Broken Black Glass

|                                          .lɒnimɿǝɈ 

|                                         bǝmǝǝb ƨi 

|                                bloʜ ƨǝʞɒɈ ɈɒʜɈ 

|                         noiɈɒυɈiƨ ɔiɈpǝƨ ǝʜɈ 

|                 liɈnυ bǝɿonϱi γlǝϱɿɒl Ɉυb 

  |                  Ɉnǝƨǝɿp niɒp bǝυbbυƨ ʇo 

|              noiɈɔǝlʇǝɿ ǝƨnǝɈ lυʇiɈip ǝʜɈ 

|                                               mɒ I . 

|                                      ɈnǝmɈnǝƨǝɿ 

|                                ϱnibnυoƨǝɿ bnɒ 

|                       ǝnob bǝƨopxǝ Ɉpǝɔxǝ 

|                                  Ɉʇǝl ƨi ϱniʜɈon 

|                           bnɒ nɿow ǝɿɒ γǝʜɈ 

|                         liɈnυ niʞƨ nǝʞoɿb ʇo 

|              ƨɿǝγɒl nǝǝwɈǝb ƨǝbilƨ ɈɒʜɈ 

| ƨƨɒlϱ ʞɔɒlb ʇo bɿɒʜƨ bǝɿǝɈɈɒʜƨ ǝʜɈ 

|                                                  mɒ I

 _____________________________

Shepherd Tones

Chairs have been sitting on me

with jumping beans flashing green,

just sleep and you will see

I can only live what we can dream.

I'm not sorry for my smile

but my bleary eyes say otherwise,

let us rest for just a while

and we can sing to the sunrise.

Lunar Sea/Lunacy

Smoky jonquil hue
concaved and serrated,
concealed by the clouds
softened and sedated.

Intermittent blinks

flashes of ruby red,

guiding in the dark

as sea and sky are wed.

Dulled by a warm blade

veiled in a vapoured gloom,

piercing the nothing

the sunk ship met her doom.

(and so too did the moon).

A September's Sunday by the Sea

Light catches all that comes out to greet it;

glints glittering in pebbled hills

glints glittering in the ocean's wafered waves,

glints glittering in Sunday's satisfied eyes.

Sounds orchestrate for those who hear its silent cacophony;

a crash of footsteps, uneven yet definitive,

a crash of waves, constant and icy,

a call for company, cold and unconvincing.

The breeze joins in, droning docile;

moving the flickering corner of this page,

moving overhead, a plane's engine sings and a father's finger

moving, pointing duly to the sky for his squinting son to see.

A cloud of delicate birds mould into forms,

migrating south, grasping the warmth with their wings

and faintly heard behind is the constant hum of traffic,

Sunday drivers strolling coastal roads to coastal towns.

All is quiet and peaceful

if I let the surroundings relax my mind.

All is noisy and vibrant

if I let the surroundings focus my mind.

All is beautiful.

Faded Footprints

Matter being made to matter

by a basic belief of self;

for a footstep can still exist

without awareness of its patter.

So what gives us a distinction

from a footstep or some shoes;

is it yearning for a future

or intrinsic fear of extinction?

No memory of a first breath

does not mean that I have not been

and just as the inaminate

I shall have no memory of my death.

So I'm no more alive than this pen

that brings alive these empty words,

and like a footprint I will fade

never to be considered again.

An Avalanche

The aberration of comfort is such

that pain becomes a remedy for angst,

irrational counters irrational

and I can see all my flaws with disdain.

It's as though observing an avalanche

with fond memories stored at the apex

and though safe in the knowledge that I'm safe

I get the stuttering sense to absond.

But do I flee from the danger I fear

or fly towards that which I'm set to lose;

how will I know that which I already know

if I'm concerned with how instead of why?

In indecision, I'm buried by snow

but I feel no fear with my skin aglow.

Repetition and Alteration

Repetition is a constructed lie
but one that allows us to thrive
for it's a variation improved by
the new moments had whilst alive.

Alteration in the familiar
is a route to a rout of rights
through perfecting something similar
and subsiding all of the slights.

Windswept

Seagull, mid-flight,

blown from its track,

caught in a gust of wind,

never finds its way back

but where does it

plan to descend

or if rather the case

did it have any ends?

I'd hope to think

it was fine chance

that took hold of its wing

and control of the dance,

for when you're caught

(feathered or fur)

it's rather the sign of

circumstance in the air.

Feathers

Feathers in your mouth and blood on your tail:

I can't help but be a fool for the facts.

Immaculate paws point to faith I'd lacked

and oust me as someone fragile and frail.

Yet we're still clearly left with a dead bird

and its carcass conveys a carnal sin

so it takes all my strength from within

to dismiss the tweeting that I had heard.

For sometimes feathers are merely feathers

and blood can come from natural sources;

when careless suspicions run their courses

fearful minds can break free of their tethers.

I still nurse that bird in my gentle hands

knowing not who did it harm nor where it lands.

Under the Mill

That hour elapsed with urgency,

my hands trembled but my will did not

as I watched you, watching me,

wonder in those great vessels within their emerald oceans

and I averted my gaze down to my plate,

long purged of its contents.

My eyes found the waitress's, an unspoken request,

as a folded receipt was brought over with packaged mints,

and I promptly overlapped it with plastic

and held open the door, buttoning my jacket

as we made our exit, into the sky's embrace,

fingertips glancing at first, then strengthening in grip.

We circumnavigated that reedy body of water,

reflecting your soft countenance, and mine paled with plans

 - we paused - 

lips glancing at first, then strengthening in grip

before we carried on upward to the rusting sky,

my thoughts anxious with times ans suppositional circumstances.

As our mirthful minds crossed that inclined threshold

we could both discern a city's silhouette in salmon skies

and found a place to rest aching legs and full stomachs.

I opened my mouth - unable to speak; and instead looked out

to the sea where white waves wandered, and my eyes wandered

to those deep emerald oceans once more.

My hands trembled but my will did not,

as I watched you, watching me,

and you replied,

"Yes!".

Lexical Addiction

I've got a craving

to succumb to that lexical addiction;

to allow those words to control me

with what little fix their diluted form still holds.

My subconscious control comprehends

that it's a habitual utterance

and yet with each delightful dose it demands

a little more value in its validity.

And so I let you overcome me

despite my weak-willed protests;

it strikes me that this isn't my usual poison

and yet the purest form might be positive.

I've got a craving

to succumb to that lexical addiction again

and with the utmost understanding

it is uttered.

Night Gifts

Those gifts we sometimes receive in the night

are met by an audience expecting

to see on our faces, signs of delight,

but find the scattered wrapping perplexing.

There's no doubt thought has gone into the gift

and it is something we will come to need

but when there are presents through which we sift

never is it the instructions we read.

So the gifts are collecting dust, somewhere out of sight

and each one is in need of dissecting

but there's a danger that would cause a rift

from a prior warning we didn't heed.

Since, I've paid great care to each gift I've got

and rue every gift I have since forgot.

— In Silence —

Alone, under the gargantuan balls of gas

that punctuate the pitch black sky in pulchritude

with their puissant burning — in silence — 

as I walk along the centre of the empty roads

arms outstretched, tiptoes touching

the painted white markings that demark contraflow,

and the tinted bulbs of traffic lights

flash and flicker from green to amber to red — in silence —

signalling to the empty roads that nothing in particular

must stop. I take no heed, rushing through

in half-drunken delight, head polluted by rum

and thoughts of a blissful moment spent with you,

and my brain screams in ecstasy — in silence —

for your presence, as though I could rouse you from your silent sleep,

just as your labial lullaby lacerated my eyes; laconic

— in silence —

#Casual

There's no worse sentence

than one what starts with the words

"I'm not racist, but..."

Pre-Determined Free-Will

There is a finality and determinism

                              to life that we struggle to describe

                                                             as under the control of our will;

                                                              our choice.

This is true to a certain extent.

                            There is a huge element of cause and effect

                                                             that gives us our many variations

                                                             of lives.

Our choices determine who we are, and

                             what becomes of us as people, yet

                                                            these choices are constricted in the

                                                            confines of fate.

One needs context in order to feel, so the first

                             life would feel nothing, for it had nothing

                                                            to compare to; meaning is ordained from

                                                            prior life.

We are predetermined by our genetic makeup

                                 and by a history of what we 

                                                           at least perceive as free choices; what we're

                                                           programmed to do.

The human life has been set by fate to have a

                                 spring, summer, autumn, winter. This is unavoidable

                                                          unless we ripped out pages from

                                                          life's calendar.

But we can never choose
                                 that the next season should not fall;
                                                         delay it and prepare for it
                                                         though we might.

Our free will determines what happens 

                               with these seasons, just as our choices

                                                         help to bring some seasons to be longer

                                                         than others.

The more free-will we get, the more

                              this global warming effect will occur,

                                                        not only in meteorological seasons but in this

                                                        issue of will.

In order to best attain a credible

                              existence, we must become autonomous

                                                         beings and allow fate to direct us through seasons

                                                         as prescribed for us.

We should not fall foul on the path

                              of choice, for choice blinds us

                                                          into the narcissistic notion that

                                                          we are free.

Whether we are free or not

                              is ultimately an otiose debate

                                                         for we only found out both sides by both

                                                        choice and fate.

The Rat

The rat willed for refuge

from the chambers in the sewers,

crowded everywhere that it went.

Away from the refuse

and negativity that skewers

all of the time it has spent.

So it indecisively sought

a solitary space of its own,

but not one single section could it find.

Instead it was caught

by the reality that was thrown

that it was trapped in the tunnels of its mind.

Dharma Initiative

Sulphurous mist

gives it's purgatory judgement

whilst others take the iridescent youthful souls for their virtues.

Existential paranoia and needs to follow a system

and the rhetoric of what would happen if we didn't execute the orders precisely.

We all await a release from the isolation that occurs in our own minds, and ultimately, the only rescue is the salvation of our intertwined past sins.

X Axis

Each year pulls me further to the left,

and I wonder if my standpoint

is an x-axis

and that I am therefore

growing more and more negative

or that it is in fact spherical

and I will come full circle.

Enfolded

Enfolding my breath

into subtle shapes, I cherish

watching them float away silently

as if coerced by a gentle magnetism

into unknown and unseen—the inexplicable—

And this existence we suffer is unpredictable

how could we act with pragmatism

while cascading down violently

into the earth we perish

enfolded in death.

Caught

I walked heady into the sweet,

damp night, however caught I was in its

leverage.

The dog across the street whined for me, impetuous, drummed

my porous skin into air,

like a mother praying for their child, making 

me alive again,

embryonic.

Sunspots blossomed over the fullness of night, and 

I curled, ashamed, inside 

their morning light.