Clear Skies Vanilla
is the only soft serve
on the days we have no clouds
and none can be seen
floating on our horizons

it is our seasonal choice
that we wish could come
all year long,
could be as predictable
as *Pumpkin Spice in October
or Eggnog in December
even uncelebrated Baseball-Nut
springs up at the right time.

If only our skies could
be the layers of a sundae--
a limited selection
that always comes down to
hot fudge, nuts,
with a defrosted cherry on top--
then our decisions
would be made for us
we could never
be wrong.

Instead we deliver
Icy Thundery Blueberry BubbleGumy hard serve
on those days--
too complicated to understand
too unwilling to shorten their title
too difficult to be simply BlueGumTuesday
because the sky,
too mixed up to be...Blue.

We raise our scoop
for each serving to dish out--
with them we learn our taste
what calms our nerves
and how to evaporate the rain,
because when we get
to have those cloudless days
we'll have the day
to be flavorful.

is reason alone to live

On a hot day.

Creamy,
delicious,
Dripping
Ice-cream
Mmm...

O’Silky smooth ballsac
Stuck to my leg
Ever-presence defines manhood
As tree defines fruit
And as fruit defines tree.

Ne'er such a sense
Overwhelmed my hot-spot
As this dangling (oval, skin and nerves of)
Oily pouch

I cream.

Yet
A line as destructive
As the San Andreas
Fault- O divine chafe
You reduce me
You erode me

As if we rented *******
Bikes

Like a kid in an ice cream store
Lips bitten, eyes widened
With only one free taste spoon
Where do you dip your spoon?
In the sweet and nutty tub of love?
In the sour and exciting tub of career?
In the chunky and loaded tub of travel?
In the melt in the mouth and comforting tub of family?

Tell me which one do you scoop?

The ice cream van
Has today reached
The melancholic realisation
That the only kids who
Chase clocks for Mr Whippy
And lick the exhaust fumes
In nostalgia
Are the kids who are not kids
But who prematurely aged themselves
With lipstick kisses
And cigarettes
Lowered themselves into nooses
Of sweet-sixteenths
From the age of six

We are a generation of
Peter Pan inversions
We ran ashore
And beached ourselves
Beyond the lure
Of Neverland
We are a generation of
Failed cloud-catchers
Aspiring rainbow-clinchers
Secretly slipping our hands
Back into a dead air
Of former innocence
In the hope we’ll be able to
Retrieve the pieces we left there
We queue and scramble
Like gulls for
Inches we can claw back
Preserving our age in
Wafer cones
And bleeding snows
That glue between our fingers
Each 99 flake
Is a time machine
Which we spin like a music box
And wait for the rewind
Copper coins and sea stains
And we hope we’ll find
Some of the things we lost
But we cannot predict or realign
The atoms or twist ourselves
Back into them
So we sit and watch
The incorruptibility we once possessed
Perished
Sexualised
Corrupted
Pool in the March drizzle
Someone once said
That youth was a process
Of being torn in half
By the past that pulls you back
And the future that tempts you
Being too big and yet too small
Longing but fearing
But an ice cream van tells me
That youth is a process
Of trying not to drown yourself
In what you’ve never had
And when that ice cream van tells me to
MIND THAT CHILD
I can’t help projecting echoes
Of its wisdom
On to all who pass me by
Mind that childhood
Before there’s nothing left to mind

Like ribbons of smoke dancing in the air
You were beautiful
You were the Northern lights
Important enough to be watched in the freezing cold
You were fleeting and sweet
Cream swirling in coffee
Ripples in a pond
I loved you
But like all ephemeral things
Eventually you left too.

I trip but not in the physical sense
and my mind stutters phrases of unthinkable
from pillows and water
to smiles and ice cream
which is the best

Chris, a boy whose smile
Can make your heart melt
Like Ice cream on your face