Standing Down

John West was the best, when he left everything was wonderful.

The kitchen is a war zone made of oranges and cinnamon.

Nutmeg and rose tea would find a clean cup amongst the debris.

It wasn’t like tuna was my soul or anything.

Like pancakes and maple syrup and loss would flow through my veins. 

Sunlight stolen from the straights of Gibraltar. 

Salt from the tears of the Mediterranean caves. 

The world reflected in a tear drop. 

The grief and loss that pumps from my heart is warm and fuzzy and blurry. 

I live in a permanent haze.

I encompass my mistakes, like a tree that grows around the weapons.

Someone will chop me down and use the weapons against me.

Life is a brief bright jewel. 

Love is the colours.

The beautiful thing is lurking behind me in indigo blue. 

I tell him he’s beautiful. 

He crunches his meaning like an apple.

I pretend not to hear him chew.

He sounds like bricks and mortar.

He sounds like stolen time.

He sounds like a perfect circle.

Circling the geometric shapes that men think they can use to control God. 

Where is the foundation?
the Romans asked.

An empire that died before they built buildings taller than the canopy.

The Greeks, with their ontological leeks, bows, arrows, set squares.

Reason reason reason he still asks of me. Logic Logic Logic. Will Will Will.

Do not answer him !

He will never return anyway. 

Not even if you measure the distance between the temple and the flower.

Between the steps and hope

Between the moon and the sky.

Not even then.

Standing Up

‘How long can we stay in this rabbit hole kitchen anyway?’, asked Alice, always on the up.

They lied to me when they said it was only a dream.

We are only half here at any time.  Stars are falling in the periphery. 

If you close your eyes tight enough you can see the colours.

If you look through the colours you can see the tunnels

If you travel through the tunnels, you can see people in a kitchen, sitting at a wooden kitchen table,

Discussing their wayward children who seem pretty determined to avoid

facing the facts. 

Time to ring the bell.

Time to get back to the body.

Time to shake it off and leave the white tunnels for the children who still believe in the power of wishes.

The children who still sing the songs stolen from the falling stars.

The children who wrote the sacred chords,

Who mapped the energy spots,

Who spoke of combustion and entropy and of the beauty of things falling apart.

The children who refused to fear the second law of thermodynamics.

The children who wrote of what they saw through the telescopic lens,

And wrote of what they didn’t see.

Connecting to exploding stars

Grow up he told me.

I called nonsense to his constant melancholia once.

Grown ups call that standing up and

trying to steal sideways from the inevitable totalitarians.

Growing up is telling people what’s what.

Growing up is measuring and comparing the rate of falling far away.

Growing up is numbering penumbra’s opacity, pigment and texture.

Love is the colours.

I have no regrets.

I’m just trying to make sense of the pop songs.

Did they really write them for themselves?

Inside out and upside down

Heart on the sleeve and ears to the ground.

And we all sang along.

It kept the silence away at least.

He went silent on me once.

I died from shock.

I wrote him a thankyou card for my birth.  Let it rain.

Keep me hanging so I can learn the world of tree branches.  The secret language of leaf stomata. I learn photosynthesis.

I make friends with the dark, and friends with the bog.

I came from mud.

I gather stinging nettles and pockets full of pride. 

The pride might come in handy one day, if you find Tobermory the fix it womble, let me know.

Standing Still

I stand still in a strong wind watching the world move around me.

If you sweep me off my feet, then the wind will bring me home.

You won’t stay. You will take the music with you.  I will walk to my own tune.

My tune sounds like putting my head in the fire and screaming.  It sounds like whiplash. It sounds like him pushing his weight around.

It sounds like thieves wailing at the wall.

Lambs in wolves clothing

It’s the only way to sing the blues man. 

“I love the jocund dance, the softly breathing suns” sings Blake.

I’m just trying to make sense of the pop songs, I confess to Blake. 

“They inflame me with fury” He replies.    

The curse of the stars

The worst thing is that eventually the worst will be over.

The worst thing is eventually the pain will end.

Love is a perfect curse.

Love is the colours.

Apparently, God was terrible at it, according to Mary. 

And she would know.

She knew the stars that glittered like moss.

The stars reflected in the river. The river reflected in the stars.

Gnosis is the system, the 7-pointed star, the knowing of knowledge the consciousness of the conscious. It’s all very meta, very microcosm, very dull and boring until some catholic is threatening to cut out your tongue for speaking the name.

Ernie from Sesame Street was a Gnostic.  He remembered it in his fabric bones.  That is why when he sang about the things he would miss if he lived on the moon,

He never uttered Bert’s name, his beloved, his life, his all around. 

Lest the Catholics cut out his tongue.   

I study gnosis and have no fear of Catholics who try to dominate eternity with secret signs, handshakes and business suits.

I will name the names of those who named me nothing.

Aquamarine. Plum.

I keep them safe.  I won’t lie by omission, submission, religion or politicians.

I will not destroy myself by lying, even if it makes my writing unmarketable.

Advertise this.

Mangroves and dark calls.

Good intentions with his bride in white.

Boots of brass and iron.

A dark green field.

Shiny warplanes on a clear blue sky.  Geometric shapes in shiny steel.

Quantity quantity quantity

Morals Morals Morals

Satan Satan Satan.

Tell us it’s a good day to live.

The going/ the staying

‘You took my integrity but you couldn’t take my belief.’ said Alice.

‘I saw that unicorn with my very own wonderful eyes.’

When you’re going through hell, why not stay a while, enjoy the view, have a cup of tea with a daemon,  warm your toes,

Discuss some Hegel.

Fall like a dream, like a clenched fist.

There’s all the time in the world down there.

Only the time, the snake rattles his eye

The eye is the mind of the heart. The mind is the eye of the heart.

The heart keeps the time.

Today the heart, mind, eye told me.

That freedom was going to take some practice. 

Freedom dances in the sky naked with butterfly wings that they pull into geometric shapes

Pour the colours into steel.

Freedom dances in the sky and they pull at her, like they pull at their lovers hair until she dances in their eyelashes.

Pour the colours into tears

Freedom dances in a painting.

I exist in the bottom left hand corner, like a drunken option on a sober night.

I paint my multicoloured wings brightly.

Standing still on a windy day.

It is my poem, after all.