the rain pours
The heaven roars
And, well, we must move on

Oh how the sand bites into our skin
Oh how the ice sting at our eyes
Oh how the branches grasp at our feet
With their creaking
And grinning
And never ending cunning

Oh the world spins
And we hang on its edge
And some fall off
Flung, flung

Oh brother, sister
Comrade, friend
Forgive me, for I live
And I move on, move on

Hold my hand
Hold my heart
Where the downhill ends, the uphill starts
Round, and round, and round

Oh how the dark looms closer
Oh how the dread sinks deep
Oh how the end draws near
With their certainty
And clarity
And never ending prophecy

For the end must come
In hope or in fear
Destiny is set
Fate is decided
The finale written
On faded pages

But
We choose our path
How we live to the last
So give
Give, give, give
Fight
Fight for the better
Fight for your fallen
Fight for your friend
Fight for the many who give
Give for the many who fight

Oh the drums are beating
Beating, beating
Boom, boom, boom
I hear a revolution
I taste a newer age

Feel the vibrations
In the air
Can you hear that?
It’s your people calling
Your people singing
Marching, marching
It’s a new age, my friend

Drumming, drumming, drumming

Down the street the old man cried,

“let me sleep! i’ve got nothing to hide!”

but the thieves and the mold care not for such things

as they burned and they burned

and they burned



Wrinkled ladies in oversized rings

yelled out their price for the prisoner’s things

“settle down, settle down, there’s more where this came from.”

as they smiled and they smiled

and they smiled



The youth shiver below, crude laughter in the sky

fear overdosing on their tongues like a chalky vice

cold hands, cold heads, staining memories, red ink on shoes

as they crumbled and they crumbled

and they crumbled



The marching of shadows shambled in the light

“roll up, roll up! lucky winner hold tight!”

slave to the mechanical beating heart of powders and liquids and glittering heat

as they fell and they fell

and they fell



Wriggling corpses build their huts along the naked land

stumbling past crowded bones as they long played their hand

“mercy, mercy, our children starve!”

as they withered and they withered

and they withered



The earth spins off its ruptured axis

flinging it’s occupants in a human crisis

the old moose groans and the silver trees splinter

as they sank and they sank

and they sank



Life seems forever as decay eats decay

as adults never seem to turn tomorrow into today

the only mark of the living left like pressed flowers in a crumbling world

as we wept and we wept

and we wept



People in straight suits say ignorance is bliss

well ignorance made me a ****** kid

i’ll tell you

i’ll let you

in on a little secret

misery is a card you don’t want to play

and death is a dept you don’t want to pay



The 15th, 16th, 17th century

the 21st

the ******* 100th

round and round

over and over

pushing time again and again



Oh the lessons are never learnt

and the punishments are always served

and the only ones left in it all

are corporate businesses who

sweep the ice cubes under the fridge



Oh we’ll suffer

oh we’ll cry

oh we’ll tumble and grumble until we all die



But the world will keep turning

and the mistakes keep churning

until we are left with no more

For a moment in
this handheld darkness
the world is but
an option

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty thought he was clever and all
So bit by bit he stacked his bricks
And built it two hundred feet tall

Swinging his legs
And nodding his head
He looked down from the top
At small puckered wells
And small tuckered hills
Of the villagers all around him

And so time flew by
And his wall grew high
And higher
And higher
And in the heathens
As he touched the heavens
He cried, “Look up, bow to me!”

And so he went

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty
Back together again

But children,
Don’t be sad

But children,
Don’t be sorry

For that night the men swung their picks
And the women scraped off the concrete
And the children stole the bricks
One by little one
Till all that was left to his memory
Was the flat crown of the ground

Besides, the bricks weren’t really his, anyways

The heat of the cold sun
Burns frostbites into my skin
Icicles growing in the cave of my lungs
Breath a cigarette between trembling lips

And I wait
And I wait

The moon boils the waters
A deep purple neath my feet
The foam biting at my heels
And the night smothering my eyes

And I wait
And I wait

And when I still my heart and pulse
To drown within the forest
The world blows past my shoulders
And carries away my voices

I see the light
in the corner of my window
before it morphs
Into the face of Hades

Death will guide my breathing
into this open space
and drown any meaning
Of air and it’s grace

I will see beyond all
that explorers have yearned
and the city heads tremble
Forlorn

For the street dusting folk
have accepted this fate
long before they were born
And will sing at the face of Dawn

When the sea reaches down
to take my hand
and sing me a cry
So foreign

I’ll remember that sleep
is no different from waking
and I’ll wait with no hurry
No claim

And we will soar
through the fires and
hailstone histories of man
Spit oil and embers on brand

For smoke becomes smoke
And poison becomes poison
And our bones a lovely crown
for our children

I never knew you then
I never knew you now
And
I will never know you
Till the trees have shed the last of their leaves
And the stars burst one by one
And the earth heals over again
But I think that is the point

Rise up
Rise like the tides
Rise like the winds
Rise unmoving
Like mountains
If we die
Least we die with
Valour kissing our hand

Mmm, tempting fate
Standing above storm clouds
Icarus bled silver regret
So he could be his own sun

And the audience behind the
Heavy blue curtains weep
And the sound effects team take thunder
From their giving hands

Oh, heroic, ironic
tragedy

he burned under the gaze
of our eyes

Static sounds
and loading screens
System’s lagging
Count to three

Hey hey hey,
bad signal up here
Give a little more time
I’m getting there

Blinking lights
and reboot signs
‘Fraid the software’s gone, ma’am,
a little haywire

To be a machine,
oh
Binary, binary,
yes or no

But I’ve got a body
and a brain that don’t sync
So strip me for parts, baby
‘cause I doubt I can think

I kept waiting for dreams
That I forgot that nightmares exist
So when the darkness lulled me
I ignored the flashlight that fell from my hand

And I don’t see the stars beyond
My curtain as I sit
Staring at the mirror
And sink

Flip a coin at me
Make me your wishing well
Your secrets in my ear
All them mine to tell

You can run
But you can’t hide
Count the candles you’ve blown out
Count the bullets till you’ve died

Oh dear

You’ve fed yourself to the monster
You’ve led yourself astray
No point running faster, faster
You’ve only yourself to blame

In the madness, I found clarity
The singular eye in the storm
rolling and twitching
Promising pain and whispering understanding
And with that clarity
I stood laughing
Blood soaking my hands
The storm is peaceful
I look up,
and see nothing but carnage sky

It smells like rain today
The sweet scent of fruit
Golden rays
Gone
Now just the smog of cars
And the washed-out sky
As we long for the days where the gods roamed free
Nectar dripping from our lips
And gold once ran in our veins

You said you loved the colour green
The shades hidden in leaves
the froth beneath the seas

And everyone that knew you
learned to love the colour too
And now I see it
in every metaphor of you

Give me a kiss
I promise I won’t tell
Give me a secret
I will not spill
Give me a cup
Overfilled
I’ll give you my watch
My time
My life

Why are we skipping
Skipping on stones
Why are we dancing
Dancing at home
Why are we stepping on tabletops
Smiling at the raindrops
Marvelling
At how the world flows

Give me a kiss
I promise I won’t tell
Give me a secret
I will not spill
Give me a cup
Overfilled
I’ll give you my watch
My time
My life

Tell me a story
A story about love
Tell me a fun fact
I’d want to know
Tell me the reason you stay
The reason you wave
The reason we still smile and sing

Give me a kiss
I promise I won’t tell
Give me a secret
I will not spill
Give me a cup
Overfilled
I’ll give you my watch
My time
My life

Lie next to me in bed
We have all night
You’ll stare at the ceiling
Hand in mine
Close your eyes dear
Let them tear
I’ll be waiting for you
At the end of the line

Give me a kiss
I promise I won’t tell
Give me a secret
I will not spill
Give me a cup
Overfilled
I’ll give you my watch
My time
My life

Give me a kiss
Promise I won’t disappear
Tell my story to your children
My heartbeat to your dreams
Count the seconds to the sunrise
The seconds till the moon arrives
In this world
We don’t have much time

Give me a kiss
I’ll give you my watch
I know it’s not much
But it’s all I have
Every moment is fleeting
Every word is the last
But don’t you worry
In heaven
Everything will pass

Boys will break hearts
Like little glow sticks
Break it a little
And let it show

Glow stick girls
Walk down the streets
With glow stick eyes
And glow stick feet

Glow stick hearts
Glow so bright
Dripping light onto the ground
But even suns will fade out

Break your heart
And bleed on the couch
Make the cushions glow
Let everyone know

Find yourself a glow stick boy
As discarded as you
With glow stick glass
And glow stick eyes
And just let yourself be you

Not all poetry work
and not all poetry speak
but somewhere
out there
there’s a word or a phrase
that will let you learn
how to cry again

Oh peaceful solitude
Where the rain fall free
And the sun swim deep
Of yellows, corals and hues

Stay by my side
Watch the twilight slip by
Fear not the wind that whips past
Nor the waves that churn beneath

In the dark are summer daisies
In the morn are daffodils
Let the days carry you far
Let the tide follow your feet

And we feast!
For memories are made in the spur of the moment
And grins are nothing but a breath of life
Give me a smile, a secret smile
Let it be ingrained in time forever

And we love
Because we want to
Because we’re meant to
Because we should

And I trust
Arms around shoulders
Do you hear that?
They’re cheering for you and me

Oh peaceful solitude
Where the trees whisper strength
And the rivers run wild
Of golden, silks and you

The world is having

A stroke

And I’ve got

Front row seats

I never paid for

These shrunken hands
Sinking beyond my body
Common places, common days
My arms dissipate, regardless

My ribs compress like cliche metaphors
A long, drawn out CPR
My lips sting
And my body laughs
Like the dying rattle of a miser man

And my eyes
Dry like the wind

I sit
Lukewarm tea at my tongue
As I stare and try and try
Make this mess at my chest and my skin
Mine

Make my box of random trinkets
All different sizes but each in
Their own, small compartment
A mess but my mess and my mess I understand
But these clothes spill from my drawers and from
The bottom of my bed
And soon it’s just itching polyester
And nails-on-chalkboard fibre

My face is drawn tight
On the brink of spilling static
Cause under these nerves
And vessels and sinew

I’m just soda and mentos
And time

my Good Ideas come at night

but seem like Bad Ideas in the morning

but I never had any other thoughts

so I guess they’re all just Ideas

I’m a mess of my own creation
Made a wager on my own nature
Now I’ve lost all the sanity to my name

You said that I died when I chose my side
And I don’t know where you buried my headstone

But parallels and pain
Are common themes in my play
And I’ll live while my story’s
Your stain

And so Victory and Death
Walk hand in hand
Across the barren fields
Towards a full moon
Bright as a child’s eye

Sunday on the school grounds
Wiping off the lead crowns
Beds set up in oyster shells
Weren’t we meant to breathe in
Sheriff’s silver casings
That fall out of the sky

And I say
Little red lies on your teeth,
your teeth,
Grinning at church bells
Atop your Van Gogh
window sill

Screams pinned on jackets and
conspiracies sprayed on knees
Black diamonds on the rocks,
the rocks,
This whisper ain’t got any
real privacy

Cutting your hands on dreams
Losing your last memory
Of white rabbits, door habits
Writhing like a royal trapped in
Big cash ins
Flayed for the prize to see

But it’s all
A
Feel
of your
Masterpiece

So meet me, meet me
My sidewalk’s got salt line
Fish in a hunting ring
Leaf in an arctic breeze
I’ve got time I’ve got time
I’ve got cigarettes and lime
Come put this fire out
And take a shot to you

There is a lull in being
a singular heartbeat among
the mess of your room

The window is dark
with the suspension of city quiet
and the hum of incessant silence
Existing, existing

Sitting with hands bleeding
fire and flowers and fraudulent feelings
and the floating ache of lungs

The perfume stings your nose
and you learn to love it
and then you learn to hate it
Hear a voice (your own):

The apple falls, crisp, red
It fulfils it grand role
Eaten, sacrificed
The seeds see far,
noble, shinning destiny

The apple falls, clinging, dead
It rots as it descends
Putrid, abhorred
The seeds grow an executioner
choking, mindless hunger

I’ll tell you a secret
You smell of corpse-sweet

You are not your own
You are not your own
You are not your own
You are not yourown
Youarenotyourownyouarenotyourownyouarenotyourownyou

My fingers tug my limbs with puppet string
on a stage made of automatons
and I’m so scared I’ll blindfold every smiling audience
who’d come to see me dance
that one day I’m left with an empty room
only filled with audio studio claps

There is a desolation to grief
Hidden, buried
Rotting and writhing in the depth of the soul
And no one can see the blackened heart
Aching and curing in tears of salt

There is a wrenching to pain
Gripping, seeping
The infection and corruption of touch
Like everything could crumple
And everyone can break

There is a madness to comfort
Clinging, blinding
Feeling closer to light, to wind
Crawling up a staircase
Of bodies you’ve dragged in pursuit

There’s a silence to acceptance
Waking up from a puddle of blood and spit
Finding the faces that mouthed your name
Moths, circling the lightbulb
In your own rusted cage

Butterflies are scavengers
Fluttering colours over a corpse
So read between the lines

Monarchs
Something, something
And death

Looks like this is the end
Dead stop
Full stop
Bus stop

Nothing much to do
Just sitting
Staring
Horizons daring

It’s quiet
It’s calm
It’s not too bad
Just whistling grass
And tiny ants

Wonder, wonder
What has life brought?
Hither, huther
What use is that thought?

Away away
Where the wind hikes
Like little maidens
Over hidden pikes

And the rumble of rubber
And the smell of dust
Putter putter
Get on your bus

And leave behind
Your philosophical mind
For someone else
To follow

You painted yourself a martyr with
your blood upon my blade
And now my Damascus is tainted with
your tears and rusted pain

I was forged and beaten in quiet flames
for the risings and singings of slain
And my steel would ring crystal upon their thrones
as we show what’s womanly fame

But centuries later from charred fists
I’m set into glass and displayed
Where clasped hands and smug eyes declare my dream
and exampled as womanly fate

Yet remember
Remember
It’s in your bones and blood
Smell the ash on your face
Taste the rain and the race

We were made for walking
And stomping feet
To seek their eyes and maim

For the wanderer listens for the voice in the dust
And the lost will gain what was tamed

Sisters and brothers,
Prayers and shame
We’re warriors of water and way
We had turned to a nation of gold and rubble
We’ll turn to our stones and blade

Dig dig dig
There’s dirt in our nails
and the memories in our name
Where the weeds blossom in yellow fire
We’ll drag them into our nameless graves

I was tempered and torn in the waters of faith
Where I birthed and I sang and I laboured away
Where I’ll raise an army in the songs that I wrote
And the stars that I named in my chains

Today I will shatter each shard as an edge
and I’ll cut you as you swallow my hate
And my blood will cover as testament and crown
as you prepare for my womanly reign

Every eye in the grain of the walls
Center at my spine
It crawls
Searching, staring

Fear
It’s white and blinding and
it sloughs off my throat like
An invasive buzz of
“Why”
“Meet me”
“I know”

I clutch my hands tighter to my chest
Cradling the last untouched petal
From my rotting person
Skin marred with unspoken rules
Flesh scored with glares

And even that is ripped away

I’m so tired
So very tired
It’s so easy to sink
Fall back to black
Dark
Silent waters

Every noise is a spider
On a web of vibrating consequences
I’m a doll splayed for dress up
On a stage made for the world

And now look at me
Crawling along the ledge
I tiptoe on the ice but
My feet are strapped with coals

Blind me, deafen me
Put me in a grave
If the day I get to keep my story un-judged
is the day my book burns
Then set yourself a campfire
Upon my weary bones

The rain called like great white veils
Obscure the face of the bride
As she weeps and she weeps
Like the rain of her hood
As it rains as it rains as it rains

Why Kookaburra
Hiding round the stone
Sulking in the graveyard
Silent and alone

Alas! Alas!
I’m selfish, cruel, a beast
I am a thief
A thief of time
Yet I don’t take
I give

Why Kookaburra
Do you shy away from trees
When flocks of birds come resting
And food is wild and free

Alas! Alas!
They will not receive me
Deceiver, am I
Laughing at the fools
I bring suffering and cries
And roost with empty wings

Why Kookaburra
Do you say these things?
You are a special bird
With nature to be these

Alas! Alas!
They think they know
Indeed
If survival’s not the key
Then what is left of me?

Why Kookaburra
What brash insults you speak
Accuse us of such deeds
Perhaps you must acquit

Alas! Alas!
Did you not say to be me?
To fly up on bird’s wings
Oh so high
And do what I need be?

Why Kookaburra
Look around and see
The world loves and lives
For those who sit and sing

The concrete sidewalks
And metal rails
Are dry and wrung of rain

But the soil remembers the storm
And the trees don’t forget its taste

One day they’ll ask me
(in my dreams)
Where my art is found
My resume for my right hemisphere
My creative licence card

And I’ll say it’s found
obviously
In these poems I write at night
Restless hands and wordless ranting

It’s in the little yarn projects
I’ve picked up and put down
across a year
And my crazed grin when I have to frog three ****** rows

It’s all the handmade cards I crafted for mother’s day
for every year in my life
Because she once dreamed of being an architect
And smiles when resigned to helping to do my art homework

It’s the dried flowers
from manic fascination and collection
Pressed under a stack of books
Sort of forgotten when I tell myself
I’ll stick them to paper tomorrow

Not a bone in my body is professional
Not a bit of me says Van Gogh
But only I see my museum
And only I critique my art
So at least my abstract portrait of craft
Won’t have a missing ear in it

I need a picture on the wall of my coffin of stone
Put on a pedestal
Put on a shelf
A thousand years crusting tears on my self

Paint me immortal
Paint me a Saint
Or paint me the nightmare that everyone claims

Cause I am a paradox
A knife’s bloodless blade
A faceless body in the mirror
I can’t wipe away

Sinking on land
Quicksilver sand

Poison on lips
Drowning the tips of my
Sanity
Profanity

The sting of a bee hurts less
Than the thought of you leaving
Cause I dance the fine line
Of empathy and tragedy

Oh the church bells will ring for
Dancers and fools
Pantheon of Justice
Your name’s just a tool

Oh the road ahead is dusty
And the trees are barren fruit
But my back is to your hangman love
And I’m sorry I’m leaving
So soon

The world moves
A silent creak and pull
The people run
An endless marathon

Thousands of words
Passed between souls
But one
May shatter stone

Time doesn't flow
It rushes
Gushes
Reaching out for something
It can never hold

Lives and faces are swept
Faster and faster
In the leaping torrents of life
Faster and faster

The world moves
A silent creak and pull
And yet I stand here alone
Frozen In Time

Somebody texted me
About their day
And I was so happy
For them

I got a call from Ireland
Wasn’t sure what it was about
But the caller spoke Chinese
So I hung

Did someone else’s chore
While they hustled in their own world
Silently and by myself
Good job, good job

Sometimes I lay in bed
And think of all the things I might say
Lodged within my throat
A mantra in my head

A fox stole my tongue
So now my words don’t come out right
And the only thing I’m good for
Is to be someone else’s ear

No one stays to listen to my whispers
And maybe it’s my fault
Maybe I should’ve said it louder
Should’ve brought along a speaker

I’m surrounded by people
My kin are as knitted as skin
But I’m drowning drowning drowning
In nothing nothing nothing

Take me to the mountains
Mint my lead into a mouth
Let me scream out all my sorrows
Let me scream away my sound

Then maybe I won’t be buried
With all my life left in secrets
All my burdens left as monuments
Rotting underneath the stone

The kids ran from the smoking pipes
Of tree branches and fog
Of mechanisms in the rotting mulch
Dragging heads of eclipses
On wish bone sticks

That was a metaphor for conquering
Unknown
But also the story of choosing
Unknown

The frogs write
their last will and testament on
Quivering mist and
Echoing answers

The fish know their place
Minds one ball of red string
And pass their history to their lawyers
As suggestions

The city is lined with
Street signs and traffic lights
One foot after another
One person and then another

Did you know the dictionary has no word
for the people who rely on patrons?
dependent
client
protégé

all these stolen words
and none to paint the world

Life is sheets of white paper
There’s a note when you’re born
And a note when you die
And a note when you eat

And behind each word is
A dept to be paid
In money in love or in pain
in quiet moments when you stand and wane

Perhaps I ramble too much
Mindless this and that like
the terms and conditions
of a tabloid subscription

Hah
Law metaphors from
Someone who’s not a lawyer

The kids ran from the smoking pipes
Of ink spills and crooked grins
Of mechanisms in the infinite machine
Nature following nature
Until they cease to breathe

History is written in prophecies
And radioactive handshakes
Yet the world with all it’s felonies
Cannot lay down in peace

It reads here, in the fine print:
Non-exchangeable
Non-refundable
Non-redeemable

The ouroboros of humanity
of plant of animal
of ocean of sky
of faceless crowds in an empty mirror
of lightless stars in a distant future

We will return
For better or for worse
It’s written in the fossils
And carved into our cells
And a written statement
is evidence enough

hello, stranger
i see we meet again
between book pages
within art hedges

the paths to immortality are
storylines and ballad chimes
i’ll see you in the epigraphs
i’ll read you in the skies

first law of
thermodynamics
no energy created
no energy destroyed

over and over
blood born blood lost
arms carved from fireflies
breath fossils in northern lights

hello, stranger
decaying and beating heart
chubby hands clinging to heaven
or trading final death-cards

the clock ticks to the rhythm of
supernovas far, far away
and prophecies printed on
abandoned beach sands

and you, stranger
walk the plank between the waking
and the beyond
my question to you is
Which direction are you heading?

The air is made of muted colours
That vibrate with the delicate hum of light
And I’ll try my darnedest
Catching these fireflies in my palms
But they just slip like slow falling sand

And you snap your fingers
And the world turns off
And I’m back again grasping at straws
And shredded scripts
As I drag my lagging mind
Desperate to catch up to the play

But the actors heed not my calls
Of forgiveness and aid
And once again I stare at dust motes
Singing in the spotlight rain