This Is Us

A fine dust blows round at my feet
and slowly circles round to meet
a crumpled paper frayed to bones
that lives its life upon the streets.

A cocky man grim leers at me
and laughs as I shift up to meet
his wrinked mug and beer-stained breath
that I scrounge my memories to delete.

A pint of piss costs less than bread.
I'll pour the liquid on my head
and dance like I don't have a job,
then pull my mate, she's just as dead.

A grand old town, its folk shut up,
its affect flowing from a cup
of grandiose haught and pride of show
that's lost in piles of junk and muck.

See all the skanks line round the wall
to bust their chops in Satan's hall.
Their lads surround a mate of theirs
to slay his corpse and bear his pall.

A pint of piss costs less than bread
so pour the liquid on your head
and dance like you don't have a job
then puke up blood that Jesus bled.

You pass a homeless man outside
who shakes his head as you start to slide
upon the slabs that spit and sperm
choose, over dustbins, to reside.

And when you finally get home,
where covers drape your weary bones,
you'll laugh and howl about that time
some tit was dancing on his own.

A pint of piss costs less than bread
so pour the liquid on your head
and dance like you don't have a job
then go to work, pretend you're dead.

Meh

Wake up. OK, time to go.
A coffee, laced with amphetamines,
weed-killers, crop-killers,
money, whip-crack and rape.
A bowl of cornflakes,
concocted with cardboard.
Every flake looks the same
as I ladle them in.
Spoon after spoon.
Slurp after slurp.
I brush off the drips
and I cough
and I burp.

Wake up. OK, time to go.
A quick splash shower
in a grime-ground tub.
Lukewater warm dribbles drip on my head.
I grope for the soap.
A fluorescent nightmare.
Squeezed from the arse of Mr Tesco's
chained-up, holed-up,
radioactive soap monster.
I brush off. Towel down.

Wake up. OK, time to go.
A fat man gets on the bus before me.
Coin slinks in the coin slot.
He's so fat, I don't know why.
I stare at his fatness
for a little look longer.
Read the rag.
Glance at the fat man.
Think about the receptionist.
Think about the secretary.
Get off the motor.
Revolving work doors.
Spinning. Loping. Again.

You're My Pride and Joy, etc

The sleeve, it fell down,
and the record did spin
and the teenager bounced to her bed once again.
The rattle of beads.
The sun through the glass.
The RPM RPM forever farce.

A ray through the clouds
to the newest of hearts.
A ray from a tower, projecting the arts.
Spiralling bliss
not made to forget.
Beautiful, bright, bold and bad pirouette.

Fornicate to me,
a thin plastic sheet,
all rattled with grooves and all laid out all neat.
The sleeve, it fell down,
and the record did spin
and the teenager bounced to her bed once again.

Dreamscape II

By the sad twisting strings of some glowing sky beams
a boy pilots his craft through a delta of streams.
He weaves a small rudder between select waves,
and sends handfuls of stones to their silvery graves.
Looking down to the bed, he glimpses sand sift,
a darting of shadows, a mellowy shift.
The green yellow waters make fine patterns of gold
and whatever moved hides behind boulders of bold.

His curious nature leans his head overboard
and fast playful crests lick their childish lord.
Small simple fingers dip down to the flow -
the waters push past them to where waters go -
his palms follow suit, and his elbows and arms,
and he strains half his body to the coral so calm.
He fishes around for an object to mold,
and his hands wrap around a peculiar hold.

It wriggles around, and it tries to escape
from the powerful claws that are wrenching its shape.
But its master has won and the surface awaits:
the boy's face is rippled by the waves it creates.
He brings the small monster right up to his eyes -
it twists to the babble to say its goodbyes -
but benevolent forces look down on the thing
and the boy hurls the creature back into the spring.

Fifth Floor Visions

Circling doves above the boughs.
I look again, a second glance.
The spinning wings belong to gulls.
Spiralling down to dying trees
on fading breaths of dwindling eddies.

They perch there on the twigs
and weigh them down and strip their leaves
to use them in their giant nests.
Three call to me in ancient tongues
and mock the rabbits in the brush.

They scare me,
make no sense at all.
I run to scatter
with my cries.
They fly to sea,
float on the waves,
and follow swell
like little buoys.

The Laerdav Verses

So we arrive - the cold air greets us.
It washes over our hears and cools the space
behind us. Ruffles our hair.
For we are there.

The crystalline palace, built up by the people,
to worship their gods and honour
their masters: the crowned ones.
Worship the suns.

We share a fire to warm up the night
We cannot sleep under strange stars.
Sunlight in jars.
Weary, so far
on this faceted shard.

Ambassadors greet us, their faces welcoming,
but hiding their reasons. Sheltering us
they keep us for strange causes.
They ride horses.

And galloping home they tell their families
about us, the travellers. The vagrants
of Earth. The cosmic homeless.
Cold air caress.

We share a fire to warm up the night
We cannot sleep under strange stars.
Sunlight in jars.
Weary, so far
on this faceted shard.

We have alien faces
and skeleton bodies.
Unfamiliar to those
who greet us on this
new planet.
And I remember my wife
and the day I arrived.

-------

I've not thought about space for a while. The idea that civilizations exist elsewhere in the universe is so beautifully compelling to me that I have to acknowledge it. Who are they? What are they? Will we ever visit them? Time will let us know.

Opportunity Knocked

Squeezed by forces hidden,
tapped by fingers frozen,
degraded on the floor
sits my wooden reeded organ.
Glancing on the keys
and peering at the black ones
I collect my thoughts and
write upon the staves.

I remember back tonight
when the coloured minds took flight
and a mesmerising murmur
wrought its songs upon the world.
The fanciful forgotten
and the trodden down and rotten
were remembered by
the voice that sang to me.

Contemporary visions
and photographs of paintings
and intertwining harmonies
were weaved into a basket.
Placed inside were records, dreams
and pent up thoughts and memories
and my blank turquoise t-shirt
and my little wooden organ.

Amniosentience

i. The Escape

Asleep. Awake. I feel the clay.
The mud around my face: the choke.
The glue, the cloy. Holding. Asleep.
Awake, the mud still there. I’m held.
I see the black: it’s all around.
I try to look beyond the deep.
I dive. I delve. I reach. I search.
I see a bright, a hue, a light.
I grab and take a hold of this,
this new below, this new around.
Asleep. Awake. I search again.
Again I take my blinded hold.
I pull. I pull and now it’s here.
The light is in my face. I see.
Asleep. Awake. The dirt slides off.
I observe. I observe. The pink.

New things

I encourage you to enjoy the picture, then read the poem. I think they work well together.


The Daughter

She was all that
the simple man kept
close to his heart.
For material goods
rot and are stolen.

Her soul will live.
Her soul will glide,
her soul will be a songstress
to his sinking visage.

He lays on his bed.
For breathing is hard.
Weeds lie in the fields.

She bends to his face
and kisses his eyes.
Her soft, warm lips
bring life to his body
for golden moments
then he glimpses her countenance,
and drifts from this plane.