Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Business Language

I don't want to extrapolate
Initiate or integrate
Daydream until I make myself late
And then fall into the sky

I don't want to reconcile
Change my style or try to smile
Comply to demons of the rank and file
Then fall into the sky

For what you say intimidates
Obfuscates and lacks debate
You lack a mind that is first rate
Then you fall into the sky

For there is truth in the plainest words
Where sense is found, no meanings blurred
Away from the theatre of the absurd
That backs against the sky

Your words are you, they lie and cheat
They show your soul in a repeating bleat
No substance to make our souls replete
And rise up to the sky

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Inner Child

I try to ignore you, keep you away,
You sleep in your tiny bed,
Covers up to your ears,
Rhythmic breath beating time
Until you demand attention again.

You are my unacknowledged sigh,
The bloated disappointment
As I wait for an absent friend,
The chill of resentment

As another takes the stage,
The strangled cry of despair
As the door shuts too loudly
And footsteps fade to a rustle.

This is all you, stripped potential,
Graceless, denied,
Dormant, staring, silent
Except for the heartbeat we share.

If you were to speak,
Would you strike out in anger
Or resolutely state facts?

 I do not know how to parent you.
Should I be your saviour
Or your friend?

 We walk two very different
Tightropes together,
Hand in hand
Each other’s safety net
Until the next crisis
Leaves us both weeping,
And running from the storm.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

The Phil Collins’ School of Romance

Everything she knows about love
She learned from Phil Collins.
She learned that love can’t be hurried
That against the odds
Something is in the air
That leaving can be easy
That sometimes you just don’t care.

The big lesson came early.
Pulls away at a sign,
A glimpse of affection,
He shunned at the time.
You dust yourself off
Pick up your heart
Stow it away
Forget it ever came into view.

When he marries another
With a soft shaky voice
As she watches close by
Taking note not to cry
You dust yourself off
Pick up your heart
Stow it away
Forget it ever came into view.

When he tells you he loves you
Then disappears from sight
Leaving you bewildered,
And shivering in fright
You then dust yourself off
Pick up your heart
Stow it away
Forget it ever came into view.

She learned not to trust
She learned not to hope
She learned very early
Not to give herself rope
Just dust herself off
Just pick up her heart
Stow it away
Forget it ever came into view.

She hopes against hope
That situations will change
That the gods and the stars
Will the times rearrange.
Will she dust herself off
And pick up her heart
Stow it away
Forget it ever came into view?

For she knows that she’s worthy
She knows that it’s there
But waiting and hoping
Just lead to despair.

But until the day comes
When her love can run free
Not sit hiding in silence
Or run up a tree,
She’ll just dust herself off
And pick up her heart.
Stow it away
And hope it may come into view


One day.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Searching

A country road. A tree. Evening.
Two tramps meet and wait
For something that never arrives.
Just as everything depends on a
Red wheelbarrow
And Mrs Bloom screaming “Yes!”
Cracks  the world into
Another dimension.
As Frankel sits within the fetid
Emaciated, stink of humanity
Searching for meaning
Amongst the hopeless
The desperate and the damned.
Just like the diamond-filled sky
Over marmalade trees and
Tangerine rivers which
Blight the dreams of the many.
For I am the walrus,
Goo goo ga joob.
The absurdity lies in the inaction.
For what if they searched for Godot
Or the wheelbarrow was blue?
If Mrs Bloom’s orgasm was silent,
Non-existent, an unknown Protestant pleasure.
That Frankel marched to his death
Shuffing skin and bones
Of the tattooed, hopeless, stinking throng.
For it’s not in the waiting
The absurdity of hoping
For a different result
That kills the lives of men.
It’s the never said I love you’s
The silent wanting
The thought that nothing changes
On a word, a look, a sign,
Which kills the dreams of many.
It’s the inactivity of waiting
That’s the saddest, most absurd
Utterly desperate action of all.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Saint Godric Dreams of Other Times

You never forget the smell
The dank, damask musks,
The secret acrid vinegars
The flower scented hair
That rests on your chest
Snoring gently, twitching occasionally,
Muttering lists of nothings 
As the boat rocks around you,
Eastward bound to Jerusalem.
Ah, the freedom of the sea,
Rolling, never still, never silent,
An unquiet of redemption and destruction,
As you skate along the surface
Sails full, ropes taught,
Sun blasting your fragile skin
As you squint into the white horizon
Endless journeys across water
Eastward bound to Jerusalem.
So here I lay, flailed, failed, prostrate,
On a mattress of moss, with a blanket of leaves,
Penitent, pining, prickled, poked,
Searching for silence
An ultimate peace
Demanding a vision of ultimate hope
Yet I dream of the time
And the girl and the sea
Eastward bound to Jerusalem.

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Unwanted Gift

I know they meant well.
The wrapped extravagance
Sat on the table
(An unexploded bomb waiting to be tripped)
Begging for comment
Desiring attention,
The pink and blue bows
Cascade over the box
(Some would call it precursory smoke)
A silent reminder
Of obligatory hope
At such a happy time.
(My smile was forced, burned on with napalm)
A gift brought to us
In paroxysms of joy
The final hurdle crossed
Loins ungirded and fecund.
(They cannot see the inside, the desolation and fear)
Here is the gift they
Longed so much to give,
Sitting between us
(Twinkle twinkle sparkling wrap, how I wonder where they’re at)
Waiting on the table
Quietly ticking away the seconds
Before every paradigm
Of our collective happiness
Shatters the ether
Like a nuclear blast,
Detonated by the words
“She’s gone.”


Sunday, June 8, 2014

Pandora

We will box up all the bad in the world
Lock it away, seal it up and place it
In a sacred repository.
Somewhere safe where no harm will come
Nobody will be able to see
The potential damage
The pointless harm
The unheeded destruction
The futile pain.
We will lock it all away
And let the innocent care for this burden.
An obedient child, caring, unsullied, meek,
A child who has not seen the world
A child who will not know the world.
A girl child.
For only she can carry the burdens of the earth
Not knowing the sacrifice
A willing, unwitting pawn.
They gave me a box.
We gave her a box.
“Don’t open it,” they said.
“Don’t open it,” we said.
“You don’t need to know what’s in there,” they said.
She knows better
Than to have a mind of her own.
I know about gifts
They are never any good.
Just ask Silent Cassandra
Or Shrinking Sybil
Or that gormless plank Narcissus
Gifts are never bring happiness.
Not that this was a gift.
More mine to care for.
A beautiful jar, lid held fast,
Heavy, hollow, round.
Whatever could be so horrid
To be held in such an object.
Carefully, I opened the lid.
And my mind went blank.
“Don’t open it we said,
Silly girl. Silly, silly girl.
Only the innocent
Can hold these furies.
Once seen, there is no going back.”
It’s not the hatred or bitterness.
I can cope with the pestilence and war.
Death, riding a horse of no colour
That doesn’t bother me.
Anger, greed, gluttony, sloth
None of these matter.
They escaped, blighting humanity
Like dye dissipates in water.
It’s all part of the fabric of life.
Silly men, silly silly men -
To think a simple jar could hold
The potential damage
The pointless harm
The unheeded destruction
The futile pain.
It’s not what’s out of the jar
That gives the grief.
I look at the jar
Lidless, forlorn.
Inside sits the most awful evils.
I look at the remnants at the bottom of the jar,
Hope and opportunity.
And I weep the tears
Of a million widows.