jutting and jagging
the looming grey monument
caps nature's crown

Typed words
Cast out into ghoulish space
Gothic panes pulse and refract
The distortion of light.

Dawn's raging furnace
succumbs to moonbeam fingers
clenching throats.

Inextricably bound,
our lives pass through straws;
externally opaque tubes,
revealing little to the observer.

I thought you
were rusting
in the blue
felt-lined box.

Neat dovetail
joints framed
your bespoke
resting place.

But, brass
doesn’t rust,
it only stews like
over-brewed tea.

And tarnished,
arthritic valves
no longer wheeze
a tune from you.

I wonder,
if you ever
graced a noble
stage,

or simply
bled in the
hands of a
dilettante.

I hope for
the former,
I couldn’t
bear the latter.

A leaf, drenched and torn;
spins through apathetic gullies.

Thin veins pump pulp;
scrivened sheets, knotted in repose.

In the card-stiff stillness,
trapped between sentiment and truth;
the creaking jaw whines.

The chef is dying,
limp between starched white sheets.

Sour cream drips
from breathless meringue;

fading whites,
deathly pallor.

Puddles and pancakes -
the menu of the day.

As bland as cloth-strained milk;
a deluge of curd free effluvium runs free.
No cheese, no future.
Just the aroma of decay.

A shadow that aches;
tremulous against the cleansing of light.

Disembodied substance.
The cogito?
Or secrets wrapped in secrets,
the invisible reality.

Liquid tongues clash and lash;
ephemeral strings and impossible knots.

Forever flowing, forever weaving,
warp and weft the aqueous loom.

Scars and skin -
millipedes roaming baking flesh.

Inner canals -
Venetian arteries/gondola full.

Then the marrow. The MARROW.

That dripping core slipping away.

Food of decay.

Flossing detritus -
this is LIFE.

Extreme
mastication -
bowel breath
death.

Eating light and digesting darkness
the breeze whistles over fleshy bells that clang.

Windows stare into space and time; vast panes, beyond minds and placid lakes - the secret sepulchre.

Hume's bundle - laundry of the senses.

Hope unfurls –
April’s pennant *****;
rasped by the
spring lizard’s tongue.

daffodils unfurl,
green stems scaffold the essence
of spring's ambition.

Worn shoes -
friction burns on tired soles;
griddled pancake strides.

Scuffed leather -
peeling flakes of desiccated fruit
kiss frayed laces;
knotted serpent tongues.


Burning in Nevada;
a thousand miles from carpenter's tools,
a hundred steps from Vegas lines.

You are scissors -
steel blades striding
over naked flesh,
sinking like boots into mud -
geysers of frothing blood.

Trip and rust in my guts
you *******;
then sleep in my innards.

Flailing arms in minestrone soup,
grasping ropes in gloopy slop.

Slippery snakes in slippy hands;
bobbing bereft in beefy broth.

Croutons swirl - a death knell eddy
clumping in a bread bricked tomb.

You whispered in my ears
when darkness shrouded
my innocence.

A black paged lexicon
of nuanced threats
I grew to fear.

lightning illuminates
****** signatures

    as thunder rumbles
and consequences quake

tumbles through
tenebrous caves;
slow erosion
lost in clacking
echoes -
ephemeral
puffs of dust.

The knife struggles
to slice cheese,

  the blade hampered by
a resistant truckle.

  Existential friction makes
an unmade sandwich.

Ludwig’s largesse,
to the Corsican Fiend
reached a coda of lament.

The old man's breath
tears russet leaves
from ragged books.

Violas sway
and hum
in the face
of brumal winds.

Dripping fire,
the oak's toes
are nibbled
by rimy teeth.

Dead comrades –
desiccated fruit,
plucked from iron vines.

Sensitive minds
at rest; while
psyche's quake.

Vanilla fudge
drips into
treacle toffee,
then the honey
furnace glows
in my psyche,
leaving a brain
of ashen coal.

The placid blue lake
runs deep with riddles
I could never fathom.

At the Black Mountain's peak,
the rapture of sundance ripples
across the Golden Valley's leaves.

The actor Anthony Perkins
ate jar after jar of gherkins.
Green with rage he knifed Janet Leigh
what a murderous pickle to see!

Auburn leaves
skitter an autumnal dance.

Season’s breath;
nature’s invisible broom.

Sweeping; conducting
life and death's romance.

The final grinding
winter? Mankind’s doom.

you are the
core within tallow

a braided cotton
beauty destined to burn brightly

Winter's icy fingers snap rime clad branches;
dragging splintered boles to a hoary moonlit hinterland.

Nosferatu, Frankenstein -

Ice on spine
chillers from the
golden age of gothic ghouls.

What is so ball
scrunchingly creepy?

All that remains
are monochrome phantoms.

words flow
like honey
through the
hives of our minds

tangy vine tomatoes
picnic bites that drip on happy chins

Darting silver threads
sewn without visible seam
into muddy pools.
A moment of clarity
then turbidity returns.

the guitar strings rust
dead skin clings to icy steel
frozen melody

Observing snowflakes;
with each icy nuance glittering,

I forget my burning feet.

Unraveller of
invisible riddles,

demystifying scribe
of Faraday’s theatrics.

His, unlocking the
cage and waves of light

made Einstein special,
and the universe an ocean

of gravitational
waves, forever rippling.

arctic hares
burrow
under the grey
wolf's gaze

though distant
the ural wolf
bites deeply

amber leaves
on hayloft roofs
glisten with
algid pearls

dripping fire
the oak's toes are nibbled
by rimy teeth

as russet leaves fall
each crisp lonely step
evokes you

suffused with
spectral footfall
the promenade
fades into grey
winter stone.

With crumbling
smiles, pierrots
sally in monochrome
frames and the
dead bones of
donkeys rise to
cloddy beaches.

Through salt
burned eyes,
torpid seas
heave like heavy
blankets over rusting
lungs; the pulse
of slow decay.

the old man's breath
tears russet pages
from ragged books

Skeletal wooden frames,
    clad in the night’s inky veil

bend and quiver against
    breaths blown from Ural lungs.

Tractors of success rip
    asphalt from dying streets;

while streetlights mourn
    the birth of tomorrow’s decay.

And as two bottles of gin
    sway into each other's way

the stench of ambition’s
    corpse pollutes the air.