TILL AIR, TILL BREATH
KISSED THE MARGIN OF MY LIPS.
TILL SOFT, TILL WARM
THE SPICES OF ***-POURRI
CLASHES TILL SOFTENED HANDS
TOUCHING MY FACE, STROKING MY HAIR.

HER VIOLENT PASSION FOR LOVE
EMPTIED IN THE CANDLELIT ROOM
TRANSPARENT WITH ECLIPSED HEARTS
MANY WITH ROMANTIC FIRES
MANY DEEP AND ELOQUENT;
EACH MATCHING THE COMPLEXION OF HER FACE.

THE COMBINED ATTENTION OF MY HEART
ARTISTICALLY MET WITH HER HAIR
FULL WITH MULLED CHERRIED WINE
LAVENDER, STRAWBERRY, GINGER AND VANILLA
AS THE SCENT
FROM THE CANDLES
ESCAPED THERE.

©Jack Aylward

you are everything,
you are everyone,
you are every cliche
...you are the sun
you are oxygen,
you are in the trees,
you are orange leaves,
you are cool autumn breeze
that spreads across my spine,
you are forgotten dreams,
you are a glass of wine,
you are what reminds,
you are fine lines,
you are the key,
you are a plus sign,
you are what girls try
to become,
you are the why,
you are the sum,
you are bassdrums,
you are a symphony,
you are the child too naive
to realize that he's on stage,
you are every page,
you are every book,
you are the librarian's glasses,
you are classes,
that i may or may not have took,
you are the stun experienced
when things fall into place,
you are every race,
you are the taste,
of fresh produce,
you are abuse,
escapen,
you are an excuse,
shaken,
you are the noose,
breakin',
you are the clues,
finally taken,
you are a puzzle with pieces
all aligned,
you are dominos lined up
right before they fall,
you are every hall,
you are each phone call,
you are the brick wall
that kids throw tennis ***** against,
you are consequence,
you are every scent,
you are fresh cement,
waiting to be written on,
you are every song,
you are every play,
you are Broadway,
you are the crowds,
you are everything i say,
you are SCREAMING LOUD
in unallowed places,
you are familiar faces,
you are a smile after braces,
you are untied laces,
you are jumping over cracks,
you are warm candle wax,
you are dark moments
lightened by humour,
you are rumours
being shattered,
you are fish,
beer battered,
you are wishes,
when they matter,
you are the everafter,
you are the former,
and the latter,
you are the feet in the swimming pool
of those who cant swim,
you are slim jims,
you are macho man randy savage,
you are a test above average,
you are an ebay feedback rating,
you are ice skating,
on frozen lakes,
you are every birthday cake,
and every candle,
you are frosted milkshakes,
you are socks with sandals,
you are being outside the norm,
you are insightful vandals,
you are anarchy, restrained,
you are villains, reformed,
you are emcees without champagne,
you are Dylan on tour,
you are looking down,
before you let go,
you are a star's glow,
you are a peep show,
you are every mystery,
you are ***-pourri,
you are the guarantees
that are actually kept,
you are the moment
you forget why you wept,
you are the fizzy beverage
that makes one reminisce
or accept,
you are the first kiss,
you are the final step,
you are the trace of the past
that one must chase,
you are realizing that
time's too fast,
to replace,
you are the sun,
shining down into an unseen place,
you are cliches,
you are warmth and grace,
you are everyone,
that has ever graced,
this time and space,
here and above,
you are everything...
...you are love.

Bleak and windswept, my errant ramblings
led me to some time-forgotten vale
wherein a desolate mansion stood; its mullioned windows pale
against the ebbing day, yet from within illumin’d,
as by dancing fiends at play.
Fram’d by gloomy trees, stone pinnacles leaned awry,
and, through o’ergrown gardens,  
that flanked a ****-strewn pathway to its rotting door,
a sleet-cold wind keened for lost souls in torment
‘cross the desolate and cloud-wracked moor.
With dying Phoebus now a blood-red smear upon the western hills
I so resolved to shelter here out of the coming chill.
Foreboding dragged my every step and
cawing rooks mocked overhead as if to say:
"Go, stranger, for you'll find no welcome here!"
Along the gravelled path I trod and beat the door with blackthorn rod;
it opened slowly; in I walked with beating heart and ne'er a thought
for all the world I'd left behind, as rain and sleet and howling wind
blew shut the door with crack of doom,
and left me peering through the gloom!
Around a table there they sat 'midst putrid food and cobwebbed vats
of mouldering wine; their bony mouths gaped vacant
as they grinned and laughed through time.  
I swayed and swooned as in a trance, my own existence thrown by chance
into that hellish company, who revelled, foul decay’d gentry!
And then a fearful thunderclap's reverberations
brought me back to sanity, I screamed and fled
to where the hillsides cried and bled;  
with staring eye and hair turn’d white,
I ran into the raving night.

Si d'un mort qui pourri repose

Nature engendre quelque chose,

Et si la generation

Se fait de la corruption,

Une vigne prendra naissance

De l'estomac et de la pance

Du bon Rabelais, qui boivoit

Tousjours ce pendant qu'il vivoit

La fosse de sa grande gueule

Eust plus beu de vin toute seule

(L'epuisant du nez en deus cous)

Qu'un porc ne hume de lait dous,

Qu'Iris de fleuves, ne qu'encore

De vagues le rivage more.

Jamais le Soleil ne l'a veu

s Tant fût-il matin, qu'il n'eut beu,

Et jamais au soir la nuit noire

Tant fut ****, ne l'a veu sans boire.

Car, alteré, sans nul sejour

Le gallant boivoit nuit et jour.

Mais quand l'ardante Canicule

Ramenoit la saison qui brule,

Demi-nus se troussoit les bras,

Et se couchoit tout plat à bas

Sur la jonchée, entre les taces :

Et parmi des escuelles grasses

Sans nulle honte se touillant,

Alloit dans le vin barbouillant

Comme une grenouille en sa fange

Puis ivre chantoit la louange

De son ami le bon Bacus,

Comme sous lui furent vaincus

Les Thebains, et comme sa mere

Trop chaudement receut son pere,

Qui en lieu de faire cela

Las ! toute vive la brula.

Il chantoit la grande massue,

Et la jument de Gargantüe,

Son fils Panurge, et les païs

Des Papimanes ébaïs :

Et chantoit les Iles Hieres

Et frere Jan des autonnieres,

Et d'Episteme les combas :

Mais la mort qui ne boivoit pas

Tira le beuveur de ce monde,

Et ores le fait boire en l'onde

Qui fuit trouble dans le giron

Du large fleuve d'Acheron.

Or toi quiconques sois qui passes

Sur sa fosse repen des taces,

Repen du bril, et des flacons,

Des cervelas et des jambons,

Car si encor dessous la lame

Quelque sentiment a son ame,

Il les aime mieux que les Lis,

Tant soient ils fraichement cueillis.

His first wife died in a fire,
She’d taken her last breath moments
before the blue lights had reached her
and it really hit home how alone he was.
He had loved her more than anything,
Gave her the best he could offer
and still didn’t think it was enough.
She wasn’t really as devoted
but they managed to love to Silver
and he’d made her his trophy
and showed her off to no-one.

His second wife didn’t really like
him very much and
neither did he
and he was still alone amidst the fighting.
His trophy got smashed in one of the bad ones
and they never got past Paper.
And he was glad to be rid of her,
Shed of a cloak in the summer,
Glad of the lonely
like a cloak in the winter.

And he hadn’t had any children
and his family had died
a long time ago.
So all he had to his name was this place,
A quiet
in the
middle of the noise.

His quiet had oak-panelling
all around and little black books
full of people like him
for people like him.
And the smell of *** pourri still lingers
like the smell of his first’s perfume on his bed sheets for ages after she went
and he never washed them.

His quiet was frequented by workers whiling away
their lunch hours.
And he ate a packed lunch
at the desk.

Blame your desperation on the weather
             Match the gray with gray
Allow yourself a smile or two
Don’t overdo it
          Don’t force something like this
                             Try to make this all less crazy
Wash your face. Tighten up.
                                             Forget the blade, the poison, the stars
You overhear someone tell someone the time
              You’ve let that slip into
                                                   the background
in the spaces where the unseen meets

Blame your low-key troubles on the
                                                     T.V. shows
              Watch the skinny giants starve
   Someone’s changing the heat up and down
                                      in the pearl-sized world
And someone’s taken all the colors out for
                                    some other playground
those invisible hands, it follows, have too much
              pull and force on the everydays.
                  Keep yourself alive with twice strained coffee and sunny days
Cut your hair with the kitchen knife
                              Grow a beard, fake an accent,
                       Fake Silence.
Pretend to make it mean something, the collapse, the choking
               Clean the living
room
                                 wipe all the fingerprints
No one’s coming for you but you’d take a hug from a hired assassin
You’d sympathize with the serial killer about his sin
           You’d be impressed by his breath which smells of green mints.  

Blame the sickness in your blood
             Which warns off love with sores and fevers
                     On boredom and hunger
Make something of yourself, make yourself last
Peel off skin and let it dry like *** pourri
              Forget how to love the ones that hurt you
              Forget to how to hurt the ones that love you
Bite your lip to keep it all in
                     Bite to the bleeding, then
        Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh
Build fires out of sofas and the kitchen table, make a vacancy of home
Laugh at humanity stuffed and suffering on its stilts
           Smile at the honey moon you’ll never get to
Show your teeth at the ***** Death
             Make the damage worth the price.

Plus criminel que Barrabas
Cornu comme les mauvais anges
Quel Belzébuth es-tu là-bas
Nourri d'immondice et de fange
Nous n'irons pas à tes sabbats

Poisson pourri de Salonique
Long collier des sommeils affreux
D'yeux arrachés à coup de pique
Ta mère fit un pet foireux
Et tu naquis de sa colique

Bourreau de Podolie Amant
Des plaies des ulcères des croûtes
Groin de cochon cul de jument
Tes richesses garde-les toutes
Pour payer tes médicaments.

I'm taking in the world bit by bit:
The smell of grass after a shower,
The clouds in the sky floating away with my thoughts, my hopes, my fears
The sound of laughter pouring into my ears as I feel Nature's light on me
I'm taking in the world bit by bit:
The trees I want to climb
And the hills I want to roll down
The crickets in the night giving me a background music I want to dance to
I piece my world together bit by bit
With the Sounds of Nature
And the Lyrical Lines of Myles
And I see you:
An amalgam of the things I know
A symphony modelled after my own tiny orchestra
A ***-pourri of the scents I keep hidden away
I invent this world you've given me the keys to:
The smell of your skin after a shower
The clouds in your eyes as you speak about your ‘tough childhood’
The sound of your laughter pouring into my ears
And tickling the fabric of my soul
I invent this world where we exist
This world where we are infinite
This world where there are no eyes on the walls
And no ears on the doors
No dismembered limbs
Pointing
And no disenchanted mouths
Judging
I invent this time-less space
This boundless place
We can watch the sun rise
And write a rule book
We can talk for hours, days, or maybe minutes –
We’ll never run out of
Words or time
We can walk,
Endlessly explore
The abysses of our world

One for the proactive, that never look back,
On the ticking time bomb that remains in their past.

If you join me on a brisk walk down memory lane,
Be expecting a sprint with hurdles and pain.

Life’s a masala, like a bowl of *** pourri,
Do you have Bernard’s watch, or a cup of tea you can pour me?

The bittersweet taste makes everything better..
Watch me paint my face - the ultimate trendsetter,

While I dance around the truth and shake around the fear,
That’s been shadowing me now for a good 20 years.

It started with a breath and ended with a scream,
As many lives unravelled in silence and bad dreams.

So many scenes forgotten, rejected and deleted,
As my young mind drowned but refused to be defeated.

Defaced and defiled, no attempt to be reconciled,
No retribution resonates with the word *******.

One person to blame, one person Scot free,
One person rewarded immunity.

But would the penultimate moment when intervention intervenes,
Cause combustible chaos awaiting to be seen?

So read my tangle of nonsense words scribbled in scratchy black pen,
As I’ll never be able to colour out of the lines again.

Every ounce of innocence and youth has already been depleted,
Let us mourn a life-post, never to be repeated...

dried crispy shreds
of stifled hues
and deadened, blunted scent

withered remnants of ephemeral beauty
hope’s loss preserved in dessicated form

watering you with my tears
won’t help much.