Let It Be

One day,

he might be driving you

down some country road,

the kids in the back

joking and screaming,

and you

sitting silently

by his side.

But what if you looked

in the overhead mirror

at their two faces

and saw my eyes

in their skulls,

my hair on their heads,

my smile on their lips?

What if

you were living an illusion,

quite happy in it,

forcibly restrained in

some false self-belief

in an entirely negative

situation?

And what if I

were long gone,

with only the memory

of a slip of a girl,

such spritely wit,

writ with such self-defeat;

such a turn of phrase,

such a jagged grace?

I would not put you in a paddock

or bind you in the dock:

I’d only remember the girl

with the flame in her heart,

the fierce flame of life –

not just the fierce flame of art.

If you were to turn to me

and smile, put your hand in mine,

the breeze would guide us,

the sun would shine a path;

our hearts would be the rhythm

to which our lives played out.

So let me festoon you

with the merits you deserve;

let me be the man

moulded by the woman,

at your side; let me be

the one to let the horses out,

free, never to corral them again,

but see them dance at sundown

atop a meadowed hill,

as the sun carves their silhouettes

in the dust-excited air,

knowing they’ll find their way back home;
knowing they never had a choice.

Fast Food Poetry

To you,

poetry is nothing 

but fast food.

First of all, you have the sesame bun:

a soft cushioning for a way in

to something of little consequence:

something not to shake the shabbily glued

illusion of that brittle world of yours.

Next, the salad:

the crunch of fresh, moist lettuce;

a burst of tomato juice,

the crisp tartness of a pickle

as your teeth turn the bun

into sogent carbohydrate gum.

Most importantly, here comes

the meat of the matter: thick

and juicy, but really thin;

thin as the veneer of your smile;

smoked as a done cigarette.

A squirt of sauce:

the sweet and sour of ketchup,

the watery heat of mustard,

combined into a sickly treat, to sit upon

a thin ooze of cheese

that in turn graces the toasted bottom

of the other half of bun, which closes

this micro meal, this little nutritious nugget,

into an easily digestible commodity:

something you can start at one train station

and have done with by the next,

as the world passes you by

and you in turn pass by it.

But to break this artifice for a second,

dispose of what has come before, like

paper wrapping, as it were,

what am I in all of this? Am I the cow?

Have I made myself succulent with words

just so that you can devour me,

and take my rich flesh for granted?

Would you like the real thing now, perhaps?

A porterhouse steak with a baked potato,

a fried tomato and gravy?

Well fuck you: eat this instead.

Joy

Some people call me crazy:

I'm not a stony-faced misery.

Just because I'm happy.

I tried joy on for size;

it fit too big. I thought,

Why not wear it?

It's because I feel the music.

I know my blood is ephemeral.

So I start a riot

in the middle of a funeral.

When I laugh

my lips don't just move.

And when I dance

I am the groove.

I'm climbing up the walls,

but I'm tethered by a rope:

hope. Only hope.

That meagrest of threads

tied on to a life. Like a wedding band,

knotted to a wife.

Some people call me crazy,

but can you blame me? I see;

O! I see! Up here it's not hazy.

On the Foundation of a Relation-House

I do not want a relationship:
one that floats on ocean waves.
I would not want to give the slip, and sink
to some deep-blue watery grave.

I'd rather have a relation-house:
one to move on a flatbed truck,
and take it with me north or south,
to wherever love inclined its luck.

I'm not abashed at making words:
I'll peg them down with my heart's hammer.
And if that says to you 'absurd'
then maybe I speak a different grammar.

I rove the land in my celestial ship,
I soar the sky in my love-spun orb.
And I do not want a relationship:
I want the land, and I want the core.

Stiff

Stiff upper lip,

Stiff dancing,
Stiff rigor mortis;

There's more to being English
Than looking grim as a tortoise.

Country day-tripper,
Pub-goer - forever chancing.
Being loose in the bedroom,
Loose on the floor.

Those who came before us
Stiffened in love, left the rising
To the pudding - put the coldness
In the glove.

Stiff dreams,
Stiff politics;
All damage and coyness;

There's more to being English
Than living thoughtless and joyless.

There's more than fusty living rooms
Full of long-dead conversation,
And sterile-white lounges
Full of the TV's static vibration.

Whatever happened to the Eccentric,
The Romantic - the Madman?
Sod all your mores and ideals:
I'll be myself; I'll be a glad man.

Loose lipped, silver-tongued,
Loose moved and free;
Only stiffened in death's cast.

There's more to life than worry,
for what will be will be.

There's more to being English

Than resignation to the past;
There's so much more to being English:

Hands, and lips, and hearts.

In the Ocean

Sometimes, life seems 

like a dredger: 

we are pulled along 

by unseen forces, 

bickering amongst ourselves 

as we squabble and fight, and 

all the while the boat 

still chugs along. 

We are the fish at the top of the net, 

struggling for breath 

and daylight. 

Below us are those who do not stand a chance 

but still fight on. And below them 

are long dead and 

suffocated creatures.

And left behind 

in all of this 

is a seabed 

left decimated 

and debauched.

But life does not have to be like this: 

it will only ever be like this 

if we carry on seeing ourselves 

as the fish. 

Some want to be one of those men on the boat;

I just want to be the ocean,

pulling in and out

with the billow and blow of the wind,

the hug and release of the moon,

the gulp and the scallop

of the gulls and the land;

as waves form, and break, to their own tune,

and the world cups us briefly in its old, loving hands.

Scar

I trace the scar on your

knee, that was made

when you were eight;

when you fell

from the apple tree

in your back garden.

I touch it gently,

the skin pale, and

silky, sensitive still;

I want to eat your scars,

peel them off like communion wafer,

let them melt on my tongue;

chew you up and spit

you out, smooth and clean

like a polished stone.

But you are you:

scarred and whole.

The stars stare down

enviously upon you.

Now crown my firmament:

let me take you home.

Breath

My heart was an ember

          and you blew on it;

took out your blade

          and carved 'true' on it.

You blew on my fire

          with a faraway wind;

it took for ever to come,

          but time does magic.

Now, as I unwind,

          I wonder, will it stop?

But no: this fire is strong;

          this last act is long: not tragic.

         

All sonnets must end

          with a rhyming couplet,

but when I look at your form

          I see formless -

So fuck it.

In the Deep

We were out there in the water

swimming in the deep,

seeing things as they were living.

But where were you

whilst we were swimming?

Were you sitting on the beach?

Whilst we were out there,

swimming: swimming

in the deep.

The phosphorescent blooms

of coral were steep,

as the ocean fell away,

down into the deep.

And where were you

whilst we were swimming,

swimming in the deep?

Were you

in the mountains?

Were you tending

to your sheep?

O! but the things we saw

when we were out there,

swimming in the deep!

Things we could not tell -

things we could not keep.

But where were you

whilst we were swimming?

Were you sitting

on the beach?

Lyrical (untitled)

You consume art
Like a man consuming chicken hearts,

But what's left in your heart
In that afterdark,
When the taste has melted away?

Sensation goes the way
of sensation:
It greys,
Leaving you craving something

Meatier
Far richer,
A treat for yer
To cloak your hurt.

You been craving.

That material
so-real-to-you

craving.

On Christmas Day

He entered the wide-open doors,

open as the arms of God, or

the Mother Superior.

The spires were obnoxious

as the ribbed horns of Satan,

taller than mountains of Gold.

In his rags, he entered this temple,

hungry for a meal, asking

for some small sparing charity,

but those inside turned a blind eye,

the filth and squalor of poverty

something putrid - alien - to them,

as they went about their silent squirming

before God: their, 'I beseech thine grace

and forgiveness; O, Lord! I am couched in sin.'

This man could have been anyone

on Christmas Day: the son of God -

not just some soul to be saved.

                        ***

The babe was born on Christmas Day,

loosed through the doors of

the Heavenly Mother, only

this mother was nineteen and homeless:

Latino, black, white, Chinese - who cares?

All her life she's been climbing stairs.

She hid her swollen stomach well

beneath loose-fitting clothes, the folks

at the soup kitchen had given double helpings.

And now, in the Shelter, in her very own room,

on a bed that is not hers, in the candle-split

gloom, the wonder of God begins to stir

and from somewhere deep inside of her,

her baby decides it's time to join

this world so ruled by crown and coin;

and this baby could be anyone

on Christmas Day: the son of God,

his blue eyes marbled like the Milky Way.

                                 ***

I am walking now down some wide street

and on both sides tramp myriad feet:

so many faces under the sun,

colours and voices all merge into one.

Before me a young man who sells his body

for money, whose name was once David

but now is Honey. And a man in a turban

passes me by: some Muslim man with

a tear in his eye. And down the street

is a man filled with hate, because that's all

that ever filled his plate. And driving by,

a man with no hope, who counts the days

in yards of rope. And above me in

some tenement room, a young woman

putting on the night's perfume.

But they are all the Children of God.

I am no different: we are all one. And so

I sleep on the streets; I am born every day,
Only to remind you you're holy: light the way.

Arrival

I remember the first time

I ever figured out

that coldness

is merely the absence of heat.

I was seventeen.

Now, I have realised

that flesh consumed

is but tarted up murder.

That blame

is but a lack of responsibility.

That anger directed outwards

comes from an inward source.

That biting the tongue

in turn bites down 

on the serpent inside.

And now, I am twenty-four,

and I realise that darkness 

is merely the absence of light.

But light is far hungrier, far more exact,
than the jawless maw of toothless night.

Autumn is on Fire

Autumn is on fire
and now the trees
burn with a slow radiance
crackling like the leaves
of the sun, 

spilling open
like lava nectar
from the core
of an orange,
the wind spiced with bark 
and quiet.

Autumn is on fire
raging against winter's quench.
The paths and endless rows
of park benches, the old
clad walls, the towering

bastions of hills,
the ancient forests on fire,
burning without flame.
A fire swaying, stationary,
curling branches like tongues,
whispering your name.

Autumn is on fire
within you, burning the year
before your renew.

Winter Moon (Three Voices)

Underneath the winter-stricken trees

with their ragged claws

is where I lost my heart,

is where -

Hush, my love. Let me

kiss those words from your lips,

leaving just the bulbs, that spring 
might finger into a promulgation.

Besides, can't you hear

the moon? It says,

Can you hear what I say?

I say nothing. Come be here with me

in this nothing. You can call me skull,

pallid husk, pregnant egg; but I

am just old. I am so old,

and I know that love lives but briefly.

                        ***

Beside the bird-emptied lake,

reflecting the bird-emptied sky,

is where I saw the lone

crane fly, and that was I, and I -

But hush, my love: you're not

bereft of your feathers, you're not

some barren woman. You're a winter bird;

and I? I am just your perch.

And besides, can't you hear

the moon? It says,

Can you not hear what I say?

I say nothing. Come dwell here

in nothing - have everything.

You can call me pale and I won't

blush; or a bird's egg waiting to be crushed.

But I am old; and I know love chiefly.

                        ***

Now, on the cottage bed, I am

spread out like a sacrifice. Come

whittle away your whittling knife.

Unperch me, devour me. Moon and scour me.

Into your life I am come,

but not to bring a hunter's gun;

but I shall bring my whittling knife, and 
lay with you - weave me a sky, be my wife.

But besides, can't you hear

the moon? It says nothing.

                 ***

I am here with you now,

in this nothing, the still

of our breathing.

And we

are everything.

She: a Prayer for the Future

She believes in 
the existence of angels,
and her breasts are soft
as an all-enveloping kiss.

But she is the only angel
in which I believe,

her eyes beaming in modesty,
her beauty both in body and spirit,
her grace as naked
as the day she was born:

I throw this poem up
to the sky,
like an offering of grain -

like a hallowed dove, released
from the quick white
of my bird-like soul.