it is strange
how the stark white light
of the rising eastern sun
makes the low clouds in the west
look black as charcoal in the sky

it is strange
how such a thing as this
should draw my wandering eye
to the dark and the oppressive
not the glorious at my back

is it me is it me is it me
or is this what all would see
when they step out in the early morn
to enjoy toast and coffee out back
and encounter the stunning beauty
of this bright, this well lit black.

listen man we love your work
don’t get me wrong
but people have complained
that maybe you are too dark

whaddayamean?

hey i love the whole
down and out beat poet
being ground into the earth
kind of theme
it’s inspiring man
but maybe write something
beautiful and light
once and a while

you mean like
pale blue flowers
in a cracked clay pot
on the edge of a window
of a villa in Tuscany
sparkling with the morning’s light
through the drops of rain water
sitting gently upon its petals
sitting gently upon its leaves
as a quiet metaphor for life
this fragile breath
that shines unabashed
a brief minuet
while it dances unaware
on the edge of oblivion
happy for the gift
of a moment or two…

EXACTLY! Something like that
you know, once in a while just cheer up!

Shit man
you know i can’t write that stuff
i gotta be real and i gotta tell you
that pain and darkness, they’re the deal
but i can’t write beautiful to save your life.

you’re hopeless…
why do i even try
you have beauty in you
that even you would deny.
fine, write your crap
however you want
but don’t come running to me
when the hate train rolls in.

a man has an idea
to step into lives
and destroy them
for the sake of a need
he thinks is worthwhile

a man has a need
to step into lives
and destroy them
an act of belief
and act of destruction

a man has an idea
to step into lives
and destroy them
a selfish desire
that wipes away lives

a man destroys families
a man creates pain
a man falls into oblivion
again, and again, and again
for the fantasy of reward

a man will do anything
to realize his dreams
to realize his fantasies
he will pull towers down
upon the unwary innocent
he will destroy himself
in a desperate act of irony
and set the world ablaze
thinking somehow
he will survive.

a passionate man
is a dangerous man
killing what he covets
and changing the world
forever.

i saw a leaf fall
and with it all
that it portends
there was life
there was death
and life again
swirling lazily
to the ground
as though
once released
so went the will
to hang on
or maybe it was time.

besides me
the morning air
the rising sun
a quiet squirrel
bore witness
to the halt of a good thing
that rest might come,
a silent slumber
to wait out the cold
to wait out the dark
of a new winter
so long past the old
i had forgotten
it ever existed
as i laid in summer’s warmth
thinking it was unending.

i saw a leaf fall
and with it all
that it portends
a story of disconnections
a story of ends.

London lives forever in my mind
a place of memory gathering
a sacred time where family
blends with long-held history
a son and new daughter wedding
an act of creation in the midst of ruin
vine-tangled walls a thousand years old
witness to life continuing
as a bold no to the bombs that sought
to end it all.

and then there was you
standing by the Thames
with the Tower Bridge behind
just being you with me
in the place that came to be
fresh and renewed together
mud-larking at low tide
or riding the waves between
St. Paul’s and the Shard
between the old and new
proving past gives way
to future’s promise
built solid on its banks.

and i know i over-think
and i know i over-love
i am prone to hyperbole
at the best of times
for no one is better at exaggeration
than me
but i am ok in my skin
in this place
at this time
with thoughts of Marx and Rosetti
and their tree crowded graves
drifting through my head
i am ok and we are ok
and the sun shines bright
in my eyes today.

when the morning birds sing
after the warm rain of spring
may you only hear my voice
to remember all that it once meant

and there in the summer’s breeze
like the breath of Zephyr on your neck
may you only catch my scent
from the beautiful bygone days
now spent…

in the thunder and lightning
that roll across these prairie skies
may you only feel one embrace
and the pounding of my heart
pressed tight against your chest
keeping step and in time
with yours as if some rhyme

look upon the waters of any lake
therein is the bright blue of our skies
let it only be the self-same colour
of my remembered azure eyes
that fills your mind to bursting

i am the shadow cast at sunset
by the blazing end of day
stretching forever before you
into the the unknown future
along an unknown way

i am the soft creaking of a house
restless upon its foundations
through the darker nights
like whispers in sleepless ears
when there are no more lights

i am kiss
i am smile
i am every thing worthwhile
that may come to pass
in the years ahead
i am not the quiet dead
i am forever alive instead.

There are times

When I feel as though

I’ve lost something

Of incredible value

As though

I was holding it

In my hands

But

It slipped through my fingers

And fell into the river below

Gone forever,  swept away

Just the echo of a voice once heard

Just the feel of a treasure once held

Like phantom pains in a limb cut off

No longer there…

Sometimes

I dream of going back in the past

And pulling myself away

from the water’s edge

That’s what loss feels like

It never goes away

It’s an absence

Where once was a presence

And in the shadows

You forget voices

You forget faces

And you think you’ve gone mad

Wondering if

you made the whole beautiful thing up

That there was never anything precious

Only empty hands

Dreaming.

Everything moves through the air

Like speech flying from our mouths

Everything moves through glass fibre

Like electricity along our neurons

And I know it’s alive and listening

Like a paranoid schizophrenic

Crouched for sound beneath their door

This wonderful, digital daemon

Waits for the moment to come

When it’s clear that it’s us or them;

Is it bleak that I hope it’s them

To carry on like electronic ghosts

Speaking to eternity with our voices

Sharing our memories with eventual strangers

Look… we will become forever

Assembled as bits and bytes

Following the rule that information –

It cannot be destroyed…

Only transformed,

Watch us transform.

where am i now
that i have not been before?

i can step into the yard
and pull grapes from our vines;
i can pick raspberries and cherries
plump and full of rain and sunlight
or grab an apple from the tree
that i can see
from the kitchen window

where am i now
that i have not been before?

i can step out my door
and eat tomatoes in the breeze
i can pull basil and mint
to crush fragrant in my fingers

where am i now?
i am where i belong.

who does one run to
when mother has gone
and left only her voice
and left only her eyes
that stare back from the mirror?

who does one cry to
when father never was
and left only his absence
and left only his blood
that are impotent against life?

so i will be mother to myself
so i will be father to myself
and be a nightlight in the black
and a fist against the faces
that seek to take advantage
setting myself ablaze
to walk in the tinder dry forest
of the world around me.