It all went so right
even that last passionate fight
burnt into kisses, light on lips
meeting tongues, meeting hips
and taunt-tackle-tumbling
undone flies, zips, button-fumbling,
Eyes in parts
Knees dug into hearts
Fingers, playing things,
Arms, spread-out wings
Skin that last thin sheet
Quickened blood, quickened beat -
You will shove and I'll push back,
panting in this heated attack,
flesh rubbed red
on a scent-soaked bed,
lips traverse breasts,
hands trace chests,
and pushing, a quick-coming tide,
I am taken for a storm-rough ride,
We rolled, and pitched,
and fucked, and switched
until at last
breath coming fast,
moans ascend,
bodies bend,
ecstasy is found
in minds unbound.

And if you ask me, I will say
I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Coffee

Hours in their unending,
racing, ticking revolution
rob the sleep,
the rest, the calm,
and the last straws
from under weary feet.

In the panic, the jolt
of terrible realization:
sleeplessness!
Breeding mistake
and double-take
and “I'll be late”
again and again and -
oh, the hair-pullingness
of the moment!

So comes it,
the Dark Side,
the Dark One,
bitter and black,
with the forbidden aroma
that calls to sleepwalkers
as sirens to sailors:
and we, half-ruined,
take the dive into the cup
and face the attack.

Heart a drumroll,
arteries a racetrack,
and blood the unwilling victim
of a frenzied, desperate race;
eyes open, senses on edge,
we take the second,
third,
fourth
wind
and turn it
into a life.

“Two creams,
two sugars.”
And we are done for.

alcohol

drunken drinking dropping head
and beer after beer the stomach is fed
holding on to warmth and the edge of sanity
having it out with the words and the boasts of vanity

alcohol you have me tainted and swayed
feeling in the end somehow betrayed
to act like a person more or less than who I be
could it be all just an illusion to me

and one more time I take to the bottle
spinning in this light-headedness full-throttle
loving every moment of careless abandon,free
to fly in beautiful, wonderful, heated ecstasy

and never hope for more,
at least in that moment.
alcohol, when it comes knocking,
insistently, at the door
of conscience,
I find myself answering
unable to ignore
its heyday of wonderful
and its thrumming blood tune.

when I wake
I will say
that it was
and not regret.

welcome. to. the. twenty. first.

Here comes twenty-first century disaster
as the stars of this world catch flame;
scientists cave to curiosity, their master,
and survival rests its life in the hands of fame.

So much exists on the brink of intangibility,
there and yet not quite,
as politicians lose mental stability
in the heat of verbal fight,
while the hookers lose the battle
to the aliens in the sex trade,
and third world children are herded as cattle
to their prisons of silk, leather and suede.

And in all its speed and digital wonder
in all its instant pleasure and easy fixes,
one can't help but slightly wonder
if our brilliant cloud nines are not, in fact, sixes,
turned upside down and disguised
as a new golden age, a modern day-
could we then be all surprised
if nothing seems to go our way?

Living in time was the parameter,
and each of us the subject,
but eliminate time and what comes to matter
is whether or not we object
to timelessness and its directive lack:
welcome. to the twenty-first century.
there's. no. going. back.

Motion 2

I guess I had it
all down wrong:
here was me, believing,
and knowing,
and still thinking
and doubting
for seconds
of ripping, shredding,
torn uncertainty -
and as it turns
this crux
this point
of hard-earned trust
snaps,
a jagged pencil end
and the lead a dust
brushed aside.

How that edge,
razor-thin and fragile
can be all this rests upon:
getting that balance
costs a price
one should never
be willing to pay.

And yet here I am.
Tread at the ready
arms out
head back
preparing to fall:
after all
this would not be
the first time.

Red Race

It had no verse
it had no rhyme
it stayed the words
and cheated time
this full-tilt mad
had it but sound
I would it were hate -
it would be less ground
on the rocking edge
of a tipping sky
and the flip it engenders
has me feeling this high
and as I lose head
in the capricious chase
falling at speed
of lightsound race,
there is a shatter
and it hails, heaven-crash,
shape-sharp cutting,
jagged, biting lash -
and scarlet-streaked,
the mind breaks:
a ravaged, ruined thing
and all it takes
is one last push
into too much,
so leaving it,
as such,
I gather remnants,
then rise and run,
knowing this heated anger
has only begun.

To the poet

If you had a place
and all the space
you would ever need
and every word, sound, syllable
at your command -
at your disposal -
then the infinite and boundless
realm of choice -
a speaker's voice -
and a simple, waiting
paper and pen -
what would you commit?

Which word would come
before -
or after -
what?
adverbs adjectives verbs nouns
tied in punctuation,
syntax and the mediation
of context -
it all matters, one phoneme
tied to the next,
all sound, fury and that fragile
thing called language -
playthings of poets,
slaves of writers -

But to me -
the world and more.
I could not simply settle for
just anything -
for I believe there must be
some way the words
on the page
could make themselves be heard.

Some Days

Some days I have read you
and found every word absurd
some I've skimmed in silence
and your meaning goes unheard -
some I've had to sit and stare
as the letters drift and fade,
and deny you validation
for the arguments you've made -
but answer me one question,
for I can't comprehend
what it is that has me reading
you from beginning to end?
And even when it seems to me
that I've read every word before,
each always faithfully there,
and never asking for more -
it still is quite the mystery
why it is that I can't find
any rhyme or perfect reason
in these pages of your mind.

This

Some of the time,
a little after daylight
and just before noon-hour
comes the parcel-piece of the dipping sun:
its unravelling crimson ribbons, the last rays,
are unfurled in smudged magnificence
against the peach-rose sky and
the azure-indigo dusk,
they meld, then melt,
pooling at the horizon,
before twilight
comes by.

All the other times,
I lose track of the day
and years might slip away
tumbling through fumbling fingers
unaccustomed to cupping the seconds of time
and hoping to catch a moment, still,
as it squirms in the palm,
before escaping this
and all mad reality.

But every time,
there is a constant, perched
at the brink of sunset and the end of time,
knowing there is nothing like the beauty
of silent-warm blanket gazes
and slight-smirking lips
that share a joke, a secret,
common centre of gravity,
but above all,
this.

Brescent Star

Sticing in the slade of night
Eyes nurched, clap-trap tight,
And broased out in the sky so timped with stars
I scree one glyze, fluously,
And plit, so delicately,
on the horizon.

Ah that it glines
forever in my mind,
my brescent star.

Midnight Walk

Traversing the curve of the earth
in a dancing midnight walk
Giving a little away
each breath a puff of steam:
rendering emotion
one inner sunshine ball
Obeying the strings of music
as they lift arms
and let knees fall.

And so walking I make pretense
of a courage; strideful step
Banishing the demons
who think I am not yet
entitled to my sunshine
or furtive foot skips
that along an icy pathway
eases into trips
Little body, little mind, slips.

And although I feel so small here,
gazing up, around and down,
and know that hearts beat only
until the end of their run
There is a comfort in owning
this little midnight walk;
The night doesn't judge
or stare at you strange;
it will take your sad smiles
and your tensed fists of rage -
And to this calm acceptance
neither human
nor daylight
can compare.