On the Shore

Pressing through the unmitigated chaos

to come upon the calm shoreline-

a border to the ocean of my thoughts

whose waves are sleepily directed

by the whispers of my mind.

Lone as I am, standing on the grains

of my imagination's beach,

I cannot help but enjoy the humbling pressure

of discovering it all myself.

Yet I will not deny

that discovery is greater shared.

I keep looking for myself along the sand,

secretly hoping

that you will discover me instead.

Absent Cirrus

I rediscovered an old sin-stained notebook

containing your name and old phone number

written in the dark, distracted

curl of your cursive.

I was standing outside a café

watching a cirrus cloud in the cerulean sky

float by like foam on a pint of beer

(meanwhile, the absent-minded cigarette smokers outside

watch their fleeting exhalations

coalesce with the clouds),

and thinking about how 

the memory of our meeting has ebbed,

it too ascending and merging with the sky.

How you

finally broke

like a storm across the sky of everything.

Bed of Roses

Winter brings night by afternoon,

a gloaming sodium vapor lit

ninety-nine metres apart,

but those seemingly obfuscous shadows inbetween

contain the most comfort.

Favourite LP

I've noticed you listening to my favourite LP;

I've often wondered if it conjured thoughts of me.

Honestly, I could not care less if it did or not,

it's just a mild but nagging curiosity.

Do those words hold any meaning to you;

those lyrics which have often defined all that I do,

or are they just some soulless sung sentiments

which I have desperately clinging on to?

I've noticed you listening to my favourite LP;

I've often wondered if it conjured a happy memory.

Do you attach the music to those missing moments

or am I just another meaningless mp3?

I remember the times I used to sing along

and you used to declare that it was our song

but now that we have gone our separate ways

repeating the lyrics just feels wrong.

I've noticed you listening to my favourite LP;

and I wonder how you have the audacity

to ruin something that I used to love so much

and leave its sleeve in our debris.

Beneath the Surface of the Sun's Silence

Phosphenes float in the fleecy clouded sky,

like restive woken walkers, weaving to work.

The withered yellow leaves have all but died;

the worn arms that held them plea for a perk.

The grass-blades shave their early morning frost

as the sun ascends and purifies the night.

The cows complain about the latest milk costs;

the price could not justify the budget's bite.

The wind's peppermint breath conceals its scent

plundered from depths of desperation,

a breakfast of sulfurous sorts, nights spent

ruing the winter's rapid inflation.

And as day swaps shifts with the oscitant moon

the phosphenes know they have arrived too soon.

Gazeless

My words may not mean much to you.

They elicit no response

and they will hang like stars,

which are always there.

You could wait until the night,

maybe then you’d see them

but you would still have to

choose to look up

and I don’t expect that you will.

Vision of a Stream

The fleeting vision of a stream

is stolen by a sunny beam.

I cannot feel the peace that lived

within the context of my dream.

By losing heat I pay the cost 

to walk a world of fog and frost.

There is no cause to stay in bed;

the vision of the stream is lost.

Game Over

My noose has got itself into knots,

nervous about all of its loose ends-

it says it wants me to drop everything

but I can't be beneath when it descends.

My bucket is feeling so empty,

woozy from having its world completely turned-

it says I should kick it into touch

but I can't let go when it is concerned.

The spring in my step is spirited,

bouncy from the thought of a final bound-

and leaping off the pixelated cloud

I fall asleep to the "GAME OVER" sound.

Asylum Skull

Disconnected dissonance drones into my drums,
my lifeless limp body floating above my bed—
the crimson lampshade reaches out to an empty socket
as a seven hour death orbits my hollowed head,
and harrowed though I am, my cerebration can grasp the plug
to spark a glimmering celebration of the dead.

Filth/Fresh

Repulsive layers of hoary skin,

days old on my body

full of sweat and sin,

matched by the lewd grubby stubble on my chin.

Loosely layered filth on my sheets

which grip me like a drug

and fester where the flesh eats

my former self obsolete.

Transcendence,

I ascend.

The dirt from my bristly past descends down the drain,

icy water pours and devours me,

heavenly bites like an angel's unrestrained passion—

a startlingly strong baptism

penetrating my pores.

Resplendent layer of unspoilt skin

I am born;

I am youth.

Smudge

Rust rubbed into the black card-sky.

Bleak streetlights, a child's grubby fingertips

which smudge the silence with sounds soaring by,

joining the dots from thirty second clips.
And so the rhetoric realisation echoes a retrospective cry

but the hand that forms cannot maintain the same grip,

I smudge the anxious smile away from my diminishing dye

and extend the same stroke to my wind-chapped lips.

Escape Route

Something changed that night,

full-beam irradiating gleaming green needles

strewed across the silence and the desolate dust,

cascaded horse-chestnuts crunching on the coarse gravel.

As my droning wheel-bearings startled those intrepid foxes

who had dared to make the white paint their bed,

the black cat's eyes glinted towards the ebonized sky

as if their master was prepared for flight.

Much like the foxes' ill-fortuned sleep,

my small-hour soundtrack was disconnected

by some strange interference suggesting a return to signal;

a tinkering tone I could forgive

for I now find myself back in the civilization I had loved to avoid.

Through all the twists and turns,

and incandescent lunar-lit landscapes

I cannot shake your mind.

Evolution of (a) Man

Minor brushstrokes

on the portrait of my youth,

a springtime collection of sentiments

that no longer hold their truth.

So I sever the cold roots of winter

painting over the love that they had gripped

and find home in my sunny solitude

and the missing pages torn and ripped.

Soon

Surreptitious little ripples spread animus in my mind,

but art ameliorates that sour state.

48:39 to combat those dilapidated disorganised plans,

accompanying acerbic print on off-white

which resembles that resentment to empty words with its flowered obtuseness.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter;

Loveless.

I'm done.

Sleeping Away the Dreaming

Lurid, lucid landscapes in luminous zest and zeal

where majestic magenta melts into the black and gloaming teal,

but materiality could never match this mirage of an ideal

so I bring my body to bed, where everything is real.

Seasons Swept Aside

The first leaves have fallen on my dusty careworn drive;
a forlorn foliage graveyard of deciduous death.
Indubitably forsaken from arduous ceaseless use
but not pity peppered in it's plight.
It instead houses those haggard hirelings of the harvest Moon—
like the branches across who had embraced those leaves
and sheltered my drying drive from the ascendant summer Sun-
a favour reciprocated through their ceaseless tacit pact.

I've watched the seasons stake their claim
on that stoic horse-chestnut across the road,
but none could conquer nor truly compliment its colour.
And sweeping the first leaves from my dusty careworn drive,
I discern how drastic the difference appears from mere months ago,
but I can admire how subtly small the seasons shifts really really are
when observed at a distance.
Colour will rekindle.

A Sunrise Stroll

Dew-kissed toes

in permeable plimsolls

as morning's coffee breath

collides against my neck.

The wrens cheerfully chirp

to my trudge through leaves to work,

a bracing halcyon blush;

I embrace my morning rush.

A Step in the Right Direction

The moon's bleach illuminates ultra-violet freckles
on your exposed shoulder-blades
as your furrowed frown searches for meaning
in the leafy silhouette of your frame.
You step into the forest's mouth and the silver halo,
which had orbited your crown, falls and fades
and with the bleaches kiss, restless thoughts are cleansed,
all wild and rash becomes tame.

Obscure Junctions

Spanners can so swift and suddenly spring;

the coils of life leap like a jack in the box.

We cannot say what the next day will bring

so we cannot be prepared for life's shocks.

The fog on the path obscures the cliff top

but we have no choice but to walk blindly,

hoping our feet don't reach the sudden drop

and, if they do, the fall treats us kindly.

We should not become bitter about the road

for it too leads us to places of joy.

This route can take us to places so broad

so we should walk; and both rise and fall enjoy.

The twists of this network can lead us dazed

so open your mind and become amazed.

Bed

Over-eager summer nights

strip me naked drenched in sweat.

The window is no escape

nor her hazy cigarette.

Autumn evening's welcome sigh,

a brisk breath against my bed.

Her acclimatising bliss

soon brings warmth to where I'm led.

Yet winter's kiss is far too cold

which lingers along my back.

Her sheets shake my shivering spine,

living in sincerity's lack.

Truth is, I can't blame the seasons

for the discomfort night brings.

It's the lonely side of the bed

which brings the coldest of my stings.

Mr. Meldrew, I Feel You...

"Technology has sunk society",

typed tempestuously to the network of inattentive eyes.

Spouting the same old stale jokes shared and restated;

quipped with my continual complaints—

I'm every bit as bad.

Beyond the Beacon

Azure hammocks of cotton strings

suspend premature rains,

celestial lenses of passionate gas

hug tendrils connected to torrential reins.

Precipitous pride in the catbird seat,

humbles and crumbles to chalices below.

Necessity calls upon deliverance,

for life's elixir, has no life of its own to know.

Flight from the Fly

The devil is at my window.

Six legs latched onto glass.

His hexagonal eyes disinterested.

I freeze and wait for him to pass.

His crooked smile twists my way.

I look fearfully to the floor.

He stretches a bony finger and beckons.

A signal that I can't ignore.

It's become clear that I'm found.

I have no faith to hide.

How could I possibly use the shadows
when the darkness is his guide?

So I take a shaky step full of shame
and climb onto his sebaceous back,
feel his wings flutter against my heart aflutter,
almost praying for an attack.

But when I open my screwed-up eyes

I see that I'm falling through the air.

I'm paralised completely,

death has answered my prayer.

Crossing the Storm

Passing the threshold of the storm

on the road to staying dry.

As the clouds slunked off over my head

I exhaled a thunderous sigh.

I was headed firmly north

whilst the gloom swallowed the south.

Looking the storm in the eye

I ripped the sharp teeth out of his mouth.

But now that I have got here

I just want to waste my time and roam

because I know that if I return

he'll be waiting for when I get home.

Lull

I collected no comfort from these cold keys

in the brightest months of bloom,

but my own flowers came into fruition

in the meager greying gloom.

The paper seemed to absorb raindrops

and break apart with such clarity

which the computer could not evoke

nor offer the same sincerity.

My walking boots had been collecting dirt

whilst my writing pen was collecting dust

and when the conditions turned for the worse

I peeled away the clay-like crust.

Damp air imbrues my curly hair--

through my scalp, soaking my skull;

and only when the summer's passed

do I feel the skies clear calming lull.