An ash root
blackened as a rotten gum
forms a waypoint
on his glum itinerary.
Squirming through the dirt
like nervous anticipation
pushing through the stomach.
He lies,
face down on the grass
watching ants crawl purposely
as he is listless
through the micro-jungles
of all their lives.
“Come on, boys”
He says and smiles
“Put on your dancing shoes
We’ll give her a send off
You’ll never forget.”
The silence claps about him
Like irons on his wrist
The feet shuffle in
Awkward steps
That are not dance
They wince.
Knives glint in the open
Words of steel
Words of iron
Unused yet read, poised
To cut the unwary
Who dare to open their honest
Unkind
Truth.
Today is not a day for dancing
Today is a day for veils
And blinds, still drawn at noon
And blinkers.
When beautiful failure
Comes to you late
Embrace her.
Grey as old bruises
A night
Waved goodbye to
Through a haze of pills
To silent
Creeping
Cranked-high nausea
Buttery butterflied inside
And dried
Bitten lips.
Kiss me
And my spirit drifts
From its monastic cloister
To drive back slum thoughts
Some caught
In this closed head.
A fire creeps
Across a land frozen
Inside and out
It chars and blisters
Thin skin
And offers no warmth.
A fire built
On the funeral pyres
Of our young
Kindled by those
Hard-nosed
And feeling no warmth.
The blade licks the whetstone
Dry
The blade sings
Memories
Of when it was rock.
The whetstone sings
Harmonies
Of when it was rain
Drumming,
Making puddles dance
When dinosaurs were distant dreams.
The harvest awaits
Under a boneless sky
Shivering in the warm air.
The blade now lies
Sharpened, ready
For tomorrow is its day.
The cooling breeze
Passes by
It cuts the sky to ribbons.
In a throat
stuck
words like a fishbone
choking
a hand
loosening a tie
like a noose
and the eyes say it all
nothing here is true
and speaking slowly,
the truth, slowly,
comes peeping around the lies
and dances naked before the world
while the speech continues, confounding and comforting
spinning a spider’s steel-hard web to snare
and draw back in
that truth.
National Poetry Writing Month! It’s a real thing that I may or may not participate in because the idea of writing a poem every day for a month kind of scares me. I’ll try, though, but I’m not going to be shouting about it unless I get the confidence. So, with that in mind, my first poem is a joke. Great. Lolz.
Bleary Balearic beats
slouch
down silent stairwells
to touch on ears untroubled
by sleep, with doubt
creeping in at five am.
A plane flies
straight
through the striation of wires
keeping my train –
it never crosses,
though the cables snake
and knot
the blue from the sky.
London opens its throat
it booms and roars
and whines and moans;
London howls to the sky
and I answer
an open heart
beat
matching its ebbing,
flowing,
wordless,
endless cry.
A million fragments
of a trillion thoughts
scattered to the wind,
brought to heel
kept in mind
and thought again.
In the sky drifts
lazily a child’s balloon
massive in steel,
hanging from thunder.
I lean my head
on the train’s smooth wall
and hear
whispered obscenities,
prayers to a vulture god.