Fear

I am alone
and I don’t mind;
I have my words
and those of others
and images and music
and my cigarettes
to calm me.

So I sit in the darkness
and have imaginary
conversations
over an absent cup of coffee,
rue missed chances
that were gifted to me.
I see palaces,
but no princess willing
to live in any,
mighty steeds,
but no knight brave enough
to kill himself,
I see lovers
afraid to love
and poets afraid to write,
afraid to endure pain,
unable to make people
understand.

I look at myself once
before I throw away
the cigarette,
the happy dagger,
life,
the universe,
and everything.

Sitar Man by Fred Herbert

In the sad recesses
of his mind
the Sitar Man
sits and waits
patiently.

A long time
ago he was young
and so
will you be
and only once
and then,
maybe then, you will understand
what it means
to be waiting in the corner.




Swirling shadows
swim past his sallow
forehead
and when they find
the time to be right
they dive deep within
his eyes.

Those eyes,
long ago,
searched the streets
for mysterious angels
and now the Sitar Man
hides them behind
the caves he has discovered
and when you are old
then, maybe then,
you will understand
what it means
to be waiting in the corner.

night sky

"Oracle sur Managua: Hommage a Ernesto Cardenal," by Armando Morales

Walking into the fog
the night sky surrendered
itself,
and the stars.

Animal instinct
paired
with uneven lust
dreams of tomorrow
and the meandering
path of civilisation
withdraws into the souls
of lost children
who loved in pain
and were pained
by happiness
when it was presented to them
wrapped in silver paper,
borrowed from the stars,
when the night
sky surrendered.

wishappear

He waited in the corner,
with the musical innocence
of a whisper,
by a window
that looked upon an empty street,
waited for a stranger
to walk past
so he could see
and tell himself
he has not reason
yet to wish himself away.

As he lowers his head,
to put it on a platter
so that others may feast,
he dreams of fairy tales
and that peace wishappears.

despair (imagined)

Will you dance with me tonight,
in a world
created by weaving
a storyteller’s delight,
by the riverside,
under the silent shelter
of the shivering trees?

Will you let the stones
scar your feet
and make them bleed,
till you can walk
no more,
till we have to lie down
and wait
for the moon to wake
from its slumber
and cover our
shivering,
scarred feet
with the silver blanket
of our sordid troubles,
till we realise
that nothing is
as were told
it is,
till the hunger
in your soul
lets you sleep
peacefully,
so peacefully that for once
there is not
a thought
in your mind
and nothing
that I could see
as I stare
into the emptiness
of our eyes?

i write

I write though I know
that I have not the right
to write.

And yet I will.

With a whistling wind
behind my back,
with the smoke
spiralling heavenwards
before my eyes
I wonder
and I wander
along pathways, new
and untouched
with all the others,
all the ones
I wish I wouldn’t
see,
or rather,
wouldn’t see me.

I imagine worlds
and I imagine people.
I imagine words
and I disappoint
some people.
I write because
I think I must
and I write what I see
all around me
and inside me.