Saturday 16 March 2024

once upon a time a long long time ago

 once upon a time a long long time ago


it was a child’s book

being read by a child

for the first time a doorway opened

across the fields i knew

with a story leading away

with someone i knew had not been there

with me but was leading me 

where to i knew not

but follow i knew i had to

for it he started

this adventure of a lifetime 

‘they’

‘they’


not we you notice

oh no we would never do that


but they did didn’t they

and most of them were like us


i fear that inside of us all

there is a darkness that could

turn us into a they


we wrap ourselves in layers

of society 

of civilisation

to hide that fact


pray do 

the ender

 the ender 


the last person on earth owns the whole world

but has no one to share it with

still he keeps looking over her shoulder 

she asks what is gender he asks her

but it is all smoke and mirrors

two pyres of the world

and not one extinguishing mark between them

Friday 15 March 2024

dave wrote a poem

 dave wrote a poem


how nothingness spits back your words

your daring to think 

to see it for what it is


never challenge the smokescreens of others

for they have deigned not to see


pain


well there is nothing else

except the distance of removal

from it

terrible words flow

into the well of despair

a smile fa a a a alls


there is no splash 

for the tears have dried up


gawping 

Tuesday 12 March 2024

is a poem is

is a poem is


as the sculptor said

the sculpture is there in the rock

already

there in the dictionary 

and the thesaurus 

the acronyms the synonyms

the meter and the alliterations

personifications onomatopoeia

all the etceteras

in the all the brain cells

of everyone who has lived

or will live


there


is THE poem


like a grain of sand dropped into superheated water

an explosion waits

the grain of sand is there in the timer

the water boils in you


like a stick in a candyfloss machine

a bomb down a mortar tube

the rising sun

a supernova 


when all this falls from it


there


is THE poem


when poets procreate

in an orgy of social loneliness 

the singularity of a single thought

can create a universe

a bookworm-hole

a crossing


look me in the eye of my words


this

is MY poem 

surfed in like a wave 


Monday 11 March 2024

sob-sided

 sob-sided


it catches in the throat

the ghost of a sob

a breath slowly erasing

the fall of a tear


yes 

a polite cough

will hide it from others

this pain as big as the universe


as deep as time itself

for there is no time now

it has torn on that sigh

and is stopped dead

Friday 8 March 2024

oh i say

oh i say


the words in my poems and tweets

come from places i have never been

speak in a language that translates me

they explode at the speed of an eruption 

congeal like lava losing heat

i fear to walk on the crust of them

come closer

throw me a rope