Lets Be Friends

Green ants in formation, charming everyone of them,
They're tickling each other and laughing at the oddities
That the sunshine casts on the trees and the earth
And the beaks of the birds who are whistling over head.
Long ago the birds and the ants reconciled their differences
And the murder stopped as quickly as the wind sweeps up the leaves.
The nest was a great cave inside a tree trunk
With infinite tunnels going in all directions, even up.
In the middle at there was an alter on which sat
An exhaustive library of recipe books with countless
Recipes for twig broth and earthworm goulash.
Delish! Occasionally a blue bird'll force its way in,
Thrashing about and disturb the order of the books,
But inevitably he'll calm down and exit apologetically.
These things cant be helped.


Inside your smile are a hundred future memories we are yet to make.

Between the Words

Dear Stranger,

        I've been sitting in the library a lot recently. The old wooden tables, the marble floors and big brass door knobs fill me with a sense of nostalgia, for someone else's past. They encourage ideas to float down out of the huge domed roof and settle on my shoulders, they conjure fake memories, as if I were a person who had sat in those chairs with a distinct purpose, scribbling away compulsively, consuming the content of the most specific books in the most detailed minutia. I remember the smirk creeping into my face at finding out new, surprising, guiding facts and the square shape of my index finger from writing for so long. Those are most definitely fake memories. I have no paper to finish, no project to research, but I do seek something, the same thing all the great writers sought, who's works fill the shelves around me in this majestic room. I seek an answer to this mortal condition, this need to stimulate my mind. It does fill me with a slight sense of contentment to know that I am surrounded by the thoughts and discoveries of so many of our greatest minds, to know that although I do not possess an answer, there is one very close to me, in a book perhaps only ten feet away, perhaps within grasping distance, it's just up to me to pick up the right book. Sometimes it's enough to sit in the middle of the room and breathe deeply in the knowledge that the air circulating in this room has brushed up against so many works of genius and enlightenment.

          I met a beautiful girl recently, she has a voice of experience. She really stares at me when I speak to her much in the same way that I stare at people, thinking perhaps that an unplanned and fleeting expression might give away more of someone's truth that they intended or more truth than they know they possess. I imagined myself with this girl, how might she change me?  Might she elevate my soul like the songs of Patti Smith? Might she haunt me they way that Dostoevsky haunts me, changing the shape and colour of the corridors of my life? Might she put me at ease and sooth me like Walt Whitman? Or might she confound me like T.S. Eliot? I imagined my hand on the back of her neck and my lips at her ear. Her piercing look disarmed me and therein lies my attraction; with just her eyes she negated the need for small talk and I believe that is some sort of answer, to be disarmed is to tell the truth.

          Perhaps I could be better served by finding this girl in books? I could have the language of experience but none of the pain. But no, I shouldn't like to cheat and I find suffering becomes me, it dusts away the ambiguities of my life and forces me on a new path. Besides there are discoveries to be made in the closeness of flesh that can only be comprehended by the individual and never fully put into words.

        

                      As Ever,

                         Stranger

A Few Steps Away

You are FUCKING CRAZY

With your acid temper and that unpredictable

Grounding fist. I peel away the layers of

Unconsidered retorts from your blackened lips

Still no Answer. nudged the table so

Fast I spilled my tea and ruined my book,

Your eyes flared and I knew you wanted to scream and

Erupt with confusion and longing.

Your face feels so aged beneath my palm

Your eyelids stretch open and you tense up

and down until you have to stand and leave the room.

The leaves outside in the wind hold your gaze

For as long as you can see them

And again you grind your teeth.

The Bastards! They have you again, locked into a battle

with your wits your memory your knowledge your fear and your hope.

Ocean rides before you and you wade in and 

Stamp your feet into the sand, wish it were concrete,

Water awakens taste in your mouth, repulsion, emersion fills your finger tips,

unholy thoughts. Compulsion to join the great force of the waves

As they batter angrily for all eternity into the rock face,

Chipping away - murderer of the lands.

I see the sea air brush your ankles as you emerge haphazardly from the tide

No element seems to envelop you wholly.

You take my hand. You hold me close and I feel loss and foreboding.

That time exists, that the next moment is a gift seems forgotten.

Later you make me laugh most indulgently,

You inspire passion in one sitting close and one standing far away,

Your body moves majestically whimsically through the pub and

I can't keep from staring at you, like you might disappear at any minute and

I wonder is that your intention or your condition or is it just me cause I've been

drinking too much. Face that I want to sleep against.

I watch you grab at the flesh of another, caressing and biting at ears and lips

And neck, dark sodden breath in the air. I hear your lament echoing.

When there is a power cut later at home, the four of us get up, and rush around

Pretty much just from the excitement of lighting candles

And the thought of blackout sex and adventure. You stay quite still.

Unexpected dark quite plainly assailing your evening, evenings.

Table lamp flickers on suddenly and a grey air dispels from around your eyes

You hold my gaze and I know I'll always see you teeter on the verge of something

Other than me. Torsos rub together and you'll be close for as long as I can hold you.

And when after comes my imagination will brake down in time with me.

Up

Rising with a sharp red rock rhythm,
The stoic circles enclose on the rear
And make pointed the atmosphere
So that separation from the earth
May be resolutely facilitated.
Parting be as the aged magnetic repellers;
Steady and thoughtful of consequence,
Forever mindful of a great day in the sun.

Song

You are so beautiful behind that painted veil,

Behind that canvas that I perfect the most tragic scenes of my life.

I often wonder of the atmosphere in such an enclosed space,

Thinking of the stunted beauty hiding her scent of poetry

In Such a muddy ditch.

Wounds so sickly sweet now inconsolable by exchange or cackle,

Surely must always remain untended, un-nursed.

When titillation is a fools errand,

And the truth is a deafening scream in the night,

You must always be the reflector of my melancholy drip.

Tightly will my imagination wrap you.

Softly will my senses keep you.

Forever will my soul miss you.

Goodbye will my lips never shape.

Continued

Dissatisfaction curdles in the stomach;
Arrogant about your ignorance. Poor fool.
But who smells like vomit?

Not Now

Footfall of a polite mallow echoes in your vicinity.
Intention does not match those expressions
Which pain the face and crack the lips
And inspire nothing in the subject
But trepidation, uncertainty.
The situation becomes alarming by decree of fallacy;
An inability to express reason or distillation of thought.
And further to the confusion, an inappropriate chuckle
Destabilizes an already an already shaky bond.
Teeth remain hidden, perhaps hiding.
Still that laugh has disturbed the air
And will serve to dilute the longing for ease.

Imaginary You

I can't comprehend the space between us;
What was once fluid and safe
Now scars my smile and my heart.
The jester of imagination fools the memory
For fleeting, stolen moments
When a hiding place is all that consoles.
Pride is an indulgence which my mood makes mockery of,
Darting eyes never settle for longer than an instant,
Warmth I knew so well, such sweet peace,
Alludes the most crowded rooms.
Time loops around my eyes, weighing down those tears
That must now rejoin the earth.
Soon this circle must complete.