We float on unkown oceans
In boats more made for land.
The sails have ceased to function,
And our boots are laced with sand.
The rudder is unresponsive,
The first mate seems quiet too.
The ship has started leaking,
Weakend wood and stale stew.

The course was never charted,
This was known among the crew.
A passage for the faint of heart,
The bard and the jester too.
These denizens of darkness
Embark with the morning dew.
Depart with mist horizons
To find the start of something new.

For months we sailed
Through winter times,
On waters cold yet still serene.
The memories of warmer climes
Seem like nothing but a dream.
Cannons fire, deckhands scream,
Ship splintered by the sea.
Driftwood caught in ocean's sway
Swept up then cast away.

Earth has lost an angel,
Heaven has gained one hell of a man.

Clear skies are often coldest,
Tempests' temper seems subdued.
Sunlight skims the tiles of rooftops,
Stops.
Savours,
Admires the view.

The sky was never blue.
Obsidian haze and gunmetal days
Light the life we choose.
Blackened,
Slightly bruised.
Broken yet not dismayed.
Too long we have been walking,
Proud in our shroud of the grey.

My brother, my teacher,
My foe and my friend.
Our ghosts shall speak
Once more at the end.

I am folly, I am fury.
I am ruin and I am rage.
I am every time that you have faltered,
Every time you were afraid.
I am pestilence and I am plague.
I am every roar of faded glory,
I am every cry of shame.
I am war, I am worship,
I am hunter and I am boar.
I am every lash of slavers whip,
Every chain cast to the floor.

We were poets,
Once,
Hearts etched upon our sleeve
The lords of our intent,
Words bloomed for all to see.
Each branch of thought considered,
Chiseled,
Whittled to express.
Carving the forest in our likeness
We paved the landscape with our breath.
Woods would sway in idle days
Sunkissed glades lay bathed in gold.
Nights waylaid by dancing maids
Cheap ale and tales of old.
Fires burn, flames unfold.
Though
Embers remember
Tender clutch of the cold.
We tend to forget the bargained,
The sold.
Up rivers and creeks,
Paddles, disowned by the meek,
Cast away to distant shores.  
Glades decay,
Fade to grey.

We become poets once more.

Among the days of December  
A new member joins the fold.
Born of love and melodies
A song sung once and then retold.
Hope wrapped close in silence,
Cotten swathed defiance,
Far from the tyrants of this world.

For a moment there is peace,
Time catches breath,
Young prince lays sound asleep.
Counting the bleats of passing sheep
Your parents guard the door.
For when you wake from slumber
And satisfy your hunger,
Opened eyes shall discover,
That all this world is yours.

We greet life with idle sighs,
Slowly satisfied by sightful eyes.
Glancing at wrists handcuffed to time.
Bound to age rusting, cast iron cage
Displayed by fine wrought bars of rage.
Captivited by captivity,
Tied to lies scrawled bold on fading page.
Decieved by beliefs and words that saved.

Yet don't dismay.
Pay no toll for the hole
You carve within your soul.
That debt is paid in full,
Through sweat and toil
Blood set ripe to boil,
Shed countless lives ago.

Faces reflected in glass
Images of beauty,
Fleeting, never last.
Passing ghosts
Give way to those most lost.
But every road has its cost.
Gold or service rendered,
Time and emotion tendered.
Pass the host a glass!
Something which sparkles,
Distracts from this debacle
And farcical display.  
She necks the glass,
Looks away,
Walks off into the night
Slightly swayed,
Yet not afraid.

The wind wept on wind swept shores
While the ocean licked her lips.
Born to grip the precipice
Of fate within her claws.
Once more, Once more!
Once more the water cried,
Will you sink?
Will you swim?
Will you decide to survive?

Words were lost on the wind and tide.
Clouds of revenge form deep within the mind.
Hazy judgement, Hate filled time
Perhaps they both too will find,
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind"

Caught a feeling
Then flew away,
She got on a plane
To the U.S.A
Four thousand miles
Shore to shore,
Ain't much sunshine
Anymore.

I see you in the storm
Of rain lashed eyes,
I feel you in the wind
And tumultuous tides.
I see you in the fire
Splendid tendrils of desire,
I hear you in the songs
Of solemn, mournful choirs.

I found you in the stars
Sat upon the shoulders of Orion.
I found you in the shadows
Another lonesome scion.
I found you in the fall,
Leaves encaptured and enthralled.
The weight of an oceans promise,
The allure of waters call.

Yet for all our senses we couldn't see
The sense of foreboding melancholy.
That which was found in the depths of the sea
You found it all,
All except for me.

We could have been great,
Oh you and I.
The carpenters of fate,
Carving lines in halcyon skies.
Scar tissue blue
Vapour clouding the eyes.
Bound
To the flight of hyperborean tides,
Mythical winds of the north.
Yet their chill is real
Wrapped in the cloth
Of pride and zeal.
Confide,
While calm in the shaded riverside.
Forever chasing rainbows
Over moors and mountainside.
No cauldrons of gold
Just archaic rocks and stones
Buried by the weight
Of fallen bones.

In a world where wars are fought with Words.
His only weapon was silence.
Standing neither for nor against
A solitary act of defiance.

There is a certain kind of terror
Found only in species that truly think.
It comes in moments of peace
When our guard is down,
Thoughts away on the breeze.
Suddenly,
An unnamed notion,
An unwanted feeling of foreboding.
Waiting for the sky to fall,
Petrified as to why anything exists at all.

You hope that when you die,
You will be promoted to some
Playground in the sky.
To live again for eternity.
But how will you be seen?
The 5 year old with scabby knees?
Or 15 with a touch of acne?
25 with life laying ahead
An 80 year old thinking of the dead?
I hope you know none of this can be
It just doesn't work, logically.
I suppose you may mention the soul,
Or patronise saying we will never know.
Yet know this,
None have come back to tell their tale.
To save us the horror?
Or not to ruin the show?