Totality in flux.

As you lay there,
peaceful,
I saw you smile;
the vestigial features
of your sorrow
become dust under
the weight of your happiness.

A wandering insomniac
has been put to bed
and sleeps
like an age –

in waiting of new growth.

No more dumbing down,
you lift your arms
like mountains;
swing your legs like hillocks,
with all the power of day:

you’re no longer
living vicariously
through bleached feelings.

Your head is risen
like mountain dough
necking through clouds;
you survey,
and you realise
that you are the essence
of what is:

a towering giant
of average height
and sound proportion –
creation
breathing creation;

colour erupting
in violent death;
the essence of the universe
experiencing itself;
an endless work in progress –

even in death do we dance
(along well-trod roads,
imprinted with myriad footsteps,
to the beat of the ages).

Being.

Growing
into my shape,
my shell,
day by day.
I just hope I don’t crack.

Whatever I am,
I am.
Whatever I’ll be,
I’ll be;

a being
not torn apart by being.
Feeling degrees of being –
letting each breathe.

A smile punctuates my face;
try to bleed doubt,
suffocate regret –
bury it deep
and walk without trepidation.

Guitar.

I've not played my guitar
for weeks now
and I'm seeing sweat beads,
as if picking it up
it'd seem

foreign to me,
like an old friend
cast in a new light.
But old friends
are old friends
and this old friend
sings so sweetly;

the flavour never goes -
hits me in the back of
the throat
like candied thunder.

When I pick you up,
what satisfaction.

Rotten brain.

Shut up,
speak up,
you rotten piece
of whatever
under my command.

Body affects you,
diet afflicts you -
or empowers you.
Stutters
and mis-starts.

Oops!
Did I say that?
Correction:

remember to correct in future
with self-correcting fluid.
Your correction systems
and self-preservation sub-routines
are running on empty.

Bouquet.

A bouquet of flowers:
colours screaming for attention.
Scents complementing each other;
nonsense.

Each flower
slowly dying
in
the presence
of another,

they fall apart,
petal by petal,
in slow time.

Standing tall,
jutting out,
strutting;
scents turn
putred.

Beautiful in life,
beautiful in death,
beautiful as they linger
in between,
slowly losing their essence
to closed eyes

until the stink gets too much.

Take it to another level, baby.

My love for you goes beyond
the male form:
you liberate me.
The expression of our love: physical.
I felt this way before now;
I still do.

Talk of sex preference
serves to cheapen our love:
it's not what genitalia the
other possesses;
it's love -
pure and simple.

Fumbled embraces,
sensual words with butterfly wings.
You elevate me.
With great levity,
you open me to new horizons.

With fiery tongues, fiery eyes,
we bridge the gap between us.
No carnal pleasures do we indulge in.

I use my hands to use my heart;
use my lips to plumb the depths 
of the endless ocean within you.

It's not a case of gay or straight.
Love is not bound by preference
or prejudice.

With every second, quell the hurt;
boost the transcendence.

We dive into each other,
and get lost somewhere inside.

Your love.

I'll prostrate myself,

degrade myself,

for you,

and your love.

I'll defile myself,

beguile myself,

to have

your love.

I'll be your serf -

your personal slave;

your chattel,

and your dirty knave.

I will

bend over,

but I know

you don't want that;

it's what I'm 

led to believe -

these spineless love songs

pour all over me.

I want you.

Your eyes
and your biting tongue;
will I ever see you?

Your layers don't show;
let me take them apart
like watered wafers.

I don't know what's
going on with you;
end up pining over you,
writing pop lyrics.

I can't engage you,
though I really want to.
I want to open up to you
without fear that I might enamour
my organs with a sheen.

We talk plastic,
and think plastic -
but we want to act
plastically.

The thing is always easier
to label,
but where are the schematics?

I want to drive you.
I want to kiss you.
I want to feed off of you.
I want you.

Need.

I don't need fables
to justify my existence.

For once,
the Earth rises and sets;
instead of the Sun.

I look outside my species,
and outside my being.

Before one can grow,
one must know oneself.

I look beyond the familiar
into mists full of arcane things.

What was once rusted
becomes gold-tipped;

what was once tasteless
develops myriad flavour.

I don't need anything,
but it'd be nice to have your love.

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.