mood

Reaching/Still can’t touch peace/Boxed in between lines/So I trawl through the profane in search of the divine/Shared bed/Lonely mind/Frantic making up for lost time/From all the dry dark times when you thought that I was fine/And when I thought I felt something like happiness/I wasn’t permitted to make it notable/Are these emotions or just motions that I’m going through??Vain pained by my choice of outfit/Or am I just crafting the excuse to justify the need for an outlet?/Ageing fast don’t know what I’m about yet/If you’ve got no account to speak of how can you put your money where your mouth is?/ Yet I’m chasing freedom from debt/Emancipation to dance with a lighter step/Or maybe just shifting the balance/A heart and a feather/My transgressions weighed against my talents/Angel of death at my shoulder/Digging in with talons/Human condition could be making me callous/Can any man say that he walks with no malice?/In heart, thought or action?/So many times I mistook anger for passion and chased a phantom/Fixated by fashion/Negative energy/Who can say if it’s temporary?/I still appreciate all the love friends sent to me/ I won’t say it’s pretence but eventually/ I’m scared that I’ll have replaced innocence with decadent tendencies/That this compassion is mislabelled malevolence and this solidarity is a tossed offering to all those I feel I’m better than/But second guessing can’t make me a better person and fear of perversion is just a diversion from acknowledging fear of fear itself/Another version of the paralysis that stops us from working for something else/A different wealth/Regardless of mixed motivation/Not seeking for approval or beatification/I’m a scholar not a martyr so a pen  will guide and chart my destinations/The cartography of contradiction/And we all know that life can be stranger than fiction/Can’t say I won’t behave without inhibition/But I’ll try to use it as a brake and not an anchor to position/Clarity shows the only certainty is that my  doubts provide definition/So if I seem different/Trust it’s the same song/I’m just moving to a different rhythm/And if you see me visibly wounded/Don’t take it for granted/I’m exposing realisation/De Prodfundis/I can’t expect your love and I won’t demand it/In these sentences I’m free yet remanded/ reporting on time/Courting attention /Representing myself/Where justice can't be is art even handed?

untitled (8/12/12)

Constant tension/quivering underneath/ fluffy cushion surface/ shy smiles mask a face//That has witnessed/Waking nightmares/No protection/ From these monsters that now live within/ Polluting a picture perfect landscape/Making permanent homes/Educating their young/Stealing their innocence/ Just as surely/ Reflection of premature jading/ Premature closing/ Of mind/ Of roads/ to other chances, other futures/Everything is permitted/Theoretically /Nothing given/Actually/Blood from a stone/Blood from stones/Blood from bullets/Bullets/Blood on stones/Flashlight/3 AM blindfold beating/Reflection from glass eyes/Stuffed toy bears witness/Voiceless/Whilst the twin sleeps/Waking to the report/That another monster/Is restrained/That she may sleep/Yet more soundly/Tonight/Steel/Rubber/Phosphorus/Will keep/A safe separation/Containing the thread/Incubating the fear/To purchase her freedom/A price seen elsewhere/Felt too/Tears for the fallen and bent/And laughter/Hollow/With the cold dark space that keeps widening/Inside the heart.

countertop

Mint leaves over ice and sweet strings played softly
Caressed to life underneath the gliding words of a language infused
To my side dates in cardboard, almonds in plastic
The counter top a junction where journeys meet friends, smiles and fresh flowers;
A Monday afternoon the Envy of most,
Sea cleansed, sidewalk warmed,
I'm not guilty, I'm alone, there's a difference
And the difference is these witness eyes
A happy enough spectator
Red menu silver ashtray in this cosy street side niche, spilling out
Melancholy tastes good

debt

Hada mish  la laba
Hada mish la ard
Always take more than give
What is there to share? What gift?
It's never enough. It's never anything.
Inna bifra mishanna dein?
I don't think so
Inna bitaham qatir ilyom
And so what?
The most for the most..to the utmost...OR something for someone sometime like now...
Without hurt, without promise of a better person beyond this desire;
Looping, serpentine, mobious, perfect, closed
To tell a story that satisfies
We reduce, isolate, paint broad and simplify, insulate, package
Sometimes stray threads frayed tell the tale of a rougher fabric mishapen
Underneath, straining to be freed; Ugly, rougher, singular
I don't want to be...everything for everyone...OR...something for someone
Shred these lines, thow them to the wind and let them fall in new formations
Strung together by the will to teach by learning, to pay by earning and
Find this language of my own underneath the fold of creased sheets, the dregs of finished bottles and the Questions that I ask just to answer the silence

origination

I originate with the drum 

Call me humanity 

For arguments sake 

 When all's said and done 

Let's consider me worth more than a salary 

And that's all very well 

As an abstract concept  

I can debate economics casually 

 As a peer
Real recognise Real 

I acknowledge common ground bashfully 

And shuffle my feet asking 

Can't we just get along without you asking me 

What I'm worth
What my weight in gold is
What my value is? 

I'll remain adamant
You can't put a tag on this 

Translate me to currency

 Reduce me to property

 Trap me in poverty

 I originate with the drum 

The beat
I am rich beyond measure

 Food for thought

 Fuel for peace 

I am tears on sacred ground 

I am sacrifice for belief 

The rain above your head 

The roots beneath your feet 

I originate with the drum 

And I end there

 Resurrected between beats 

intimacy between eaves 

intricacy of wheat-sheaves

 magic in the tea leaves 

The joy when we arrive 

 Sadness when we leave 

 Legacies upon legacies upon
Painful legacies 

And the hope they carry 

The first hint of a melody 

I originate with the drum 

And live in the breath on the off beat 

Art is not technique 

And I am not a unit 

I am failure 

I am imperfection 

Uniformity bores me to fuck 

I originate with the drum
And I echo 

I might buckle but I'm never crushed 

And I re-emerge 

 A vein formed around the pulse 

lifeblood 

Transparent skin stretched tight 

Compressed as the waves rush 

Flowing through to the edge and back 

Originating
With the drum 

Never deviating 

No mediation necessary 

Legendary 

Yet contemporary 

Timeless 

Frames

How many frames must we squeeze into before we find that one that fits and starts, heads nodding in the half light to another performance? Stationary, removed, we sedate and quell the fires of rebellion in our heads in our hearts, and celebrate the presentation replica of the very same. 

Shielded by screens,false serenity,slick sheen  

Exorcise our demons; it's all a part of the process.

Cycling back through images of debauched recent past
Commercial street bar bathroom stall finds text message provocation; this woman replied unexpectedly with the awaited initiation, only to remove it and leave little romeo hanging again, to read and write in an open plan office filled with Thursday night blue moon emptiness.

An open bottle in an orange plastic bag defiantly enjoyed in the dry beige train carriage speaks the same whatever the language of the salute; a tarot book confusion headache, the blunt echo of yesterday's drinking, such a sophisticate  such a glutton: 

Loose laces;

loose buttons; 

loose grasp; 

lose morals; 

Morals of stories that used to have some, allegories that lost their way because their figures of speech just didn't add up, the sheet could not balance and thus the music lost it's home. 

Memories lost in trade because of structural flaws in the construct; the tower could not balance and thus the moments all jumped.

Desolate, 3 drinks later, your friends gone
move from green lit saturday night bar to 
same platform where 
premonition of reciprocity was felt and wait, balled brown paper bag brushed aside onto tiled floor. A rejection. 

true targets

Silent stories conspire
To tell me that I’m the only one that this hard for
An awareness staring
Image distorted in a mirrored hall
Hypnotised detectives raising to aim at one another
And the man with the safety word stands, back to the wood panels
A true target accidentally found
Talked toward a world removed from the old
Then closed the loop again and couldn’t squeeze through the whole
Talking again
Talking again
There he goes with that talking again
 
Rereading dialogue from last season’s scripts
Annotating the subject debated
Selves on sleeves free form idea arrangement
That was just masquerade
Seems he’d forgotten how to play
Said what he meant
Said what he meant
And felt something too
Shell Shocked by the callous shot from the pedestal
Flesh torn
Still standing
Soaked in swallowed pride and alcohol
And Talking again
Talking again

wilson

The scars on your face spoke to me

Your hands, the most distressed leather, still steely strong

The weight of age has never broken and rarely even bowed you

A mother of light

Shuffling your dominion,

One pace this way creating a feasting table

One brushed gesture this, shaping a worshipping place

The honeycomb sacrament sucked dry

Coats every surface

A vehicle for that sweet sentiment

That we don’t share the words for

And I’d never finish it all but I carried it as far I could

Worker corpses and all, in a powdered milk tin

To a hotel bed where fever took me

And my departure began,

A parting meeting with a boy called Smoke

And a thousand things that I’ll never know

The structure of stories etched into your skin

A parchment legacy, a living lineage

Matching the radiant youth,

Hope for Hope, Smile for Smile

Balanced in equal beauty whilst I float between

And slowly drift away

A thin line connected to your fates barely holding

Growing colder, more strictly defined

And somehow brighter, I outline designs

To make it shine, embellished

But that which connects also separates

And touch can’t always match taste

So I hold a honeycomb memory underneath my tongue

Growing sweeter as every line marks my face,

Mountain Top

They’re talking about you placing blame

But they don’t even know your name

That was written in the ink of a scholar

At the bottom of a declaration saying never shall I follow

Asking sometimes don’t you think you’re seeing things that aren’t there?

It’s them not seeing what is, wandering blind scared

In the kingdom where the one eyed five hunt the self-aware

And those with nothing left to lose thrive without fear

Watching the house of cards wobbling, overbalanced at the top tier

From a clear mountain top breathing clean air

And cultivating together

Respect for ourselves and each other

Struggling with hatred

We internalized the lessons

No matter how hard we fought

So it’s a daily mission

To undo all the damage taught

To accept all the damage done

Recognise we’re not the perfect ones

Forgive ourselves enough to push on

Never paralyzed by indecision

No longer anesthetized at their discretion

Free to feel again

Hurt again breathe again

Bleed again

Stand tall against the next collision

With false patriarchs and their illusions

There’s no such thing as a benevolent murderer

So we take blows and spit blood

Expect nothing less

Than to bleed for this

Grind for respect

We build and reflect

Take time to connect

Establish foundations and mode of address

Question privilege

Responses found wanting we reject

Eject

Divest

Spread wings and flourish unencumbered

For our days may be but we shall never be numbered

flashlights

Intuition brings into question your decisions, 
the cold iron maiden inquisition, 
fire freezes brazen bold in the dark light, 
cold fission,
a half truth half dead half lived half life, 
set to halve again, diminishing division, 
ever shifting the final position until it shifts past recognition, 
I aspire to emissions that uprise our condition,surprised by remission sometimes find focus slipping, 
find inspiration in the beacon of tradition, 
illuminating the pages of the book of the world,
the script that unfurls In the strokes we play 
when we step forth on the canvas of a day, and pull it up behind us,
wrapping it around us, 
tapestry and pageantry surround us, 
worn on the sleeve, breast, neck, crotch, crown, 
a heart opened outspread contacted, 
pulsating contracted 
filling expanded
again defined by experience 
raw material, parenthetic prevent agenda evidence ethereal 
motive opportunity synthetic serial, 
they sow confusion , 
this pride is delusion,
ladies and gentlemen now introducing, 
your host for this evening, 
the ragged And bleeding, 
soul of a barbarian nation, 
that lays claim to civilisation, 
by virtue of appropriation, 
it's paper we're chasing, 
but fabric too, 
material to weave and wave not just to see through, 
feel do, needs must need school need education, 
but a dispirited mind can't achieve self determination 
and when the blind lead the blind lead the blind oblivious to the blatant 
is it any wonder we accept incarceration? 
brick by brick our prison is our creation 
and we're afraid that we push at the bars it might cave in, 
falling around us, rubble, detritus, 
remnants of a vision we collude in and somehow feel attached too, 
how do we mistake chains for umbilical cords, 
Flashlights for sunshine, 
the gun to our head for the safety of our home? 

jubilee

Cancel the parade. Cut the elegies. What's the point of this stone/pointed pressure so refined/inverted on our spines as they crisscross to provide a loving nest? The beasts that rest in this land and spread flame afield/enjoy the shine of the capital/but rearrange the characters/it's the same carbon as the rest of us/So let's square the circle and circle the pentagrams/truth is /truth is unity/truth is unity can be divisive/conspiracy/counter intelligence/Jedi mind tricks/Bow ties and champagne toasts for veiled violence/and flag burning street dances to break silence/like a pane of glass on Tarmac/I've got shards in my skin/needling this vanity/hungry to be heard/vanity wrapped/mummified/entombed/preposterous/Until nothing remains inside/vanity defeated by the passing of time/outlasted by every crafted covering/ not to honour after all/to reduce into ignoble obsolescence/ exposing fundamental indecency/ frequently/ overlooked/ but not this time/ anniversary of ascendance to an unjust pedestal/ never happy however memorable/ it sticks in the memory like windscreen in a joyriders face/ change the pace/ destroy the gears/ and the slick sick trick fairground machinery/This royal flush is demeaning you and me