Joséphine inspires faith
that even God envies.
Her voice creases the canvas of the sky,
her wink commands the storm.

Joséphine looks to the moon
to see her reflection.
Her suspiring imaginations dance
in ripples of conscious thought.

Joséphine grasps in her hands
a stray breath of Creation.
Her eyes capture the light of dawn and dusk.
Her halcyon sigh underpins reality.

Sing me a song, pretty angel.
Sing me a tune only God deserves.
Not that I deserve its blessed sound
but because God never deserved it either.
Lead me down a path built of the bricks
and mortar of Via Dolorosa.
And in the end turn my joy into ash
and drown me as you wash your hands.

Witness with your betraying eyes
the crucifixion of hearts that you parade
around in the halls of your lies.
You’ve the wings to fly away and free us from
the ball and chain but in your sickness
you choose to linger so that even the knowledge of
your presence rests torment and ruin and soon desolation.

I fear the day of rapture.
Judgement will be the falling of pillars
that will otherwise stand eternity.

I yearn for the day of rapture;
the day of release and relief;
the day that I come to the realisation
that my mind does me futile anguish
and the day falseness bleeds from my words.

Now, wear me around your incandescent halo
or the plastic ****** around your neck.

She stands (central) in a field of whatever you'd like it to be,
her wrists ringed in silver innocence.
I can tell that the night offers up the stars to her.
And she borrows the light of the day.
No transcendence can carry her away.
In the end, the saints found time to condemn her.

With a smile, she sings apocalyptic prophecies,
holding the rain in a leash.
When her voice is tired, she implores you to sing for her.
But her tears are carved from the rain
and she says, "I don't want to explain".
But with words, there's nothing much you can promise her.

Take me home, take me home, take me home,
take me through the bleeding night.
Take me down the road so I can meet with her.
The moonlight reflects off her mirror-skin.
You make wagers that you might win.
But there's nothing (real) you can get from her.

He takes a shot and back in the dark,
Careful shade he hides.
At dawn, he commits sedition and
Away from dawn he rides.
He calls himself a tortured soul,
Pulled away by the tides.
There’s nothing left but dying.

The dawn brings his lover to his house
To spend a little while.
Then he wept for he failed to see
Delilah’s crooked smile.
Now, he has fangs of vicious prey
That reflect the light like tiles.
And for all of that, the bird is no longer flying.

When the night veils his happiness,
He leads the sun astray.
Slashing the tires of Apollo’s chariot
So he cannot bring the day.
And he pins the mountains to the ground
So they cannot fly away.
And then he shuns the crucifix for lying.

The markets there are flooded with
Men who don’t refrain.
He wanders without his memory;
Feathers suppressing pain.
He declaims that he wears no frown
That’s true, but he lies in vain.
The markets hold nothing for him worth buying.

At noon the blind beggar comes
To look him in the eye.
When he’s finished clipping angel wings,
So they may no longer fly,
He confesses to the most sinful man
For he’s still afraid to die.
And he finds himself, in his sorrow, crying.

And at this wink of dawn, he knows he's still alive.
But all he cares to ask from God is when dusk will arrive.
From the hopeless dreams of hopefulness, his wicked mind derives
thoughts that ground the deadbeat birds from flying.

Hair of floating grace
and eyes of bronze hazelnuts.
Longing for your touch
And the softness of your voice.
Your gentleness soars
And flies with infinity.
When clouds close the sky
And stars die; I'll find your light
And I will be forever home.

In the gallery of a town, art was duly contained
and cared for carefully without contamination.
There was a painting there, painted with oil
paints that rained and formed a picture of a bird
on a canvas of vivid blues, browns, and greens
that fixed eyes on it like webs to hair.
The artist spoke:

“We are all swallows: proud, free, agile.
We are all oceans: formidable, hostile.
We are all stormy weather: thunderous.
We are all columns: supportive, calloused.

Entwined we will walk,
down to and up to the sands,
into elixirs made with salt;
swelling our joyous hands.”

Men, women and children all strolled by,
and let not one of them see the lows and highs
of the artist's soul. A boy stood there with
no-one: his uncorrupted eyes walking up and
down the mined canvas. He felt no sand
under his feet; he felt no wooden skin and
complexion in his hands.
He spoke:

“We are not swallows: ashamed, caged, stiff.
We are not oceans: defenceless, mild.
We are not stormy weather: soundless
We are not columns: defective, defiled.

Like slaves, we sing
on top of the wings
of new-born Spring.

The ground we sowed and toiled,
reaped dangers of fantasy untold.
Soul-reaping bird-singers
singing the siren song to us.
But we must not fuss.

I bleed the colours
of a deadly rose garden.
Red, yellow, blue, green:
colourless eyes remain unseen.”

Wallet not exist
Night until late. I wake up.
Everything: regret.