I Am Why Your Ghost No Longer Speaks
from Gebo, 2021
 
Your ghost walks by my side
chills iron bars to keep me waking
 
we navigate the paving slab’s follicles
where trees protrude
and clutter The Gray Man’s face with green
 
wise to the woes of Orpheus
the pallid words of his poem
 
we do not turn; will not turn
 
cut a finger off to make a compass
whittle down the failed flesh
let it spin, let it spin
 
This is the street where bombs fell
in perfect iambic pentameter
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM
 
I am coarse like shrapnel
lodged in the sod
 
I am why the trees wish to escape
abnormal invading presence
 
I am why your ghost no longer speaks
 
staves of an unfinished song tied in knots
syncopated rhythms and a cosmic reunion
 
Take comfort in faith 
as a companion
not in an unmade godhead
but in the all-seeing eye
holy ward — I am waiting
 
until swallowed by the sallow tears
of the heavens
hand in hand with a deadened dream

Do You Look at the Moon When I Look at the Moon?
from Gebo, 2021
 
A slave to the incandescent eye of fate
cast over my body
examining each line to draw conclusions 
that the grandeur of a gilded heart
can be dwarfed by existential silence
 
penetrates every droplet of the soaked clouds
star-walking choirs pool and chorus
their hymn books written in Hebrew
when none of them read Hebrew
 
Every page stuck to the one before it
turning a corner in the story
forces the slab of words
to crush and press weak fingers
 
error is, error is marginal
intent unknown
a country waiting to be discovered 
when nobody wants it discovered
 
Remain distant, let your mewling echo
into a stiff chamber of rib bones
wrapping around a diamond 
rought, cut from the flesh of a grounded angel
 
fallen from the side of the divine, fallen
 
Do you look at The Moon when I look at The Moon?

Apocalypse
from Gebo, 2021
 
Drawn curtains
fasten their threads together
never to open again
 
the pattern does not complete
if not aligned
 
each chink or fold leaning into the other
 
Sun’s eyes flutter
to brighten the roads
  better than a lick of paint
  better than licking a battery
these jolts will restart the traffic
if only they can navigate 
the pot holes and speed bumps
via alternate routes
 
This must be what summer feels like
 
And great star, named and unnamed
capturing gaze
yet the cornea do not burn
like they told every froglet
instilled in the pond
 
distilled in the factories
 
live it — eat it — pray it — believe it
(you better not believe it)
 
this scorching sun
sitting in the sky’s thoughts
staring down, near enough
to give life to a clump of rock
 
this sun, inventing time
by parking its arse-cheeks
on the ground
split pantyhose
generate a shadow
around revealed flesh
 
Seasons of comfort are in session
 
Goldilocks declares
on the street corners of
The Republic of Poetry — how
it is just right
The shy trees are no more — they
yell jokes from a cannibalistic book
made of their skin
each punchline lands an honest mark
on the face
 
Somewhere, a statue of a lion whimpers
with its thorn-laced paw
soothed by the tender talons
of a bird of prey — pluck the stick
fuck the splinters
pluck the crone from the maiden’s head
as winds
tighten, and tease your throat
 
Twin bridges
slumped on the River Tamar
filled with silent excuses
to bolt their cables 
into a patch of concrete
suspend disbelief
that the inanimate can pass for being human
tread with caution
for a high volume of gendered vehicles
pass this way
 
hands from the river
claw onto the bank
with Mother Tenacity’s affirming grip
 
the body of Babylon
scooped up in a length of ribbon
dried in a bath towel
kissed on the forehead and sung to sleep
 
‘my bonny lies over a notion…’
 
where fresh bed sheets
touch static against spines
a taste of seasonal freedom
cruel as the taste of Midsummer Day’s goodnight
 
sleep tight, for now until the turning
 
Distant suns
replace the glow of proximity
blinking messages through the blackness
into Morpheus’s shorthand
typed into dark wanderings
which countdown
to a wake that breaks the mourning
 
seductive dreams coloured in crayon
until heat melts the wax
sends a hard vibration
through mortal pages
punctuated by prophecy — the end of all days
 
sat apart
blurry are the smiles
this is the mask
that hides the face
of the spectre of things to be sung
 
O GREAT REVELATION!
John the Apostle
John the Beatle
Yer Blues blasts loud into the ear
 
a meeting is scheduled
in the living rooms 
of each depredated domicile
dissemination
will dictate the insemination of The Saviour
or the dragon that fell from a city in the clouds
 
and then silence
 



And then more silence








The voiceless assemble
in under an hour — rapid response
this is it folks
the moment
 
THE END OF ALL DAYS HAS COME!
 
Bled realities flatline — leylines narrow
every channel dried-up and void
 
The freaks shall inherit the Sun
 
Demand it ends its exercise routine
 no-more will it rise to offer high-fives 
 to drifting angelic forms
 no-more will it be eaten by the groves 
 in their grooves as they spin
 
The Sun pricks its finger
and sleeps one thousand years
cries a thousand more tears 
which
evaporate every millisecond
on the burning surface of corruption
 
Floods eventually consume soils
a sphere sits on the shoulder of a giant
as it trudges through 
fresh formed swamps
 
the pebble stones of the pavement
beat
with a time-signature of 4/4
with lots of ghost notes scattered
 
Hovering on the edge of their seats
the gods look down
chortle and choke
 
it is hard to swallow
 
what remains is a wasteland

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And the only hope of ascension
lies in the footnotes of an unwritten poem
 
a poem worth dying for.