You look at me like I'm stupid
ignorant or just plain insane
and try to remember my name
but don't you dare to forget
this sodden hunched old busker
squatting huddled in the rain

I hear you comment on how I smell
of cheap cider, bitter and strong
but don't ignore me
as I sit here with my guitar
on the street corner
amongst the hurrying throng

You, who pass me by
trampling on my old cap
with a single coin in it
looking down on me,
who was once a household name
as you munch on
the sausage roll
the Big Mac the slice of pizza
or drink the espresso or latte
then toss the dregs
at my sockless feet
and light up a ciggie
as you hurry down the street

Memory will not serve to soften
or to erase the spikes of anger
sorrow, sadness and grief
the trembling hand that wields
this brush cannot revive belief
he who was there in childhood
who laughed, loved guided and consoled
who through the path of life
was there to steer, to hold
with a hand with fingers gnarled with age
that were with wisdom formed to calm
he is gone away into that other land
now there are only these grey spikes
these shards of what was
the love we built together
and these are not grief's needed balm
but with the months, years, decades
that shall pass away I hold to hope
that by my memory of him and all he held
the spikes shall be smoothed and brushed away

A  terrible tapestry woven of empty skies
above a stark and brooding emptied land
sewed with needle and threads of gold
by the Mighty Earth Goddess’ busy hands
who sat and sewed this her winding seam
of orange and gold from creation’s dream
but who possibly now return to talk of this
landscape created from a Goddess’s bliss
a place seldom seen, if not only in the mind
somewhere in a dreamland lost to humankind

As with mosquitos, horseflies
and most bloodsucking parasites
he was spawned in stagnant water
to explore the world of man on evil wings
she had wanted a man who
would love, would care
but soon she would discover
he owned to neither of those things
Rather, he bit into her as would a mosquito
raising a sickness deep within
then as a leech he bled her
dry 'til she was a husk of pallid skin
he spawned in her a ****** dysmorphia
so that she, when he finally left, could only feel
a kind of distorted euphoria
that allowed her to shut herself off from a world
that she saw as a stagnant pool

A deeper remembrance
not photographs in silver frames
not letters in their familiar hand
not mourning brooches of darkest jet
nor their golden wedding band
not  cut flowers
in vases or on graves
nor  elaborate words
on slate or stone
but, engraved
instead,  a deeper remembrance
that,  as the flight of a snow white bird
in loving hearts has grown

Just maybe darkness is better than light
for they, the wild and animate ghouls
that desire your soul merely stalk
and softly growl but do not bite
surely darkness is better than light
being a shield that you can hide behind
a barrier beyond which the anxious onlookers
cannot peer, and so pierce, your clouded mind
surely darkness is better than light
light that too much reveals
light that shows the stains of life
that darkness so well conceals
they are multitude those night things
the arachnid spinning a web of dark comfort
the moth that shreds the brains dead cells
with softly soothing wings
the centipede sweeping away negative thoughts with swift legs
the unseen bird that cries, that for peace and comfort begs
surely darkness is better than light
a harsh and unforgiving light
where the stranded vessel carrying your dreams
is forever fixed in a glacial world of wicked white

Words are crimson threads spun by my pen
needling my woolly soul for expression,
each a stitch in Life's tapestry
my thoughts long and steely bodkins
I scatter words as sharp and shining pins
each sufficient to raise red upon
the flaccid fabric of empty minds
pinning ideas, often controversially
averse to neither comment nor complaint
I am a human wheel of spin,
pricking consciousness
threading with thought empty consciences