Sea Legs

I gazed as your saliferous hair

slapped upon the sunset rocks

of a sangria sea.

From out of the mist 

my searchlight came

seeking your signal

to close in on the cooling evening.

Yet the waters are too rough,

I am dehydrated

and I have lost my sea legs.

Upkeep

There's a higher thing

in hyacinths

sprinkled on the lawn.

They remind me of

my love for you;

how it threatened to be overgrown.

How the upkeep would

distress the neighbourhood

if not picked and pruned.

Yet my blistered hands

can no longer stand

to aggravate the wound.

A Terrible Death

I fear not

how it would feel to die

but to lack feeling,

yet I'm self aware

that I'm terribly self aware

and so terrible.

Escaping my Sepulchre

Removing the boulder of your body,

I escaped my sepulchre sequestered,

solivagant against the subterfuge

and the sins and ill will that had festered.

Renascent against the apostasy

in animus that made me ascetic,

I cursed not the boulder that had held me

but rather found forgiveness analgetic.

And such reflections found me less reticent;

regret receded with ruminations

'til I found the ataraxic axiom;

I was thankful for your testing creations

This realisation rendered me removed

from a sorry world that had never improved.

Shower

A jet of afflatus

in my epicurean contemplation of life

as I compose poetry in the shower,

trying to get the perfect balance

of hot and cold,

my fingers webbing from staying in

one spot for too long.

My memory of the words

is swept away in lachryform beads

by the coarse towel's kiss;

grating against horripilated and

humbled flesh,

lost forever with those ephemeral easing

moments of enlightenment.

Schiamachy

I studied my shadow's sapient subterfuge

as she sequestered in a selenic delight,

somewhere I've never gone, in the dead of the night—

though I wished that I might.

Her swasivious sweven was fleeting and false

as she distracted me from my supine routines,

in a fickle frisson of Freud's wish-fulfilling dreams—

she is not what she seems.

I wonder where tomorrow takes my shadow, and

why can't I too show the silence that she displays,

and if I stray from the sun can I go away—

can I leave with the day?

Her Horticulture

The lifeless tendrils of her faded amaranth abate

in vicissitude of the verdure found within her Spring.

All plucked are her petals, as their douceur dissipates

and left is an unbloomed knosp of a madness enate.

Still those truculent turbid tendrils tangle around my chest

and try to feed on my tacit and altruistic manner.

Internecine and intransigent, I sometimes detest

those sciophilous, shady seeds that ever began her.

I shudder to think of poisons injected by her thorns

or the injury that one would endure from ingestion.

The vesuviation of variegation is forlorn,

revealing the verisimilitude behind beauty's deception.

There's a torpid tabefaction in this tryst of turgid shoots

and I'm wary of tatonnement in the tawdry tangles of Spring.

I will avoid the plants bearing the serpent's ripest fruits

and, like weeds, rip them up from their once roseate roots.

Dinosaurs in School!

A pterodactyl's gliding in the hall,

we're all terrified and trying to sing.

We all really hope that it will not fall

but I spotted some Blu-Tac stuck to its wing.

A T-Rex is terrorising the loo 

and its arms are too short to wash its hands.

I don't know what this carnivore will do;

can it sit on the toilet or does it stand?

A triceratops is catching some hoops

that it found outside with its three horned face.

The teachers are trying to read with groups

but children are running all over the place.

A stegosaurus' plates rattle the office,

letters and envelopes fly everywhere.

It whips its tail and spills all of the coffees

onto the computer, the desk and the chair.

A brachiosaurus is sat crying in class,

rifling through all of the children's trays.

It's trying to find some nice tasty grass

on which this poor hungry herbivore can graze.

And finally we find a diplodocus

sat on the carpet talking to his friends...

suddenly the teachers and children are raucous

Friday's loudest roar as the school day ends!

The Fortitude of Fallen Foliage

Often is winter's arrival mourned

as an icy season of bitter death

but I find it rather a time adorned

with the opportunity for fresh breath.

The solstice is dark and hard to endure

and it represents the pessimist's peak,

but after that those dark days are fewer

and the skies steadily appear less bleak.

So do not mourn the fallen rusted leaf

separated from the embrace of the tree

but rather take solace in the belief

that it will benefit from flying free.

The fallen leaves, once so solemn, stir

from the comforting pick-up in the air.

A Cold and Lonely Embrace

Nothing stirred the

empty flaking seat; -

not even the leaves cast

off of tall pines

dared to take spot from the empty chest

that waited for its missing piece to come.

And so they waited, taking half the bench

and watching the frail hands of the watch tick

steadily ahead to disappointment

and to empty arms resting on cold knees

As the shadows of the trees slowly grew

the face of the watch shined in the sunset,

the hours opening the metal arms

as if to console the teary-eyed soul.

Crying into a Coffee Cup

He gazed at his vacuous visage

in the treacled reflection of black coffee,

as its steadiness is displaced by his laboured breath

from his own brooding reflections.

A gulp goes down, to ease his burning throat

and then another displacement

as the tear weaves from his gossamer lash

into the bullseye of the cup.

In Chase of the Roadrunner

I am the coyote that can fly

but only so long as I think

I am the touching the ground.

I will look down to see

nothing but air

and my predicament will realise

itself.

Wren

A wren springs

from his seeded seat

on to the branchlet,

which wobbles

 from his slight weight.

A wren flutters

his tiny panicked wings,

plummeting to the floor

in stuttering glide

before flying away.

It strikes me how even

the most fragile birds

make errors of judgement.

It strikes me how only humans

let pride prevent us from moving on.

We are the ones who forgot how to fly away.

A Blue Fire

The moonless midnight

is ignited by a spark;

engulfing the dark

and capturing my heart.

But the same heart knows

only sorrows can transpire

from this wild fire

that I've allowed to start.

And yet, although I wince,

I can't convince myself to dowse the flame

nor let it tame,

but only to bask in its heat.

Her name was taken by the wind,

a rescind of that spark

now taken by dark;

the promise of Heaven in wistful retreat.

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.

Wisp in Wonder

The wisp of smoke

dances towards the sky,

reaching from your dying cigarette

that litters your light fingertips

buring into the overcast troposphere,

resigned to the thickening fate

that the once dainty effluvium has.

I wonder if it is envious

of the smoke that is reserved

to be graced by the touch

of your full, fleshy lips

exhaled softly into the overcast troposphere,

dancing elegantly into the dense sky

savouring its farewell kiss.

I realise that whether by lips or fingertips

the smoke's time in your presence

is ephemeral and all smoke

must eventually join the clouds;

if I was that blissfully endowed smoke

my last action would be to hover

a halo around the crown of your hallowed head.

A High Street in December

The middle-aged mother meanders merrily,

marveling at carefully arranged window displays,

taking the stretch of pavement with her

life-long bags full of wrapping paper, socks, wine

and the latest toys advertised on Saturday morning television;

there's even a little something for herself

clutched in her right hand, the handles of that particular bag

now ingraining red lines into her frost kissed skin.

Meanwhile morose men moodily make an attempt

to move past the moderate pace of the myopic mother,

making a play to dart in the road where

there's a window of opportunity to squeeze past,

however the 4x4 vehicle puts a stop to that, the driver

making an awful attempt at parallel parking into a space

which, in honesty, is large enough to fit a whole squadron of sleighs;

the man sighs, glancing at his watch, resigned to the fact his train has gone.

The children in the back of the oversized car squabble

over the song choice on their shared music device,

making no attempt to put it away as their father had asked

although in honesty the father would much rather put on a song himself

which reminds him of when Christmas used to mean something to him;

something that might tear away the tedium of sitting

on a cheap plastic faux-leather sofa in the changing rooms

of a budget fashion chain as he gives as small nod of acknowledgement

to the men who share his plight, tapping their feet as wives desperately search

for the garments that might let them reclaim their youth.

Meanwhile, the beggar attempts to benefit from

the well documented "Christmas Spirit", shaking his twenty pence pieces

in his coffee cup, hoping that the charitable might fund

his next meal as they plan their extended family's feast,

but he doesn't count on their short, impatient temperaments

wanting to endure this annual task as efficiently as possible,

so they pointedly avert his pleading gaze,

looking down at their phones or up to the billboards;

anywhere but into his eyes.

All of the citizens floating along in their own snowflaked bubbles.

Brian Wilson and the Stranger

God Only Knows battles idle chatter,

steamy windows and steamy china cups

as damp raincoats clutter flaking windowsills,

and though he knows that he should focus

on the plot that is being dictated to him

by the seemingly omniscient narrator

he can't help but get drawn into the words

that resonate with his morose soul,

looking blankly at the hot tar

that swirls around in his clammy hands,

avoiding, above all else, those searchlight eyes.

He thinks about the end;

how the year has provided proof that the future

seems almost completely bleak

-though life would still go on believe me-

there is too much malice, egocentrism and hyperbole,

not enough verisimilitude, hope and identity.

Without that glimmer of purpose

that had illuminated his chambers for so long; well...

-what good would livin' do me?-

he'd almost prefer the prospect of uncertainty

than the certain desolation that awaits us all.

He stands up, cutting the chapter short.

Cold to the world, he makes for the door,

resolute in his plunge.

And a stranger holds the door open,

motioning to allow him through.

His icy heart thaws out

and the contempt that had encased his heart melts away

[proof for global warming, Mr. Trump, he thinks bitterly]

as his darkness is replaced by

an intense admiration for the potential of mankind.

-God only knows what I'd be without you-

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.

Pieces of Autumn

A leaf glides on the water,

and ripples disperse around it;

Crossing over one another as the tree's

lachrymose with the lake, dirty halos

crowning these dead pieces of Autumn.

Passing under the bellies of mallards and Canadian geese,

unmoved and uncaring of the water's caress,

they stretched out like wings to whisper against

the nests of reeds and wrappers stood on the banks.

I wonder where my ripples would reach

tonight, if I was to die and leave.

The world would turn no slower

and the sun would shine no darker.

I'll pass under the bellies of ducks

an unheard voice, a disregarded ripple

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.

Baby Teeth

I pray not to be kept

only for sentiment
like milk teeth in a vitamin jar;

distastefully disregarded - but not discarded

high up on a dust sheeted shelf.

I'd have no room for growth

already extracted
and discoloured with age;

an empty keepsake - a cluttered headache

that no nostalgic pill could remedy.

And I pray don't liken my love
to the taste of Calpol,

    sickly saccharine and sweet;

nor that friendly smile - gone for a while

replaced by a bitter tasting scowl.

Instead you should hold on

to what's relevant now

and the teeth that serve you best;

to chew and grind - but never merely to remind

as some torn and toothless trophy.

New Block

Laundry detergent invades the air, 

stifling the petrichor concoction

that collides with the swept leaves

discarded to the cobwebbed corner

where the puddles declare soles out of bounds.

Freshly baked biscuits stake their claim,

packaged neatly with plastic and ribbon 

but they too crumble to the scent

of disintegrating damp wood

burning black and iridescent red.

Smoke rises into the crepuscular sky

and is ushered away by the wind,

the fire crackles on as biscuits are opened

and freshly made beds are disturbed

as childish feet disturb leaf piles under amber glow.

Plunge

The breeze would gladly meet

her hesitant feet

as they cross and reach to the end.

Like great grinning teeth

the waves and rocks greet,

waiting to embrace their new friend.

Her earbuds dangle at her chest

faintly exhaling their best

eulogy for their oldest of friends.

She would feel blessed

to ride on that crest,

but that's not how this song ends.

She would see no hope

in that dangling rope

that offered to pull her to land.

Nor would she cope

with the strain of the grope

or the embarrassment of stretching her hand.

She'd wait for clouds to part,

her favourite song to start,

and then steady her now trembling hands.

Then she would brace her heart

and finally alone, she'd depart

thinking "This is living" as she lands.