Cold Campaign

Egoistic lists govern my compulsive cabinet-

and though I see the policies that I pass

often alienate the public,

I care not for their votes.

Deep down,

I would rather display contempt towards these empty vessels

rather than fill them up with the ingredients of growth.

So I questioned if culture could cure the ignominious ignorant

when I killed their comatose cult;

but my misanthropic mindset met no well-taught contention;

victory tasted like an insult.

Infusion

Sheets mottled with our stains

painting portraits of those afternoons

in dried tears and satisfied drool.

Cravings channelised through touch,

tactile tenderness turns to tactical retreat--

emphatic sighs broken by caffeine's refuel.

Biting Back at the Crocodiles

Fourteen billion eyes gaze

transfixed on the same thing;

their own self-centred sentiments.

If only we were staring at substance

instead of inconsequential ideals--

and as the starving skeleton stirs

from his lurid lacrimation

his sleepless lucid dreams

are controlled by a Sandman society.

Our own tears are filled with foul floods.

Illicit spills of banal and lilliputian "loss",

these opprobrious cathartic tears blind us

from a sight for sore eyes.

So let not our own troubles be a willing distraction

from our despondent and decaying domain,

but let them guide us into worthy action

and put a priority on the purging of proper pain.

Woven Blanket

A mile long bed, with room to spare 

and a blanket that I’ve woven from your hair

found in the plughole of the shower,

and I still need

every last piece of you

wrapped around me.

501

Another dart has been rakishly hurled,

curled to the left of the intended red mark.

One more to spare, a double to win,

too cautiously this time into the dark.

With replenished arrows, I hold my resolve,

determined the next should be my final shot

but some vacuous distraction at the hilt of discharge

ensures my fumbling fingers fall foul of the slot.

My rivals also struggle with the subtle balance

of butter-fingered brush and ham-fisted thrust,

sure that it will be my dart to pierce the heart

I'm distraught to find myself once again bust.

The opponent steps up with a glint in his eye

as all I can do is watch him take his aim,

acquiring the target which I have let slip by

I'm once again on the end of a losing game.

Mouldering My Mind

Nothing so coarse as that course

which will take my corpse to the morgue.

A rot in the roots where golden explosions grew,

sees that the soil masks my beauty completely

and my withered state must collect what it's due.

I have let this plant overgrow,

keen to reap the fruits of its embrace when they ripe-

but that comforting clutch is clenching too close

and the now blackening grass is past the graze of my grasp.

I won't be picking fruit again.

Rot

When I'm smothered by the soil

dress me in withering white.

Say a prayer for my soul

and watch me as it takes flight.

When I'm buried in the ground

drop a single pen.

Read to me a eulogy

for me to write again.

When I'm food for the worms

keep the Devil's jaw away.

Do not wish for me to go

but do not wish for me to stay.

When I'm only rotting flesh

let the rain tear me apart.

Cherish the splendor of life

and forget my dried-up heart.

Life is too Long

Contrary to the overused phrase,

life is too long.

Occupied mostly by menial mediocre makeweight moments--

fastidious fragments of filler;

the greater fraction spent feigning death,

a large proportion placed in grudging positions

and just a morsel used to actually live.

100000 pages describing a character

with pretentious pitter-patter

which provides no penetration to the underlying plot.

A perpetual instrumental track,

with unnoticeably subtle progresion

that offers no tying motif to the record's ambiance.

Give me something succinct, condensed

and stimulating--

I hope that I'm dead

by the time this is read.

The Grey Chess Piece

Darkness ultimately devours all,

and rather than shy from it

I wish to fuel it with the Devil's narcotics

and become the light;

a nemesis to the demon Night.

Bring me close to the end

so that I may breathe down the neck of Death,

observe it

understand it,

and defeat it.

He will learn to fear me.

Meaning Found, Meaning Lost

Last night,

fueled by some clear haze--

I discovered

the meaning of life.

I forgot it by morning.

Self-Prescription

My phantom footsteps

float along the filthy floor

of this foul forgotten town.

Slipping through the slime

of otiose citizens

swiftly squandering handouts.

Medicine music

drowns out society's dregs

and deadens my disgusted frown.

Doze

The moon-grazed sleepy poppy fields

lulled my plagued mind into a lucid calm.

The moon gazed at shadows he yields

but had no concern of potential harm.

The sun's sharp prick got me back up.

Rubbing my eyes, I was mad at the day.

No longer numb, I took a cup.

I sipped til the clouds drew the sun away.

My eyelids danced like shooting stars

and my head orbited my drowsy frame,

intending to ask the way to Mars

all I mustered was a mutter; "Who's to blame?".

Second-hand Love Notes

Musky margins with amorous musings

in my used hardback book passed along;

previous owner to lover's perusing

to my own eyes. So uncomfortably wrong,

for these faded fancies were not meant

for me yet fate should have it I read these lines:

"This reminds me of the time we have spent"...

such sweetness I could not hold as mine.

It sickens that such care is discarded

and that the calligraphy's charm isn't cherished,

when someone's read is so well regarded

that their love lives on when the page has perished.

So perhaps paper is the best thing to hold;

its meaning stays true when people's grow old.

Drive It All Over Me

Swimming in the salmon skies

on a Sunday afternoon.

Speeding to where softness lies

when conclusion comes too soon.

Shading in consonant sounds

to dissonant melody.

Sliding through the sun-kissed mounds

to valleys of strawberry.

Smiling upwards at the storm

with its purifying bliss.

Gazing towards my distant home

and the dreams of its soft kiss.

Renascenery

Low hanging wisps on a velvet fabric sky

falling into the ubiquitous wet,

illuminated by poppy flowers

with enough light to prevent the dew to set.

Sweet cinnamon moon brings the rain to rest

and the clouds all part to his potent glow,

dreams dancing sideways back into the day

float into the fire to feel afflictions slow.

She will bring song when such dreaming is done

her fingertips glancing my curtains ajar,

and rays will lead me to her glowing embrace

that which I have often admired from afar.

Sure, the skies shift with stuttered intensity

but I willfully trace her propensity.

Vacillating Vessel

Effulgent and effortless

yet so elusive to find.

Elegant and eloquent,

you are elevated in my mind.

Photographic Detail

I recount brief but concrete memories

when I return to those polaroids of you,

just as resplendent as I'd remembered

and your shining beauty radiates through.

But a photograph could never capture

the fine details that the awestruck eye sees,

like the way you try to fight back your smile

or how your soft hair dances in the breeze.

So that's why I keep on staring at pictures;

I'm afraid of losing the precise science

that blends itself to create a paragon,

an Angel cut from chemicals' compliance.

And though the film may keep some detail intact,

just like a photo, you'd never react.

Seeing/Waiting

You see me,

and I see you back

but we never exchange

much more than that.

A day goes by

where I wonder if I should say

hi,

but you are there

and I am nowhere.

It feels like,

you are beyond the shaded horizons of the globe

while I am starstruck on the Sun

and so I wait-

for the day when you see,

that I am waiting, and waiting

for you to see me.

Rainfall Come Up

I kneeled and said to God,

"It is you, Lord,

with your head in the clouds,

without your feet on the ground.

How could I believe?".

He replied to me so kindly,

"It is you, Son,

taking things only as they seem

without daring to dream.

Have I reason to deceive?".

I considered his words,

with guilt in my heart

for I knew that all of my sins

could not even begin

to cancel true love that he holds.

And he considered such thoughts,

with enlightened omniscience

and as the clouds parted

a heavy rainfall started

seeming like a punishment to most.

But yet I felt his warmth within each drop

and my eyes were opened wide.

I took the Lord's hand

just as he planned

and he led me into the light.

And so I became the night.

J. Hill

Soft spiralling sways

to her heather trodden ways

in lilac velvet mist

with lips tangerine kissed.

Free feather float

to retreats; rural and remote

where we let dewy soles slide

and help heavy heads hide.

At her sure soaring summit

comes the subsequent plummet,

and as we reach her narcotizing peak

we grow so dependently weak...

Gone but Still There

Familiar scents from childhoods spent

in the back seat of my parents' Citroën.

The bakery's sweet rise of odour to the skies

to be served up to the birds in the cloud kitchen.

Familiar sounds from childhoods found

in the trees behind Pleckgate field.

The mower's chug soundtracks the den we've dug

as we keep its careless treasures concealed.

Familiar sights from childhood nights,

as my legs are jelly and my eyes are melted ice-cream

from a swift BMX pedal and an hour on Medal

before I write up a list for next Haloween's scheme.

These familiar thoughts from my childhood taught

me that through time most things in life will stay.

As we begin to grow old, these memories we hold

will take plenty of wear before they fray.

Sunday Morning Prayer

Bags on my floor;

did I really cause this mess?

Bags on my eyes;

I know the answer's yes.

Change on my desk;

rolled-up notes all but spent.

Change on my mind;

Lord, is it too late to repent?

Melody

Oh melody, remember me

when I am old and fail

Oh melody, I'll remember she

who stayed when hearing failed.

She twists and turns to the tune,

my eyes fixed on her hips.

I follow closely with careful croon,

my mouth matched to her lips.

The Heart's Purse-Strings

Hard earned feelings are often spent far too swiftly

on those products of desire they don't really need,

and before the month ends, they're scraping the barrel

for someone to buy back just a bite of their greed.

And then there's those dithering, fastidious souls

who let their fortunes amass in their airtight heart,

but for all that it holds, the heart weighs too heavy

and the seams that hold it compressed will fall apart.

So how best to spend those soft somethings in your mind

when stringent savings rot and capricious spendings break?

I will keep the purse-strings of my heart tightly sealed

'til there's an investment on future's profit to make.

Nature's School

Crayola clouds on blank canvas skies,
papier-mâché sun with dandelion dye.
A sandpit of stars when it reaches night,
milk on the carpet as it becomes light.

We learn to join up the leaves to the trees,
with sun-dotted Is and fruit-crossed Ts.
I follow the flow of the river with you
and there we will learn one and one must make two.

The birds compose their favourite nursery rhymes,
as we're told these are the best of our times.
Nature is a school where we can always learn and play,
and I still feel such youth at the start of each day...