1 New Poem

Burned Up Bundle

It was spectacular, sleepwalk and briny,
when I came out to wire shores for
a light lick of morning’s air;
felt something grow across from
wavering smoke signs, pit fire
leavings that criss-cross skies
and leave a breathless swimming dark
beneath.

When I wane in grandeur,
placed in bow-breaking time from
our good days that left marks deep
in skin damage, then I became
more plastic, with rains drifting through.

If I made the effigy stake, was
well-thought and worthy, it wouldn’t
have been so close to lifetime’s
defeat; still, too cold for all
that we were, just signals passing on
scrap ice and plated mineral.

1 New Poem

Red Shift

The light strings spelt out Dutchman’s
fantasia, glowing to beckon with long-promised
touches of teak handicraft and finger-
stitched garments that float, sinking with
time beneath falling waters’ pressures,

that they were hung above in  bold colours,
draped out waiting for hearts broken from
sunshine headaches, bad moonshine memory,
was a reminder of cement floors
below, that pouring pace of things before

you came; what it took prepare
for the splinters and sweat streaks
that came out as centered demands,
laughing requests from the bottom of
somewhere deep in spirit that longed

for a night when things were so
broken even the front-facing air
had a quality of blood.