An overgrowth will suffocate existence
Emergence only comes with brutal slashes
An overgrowth will suffocate existence

In order that we rise above the ashes
A spark must then be set to light the fire
Emergence only comes with brutal slashes

A river choked with weeds becomes a mire
When blood is still, the spirit's soon departed
A spark must then be set to light the fire

Facilitate the broken, bleeding-hearted
The greatest gift in desperate circumstances
When blood is still, the spirit's soon departed

Like croupiers we hedge against the chances
And foul whatever hope could be aspired
The greatest gift in desperate circumstances

The lesson taken yesterday's expired
An overgrowth will suffocate existence
And foul whatever hope could be aspired
An overgrowth will suffocate existence
                                              rc

In the freshness of youth what you want is respect
You can get what you need if you're just circumspect
To be paid a fair wage when you work ****** hard
To be seen independent with credit un-marred

But conditions will change as you grow and you fail
When it's all you can do to just stay out of jail
And you know self respect must be gained on your own
Otherwise if you don't your own soul be unknown

As you age, in your personal skills you take pride
When the accolades come and the egos collide
You will try to be modest and try to be kind
When assaults on your character leave you maligned

It is now your ambition to take steps without cane
And to mask your expression to not show any pain
Your condition does tempt to put pride on a shelf
But, my God, can't they let you go *** by yourself
                                                    rc

Going down a rabbit's hollow
Past a stinking burning bush
Such a sour pill to swallow
Moral living lacks a push

Poison's going to **** us all
Not our body – just our mind
Maintain your brain in alcohol
Alas your Savior now is blind

Follow, fail and fall or finish
Hold your favour stay your path
If you sink, your soul diminish
Your own spirit finds your wrath

Failing at communication
Builds up your immunity
Holding faith to show causation
Spouting with impunity
                            rc

You're given just enough to know
It isn't really apropos.
Your questions, verbalized aloud,
Unwelcome; put without a shroud.
You think you're getting closer but -
That door to paradise is shut.

You live your life in compromise
And wear a  pretty good disguise.
Your shadow's longer than the rest.
They pin a medal on your chest.
Success is almost granted but -
That door to paradise is shut.

So now you're old and trying hard.
To some you're held in high regard.
And now you feel the time to ask
Your ancient questions soon might pass.
They rise up to your gullet but -
That door to paradise is shut.
                                           rc

Is stupid as subjective
as the stupid say it is?
Perhaps we could examine
with an interactive quiz.

Do you feel that your opinion
on what constitutes a sin
has higher valuation
with the lightness of your skin?

Yes (  )  No (  )

Do you feel that war is justified
when governments have willed,
so long as it is other people's
children being killed?

Yes (  )  No (  )

Do you feel that your religion
is the only line to God
but tolerate the other ones
although you think they're odd?

Yes (  )  No (  )

I'm told that it is not correct
to tell someone they're stupid.
It's something I'm compelled to do
as long as I stay lucid.
                                          rc

When I die and go to hell
A roofer I will be
My back will ache, my knees will swell
I'll serve the bourgeoisie

I'll clamber up the risky *****
Up to the very peak
And when I'm there I'll hope on hope
But never find the leak

Every time I climb the dome
I'll go out of my mind
My body like a metronome
I'd left something behind

If I ever think I'm finished
If I stand back and appraise
The pain won't be diminished
As the cramps will last for days
                                      rc

We come ajoined along knife's inside edge
We're taken to temptation
Compelled to dance we're striding sliding
To the serpent's assignations

We swim amid the reeds of deep green seas
We're taken to the shoreline
Where whispered wonders wash our old dreams clean
So to new dreams false enshrine

As sour fruit betrays with flies and stench
We're taken to the knife edge
Battered, beaten broken belying our soul
Left to part along the ledge
                                                    rc

The landscape narrows to a sharpened point
In grasp of fall's lost memory of spring
Flowing reeds and grass of every kind
Muddy shore where lilies once did  lie
Underwater snags I know so well
Aspen leaves afloat on reckless current

The sky alight it strikes a vicious current
Like mother nature's exclamation point
Startled, though the spirit knows **** well
The heart restarts as if upon a spring
Vivid hues confront the silent lie
Nature is not always good and kind

The night evokes dreams of a different kind
Triggering your demons past and current
You might not know just were the secrets lie
Don't waste your time in search; you'll miss the point
Take your water from the flowing spring
You'll never know which one's the poisoned well

In case you think that life is going well
Think why there are no other of your kind
You may never find eternal spring
Where gentle breezes blow in spiral current
A spider draws its net from point to point
In centre of another's death bed lie

We contemplate the stars 'low which we lie
So vast the distance yet still seen so well
Against pure darkness shines the smallest point
The universe becomes so coldly kind
Our souls an interruption in the current
So from our beating hearts will joy now spring

Ideas launch like from a coiled spring
They only serve to perpetrate the lie
You squander time and effort to be current
Now I see you've drunk from tainted well
The choice is not to be true or be kind
We could try to fix this thing but what's the point

when rage the current from the meagre spring
we reach the very point where promise lie
whenever all is well, we're paid in kind
                                                       rc

They say that each new snowflake
Is unique in some respect
You have to use a microscope
To see that little fleck
To say this as a metaphor
May cause some introspect
I'd like to know if this is true
But who has time to check
                            rc

Darkness falls in black and whittled
starkness, formed in day belittled.
Come the creatures, stalk and stealthy;
sum the riches, bleed the wealthy.

Alleys green with stench and living;
valleys pillaged, unforgiving.
Push the hidden, sick agenda
cushioned in your hacienda.

Where the first-born child's abandoned,
(Spare the second caught red-handed;
graceful in his staunch dissent)
faithful souls tithe ten percent.

Sown into an hourglass,
bones and blood and sin amass.
Who's to say we're so impious -
choose whatever suits your bias.
                                         rc

Spark
fleeting
little shock
makes you feel so
light
                                           rc

As all of human living
Is the brilliant, blinding flash
Of welder's arc,
One meagre life a single spark
In arching grace
Precise in structure
Art in form
And yet we are compelled to parse
And parse
And parse the parsing
To hours, days and years
To successes and to failure
So.
Much.
Failure.

Most will fall
To concrete floor
To glow and fade and die
And some by chance to quenching pail
To sound a raucous last goodbye
But one may find a life anew
Vicarious in having found
The recklessly discarded
Oily rag
                              rc

The kettle calls (a cattle call? Not really)
There's just us two and I just won't commit
The rain outside indicts with tears so freely
I still blindly want you to acquit

A bird is singing (stinging) acapella
Seeking leafy shelter from the gales
We're stuck inside without a cheap umbrella
With dialogue like scraping fingernails

The window pane (recurrent pain) is covered
In it's early morning alcoholic fog
Words were spat and in the air they hovered
This scene won't make the tourist travelogue

                                                               rc

Drown your garbage in the sea
Hideous obscenity
Burn your plastic effigy
Give me some serenity
                                 rc

When the night has fallen fast
Trim your dream-ship, scale the mast
Queries answered, questions asked
Trust the magic will outlast
                                rc

In the upper echelon
Conversations do drag on
From the ev'ning til the dawn
Don't await as I'll be gone
                           rc

Flying like a bumblebee
absent from reality
victim to this malady
giving all to some degree
                      rc

Terra caught a virus
'Fore the advent of papyrus
It was fifty thousand years
(Or there around)
But now she's getting worse
And I know I'm sounding terse
But her regulating system's
Shutting down

These germs are truly villains
And they number in the billions
The damage that they've done
You can't impugn
She tacitly forbid them
As she tried so hard to rid them
And she even sent a dozen
To the moon

Now she has a fever
And nobody will believe her
To deal with this alone
Seems so unkind
But Terra is a scrapper
And despite her damaged wrapper
She will never to her destine
Be resigned
                             rc

The dairy was sold to his brothers
It's not like he had any druthers
The neighbours opined
"He was ever so kind
He was always thinking of udders"
                                   rc

Isn't it passive aggression
Suggesting that class is in session
When your scattered remains
Lay all battered in chains
And it's triggering massive depression

Faking somnambulism
Staging some vandalism
It's your high anxiety
And not my sobriety
Creating this cataclysm

Your effort to fix the nation
Is really a sick salvation
By oppressing the poor
I am guessing that you're
Just causing asphyxiation

The long debated objectives
And your ill-fated directives
Are pausing the norm
And they're causing a storm
In these complicated perspectives
                                         rc

The brook-side meadow's quiet, shadows gone
Overwhelming green struck in private hues
The stream bank channels and tree roots confuse
The light is magic dancing after dawn
There in the tangle hides the leprechaun
There in the tangle his mischief is planned
Scratching his bearded chin, pipe in his hand
Prides in his trickery, crusty old con
Harassed and hunted by unthoughtful souls
Not any wonder he's social inept
He is pursued for the gold he controls
But they do not know it's not physically kept
Pursuit of the rainbow earth not apart
The leprechaun's gold is found in your heart
                                                      rc

The deeds are done and done again.
That canter ride on jaggy lane;
It shook his bones to powdered meal.
Too dumb to say too numb to feel,
The flesh is but a salty stew.
His stagnant blood a toxic brew.

More weary than a morning drunk;
His shadow pale, reflection shrunk.
Words are strung in lame concession,
Frozen in that same expression.
His epitaph, in part will read,
"He took the blows but didn't bleed"
                                       rc

The rain, so jealous of the sun, did hide
And let her soak up all the accolades.
Although she could not stay the swelling pride
She missed his flashy thunder serenades.

In time the earth began to dry and crack
And fractal patterns formed where once were pools.
The planet feared calamity would wrack.
The just extols now turn to ridicules.

The rain, at long last, saw the Sun's despair,
Accepting this was largely his own making.
He set about the damage to repair;
His place within the scheme of things retaking.

The sun and rain together cause a spark.
They show it in a multicoloured arc.
                                          rc

A sculptor is like the ocean
Erosion causing form
And in the depths an inner peace
While outward rage the storm

A poet is like the spider
Their fans they do amass
And both of them make lovely things
They pull out of their ***
                                   rc

It sits alone now
Derelect, long neglected
Empty except the transient shelter
Provided to fox and deer
And swallows cliff and barn
The roof collapsed, the shingles succumbed
To a thousand windstorms
The south side sinking
Drowning in the earth

Yet from it's bones you can see
How it would have appeared
Had a century not unfolded
Timber walls hewn by hand
Corners locked and dovetailed
The craftsman's pride disguised now
Behind the ravages of time

Reflect upon the family
Those pioneers so strong of heart
Who built and grew and loved
And carved a life beyond existence
What hardships felt and conquered
What anguish never overcome
Can we imagine now
From our comfortable perspective
The priorities within that fold
Of time and circumstance?
                                        rc

It's transient aphasia
When the bullets only graze ya
And nobody can save ya
From the fog

And you think that it's a tumour
In a twist of Satan's humour
And you feel that you will lose your
Dialogue

Then the gathering frustration
At the failed interpretation
As nobody in the nation
Feels your pain

I know my head's imperfect
I will need some time to work it
It's just a slight short circuit
In my brain
                                rc

The wind in brooding moda
Gives a sing song salutation
As spoken through the rusted fencing wires
Meadow grass awash in waves and currents
Dragonflies are seagulls on the swells
Tree tops move in cresting undulations
Limb and trunk impressed in shaky ground
I watch the moving water
Like it's telling all my stories
The river only ever flowing past
The river only ever flows away
                                        rc

Inside on a wintery day
Sky heavy as granite is grey
The window tells lies without shame
Grey Jay alights on the post cap
The Chick-a-dees vie in a scrap
Pretending their life is a game
A bitter and guileless fact
In nature a price will exact
Mortality seen through my pane
                               rc

When this bag is done
I swear to God I will quit
This time I mean it

The senryu spins your head
Clouds swirl in the spoon
Cirrus horsetails in viscous regret
Precious negligence
Your self-loathing giving way to urgency
Calm yourself now
DO NOT dull the point
Irreparable damage already done
Tie and hit
Come on! Come on!
Blood is joy

When this bag is gone
Oh God!
I swear...
This time...

                                     rc

Once upon a melody
In syncopated time
Words in stunning murmuration
Blithely strained to rhyme

Swirling whirling curling
Over manuscript terrain
One by one alighting for to
Circumscribe the plane

We dance along to rhythm'd beat
With colour shape and flavor
As form occurs we realize
We are each other's Savior
                                    rc

Your spirit is felt like a zephyr in spring,
Seen in a swirl, disappearing like smoke,
Comity given on unfolded wing,
A kindness as shown to the owl by the oak.

Your strength, as the tide in the pull of the moon,
Shapes the foreshore churning rock into sand,
The wind spinning grit into massive sand dune,
Delicate balance is held by a strand.

Your beauty is seen as a billowing cloud,
Defined and beheld in evolving awe.
If words could express I would shout them aloud,
To give solid form to this heart made of straw.

How lucky my soul to be given respite,
Spending my days in your shimmering light.
                                                   rc