Must we only dream
   of wise kings who know
that rivers must flow
   peacefully
so a woman can sing
   her children to sleep
and fathers not weep
   holding them
in grief too heartbroken
   to rage
at the violence men bring
    in this age
that should be long left
   behind us?

A hairbrush lies on the middle of a bare dresser
As dust cascades beside a sunlit window pane

A telephone rings out in an empty apartment
As the rain glows underneath a streetlight outside

A balloon is caught and disappears in the wind
Below the field of corn that murmurs as it bends

And that door doesn't close. I don't want it to close.

‘This is the final frontier’ said the friend,
as my eyes revolved around the ice cubes in my glass.
‘The world, it’s all figured out’

Unchartered thoughts, drift and plume through the
club, and lose themself to the night
But space is bounded by the small corners in this room

I jangle skies and oceans in my pocket, like loose change.
'Only minds and bodies left to explore.'

Swathes of faces, stretch from wall to door,
and dissolve in a fuzz that pulls me in on myself.

The moon tonight
Was like all the others
That had walked beside my thoughts,
A silent witness, to my slow progress
The faithful Argos of the heel
Whose eyes were as keen and waning
As dying dreams.


It reminded me of an unknown many
Whose once distinct luminance
Was now lost beneath lights.
But still displaying a numinous power;
A silent murmur of ageless charm

The moon one night
Which drew galleys through ancient harbours
And whose tips of light bestrew the sea
And lit the narrow alleys of a dust choked city
Where soldiers tumbling from the arms of a *****
Would lie beneath it and remember their mothers

My noise, or music
(I don’t know which is which)

But it tries to escape,
And is broadcast, nightly

Over flat roofs and chimneys
Along fog choked alleys,

Through city streets
Till caught in its own limit

It’s consumed, and strewn,
Over an iron bridge

Down to the river
To become another corpse.

————————————————————

It could be me,
Along with my dream,

Blown up in a river.
It could be me, face down

Listening to the city;
Trying to perceive

Through the noise
Of shuddering trains

And the bereft sirens,
Wailing for the lost.

It could be me
Trying to perceive

Underneath music
The underneath voice that says

'You have to drown to hear me,
You must be, baptised in silence'

————————————————————

I knew his father once (the Baptist’s)
And I believed in him

Like some comic-book hero,
I believed in his powers.

And now, in this city
I can only believe in ghosts

Ghosts found wandering
Among attendant chords

Carried at night
Across the city lights

Playing on a empty swing
Under afternoon sun

And in lingering mists of dawn
That pearl the ground.

I’ve felt that ghost
Near the wood at twilight

And in a foxes stare
And a strangers smile.

————————————————————
But feeling ain’t believing,
So Sunday mornings are spent

For better or worse,
In pursuits and hot-heeled chases,

Of spent thoughts and sorry dreams
That try to stem the tide

That try to forget the plea, to join the rats,
And to see the sea.

————————————————————
But, almost accidentally
I still always find music,

In a hush of wind, or in swirling leaves
As my head breaks through roaring waves.

Contemplation makes the music clearer
Revealing the divinity of expression.

Revealing the label-less ghost, with a comic-book name;
‘The Unseen Hand’ which plays

Throughout the night in days
And is heard when yearned for.

And it will not die, for it has never lived,
Apart from the mind.

Deaf ears, deaf ears they fall on
The axe blows to the tree go unnoticed, until ever too late.

But a final giddy cut will awaken us
So that we will have the pleasure of being conscious, as we fall.

But Rome wasn't felled in a day
There was no sudden explosion
It's the drip, drip, of erosion that end's a history

But there were always heralds and signs
Ignored visions that glowed in my mind, like a villa on fire.

That toothless grin, destroying marbled beauty
And your pliant face, happy to be held in those calloused hands.

When I was a child, we’d lived on the edge of some woods,
Slightly hilly land, crossed with the odd stream or cowpath.
I’d walked there frequently, aimlessly,
Throwing the occasional stone here and there
(Skimming the smaller ones off the surface of the creek,
Displacing mosquitoes and dragonflies,
The larger rocks reserved for thickets of trees,
Rewarding me with a rich thwack if the missile found its target.)
Once I had tossed a great gray projectile
(All but shot-put sized, probably nicked and nibbled
By fossilized trilobites on its edges)
Into a stand of old horse chestnuts,
But the sound that emerged was not the woody report expected,
But an anguished and almost astounded cry,
Nearly human in its astonishment and pain.
I’d winged (more than that, in truth **** near killed)
A hawk sitting inexplicably low in the branches.
In my panic and puzzlement, I’d wrapped the bird in my jacket
(The hawk all but shredding its lining,
Adding to my mother’s already fervent agitation
Over having a wild bird in her kitchen not destined for the oven)
And taken it home, where we’d put it in a cage
(Not a bird cage per se, but the old crate for our dog
Who had wandered into these woods
A few months before when she’d sensed her time was at hand)
Where it sat silently for a couple of days,
Refusing food, water, or any other succor,
Simply staring at us with a searing look conveying a hatred
Which transcended species, language,
Any and all experience a child may have been privy to,
As, in those fresh-scrubbed, clean-linen days of youth,
I had nothing of the hawk’s knowledge of cages.

mild, so mild in the night
to travel with the earth
amongst an early starlit bloom,
muddy fields fill the air
with pubescent June.

goslings waddle, fuzzy scurries.
mother, father,
enlarge and hiss
protecting their long months work,
now free from pipping shells.

so cool is the night while
laying hidden in uncut fields.
chilling winds dance atop feral growth.
sanctuary for outward gazing,
through to unknown worlds.

there is no envy from a distance.
breath feeds wonder, spilling over
into this vessel, so soon to be forgotten.
spoiled from within, the unborn,
rotten. a shell too hard to crack.

there is no nest for that sacred sibling.
forgotten by mother and father.
their failed incubation, rotting.
lost amongst the stars
but within the field of all.

Apollo sings to Pollux and Castor
stroking somber tones from Lyra.
"Greet the voiceless into forever;
attach to them their rightful wings",
"chirp, chirp, chirp"