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Life is hard.
But we live.
We live, crouching behind screens that blink, flash, blink
Flicking on and off to the rhythm of our hearts.

We walk the streets.
Hoods down, faces
Lost.
In the rectangle pieces of glass that we hold
As our lives pass under our feet.

I hide my whirlwinds of anger and trust,
Behind a veil of straightened blonde hair.
Just waiting it to blurt it out to the world,
When I'm home and the world isn't there.

Pitiful, isn't it.
Pitiful, aren't I.
Don't you feel pity for me?

Yet.

Could you lift your face up from your own small mirror,
And see the beauty of somebody else?
As we pass in the street, would you smile?

Even if it cracks your face.

Because those who see the beauty of others,
Are most lovely of all themselves.
Comparative beauty: A lie.
Twinkling golden tealights, in a saxophonic haze,
Champagne, cocktail dress,
A whirling, dancing maze.

Outside on the terrace, in the dark and silent night,
Black suit, green dress,
Melding in the moonlight.

Far away shines the moon, lone and quiet still,
Clouded face, wavering,
Watching balcony sill.

The scintillating tunes trip on, a merry-go-round of tracks,
Hot night, collared shirts,
Stick to dampened backs.

Green-grey smoke drifts easily, from curling moustached lips,
A cuff-linked hand, a bubbling scream,
She lies within his grip.

The green silk dress rips gently, on vined terrace wall,
A prayerful glimpse, lunar eclipse,
Succumbs and starts to fall.

The black suit man stands over, to the strains of 'Love knows best'.
Yet a glaring moonbeam stops him,
Its point upon his chest.

Then in the light of hidden truth, his rash resolve resides,
A guilty conscience, grey not black,
He runs, he slinks, he hides.

And turning gently to the form which cowered on the floor,
A face so sweet, so far away,
The moon has seen before.

It cloaks her gently in its light, and shyly hides its face,
Breathing slowly, as in sleep,
She drifts from time to space.

Then rising like the sun in the dreamings of the moon,
A Venus, white and shining still.
She wakens from her swoon.

And hurrying, she hastes inside, to a wheeling mindless world.
She runs from light, her; light's own hope,
A dream newly unfurled.

But, behind a moonbeam spindles, and on its gentle loom,
Are hung the lonely whispers,
Of the love-song of the moon.
To outer senses there is peace,
A dreamy peace on either hand
Deep silence in the shadowy land,
Deep silence where the shadows cease.

Save for a cry that echoes shrill
From some lone bird disconsolate;
A corncrake calling to its mate;
The answer from the misty hill.

And suddenly the moon withdraws
Her sickle from the lightening skies,
And to her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.
Is a poem a song you speak?
Is it the music of the soul?
Is it a random, over-analysed hypothesis?
Does it have meaning as a whole?

Does anybody care,
About the words we post on sites?
The pain that makes good poetry,
Does it make us parasites?

Do we **** the blood of sorrow,
Till its bitter juice is done?
A ton of bloated leeches,
Belching back the pain we've won?

Is my anguish worse than yours,
Because I write it like a song?
Do you care about my heart,
Because my sonnet reads so long?

Are my poems just graffiti,
On the tombs of poets dead?
Is a poem really better,
When it's torment that's been said?
Butterflies like flying songs,
Leave trails deep inside,
Fluttering with nervous haste.
For Naomi
Black smoke on chimney tops, curling around clouds
Sliding down roofs.

Black smoke. A sky full.
Choking, fighting, eucalyptus cremation.
Black houses.
Empty black houses.

Black smoke from a cathedral top,
White fathers assembled under golden canopies.
White smoke?
Uncertainty,
Hope.
Then,
Black smoke.

Thousands of flickering candles under the smile of a statue.
A wind.
Lights out.
On the face of the Madonna,
Black smoke.
A collection of random images which sprung to mind at the sight of some black smoke.
Dusted with gold, colours wheeling,
Threads reaching into a sun,
Precious handwoven rugs from Mumbai,
Individual, divine, only one.

A foreigner orders a carpet.

So a carpet graces the road.

On a throne made of barrows and money,
But a hand stops the vivid-hued load.

Covered in dust, wrinkles stealing
Irreplaceable youth from his bones,
Worthless mendicant soul in Mumbai,
Stretches out towards hope with a moan.

A dollar could take him to life,
As his cup stretches out for some bread,
Yet, the cloth priced more highly than life,
Trundles past, and it leaves him for dead.

The ship chugs through horizons,
With its costly woven load,
Whilst a bag of bones expires,
In the dust, beside a road.
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