Don't lay debased
on the shore of nakedness
with discontentment

Battered by salty spindrift
and drunk moonlight kisses

to go to the summit...
You must ride each wave
to go to the depth...

You'll find an awesome pearl

The solitary beat
of a beating heart

The solitary heart
of a heartless man

The solitary man
of a crowded world

The solitary world
of a ludicrous dream

The solitary dream
of hideous music

The solitary music
of incoherent beats

The solitary beat
of a beating heart

Your diamond eyes still amaze me
From a thousand moons courtship
Drenched from the sun's embrace
Like a French kissed maiden
Limp from the pleasures of life

Yet still, your diamond eyes reflect
The dreams you once dreamed
Beneath a twilight of silver stars
With the innocence of a crying child
Comforted by the warmth of a bossom

Your diamond eyes still amaze me
More than indiscretions of my youth
When dew dripped petals were tossed
At the soles of our stumbling feet
Holding my hand, you walked with me

Your diamond eyes still amaze me
For all the riches which they sent
Your love scattered across my life
Your diamond eyes amaze me
And I am a child of fortune

Fireflies dance pretty
well, byte-sized fairies' tale
long & twistle: a tongue's whistle
In the dark, dark arts made
bright lights sing like a clock:

"Tik Tok, Tik Tok"

This chime, time circles
red like Asian kings: vultures
tightening the noose like Zeus
on Douyin's long neck. Hands dance, bytedance on a fairytale clock

"Tik Tok, Tik Tok"

On Cassatt's easel
afternoon stretches out
its pink pastel faces
cool as the palms breeze
warm as the oolong tea

What comes of love
after we taste
its earthly abundance

and we feel
how it shines
how it blooms
how it rains

perfectly

LXI abrogari passuros aiebant articulum (Repeal article 61)
        
                 John was here, 1215

In the weirdest turn of events that day
As a cop toting guns and pepper spray
I gathered an urge to pen my first ode
In my lunch hour, before hitting the road

To sirens and light of my precinct's space
not a stanza wrote, yet my mind's apace
the pen's the problem; confidence recede
Pondered a visit to a friend, indeed

Thoughtful I'm moving, this old clue I'd act
on Brooklyn's pen thief; kleptomaniac
acquired from him, an ink dipping quill
of Huia birds, still boxed with its bill

Case solved; on the back of the bill it hints
"Dear Mayor, pen's for poems; lead's for thugs."

It's a treasure trove
Words tossed up like confetti
Falling in our hearts

A word... an array
what can and can't they do?
Carefully, thoughtfully feathered
whispers of ink

For the Poet... poetry
art on display
expressions of the expressionless
in silence, pretermitted meaning convey

A word...a score
music to the soul
boldly, willfully etched
deep into your heart

For the poet.... poetry
a vestige that echoes over time
a word, a stanza
Poetry

My wondering child
never lost in the clutter
young encephalon

Beyond these lines...
on worrisome papyrus
where names fall in anguish
like hailstones on Nebraska
cold and violent
none lost in turbulence
in the hall of two truths
weighed on death's feather

Beyond these lines...
words sharp as bayonets
on loaded guns, pointing
... pointed as lead, drawn far afield
beyond sight
beyond purpose
beyond comprehension, yet
accurate as a ******'s breath

beyond these lines...
these crude and relevant lines
that calls forth to death
with rhymes ... with syntax
imagery, impeccable imagery
refrain, can we refrain?
beyond these lines... of death
beyond these lines... of death

My patience is a virtue
Still hands
Straight shots
Full bodied
Another on ice
Keep walking my friends

Johnnie Walker

I knew you
needed this
sincere apology
to pull yourself
together

but you
had to be broken

so I could
keep myself
in one piece

Where do you stand?

For me,
it has never been
black and white

and I won't live
like a new moon
over an old world

masking
your colourful face

Through contemplation,
the mind leaps to its haven
above reason's gaol

... and the concordance of history is best illustrated in the words of the 21st century emperor himself ... "# flagged for violent content".

Is this heaven?
High above, above High
Bizarre, @ poppy sky height
leaping clouds on cloud 9
eyes, hypnogogic eyes
roams recalcitrant red
Idle! Martian! Deserts!
live streams can't pry
**** dried, silica tears
dam: # freedom cry
Free as a sand storm spins
Head: "I'm lost in the winds"
Headhunter's Hunger
Insatiable Appetite bites
Gnawing butterflies
crawling by poppy sky flowers
High above, above High
Heavenly Heights

Can you hear this rhythm
The sound of my rain
Feel the beats of dancing motion
Symbols of my pain

Look at my flower
Shear beauty clothed in obscure grace
Budding pleasure, childish dream
Dances with splendor, yet unseen.

Kept my comfort in orchestra
Thumping heart race with thoughts
Earthly music, sounds of nature
Why must I feel distraught

Dancing flower plays the wind
Blooming wisdom, notes of gold
Chanting melodies, hymns of magic
A son's brilliance thus unfold

Keep on dancing Queen of Clef
Move in motion through the streets
Dance in pleasure, dance in pain
Till my rain steeps the heaths

Keep this movement queen of grace
Let your petals sway in sound
Dance my flower, dance my mother
My symphony is abound

dream of birds in flight

dream of birds on trees

but rows on rows
of murderous crows singing

these dreams, have not please

Am I a sick man?

as I lived on a hibiscus shrub
Many rooms, long and short
Many face vividly coloured
with a beauty of sadness
grafted on a nameless rootstock

Am I an unattractive man?

as I lived like a petal in the sun
perfect for bees and butterflies
and the visitors; oh day! oh night!
as for me, time danced on a maypole around my dreamy garland head

Am I a spiteful man?

as I've counted all 3863 days, 1 by 1
that I lived on that hibiscus shrub
without a flight to my fantasies
Since then, I'm thrown underground
here I live like a ridiculed mouse

Do you know me, Dostoevsky?

How odd of you?
To think of pastures...
a leisure of sort
So green and pristine
with the milk of laughter
T'was hard work
keeping you on the hill
in summer's sunshine
near the old barn
by the flowing spring
Now memories are
limp and cold as winter
Rotting the heart of the tree
and even grass passes time
in faint contemplation of you

How odd of you?
To think of pastures...
a leisure of sort
So green and pristine
with the milk of laughter
T'was hard work
keeping you on the hill
in summer's sunshine
near the old barn
from spring to spring
Now memories are
limp and cold as winter
Rotting the heart of the tree
and even grass passes time
in faint contemplation of you

Life's a blooming rose
A special gift to possess
Death's a rose well pruned

By birth most knew
This name of stern
As mentors too
Some take this turn

Few tamed in domicile
Less in passive right
Age takes this notice
Not wisdom nor sight

Whose care can nurture
Great strength in a foal?
To yield such future
Mere presence can scold

With great hope so few
Enjoy this manly art
That horses will march
Long after they depart

I await this fortune
Time takes my reign
My worships in court
Years cannot regain

How will my horses march
On life's steeple chase
Without their father's hold
From this their tender age?

Have I sinned?

when one looks  
to listen closely
it seems these books
of history
were never meant
to balance

Did you?

Consider the zulu sun
Remittances to Estcourt
Okun's Law
Offshore accounts
Karl Marx in KwaZulu-Natal
Systemic and Systematic Risks

and yet
the shrike bird sings
of monetary matters

That grass
isn't that green?

The world turns over and again
A wheel on the carriage of time
Like the days of creation:
with the manifestations of men

To what end the wheel turns?
How then will it all end?

Like the septenary of God and Sages:
A sabbatical for atheists
A sabbatical for believers
To rest... To the rest

Like hot feet and broken chains
on the chalky hills of Normandy
A prolonged accolade for failure
An insipid brevity for success

Like rope, flag and wind
Full mast; Half mast
Baptism, Bells and Choir
Black bands, Bells and Spire

Like marshmallows in heaven
burning in dew drenched bonfires
White sheets and tears
White sheets and tears

Over and again the world turns
Junipers and Gin
Sistine smoke and Pope
Fuel and Fire

To what end the wheel turns?
How then will it all end?

Getting nowhere!

One whole Earth
round and flat

Here's a balloon
Here's a plate

Reminds me
to celebrate with

An oblate pear
on steroids and
a flat Greek cake

A stupendous combination

She spoke gibberish
words I did not understand
We shared great laughter

Where Emperors go
caterpillars can't contend
but by changing state

Its eighteen months since her delivery
Now she is penning odes ostensibly
Crayons in both hands: she is standing tall
What Dada says? "No writing on the wall."

With great care baby writes her graffiti
Not much untouched by her audacity
He tries to compromise with a new book
but baby says, "Daa Daa"; with a stern look

He has to admit the walls are hers now
Filled with scribbles and a chromatic cow
Its her version of Van Gogh's Starry Night
without the stars; a novice oversight

She's more surreal than Salvador Dali
The writing's on my wall: Pure Graffiti

I set my sight far on China
abacus counting; without confusion
But they're mostly short sighted
and that's no delusion

Heard about the Hong Kong march
but didn't recall till I'd seen what I saw
So I did what I did, now I understood
what I could, with Confucius

Never take a pen to a pig
nor your litter to the swine
for one, H one N one
Can I get myself the Canadian kind?

Import... extort, not for the canola  
nor the coals down under
If I'm selling what I stole from selling Inuit
like the forty thieves and Ali's plunder

How many men can stand as tall
without writing Graffiti on the Great Wall
that they built, that's psychopathic
for the people, by the people, the Great Republic

We all friends in Earth's society
No reason to start quaking
The Society of Friends are friends
The Quakers aren't shaking

No Quaking in Rome?
Nor the Sistine Chapel?
Black smoke, White Hope
White smoke, Black Pope

Does this seem dope? Just wait,
White State, Black Faith
Black State, White Fate
The impossible a possibility and a dope bomb

Start with a Quake, make a Quaker
If its a shake, make a shaker
Where's his taker of notes
penned at the Apostolic Nunciature

He heard a friend tell a friend's friend
Its getting late; confess your faith
If you ain't straight, you'll be left by the gate
near the wall with the writing

No thunder nor lightning
while I AM walking and all
In the city of the Monk
Graffiti: Writing on the Wall

Blackboards love math dorks
not whiteboards, glassboards, or corks
Chalk's gathering dust