Four new poems

Effort

I wrestle with the
Page. Its lines are
Chainmail to my
Pen’s dagger nib.

How hungry I am
To fill a page
With song. How
Sick I am to do so
That I cannot face
The bland disappointment
Of a sentence. I press
And twist to try and
Crush the words to
Submit under my will.

This is it -
The pen is broken
And the ink is spilt
The words are written.



Barrier

The shield on my heart is a cage, is a
Vice.
You cannot see me
Where alone I sing
Softly
As nightmares flicker
In dark cragged corners.

You may speak
To the satellites
The battered birds
That flutter around
My skull.

You may look
Into my shuttered eyes.

But my song is silent
And already sung
And my heart is
Shrunk
And dry.

Come and kiss
My dusty mouth. Come
And hold my idle hand

My dusty heart
Is cracked in a cage
My shrunken hands
Are a vice for the
heart, my shuttered eyes
are birdpecked
and my shrunken song
is sung.


Return

A night sky
Hung with stars
And a low moon
Crescent slit and
Swimming
Wandering back
Talking to you
The imaginary you
The eternal you
You the other
A breath in my mind
If I saw a shooting star
I thought I wouldn’t know
What to wish for
But I realise
Had I seen one
I would have known
To wish for you.


Lake

Not everything
Is a mirror;
The disregarded
Tv screen and this
Vacant page do not
Contain you as you
Thrust yourself onto them.

The people you meet
Are not there
To answer
Useless question
After useless question.

The mirror, its insubstantial
Ghosts that flash
As your eyelids blink
Against the onslaught
Of time’s pulse.

It is a mirror
But it does not contain you.

Can you see
Beyond the surface
Of a clear lake
On bright day?

What news is there now
For your dulled eyes?
Blink now.
What is there left
To recognise any longer?
How does a ghost die? Blink
And you’ll miss everything
Stare and your gaze
Will slay the substance
Of things, will cut
Your own throat
With fragments
Of the broken whole.

Cracks and shards
Dusted with lost
Flakes of skin
From a wasted past
Looking for
Something that is lost by
Looking. Grabbing at
Air and dispelling it,
Suffocating yourself.
Blink. The point
Where two eyes
Crossed, strained
Within glass
To meet one
Doubled up
And flipped,
Inverted and
Mirrored
To equal
A snapping.
A severance.
A grand endless
Nothing -
Eternal
And unresting.

Memo

Found an old memo on my phone -

Mental illness, teddy bears,
language rhyme, skill
franchise.

Wire I've been going wrong

All these years I've been thinking the refrain to Ex-Lion Tamer were "stay true to your demon self" when it was actually "stay glued to your tv sets".

The other side of the coin

Further?
How about back? Is the footsteps still there to follow? I didn't leave breadcrumbs the way I came.

Everything feels like wasting time.

Settle down and sort it out. Simplify (man).

It's probably all ok.
Today, tomorrow, a weeks time. Next month. Summer. Next academic year. Christmas.
Beyond that?
Whatever.

Praxis

Translating an idea into action.
DIY.

Think things will come to you?
Am not sure anymore.
Think I have to get up and sort it.
The Way is blocked.

Direct interventionist social action and spontaneous decisionmaking against conditioning and natural currents of people and behaviours.

Step up.

Schedule

Things to do

Get a pen and paper out
Make another list
Put things on it you should be doing
Do them