march 2018

                        (i)

...herein lie the fragments of a thousand centuries

strange, audacious sounds

words, words for anaesthesia,

words for glory, for secrets, anecdotes, spells

even for angst

words for anything which can charm thoughts

from this dense mass of air

where even utterances can fool our curiosity

and yet, irresistibly, still prowl the void

in search of fragments

those minds that constantly

call out from the grave

forcing books to disintegrate

in our hands as we read

lured, yes, we are always lured

by this strange, feverish audacity

that makes our faces glow

and the rains turn into laughter

whenever we squeeze a little immortality

out of each and every guttural sound...

                    (ii)

...often I look for the meteor, the arrow and its art

for the unexpected rhythm

the four, maybe five, notes

of some dark, diatonic dance

that slams my whole being into a wall

and lets loose a deepening truth inside the old

a raw light that firestorms

cascades and breaches

the cold frontiers of my mind

setting heaven’s empty thrones ablaze

and as the meteor’s flames move the darkness even closer

their art takes human form

I am the son and the daughter of no-one

I am the meteor’s child

the unexpected arrow

the dust blowing out to sea

a rhythm that slams

a wall ablaze

a vessel for whom the truth is never enough...

                     (iii)

...our love needs no deserving, no identity, no forgiving

for no-one has ever, or will ever survive its cruelty

love is surely just a foothold

a bridge to that lethal world of uncertainty

standing beside the Rubicon

unable to turn back

unable to step across

this necklace of burning suns

these raging galaxies that throw out

edict after edict, which

five billion years later

is driving our species insane

standing on the bridge

waiting for love’s signal

a kiss that enshrines

the heartache and the bliss

those two cruel, burning uncertainties

who sit at fortune’s wheel

spinning it, tempting it

first one way, then the other...

                                (iv)

...I have always walked and walked to find my life

to quieten the spectres

to savour the gratuities

but always, as I stride

enormous teeth have risen from the ground

and I have felt the world to be one gigantic mouth

a system of mere universal digestion

a meal at an empty table

that claims to recycle every conscious mind

and even more, to replace each living cell

with one immense, yet invisible star

that’s torn by vivid apparitions of unfolding space

by sights pretending to hold back the darkness

but, unconvinced, I keep moving

and push between the vast, dreamlike teeth

certain such things simply cannot be

what in that case, I ask, is the purpose of reality

to love and love again

to sleep and sleep again

or just to keep on swallowing the spectres

and walk, walk, walk...