“OLD FATHER, OLD ARTIFICER, STAND ME NOW AND EVER IN GOOD STEAD.”



Deadless  --- timeless creator
mirror  --- suraci.

Through corridors we are shunted

in the carriages of myth, in
hot flight shot down
over the pre-Icarian ocean.
Lucifer, fallen angel ate
Darwin’s apple and seeded such with his.

What goes up ---
down into Persephone’s cave.
Plato’s politics ever immersed
your thoughts, blind Jim?
And Seraphim in that foul poem
was that the place of angels
or the imposition of schizoid androgyny
designed to confuse all archaeology?

Maybe the tattooed black bull of graceland
worshipped adrift on Serapeum waters
slaughtered at twenty five
martyred in lore, as are all poets of dissent
or descent:
the gene pool holds no special privilege
for any man to cool his wings ---
and what of the mind?

Connected  --- diffused at birth
or born with instinct of all time
eternal motifs
these are all unanswered.
You have rendered blindness
attainable by all, that dive beneath
the dark lake of mirrors
shot down in flames.                                               

Psalm of the new way




Plastic
everything is burnt or burning
not by real fire
I am standing
on something connected
to everywhere that is nowhere

Birds scream
wind buffs my shrinking head
my skin is plastic
salt-spray chaps
it's almost 3D
but everything will always be TV to me

My broken compass
is directed
toward fibre-glass worlds
that never rot
that will now never decay
like us

The name of months/seasons
seem archaic/mythological
my eyes regress/disillusioned
not aware as such
find it harder to make words
from shapes

Blended objects
I am one of those
vaporised/granulated/atomised
bounced off the sharp walls
glasshouse green hybrid stones
don't break anymore

Rain splashes
acidic/translucent/plasti-coated
melting my tired yet welcoming eyes . . .  

Not sure who did this one (wish it were I)

The Axe Effect

to do this
requires time, motivation
ignorance, stubbornness

passion is exhumed

momentarily
for the pursuit
of blind dreams

so here it is for you

a fart in the dark
a burp in the wind
a breath under the water
blood, under the skin
pumped from the source

so come on in

the light-switch is in the dark
the wind is aggressive but dry
the water’s warm
my breath as sweet
as you want it to be

but my blood runs black
beneath the red

what i have to show you

is a mirror
cracked
smeared with blood
wiped clean by me

you will see what you want to
its appearance kept up to scratch
just for visitors
to please those
easily pleased

see the green leaves

the brown coarse bark
the slender taper of its trunk
this man-sized tree
seemingly innocuous
natural, despite propagation

& here i come with a dull axe
& when i’ve finished
i will lay my neck on the stump
& you can raise the axe.


My heart is broken like your arm



You are so cruel, yet are you as wise?
Please do not try my patience with your loathing
for my pain will be etched
with sorrow’s expression.
Under my love for you, I have learnt not to love
by your teaching: as sickness
is coveted by other virtues of health
from doctors financially influenced diagnoses.
If I fall insane with despair
I might speak badly of you in my madness.
This sick world has allied evil.
Madmen, by mad-ears, are believed:
in the hope that I may not be such
& be dissuaded of your touch,
my eyes stare straight,
yet this staunch heart, steers wide.

Inverted Cross



The tree took seven-score years to grow
from seven seeds only one, did owe

its debt of fertility to earth, air, water, fire.
The nourishing forces of existence & demise.

From Cypress grove was chosen, the strongest, straightest, tree
Seven days to mill by hand. The sap was dark & ran like blood

As true could be carved straight & nailed with iron
then dragged seven weary days on bleeding feet, by weak Christ

the martyr. Weighted deep in stony Calvary, bleached bones
marked the site & what they called solemnity

was pain carved on his face & brow. One spear wound
was many more than that, slashing, gaping, weeping scars

in holy chastity: eunuch virginity violated. Raped
with created Roman steel, straight from the Gods forgery

of fire & brimstone. Proudly wielded by devotion, conviction
religious loyalty the book was based upon. Deep within, embedded

Sin hanging broken, blood & the vultures burrowed
as did the white dove in deep, up to its chaste neck

Dipping in & out quenching thirst & quest
florid red, unashamedly proud, a greater feast than olive twig

Black flies buzzed in torrid heat, boiling in the drying gore
laying legion deep within, flayed flesh coagulating

peeling with the sun’s burning adoration. Rocks pelted
smashed & caved God’s son in joyful lust emotion.

Limp weight in naked feebleness, dripped loathsome sacrifice,
pathetic in the poignancy. Soon obscured by night.

Souvenirs of blistered raw toes. Within reach, were cut,
before death off martyred lamb. Impotent, staining air

with laboured fetid dying breath, you are forgiven.
You are forgiven for all your sins, repent.

The meaning lost its way with the guide - his father
lent, now desecrated & so bent. He didn't rise again.

Lest we forget


We forgot the death-white burden
that lay curled explodingly
on the flat line between here & there
& we forgot the gaping pit
of atmosphere that singed the soil
& us that burnt it there above

we forgot the airborne tumours
of ignorance & time that swells
beyond our grasping paws of greed
we forgot the twisting paths
of molecules denied of science
therefore from our perception

we forgot our mortality
in the feast of fire & flood
as we wash our hands with famine
swill it down with cups of blood

we forgot that which we taught
to all the objects of our need
that all that grows beyond its use
holds no measure we shall heed

from alpha to omega
we have joined our ends to end
we have bridged between the islands
drained all wells to poisoned sand
& we forgot our search for new air
is subconscious flight for fear that
courage is the vice of dumb pride
that shakes & billows rage
in every new-found virgin sphere

& we forgot what it was we once loved
& whose back-yard we played & when
the string in the labyrinth would snap
& disappear in burning cloud of dissolving day

& we forgot because we could not remember
because we could not forget.

Not sure who the artist is (not me unfortunately)

Encaenia





You eclipse me & I have
stained the Sun with black love . . .

death from a bottle cools my ardour
for a while, until I see you again.

Damp distance bleached, then blackened
with shadows, flocks of shrill birds
screaming for my blood.
Bound hands swollen & sore 
body, silently numbed.

You set fire to the straw
you stabbed around me,
now reddened, with my burning life.
          
In these blistered hours of insomnia
objects are like lead.
They are more & less than they are,
as if fewer of them would create a stillness like sleep
- if only to dream of you again . . .

Cushions beckon in the mirror
bed reflected in that fantasy land,
a round pool of hope.
I lay down praying for darkness
another snowflake melts
on her virgin eyelids.

We drink every breath of poisoned air:
she asleep, I awake . . .
The last star’s neon spark will be dissolved painlessly
morning will knock on the window, still
slow day will begin to stretch.
Sheep in the cold dawn of a stirring slaughterhouse.

This morning on motionless ground,
cold mountain air outside
across crisp cool valley - white snow,
blue mountains of decrepit glass dream dissolve
in this fresh green brocade.

In this ceremony.

Blue dress



Where the wild things run
through the grass & the pine-needles
next to the shore
you walk
blue dress
wrapped tight with wind
your arms folded around you

the pines creak & sway
the surf brushes against
wet sandy shores
now grey with rain
waves tumbling greenly
to a gentle swell
small ripples run
from each rain drop
heartbeats
for you

the horizon curves a white line
dark clouds refuse to part
& nowhere can I feel you
yet there you stand
in the dunes
your blue dress wrapped around you
horizon in your eyes
& the cold wind blows
you evermore away


When I see a bird flying



When I see a bird flying
I think of you
when the wind howls
I hear your name
when the rain hits my face
I feel you slap me with your tears
& when thunder breaks the sky
my heart drops away
either side of your memory.

Bring me a bottle of your warmest nostalgia
a taste, of your sweetest ambrosia

the dog bark of centuries
echoes across the back yard
cutting through clusters
of diamond memories
hung like a bead curtain
in the doorway of the mind

they are so obvious
these metaphors of you
clichéd, pureed, all cut up
kodachrome paintings
aesthetically arranged
across the wall & floor

the lines begin to shudder
with each rank breath of you
this is the third stage
intoxication bleeds logic with contempt
until flame licks photos
and the blue smoke
dances you away


One Minute of Freedom



realization
a never-ending vision
the horizon
perpetually receding
a being, spinning
quite alone
eyelids dissolved
that second of freedom
when the heart
skips a beat

I can make the sky cry
the clouds fume & rage
worlds shrink
level hills/mountains
smash cities
hold the sun burning in my hand
then swallow it
I am alien
& everyone
& no-one
a giant killer
& a giant
I am dead & alive

where is the ritual
that means more than this?
where has it all gone
if it ever existed at all?

a naked couple
straddle the white steel flagpole
gazing hungrily at the twisting flag
flapping lazily
in the warm breeze above
sweat glistening on their slick backs
they squat in unison
tilting heads back
grasping the pole then
sliding up its length
shimmying, legs elongating
their bodies stretch & merge
transformation of national pride
into tumultuous serpent
twisting on a skewer

meaning — in pain
or in fantasy . . .
what follows us
will be our shadow
our blood
hot & boiling
with hate
wanting nothing better
than to kill
our rotting memory . . .

to the insights
of the poetic vision
the truth dictates ignorance
to replace purpose



It has been given . . .

 
 

What lies outside the heart and soul is restrictive decision

leading an arterial bypass, past life’s true intentions.
Love gone, never to be reflected in the passage of one’s lifetime
tradition, all too familiar in the lives of many
too old to go back, to dream the dream
to partake in life’s big meanings.

Losing space in a trajectory of time
net advancement of four walls of fear
all else uninvolved, seems so far, so sublime.
Rain starts falling, damp blankets of ash
caresses turn from light to sodden
with frozen napalm kisses
the light fair fall of a night moth’s breath
a bludgeoning hammer-fall of sharp steel smelt
new ferocious pounding —years of distilled rage
comes racing from the Heavens, intent on forced age.

The capture of moments long ago lost it seemed
as past lapped the present and you became dream.
Marching becomes possible, even after Blindness occurs
programmes control programmers
with a subliminal switch, in guise of fashion
something new created, for betterment of humankind?
Something borrowed, twisted, mutated, mirrored as virgin
brings something broken into being.

The glass age flourishes with apparent lack of meaning
save, for something better, something new — created,
while plans behind the construction became lost forever.
Forgone was the reason and not known, were the results.

Journey we go, into a place where lost buildings of time
stack against each other in a delicate city of memories
walking these barren streets, searching for hidden clues
we get lost in the quest of looking for answers to the future
in gloomy poisonous back-streets of the past
black galloping pillows of cloud
hasten like advancing sentries of night
against the grey sky, proclaiming
ferocious thunderheads glory
blossom and stab tender side of the West
the East’s long sabre, draws out and twists
spilling gushing blankets of deep, deep maroon
all over mortal Earth
casting great floods from the West
decaying plagues ravage the North
famine bleeds dry the South’s cold haven
East connotes slow suicide in prophetic insane seclusion.

Green stems from the smouldering grey and all the glass age:

redeems itself back to the crimson beaches, whence it came.
As the journey recedes and tired time takes its course,
the past (to the future) is no teacher, but a painting.

Always hunting, without knowing
for three properties of motion:
the beginning, the middle, and the end.

Life, death, fire, water, Earth and ocean
bringing in the space of the old: the new
the idea, the propulsion, the result is seen in all things.

Cause, effect, and result of action
is a troublesome discourse
for those beyond consciousness
for those beyond feeling
for all those TV babies breeding . . .



The edge of the night

I

 

A table spread in a tomb, dinner for the dead

the dead! Why did you pay a visit to my eyes last night?

Night is the time for angels of dreams
we who, each of us, will one day return
to our hungry mother the grave. The darkness comes
from knowing nothing is ours, except death

now taking bites of my heart. O Asclepius pupil
teacher Chiron, please bring medicine
to my dead love, and I forever understudy
will attempt some sort of attainment

to wake with a sore splitting back from the cold floor

in borrowed clothes and eyes, lent by a saint

giving at the same time an encompassing embrace
‘Friend,’ is all he said in tears, heart big enough to feed

this dead world. To wake up and see the sun
if not the glare from beyond, glittering
on broken glass, beside stretched roadside
where some had sprayed symbolic worlds and signs

scars full of flowers – to wake is to see
again this unusual world, whose secret cannot be known
until we enter the sky, or the earth
takes the edge off the night, the memory of your smile

II

Judging this town of sleep, I found it had already been judged
the Lord on his axe-cut cross of cypress
he is an incurable domestic bore
a family man, who never swore a word

an only child with a hollow mother
full with the carved cares of a household
wearing his poverty as a coat of arms
for eyes to look upon that beheld no bravura of vision.
The crisp grass rattles and shakes with a chanter, dryly
and all of this in fidelity to death
it was the same old same old, the hard husk of the ego
won’t ever resolve, yet grinds down hard internally

into the swirl, the wine bitter-soaked seed
labouring lie -- vice is kindled, burned in loins that melt
peculiar smiles alive, of all hope
has gone to explore the forlorn desert all alone

far away from the security of grim towns
where a girl is safe searching numbly in the comfort of fear.
You have gone or strayed away, never to be found
I sit and hear sour hiss of traffic calling

this burned and gutted ghost, vague semblance of time
on and off like one long sick light-switch
electric dream/confused state of everyone
greedy for dead love, drain her life, her soul

from every side for me. Greatest dribbling cannibal
tired future, sleep  .  .  .  with disease.

III

Torn in two, I stand between, the idol and the grave
I do not know anything, I do not know. I do not
of this world, know anything – nor do I want to
but I have misled the past and will do so again

bring the teachers to the fore, let them stand
and be accounted as emperors of their own disease
and demise. As the sky claps the earth -- wrings blood
from all rocks and far away I fly, every day

from the storm in the brain. The science of the mind
corroded the body, blinded every mile I ever burnt
in this life and the next if there ever were such a thing
as I breathed in the night’s vision, my life, exhaled.