Night

Lets

Break away

From this night of

Second chances

Where we meet,

As a river

Flowing nowhere.

Come

With your hair

Untied

Your body

Bruised

Reach me

In the only way

You know.

Greet

The day and

Hidden sounds

Of a forgotten banquet,

Swallowed tears

And ebbing mascara.

Remember

Not to tear away

From the embrace

Of fire

Or burning,

Of the lips

And eyes

Like fireflies

Dancing

In the dark.

Chasing words

I sometimes think I know, now that I'm a little old - but honestly, I think I'm still trying to learn that I shouldn't try and find poetry in everything. It's not a meal that's served in front of you, it's a chase or a hunt that must be experienced..and if need be, set free. Things that people remember may come from you but great things that you feel proud of always come to you. There's a delicate balance between resting and fleeing and as I said, I'm still trying to learn.

The Healing

No, today doesn’t die alone

Watch the withered colours run

From what the candle light has shone

Through tales of ghosts and freedom

Through touch of yore

And widened eyes of youth

That caress the fields of green

And within this forsaken shelter of little light

I laugh, and begin to breathe.

Will I find you in the tides?

At the periphery of waking?

Whisper and tame the spell of time

It is yours for the taking.

They may burn this tree down

But the roots will remain

The hope of age shall spring anew

After the falling of the rain.

And I shall follow your raindrops

Until on that cold floor, I kneel

If the sky is a wound

The moon will heal.

Shades of You

The shade of the day

Spill in to the evening

And the night is born

Where she dances, for no one in sight

And sometimes alone.

And words won’t stick to you

My beast of burden

My ocean bird

Know that my tired voice needs healing

Give it time, and

It will sing and soothe.

And though, powerless, I shall

Hum a new start

And bid goodbye to the heart

Of every dream’s waking

Where, at the edge of every answer

Lies the periphery of a crash

Where my fears collide

And I watch myself

Get consumed by you and die.

Panic

Where is her bottled flesh?

Is it exhumed and forgotten?

Where is my torn redemption?

Does it lie,

Surrounded by flies,

Withered and rotten?

This was a war

I was meant to lose

With my arms and armour

Of the chosen few.

I could try,

To not be capsized,

But panic spread through the crew.

Poetry On Road

They were laying poetry on the road,

Surrounded by steam

Oblique and mysterious

Soon to be left naked and flattened

Worn out, like

Words moulded in fire

Ripped off of verse.

Rain

What will you change?

A sky stripped of clouds

A smile in a wave of smoke

A voice through the garden

All these trudge along

Like children holding hands

On a road drenched with rain

Devoid of direction

Looking for a name.

Wayward Stranger

Harshly, you hit the road’s tide

Souvenirs, in your eyes

Wayward stranger with crooked teeth,

Send all your keepers home

And play by the colours old.

Time will run its course with you

Bruise you, burn you

And make you new.

So send all your kingdoms home

The grace never leaves us all.

And don’t go walking

With the same old ruse

Don’t you know I was

Never made for two?

Women Left Alone

Woman left alone

Tired, waiting

Call me out through the fog.

The time for verse

Is dead and gone

Time for us is now.

Woman left speechless

Hollow, empty

Ebb through me

Speak without a sound

Dance around the fire

Dance with my words

Red, like the evening

Red, when you were born.

Woman left laughing

Scant and vacant

Reaching for someone else’s hand

And leaving without a bow

Time for words is dead and lost

Time for us is now.

So woman, yield to me

All your weapons and armour

All the tricks that you employ

Take from me my wretched empires

And all my forgotten toys.

As I come to you

Woe begotten and hands tied

Clean and purged from within

Tell me a day will come

When the sun rises from your eyes

And settles beneath your skin.

Dogs

Sometimes i wish she would speak to me like she talks to a dog.

untitled

What time does not wither

And age cannot decay,

Is your beauty made in silence

What words cannot say.

Though you oft roam asunder

Like a cloud without a home

Your steps, they always rhyme

Even when alone.

Seasons of summer

Seasons of fall

Deep in your eyes

I meet them all.

And when winter comes,

I beg to stay

Like a vagabond, with

Hope of being astray

What time does not wither

And age cannot decay,

Is your beauty made in silence

What words never say.

You’re the candle

I, the wind

You’re the song

Words can’t sing.

You might be everywhere

Anywhere, nowhere at all

In everyone, anyone

Big and small.

Tender and little

Crude and bent

There was silence when I met you

Silence when you left.

What time does not wither

And age cannot decay,

Is your beauty made in silence

What words cannot say.

Mellowghost

Bring me silence

Bring me wine

Or give me sleep

Where I dream I am,

One of your

Paper effigies.

Careless and tender

Entwined in you.

But how shall I be done with the cities of you?

With the streets that always

Lead me to you.

All your structures bound by tragedies

These ruined cities aren’t pastures

For the mind.

Rid the fever

Where the fear chooses you,

Casts a spell unaware.

And walk, with

Your waves crashing at my shore

Your towers falling down

And yet, caught in your currents

I go on

Mired in the horror

That today won’t last.

And what do I say to you as you

Recede?

You are truer than truth

More vivid than a brushstroke

And on your canvas

Like the rest before you,

I will drown gently

Like the sun setting

In distant, mellow waves.

In dreams

I dreamt of a place

Where my words don’t touch you

And the world was drowning.

Cars lay dead on the roads

Without words,

Without sounds,

There was death everywhere.

I saw you shining

In my dreams

In a place where words wouldn’t move

But the willows, like your dress

Swayed in the wind.

And the sun on your arms

In your eyes, was still

Still, like you.

And there was silence everywhere.

Silence as you walked

Silence as I woke.

Woman

What is a woman that doesn't love? Never wronged, watches and hates and breathes from the tower of men around her. And soon, grows into a flower no one will reap and no one will sow. A woman with no songs isn't a woman at all. For a woman who is silent, is a shackled woman.

Crash

I used to dream like the breeze. Now I dream like a highway car crash pile-up. The vast expanse of my subconscious stretching out like a road on which all the little glowing engines of memory trudge along, just a little too close, at a breakneck speed.

Lose

I thought I was supposed to be good or at least, okay at them but why must I always lose with words to learn something new?

Days

Its necessary to have friends that go, ''These are the days'' instead of those that always crib, ''Those were the days.''

End of the world

The world will end like a boring conversation.

Unannounced.

Undisturbed.

Flat on its face.

Melt

If today touched me with its paper hands

Wings of light, white walls

And shadow clocks

If it greets me like a familiar song

I used to hum

Lost pages of a notebook

Or words in a foreign language

I will come undone like a ball of wool

My grandmother used to fashion

Into sweaters.

And ache, like aged, cracking spines of books

Covered with dust and webs of memory

Creak in solemnity, like chairs of my family

Shy away like sparrows in their nests.

And wonder if today shades

Me like a bending tree

A vine to a wall

If it encloses its arms around me

Like a pomegranate shell.

Out on the streets, where

Every wound is open and

Every tale is old.

Where I trudge, with my

Bed of flames, my sea of lies

And stab the dark with my words

That do not touch you.

Frail words, bound by a shallow surface

As useless as a scar with no stories to tell.

So tell me you need my touch

As your candle burns slow

And your flame stands still

My embrace of bones draped in skin.

Mirror

Sometimes you're just another mirror for what I can't have.

Nowhere words

Maybe I write words without a home, with roads that go nowhere. My words are as faceless as me.

Winters gone

25 winters have passed since i was born and the 2 and a half i spent with her were the happiest i ever had.

Rewind, repeat

I huddle towards my bed at night like a thief, taking solace in the shadows, careful to never make a sound. Its 4am. The birds have started chirping restlessly, soon the day will be born again. Soon my tired eyes will wake to find everything looks old. Soon everything will be the same as yesterday.

Friends

Friends are sunshine,
Upon these cold, haggard bones
When love leaves like summer
Through the backdoor.

Numb

Its alright. Its ok. You'll be alright. Pretty soon, you won't feel anything.

The drought

Old sketch i made on 1/8/2004

Where the stream goes

In the vicissitudes of time,
I follow the river and
Watch it turn into a stream.
Overhead, the clouds break like glass
Scatter over the sky’s canvas
As I broke once, into your open arms
Like an old mirror
You grew weary of keeping
And looking into.

Now my collar hangs upon my neck
And tightens like a noose.

And the stream flows on,
Like a departed friend or,
An empty street at night.
It listens and forgives and
Starts to sing

My songs are an ocean before her empire
Where the sun of your memory
Rises everyday
Feeds the roots of my eyes
Wishes and overflows
Sleeps and sways.

But the stream rages on
With all its answers,
Grows thinner for the bird to rest her feet
Gets warm for the woman to wash her hair
Pale for the man to quench his thirst
And for those that he loves

It lingers on, smiles and dies.

Words

And words, they dissolve
Like sugar on your tongue
Like ice on pavements of summer
Like yellow leaves in spring.

Words, like days and strangers
Pass me by, faceless, on the road.

Old words are enemies,
Songs and friends you
Choose not to meet.

Sometimes, in black of the night
Words are mirages, maybe unknown birds
Words are places that howl at dawn
That murmur and scream.

Words are your own curse
When you become what you write.

And words of morning are born
Through the dark
When it’s easy to paint her
On the canvas of tomorrow
With shades that make a tale.

Know deceiving words
That follow and never rhyme,
If you go where your story goes,
To meet the horizon
Or into a crude moon
Don’t end where it begins.

Pages of the mind

Remember me as a day
When rain fell free on everyone
And washed in my shade
You roamed with a tale to tell.
Or remember me as the rain
That drenched no one.

Remember me as a cloud
That changed its shape when winds changed direction
Caught in the sun of your eye
Our reflection was beautiful.

Or remember me as a cloud that
Drifted and found only you
To give my shapes a name
Before words had a home.

Remember me as an open road
Moonlit at night, naked as a fish
Bereft of the sea, gasping for air
Going in circles around you.

Or remember me as the night
When I surrendered into your open arms
Between your glowing breasts
Like a vagabond moon
With a promise of healing.

Winter In Me

You who lies there
Silent and vacant as a tree
With your roots going nowhere
I speak to you now.

Winter comes undone in circles around you
And I
Break the only knot I know.

And as I unwind on orphaned roads
I speak but stay silent about tombstones
Watching my dark city sweep
Its filth under the pavements.

I know
I rage without a reason
I burn without a flame
My voices have no words
Anymore

Yet, the winter in me waits
As my voice awaits your presence
Like water shackled within a glass
Waiting the release of your lips.
Wishing to spill
Into your conversations
When I’m not there.

And I wish, as only a dreamer would
To hold the world in your eyes
To touch you with my words
With my silence
To hold you
To bite each day to its very core
To call each thing
By its right name.

To wake and find
The roads are washed and pure
The skies are clear and leaves are green
To find, suddenly, the sparks are flames.

Names

But everything must be filled with time,
Or at least, a reminder of the same.
That's why there is no silence
That's why we have names.