she said she was a Tory,
i took a risk and i kissed her...
tasted like bacon, all cold and dead,
and now
i'm in debt.

it's in the darkest nights
that the skies are brightest.

i am ashamed of my body!
how it must be ashamed of me,
whatever i am.

a leaf falls,
it all comes too soon—
be ready, prepare,
if you would have it.

depression:
reaching the end of history
yet remaining
under it's full weight.

i'm a greedy coward;
i'm just looking for one like me
to give me courage and hold me close.

the red moon.
the red horizon.
the red necessity:
a world for us all
or death, despair, and death
forever and forever and forever
in the blink of a blind eye.

our time:
it must be
the evening of the days of men.

oh misfortune, how you are steady, dependable
and secretly comforting
(to the one who has suffered too much).
oh good fortune, how you arrive
at the most inopportune and awkward of times.
(but, of course, this isn't true of all places and lies.)

how they are enjoying themselves!
I want to tell them a haiku
or a senryu or a tanka or something
but no one makes time for minimalism.
(how they must maximise everything!)

the centre's hold must be broken.
it doesn't matter if you're right,
if you're just:
without the mettle,
you'll lose.

capitalism:
the magnificent world structure
where money trickles
up, in flows and floods,
so often from pools of blood
—how disorienting a pyramid!
how green the sky it touches and devours!
how barren the grounds around its base!—
and i still hear
the clinking of chains.
can we sit and admire a work of art and majesty
that is produced by the slave? (should we?)
...
why are there those that lack
in a world where there is enough for us all?
has money, the fifth element, not outlived
its usefulness? is it even worth its costs?
was it not always an attempt at communication?
can we not do better? and what is debt for?
and why profit? why not equality and solidarity?
what are the effects of those who hold the right
to limitless property?
what is the punishment for those
who have nothing?
where is power? what do those who have it want?
and how do they get it? what does the exercise of power
look like?
who made us all enemies?
what does a smokescreen look like
once it's been deciphered?
where is the world going?
is there no other course (than off a cliff)?
who decides? is it too late to do otherwise?
...
there's a lot of work to do,
is it worth doing?
it's only the last question i can't really answer,
but if everything is meaningless
then the meaninglessness of it all is meaningless too
and the space is clear
for me to declare a call i shall heed to.
i set no destination, i yearn for comrades, i seek only
a horizon:
perhaps the grass gets greener
the closer you approach that mythic utopia,
the motivation, the far off joy
that waves and beckons endearingly.
"the journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step"
and there are many terrible and wonderful vistas
along the way.
"the masses make history."
"the one who moves a mountain
begins by carrying away small stones."
won't you consider being the movement
of masses with me, in search of freedom
for all
forever and forever and forever
...?
"you can always make something
out of what you've been made into"
so why not try to make something
impossible, marvellous and necessary
...?

the candle
flickering
—everywhere, nothing at all.

the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded
and goes rotten, and skeletons of industry rust.
the cities are littered with bodies with suits and ties
stepping over them. dangerous speculation leaves behind another gutted home.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded
and goes rotten, and skeletons of industry rust.
in all of history, never has the world been richer, never
have individuals been richer, and communities never so barren.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded
and goes rotten.

children cry up from the depth of debt for bread and help and shelter
met either with the ideologue's injunction "AUSTERITY."
or deaf ears and tax-payers money
invested in guns and bombs sent abroad, and rhetoric behind the barbed fences of our shores, and the tools for plundering all the people and every corner and resource of the earth and the as yet still fluid future: the tools to cement our early doom.

all that is wretched is integral to the structure:
it is what the system stands on, everything it crushes,
squeezing out the life and stealing it;
we must come to understand this, and step back.
we'll have to face—or be forced to—collapse.

the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded
and people are forsaken, starved, blown up, drowned, deprived of voice and value;
profits are made. life comes at a price, too much for most.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth travelled north - taken - into open arms,
those brave, desperate souls in flight who followed
were handed - abandoned - to the waves or absolute destitution.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded—
"SAVE THE BANKS, SAVE THE COMPANIES, THEY'RE TOO BIG
TO SINK"—they're titanic—"THERE'S NO TIME TO BE DEMOCRATIC—IT'S A STATE OF EMERGENCY—THEY CANNOT FAIL."
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
hundreds of thousands of houses are empty
and skeletons of industry rust.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
and so the world goes rotten.

justice will take more than just good deeds:
open the borders and break down the walls!
set no destinations at which to arrive, but towards horizons strive;
we need not firewood, but the seed:
make union and defiance your call!
open the borders and break down the walls!
produce and allocate according to need
and there shall be enough—for us all!

(and i might add: please,
forgive me my youth and naivety...
but i am no believer in the Fall.)

the raw heat
of your breath on my neck
sends shivers down this spine:
these warping bodies,
spectrums
of dread and ecstasy.

i love the sound of my own shuddering, bellowed
voice
because i so seldom get to hear it.

no one can bring me down
because i can't get any lower.
at the bottom,
i've found something.

may i become the rains where the drought persists,
and strength for those who need to resist;
may i become the pole star for those lost at sea,
and shelter for those who need to flee.

may i become a twilight for those who've known only night,
and healing balm and bandages to ease their pain;
may i become a ladder out of their pit and up to new heights,
and may i become a hammer set against their chains.

may my soul become a song
and may its melody become a protest and resistance,
may it find harmony, echo, and resonance,
as struggles go on and on.

oh my body,
may i become
all that others have been for me,
as struggles go on and on.

where are all these words going?
where have they been intended to go?
i whisper
an incantation that
resonates
with desire.
it ends up
a curse.

i reach into the treasure box of language:
what was once shining and vital, far off,
now rots in my hand.

a toast,
a toast to every moment of clarity forgotten,
to every splendid line i put off writing down
until i could conjure it no longer,
to every sentence i should have spoken
and every silence i should have kept,
a toast to every deception i miscalculated,
to every promise broken, every bond neglected,
to every question i failed in formulating,
to every time when i should have wept
and every time when i should have refrained from weeping;
a toast, a toast to every embarrassment, every disgrace,
every regret,
to every time my hand should have been extended
and to every hand i stubbornly refused to accept,
and the rest, too, a toast to all the rest.

what else is there to do on nights like these
if not to get drunk
on memories,
the stronger the better? every spectacle
of microcosmic tragicomedy,
that makes up the vortex of my life,
is sublime before these disordered senses,
before it's revealed to be
pathetic and melancholy in the morning's lucid, lurid light.
a toast, then, that the night last the longest
and the next day pass by quickly enough.
a toast to every moment of clarity forgotten,
to every splendid line i put off writing down
until i could conjure it no longer,
to every sentence i should have spoken
and every silence i should have kept.

say sincere enough and it becomes sinister.
say it sincerely enough and it becomes...
—my angst is piqued, soon my anxiety will peak.
the nausea seeps in where the light fades out.—
the sirens, the silence, the single drumbeat in the bed:
getting to sleep will be a sorry affair,
the revelations coming too late, always too late.
i await the dreadful morning of forgotten dreams
when i must rise again and repeat and repeat,
my transactions and transgressions, this stasis,
repeat and repeat, until once more i can put off sleep no longer,
nor quite receive it neither.
"forgive me, forgive me."
i bid my ghosts the most sincere apologies.

i give chase with reckless abandon.
it's the thrill and the gamble.
it's the eyes that
pierce through and through
that tell me: "come closer,
this will destroy you."

you'd think enough had already been
written on the topic of being:
think again.
i can't bear to be without you,
it isn't worth the time,
over and over, thinking about, not being—with you.

be my bow,
and let the tension
of our love be the archer;
turn me into the arrow
and the bullseye.

before we met,
i was living my death:
you became my valkyrie.
(if only i could say this
and know it as reality.)

most people leave an impression on me
like footprints in the sand,
washed away by the waves that encroach over time.
you're more like the meteorite
that wiped out the dinosaurs:
you re-cast the dice of my world.

i've heard it said:
we keep a special place in our hearts
for those who refuse to be impressed by us.
every time you like a poem
that isn't one i wrote in hope of ensnaring you,
i become slightly more obsessed.

so i woke up the next morning
and everything
had worked itself out overnight,
so a happy ending was in store after all:
a report from fantasy land.

i'm undone,
thank god and all the ******* angels
in heaven, and fallen ones too:
i'm undone
before your endless, ecstasy-emitting body.
these ruins of the future
are a paradise
in this riveting flux; consecrated and desecrated,
made seraphic and savage
in the undulating ebb and flow of our flesh.

what would it take
to capture you, just for a moment?
were it as simple as a sacrifice,
my life might be in danger.

what could i say that i am?
by the time the raindrop is
illuminated,
by the fulmination from zeusian bolt,
it is already no longer
itself.
its every relation pours into this world,
sustaining this green world,
sustaining this vanishing world
lit up like our raindrop.
and what if light was merely the shell
of darkness?
in any case: there's much to do, and much that can be seen
before the next sets of species make a home of our cities.

i've buried myself in lies and wasted time.
would you believe me
if i told you i was treasure?
x marks the spot: dig deep, i need you to.

plenty of the future
will not be consumed
by the ensuing seconds,
probably
(depends on geography).

take your time if you can, come what may.
you've lots of history to wrestle with
before you can truly reach a new day.

a shock in the heart,
a brief glimpse (of the artist's divine),
a long aching memory:
a smile,
an opportunity
missed.

the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
and goes rotten, and skeletons of industry rust.
people are starved, drowned, blown up; profits are made,
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth travelled north - taken - into open arms,
those brave souls in flight who followed
were left to the waves or destitution.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
hundreds of thousands of houses are empty,
and skeletons of industry rust.
the country isn't poor at all:
the wealth is just hoarded,
and goes rotten.
justice will take more than just good deeds:
open the borders, break down the walls!
produce and allocate according to need,
and there will be enough—for us all!

the thrill and guilt
of transgression
unhinges my very being.

a foreclosing law is laid down
on the fierce skin of justice.
duty and danger calls.

and should the heavens truly fall,
if i'm caught, or probably even if not:
it will be an even greater struggle than ever before, living myself,
but that's not all, at the very least, that's not all.

i know where to go
to find skin that is a refuge
and not a prison;
but under the cold sun of isolation,
the flower of dread blooms in my heart:
i am petrified, immobile.
it is asked of me to cast it all away, to cast off from these shores
and return nevermore:
for from out at open sea is from where desire calls,
and so i must tear away from the fish-hook-eyes,
make sail, hands trembling, the clock of decision drawing a breath,
and declare that the winds take me out of the bay,
onto the fierce and serene waves, and that the night skies guide me:
to the horizon, mythic islands, sirens and rocks.
i must not give way, i must forge ahead, and solidify my art,
despite the flower of dread that ever blooms in pit of this fragile heart.
(for the skin that is a refuge, to make me robust,
for the treasure before the flotsam—under a new sun,
it's beyond, beyond more than enough. )

after twenty years, my life is still embryonic:
i guess it pertains to the self-same me to be tragic and comic.
by this age, Rimbaud had already renounced poetry, leaving
in fury shattered instruments of alchemy and sublime scrolls
from hell, scrawled impeccably in drug-infused-blood and divine
protest, depicting beatific visions of love, infinite aching bodies
and disordered senses;
by this age, he had already heeded the call of adventure,
known destitute poverty and absolute ecstasy, triviality
and magnificence,
and was bound for an obscure exploration, marriage,
trading in slaves
and was past half way to a tedious death.
but what have i seen? and what is this?—merde!
after twenty years, my life is still embryonic:
i guess it pertains to the self-same me to be tragic and comic.

were i to build a bridge
- that crosses the aching gulf between us -
made of letters, gestures and sounds,
would you trust me enough
to walk across it?
...
the bridge served no purpose
- it went unnoticed -,
eventually torn by tectonic departure.
the real problem was that
we weren't meeting half way.
...
looking back, i wouldn't have crossed it from the other side,
wherever that was.
it's almost funny, how easy it is to delude yourself.
and yet it's so strenuous,
deluding another into saying "i love you."

stay in bed,
the apocalypse
can't bother us here.

forgive me while i rest, please;
i only find freedom
in silence and solitude.

i am compelled to write poetry
in much the same way
as i am compelled by my
bowel movements:
the process, experience, and results
are pretty much no different for me.

my life
is going to cost me dearly.
i didn't ask
for any of this.

my body and soul,
signed away before birth.
the devil takes me.
i try to sell my time into slavery:
it's all i've got, it's all i've got.
but i'm dead labour and depressed.

my life
is going to cost me dearly.
i didn't ask
for any of this.

and could it even be
that i'm in fact a lucky one?
aye, but there are luckier still
and always those less fortunate
while history remains that which it was made into;
the higher up you go, the less gratitude there is.
in retrospect, to never have been
would have been more than enough for me.

my life
is going to cost me dearly.
i didn't ask
for any of this.

in the garden of my life,
the seed of death is planted.
the seasons roll over me
like the winds over the ocean.
the tree of love bears no fruit
and the ivy and vines of isolation grow tighter.
the night sky is a mirror:
every star is collapsed.
each gulf is expanded by the absence of all the yawn of time;
half the moon laughs at my misfortune, justly,
while the other half, unseen, weeps.
dreams that fill my silences are destined not to come true.
every word has become flimsy and untrustworthy,
but they're all i have to build a bridge that reaches you.

(if hell is other people
then submit me to the devil's reign.
if solitude is freedom
then slip me into the heaviest chains.
allow me my weakness—for now, for now.)

the sun
is always setting somewhere.
we stay put,
we're not going anywhere.
please let me keep saying it.

every past sorrow of my life so far,
excavated from the totality of their meaninglessness,
has become worthwhile
if only for becoming the stepping stones,
across the misty tar-pit-ocean of time,
that have led me to know you in this moment,
even if it's only to be in this moment.

(these words are enough for now,
but they will be forgotten, perhaps slowly,
perhaps tomorrow.
if i find you again,
i will ask for more.
perhaps tomorrow i will find again the shore,
perhaps tomorrow, perhaps nevermore.)

we are propelled into a world
from nothing,
a vast world, a glorious and terrible world,
a world full of mystery, tragedy and laughter,
dancing, responsibility, horror and struggle,
ending in sickness and death;
a world stretching far back before us,
bloated with debt and expectations,
devoid of our consent, deaf to our cries.
at first a light blinding—hiding shadows—,
the horizon so open and terrain so broad,
but with every step, a piece of the world crumbles away,
another path, a mountain, an ocean, a face crumbles away
into nothingness—
with every step, a space gained and a place lost forever,
guilt, questions, freedom, new fitting chains,
a narrowed horizon—
with every step,
a fate refined—
with every choice: destiny,
to which we remain blind.

how good it is, then, that we might find travelling companions
that make all this worth our time,
and tools like language, memory and connectivity
to re-make all this into our own time,
and together, step over the horizon of history.

the shadows slowly encroach down the hall;
so suddenly the day is gone,
wasted, men and women somewhere struggled through it,
others buckled under it, sunken mid flight crossing oceans
and man made borders fleeing wars and geographical destitution,
children starved through it, profits were made,
and the room is steeped in darkness.
through the window i see
the white orb moon, distant, glowing, painted
onto an ice blue sky, dashed with ghostly clouds:
i look away for a moment,
i look back:
the sky turned to deep cobalt
and the moon, still distant, radiant, not departed,
is the face unchanged?
the sky so deep now,
this could be the depth of the ocean,
but the moon
still just beyond my fingertips.