I am the water
and the urn
I am the lesson
I must unlearn.

I am the lash
the club, the heel
I am the wound
that will not heal.

I am a weapon
a farce, a religion
I am the threat
of guilt and division.

I am the prison
that I must escape;
to vacate this body
and reincarnate.

A father’s love is strongly felt
but sadly, not often shown.
He wears it like a heavy crown
wrought in metal or stone.

And like a king, it’s difficult
to let your true self be known;
a king who reveals his conscience,
will soon be overthrown.

Our love is a language revealed
and seen through children’s eyes
an improvised vocabulary
only children can devise.

Huddled under a tiny blanket
in a single bed
counting stars through the open window
just above our heads.

Ice cream eaten from the same bowl
two straws in lemonade.
The flea-sized crimes that they commit
the 'cross-my-hearts' made.

Feverishly spun yarns of mischief
school yard shenanigans galore
when I think he has no more to tell
he always tells me more.

Melting chunks of chocolate held out
in an open grimy hand
still wet with mud from the garden
and grimier still with sand.

In the hot, strong, tearful embrace
he gave to me that day
at the entrance to his classroom,
where he turned and walked away.

A pall of hurt and sadness
draped over his skinny frame
like a rain soaked rag worn by a beggar
too weary to beg for change.

The more I see him the more I miss him
like trees miss sunny weather.
He shares the burden with me
since we no longer live together.

We will meet again, and part again,
and again and again and again
How many years? How many tears?
Who will he seek to blame?

And even though it hurts us both
I‘m stung by the amount of pain
he bears on shoulders bent far too soon
on his skinny eight year-old frame.

The weight of this understanding
does not have yet have a name.
Cyclical, habitual, hot as steel
thrown back in the fire again.

Time is, for him, a mystery
but certainly he knows
when it comes to dad,
he waits for me to come
and then to go.

I am a spirit
an act of creation
a  blessing, a curse
trans-substantiation.

I am the soul
a representation
of the universal mind’s
illumination.

I am the mind
wed to contemplation
to madness and reason
wit and temptation.

I am the body
conceived in elation
the ecstasy and agony
of love’s desolation.

i
Painted face sits shotgun
on a pennyfarthing chakra
ridden blindfold.

A twist of spine
swings him pendular
every beat, a half-finished bongo trill
nudges black berets askew.
Goatee stubble corrals galloping speech
into enclosures.

Break comma stop.

ii
The chorus,
a fat thousand-eyed mollusk gapes:
he juggles
a bomb
an asp
a knife.

Does he
drop the bomb, ****** the knife,
let the poisonous snake bite?

With child's plainspokenness
we play rock scissors paper
with death’s ivory hands waiting.

Bomb shatters knife
knife slices snake
snake eludes bomb.

The marks whelp their joy
clapping, weeping
with the thousand hands and eyes
of Guishan Guanyin.

Azrael's eyes
drowned in narcotics
***** from the shadows.
Pupils dilate, prolapse
in a unison of aqueous humour.

A blur of dervish
swallows the air
spreads like virus.

iii
Outside the amphitheatre
wings grazing crumbling walls
Azrael peddles dice.

"Worn from the teeth of a dead Logos," his voices sing
his nebulae of tongues clicking against teeth
arrayed like tombstones inside his abysses of mouths
breath smelling of hemlock and grift.
His stock sells out.

After a rainy night of craps
we hissed graft
in the whorl of the priest's ear.
He went home to bed
and dreamt of riches
pouring from the wounds
of sweat-shop children.

iv
In the morning
eight bells peal.
Eyelids hummingbird beneath a black sun
choking the sky over Styx.

Flayed by owls
flendo cinere
we bask in charcoal
and spit obols
into the ferryman's blistered hand.

I am the vain
the bitter, excluded
misfortunate soul
who is self-deluded.

I am the mirror
that I must break
and all the shards
and scars I make.

I am the frog
the scorpion did ride
and from my death
a fable was scribed.

I am what I destroy
and what I create
the stay of execution
arriving too late.

Today's trees
Hold yesterday's light in
Apple, pear, fig and plum
Nexus core of arms and feet
Knit earth to sky from cloud and seed

Yes, work is over
Oblation received
Under dying fire of sun.

Lena doesn’t get high with us anymore.

She appears at the door
stumbles through without saying hello.

Found a niche, she says.
Knitting.
She doesn’t waste time.

Lena swaps all her needles
with the other ******;
she gets two spikes a pin.

She has lots now.
Could crucify Christ
and all his friends.

Lena knits us wool sweaters
to hide the needle marks
masquerading as mosquito bites.

Fingers, a blur
eyes, glazed and gone,
Lena has big headshop dreams:
Wool syringe pouches,
she says,
next big thing.
You'll see.

Anna has Irving
Leonard's with Suzanne
Lena has nobody
to call her man.

Lena doesn’t get high with us anymore.