Alluring eyes
Good enough to hypnotise

perpetual grace
    Not a movement out of place

The wolf yearning

Thirsty
                              Greedy
            Lusting
                                                Craving

Twinkeling desires
Breed up like wildfire

The Starship Galaxy III came in
To land in a farmer’s field,
There wasn’t much of a barley crop
For the seed had failed to yield,
The city lay just a mile away
In a glow of flashing lights,
‘I wonder how they manage to sleep,’
Said the Captain, Arzen Kytes.

They’d travelled across the universe
In a push through hyper space,
For seven years at the speed of light
In a bid to seek and trace,
They’d followed the trail of radio waves
From near to a distant sun,
And ended up in the Milky Way
Where the sounds were coming from.

‘There has to be life out there,’ they’d said,
‘We’re surely not alone,
We’ll send a mission to check them out,
To see what they’re like at home,
They must have a crude technology
To be able to transmit,’
And now in sight of the city lights
They were on the verge of it.

‘There’s oxygen in the air out there,
It’s much the same as home,
It’s safe to send out a party in
The seven seater drone,
So under the Captain, Arzen Kytes
They flew to a city square,
But the skyscrapers were neglected
And the weeds were thick out there.

They roamed through many department stores
Now empty of displays,
And passed by stores that were boarded up,
‘This town’s seen better days!’
Nobody walked the city streets
And the Captain shook his head,
‘Whatever happened to bring them down,
It looks like they’re all dead!’

But then in an old computer shop
They saw a sign of life,
A dozen or so of bobbing heads,
An old man and his wife,
But nobody said a single word
Or looked when they came in,
But kept on pushing the buttons of
Some tool that glowed within.

The old man opened his mouth and spoke,
‘You’re not from round these parts.
I saw the flivver you just flew in,
We’re back to the horse and cart.
This generation is not so bright,
They don’t know how to speak,
The gift of language has passed them by
Now all that they do is tweet.’

‘When most of the population died
With famine, came disease,
The crops were genetically modified
And killed off all the bees,
So nothing is pollinated now
But the bit we do by hand,
It wasn’t enough to save the world
From the greed that ruined the land.’

‘But what about all the city lights,
They’re flashing still, in truth!’
‘Everything came with flashing lights
To hypnotise our youth.
We may get help from a distant star
If they see them flash in space,
But once the power goes off, we’ll see
The end of the human race.’

The Captain of the Galaxy III
Flew back to board his ship,
When questioned by the rest of the crew
He frowned, and bit his lip,
‘There’s signs of a civilisation here
But they’ve let it go to seed,’
And smiled at the gentle irony,
‘The fools gave in to greed!’

David Lewis Paget

Our city
of forts and malls and cinema halls
is littered with the filth of our minds
and our mouths.
We are lost; we are broken;
we are muffled and soft-spoken.
Big city dreams
of art and changing the world
slip away every time we wake up
on grimy beds we’ve never seen before
with soot on our feet, and our hands
bound with ***** hair,
backs bent under the weight of all they’ve left us.
The mud in our fingernails leaves us a mess,
in the shapes of the night's sticky, grubbiness:
a twisted Rorscharch inkblot.
We see it all replaying,
—flickering, as we’re swaying—
on grimy ceilings, where the light bulb
seems askew, and dangling
in an effort to hypnotise us,
left, and right, and left.
Every day is a repeat of the same,
—chai glasses, and cigarette butts
with redlipstickstains,
rickshaw rides (exactly thirty rupees steeper
than the rate on the meter),
cat calls that slap in one ear and slip spit out the other.
Our roads are lit by TV-light,
a muted glow that follows us everywhere.
Anonymous blankness follows blankness
and the dark dankness
of grocery stores and souls
that can’t recognise each other anymore.
Silly young things dreaming of bliss,
And new couches, and tiny feet
Instead hear only
"Scrub harder," "Needs more salt," and
"Turn over; come closer; be quiet."
Bare feet in splotchy grass
with brown and green ankles
are replaced by sore heels and push-up bras.
Pens scratching on paper
are replaced by knives slashing skin
and flesh and bones
hitting sharply so that the onomatopoeia
of the shlick-crack-crack
draws out delighted laughter
from blackened, smoky mouths
— and peals of screams that no one hears,
the afterthoughts of parking lots.
The fire of fingers leaves marks, scars;
and their tips grow spikes
into the goosebumps on our arms;
knuckles peel away skin,
everywhere they trace;
and fists clench
around our bodies,
that don’t belong to us.

But we know, one day,
our spring will come
and we will leave the heat on our backs
in dust.
We will go down with Persephone
and take our flowers with us.
We will swim upside down
so we feel like we can fly.
Every rock laying unturned, we know,
has a cosmic universe throbbing
patiently under it.
We will lie, resilient, awake at night,
dreaming cautiously, softly,
so no one hears,
but dreaming nonetheless.
Dreaming of our wings melting
over and over again,
when we get too close to the denied,
day after day, until
we can build wings strong enough
to hold the heat of the sun
inside them, and then propel further.
We’ll show them
— tell your sisters and daughters and friends!—
we’ll show them,
Because your sticks and stones
Can break only our bones
And not our minds. We are
Goddesses, even in a dimly lit bar
Or the back of a fast car,
Just as in temples. We are
Goddesses, whether we whisper in soft tones
Or shout it in the streets,
Whether we lie in strangers' sheets
Or break our backs bending
to ***** feet.
When we're beaten by a spouse,
Or changing tactic,
We'll be both your angels in the house,
And your madwomen in the attic.

Peter built a paper boat
To set afloat upon the sea
And visit spots of hidden coast
Where not a ghost of man would be
He painted letters on her bow
Which soon would plough and skip and trot
Between the waves which rose and fell
The letters spelled ‘Forget Me Not’

He bid his love a fond goodbye
The tide was high when he embarked
And drifted from his lonely cove
While weather drove and seagulls larked
His course was set, horizon bound
For solid ground and ****** shore
When darkness fell he made a bed
'Goodnight' he said and nothing more

His fast was broken elegantly
Delicately poached, his eggs
His freshly laundered morning clothes
Were hung in rows on paper pegs
He cut a furrow, straight and true
Across the blue, towards the sun
But in the distance, lightning spat
As thunder rattled, eddies spun

The tempest threw a wall of ice
Like careless dice, they clattered down
The sails dropped amid the squall
The hatches all were battened down
A curse was uttered through the storm
Its evil born on salty spray
With gusting arms of icy wet
It threw Forget Me Not away

He coughed awake, all caked in sand
Upon a strand of desert beach
Forget Me Not had run a-ground
But safely found the water's reach
He walked ashore and found a glade
Within it, made a paper home
And origami wings, he built
To never wilt and ever roam

He felled the tree and smote the ground
A frame, he wound of paper string
His garden flourished all around
Each sight and sound of ever-spring
The flowers jostled in their beds
And turned their heads to follow him
He kept his distance from the blue
In case the view should swallow him

An evil creature stalked the trees
It dined on bees and butterflies
On owls and cats, it liked to sup
To gobble up and gluttonize
With paper sword, he killed the beast
And cooked a feast to celebrate
A rain cloud sought to disagree
But quick was he to remonstrate

He flew his island, shore to shore
And kept a score of fire flies
They hung imprisoned in a glass
The light they cast could hypnotise
With nothing left to see or do
He flew up to the highest spot
And carved into a single tree
Remember me, forget me not

His boat remade and set a-sail
The heavens pale with early dawn
Upon his bed, he sat inert
With paper curtains neatly drawn
His charts uncharted, compass blunt
A currant bun, to satiate
A world of peril out to sea
To skillfully negotiate

Some time to contemplate the past
And backward cast the here and now
The Merfolk sang a siren song
And leapt along beside his bough
They guided him to foreign ports
Where shady sorts in cider soak
The tales they told were sizeable
And risible, the words they spoke

He folded down his paper boat
Into a coat of paper lace
And set the ocean to his back
The open track, he turned to face
The way he took was through a copse
The swaying tops of mighty pines
Leant form and rhythm to his pace
Upon his face were thoughtful lines

To either side, the shadows grew
No more, the blue shone through the boughs
And branch and bracken, driven wide
Were cast aside as careless vows
He chanced upon a quiet nook
A winding brook, it scurried by
It seemed a place where time would bide
While either side it hurried by

So dining sparse on only bread
He laid his head upon the ground
A lullaby the branches sighed
Was far and wide, the only sound
He deftly pitched a paper tent
And in it, spent a weary night
A whisper echoed in his ear
It lingered near, beyond his sight

So many weeks of rambling
Through bramble and through briar patch
And pausing for an hour at best
With feet to rest and breath to catch
The summer season on the wane
With autumn rain, attention pinned
To pounce on unsuspecting shoulder
Ever colder rose the wind

Above the adolescent fruit
Fed by the roots of ancient trees
Gave promise of a juicy crop
But yet to drop, they simply tease
Upon a morning laced with dew
A shadow grew and fell across
The spongy ground rose underfoot
And boulders jutted through the moss

The space between the trunks expanded
Saplings stranded on the scree
And whispers carried on the air
From places where they couldn't be
A sheer cliff now blocked the way
A ***** gray and smothering
Against, there thrived a mess of vines
With jagged spines their covering

He found a cave and ventured in
A desperate grin upon his lips
His chattering of nervous teeth
Was lost beneath the endless drips
Reverberating ceaselessly
Increasing with each fall of foot
A passageway and crooked path
By wrath of ancient water, cut

The arid air was felt to shift
And Peter sniffed a musky trace
The passage opened wide and tall
It sprawled into a massive space
The walls were smooth as beetle hide
But all inside was bathed in black
The flies were putting up a fight
But solid night was biting back

A tower carved from stalactite
In spite of probability
Was looming from the cavern top
And from it dropped futility
A spring of purest liquid gloom
Within, there bloomed an evil thirst
For those who drank a thimble worth
Would tread the earth, forever cursed

The cavern floor was laced with dust
A powdered crust of rotted skin
As Peter neared the central spire
The fire flies grew weak and thin
But all across the distant dark
There lit a spark and sprang a flame
That burst from ancient blackened lamp
To banish damp and shadow shame

A scrabbling amid the murk
As forward, lurked a breaking wave
Of decomposing denizens
The citizens of Evergrave
With sinew bared through rotted hide
The flesh inside was yellowing
From every throat that still remained
There shot a baneful bellowing

They forced him to the tower's tip
From which the drip of night was thrown
Gruesome stairs he climbed in haste
Of interlaced and knotted bone
A dire tunnel led within
The light was thin and shadow thick
A deathly door he tumbled through
And fell into a bloodied slick

Within was rank and heavy air
Like foxes lair where hunters slept
The walls, from living flesh, were stitched
The carpet twitched as Peter stepped
The Zombie Queen sat on her throne
Of flesh and bone of Underlands
She rested on its gory arms
Which raised their palms and held her hands

The creature laughed and cocked her head
A single thread of drool there hung
Between her lips and fear crowned
The single sound which echoes sung
The living walls, they tensed and strained
As terror reigned and ichor dripped
And when the monarch of the dead
Inclined her head, the stitches ripped

She spoke in harsh and bitter tones
As withered crones do curses bloom
The fate of Peter turned to dread
His soul, the dead would soon entomb
A single card he had to play
On such a day, in such a spot
He grinned and bid the rotting queen
‘Your time has been, forget me not’

His folded coat he casted wide
And from inside, a paper storm
Within the flurry, shapes were made
As wings were splayed and talons formed
A paper dragon rustled forth
And in his jaws, the queen he caught
He turned on the assembled dead
Within his head, a single thought

Peter climbed between the wings
Where paper rings he’d fastened there
Gave safety for the coming fight
And all the night, he nestled there
Until the dragon fell asleep
Upon a heap of smitten foes
And Peter robbed the deathly hoard
Each room explored on stealthy toes

He shunned the dark and met the day
And made away for higher ground
Along a path of narrow ledges
Razor edges, upwards wound
A trail, he scaled around the peak
Of Raven’s Beak the mighty mount
Up slopes which claimed so many lives
And widowed wives beyond his count

He stood atop the pinnacle
Where clinical, the ****** snow
Reflecting in the autumn light
Lent all a white and eerie glow
The frost had chilled his fleshy core
His eyes absorbed the scenery
A distant shoreline tugged his soul
A long unfolding memory

Of home and of his fireside
His future bride would tarry there
The tiny church upon the sand
He’d always planned to marry there
He took his dagger from his sock
Into the rock at just that spot
He carved upon the highest stone
I turn to home, forget me not

The knotted land that lay between
Had never been abode to man
The name it took was infamous
And ominous: The Neverspan
Its valleys tinkered with the eye
A fractured sky shone crookedly
Above a wood of vacant trees
That clawed the breezes hookedly

The setting sun would lead the way
Through lands which lay in wait for him
To bare him forth, a paper horse
To keep a course and gait for him
The blackness trickled from the bark
The  tangled dark enshrouded him
And songs in long forgotten tongues
About him hung and clouded him

He journeyed through the Ebonmire
Though fire failed to kindle there
His breath before him writhed in blight
And turned to fight the rancid air
Through many months of loneliness
And bitterness of solitude
He conquered the abandoned wood
And silent stood in gratitude

He forayed through the hill and plain
As on the wane the winters hold
The grass had shaken off the snow
Its Icy glow had turned to gold
A paper hat he now prepared
For as he fared, the rain endured
His horse was crumpled in the wet
No living vet would see it cured

The seasons tumbled mindlessly
And rivalry removed his haste
A sallow band of Neverbeast
By shadow greased and interlaced
With paper sword, he lay in wait
To penetrate each haggard hide
And when their blood was deftly spilled
A phial he filled for sake of pride

The sun became his only guide
His face belied his weariness
With little left to raise his soul
Above the cold and dreariness
Until the second summer passed
And sunset cast a silhouette
The outline of a tiny church
Was perched beside a maisonette

A flutter leapt about his heart
And wide apart, his eyes were flung
As Peter ran with tired limbs
The heavens dimmed and crickets sung
He reached his open garden gate
His face elated, turned to woe
As through the window he could see
His bride to be would not be so

A gentleman stood at her side
His bride adorned in happiness
And though it burned in Peter’s chest
His wrath would rest in idleness
So with a final fleeting peek
He turned to seek a worthy cause
Before he left he knelt before
His former door and seemed to pause

He fled upon his paper wings
As many things he’d yet to see
A myriad of foreign faces
Distant places he should be
He sailed the sky and sought the sand
His native land he soon forgot
Behind, he left a single note
And on it wrote: Forget me not

He sat in a small compartment by
The window, on a train,
The passengers huddled around him
Saying, ‘Tell that one again!’
He spoke in a low and measured voice
As they held their breath, to stare,
Watching his hands, as they described
Vague circles in the air.

There wasn’t a sound outside, except
The carriage, clickety-clack,
A sound that would tend to hypnotise
As the train sped down the track,
In every one of his listeners
Was a picture, in each mind,
That spoke to them of that better life
Which had been too hard to find.

And seagulls circled the skies above
As he primed their minds with ‘If…’
And led them all in a straggly line
To stand at the top of a cliff.
The sea was blue and the clouds were grey
And the rocks below sublime,
As they teetered there for a moment where
They stood, at the edge of time.

For then he’d show them a garden, with
The form of an only child,
Who seemed to be so familiar
That most of them there had smiled,
The scent of a pink wisteria
Had wafted the carriage air,
And then their tears rolled back the years
As they whispered, ‘I was there!’

He showed them a woman in mourning
With a cape, and a darkened veil,
Who knelt alone by a headstone,
Each listeners face was pale.
The bell of the church began to toll
As it sounded someone’s knell,
His face was the face of the gravedigger
As he held them in his spell.

The carriage was filled with waves of fear,
The carriage was filled with joy,
He’d tell of the death of a mountaineer,
Of a child with a much-loved toy,
Their tears they’d dry as the train came in
To the tale of a Scottish Kirk,
And one by one they would rise to leave
And head off the train, to work.

But the Storyteller would stay on board
And close the compartment door,
His restless hands were trembling still
As his eyes stared down at the floor.
The train heads into the future while
The past is deep in his well,
He sits and weeps in the corner for
The tales that he doesn’t tell.

David Lewis Paget

Your eyes.
Ooh those eyes!
The gates to my soul
They melt my tough disguise
They reveal my lies
For I cannot lie to those eyes.
Those eyes.
They hypnotise
leave me paralysed
and small in size
Those eyes.
Oh when I look into those eyes
I am instantly stripped from my disguise
And my ego dies.
Ooh those eyes.
They **** me.

Orange peels,
an overstuffed ash-tray,
empty wrappers,
for those capsules
that wake & then
those that hypnotise.
Swallow smoke.

That bitter black drink,
keeps me confident,
that I’m alive.
My heart rattles
in its calcium cage.
Despite the voice
that beckons
“Why go on?”

The looking glass lies
I feel like holding my breath
until I burst…
I feel like wasting away.
Let me shrink
Let me fade away.
Or pass in some
spectacular manner

Orange peels,
Cigarette butts,
Missed phone calls.
***** sheets.
Trembling up to my fingertips.
A seamless motion-
hand to mouth
Always hand to mouth

These are my props,
this is my performance
in permenance.
Oh how I grow tired
Of singing the same old song.
Oh how I grow tired
of singing

And the conversation was just a call away

But who’d explain
what she said 

Who knew how things work 

Nobody has got the answers 

Nobody knows 

They just pretend.

Movement of impatience. 

Erroneous steps. 

Irrelevant arguments. 

False accusations. 

Sadistic approaches. 

Self centred minds. 

Disgust.
Nobody lives
They just exist.

The fairy tales
And the horrendous stories
The fear in your soul
Also the philanthropists' empathy
Nothing works here
Nothing remains.

Strings of conversations
Awestruck
By the way you hypnotise
The world
By your
Innumerable lies
Nobody speaks the truth
The world is a farce

Fear is the trap that confines all
Fear is holding hands with the grim reaper
It will haunt you to your grave
Taunt you in your dreams
Tie you back with the strongest rope there is and the hardest knot to escape from
Fear takes no time to find you
Takes no time to hypnotise you
Distorting your beliefs, questions are all that linger
Yes fear is strong but we go on

Tying knots with my tongue in soft seductive prose,
A lying distraction as you tear off my clothes.
Stained body and heart that have long been closed,
Remains all in your hands, naked, exposed.

Trace my scars with your fingertips,
Lace the curves of my spine with your unsullied lips.
Drink from my darkness in slow, soothing sips.
I’ll sink my nails into your skin ‘til your innocence rips.
Hypnotise you with the rhythm in my hips,
Disguise my poison with lust lined trips.

Legs locked around your waist hold like ecstasy,
Shock your mind into a state of dependency.
And undetected I’ll tighten the noose around your neck,
Infected, you’ll idolise this exquisite wreck.
And hold my wretched heart against your beautiful chest,
It’s cold, all emotions have been repossessed.

Confused and feeble you’ll emerge from your stupor,
Bemused as to why my passionate grasp became looser.
You’ll stare down at your feet and watch the blood drip,
Now aware I no longer need this tangible grip,
You see this touch is venom, to penetrate your weak flesh,
Subdue another prisoner into my nefarious mess.

Grave fear; you’ll beg and you’ll beg to be free,
Yet crave incessantly to still taste me.
I’ll behold and admire the damage I've done,
Mould your heart into a trophy that reminds me I've won.

I warned you not to get too close,
I spawn destruction with every lethal dose.

Hear this tale, my beauty
Of fear and forgotten legend
Of the terrors of the night
That will get you in the end

Do not venture out, after dark
You never know what is waiting there
Hiding away from you in secluded shadow
Ready to pounce like your worst nightmare

The killer is loose, roaming the streets
Looking for victims with his knife
You never want to bump into him
Because then it will cost you your life

Then there is the eyes of the vampire
Hypnotise you like the night sky
They will ****** you with a kiss
Then it is too late, as they drain you dry

A million eyes are out there, watching you
You shiver with a strange sound you hear
Something in the dark is reaching out
Coming to get you through your fear

So you have to run now, find somewhere safe
Find somewhere they are not going to see
But maybe I am hiding there in secret
So now you must beware, and look out for me

When Alison left the bath to run
It ruined the parquet floor,
It spilled on out like a waterspout
And ran right under the door,
She’d gone back into the bedroom, so
The spill continued to run,
Across the landing and down the stair,
‘Now look what our daughter’s done!’

We couldn’t dry out the parquetry
It swelled, and loosened the glue,
Then bits would lift and would come adrift,
I didn’t know what to do.
Then Barbara said, ‘It’s coming up,
We shouldn’t have laid it down,
I’ll go and choose some ceramic tiles
At that tiling place in town.’

I said that I’d lay the tiles myself
But Barbara would insist,
‘We really need a professional
For a job as big as this.’
I shrugged, and let her get on with it
I never could win a trick,
So the tiler that she employed was one
Ahab Nathaniel Frick.

I’d seen this tiler about the town
All hunched, and wizened and old,
His wrinkled skin was like parchment in
Some leathery paperfold.
He wore a hat with a drooping brim
So the sun never touched his face,
A puff of wind would have blown him in
To leave not a hint, or trace.

‘Are you sure that he’s up to this,’ I said,
‘He isn’t the best of men,
He’ll probably get on his knees all right
But never get up again.’
But Barbara shushed me out of there
Was keeping me well at bay,
She wanted to prove what she could do
In laying the tiles her way.

I didn’t get in to see them then
‘Til the tiles were laid, with grout,
Nor see Nathaniel Frick again,
I supposed that he’d gone out.
I stood and stared at the new laid tiles,
Their pattern was in the floor,
And Barbara, waiting proudly said,
‘What are you staring for?’

‘There’s something a-swirl in those tiles,’ I said,
‘Some pattern you didn’t mean,
The way that he’s put them together, well
There’s a sense of something unclean!’
I said the tiles made an evil face
And showed her the curving jaw,
The squinting eyes that could hypnotise
And the cheeks, so sallow and raw.

She said that she couldn’t see it then,
That I must have twisted eyes,
I wasn’t wanting to hurt her so
I tried to sympathise,
But the monster’s face was set in space
And it wouldn’t go away,
I dreamt about that face by night
And I saw it, every day.

At night, the face seemed to snarl at me
When I passed it in the gloom,
And I worried that it was set right there
Outside our daughter’s room,
Then Barbara thought she heard a noise,
An intruder in the house,
And tipped me out of the bed to chase
The night intruder out.

The moans began in the early hours
And the groans came just at dawn,
Then Alison came into our room,
‘There’s a shadow on my wall!
A man with a broad-brimmed, floppy hat
And with squinting eyes that gleamed,’
I said, ‘That’s it,’ when she had a fit
And our darling daughter screamed!

I went on out to the lumber shed
And I brought a mattock in,
While Alison jumped in the double bed
As the tiles set up a din,
A wailing, groaning, squealing sound
That would raise the peaceful dead,
I raised the mattock and smashed the tiles
Just above the monster’s head.

The tiles rose up with a mighty roar
And shattered, scattered around,
As a shadow from underneath the floor
Rose up with a dreadful sound,
It hissed, and made for the stairway, leapt
And it almost made me sick,
For fleeing out of the open door
Was Ahab Nathaniel Frick!

David Lewis Paget

Dressed in pink
her hair a cute kink
a sweet button nose
dainty little toes
giggles so sweet
when I tickle her feet
my friends toddler
an awkward waddler
she calls me Suey
makes me all gooey
china blue eyes
hypnotise
skin like porcelain
I drink her in
fills me with desire
lights my maternal fire

writing poetry can be rather humbling,
you have to bow before the traffic wardens,
pat the backs of bus drivers,
it is a humbling art,
               there's no real canvas,
and in the digital age: there's not much ink.
you have to humble yourself
             in ****** terms: great if you're a woman...
oh ****... if you're a man...
            and you can't seem to ever become
"the artist" -
                           poetry on the side is
acceptable, but poetry written with the aghast
missing: but i'm also a plumber - is
   another conundrum -
                so yes, poetry is a bit like
telling Picasso he can sit among the 5 year old's
  exhibition of their crayon masterpieces -
it's truly humbling...
                              sexually it's like
being impotent or at the very least: castration,
and never mind you actually obtaining
a castrato voice for the Vatican choir...
                truly is: a humbling experience.
  the philosophers attacked, then the psychiatrists,
and the novelists just wrote a paragraph
            and that was that:
the hand moves, the clock ticks...
                       poets are leeches, the end, and a happily
ever after.
                   it truly is a cenobite affair -
or as one says it: a tad bit monkish -
                                 now, plot a monk in
society: what do you get? oh sure, fervently wanking
myself to sleep, been doing it since the age of 8
before i could produce the *****:
         it's subliminally muscular orientated -
nothing about the ****, let alone the jazz...
   you bothered? i'm not bothered... you bothered?
    i'm not bothered...
                       and where (if not in poetry)
would you find no characters and an uninhibited
narrator who said: well... **** David Copperfield
and Jane Eyre - i'm going solo...
                    and i know, i have my little
soppy story... who doesn't?
                     but the choke / joke of the matter is...
being exposed to solely happy stories doesn't
make you happier -
                                according to Nietzsche i
have no shame because i exploit my experiences -
that too... why keep a private life sacred when
it's burdened not by the shadow of a tree of
knowledge... but a crucifix?
                          also a tree... oh look! he's waving
a hello! god knows how he did that!
that trick is better than that walk on water...
i'm all beetroot flustered with my cheeks grin-pink.
           sarcasm... or, the way to write
the less humbling sort of poetry... or to escape
musicology (namely rhyme, or the one note song
by Tenacious D) using a rickety raft that
poetry is... get the humours in,
   **** the furies,
           **** the fates...
                               ensemble: F... is a holy letter...
now the chance to hypnotise someone...
             and whoever said fairies gets a bonus...
   but it is, truly, humbling...
   sexually it's like this motion toward the trans
movement - chop my ***** off insert a pseudo-****
and job done... inject the right amount of hormones...
grow a beard... and Thomas' your uncle...
   of Bob... or Sinjit... or whoever taught you
the joke in mathematics class when describing
infinitesimal calculus (Herr Crickmore,
former trader / broker)                                      -
(oops, left the hyphen wide)                   never mind,
but the thing is... even though poetry
is a humbling experience...         i find novelists a bit
like lumberjacks...    they're hacking a tree,
and they're hacking and hacking a tree...
                 and they keep hacking the ****** tree
until a tree becomes a five-hundred page bestseller
   and about 1000 boxes of toothpicks
   and 2000 boxes of matchsticks (roughly, jokingly,
because it's probably more) -
                well sure...
                     i don't write poetry to entertain,
or to: "voice my concerns" -
                         i have very little care for the former,
and even less care for the latter -
            i have no idea why there's so much
patting-on-the-back for essayists and novelists -
       one clue gives it away:
                   they write so much... because they
could speak for so long without enough lubricants
akin to whiskey or water...
           silence? well... that's an altogether different
lubricant...as it is: i hate character constructs -
   and i hate an even blander narrator -
poetry is a humbling experience: after all, they treat
poets as if they're ******* when "serious" trades
provide for society -
                                    and you know why the mentally
ill sometimes **** people? the same reason as the above
stated... the populist medical pyramid is there...
i walked past a pyramid today, well, a scrap of it:
raising money for cancer patients...
                    reality? 19 pence drugs to preserve life
are scraped because *** drugs are more necessary...
never seen people have more fun...
          but all other ailments?
  too weird... too science-fiction... don't exist.
        well... ain't that nice... cancer gets the priority
and all the glamour of advertisement and
oh god... all that running the mile for charity in pink...
   with Stephen Hawking levitating waving
a telekinetic chequered flag at the finish...
            but the rest of humanity's ailment?
imaginary - or at least that's what it feels like.
if there was ever a pyramidal indentation in
humanity's perception, there's one now -
a hierarchy - as with cocktail parties and the glamour
of the *******-in-a-monkey-wrench literati dinner parties -
             well, those pyramids are well and truly
    ingrained in our minds...
                  and i thought that the point of hierarchy
was bound to how many holidays you took
   and what sort of television you owned...
guess not...                            but always, always!
    always that need to reach for a hierarchy...
                 and who were the first to voice their
concerns? the melancholic -
   5 in 1, 5 in 1 year asphyxiated at York University...
    and this is not the Homeric kinds...
                      all the time i'm
turning the huh? of the perplexity of existence
           (because, to be honest,
i don't know what life is: not thinking and cocktail parties?)
              d'ah ****?
                                   sure, the old testament
said enough about the voice in the wilderness...
well... try finding a wilderness i'll find you
a nursery rhyme: Ol' McDonald had a farm...
        time to see where that voice once found
in the wilderness went... oh look...
                                     it's no longer a voice...
and it's not in the wilderness: or the farmyard...
              it looks like it turned into
a thought                                                  in the abyss.

Enslave me with your womanly charms

happily encased in your arms

captivate me with your eyes

Oh my you hypnotise

I'm your willing toy

your salivating boy

tell me all your needs

I'll satisfy them with greed

kiss my lips
soft like velvet
sickly sweet
like the lies you whisper to me

play with my thorns
pluck my petals away
like you do with every other
pretty pink rose you pass by


hypnotise me
make me chase you down the rabbit hole
desert me in a chaos of my own creation

love me.
for no one else does

shivers all over my body
breath is getting shallow
butterflies in stomach dancing
against the rhythm
just thinking about him
about his touch
gentle voice
attracting smell
his messy hair
the way how he combs them with fingers
and flips from one side to another
his urchin smile
his always warm body
ready to cuddle
his blue eyes
so hypnotise
soft lips kissing my neck
I’m melting...
need to put myself together.

The dust of denial does finally settle,  
the sound of my heartbeat is metal on metal.
The river of sorrow runs dreadfully dry
the beat of my drum is a withered old sigh.

You breathe life to my body and love to my mind,
if god is in heaven this must be a sign.  
The more I take out, the more I will crumble
grab me when I fall, catch me when I stumble.

You smell just like roses, you ***** like one too,
when I look out the window all I see is you.
It’s real like the sun and it burns just as hot,
to hurt or to leave you, well, that I could not.

Love in the winter, spring, summer and fall,
your body and mind of you I want all.
There’s fish in the sea but I’m hook, line and sinker,
you get even cuter when your cheeks turn pinker.  

My body’s a letter the postage is love,
Dear Bette, I love you, won’t you be my dove.
P.S. you’re so pretty and wonderful too.
P.P.S. please know what I am saying is true.

In rain I’m your cover, in snow I’m your gloves,
if you’re cold then I want to warm you up with love.                                                            ­                                                              
I’­m here to protect you through the lonely night
‘cause you give me white wings so I can take flight.

You are so special you don’t understand,
I just want to stay here and hold on your hand.                                                            ­                                                                 ­                   
I’m down in the shafts, for love I’m a miner,
forever I’m stuck, 'cause it only gets finer.

I am here and I am strong,
my heart beats louder than a gong.                                                            ­                                                                 ­               
I want to hold you in my arms
and keep you from all the harm.

Bette, oh Bette I hope you can see,
your eyes and your body do hypnotise me.                                                              ­                                                                 ­           
You leave me so speechless, I can’t catch a breath,
when I am in your arms, I don’t fear death.

You make me so happy, it’s quite plain to see,
your lips are my drug they intoxicate me.                                                              ­                                                                 ­     
My life is a canvass for you to create,
how many ways can I tell you, you’re great.

You are my Bette for the world to see
you’re my hearts protector to watch over me.
My beautiful kitten if you purr for me,
I’ll give you my heart since you have the key.

Your name is Bette and now I can see
that life starts and ends with you and with me.                                                              ­                                                        
I want you forever, know I am here to stay,
if ever I lost you, I would lose my way.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I do
did I say that I love? Well you know it's true.                                                            ­                                                                 ­       
Worries and doubts of those I have none,
you are my moon, my stars and my sun.

I was in love
Your words charmed me.
Once.
I felt like I was in heaven
You fooled me.
Like a puppet, I was hypnotise,
A fool to your words & lies.
blinded
Not noticing your actions.
You stabbed my heart with a smile upon your face.
You promised to be there, but I guess I was in the limelight alone. Grieve became my logo.
I didn't realise the sorrow surrounded around me.
Until one morning.  I didn't love you no more

As humankind evolves in time
What used to be primitive tribes
Guarding territory, people, progeny
And food, have mutated into
Governments flaunting flags and political
Agendas to fulfil, within four years,
Drafted on greed, implemented
By concocting fear.

Rulers hence redraw, imaginary lines
Based solely on war, and conquest
Fostering survival of the fittest,
The law of the jungle established
In allegedly civilised societies,
Lobotomised by technologies,
PCs and mobiles made of black
Sands, from Congo with love.

Four million people killed by war,
For tantalite to be mined,
Purchased and transformed
In modern gadgets we all own.
Other resources elsewhere up
For bids by unbidding forces,
‘Take what you like and as you please’
The silent motto composing our wellbeing.

Gold, blood diamonds, petrol and water
Conflicts, justifying decades of ******
Worldwide, from Middle East unrest
To Rwandan genocide, passing through
Sudanese Darfur to cross the ocean
Fight for land, tear down forests,
Grow soybeans for vegans,
Pastor sheep for jumpers.

Now modern times have come
New notions are ****** to hypnotise,
Overpopulation for minds to criticise,
Though calculations unable to mystify
Grant eleven thousand square meters
Of inhabitable land per person. Space
Thus not being the issue rather, resources
Are deliberately unevenly distributed.

When twenty percent of the people
In developed nations consume
Eighty-six percent of the world’s goods
Leaving an average of thirty thousand
Humans die of hunger and malnutrition
Daily, there is no morality. When consequently
The remainder, comes knocking for survival
On closed doors, there is no humanity.

When we hide behind phantomatic
Risk-like borders and fake needs,
For two phones a PS4 and three TVs,
As we throw our dinner leftovers
In the garbage and let water
Run warm for 5’ before we shower,
Neglecting collective guilt, responsibility,
Laying fresh sheets on king-size beds,

Turning blind eyes to the news
And deaf ears to the door bell,

How on Earth can anyone sleep?

Until the day we shall all wake up
Notice NASA photos of our planet
Taken from above show no lines
Of separation, and that Earth is
Home to all, in equal measure.

I see her.
Faceless, beautiful, warm.
On this dark winters day,
As the wind screeches and the
Leaves run,
She is there.
Singing-
My ears drawn to her.
Such a comfort that I can
See her ever so rapidly.
Though, is it her or my surroundings
that are the enemy?
I approach her,
The notes exhaled from her
breath that cannot even be
breathed still
hypnotise my ears.
She feels neither warm nor cold-
Yet this still sends shivers down
the hairs under my baggy shirt.
And the notes, oh the notes again
cause me to feel.
I can taste her-
As though she is the overload of
metallic blood being pumped around me.

Ever since I can remember,
these slugs been hounding me,
these wheelers, these dealers,
like drug dealers, they peddling
they lies to try and hypnotise
young minds like mines but you
gotta remember what they tell
you's real and what's really real
is two totally different reals.

Those maggots they try and sell you
on some pie in the sky, just another lie
another fantasy, another trap to
keep you and yours down in the gutters.

They tell you you ain't pretty enough or,
that you ain't smart enough, or you
ain't good enough as you are, and that
what you need is what they happen to have.
A bottle of pills to cure all your ills,
or is it just something to siphon your will?

You gotta believe me, man, or lady,
you can't trust those suits who try to buy
your happiness, your love, your self-esteem
like it was some kinda product to buy and sell,
like your worth is some kinda commodity, hell no.
Feel me when I say you're beautiful the way you are.

But those words won't mean a thing until you try
some introspection and realize it for yourself.
Can't nobody, not me, or the suits, tell you
how you're meant to feel, or meant to think.
The only happiness you'll ever find is from within,
and the only love you'll ever find is deep inside.

Pour les yeux de souveraine un coup de crayon pour redessiner les sourcils
Une couche légère de mascara sur les cils des pointes à la racine
Un petit gris léger sur les coins internes et externes de l 'oeil
Et une couleur rose sur les paupières mobiles
Et du khôl pour illuminer ce regard envoûtant de sirène qui hypnotise
Les phalènes jusqu'au fin fond de sa mer d'airain
Sans oublier le rouge à lèvres aubergine
Kiotis Paris made in France
Pour hydrater et satiner le cuivre de ses lèvres :
Mon féminin céleste zéro fausse note est vite prête
En deux temps trois mouvements
Et des secondes interminables

Il n 'est jamais trop **** pour Désirée et ses mille épigones :
Judith, parée, poudrée, maquillée, parfumée
Hérodiade, douchée et dressée sur son trente-et-un
Eve, coiffée, habillée, décolletée,
Sapphô, culottée, chaussée, toilettée
Pandore, prête à jaillir de jour comme de nuit
Hélène, légère comme un papillon
Cléopatre fraîche comme la rosée :
Pulchra Fatale et Désirée
Elle est belle, elle est wow, elle est elles toutes en Une enrobée
C'est l'ombre plurimillénaire romantique de Balkis, reine du Matin,
C'est l'ombre plurimillénaire romantique de Makéda, reine du Midi
C'est l'ombre plurimillénaire décadente de Salomè, reine du Soir
Quelque part ressuscitée
Et je l 'aime comme elle est

Chaque jour que le soleil fait
Jette un baiser couleur de belle lune de miel
A ma sirène métissée de Matin, Midi, Soir !
Ce n'est pas pour rien que ma Pulchra est fille de Mnèmosuné
Fille de Wainaha , saint dragon hémiarite
Par son don de seconde vue
Ma sulamite débusque au quart de tour les artifices,
Les cernes, les imperfections, les camouflages
Les faux cils, les faux ongles, les faux saints
Et les faux poètes, les faux salomons et leurs fausses huppes
Et leurs chants libertins en hexamètres dactyliques
Au son de leur phorminx d'occasion
Eh oui Ma Désirée est Pulchra authentique et fatale
Elle chante tentatrice avec Kiotis
Son cantique des cantiques ad libitum
"Je suis bien, je suis wow , je supervise
Et je m'aime comme je suis "

the hamper’s starting to spill, week-old clothes pooling on the floor. the sink’s in need of getting drained, rotten food debris floating in mucky dishwater. dried leaves await to be picked out from the plants by the kitchen window. parcels are left unopened by the porch. notifications simultaneously ping as i turn on my phone, urgent messages left unreplied.

the room’s ever bathed in the dark, light unable to filter through as twilight starts, time i’d remain unaware of had my alarm not gone off. i’ve gotten by with chips for three days now, the 1L soda bottle nearly empty. a week ago i was supposed to start working on a project due two days from now i’ve gotten so far as mapping out a concept but i’m still looking for the will to tick off step one;
the will to get up, make the bed, put on clothes that aren’t rumpled or three-day-old like these jeans that i still have on.

i try to give myself another one of my “TEDtalks”, a rundown analyzation of things to go through how i’ve arrived to this colossally sinking feeling. but all that my mouth can coherently gather are year-long sighs. the teddybears propped by the corner of my bed, their black beaded eyes seem to hold more life, their stitched smiles actually formed with meaning. my blanket rests by the corner all wrinkled but here i am, sharing one with the dull melancholy dwelling in each heartbeat, babying it. i should brush it off but it clings, like the remnants of stickers you’ve placed on your first ever guitar that remains up to this day.

three days ago i was doing fine, not duly elated like a holiday’s thrill but i was able to joke around, go out, fulfill plans, cope with what the day throws, go home, satisfyingly crack my knuckles at the end of the night. now all the plans have stopped being sublime, “what’s even the point?” the only thing i can offer when they make themselves known.

this isn’t new, sliding in its way effortlessly into routine from time to time but each time it occurs i still get stupefied. like a sailor going down a shipwreck’s trail yet all i do is fling my lifevest off the faraway shore. like trying to find the lightswitch in my bedroom even when there are no lightbulbs installed. like some modus operandi where they hypnotise you and i find myself caught in a trance unable to break free even though i’m well aware of that sort of scheme firsthand.

i catch myself staring at the blackholes growing out from fissures in the walls. it turns into a staring contest dragging on for i don’t know, hours. i don’t know how long truly as clock work becomes fast-paced, mechanical, submerged in space.

alas, the aftermath dawns on in the early hours, ensuing the breakage of a curse years’-worth; i step out, unused to the halo of light. dewdrops form on orchid trees as the city fervently sleeps. the fog has miraculously lifted. relief follows through.

Right I want you to put all your negative thoughts into a bottle.
What sort of bottle.
Doesn’t matter what sort.
***** bottle do.
Jesus, yes.
Okay I’ve ran out of room.
You’re so predictable.
Just like you last night, standards are dropping.
That’s because I knew you were coming for a session today.
Think how I feel, all my thoughts in a bottle of *****.
Maybe I should hypnotise you.
How do I know you won’t interfere with me, you read about these things.
Take my word for it, I’m going to send you to sleep, then I’m going to join you.
How does that help me if we’re both asleep, you got a bit of telepathy going on here.
Yes, I’m going to put you into a trance, see if we can find you another guy.
What sort of guy are we talking about, I mean, I’ve already hit rock bottom with you.
Well in that case, we should be able to fix you up quite quickly.
I don’t know, what if he doesn’t understand my quirky sense of humour.
He’ll dump you then.
What, can he do that, just discard me, and me a broken woman already.
Afraid so, but then you can find another guy, and another.
My God, I’ll be the talk of the town, my bottle will be overflowing.
Just relax, breathe in, breathe out, stop doing that.
Doing what.
You’re thrusting your chest out, do you know what sort of guy that’ll attract.
Someone like you.
You don’t want to attract someone like me, you want someone dynamic, someone who’ll take you away from all this.
Have you got someone in mind.
Yes, I was talking to this nice chap in the Asylum yesterday.
Why is he in the Asylum.
He killed a snail.
My God, they put you in the Asylum for that.
No, he’s in for using a flamethrower.
What’s the snail got to do with it.
That was the trigger point.
So what happens if I upset him and it triggers something and he goes mad.
It won’t, I told him to put all his negative thoughts into your bottle.

brushes of pink
shades of blue
some violet, purple
and a bit of yellow too

hypnotise
my colourless eyes
paint my heart
and conquer my soul

sunbather

let death becomes,
as night and beauty hypnotise,
I realise,
that death became.

Two buttons. My mind is not being able to register either of them. Each procedure triggers an impulse in my body, reaction is inevitable but the forces around hypnotise me and I purport to falsify all the claims within. I'm forced to believe that this is the truth. I can hear strange noises. None of them seem to please me. Every word that comes out of her mouth dissects a segment of my imagination and breaks it into pieces mercilessly and unconsciously. My mind begins to stutter. This is unacceptable. Why are they making me write a passage of euphemisms. I do not wish to write. This place seems to be a trap. They're trying to divert my attention by placing these still life objects and their reflection under the sun is transforming my mind into a different dimension. They're using art for the supposedly magnanimous motives but I know it's a trap. I'm befuddled. Why are children playing games of life while I sit to crib about things which aren't worth. Are they mocking at me because of my indecisiveness. The room is filled with chalk dust and the only one person here is speaking her mind out. Why am I confined within these four walls? Why are my choices not my choices?