Monday, October 30, 2006

On Reading of Messines

As the mandrills pock-egged and gnarled
Came tumbling through the
Gloomy view
I sat and rubbed the ghoul's
Whitening thigh
What frozen way do you count this waste
Strewn like a beggar's wage
By men too full of pride and plenty

An imperial house of idiots
Let loose their toy chest
And usurped the world
Of thinking men
A crushed and breaking
Squelch that turned their heads

All right I say
From up above and down below
The covens cry of hungry feet
And and swollen mouths
With nothing left to walk with
But our thousand crimes

Could you speak in any softer tone
When all the air
Is sliced from your jaunty belly
With a lion's claw
Red hot in no-man's land

And the sky above
Black-streaked with iron
Like screaming babies
Never faced again
My sunken mud-faced mate
No face no guts no legs

And crawling from the docks
The bastards could never know
How could we even start to say
What a time we had
And what we
Left behind

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Youth

Tweed patches dissolve from my mind
As I watch the clock spin like a yo-yo,
Decorated with Coca Cola and Fanta labels
From my childhood.

Flash, flash go the images of
Cricket matches on the front lawn
And stick fights in the park,
Charging down the street on
New bikes and skateboards,
Footballs over the fence and
Running from dogs driven mad.

Yet, where there were sprinklers in the sunshine,
Now everything is pin-striped and cold.

Tell my son to enjoy his time.
Tell my child to take risks.
Tell him this,
And smile for me.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The Mentor

To pay for the mortgage
I dance with the devil,
Up on his goat-legs he jives
As I learn the dark arts
To connive and turn off cold
My moral pump.

I've seen the philanthropist
Spin from caressing babes
To spitting out
Blackened lies barbed
With cross intentions,
Thrilled in his mauling grope.

Lick-spittle and suck, he says,
Come learn the way.
Don't judge my actions,
Judge my greater aims.
Have I confused you
With my Machiavellian call?

Embrace this as the law, my friend
Drink it in and say, I live!
For nothing deserves
To survive unless
It has fought and won,
He sniggers off to one side.

But he knows I've seen -
Don't be a fool he shouts
This pathetic angst
Isn't worth the time
It takes you away from
Bruising more bones.

There is no god
And no judgement book
And all things are equal
And nothing wrong
When everything ends
At a gravedigger's farm.