Saturday 21 June 2014

1 New Poem

The Myth of the Bureaucrat

The flaky breeze of cotton and haydust
tumbling waves like myth-maiden locks in the
granary sink below tides of academic jargon,
the best sharpened scythes of our modern age.

Far-flung from these white shadows of people
in name and flutter coat, trailing to empty
early evening parking lots, running
cost estimates for window shades in padded cells.

I was waiting, shoe-shined, in a melancholy
hour's clock striking, getting ready for
when everything would be wonderful;
I found

it's even a long time waiting to get to heaven.

Friday 20 June 2014

1 New Poem

Heroes of the Age

The chorded chime of coffeehouse guitar,
little angels in their faulted fisticuffs
taken up at 4AM for police and refuseniks,
in the former time when something was
worth the drawing for.

In some nights I wish I could sit in those
smoke-filled alcoves of New Haven and Paris:
the men and their glass-stained filigrees of insight,
the women and their lipstick rum glasses, raised fists;
but there's too much life to live today

for all that wishing.

Wednesday 18 June 2014

1 New Poem

The Last Tune of Summer
The cast of amber skin in wave tempest,
grain affliction to the cast-hitting curtain;
remembering the sniff-smell of hair dye shades:
synthetic as they were, synesthesia of heartbeat.

Prosaic shuffle of metal and licked lip gloss,
thought you had some arc of time's justice to
build this brittle piece upon, thought you were
so much more than smouldered ashes and cigarette signals.

We stood in the low-light deaths of merry-go-round
streets, calliope trills spilling as Niagara winery
in the lop-side river of July evening graces
taking in the last drops of sweetened water, the

last time of carelessness.

Sunday 8 June 2014

1 New Poem

Empty Arms

The cedar clash of orange grove and pine
as dawn-settled we in woven fineries finest
in temptation, were but the passed-close lips
going to taste in talk and tear-stain.

Still like of white lines, depth depressed
in tone of player piano keys
timed to the clacking chatter of
half-polished teeth and carpal sinew.

You paint in the cross-eyed shade
of grand elder oak facades, brittle
as communion cracker and twice as holy,
three times as bright as saints themselves.

Portraits had their frozen charms, reminder
of rush-rattled cage of clock faces,
when I had, in adolescent wish, to find
one day your curves and crossly shape

where there is now but stale air and moonlight.

Monday 2 June 2014

1 New Poem

Chandelier Crystal

You taste the brigand's waters swish-swirled
in opal trust, the half-moon howls dipped
bit-by-bit in coin and serpentine smile:

you choke on the first swallow, kept it down.

Still, it was a choice ungiven, complex
denials from the skittering passion of vermin paws
upon kitchen tile; the ever-turning complaints of it:

you and yours, yes, how unlucky.