In the cool air of the nave

the walls retreat from all but grief

 

The space between hangs still

no need of tears or mock belief

 

The silence is enough of heaven

that souls need never leave this place

 

The flag draped vessel so proudly primed

an end regaled in humble grace

 

I thought to write without one word that placed our species here,

though in one line my mind deferred all hopeful want of such idea.

 

To write the firmament unlit or forest stripped of woodland life,

this sphere devoid of us in it might surely mean some other strife…

 

would in our place too meekly rise beneath such wasteful ways

and do more harm than human life in half as many days.

 

What more are we than what might be of greater harm or lesser blame?

we cannot set our conscience free nor can we hide our shame…

 

but we might tread a lighter path to move with fragile care

that when our time has gone at last there’s time enough to spare.

 

Built that someday they would come,

their war and their solution done.

Not by rail or cattle truck,

not by chance and not by luck.

 

By design of no return

In Blood & Soil their New World earned.

Crushed and killed that they might rise

to rule beyond cold baltic skies.

 

When enemies invert their roles,

what’s lost and won is more than souls.

With so much gone not one thing gained

that on their blitzkrieg’d shores remained.

 

Drones and tanks and Zyklon B

raised two cities by a sea,

One to never serve a guest,

Another, where only dead men rest.  

 

Gun in the fridge

the strangest thing

now it’s just full of

Vodka and Gin

 

Gun in the fridge

belt buckle checks

burst ear drums

bodies and wrecks

 

Gun in the fridge

drive round again

buckshee rounds

in a bag in a drain

 

Gun in a fridge

don’t carry ID

over the river

in the place they call free

 

Gun in the fridge

thank fuck I’ve no kids

what’ll we do

when we haven’t got this

 

Man in a fridge

tag on a toe

take the past with you

wherever you go

 

 

Those who care not for thereafter

care neither for judgement today,

their sentence evoking mere laughter

as they shuffle their coil away.

 

Measure for measure the scales dip and rise

a pound of flesh can mean naught,

to the debtor who plucked sight from his eyes

and was blinded to what he had bought.

 

To strive for reward in a place uncontained

seems an act of wilful demise,

that is only of use to those who remain

beneath ashen funereal skies.

 

 

Spoken first or last

or in the void of moments passed

 

Those remembered are the ones

unfaded by a lifetimes Suns

 

un-dulled by silence dark and deep

they are the words we always keep

 

to shield against the words of hate

which dim and slowly dissipate

 

those words of love their gentle gift

so fine that all of time can’t sift

 

the strength they give to just one heart

which came from love and gave it start

 

Will they be glad when I am gone

when my bare feet float above the tile

will there be regret will there be none

will any stop to think a while

The street will stir the cars will pass

the news will come and go

the mail won’t stop nor will the grass

that’s how things go I know

My goodbye thoughts I will not write

there’d be no point in it

my message however so contrite

would only ever awkward sit

maybe this is how it goes

toward the end your mind runs dry

dreams drip from your dangling toes

your eyes roll up toward the sky

 

 

How to ponce about with words

to aim one’s arse to shape one’s turds.

 

Make them pleasing to the eye,

yet still attract the common fly.

 

Syllable or Syllabub,

is that stanza sweet enough?

 

That those who pander to its taste

are far too cool to be disgraced…

 

by calls to gladly recreate

the chunks of words which constipate…

 

pure thoughts that if allowed to flow

might sluice the sewers deep below…

 

of bergs that over years have grown

Soliloquies and Hymns full blown…

 

but no, stop there, withhold your haste

resist not the world of cut and paste,

 

Shakey, Coleridge, Wordsworth too

squeezed out their own fair share of pooh,

 

Fear not the sound of those who flush

wear proud your cracking cheeks, don’t blush,

 

we’re all the same here in the gutter,

speak well now bard…raise up, don’t mutter.

 

I am completely sane screamed the madman in rain

inside the scope of the trijicon

his wrists dripping blood and the money all gone.

Naked dancer on East African clay

panga smashed skulls at the height of the day

the Askari gate guard his chest “en filets”.

Diphtheria racked gasps in a third world throat

promise to the bearer defaced on the note

with flood waters rising and no sign of the boat.

The hostages are not worth the risk

raped and tortured their life poison kissed

the tactical teams go home squad dismissed.

Back home in the bars they’ve all bought new cars

swapped out their wives

self-harmed with new knives.

Trigger warnings on motorway gantry’s

shooting up smack in rastplatz truck stops

watch ISIS on YouTube till it no longer shocks.

Passion and love are obsession and violence

a show of affection replaced by a silence

a horse for a Kingdom a Kingdoms reliance.

Reliance on violence renamed as a love

a gripping kill fist in a flag draped silk glove

it’s that or precision death from above.

Raindrops like headshots lost in the mist

no tracking ballistics wayback to this

internal enquiry you know how it is.

Life jacket beaches footsteps in sand

friendly shone torches for the cattle who land

meat for the grinder their debt payback planned.

And the madman still dancing screaming for death

imagines all this in his last fucking breath

while The Cop with a clear shot pretends that he’s deaf. 

 

 

Do you remember The Oystercatchers

in the quiet of still morning?

Their call shrill and persistent

as if a warning…

 

that in places formed from fiery rock

cold hearts might thaw their perma-freeze,

and from that melt of frozen shock

rise like Eagles on Summer breeze.

 

Do you remember how we fell?

and how we sailed that Mirrored Sea,

firing memories only we can tell

of how that Highland set us free.

 

Within that ancient rim of land

are roots of times no longer known,

and it was their I took your hand

from where our flame-cast love has grown.

 

though we might wander, sail and soar

it is to there we shall return,

beneath the sacred forest floor

where Molten Lakes of old worlds burn.

 

 

Falling from the heaven’s gate

toward the ruined Jericho

the river cuts the valley straight,

between two lands forged long ago.

 

From its waters kings rose up

anointed by unfounded creed,

that all who drink its holy cup

ensure their words live on in-deed.

 

Of deeds and words, where is their fruit?

that hasn’t poisoned all that flows,

or tainted tree from branch to root

so much that now it’s all that grows.

 

Beyond the valley men cry out

their kingdoms raise themselves to dust,

their eyes raised up their voices shout

where are the gods in who we trust.

 

 

A chair leg

stands beneath an arse

enduring scrapes

and endless farts

 

It is the cornerstone

of rest

forever subject

to weight and stress

 

In some respects

it’s just like you

it bears the load

it has to do

 

But if it creaks

and one day falls

the chair it holds

is bugger all

 

And all the

arse that ever sat

upon its strength

lands on the mat

 

If you’re a chair leg

feeling weak

don’t hold back your

inner squeak

 

squeak and groan

then squeak some more

they’ll move you to

a corridor

 

Where you can watch

the fat arsed pass

and find yourself

some peace at last

 

 

Add five parts blood to five parts blood

shake well till indistinguishable

Add five parts lies to five parts lies

remove the scales that fall from eyes

Add five parts belief to five parts belief

filter well, truth lies beneath

Add five parts hate to five parts hate

let stand and watch coagulate

Add five parts word to five parts word

knead well until you have the herd

 

Add five parts truth to five parts truth

let rise to witness wisdom’s proof

 

Remove the filtered parts of waste

Add seasoning and love to taste

 

You tether your thoughts to a leash

and send them out with gnashing teeth

 

They slather through the mystic maze

to tear the flesh from fragile days

 

You feel them pull and twist and jerk

those thoughts released become berserk

 

They bloat and swell beyond inception

too large to shrink at mere rejection

 

You feast and gorge on their return

such well-placed words can make worlds burn

 

They are now beasts beyond command

unbridled from their master’s hand

 

There’s no dominion of recall

what comes for one will come for all

 

The mountain of rust dripped its tanks dry

shedding the remnants of journey,

 

the prisoner withheld true tears from his eyes

surrendering himself to the gurney.

 

Neither of which had fashioned their end

envisioning fate in form or time,

 

enabling the factors with which they might mend

the wreck of their ruinous crime.

 

Yet as they lay to rot and to dust

real meaning they found in their way,

 

that all things will be in the ways that they must

that all things should come to this day.

 

 

In the twilight of the waking day

the early bird unplugs the worm,

and I along my well-trod way

observe its hapless tangled squirm.

 

Eager beaks pluck spring fresh reds

as blossoms blush unperturbed,

while those still slumbered in their beds

seek in dreams what they once learned

 

as children with their minds alight

each early wonder newly seen,

would wish away the endless night

to once again be where they’d been

 

I mourn the worm and praise the wing

I breathe the air that holds the day,

these early hours make old men sing

as if again a child at play.

 

 

“What’s past is prologue”

 

In grayscale worlds of discontent

through glorious summer lions slept,

nations shaped new continents

with pledge and promise never kept.

 

What laid dormant was never dead,

each solstice bore a thousand sons.

Arctic freeze withheld its breath

when all around were levelled guns.

 

Whispered words and words emplaced

are bulbs for shoots in years ahead,

history writ and truth defaced

but on the script was not what said.

 

The Masters game to blend each season

toward some future masquerade,

Where flowers bloom they need no reason

of why their hopeful seed was laid.

 

 

Today he only wants to drink

perchance to dream

but not to think

 

Today he picks the scab anew

to make it clean

like surgeons do

 

Today he shuns his injury

to feel it like

it used to be

 

Today he peels his memory back

sticks his fingers

in the black

 

Today he does away with words

what use of those

that never heard

 

Today he digs his pockets deep

to spend the hours

he cannot sleep

 

Today he sees his various self

where he left them

on the shelf

 

Today he dives into his pool

and knows himself

to be the fool

 

Today the day is all too much

he cannot stand

without his crutch

 

Tomorrow comes with wound and bruise

and more torment

he’ll never loose

 

 

 

The horror of an upturned shell

the Sky above its feet,

so close the Oceans saving swell

too near to poisoned meat.

 

Right yourself or skewered be

pivot upon your nose,

flip yourself toward the Sea

escape approaching toes.

 

For I have been that stranded beast

forlorn upon the sand,

prospective flesh of tainted feast

an ending most unplanned.

 

I know I’ll kill lest I be killed

that slowing down of time,

the sharpness of each second filled

it’s your life, never mine.

 

I am a tiny little breeze

whipped up upon the hill,

I’m gentle when I’m in the trees

and in the valley, still.

 

Blow me through a Desert,

a Canyon or a Gorge

repeatedly and over time

you’ll see my pathways forge.

 

I’ll twist and rip the very earth

you’ve built your world upon,

I’ll shade the Sun that nurtures birth

till all that’s good is gone.

 

So, if you sense me stirring

dismiss me not with ease,

for Storms are reoccurring

and will Ravage where they please.