SPEED DEMON
We used to ponder preponderance
lying in wait for fin de siecle musing
we used to wander in wonderment
waiting for lies which weren’t amusing
Now, watching malevolently
my watchful eyes
encompass your threadbare form decaying
your fierce mind addled by escapism
fuelled by melancholy
We used to believe the believable
that insignificance influenced megamacrocosmos
we used to possess the dispossessed
now you feel nothingness, infinitely tiny
We used to perceive the unperceivable
seeing as believing our senses
we used to agree the disagreeable
in each other was what we loved
At this moment, you sense that belief
is seeing narrowly your essence disperse
whilst us has dissipated easily
that we only exist now as words
Disengaged, we is me –
as the past rots, the future echoes
return nothing but shame.
WE ARE SHOWROOM DUMMIES – for Peta Harrison
Nature – you great deceiver
irrepressible winds swirl
sweep up debris into the ether
while she is cold, my little girl.
Spreading warmth of sunglow
replenish colour to pallid cheeks
sunburst – highlight tawny brown, show
herself, droplets, fine mist leaks.
Tidecoat beachgrains encroach
deceptively quick, slow realisation
dawns, too late to approach
and stop her from migration.
Smite jagged blows, split
into caves, where my girl was carried into the dark
gloom where leatherwings flit
and leave their sonic mark.
Rain smatters not, pinpointing
naive targets, like barbed words
ripping, the sharply soft pling pling
spears, vision wavers, blurred.
Tears of fire scorch, caramelising
her trust – she gave, he didn’t.
He heard her sing
Now he will do what he is bidden.
THE TALE OF AWESOME HORSHAM – for Davina Yardley
( I )
It never ends,
this painful joy
when oaks befall
the token whims
of sentinels standing by the barn
and jennies spinning
yard by yard
I saw the agate
forming slow
and calcite harden
into itself
but all that,
I remember least
when thinking of West Sussex cheese.
( II )
She, sitting beneath the monument,
hears the rushing waters cease
deep opalescent pools gleam
behind them, thoughts unreadable.
( III )
And on, from little havens grew,
light dusk, the merry thoughts
eat in
while laughter rumbling echoes back
and forth in ping-pong stereo streams
And on, they walk like land-locked ducks
to where, no one can tell –
two sweethearts, children, hand-in-hand
pass by, a wistfulness aroused.
( IV )
Astonishment surpasses joy,
defeats the pain –
her hot hand magical.
And at the station of depart
she demonstrates the truth she knows.
But all that,
I remember least
for pure bright energy released
me,
It released me again.
CIGARETTES ARE SUBLIME
Catchfire quicken; the slow
pull of match head on glass
paper emasculates.
Fast relief from pain
releases like orgasm,
pissing.
Hands of a writer clutch
pen-like. Wand weaves
bluesmokemagic,
drifting.
Ascension parallels tension dispersal.
I crave you more than woman,
more than sustenance.
Quickening pulse.
Indefinable anxiety.
Addict.
Halogen glow worms into
hidden nighttimes
assist neuron fire,
concentrate.
Each shortening stick,
beckoning,
scythes time
meandering its wending path
towards black tar,
coating.
Yet still, despite
the innumerable heads you sulphurated,
I love you, twenty times a day,
Hating myself.