december 2017

                            (i)

...ever since that first touch of fire

the panic of existence has never really gone away

there are still no solutions to beauty

still no arguments that can decipher insanity

the womb’s old angst is always there

a simmering black hole

a wall, a path, a road

to places where there is no freedom from hysteria

no respite from the blindness that sees only itself

the need to create something, anything

before conceit takes over

and demands one answer for everything

and if the sun’s light can indeed twist our bones

even override our thoughts

then maybe this is how we became so pregnant

by soaking up too much of the sun’s conceit

nevertheless the smoking holes in the ground remain unanswered

unanswered and unable to set existence free

the walls, the paths, the roads

bending towards fear

and the beauty of fear...

                             (ii)

...with so many fading, falling leaves

life’s gamble has always clogged the gutters

but today armageddon is a luxury

a visionary’s all-time, silent story

of a world, a language that once drowned in itself

in the unsurpassed roar of all its syllables

a tale of how the little drama of our consciousness

was downgraded to that of a disease

somehow laughter and sleep had become the same thing

and the cries of the universe suddenly seemed too close

too similar to our own

so that no-one really knew what or who was in distress

and yet the dice were still rolling

the gods still floating in a ditch

and unknown to anyone, the thoughts and feelings

of our beloved bride armageddon

spilled from the drains

out from the world’s great carotids

the sleeping arteries

so much luxury

so much drama

so much of nothing...

                   (iii)

...once, at night, I roared

at the unbreakable, bastard stars

I screamed aloud at the gas giants

to get out of my face

for hours I railed against the fractious, defiant enormity

of this most bitter charade

it was a destitution I could no longer stomach

in every direction I turned, the poverty seemed to belong only to me

and so naturally I went on to demand the ultimate

the arrest of oblivion

death, I thought, would finally swing

for all its insatiable, cruel thirst

but that is not what had angered me

no, it was the fact that on a planet of billions

I had been left alone

to face the most inexhaustible solitude ever conceived

an end far more severe than dying

for I now understood that all this time I have been marooned

castaway on a patch of microscopic reality

that, awkwardly, has never and will never exist...

                               (iv)

...whatever the outcome, the signs, the nights

the rumours will burn their way across the fields

and beneath the smoke

the unsettling, existential rage

will live on forever unwrapping the earth

forever trying to extract affection

the echo of el mole rachamim

trying as ever to heal the unforgiven world

this dazzling cliff-face with its sapphires

emeralds and gemstones that terrify the mind

a strange, unrelenting moment of sexual gravity

that tears down every test of logic

we all are rumours

outcomes of rage

we are the wildfires falling from the cliffs

the nights burning with terrifying affection

the unforgiving people who have set ablaze

every word within our reach

we, the unrelenting gems

secrets wrapped in earth...