In Memory

A distorting mirror rests dusty on a whitewash wall,
Stolen from a funfair, hidden from grassy travel
By God’s strange plan. As you stare, it begins to unravel
Who you are. You remember your childlike bawl
At the seaside or the shopping centre. Your first
Best friend. Your first kiss. Your first good grade,
Or perhaps your first bad one. The first time you cursed
God for making you real. The first time you were paid
For the paper-run or working the bland office phone.
The first time you cried so hard you couldn’t speak.
Distorted in your mind, you see how you have grown
Into who you now are. Now defined by time. The weeks
Days, months, years of your life, arranged in a line.
Your heart aches for what has gone. All that lost time.
-- Keep dreaming, child, for what you have lost,
For now you are dead and have seen the mirror’s cost.

For the World

I see your colours. Your every emotion bared
To my eyes. Ruby-red poppy oceans, Indian silks,
Saffron powders in deep brown baskets.
A dark hand touching the soft green willow skins,
Fluttering towards the fields of white rice.

I see the women dipping into the dark water,
Plucking your seeds. The men whistling death
Across blue skies. Picnics under olive trees,
Dropping fruit on cracked warm breads,
Fresh from the market oven.

I hear a final bird cry, a final dance
Of an evening masquerade. Women in their high plumes,
Striding out doors with dainty feet. Men dragging their smiles
Under a dozen drinks, created on the Irish fields
By the old men stirring their old potato stocks.

I see the dance in my heart, the rhythms of the samba,
The rumba, the cha-cha, the slide,
Ringing through the streets like the bull’s heels
On northern Spanish nights. The mountains echoing
The drums with their deep inflection.

You cannot see all this world in one glimpse.
Would you wish to? Yet I reach out and you grasp my hand
And together, we begin to walk. Over mountains,
Over seas. Over the rice fields, the markets, the city halls,
The sweet-stepped dances,
And deep into your heart.

Future

To take a chance.
Reaching out,
With one atom,
To grasp a moment
And take another step.
Forward.
Or backward.
Do you know?

The wall is ticking.
Floors creaking
Under her feet.
Under his feet.
Under its feet.
This is your life.
Happy?
Or not?

The wall is ticking.
Stairs creaking.
Step. Step. Step.
You feel an atom.
Hitting your skin.
You smile.
Turn.
Touch.

To take a moment,
And stop the wall
From ticking.
Happy?
Perhaps
You take a step.
Just to stand,
And smile.

For a Moment

White paint runs down walls
Like your tears.
Covering your lurid dreams
With a new start.

You are starting again.
Chucked out the old bed,
The vase, the dried flowers
From your grandmother’s place.

‘Stand still’, a voice whispers.
A voice in the floor. In the air.
The paint falls to the floor. Now,
It hides your wooden memories.

Last time, you promised yourself
That this would be it.
The better time. The perfection.
The ideal. Guess what.

Turn, walk, click, pour.
Teabag steaming gently.
You lean. Sigh. Sip.
A smile.

Tonight, you will stare
At the white ceiling, painted
Stark yellow with halogen paint.
And remember.

This is meant to be it.
Everything better.
Not. Never.
But fine.

Soon, another note on the door.
‘Buy paint’, it reads.
‘Next year blue’, you think.
Another tear on the wall.

For a Thought

I am thinking. Perhaps of you.
Perhaps not. I watch time go by.
My skin turns cold, watching.
Morning falls. Night sun rises.
I see you walk past. Alone.
Always looking down, perhaps
For a penny coin.
I place one in your path.
You don’t stop.

An old man, walking stick,
Battered. Leaning heavily
On the floor. Your eyes droop
As though your skin were crying.
I smile. Your gaze falls.
Limp onwards,
Tarmac on feet.
One step at a time.
No more.

A young woman, red hair tied
Roughly. She was a little girl once,
With a red ribbon. Now she wears a
Sari. Bindi glints in the light.
Out of place. Beautiful.
No grace. She clops
In wooden shoes.
Small room. Rented.
Alone.

I am thinking of you.
Reading this. Our one connection.
You are thinking. Perhaps smiling.
Perhaps deeper. My thoughts
Are of this world.
Are part of you.
I am a part of you.
I know your name.
You.

The Fight

Metal glinting. Red hot
On an open fire.
Steaming, falling into flame.
Shaped. Cooled. Formed.

A hand holds its smooth hilt.
It swings in an arc,
Slicing the air.
Bend. Twist. Swivel.

You hold an invisible sword,
Stabbing gently with your words.
You pray that you are heard.
Loudly. Strongly. Clearly.

You hold your fears behind you.
This is no time to be afraid.
Stepping forward, towards the line.
Breathe. Think. Run.

Chasing ever forward. You wish
You could remember what to do.
What to say. Swift silence falls.
You step. Step. Step.

I see your weakness, under your steel.
Your fear. Your cowardess.
You dream of sharp words.
They are blunt. Flat. Soft.

You pretend to be proud.
Perfectly formed. Steely clear.
Pounding ground. Beating blood.
Now you.

The Kiss

Two people, standing in a puddle
Of concrete. Transfixed to each other
In eternal gaze. They lean and brush the air,
Never able to reach out and touch
Arms, eyes, hands, lips.

They move like dancers, feet solid,
Eyes turning their feet and raising them
Above the earth. They lean and touch
Arms, eyes, hands, lips,
In eternal grasp.

You crave eternity, just as all humans do.
Crave a touch, crave atoms clinging to atoms
With ethereal power. A boundless ocean
Of sky greeting each touch with a starlit moment.
One for each star in the sky.

Invisible...

Surrounded by brick. Fake stone.
I feel fake myself, sitting inside,
Hidden from sunshine.

I wish to demolish these walls,
Knock away solid barriers.
Invisible barriers remain.

I wish to be outside, yet protected.
I cannot be open, for then I can be hurt.
Vulnerable. Alone.

I want to feel the breeze in my hair
On the hills, by wave-torn shores.
Freedom in safety.

I sit here and dream,
Watching junk TV from my old sofa.
Dream of a future.

For The World...

For The World

I see your colours. Your every emotion bared
To my eyes. Ruby-red poppy oceans, Indian silks,
Saffron powders in deep brown baskets.
A dark hand touching the soft green willow skins,
Fluttering towards the fields of white rice.

I see the women dipping into the dark water,
Plucking your seeds. The men whistling death
Across blue skies. Picnics under olive trees,
Dropping fruit on cracked warm breads,
Fresh from the market oven.

I hear a final bird cry, a final dance
Of an evening masquerade. Women in their high plumes,
Striding out doors with dainty feet. Men dragging their smiles
Under a dozen drinks, created on the Irish fields
By the old men stirring their old potato stocks.

I see the dance in my heart, the rhythms of the samba,
The rumba, the cha-cha, the slide,
Ringing through the streets like the bull’s heels
On northern Spanish nights. The mountains echoing
The drums with their deep inflection.

You cannot see all this world in one glimpse.
Would you wish to? Yet I reach out and you grasp my hand
And together, we begin to walk. Over mountains,
Over seas. Over the rice fields, the markets, the city halls,
The sweet-stepped dances,
And deep into your heart.

For Love...

For Love

The love of a sister. The love of a friend.
Pure love. Cruel love. Chaste love.
A love you crave and wither behind,
Weeping solitary to the whimpering wind.
Cold, icy love, cutting to the bone of being,
Cornering behind shelters that you built
Around your feeble heart. Reaching
Through every barrier, around every shield.

It burns away the fairy-gauze thinness of mind
Until it hits soul, which it swiftly engulfs.
There is no escape. No relief.
Sheer passion, like the dancer for the dance.
The painter for a white canvas,
The child for Christmas Day.
Demonic love. All destroying, grasping love.
Never destroyed. Never grasped. Always loved.

For Your Wandering Eyes...

For Your Wandering Eyes

You hold a tiny child in your arms and see
How it grasps onto your hand,
Seeking comfort in your firm form.
It turns and gazes into yours, learning you
In a mere glimpse.

Bright eyes. Wide eyes. Not yet tainted by life.
Seeking to absorb every colour in an instant,
Gazing with pools of light, without fear.
Your eyes are smaller, shutting out the darkness
With an tear-drawn squint.

You walk away, one step at a time,
Into the darkness, wider and wider.
You try to walk faster, catch the departing train
By a second in an effort to extend your life.
As though a commuter watch is the key to life.

I ask you to stop. To slow and read these words.
You cannot read faster. You cannot think wider.
You will drop this paper to the wind and forget
As time continues, seeking a new second to destroy.

I ask you to stop and remember.
To widen your eyes to every colour.
To cry one more tear than courtesy allows.
To dance down a street without thinking or caring.
To wear fluorescent green and not care about the last train.
To watch the glimmering stars turn and for one moment,
Simply, sweetly, just be alive.

To A Dreamer...

To A Dreamer

You float.
Glide. Hover.
Your feet are pointed with their own weight.
Ballet-hardened toes from your dancing.
A camera clings to my palm. I film your dreaming.
Tiny storms wash around you.
Internal nebular tempests of poppies,
Rubies, roses;
Shining red apples lying in shining red piles
On vibrant, lurid grass.

You are craving.
Escape. Freedom.
To move your feet in the air and soar forwards.
Towards the prayer in your eyes.
I hear your rhythm. I record your dancing.
Capture it in my heart. Eternally.

Nevertheless,
The horizons contine,
the moving canvas
Of the heavens;
Pageant of clouds and stars
And the shifts
Of mystical blue,
Azure and cerulean. Ultramarine.

Your feet keep dancing. Swathed in colours,
Absorbed by life. Yet I hear the counting
Of ‘one’, then ‘two’, then ‘three’
And I think of your multitude dreams,
Balancing on your two tiny feet.

There are too many dreams.
Why we sometimes fall. Sometimes fail.
Yet we balance and watch our clocks tick
Away our chances and we smile.

And pray.

To A Child...

To A Child

I ask you, who are you?
You answer me with your name.
I repeat. You repeat. In pure simplicity.
Nothing seems difficult. Or complicated.
The red bucket and the yellow spade.
Barbie with Ken. Forever.

Now, cracks show on skin. Limbs askew.
Contorted. No longer a beautiful game.
No longer perfect. You see the audacity
As he walks away. Childhood is dated
By your thoughts. Yet the golden shade
Of childhood days linger. Simple. Perfect.

Forever.

Red.

A cruel person? I never thought of myself
As painted red. Yet now, I feel it. In my blood.
Red.

So many years of hiding, being terrorised.
Now I am the terror. For just a moment.
To a girl who is already stained red.
Dyed with a blood red spattered knife
She cut my flesh with. So many years ago.

Now I stand and hold my own knife and slice
Her fashionista cheeks. I show how strong I am.
How I now hold the scars of her knife
And many others to the light.

They are as opaque as my flesh itself.
Hidden. Present, yet invisible.

I have more papers to my name. More words.
More red ink ticks. Fewer red ink crosses.
I am better. And I take my own knife,
Calmly. Without hate. And show that I have won.

I sit here and wipe clean my blade, her blood
Staining my fingers.
I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t mean to hurt.
Yet somehow, as I showed myself to be different now
Than I was then, I smiled to myself, teeth between lips.
Painted red.

Red.

A cruel person? I never thought of myself
As painted red. Yet now, I feel it. In my blood.
Red.

So many years of hiding, being terrorised.
Now I am the terror. For just a moment.
To a girl who is already stained red.
Dyed with a blood red spattered knife
She cut my flesh with. So many years ago.

Now I stand and hold my own knife and slice
Her fashionista cheeks. I show how strong I am.
How I now hold the scars of her knife
And many others to the light.

They are as opaque as my flesh itself.
Hidden. Present, yet invisible.

I have more papers to my name. More words.
More red ink ticks. Fewer red ink crosses.
I am better. And I take my own knife,
Calmly. Without hate. And show that I have won.

I sit here and wipe clean my blade, her blood
Staining my fingers.
I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t mean to hurt.
Yet somehow, as I showed myself to be different now
Than I was then, I smiled to myself, teeth between lips.
Painted red.

You stand, strange in London’s harsh glare.
Small flowers drift over your soft shape.
Somehow perfect.

Wearing a bindi, for heaven’s sakes. An alien
To a pinstriped commuter world.
Floating.

Not Indian. You relate to an English pub.
And yet here you smile. Radiant in otherness.
Striking.

You seem awkward. Not quite here. Not quite there.
Bright eyes glimmer. Cotton dances around you
You seem to hide from my gaze,

Now you are one.
Individual. Yourself.
Alone.

Regular Journeys

My compass seems tied like lead weight around my feet,
Telling me to walk further. Climb still higher. Yet the weight
Seems weightless. Endless freedom tied to my back
Like the cheap gauze angel wings of a little girl.

My feet ache, tired, a weary walk attempting to escape
The real world. The real places of my life. The school,
The kitchen, the Starbucks. Escaping from regularity.
From obligation. The real world hiding its face from mine in its shame.

Trees cower in the heat. A golden shimmer
Seems almost transcendant. There is no escape here either,
Besides the war outposts and ancient concrete gunposts.
I fear finding a dead man.
All metres away from Mary Magdalene.

Religion and war hiding together. Alone.

Suddenly, a moment where even this strange world
Decides to hide its tired face. Yet, this is not a real world.

A place where religion hides from the sun and yet is in its centre.
Flame heat mutates into frozen arches, strange monsters
Beaming down with glaring faces. There are no houses. No reality.
You walk here. You may only walk away.

Dry grass laps against stone walls. A door turns to the face of a
Dying God. Slowly He falls. I watch. The gargoyles stare deeper.
I smile. Somehow, death is warmer, magical. I light a candle.
Try to resurrect the dead Gods. It doesn’t work.

Yet I see higher. The dome, beautiful. Alone.
Stunning in its solitude. The arches defy anything.
Weak. Yet strong. A place of opposites. Of hiding.
Of fear. Of disguise. Of life.
A place of dreams.

Language

I’m writing, aren’t I? Writing in the language of my endless youth
That continues into my strange everyday. I think with my tongue,
How to move and give grace of speech. My language.
Like I own it. Yeah right.

Try to teach it. A whole new language that seems to have no point.
No reason besides to confuse, to complicate.
Just learn to speak it, damn you!
Apparently I just built a dam.

It all looks so easy from the video. The smiles and happy faces
As they all understand. Strange sounds mutate into words
They suddenly know. I’m meant to evolve them. Evolve myself.

An old language they say. “You can speak, can’t you” they say.
All these people, coming to open a ‘British’ world.
I teach to escape. To close it.
How ironic.

One, Two, Three, Wink.

Stand and be gazed at. You see eyes,
Everywhere. They attempt to absorb you,
Gather you into their arms and strike you
Dumb. Absorb all you know. In a moment.

I’m meant to talk my years into their mind,
Speak away their fears into blind belief.
You must be kidding. And yet, they gaze
Putting their dreams into their glares.

I remember this. I try to think, try to know
Of my years and yet they vanish.

Vanish into nothing.

I’m meant to know something.
I’m meant to understand myself.
And yet, i’m yet young.

They grumble and poke papers into the correct order.
I tell them to smile and they do, only to let it fade
After a moment. I tell them it’s safe.
They reply with panicking eyes.

How can I turn darkness into light?
How can I turn the world around?
Brown eyes blue?
One,
Two,
Three,
Wink.

Peace.

Oh Lord above, please grant us peace,
So we may find our way to your Kingdom.

A God of multinationals, corporate sponsors,
Granting us a moment or a penny coin.

We have to draw up roadmaps to peace,
And proposals for our future lives.

Why not have peace for a moment and not worry
About money in the bank. Or money in the Kingdom.

I'm just waiting for a moment of peace.
Peace from your persistent evangelism.
Just for a moment, some peace.