Sweet Lady of the Lake
I never see your face.
For your gaze is cast away in part
By the light of my mistakes.
Whatever it may take,
I'll fight the hands of fate
To go back to that place and time
Where I could almost call you mine.

I never saw the signs.
A fault in my design.
A problem with my mind divides
The truth timesed by denial.
So sweet lady of the lake
Will i ever see your face?
Will i ever see you smile?

The storm has much to say,
Ranting through rain
Drops,
Morse code on window pane.
Triple dots dash to convey,
Stop.
Glass lashed words
Traced light upon the day.
The wind will have its way,
Whistling through canopies
Leading leaves astray.
Melodies of catastrophe
And cacophonics on display.

The lessons in school,
They come not in the classroom
But in the playground.

If life is a ride
Then I wish for it to cease,
Just for a moment
Let its chains release.
Let all of its highs,
And all of its lows
Roll solemnly off the breeze.

If life is a game
Then show me my red card.
The training never helped,
The fight was much too hard

If life is a race,
Then let me fall behind
As the dust from all their feet
Creates a storm and casts me blind.

If life is to be conscious
Then confine me unto sleep.
Mind locked in the tallest tower
Forever out of reach.

If life is to be loved
And to love again in turn.
Then rip this failing *****
From my chest and let it burn.
For these are some life lessons,
Those lessons hardest to learn.

Flashes of long lost decadence
Clothed in shabby cloaks of misdemeanor.
Windswept nostalgia, stayed and sleeved
By the breeze that haunts a forests tree.

Leave it be, the wind said to me.
Let the leaves be leaves,  
Let the trees be trees,
For their roots run deep,
Far deeper than you may perceive.

Life is a library, but
Too many of our pages are blank,
Our words transparent
Forced into dogeared corners.
Not spineless per se,
But visiting a chiropractor regularly.  
Covering our selves in judgments
Worn with both shame and pride.
We tire of the climb and the thinning air
We bookmark the times we falter
And when we shield our eyes from the glare.
Our minds are marked by the epithets
Gifted unto us by others.  
Some arrows fly true to the bone
Others are way off the mark.
And when our final pages have been read,
The book loaned out or discarded
All that remains of us is said
In a line on granite epitaph
The truth of the dead forever guarded.

Little boy lost,
Among the valleys
And the fens.
Took shelter under cloak,
The elements to defend.

"Mother!"
"Father!"
He yelled into the air.
"Brother"
"Friends"
But there was nobody there.

The boy marched on into the torrent of the gale,
As tears entwined with rain
Drops.
Whispering forgotten tales.

Alone.

Kind of,

But the wind has a way of bringing the world to life.
As little boy lost shivers in the pale moonlight,
He comes upon a brook from the corner of his sight.
Just enough to make him stop.

Inquire,

"Where just is this stream among the mire?"

No matter where he looked, whether,
Left
                                          or       ­         
                                                                ­                       Right.
The stream remained unbidden,
Forever out of sight...






Forever is never as long as it seems,
When we are but young with youthful dreams.
The little boy no longer as lost as we.
Finds a guide in the sight of that once brook,
Now Stream
Meandering into that river to the sea,
Flowing tidal
Through waves of possibility.

What kind of magician are you?
One who would carve a heart in two.
Offered as truth, the audience view
Miraged oceans made of sand.
Light retracts, distracts,
Sight fights sleight of hand.

The eyes will see what you will show,
The mind will always think it knows.
The heart will lie, cheat and steal.
While smiles conceal, frowns reveal
That still we can't say what is real.

A mind made of marble
And pristene granite walls.
Intricate mosaics,
Oak carved skirting boards.

Mahagony knights
Prize their ivory pawns.
On unto the fight,
Iron locks with horn.

Sweet Mother of pearl,
Stern Father of pride,
Find a place called home,
Stand sentry for the night.

Fountains maintain order
The force of flowing water,
Both violent and yet serene.
Soothing currents of the sea
Slaying dragons in our dreams.

A city stirs, chaos ensues.
A thousand feet shuffle on
Into the gloom.
As markets spew skewed
Statistics, of
Fortunes faded
And riches made in minutes.

I see the lightning.
I can smell the thunder.
With all the rancid sounds
Of society torn asunder.

They have the need.
The need for greed
And new age prophets.
Preaching and predicting
The rise and fall.
Like Benedictine's of old.
So secure and safe,
Kept warm by misguided faith
In numbers.

As stocks begin to slumber
And those feet go shuffling home,
The city sighs a relief.
Guiding it's flock
Through trains and planes
Like a Shepard leads his sheep.

A light in the dark
Shadow of your former self.
Red iron rusting.

There was something in the air that night
That lent itself to magic let the stars shine bright.
While the light of ageing suns fight to be
The one that might ensnare our sight.
Midnight binds the heart to minds
As minds forge constellations
Carved slight on the evening sky.
Those lines cast in stone
By worn hands long ago,
Tempered in the crucible of time.

Before we reach those warring stars
Or trespass on a wandering Mars.
Before we waken Saturn's rings
Or question Jupiter's reason to be.
Before we knock on Neptune's door
Or wonder if Pluto is rock or more?
The Moon seems to have taken flight,
Conspicuous by its absence
It slipped out of sight
Assured of its command
The master of the night.

Once donned,
This shinning suit of armour
Now lies cracked and worn
Through chemistry.
In an age forlorn of chivalry,
Good intentions turn to dust
As honour gives way to lust.

We shall do what we must.
And must do what we shall
In a shallow state of mind.
For when I replaces us,
We know all hope is lost.

We are mules,
Moving matter here and there,
While men in suits and pristine
Combed hair,
Wax shined shoes
And a plastic smile,
Say  "no, not here, there!"
Followed by some monotonous management bile:

"Yeah Ted, great squash game
Your blue sky thinking will pave the way!
Yeah bye..."

"Christ, that guys lame"

The office applauds and cements his fame,
While the mules keep ambling on,
Moving matter that doesn't matter
Until the last days light has shone.

The words don't come as easy anymore,
As if the very act of utterance
Has now become a chore.
Words that once slithered
From my mind and from my tongue,
Seem wrapped in insignificance.
Like the vacuous distance
Twixt our planet and our Sun.

Oh yes,
There are enough faint marks
That we can trace constellations
In the quiet of the dark.
Finding meaning that was never there,
Seduced by mediocrity
With just a pinch of natural flair.

I feel the muse has died,
The last ember of a humble
Fire,
Now fuel deprived.
So I shall trawl through the
Musings of others.
To find a spark and kindle
My lovers.
The spoken and written word,
Perhaps entwined
With a musical accord.

Perchance then? If my ego may be silent
Perhaps I could take pen again
Assault the salient!
Then if determinism agrees
I may once more feel the words
Flow through me like the breeze.
I will ink my conscience once more.
Till my mind is left adrift,
Treading water to
Distant shores.

It starts with silence
surrounding all sensation.
A fleeting pause for contemplation...

Disturbed by sound
Stirring the soul
A bi-product or primary goal?

It begins to surge
slowly at first.
Build the tension
Till it leaks.
Go with the tempo
Till the Crescendo peaks
And falls.

We fall to,
Beautifully bound to this structure of sound.

All nations are born of blood,
Baptized in a font of fire.
The pyre is lit
On what once was.
Heritage fights with progress
Till the fulcrum is met.
As societies digress
From there anointed paths.
The history lasts
Till the last generation dies,
No more tales are told
No more lives are sold,
Now the new nations rise.

Come,
Walk with me.
Through nature and the wild.
To the precipice of shadows
Where no mortal has defiled.
Past the last bastion of light
Death throes of the civilised.
No remnants of sentiment
To the trees, we shall confide.

So we will journey, we shall go.
Travel to where the maps won't show.
Embark to where here dragons lie
Neck stiff,
Head tilts toward the sky.
Each pinprick becomes a question,
The void another lesson,
Constellations, a reason why.
Then as those final embers mellow,
Residual engraving on our eyes.
We turn away, heads high and bellow,
That which lives will never die.

The stars are falling
And yet you fail to see,
Playing naughts and crosses
In the sand and shale
By the sea.

Deaf to the thunder,
Stick in hand
You made your move.
Circle in the centre,
reflecting the moon.

Your enemy?
As oblivious as you,
When the dunes had parted
And the rift was in full view.
I knew then
There was nothing we could do.
Each locked in the embrace of
The stalemate that shall ensue.

The maelstrom whipped in and above,
All around our ears
As the salty sea spray was mixed
Among our tears,
Sodden upon forlorn beach below.
Sticks and stones
Forgotten
To the Undertow.

We ride in on night winged eagles
Three harbingers of fate.
Circling over the city of the dead
We land awkwardly at the gate.
Trudging through the streets of mist
Treading on cobbled hopes,
Gathering jackets close
We barge through crowds of ghosts.

Three wise men, with nothing much to say.
Gather round in the rain by the side of the Grave.
Bringing the gift of silence,
Golden memories and mirth.
The city takes another back into the earth.
The rain starts to lighten, a feint mist
Over fresh turned turf.
The burden is lightened
The journey back is not so tough.
Even the city of the dead is filled
With towers of love.

No reason to fall asleep,
No reason to stay awake,
No reason to stop and weep,
No reason to give or take.
No reason to stop trying,
No reason to start at all,
No reason for truth or lying,
No reason to have a ball.

No reason to leave,
No reason to breath,
No reason to stay,
No reason to delay.
No reason why we're born to rot,
Then again,
No reason why not.

What is it we do,
When the bottle is empty
And the baggie too?

He met a girl down in a bar,
She had eyes like a hurricane.
Lost within the winds of her smile,
He was spinning like a weathervane.

He said,
"Girl there's guna be rain,
So we had better take cover."
She said,
"Now boy don't be insane,
I'm no sunshine lover."

Now they stand together
Drenched to the bone,
Her lips taste like summer,

An oasis alone in the cold.

I lost my mind
Yet found a god.
Not yours
Nor Abraham's
Nor one I've met before.

It came between this world
And the one that lies beneath.
Reached forth with countless arms
That sought to caress relief.

It did not make the world
It merely rolled the dice.
We were a fluke of sorts.
An unexpected development
In the petri dish of life.

It is a scientist you see
That tinkered with what would be.
No omniscience
No omnipotence
Just a conscience none too clean.
For it despairs as much as we
At the horrors that have come to be.

I see now it has no power
To alter what has begun
No more than we can
Alter the colour of our sun.
Once I would rage at the sky
Calling yours a Sod.
Now I understand
For I have met Oh,
He/she/it is now my god.

What is one more word?
Among the vortex of voices
That fuel the conscious storm.
Above the din and the Socratic
Winds, silence is born not heard.

Clouds converge, bow,
Weep for the world below.
A watercoloured grey,
A smeared conglomerate of colour
Traced light upon the day.

A metaphor, I thought,
For where we had lost our way.
One once fought with passion
But with a penchant for decay.
I thawed.
I saw my fundamentals melt.
Hands dealt I would never draw,
A shore so sure it had no law
But an ancient hound with a lazy eye,
A gammy paw and a mangy hide.
Yawned while clouds wept on high,
Snored as silence passed him by.

Absence.
Reminiscent of
Wholesome tastes.
A pallete delayed
By coy pastel paints.
Reluctant to
Show true colour, faint.
Canvas lay blank
In furious haste.
Smeared in the grey
Spectrum of fate.

What is the promise of a stranger worth?
Lavender smiles and honeyed words,
Submerged in the sound of hope disturbed.
Usurped and flayed for misbehavior
Hung from a tree, sacrificial favour.

The flavour was sweet, at least for a while.
A taste of haste fried ripe in denial.
Smothered in smiles and candyfloss
Lightly glazed glances, a dusting of loss.
A promise made pays a heavy cost.

They will tunnel through your heart
Becoming entangled with your soul.
A thousand miles apart,
The one is weaker than the whole.

These halls seem somewhat hollow
A certain sense of sorrow
Now graces ancient stone.
Replacing familiar faces
With defaced family paintings
And cold ancestral bones.
Thrones thrown upon a pyre.
Fate becomes the folly
Tomorrow the unknown,
The brows of time are furrowed
Past spent, lost, or borrowed
Flowers forever bloom alone.
Rats, the last lords of ruin
Rule cruel shadows from the walls.
Twilight sighs at daylight's rise
All seems dark till darkness falls.

Come sit! Let us set the world to rights!
While basking in the pale Androidian Light,
Lamenting the plights and strife of others,

"Another Whiskey?"

"Well, if it's no bother"

Raw spirit in our hands,
Raw thoughts and naive plans,
Admirable, worthy
Yet all go the way of sand.
Blown across the desert landscape
Captive of the winds command.

Shouting hoarse
Vocal chords snap
Carried away by the breeze.
Broken meoldys succumb
To the pull of gravity.
Fallen leaves know how
Futile the struggle has become.
Screaming words into a mirror
For the self reflections of one.