Whitehaven
I’ll crash through the swell,
hold my face to the spray,
wipe the salt from my lips
so they can swear and can pray.
Trim the head, trim the main,
crank the winch, pump the stay;
sailing my way to Whitehaven.
When my feet start to ache,
I think of silica sand.
When I tire and fall,
I recall why I stand.
There’s not many here
who can try understand
until they set foot on Whitehaven.
It’s not just her promise,
her colour or shape,
nor is it alone her smell or her taste.
No matter how hard, or how long I must wait,
I’ll never give up on Whitehaven.
Runner
The kingdom bells rang out, rang out,
and cornered every cobbled street,
whose stones lay worn from summer heat,
and scuffed by dashing, running feet.
The windows whispered as he passed,
and clapped (for ignorance is bliss),
but through the cracks they caught a glimpse,
and spoke the origins of legend.
He flew between the roofs of houses,
scaled the heights of the kingdom towers,
looked down upon the streets below,
his eyes, his smile, the both aglow,
and watched the bobbing lanterns,
swimming through the lanes,
forming clusters at open doors,
but the night parade could do no more.
Admitting defeat at the first light of dawn,
retreating, their words as clear as were they worn,
“He’s the son of a ghost,
and in shadows was born.”
If only they were noble
I’ve seen men waste away in the absence of purpose,
caught adrift on the tides of uncertainty,
breaking over the rocks
and casting their indecisiveness
high against the sun,
and I’ve seen the rainbows through their tears,
watched them fall from nowhere skies,
frustrated in their unpaved search
for anything of importance.
I’ve seen them hold to passing clouds,
hugging and struggling to pot their pain,
falling after every drop
in devoted desperation,
in valour and in vain,
in hope there’s love in vertigo,
‘cause there sure ain’t none in rain.
And I’ve seen them dive back through the crest,
plummet beyond their sunken loves,
to deposit another.
Clawing towards the brighter promise;
adrift again, and in dire need
of nobler occupation.
Curiosity killed the cat
That forbidden kiss was just the start;
my thirsty love, your longing heart.
I pulled you close, you took me in,
we filled the time with lips and skin.
If we grew wings, free and blue –
we damn near did, we damn near flew –
d’ya reckon then we’d be okay,
would you take my hand and fly away?
Or are you still tethered, as well as feathered,
and clipped by indecision?
Cos I for one was born to fly,
and won’t rot my heart in prison.
We were happy once to make-believe,
both looking for a reason
to do just as we pleased.
But who’d have thought the lovers
would let their hearts concede,
fall victim to each others’ words,
and watch their promise bleed?
Heart collectors
Steal my beats and rhythms
and stow them in your silver buckets,
chock full of suiters,
kept on ice
beside champagne and French white wine
to keep us all intoxicated,
falling at your feet,
for we are drunk, and have lost our own;
without our legs we cannot stand,
but without our hearts we cannot live,
so we leave them in your capable hands,
to prod and poke, stab or stroke,
however you desire,
‘cause open surgery costs a bomb,
and our love has since retired.
Intrusion
Amazing how
the growls of thunder
crush and shake my fizzy dreams,
pull back the ring
and fire their jets of consciousness,
head-to-head with lightning,
fighting, biting,
gnashing and gnarling,
in a blinding confrontation.
The night, meanwhile, in terror of war,
hugs its tail beneath the bed
and whimpers.
5am and counting…
That midnight we spoke of,
and marvelled at its clothed array,
it looks so timid in the eyes of nocturnals,
who bake their silver skins in moonlight,
and sew their seeds amidst the dew
to farm a golden promise
and harvest us a fiery dawn
that breaks atop unrested eyes
like stars on their horizons,
whose heavy lids and padded sheets
can’t hide the glare of morning.
Unholy Sabbath
Our tale begun the seventh sun,
forever well, forever young,
the raspy tunes of poison sung,
and hungry thoughts see logic hung,
begun, begun,
the sex and sun
that clasped the air the fire had hung,
and through the cries the ashes sung:
forever well, forever young.
The library
There is a hazard to thinking your thoughts aloud
when slurping on tea.
The quick “by God” is soon regretted
as I struggle to stop my coughs from escaping;
better to choke to death than draw attention now?
It’s poetic. It’s coincidental. It’s a gift and a curse.
I’m in a haven of wonder, with eyes on the prowl.
To my left, and in front (who knows what’s behind),
the flight and the fancy,
hand-in-hand, side-by-side.
I imagine it’s what dreams are made of,
but without the drunken courage of lucid dreams,
by which I mean the reckless abandon
that so often leads to sex or death;
caught in the middle-ground,
alive and aroused.
What now for this timid adoration?
It’d be easy to blame rules for non-action;
the passive but beating heart is well-trained in excuses.
Should I dare a whisper,
or a language-less approach?
These signs demand we linger,
and harbour all our words.
Unprepared
A darker day grows grey and cold.
Behold the icy mass,
the crass and unforgiving chill
that bows to no lighter step
or salty precaution;
it’s us who cower
and slip upon its glazy eye
with which it weeps
a blackened sheet
beneath its white mascara.
Fall victim to the winter’s eye
and cry your neatly frozen tears
to a howling air of disregard,
for nobody here can hear
nor see you ‘neath their many furs
and shoes not made for Winter.
Young at heart
We sat beneath a makeshift tent,
pulled taut by far too many lines of string
that crossed and tied in knots and bows
to anything that let them,
and shared a moreish banquet,
feasting on the food and words,
till all we had were chocolate stars
and kisses by the dozen.
In vain
So many times I’m cast aside,
like sun when you want rain.
I hate the way you shun my shine,
but love you all the same.
So many lustful vacancies
stray loose across my way.
I loathe how effort goes unseen,
but love you all the same.
So many calls go unreturned;
proclaiming love in vain.
I wish, for once, my voice was heard,
but love you all the same.
For all the same I love you.
I love you all the same.
Here I proclaim in falling rain,
let love not be in vain.
Horizon
I watch for you in the dusky face of evening,
from across a barnless field, when cattle lay low,
where no hilltop obscures nor skyline opaques;
I watch for you, Horizon.
When the deep blue light of a worn-out air
is wed with a web of golden hair,
I leap from my duties and run to the gate
to watch for you, Horizon.
By day I trail my clumsy feet,
refuse to play, and choose to read,
yet come the hour – how I blame the hour –
I watch for you, Horizon.
Like the ever-sheer and distant cliff,
falling far and far beyond my reach,
I too have fallen for your power,
and watch for you, horizon.
Destination
Where am I from, and where am I to?
From ashes to ashes, and all that I grew.
The farming, the harvest,
the feast and the cheer,
the love in the eye of the one you held dear,
the light and the dark, creeping in every moon;
from ashes to ashes, and all that I grew,
where am I from,
and where am I to?
Food for thought
Is it the far-off cry of a city street
that howls to the moon in a midnight hour?
Is it the content of my casting vision
that nets and hauls a detailed catch?
Or is it the tonguely echoes
that sour my breath with what’s been said?
Perhaps the sprightly scent of you, my dear,
that beckons me towards your lips
and prays a silent parting,
shall serve the purpose of my muse
and slow the heart departing.
How soft we tread when lines are few
Half a page could never do
nor fill the quota set by words
that so demand a grander view
of all their trees and all their birds.
Yet even I who never flew
(the less that’s said the more that’s heard)
know half a page could never do
nor fill the quota set by words.
Four corners
I lay to sleep,
and crease the deftly folded sheets
where once a fair a fiery heat
had shared the bare and naked splendour
that rocked the pulse and room with pleasure.
I hold the pillow,
hot and cold within my arms,
the kiss and bite between my palms
that both conflicts and keeps me calm
but fails to bring me from my woe.
Four corners never felt so far apart,
and here I lie,
caught amidst the sew and seams
where dreams now fill the space, not you.
Who knew how fast this feeling grew?
Tether
With this string I shall tether
our ankles together
so, darling, when you go away
I can pull on the slack
and haul you right back;
it’s probably best that you stay.
* * *
When the thread starts to quiver
I feel like I’m with her,
pulling taut by the light of the moon.
And I’m sure it delights her,
the thread pulling tighter,
to dance to her favourite tune,
but this fool starts to wonder
if you have grown fonder
of the distance, the dancing, and dreams.
On her heel there’s a blister
where ’tether had kissed her
and it’s breaking its way through the seams.
It was then that I wavered,
how I wish I’d been braver
and blind to what I came to see;
at the end of the line,
I broke and I cried
on the string that she’d tied to a tree.