The silence this morning is songless,

it hisses between my heartbeats…

I listen for the blackbird but his tree

has retreated to the forest.

 

I am over the border in a white room.

In my dream my father’s mouth is a cave…

it hangs open, expecting nothing.

I breathe his last breath in, it is gone.

 

My hand lies softly on his sallow skin,

he is peaceful, yet grotesque…

why is this the final mask I see?

as if all the others had left with him.

 

Back in the shock of today’s sunlight,

I am awake, a year away from his bedside…

I am deeper in the cave of his absence,

the dark is darker, the silence louder.

 

But what about his work,

his words, his brush, his voice of truth…

 

what about his courage,

his willingness to stand alone.

 

And what about her fearless heart,

her love, her stoic reveal of proof…

 

what about her motherhood,

the foundation of her children’s home.

 

And what of our dismissal

of good that might outweigh their wrongs…

 

averting our eyes blindly,

forsaking gratitude where it belongs.

 

The pen that drags my hand across

the desert of the page,

knows neither joy nor sense of loss,

no calm or boundless rage…

 

it’s just a tool of thought and dreams

to colour in the days,

to bind their rise and fall with seams

and mark the many ways

 

…in which there’s no predestiny,

no gods or revelation,

no saving grace for you or me,

no end, no destination

 

The pen that drags my hand across

the desert of the page,

sees every day, another lost,

in this infernal cage.

 

 

 

All joy and hope

sucked from a womb,

finds three unwise men

in a manger-like tomb.

 

No room in the inn

just a slather of waste,

no angelic choir

descending in haste.

 

A score card of wars

ticked off by dull men,

who dine on cheap whores

just to fuck’em again…

 

while “meek Mary mild”

is swaddled and bound,

bulldozed with her child

into the holiest ground.

 

 

 

 

Surrender the search for words

in the early morning pain of dawn,

let traffic hum and rain-town birds

steal quiet thoughts and see them born…

 

imagine forests damp with dew

the roar of waves upon a shore,

a loving hand that guided you

in times when you were lost before…

 

and in that place find peace and calm

in moments free of earthly stress,

to soothe your wounds of hurt and harm

that you might heal to feel them less.

 

 

All natures colours fade and blow away…

though winters womb is safe and warm,

 

faded tunics on battlefields, pink and grey…

beneath the walls of Hougoumont Farm.

 

Ploughed are the fields of soil and men…

where earth and blood like Lazarus rise.

 

that what has passed be born again,

beneath the lie of unchanging skies.

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3vXS6sgBV4

 

 

Sea Lochs run deep on western shores

where the broken timidly retreat,

where executives turned bar-room bores,

their dullard stories repeatedly repeat.

 

We’ve heard it all before

their lives like boomerangs,

that’ll knock them to the floor

awakening anguished pangs…

 

Here, the workers immerse themselves

in natures taciturn,

enlightened it is they themselves

that from greater forces learn…

 

where wind and waters blow and swell

till bloated egos drown,

there is no word that man might tell

to tame The Verdant Crown.

 

 

 

 

To stand and stay where we are born

is as the flower is to the thorn,

 

a gift that comes from nurtured past,

a sun that burns through shadows cast.

 

To roam and seek for pathways new

is as the sand is to the dew,

 

a rain to quench the deserts drought,

a life well lived to banish doubt.

 

And when at some unwanted end

the path will seem a foe or friend,

 

a life through which your choices groomed

the flower or thorn to which you bloomed.

 

 

Peace is a Prize,

unseen by gouged and blinded

eyes…

 

medalled gold

cannot disguise, nor deafen ears to powers

lies.

 

Time strips clean the schemes

of men, for all to see the lions

den…

 

and which of us would wish we them?

their lives signed off by tyrants

pen.

 

 

 

Listening to Fela in 98,

Jounieh, Beirut…

Bombs, rocking Nairobi,

Tennis in the afternoon.

 

Beach in the morning

DR Congo yet to come,

Suicide in Kandahar

Massacre on The Russian Road

 

“my brain was squirming like a toad”

 

These are my alternative facts

my North Atlantic Treaty,

my flip-side Warsaw Pacts

in dreams where memories beat me…

 

Half a head, a scalp an arm

are strange kind of rain?

the storm was wild, then after calm

in the silent years before the pain…

 

The women came but later went,

the fun ran out on everything.

When all my bloody soul was spent,

I couldn’t hear the Blackbird sing..

 

 

It takes just two i’s

to join the dots,

not the language skills

of polyglots.

 

It takes no asking why

to turn the blind eye,

to not see all hell

fall from their sky.

 

It takes no raised voice

to let them starve,

no moral choice

on your behalf.

 

It takes no hand of peace

to keep the war,

that shall not cease

to keep them poor.

 

It takes no lended ear

to not hear their cries,

to ignore their fear

and dismiss their whys.

 

It takes just your brave-heart

to quiet the drum,

that beat the start

of their Kingdom Come.

 

It takes just two eyes

to join the dots

and see the lies

of idiots…

 

 

The dreaming Moon rolled over

to see the Sun arise,

pulling darkness to its shoulder

it slipped the shining skies…

 

the never-ending chase of days

of lightness and of dark,

the shadows and enlightened ways

on which our lives stand stark…

 

their beauty and their foreboding

carry fearful dread and hope,

each stretching hour eroding

our resilience to cope…

 

yet still our spirit lifts us clear

of each relentless fall,

to raise us far beyond our fear

that we be not so small…

 

So when that sleeping Moon does pull

and beg your soul to stay,

awake and shine as Sun that’s full

and drive the dark away.

 

 

Here comes the grime

here comes the grime,

 

have you seen our cities

lost in time…

 

between the flags

and the calls to prayer,

 

have you seen the grime

festering there.

 

Here comes the hate

here comes the hate,

 

have you seen the leaders

recklessly conflate…

 

Here comes the blood

here comes the blood,

 

have you seen their words

drowned by the flood…

 

have you seen their scriptures

churn the mud.

 

Here comes our end

here comes our end,

 

have you seen it coming

around the bend…

 

can you see how peace

comes with our blend…

 

But in the end, the end’s the end

no matter who is foe or friend…

 

I am my own country,

one of conflict and of peace…

 

my regions know no borders,

yet my borders seek to increase.

 

I am the source of my own sickness,

and the fountain of my health…

 

the treasury of my own accomplishment,

the beneficiary of my wealth.

 

My democracy is my conscience,

though my decisions wear the crown…

 

my constitution universal,

though not one word is written down.

 

My Subjects are my lifeblood,

although dependent on my mind…

 

in famine, drought or great flood,

it’s in me they seek to find

 

a way for their continuance

that they might hold their place,

 

and as one Sovereign Kingdom

occupy one Sovereign Space.

 

That every man has the right to his own mind, expression and environs, except that he recognises the same of every other.

 

A cool breath of morning mist lays itself across the water,

where pathways break the wooded edge, it probes the leafy tracks.

 

Green and dappled reds announce the warming rays,

rustling snouts and gentle song rise to fill the dawning cracks.

 

Beyond this unseen miracle we shuffle ourselves awake,

inviting news and noise, we break the fragility of nature’s spell.

 

Unforgiving, we chase away the beauty of our absence,

thoughtlessly we turn what seemed a heaven into something more like hell.

 

 

 

Over the shoulder of Turkey

down through the Caspian Sea,

South across Muscat and Aden

Westward toward Djibouti…

 

Then fold through the Red Sea to Cairo

across Sinai where Moses did lead,

then on to the back gates of Rafah

where Nomads eternally bleed…

 

Tie the knot off in Tehran

strangle the land till it’s dry,

leave there, what’s then left of Man

that all those who follow, know why.

 

 

 

 

 

When it was over

the guns were in our hands,

 

when it was over

our tanks were in their lands.

 

When it became history

the markets redrew our graphs,

 

when it became history

our media moguls wrote their epitaphs.

 

When war was still a raging

the dead inflamed our hate,

 

when war was still a raging

our mercy came too late…

 

 

 

Trying to write I lift a scab

to see my lifeforce flow,

for under the crust of all things dead

lie things we crave to know…

 

yet in such knowing are we fixed

or wounded all the more?

by careless angst we self-inflict

there is no reason for…