july 2017

                             (i)

...why do I have these stars

these sentinels with their armour-piercing light years

pushing at my back

can’t they see the filaments of quartz

growing from my eyes

my calcified atria clinging to the heat

can’t they hear the lightbulbs singing

the mountains being eaten

can’t they tell it’s just god’s death mask

still reciting, still dreaming scripture

but remember, these immense loyalties

are nothing more than spells, thoughts, charms

brief condensations of madness

that, I suspect, want me torn to pieces

the carnivorous syntax already braced

for a head-on, blackout collision with language

because once they have left the mouth

what can words truly, truly mean

as they slowly evaporate

and float down the years of light

from one fingertip universe to the next

fading, always fading, until the moment of impact...

                                (ii)

...whenever this vacant, wayfaring heart

stares at the solid ground

it is certain some muddy intuition

is digging another hole in my head

and even though I can feel and see peoples’ faces

caught in the gravel between my feet

the strain of such universal cunning

becomes now a bizarre rosary of words

for the ground immediately returns my stare with unbearable vengeance

no insight, no sting, no joy

just the usual crippled epiphany

staining each and every page

a universal blemish

that desperately tries to refill the holes in my head

with gravel and the fragments of muddied faces

an intuition that has only ever dug for revenge

never for the austere joy

of watching the ground melt away

the one cunning paternoster

that pulls aside the wayfarer’s heart...

                           (iii)

...and meantime, while still defying gravity

the writing hand guides the dead

to release their vast, frozen identities

to yield and to kiss the black sands

like showers of weird birds escaping a cage

but as each second hits the earth

such strange creatures simply dissolve into themselves

their minds folding and unfolding

though still holding on

to the one, sweet linchpin of  their existence – 

love’s rare, greasy moments

however, there is a problem

it is really the dead who guide the writing hand

not the reverse

it is we who hit the earth every second

we are gravity’s immense cage

whose identity was frozen

in that strange, first flush of blood

it is we who dissolve into ourselves all there is of love

we are the only ornament

the only escape from our vast existence...

                              iv)

...for so long we have watched eternity’s unerring lies

and done so with such chilling curiosity

those darling buds have now a sweetness no-one wants

for such unwilling beauty stirs no enemies

nor does it pixilate easily

therefore give me your hand

and together let’s trace around a sphere

through which no falsehoods can ever pass

a refuge in which to take apart the world

and start again

the spit on god’s face

a reminder the cosmos was born from our mouths

for we are the unerring sweetness

the curious beauty that darkens

those darling words, faces, choirs

and all that we wish of truth

so give me your hand, but remember

if nothing false can enter

nothing false can ever leave...