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.

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.

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.

We live beneath an ocean of air
That keeps us as one through pressure,
As currents conspire to tear us apart
The maelstrom whispers and roars.
Picking leaves from trees
That cascade unto the ground
With n'er a sound but of rippling foliage.
A hermitage lost in a sirocco,
Drowned beneath the gales of this world.

These halls seem somewhat hollow,
Whose walls once knelled with
Wit, charm and sorrow.
The silence erodes the keystones' arch
Subdued subjects that once did sing
Depart.

That ancient bell tied to towers steeple,
No longer speaks for the wants
And needs of it's people.
For no man, woman or child
Could be found and riled
To hold fast and grasp the rope.
Hold firm and ring the bells of hope.

The sound of truth cuts fine.
Old lies no longer aloof.
When smoke does rise
From thatched houses roof,
We may live to see the proof attached,
Foundations subsiding.
Revolutions confiding
Inside the very stone itself.
Mortar fights Mortar
Till neither has health.
Candelabra arbitrates,
Fiery death from water.
The dual will slaughter us all.

It shall last till the hall can not past the moment of the present.
All its tenants cast out to the depths of mortal unrepentant.
A more pleasant alternative to uncertain death
May stray your way in an unwanted effigy
Cunningly disguised as yourself
As you drink to good health
Comfortably delved into the
Abode of bliss.
A delusional  apotheosis.

It's a slippery *****,
I hope you know.
Said the Solipsist
To The Fly.

Who was itself
A somewhat suspicious
Deliciously conspicuous,
Most likely maleficent,
Manifestation of a mind.

A specimen meant just to define,
A shade that shall not live,
A shadow that shall not fly.
Designed to be a metaphor,
To make its point and then to die.

Invested only to be digested
By imagination and an eye.
Where within it lingers lonely,
Solely stoic for a while,
For a time.
A casualty of entropy
Out of place,
Left behind.
Or maybe out in front,
Depending on your point of view,
However long thought takes to stew.

The Fly nodded sagely,
Behaved as if it knew.
Nonchalant with confidence,
The epitome of cool.
Giving all the right impressions
These digressions were understood.
As it landed ever closer
To sit upon the madman's shoulder
To show this silly, pseudo ******
How little he really knew.

That being said,
If all that is lives only in your head.
Could I trouble you for some of that stew?

Under a sullen, unloving sky,
Caught off guard by the searching rain,
She flees to shieldlike canopies.
A pilgrim on the path of shadow
Ever tethered to the flame.
Enslaved to the way of fire
Sycophant of the eternal blaze.
Condemned to spend the end of days
Wandering wastelands of the Sun,
Forever exiled from the shade.

In the darkness she would remain,
If only she would have her way.
Cocooned in shells of memory
Fogs of war,
Ill explained.
Though the forest chatter
Never quite sounds the same,
The pitter patter
Pauses,
Secrets encoded in the rain.
Her frail wings lay broken
Breath comes barely when spoken,
Offspring away upon the wind.
Though they took no time to notice
The darkness roars forth and shows us

We have our own fires to attend.

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.

The power is yours, my son
And you shall have need of it
Before our days are done.
It will shape the world around you.
To a form you will both hate
And love,
Do not misunderstand me boy,
I talk of power, not of strength
For power often resides in weak
And feeble forms.
Yet forms that go to great lengths
To achieve what it is they sought.

The wisdom may come in time.
If you have the patience of the mind
To dwell on introspection and the
Flaws that you will find.
Wisdom will show you where
You have gone and abused your power.
And when others have abused theirs,
A taste forever sour.

Courage gives the lion his roar
The sound of defiance that will endure no more.
If you have the courage to speak the wisdom
of your mind,
And the power to change the world even when your hands are tied
Then all in all, I am sure
My son,
That you will turn out to be just fine.

If only that we would stay our tongues
That slither round and upon
The words we never wanted to whisper.
Much can be left unsaid,

Broken
         thoughts
among        
a blizzard
                      And cast into
.lead.
.         .
  .                .
.                         .
Hindered by the fall.
We call into the gloom.
A hand reaching out beyond
That ashen white hue.
Too late she says,
You have had your say,
Your heart and mind
Have had their way.
Each day now lays cold
Whether due to winters weather
Or a chance lost to the storm,
Of which I'm none to sure.
I shall sip on silence
And guard my tongue,
For now and ever more.

We worried so much about sticking our head above the parapet,
We forgot the stagnant water underfoot.
We forgot the stages of stalemate
The terror of trench foot.

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?

He thought he may have caught
Among the snares and creeping vines,
A whisper of a thought
From the leaves and air entwined.
On the savage jungle floor,
The corpse of those that came before,
Testament to an ancient war
Lay bloodied and forlorn.
A trap that's set a hundred times or more.

The words were always just!
The words were just in his mind,
A caricature of conscience
What he wished for he would find.
Yet in the echoes of the moon,
He stood before the snare
And knew it to be bare.
Why then does the forest sing this mournful tune?


A girl knelt shy by shaded riverside
Asking the shadows what they knew.
They told tales of light once spoken by the moon,
A prophecy come true of a girl named Blue
Whose eyes would tame the wild.

They were the sons of silver,
Softly treading an angels web.
The last ******* of the ghost
Of winter living forever
Or so it was said.

The players of fools,
Though played from afar.
Distant and watchful
Removed from the heart.

Quick you sons of silver,
On you mercury child!
Your heart may be cold
As metal, numb against
The wilds.
Creaking in the tempest
That cries aloud and moans,
Remember you're never alone.

For they were the daughters of diamond,
Cut in the sandstorm of a bedouin desert.
A million years in the making
Forged in the torture of pressure.
Each impeccable, a priceless treasure.
But every diamond starts its life as coal.
The darkest of hearts made from the death of Old.