Economics.

The Earth is finite;

economic models are

built on the idea

of exponential growth.

You want it all - 

you think you can have it all.

Well, you can't.

We're merely motes of dust,

afloat in a great colourful,

violent wind -

water skippers on 

a vast sea of reeds.

6 billion, and growing every day. 

6 billion, and growing every day.

6 billion, and growing every day.

So much love;

so much hate.

So much trust;

so much mistrust.

They feed into each other

like an eternal serpent.

And so tumbling

will come economies

into seas of debt,

and oceans of starvation.

Sorrow.

When will you learn, children?

When?

People think they're 

welcome

in God's kingdom,

but God's kingdom

is full of nought

but dust.

The Earth has been loaned out

to a most forgetful

card-holder,

and the odds are stacked

against us.

Love is the skeleton key

to all our hearts.

Gently does it;

go with ease.

Kisses blown 

into the wind eternal.

Old man.

What happened 
to the hopefulness of my youth?

Has it sunk to the
bottom of the ocean
within my heart?

Does it lie there cold?

Sometimes, I cry,
but then I don't know why,
because the world's still
so full of beauty.

Inspiration.

Sitting here

with nothing to do

and nothing to see,

I long for inspiration.

It comes from the most unexpected places.

Sitting sedentary,

the fat starts to appear;

ripples start to ripple.

Rain pitter-patters in gentle tones

upon the pane of glass

shielding me from the outside

coldness -

an artificial barrier.

Sitting here -

with nothing to think,

no feelings to drink,

no vessel to bear -

I pore idly through thoughts;

sometimes they make sense,

as if I'm addressing another.

Mostly, they're just pausitive glimmers

of the glory that could be

if only I'd open my ears;

if only I'd open my mouth.

I find something to do,

then something else.

I find something of interest,

and then it goes,

only to re-appear much later on

because of some reference in passing.

I look for inspiration,

but it doesn't find me.

And then suddenly something

comes to me.

A-ha!

North Korea.

Smile,
or else they
might see you.

Subterfuge and
mind-control
and propaganda
and minds in vices.

The disabled are
torn from the wombs.
Where do they go?
It seems they see death.

Death camps,
and work camps,
and a 'Glorious Leader'.

You will be arrested
if you show dissent.

Big brother is watching you;
he's auditing your mind:
thought benevolent in this case
because of lies upon lies.

A demi-god
(a demagogue),
his father saved your country
from US repression.
(Or so you've been told.)

Malnourished,
and frightened -
for no sensible reason
that your minds
can fathom.

Smile,
or else they
might see you.

You are not the stuff of which you are made.

Every atom that was

ever present

in your

seven-year-old self

is no longer inside you;

matter flows,

plants grow:

waste is shed

into plant bed.

'That was me,' you say

as you look at an

image of

your child self.

That was never you

and never again will

a child

bear those same atoms.

You are merely

an embellished version

of an earlier 

flavour of you,

containing different atoms;

and a different-structured brain

that changes every minute -

yet you're much like everyone else.

The universe is

more queer

than one might ever imagine,

and it's 

beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Who will you be?

Spilled from the womb,

where will you wander?

Where will you go?

Who will you be?

Will you run rampant

or pass in peace?

Will you leave the world in ruins

or make ruins a thing of the past?

Will you be full 

of great music?

Will you die

wearing a smile,

enshrined in dignity?

Will you fall from a great height?

Will you be brought down gently?

Sourced from the earth,

spilled from the womb;

where will you go?

Will you be interred

or released as unrecognisable ash?

Carbon, and phosphorus, and calcium

and a hint of iron and other trace elements.

Will you live as a king

and roam the Earth freely?

Or will you kneel to kings

and squander it all in fear?

I don't know what you are.
All the elements that make you
cost no more than a few pounds in their proportions.
But the universe entire is inside you -
inside your eyes.
Do you see the light in mine, too?

Where will you go?

Where will you roam?

Who will you be?

Now do you see?

When your eyes first opened
they saw a fuzziness.
When they eventually close,
it might be the same story.

You're not perfect,
but you're not imperfect.
You're not worthless,
but you're not a thing of infinite beauty.
You are whatever you want to be.
You can be all that you desire
if you dream
but don't succumb to illusion.

Spilled from the womb,

where will you wander?

Where will you go?

Who will you be?

Dedicated to Terry Pratchett and the marvelous speech he gave on assisted death on February 2nd.

No name #1.

You're so half-arsed

with your half-rhymes;

why can't you be like Wordsworth

half the time?

Consistency is made

through being consistent,

my boy.

Your hackneyed phrases

and your leant-on words

do you no favours,

but neither does using

the unfamiliar.

You misread,

so you mis-write;

wake up!

You're losing sight.

How can something so familiar

become so alien

with time?

You start

and soon don't know when to stop.

The clock won't do you any favours.

You begin to tire of this train of thought;

to use a metaphor:

its wheels are shaking with loose bolts.

Goodnight.

I might write you soon,

poetry.

Goodnight.

P.S. Give my regards to all your

dead brothers and sisters,

and all the ones that will never

receive life,

and all the ones that wait for

well-deserved light.

A breath in the dark.

There might have been a breath.

Who knows?

Out of chaos

comes order,

making more chaos,

for ever.

The simplest origin

leads to the joys

found and seen

in endless repetition;

each new repetition

a new flavour

of something that came before;

only somehow slightly different -

the survival of the fittest

is enancted mostly by individuals

whose eyes are closed to these nuances.

Eyes open briefly:

the inspiration to

overcome fatigue

is often thin;

but I feel that now

I can't close them to the world.

The universe

is self-organised,

and so are we;

and so is all life.

A mirror

inside a mirror

reflects endless

patterns;

life stems from life,

stems from unlife,

stems from chance -

all odds behold a lucky winner

(or winners).

And so we find ourselves

upright and thinking -

at the whims of evolution,

whose outcomes we can never know.

Oh, yes:

the future will be beautiful;

but I cannot say

what it holds.

But I'm sure it holds

endless sonatas,

and many beautiful things

of great majesty.

Let us just hope

that destruction can be avoided;

it will happen.

But great beauty will always come

from the humblest of beginnings;

chaos is both birth and destruction:

chaos is all that will ever be.

So take your chances

whilst you can still take them,

because the chances are

that you might never get to see

rose petals.

Vampires.

Forbade to write about vampires,

you play with yourself under the sheets,

imagining blood to be the sweetest Merlot

with a sweet-dry ensemble.

You cut yourself with a razor,

and pretend it helps you see more clearly;

see what's inside you:

what animates you; all your fears.

You imagine his cold flesh

touching yours;

his lips searching your neck;

his teeth finding the spot.

With a pierce,

your skin cracks.

You realise you've cut yourself again,

and you wonder the fuck why.

Feline.

Curled up in a ball,

your fat, bald stomach shows.

Your expressions are expressionless -

could be pained;

could be hungry;

could be nothing.

Who knows?

But your eyes don't betray you.

You can't smile,

but I know you're happy;

I know you're calm.

You purr,

either trying to calm yourself

or me;

could be both.

Who knows?

I rub your spine

roughly

and you respond

by rolling your eyes back

and shaking your head

like you're having some

peculiar orgasm.

Legs outstretched,

you flex your toes;

your pads - your beans -

aren't as pink

as when you were teeny;

you cover your face as you sleep.

You got a bunch of shit

sticking outta your head;

you've even got whiskers

on the back of your legs;

there's one misplaced one

protruding from your cheek.

You're curled in a little ball;

the cutest thing,

with a broken spirit.

You don't know it's broken,

of course.

When you die,

we might replace you.

Probably not, though.

Who knows?

I bet you sleep so peacefully,

although you probably dream about

slaying field mice

and fleeing from foxes.

You watch your daddy

as he writes his drawn-out

poetry.

You're always hungry!

What are you thinking?

Who knows?

The old sea-farer.

Have you seen my sweet lady?

She's the salt of the earth;

the salt of the sea.

Oh, how I long for old Rosie.

I lost her to the briny deep.

We were sailing out upon the drink,

and wind was riling the brine.

She slipped and she began to sink.

Avast! I sent her 50 feet of line.

Her arm arose from the swell.

It really was the darkest scene.

The choppy water looked like Hell.

I was full of tears; full of spleen.

In a moment, she was gone -

to become a part of ocean song.

I wonder where her bones will lay.

Without her, this galleon seems grey.

I ventured home with my catch.

I let out a throaty 'land ahoy!'

Teary, I reminisced my little girl.

Oh, Rosie was my cabin boy!

How I remember his boyish looks:

his wisp of 'stache and eyes of blue.

All I have of him now is his smile:

my little girl; that boy I knew.

Love.

Love is a morning fog

quickly kicked in the chest

and left to evaporate

in the morning Sun.

It's there for a moment

before unrelenting

reality sets in

and exchanges blouse for sweater;

colour for darker shades.

Love is a feeble dog

with beautiful eyes

and a paling will,

on shaky legs;

still seeking the welcome touch of a

soft hand,

after oft receiving

the business end

of a hard boot.

The truth is,

I don't know what love is.

I thought I saw it

the other day;

turned out to be

just a morning fog,

and the shadow of a feeble dog

passing quickly by my window.