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.

His hands are scarred,
Face is a mess,
Too long walking
Through the wilderness.
The bears are hungry
Wolves they howl,
The Levy's breaking
All will
Drowns.
Washed away by savage currents
Watching fallen suns go
Down.

Once when we were children,
We would run to here and there.
Across the hills of our homeland
With the wind in our fair hair.
The sun would shine
The rain would fall,
Never to hinder our play.
And all that could stop us
Was the call of our mothers
At the darkening of each day.

Sticks became our swords back then,
Keen of edge and shining bright.
The willow became our fortress
To defend until the night.
And when our foes were weeping
Once more we became the child.
Fast asleep we were sleeping
Imagination running wild.

We got that little bit older,
That ever bit more bolder.
Ambition came to soon.
We went to school
Were told what to do,
And all that we could be.
Some said 'Spaceman'
One 'Veterinarian'
The wise child said 'Happy'

"No No! You need a profession"
Seemed to be the moral of that lesson.
But the teacher didn't understand the question
That she asked.
For her days of dreaming
And childish scheming
Were lost in a distant past.

Staying up late, so late it's early
Then dreaming long and far.
"Come on, get up you're missing the sun!"
"Ah! But I see so much more of the stars!"

Our body was well worn,
Born, bled then ill informed.
Skin shed
Torn
Dust to adorn a once pristene floor.
Bred to provide countless lives, more.
Martyr to a form it shall never see.
The water flows but cannot know
The extent of its captivity.

The sea is swept in mystery
She confides in me no more.
No whispers in the shells
Or echoes from the shore.
You do not argue with the wind,
You can not bargain with the sky.
Standing back to back with mountains
We watch and weep while angels die.
For the face of life is fleeting,
Tweeting, tapping at your door,
Ravens that won't relent,
Yet ones you can't ignore.

But I'm boring you I'm sure.
I was talking about the ocean
And how we speak no more.
It's not that we don't get on
We still have much to say.
Words are made of water
Written in the waves.
Now the tide is out,
The sea seems
Far away.

Snail...or...leaf?!?!
Snail....or...leaf!?!?
Checks shoe
****
Snail!

Don't worry mum.
I'm worse than you think
But no way near as bad as you fear.

It started in Dublin before I was born
Crossing the Irish Sea to weather a storm.
London called through the wind and rain
Big city lights and a country's flame.
To Manchester then, a city united
At least to outsiders.
But to those within it's somewhat
Divided.

Summers in France.
Dining in Provence
Time in Toulouse
And along the Loire.
But Paris! Paris has that
Je ne sais quoi
Fine wine, fine company
It's a fine philosophy.

A German exchange
in einer stadt namens
Bad Bentheim.
Exposed to a culture
And the work of Rammstein.
A few days in Berlin
A fantastic city with much
History within.

Gondolas in Vienna if only for a day
Sailing down the Danube
Water wants us on our way.
We stay for a while
Within the walls of Budapest,
My first shot of Absinthe
Puts my liver to the test.

No rest for the wicked
That wanderlust I long.
Settled for a while by the lights of
Hong Kong,
A place I felt for a while at peace
High in the Monastery of Lantau's peeks.
I went once and I went again.
When wizened crones speak of golden devils,
Stroking my blonde hair on the streets of
Shenzhen.

The words they slept in shadows,
Unspoken in the night.
When a hand reached forth
With nightshade blade,
To poison anothers plight.

Sweet dreams,
Oh Lord of Lamentations.
Let the aether surround
With reams of false augmentation.
For the sick and the weak
Those we ignore and mistreat
Are no longer eight hours away.
Empires will fall
While we rest and decay
Cerebrally enslaved
To the light of day.

The stage is large and daunting
a warning basking under orange lights.
the actor is thrown into the scene
somewhere from off of stage right.
Shrinking from the glare to the night
Transfixed by sight, the first time it's seen.
He has the strangest urge that this is all a Dream.
Wishful thinking
Im afraid.
The cameras were always rolling, the final credits have been made.

The crowd sit in near silence.

"Is this a part of the show?"


"I think they're building suspense!"












Nothing.

He gazed long into the flames,
Tracing the path of ash
Fired high then doused by rain.
He watched wisps of smoke
Curl into shadows of the moon,
Felt the star crossed lovers
Blossom far too soon.
He scatters the shore with shells
Following the path of bones,
Wherein he discovers everyones future
But his own.

I will never believe in your God
But I will always have faith in You.
I care not for what you preach.
I care only for what you do.

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.

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.

We wage wars with words,
Whetstone sharpened wit.
Wounds win rounds of applause.
A pause,
While metaphors are mustered,
Rusted dictionaries dusted,
Cobwebs shed from unread shelves.
Pikes of pronunciation
Pick apart
Portraits of ourselves.
While poetry parries,
Prose pivots,
Prepares and rallies,
Stares down violet valley below.
The violence of lavender
Shines like silver in the snow.
A scent sentenced to silence,
Flowers on death row.

I remember so much and yet so little of that day,
I remember the woods near our home where I would used to play.
The den I made, smothered by oak and fern,
The dragonflies sailing zephyrs and their power that I yearned.

I remember clearer the presence of my father,
Struggling through gaps he was far to large for,
His smile strangely absent that day.
I remember words he whispered
"come child, today we are away."

Those words mean little now
So much more than they did back then,
When my mind idled with dragonflies
Locked in that wooden den.

I remember seeing the earth
Looking still, if not serene.
Defiant in it's rotation.
As countless ships,
Starward monoliths
Depart with naive expectation.

Some decided to stay,
As some always do.
The rest sail for space in search of silent refuge.
Once more we forgot ourselves
Embracing our own  foolish divinity.
Forgetting the folly of our past
As it echoes unto infinity.

I remember once, now gazing at alien constellations,
The lines we drew in shale and sand to mark our different nations.
The pettiness we adored and the diplomacy we abhorred,
We burnt the earth behind us
And fled unto the stars.
The last thing I remember,
That day in late September,
The last solar systems' ember
Was the rusting glow of Mars.

I forgot how much I missed that home
Over the twelve cold years in space alone.
This place is not so bad,
But the trees weep strange,
Leaves drooped and sad.
From my window I see my grandson run
Chasing the shadows of new earth's twinned suns.
Fresh from the forrest
A new found den.
A second chance
Don't
Fail again.

One more chalice of amber
Encrusted with hopes and dreams.
One more sip from the cup of life
To ground what we believe.

One more breath of neon vapor
That lifts us from our knees,
Frees the wrists of shackles
And clears the way to see.

Repeat,

Ad nauseam,

Until the truth is found.
In the depths of depravity
Satori abounds.
A glimpse of nirvana
And all that was lost is found.

For now,

But as the amber nectar turns bitter
The smoke is powdered on our lungs.
The vapor has all gone while
We hiss our words in tongues.
But in the morning when all is said and done
You awake to true satori,
The road to understanding has only just begun.

An eclipse at the end of the world,
Waterfalls unto the unknown,
Navigate the secrets,
Nautical bold.
Here be dragons, or so we're told.
Well then let us burn,
Charred soul.
Not all that shines is gold.
Hold close the rigging
Friction scars our hands once more.
Voyage to unknown lands
Our future lies in the sand.
Both fine yet blown off course.

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

She is a rock,
She is a pillar of the sea.
Oblivious to the waves
That crash against her feet.
She stands tall,
Head raised among the clouds,
Weathering the storms
Enduring the droughts.

She stares far unto the horizon,
Surveying all that she can be,
This pillar of rock,
This goddess of the sea.