To Forget

I don't recognise love these days.
It appears to me only in tearful gasps
or an eye full of loathing.

The precursors to a smile have atrophied.
Withered and become pitiful things
Like a dog taken one kick too many.

Too far gone. Things more akin now
to snarls of resentment, plaintive wails.
Bared to bite and break the skin.

And so, the remains of any small comfort
putrify. Rotting humours; the old 'black bile'.
A sickly joke to stick in and twist.

It's enough for this that was once a man
in love, that feels death every night.
I don't recognise myself these days.

The Queen of Spurs

Day Twenty

One soundless night you were the midnight-chaser,

A spark-lighter; gardener of thoughts.

From zip you became many things,

Heart-hider. Beat-mover. Verse-walker.

And then you wouldn't stop being.

From a rare nonsense-peddler,

to highbinder in tales. Grin-giver,

and bestower of strange monikers.

The gone-wrong chocolate-ducker.

I forgive you, my midnight-chaser.

Tactics

Day Nineteen




Pick a spot with confluence
of provision, industry, science
and gather dust.

Apply the cost of research
Prioritise technology
and always gather dust.

Explore. Inquire. Set foot
upon the world and
meet its many creatures.

Seek that which aids you.
The strategic and luxurious,
ever with dust and influence.

Employ brands of diplomacy
whether words to tempt
or the threat of utter ruin.

Gather golden dust about you
In the air, the sea, the earth
and all its people.

Home

Day Nineteen

 

Cor! Love a duck!

 

Well I go to the foot

 

of my grandfather's stairs

 

You're as common as muck.

The Life Insurgent

Day Seventeen

A protestor throws a most violent eruption
in demonstration for an eight-hour day
The wall over Manhattan island
demands the status quo

A mob in Constantinople
surrenders a sacred symbol of power
Junks in a struggle against the Manchus
Revenge for subverting the party

monarchy abolished
fails to rouse the clans
anarchy established
free and open to all

At the Tsar's injudicious order
Cavalry charge 'cross icy cobblestones
Don't cheer boys, the poor devils are dying
A star in Taurus explodes in a cosmic cloud
and the first English coffee house opens in Oxford

Day Trip

Day Sixteen



We slip down the steps
with the dust and the lizards.
Past imagined arches and
dreamt-up mosaics.

Long dead masons
ate olives and bread here.
Curious dolphins
watched them depart.

The dry, hot brushwood
once whispered to bulls.
But speaks not of ruin
in time's labyrinth.

Last Orders

Day Fifteen

Blah-blah,
Rah-rah,
Laugh it up,
Ha-ha.

No-no,
So-so,
Feelin' like a
Yoyo.

Shoo shoo,
Juju,
Got me doin'
Sous sous.

Bling-bling
Chin-chin,
Waitin' for the
Ding-ding.

My my,
Bye-bye,
Steady now,
Aye-aye.

The Grand Old

Day Fourteen

Hallo my sweet Roseberry Topping;

Permit me to gain elevation.

Then on my attaining your summit,

Admit me no fair means of stopping;

Award a descending rotation.

I possess not a wish to refrain so

Permit me to willingly plummet;

Accord me the end of a rainbow.

Fortunes

Day Thirteen


An outcome awaits in which
perspective will colour all memory.
Funnel it like water into pools
where it will variously appear to the eye
as silver or black. Bright and dancing
or waiting in shadow like a lurk.

There will be times when recollections
are not to be trusted. A tear that falls
may never land. The touch once familiar
to every nerve will come to be forgotten.
And harbours that seemed upon a time
but sailor's tales may dreadfully appear.

A die of many-sides will be cast
upon life and its infinite horizons.
Trouble caused. The unremarkable endured.
Doubtless, solemn promises will be broken.
Love and loss will at once be percieved
as worthwhile burdens and sublimely absurd.

Experiments in Repetition

Day Twelve

Breathing space and the present moment
living in defeat; reactions to bodily experiences.
Awakening in the morning and working the edge
in-between mindfulness and the sensation of pain,
setbacks; unconscious reactions to self-talk.

Breathing space as a destination.
Goal focus. Extending authority over facts.
Regarding feelings in a failed expedition
against regret. Damage caused by sadness in action.
A three-minute breathing space, washing dishes.

How we tune out from taking care of ourselves,
giving up control, working the edge
of a breach in breathing space. Spiral of mood.
Focus. And mindfulness. And negative thoughts and thoughts
"fixing" what's "wrong". Context, memory and control.

Damage caused by attempting action. Profoundly affected
by disarray, reactions to defeats, reactions to critical moments.
But beginnings of behaviours, ambitions of a drive to rejuvenate
A three-minute breathing space and
mindfulness of the breath and body.

A three-minute breathing space and wandering mind,
Weight loss as a result of daydreaming.
Turning off the autopilot with a steadying action
and solving the problem of feeling bad.
The telling advantage of working the edge in.

The Winged Bull of Nineveh

Day Eleven

Hewn from a single slab,
most powerful and ferocious.
Thirty tonnes of protective spirit.
The face that daunts; the wings, the hooves.

Amid his mass of curled hair and tumbling beard,
a stern kind of tight-lipped smile.
Knowledge shown in the outline of the limbs,
bearing not arms but pine cone and basket.

The naked leg designed with a spirit and truthfulness.
Above his back, wide spreading feathers rise,
his breast and body profusely adorned
with exquisite history.

I pity hatred as identity.




Credit to this article by Kanishk Tharoor and Maryam Maruf.

World/War

Day Ten
 
 
A headlong world history
beginning with dead air, silent skies.
Then the longest winter.
A guide to the beasts,
the hidden life. Horses and ponies.
Hell riders; witnesses to war,
to trails of tears, these heroes and villains,
Over the moon and under the eagle.

The perfect prince. The liar.
Black cats and evil eyes.
Poetical works, architecture;
The world's most mysterious places.
Long lost cities and darkness at noon.
The world at war in god's name -
a shifting war in words - with
battles that changed forgotten soldiers.
Now just a load of old bones;
The love letters of great men.
Over the moon and under the eagle.

And now, the hand that trembles,
thinking about almost everything.
How to do just about everything.
Stitch.
Dissolve.
Distort.

Exorcists Wanted

Think of the ghoulish,

cruel wasted wishes.

Swirled up into people,

pale and clenched and

screwed up to shaking but

too spooked to unfurl.

Harrowed by habit

and the browbeaten days.

I'll always be me,

you'll always be you,

and regret is a haunted house.

Daffs

Day Eight



Yesterday twenty daffodils were murdered,
scythed down in their prime and left to wilt.
I think a heartsick gardener, on a spring walk,
had thought fuck this. My heart can't contain
this rage and my soul can't stand
a gleeful thing for one more moment.
And who's to say that's not gardening?
After all, life is just feeding then cutting at stuff.

Old Feeling

Day Seven


In my room there is discernable weather
An empty cold and touch devoid of feeling
Loneliness no longer lacks an old weight

The universe won't quit, won't fucking wait
Pressed against me, all insistent whether
I pretend to wake or fake a longed for feeling

The heavy half-light seems to have me feeling
Always for some trick to shift a weight
Although I know the burden's mine to weather

Whether or not to wait for that old feeling.

Bubble Tea

Day Six

May I persuade your very self to try the latest fad,
It's bound to be the most delightful thing you've ever had.

You're cordially invited, dear, to tell me what you think,
concerning how your tastebuds dig the latest trendy drink.

It comes I think from Thailand or Taiwan or somewhere east,
And now it's here in Hipsterville that all of us may feast.

Oh bubble tea? I hear you cry, all reason in a knot,
For how can they put soda in a cosy-covered pot?

A fizz-imbued concoction in your finest china cup?
Why nay; the bubbles manifest upon your sucking up.

They're made, I guess, from seaweed slime or melty sugared prawn,
Perhaps a frog was harvested of all its precious spawn.

The drink itself, presumably, delights beyond compare,
It's fruity, fun and colourful; please try it if you dare.

With satisfaction guaranteed, you'll surely not regret,
At least that's what I presuppose; I haven't tried it yet.

All Nighter

Day five.


early wonder purple sprouts
sparkled gems of glass eclipsed like

little marvels; sunrise bumblebees
a hollow crown atop the ruby queen.

the blue-curled painted mountain is
a fringed mix of bull's blood,

mammoth melting sugar snow,
and acres, just acres of gold

We half long for nighttime.

Damn you, April!

NaPoWriMo day four asks us to write about the cruelest month. Well I'm here to tell you we're in it.


Spring


I'll be damned if it isn't true
that the true sadness in a season
- the cruel root of heartache -
isn't in the dying

but in the Aprils of a life,
when the ground swells and beats.
The year's blood pumping,
sinew stretching bough and leaf

and love unfolds - tenderly -
with all its boundless promise.
Sweeps you up and bids you marvel
oh! It's lovely, oh! It's gorgeous

The prettiest of deceits, for sure.
How soon the Autumn fades
and we forget the slow decay,
the death. Of everything that's good.

Of all that made us brim
and billow; fine false promise.
For who would mourn a death,
if there'd never been a living.

 

Fresh Air

It's NaPoWriMo 2016! The prompt to kick it all off is astoundingly uninspiring; to write a lune. I think I would have been happier with the prompt "Uh... write a poem or whatever..."




Circled Sun


The clouds are a kingdom
I'll never indwell
So let them cry, precipitate

I see the circled sun
The sky heaves
Something snaps unhurriedly

Heaven is layered in shades
I was shown
The vault belongs to none

None but me