Poem written in June 2009

That girl that spoke of greyer days
Than those we now discover,
Who told me of her stolen rays
That now arrayed another:
I saw more clearly than i dared
Where ran her weary steps
Even to the heights and to the depths.
"That dream that came to you, when hopes were few,
That we could win, and would win, through
To places where the storms are stilled:
Such is a hope that will be fulfilled."
Like this, i tried to win her heart,
Repeating every line i knew:
But even as i played my part,
I felt the sullen lies depart
And, in that instant, every word was true.

from a god unknown (poem)

Fair are fallen all the days that i had thrown unwillingly away,

And the screaming of the friends and faces never to come again,

Blown like money at the dogs and doldrums of a vacant game,

Known and unknown, remembered, disremembered, waxing dull and grey.

I had known the names of knaves and villains, fools and princes,

Kissing and blessing, loving every one by name, seeing their faces

Shatter and reframe,

The full surfeit of life's expenses

Spurned and sundered all the same.

I am cold cities like a rock is solid, i am lone streetlight like a sea is deep,

I am the question mark scrawled over knowledge, i am the drunken loner in the street.

I walk from here to urban deserts, where, like a joyful column, pilgrims meet;

I am not sad or dully cowed, i see the limits of the crowd,

Full of still movement and with joy replete.

No, no, no, it is not sad, to be so full of spirits and of doubt,

Couples in shadows that fully yearn and drag, and never cast their eyes about;

There is a diamond in the desert, there is a summer in the fall,

Only the precious hope is holy, only the heart can never pall;

It's hard, hard, soft reality, mother and mistress of us all,

That kicks and kisses, hits and blesses us with gall.

So in the silence of the moment i can give up tones,

Those chords that grow melodiously, dischordantly from men alone,

So frightening and foolish, so deftly thrown

To mortals in their sorrows from a god unknown.

untitled poem

This is a lonely continent,

And every city street

At five o clock on a weeknight

Reflects the same conceit;

Lassitude, oblivion, boredom and defeat.

And we are a race that has been reversed,

And risen in retreat,

Though our empty dramas are still rehearsed

To the sounds of a faltering beat;

"No end yet to the old refrain,

To the song that does not fade,

We sow the seed, and reap the grain,

And thus is the world remade."

It is not love we seek, but only release

From captivity

Only a shadow on a wall, a march in time

To a meaningless beat.

Yet, my mouth wants to speak:

"Silence, cease breath, do not speak of Death

That can speak for itself.

The shadows that form on the wall

Contain our fall,

And all the shapes we see therein

Are merely dreams.

The love that we exude;

Useless as a dog's breath in captivity.

The passions we pretend,

Uncovered, are clouded forms of common vanity.

And these pages come from a cheapskate muse, plastic and immutable;

Petals of that ancient bloom long proven to be mythical. 

(a dream)

I had a dream that i was weightless and strong

And could glide in dark valleys under a black sun.

In the dream my breath was cold and my eyes closed.

But i soared high in the sky like an eagle

And saw below the sea.

And i tasted and kissed the sea

And i swallowed salt air like acid champagne

That stung me awake.

And the words of the flight still hung in my head

As i woke up in bed

And the black sun's shadow that crawled on the sea

Still shivered for me.

And in my dead heart

I felt blessed flight

Ascend like the night

And depart.

Horror Film

Watching horror film- pulling mask off

Too late to spin the bottle, balance the ouija board,

Give us angry kisses in rooms.

Memories of television newsreaders we had forgotten,

And silk hosiery, the femme fatale's lipstick-

Her vampire mouth.

I will bottle out of this horror movie.

I will watch fake blood pour, hear the silly screams

Until i dream... and march out on the fuller, papery street

Where bums still drop in paper diapers, pursued

By hot winds, and night, like mother, calling them home.

I could search all night for a phantom to equal my heart's-

"There are no words to express it. I am naked".

I whisper this in cheap unconscious 1950's rooms,

Bleeding like a pauper Christ,

Crawling back to oblivion,

Via the broken elevator.

The Execution

Have you idols for me, love?

Or kitchens of night

Spilling pools in pornographic railways?

Why then elastic night? Why murder on my wallpaper?

I have a new horizon, but i was spoiled

And left confused in kitchens of night.

Blindness would be a mercy,

A heart is always a curse-

Every colour is a shifting hue,

That forms the lover's gaiety,

The executioner's delight-

Cezanne's apples

Were last seen before being led to the condemned cells

Or the afternoon glint of old-style fairgrounds

Every red mocking him in his sleep,

An inch forward, led by laughing crowds

Toward the hangman's noose.

My Dialectic Seasonal-Decade Theory

Winter late 1900s early 1910s
Spring late 1910s early 1920s
Summer late 1920s early 1930s
Autumn late 1930s early 1940s
Winter late 1940s early 1950s
Spring late 1950s early 1960s
Summer late 1960s early 1970s
Autumn late 1970s early 1980s
Winter late 1980s early 1990s
Spring late 1990s early 2000s
Summer late 2000s early 2010s.
Note that crises occur in late summer.