He almost let out a sigh of dismay,
Knowing this stint would be short lived.
The common sense in his head seemed to say,
"No one could be this lucky, don't have yourself deceived".

His wheels wobbled and shook; squeaked and wailed,
Under the collective weight of the two.
Screaming threats from worn bearings that ailed,
He did not want to appear weak so his legs pummelled on through.

The ease of cycling was only temporary
He pedalled harder to gain more speed.
Then the ground began to ***** gently
His lungs felt like bursting as he pounded his iron steed.

The journey uphill had been more laborious than he had expected.
All the while, the beauty hadn't uttered a single word.
His mind had drifted off even though he was worn and ragged,
The thought of emerging as a couple seemed less than absurd.

The crest of the hill was a cool, long anticipated welcome.
He could finally ease up on the pedalling.
The view from there was nothing short of handsome,
The downhill would take charge and he could catch up on his breathing.

The wind met his face and whistled itself tuneless.
The bicycle rattled as it rolled down the uneven trail.
He felt a sense of flight, there was an air of calmness,
Almost had forgotten about the quiet guest on his tail.

At the bottom he thought he should check on his passenger,
He looked ahead as he addressed the lady.
When he had expected an almost immediate answer,
No response came, despite his calls for her repeatedly.

He pedalled with little effort as if there wasn't added weight
The bicycle slowed down to a clearing where it was dim.
Fatigue was setting in as the night stretched late
His curiosity won the battle and got the better of him.

He stopped his bicycle and maintained balance with his feet,
He twisted his torso so he could speak to his fare.
The moment he did so, his heart had almost ceased to beat,
To his horror, he found that the lady was no longer there...

(for Cyril Connolly)

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

on the ropes: pummelled;
somehow, he stays on his feet:
the bell ends the round!

Two silhouettes muttered through cigarette smoke next to the tall, black double doors at the head of the corridor
unfazed by the white rectangles flickering above us. The doors parted
next thing I knew, I was in
a black box of four tall black walls, and a clammy black floor
made of the same padded fabric as the entrance doors.
Riotous bass pummelled through the room like a tortured bull.
There were hundreds of people here; maybe more
but they were all lying docile, faceless and still
against each other.

They were all young. I picked up an inconsistent rhythm of chests rising and falling
like ripples ushered across the sea by a gentle breeze.
Yet it was the overwhelming sense of flesh here that
lit a snarling viciousness within me. How it excited me and how
I feared it.
I was a butcher, afraid of what he could do.

I saw someone I recognised – her brown hair was tied back, her eyelashes
twitched in her slumber. I stepped over and sat behind her. She pulled herself closer to me
and kissed my cheek. I buried my face in her neck and placed my palm on her bare stomach
took my index finger, and ran a circle around her navel.

I can’t remember what happened after that.  Images slip through like
water in cupped hands.
But I remember the raw beat, and the gentle ripple of chests
and how it reminded me of the sleeping new-borns in a maternal ward.

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime,
Kept slush waist-high and rising hour by hour,
And choked the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses...


                                    There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last,
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles,
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And sploshing in the flood, deluging muck -
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
'O sir, my eyes - I'm blind, - I'm blind, I'm blind!'
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
'I can't' he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids',
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting Next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and flound'ring about
To other posts under the shrieking air.


                                               *
Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, -
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath, -
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
'I see your lights!' But ours had long died out.

Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower, if you like woman with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.

Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.

But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opening suture.

At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.

Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration,
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her explosive, acrid indigestion.

No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And in several places, impaling her scaly flesh a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.

The last of the kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast

She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as she in unexpected agony died: “I thought, I truly thought, I was god!”

A CURSING rogue with a merry face,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled upon that windy place
Called Cruachan, and it was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He had counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep,
And not a house to the plain's edge,
When close to his right hand a heap
Of grey stones and a rocky ledge
Reminded him that he could make.
If he but shifted a few stones,
A shelter till the daylight broke.
But while he fumbled with the stones
They toppled over; "Were it not
I have a lucky wooden shin
I had been hurt'; and toppling brought
Before his eyes, where stones had been,
A dark deep hollow in the rock.
He gave a gasp and thought to have fled,
Being certain it was no right rock
Because an ancient history said
Hell Mouth lay open near that place,
And yet stood still, because inside
A great lad with a beery face
Had tucked himself away beside
A ladle and a tub of beer,
And snored, no phantom by his look.
So with a laugh at his own fear
He crawled into that pleasant nook.
"Night grows uneasy near the dawn
Till even I sleep light; but who
Has tired of his own company?
What one of Maeve's nine brawling sons
Sick of his grave has wakened me?
But let him keep his grave for once
That I may find the sleep I have lost."
What care I if you sleep or wake?
But I'Il have no man call me ghost."
Say what you please, but from daybreak
I'll sleep another century."
And I will talk before I sleep
And drink before I talk.'
And he
Had dipped the wooden ladle deep
Into the sleeper's tub of beer
Had not the sleeper started up.
Before you have dipped it in the beer
I dragged from Goban's mountain-top
I'll have assurance that you are able
To value beer; no half-legged fool
Shall dip his nose into my ladle
Merely for stumbling on this hole
In the bad hour before the dawn."
Why beer is only beer.'
"But say
""I'll sleep until the winter's gone,
Or maybe to Midsummer Day,''
And drink and you will sleep that length.
"I'd like to sleep till winter's gone
Or till the sun is in his srrength.
This blast has chilled me to the bone.'
"I had no better plan at first.
I thought to wait for that or this;
Maybe the weather was accursed
Or I had no woman there to kiss;
So slept for half a year or so;
But year by year I found that less
Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo
Even a half-hour's nothingness,
And when at one year's end I found
I had not waked a single minute,
I chosc this burrow under ground.
I'll sleep away all time within it:
My sleep were now nine centuries
But for those mornings when I find
The lapwing at their foolish dies
And the sheep bleating at the wind
As when I also played the fool.'
The beggar in a rage began
Upon his hunkers in the hole,
"It's plain that you are no right man
To mock at everything I love
As if it were not worth, the doing.
I'd have a merry life enough
If a good Easter wind were blowing,
And though the winter wind is bad
I should not be too down in the mouth
For anything you did or said
If but this wind were in the south.'
"You cty aloud, O would 'twere spring
Or that the wind would shift a point,
And do not know that you would bring,
If time were suppler in the joint,
Neither the spring nor the south wind
But the hour when you shall pass away
And leave no smoking wick behind,
For all life longs for the Last Day
And there's no man but ***** his ear
To know when Michael's trumpet cries
"That flesh and bone may disappear,
And souls as if they were but sighs,
And there be nothing but God left;
But, I aone being blessed keep
Like some old rabbit to my cleft
And wait Him in a drunken sleep.'
He dipped his ladle in the tub
And drank and yawned and stretched him out,
The other shouted, "You would rob
My life of every pleasant thought
And every comfortable thing,
And so take that and that." Thereon
He gave him a great pummelling,
But might have pummelled at a stone
For all the sleeper knew or cared;
And after heaped up stone on stone,
And then, grown weary, prayed and cursed
And heaped up stone on stone again,
And prayed and cursed and cursed and bed
From Maeve and all that juggling plain,
Nor gave God thanks till overhead
The clouds were brightening with the dawn.

A singer died
when he and I
were twenty five.
I think I found out
some weeks later,
playing his album to a friend.
"He's the one that died, isn't he?
Fell out a window?"

I was sorry
but unaffected.
I'd seen him on T.V.,
thought he sounded
a bit like me,
bought the CD.

Sixteen years on
I am pummelled with nostalgia
for a blithely immortal age.
My band broke up,
reformed, broke up,
I got married, had kids
became a teacher

But he sits
in the impregnable fortress of maybe,
always smiling,
twenty five
till the sun swallows the earth.

Abused, Abandoned and Alone,
Bound, Beaten and Bruised
Captured and Categorized
******, Defeated and Damaged
Encompassed
Faded, Failing, Flinching
Gagged
Hopeless, Helpless and Hospitalized
Idealized, Impaired and Intoxicated
Judged
Kicked, Kept and Kissed
Labelled,
Marked, Molested and Misguided
Neglected
Obeying, Observed and Offended
Panicking, Pummelled and Promised
Quivering and Quaking
*****
Screaming, Scared and Starved
Throttled, Thirsty and Thinning
Unloved and Unable
Victimized
Wailing, Weakening and Wondering
an X
Yelling, Yanked and Yielding
Zeroed

THE NYMPH

Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower- if you like women with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.

Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.

But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opened suture.

At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.

Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration-
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her thunderously satisfied indigestion.

No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And criss-crossing her piebald nose a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.

The last of her kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast-
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast

She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as in unexpected agony she died: “I thought, I thought, I was god!”

I was staying in the village
That was known as Banzhushan,
In the mountains, in the Province
That the Chinese call Hunan,
It was perched atop the mountain
You could reach, and touch the sky,
But there were no single women,
And the men up there were shy.

They were poor, could offer nothing
To entice a willing bride,
They earned little from their labours,
And their houses, poor inside,
So the girls would leave to travel
Down the mountain to the plain,
Where they’d find a richer husband
Than the farmer, sowing grain.

So the men would send out raiders
To the outskirts of the towns,
And they’d kidnap straying peasants,
All the women that they found,
And they’d target younger widows
Who would not put up a fight,
Then would carry them to Banzhushan
Protected by the night.

I had met a village elder
By the name of Zhang Fan Cheng,
He was ancient, a magician,
One the Chinese call yāorén,
He invited me to dinner,
It was simple, shoots and rice,
He was dignified and courteous,
But caught me by surprise.

In the further room, a mirror
Stood at length, both straight and tall,
The frame was wrought in silver
And it leant against the wall,
He showed it to me proudly
Then asked how much would I pay?
For just 5,000 R.M.B.
He’d sell it me, today!

I reached out to feel the silver,
Was it fake or was it real?
He sensed my hesitation
Then he motioned, ‘You be still!’
And plunged his hand into the glass
The mirror let him in,
His arm up to the elbow
Against science, against sin!

He reached his arm behind and pulled,
A girl came into sight,
She was standing in the mirror,
He was holding her so tight,
And she stared, while looking at me
And she said: ‘Qing bang bang wo!’
I could read it on her lips, and then
The wizard let her go.

She had said: ‘Would you please help me!’
But I’d stepped back in the room,
She was nowhere near behind me
Just reflected, in the gloom,
And I saw a tear forming at
The corner of her eye,
The wizard pulled his arm out, and
She waved to me, ‘Goodbye!’

I paid the man his money, and
I took the mirror down
On a wooden cart he lent me,
And I took it through Hunan,
Then I packed it on a train and went
Off speeding to Nanjing,
Where I kept a small apartment,
And I turned, and locked us in.

I stood the mirror over by
A meagre wooden shelf,
Then I stood quite still before it
Hoping she would show herself,
And I tried to put my arm inside
Like he had done before,
But the mirror was unyielding,
So I stood there, and I swore!

That night the girl appeared,
Standing right behind the glass,
And she pummelled on the surface
As if she’d be free at last,
But the mirror was ungiving,
And I couldn’t hear her voice,
So I took a ball pein hammer -
It had given me no choice!

She could see me through the mirror,
In alarm, she mouthed ‘Meiyou!’
But her beauty had beguiled me
Though I knew she’d shouted ‘No!’
I was fevered and impatient now
To set this beauty free,
So I swung the ball pein hammer
And it shattered, over me!

She fell out through the broken glass,
Lay trembling in my room,
Bleeding, sobbing in the silence,
Like the silence of the tomb,
And she said she’d been imprisoned
Since the days of Qin **** Huang,
Then she writhed upon the carpet
As her flesh turned into sand.

I had wanted to release her
To relieve those tender tears,
But her body, once released took on
The last two thousand years;
She took one last, despairing look
Then withered up to die,
And for years I’ve sought the answer
To the only question - ‘Why?’

David Lewis Paget

(Glossary -
R.M.B. - Ren-Min-bi - or yuan (Chinese currency.)
Yāorén - magician
Qing bang bang wo - (Ching bang bang wor) - Please help me!
Meiyou - (May yo) - No, nothing
Qin **** Huang - (Chin Sher Hwang)
1st Emperor of China - 246-210 BC)

-The wind was seething, heavy.
-After waking, and gazing at the pummelled window
-I pulled my patchwork desert gear into a bag.
-I borrowed some sandals, a bike,
and ate a healthy bowl of noodle.
-Then peddled scowling at the wind.

-In the town, in the open maze of buildings,
-The sands were kept at bay.
-But i rode out. North and west and then south after a bit.
-I pushed through the stinging screaming,
-Past great shallow rivers, dust roads, donkey carts, snipped and snatched dialogues.

-A cloth cap pulled low
-Sunglasses
-A palistinian checkered scarf

-On the night bus out
-We stop and i leap out for a spliff and to relieve myself
-The night wind so much more terrible
-It bit down stubbornly (i'd stupidly left my desert gear on the little bed.)
-And pellets of rain added mockery to the situation.
-The line of shiverers excited to get back on the bus is slow and quivering
-So i let the cold become a numb cool
-So as to stand it
-And when the doorway appears to me in a dark warm glow
-I leap again; this time in,
-Then dig myself deep in the cosy alcove.
-Just then, my brain slowly/grinningly explodes.
-The short little fat man across from me
-is a picture of pleasantry.

They say 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.'
Had 'they' made lemonade before,
'they' would know just how much sugar is required to do so,
and life rarely throws that at us.
Even if it did, it would be hard to pick up, what with it being dissolved in residual lemon juice and all that.
But that's beside the point.

She stands there being
pummelled
with
lemons.
Not even sour-faced
although the acidity erodes her open wounds.

I ask 'does it not burn?'
She replies 'just tingles like a lemony sun'
and then smiles that crescent silver lining
which tames the acrimonious bite that makes me wince.

Little lemon pip tears drop from my eyes
and she collects them in her palms.
'Just a yellow lemon tree,' she sings in her zestful tone.

She may not be the type to catch, juggle and juice them,
but if she could,
she would be the sugar in her lemonade.

wind whips around a body
      standing high upon a cliff
  they're not scared
                    and if they are
         other emotions are hiding it
conflicting thoughts
    all revolving around
                the jump, or fall
looking over the edge
   water tumbles
           crashes, water sprays
  rocks are pummelled by salt water
picked on, shoved, drowned
                the person glances to the sky
  the sun is setting
       they smile
a pretty last sight to see
                               clouds aren't very thick
  it'll be a cold night
            they remove their shoes
  the ones they hurriedly shoved on
      before fleeing the door
looking up again
           smiling
    they take a slight run
extending their arms
          like a bird
       or plane, ready for take-off
  they fly
                for a split second they're free
    no one can control them now
they're away, never returning
          smiling as they fly into the sun set

-------

i want to fly

We moved on into this neighborhood
When we couldn’t afford the rent,
So my pessimistic Uncle Jim said,
‘Next step down’s a tent!’
The house is set in the meanest streets
And the locals here are rough,
They’d steal the pleats from your mother’s skirts
If they weren’t nailed down, that’s tough!

So we put a chain on the old front door
We put a lock on the back,
We nailed all the lower windows down
In case of a night attack,
We put ‘hedgehogs’ in the garden beds
So intruders would step on the nails,
And stay away from the window ledge
Like Peeping Tom in the tales.

‘It’s best we’re prepared,’ said Uncle Jim,
‘The locals are all on drugs,
They break into houses on a whim,
Thinking we’re all just mugs.’
He kept a cricket bat by the door
And a baseball bat in reserve,
‘If anyone comes in here at night,
By God, we’ll give ‘em a serve!’

I’d stand my watch on the upper floor
If anything moved in the street,
And write it down for my Uncle Jim
On a crumpled, beer stained sheet.
I’d note the time by my digital watch
That had cost five bucks in the Strand,
‘It’s better for you, my lad,’ said he,
You can’t tell the time with hands.’

We crept on out in the dark one night,
He said it was Christmas Eve,
And took a saw and a flashlight out
Looking for Christmas trees,
We stole a tree from a neighbour’s yard
He’d planted the year before,
‘He’ll never know,’ said my Uncle, low,
He’ll never get through our door.’

We dragged it back to our house, and left
An obvious trail of green,
I pointed it out to Uncle Jim,
‘What if that trail is seen?’
He shrugged, and put on his thinking cap,
‘I’ll say someone stole our tree,
They dragged it along our garden path,
It’s nothing to do with me!’

We stuck the tree in a bucket inside
Then dangled some paper chains,
And some ancient pieces of glitter, that
Were worse for the winter rains,
He found a little fat fairy, who
Looked like she was six months gone,
And stuck her up on the top of the tree
With a Goblin called ‘Bon Bon’.

Lying in bed that very night
Something moved on the roof,
One of the rats from the neighborhood
No doubt, on forty proof,
I went and I woke my Uncle Jim
And we clattered on down the stairs,
Just as a pair of big, black boots
Came ‘Crash’ on the hearth out there.

I rushed and I grabbed the cricket bat
My Uncle Jim had a shoe,
This geezer dressed in a funny hat
Popped down, and out of the flue,
His suit of red was covered in soot
And he started to dust it off,
When I whacked him one on his ******* boot
And he yelled, ‘Hey! That’s enough.’

But Uncle Jim had pummelled his waist
And belted him with the shoe,
I whacked him once on his fat behind,
What else was a boy to do?
Then Uncle Jim had grabbed at his beard
All wispy white, like floss,
Swung him twice all around the room
Then said, ‘It didn’t come off!’

We let him go, then we stood and stared
While he cursed and swore at last,
Then clambered back up the chimney piece
My Uncle said, ‘What a blast!
I don’t know what he was hoping to steal,
There’s nothing in this old house.’
But looking out in the yard, I said,
‘The garden is full of cows!’

They were funny cows with great big horns
Like I’d seen in countless books,
Tethered fast to a loaded sledge
Piled up with frozen chooks.
‘I think we’ve made a mistake,’ he said,
My poor old Uncle Jim,
And true, I’ve not seen the man in red
Since we almost did him in!

David Lewis Paget

Fledgings playing against the Big Stars
hard hitters pummelled
just for their supposed being
Headliners durability chiseled
the chips are down
and the Fender spreads
a hard rain

Six months of freedom
from this evil within
thought I escaped the sorrow
the devil had vanished,
thought I was finally going to win

Then the pain came crashing back deep into my bones
so sudden, so intense
as though I was being pummelled with stones
please not again,
don't make yourself at home
I was so excited for myself
to feel no anguish
it was soothing to roam
yet I lay here
after six months of ease
escape my grasp
and yet again
I am alone.

Steeped in the tea of my mother’s womb
a weak blend of oxygen, anxiety and grief
dregs reused, until we are both
spent

Tough cut tenderized by my fathers
no brine in the house, so use brute force instead
pummelled into submission, until I
tear

Simmering in the holy water of the church
a recipe older than Salem, uses fear as its base
and shame, until I am
nothing

It’s a ******* wonder I haven’t been swallowed whole
by the big bad wolf
or despair, though I’ve come close

Time to eat the cook
and burn the recipe

We run across the tracks,
A horde of desperate children.
Our tears are raked off our cheeks
By the wind that slams into our faces.

Crouching, cowering, gritting our teeth,
A fruitless attempt to make ourselves smaller,
To dodge the never-ending stream
Of lead teeth that eat into our flesh.

Gripping the clammy fingers
Of our only hope,
Until they are pummelled into the floor,
And we leave them behind.

We live to impress,
We walk a tightrope every day.
God help you if you fall,
Because you are on your own.

They’ll only hold your hand
If there is something in it.
They don’t love you,
So just keep running.

Running, running,
Stretch out your fingers,
To the other side.
Because when you fail…

Well at least you can say
one part of you made it…
Right?

Kick my warped heart
'cross horizon's false length
watch it burst at my heel's tempered strength
under hot caustic palms
I grind clots into smears
o'er the tactless bold beauty
of dusk's starlit tears

Acidic blood orange
immiscible lies
through combustible petrol lined dusk riddled skies
pummelled raspberry shades
razor grazed until night
amid gloaming mood strains
of my bruise hued twilight

Your blackness detoxifies
poison carved pain
murmured words purify
dispel doubts storm fuelled rain
overcome by our sunsets
conquer nights crushing pain
watch the burnt sun arise
let our hearts love again

Calibrated versions of
my reflections, I shatter with
                          fists of  petulance.
                  


And
       still they never seem to shatter.

No where do I see a shard cutting upon




                                                 my wrists...


But bluntly do the words overwhelm
                every vocalization that is pummelled
                                  with every suppressed
                                                                ­        motif..

That never stood a chance of being more than just
                                                  a paper Mache
                                                                ­        eclipse.

Never truly covering anything just  falling apart
                before the form that
                                          was solid like imagination.

         Instead falling apart like yesterdays fake news.

                                         Never reading deeper
          
                                                     ­ than the surface,
only being more like a comedy page
                                                           that no one finds funny.

It started with a humming sound;
To be precise, a long loud bass.
It pummelled the surrounding ground
And shook the boutiques selling lace.

In groups of ten, we clear up rubble,
Which no one asks us to explain.
The rich remain inside their bubble;
Sometime quite soon they’ll feel our pain.
For tomorrow, or the next day,
The whole thing may start up again.

I know the rules;
I play the game;
It’s not my fault;
I’m not to blame;
I feel no shame;
And yet I know

Things will never be the same.

It was a direct hit,
meeting an immaculate
moon tonight.


Was it possible― that
a star flew off the sky
to undo something?

I was the mist,
and I was the sun.
Describing the accident―
not the truth.

The molester.
Time, steps out taking a big
chunk of life.

Unhinged, a messiah
drops dead―
at the door of equity.

How vain, was the
ego of man!

The day John died
I was drunk

He, no alcoholic
Yes he
Who had some.

No he did not feel that February 2017

They pummelled his chest,
Their job,
They did,

I begged let him go-too long to pump

Three blind mice
Killers on the loose
1st on their bucket list
Is old mother goose
mother goose double crossed them
Stole their share of the swag
Now it was retribution time
To take down the low life hag
2nd on their bucket list
Is bad boy Father Time
He took out the 4th blind mice
He must now pay for that crime
Kneecapping wasn't good enough
Bullet to the head to quick
So those three blind mice took to him
And Pummelled him with a stick.
3rd on their list was the lady they call old mother freeze
She tried to starve them out, she pinched their tasty cheese
headquarters the mice found was one giant smell shoe
so they hatched a scheme to take out her motley crew
The scheme a bit shabby and all together pretty vague
What happened next ? They had started the ****** plague
Killers on the loose going some what over the top
So Next they started a fire in a bakers shop
See 4th On the list was this **** riddled city
They tried to get rid of us by making it rather pretty
These three blind mice were just plain called ***** rats
Next on the agenda were all ginger pesky cats

My mind
which was taken
out and pummelled
with sticks, stones
and broken bones,

Is back in this sorry
body

So fat so teddy
bearsd lovable
and cuddly so
fat laughing buddha

Once again and
full of
gratitude to

You

Yes

You

I will never stand in the way
of who you want to be,
but if this is it,
I want to be free.

my heart cannot take anymore,
it is being pummelled from all sides.
but from you?
I can’t tell the truth from the lies.

you tell me I matter,
that you care,
that the only thing you want is that feeling - there -

caught in the moonlight,
wrapped in each other’s arms,
I fool myself in to believing
that this is what I want.

your love isn’t broken,
it’s simply on pause,
and I fear its resumption,
for I will be gone.

I can’t sneak round in shadows,
nor stand by your back,
while you **** me in secret,
and snort strangers’ crack.

don’t tell me you want me,
then take it back,
over and over,
because I think I have cracked.

my head is soup,
left on the boil.
my body is dead foliage,
rotting under the soil.

A wretched boy slumped through the winter snow,
Ashes scattered; the remains of whom he'd once known.
He clambered, shook, screamed and fell down,
And his knees pummelled into the cold winters ground.

He began to decline into the pebbles, snow, and dirt,
As the blood seeped through his paisley shirt.
Each breath became more withered and cold,
He grew beastly with fear of not growing old.

Just as the soul started it's ascent into the clouds,
He caught the shadow of an ashen haired shroud.
His soul was saved, captured, and regained,
But once a boys soul starts to leave; it never fits the same again.

Our names are on an mega asteroid
It's coming to at us with pace
Doing ten thousand mph
I'm going to get out of my face
Asteroid ,asteroid,slow down chill
Me and Seven billion people,
whom you could unknowingly ****
Hey mister big stone please turn around
We really do not wish to be pummelled
Into gods earthly ground,
Please reverse rocky and go deeper into space
So I can spend more time getting out of ones face,

will you come up though?
will i ****
love the bones of you
bones is right

we were circumstance
and christ did we **** the fat
out of that
ripped through the tendons
pummelled the muscle  
gnawed through the marrow
even the cat wouldn't touch us
way we are now and she'll
eat about anything

well.. there's still my thigh
to pummel i mean
in biology until end of term
then summer  
you can watch me puke in bushes
yes summer
blind drunk i won't know you
that ways better
we kiss and act like strangers
so sweet then to each other

all this hatred at the end
they say that that's familiar
it's funny, that resentment
it's just love in a wig
pig, ex PM
that's us
that's us
we are far too similar
for our own good.