FATHER, HUSBAND, SON.
Dust wipe sweep
Iron His shirts His shirts
His words dust wipe sweep
And iron his shirts
His way of saying
Stay at home your job
Watch over the kids
I’ll make sure
The bills get paid
I’ll make sure
That you get laid
His words – often unsaid
Unspoken, but no less real,
As soft as a sledgehammer
As worrying as the nights
He spends out – drinking,
Or fucking some whore,
Some slut off the streets.
At home I alone
Watching some rubbish
Worrying over nothing
Getting older by the hour
Dusting
Wiping
Sweeping
His mess his smell his stench
The stench of victims unrelenting
Hannibal Lecter Cannibal Lecher
Do you smell my cunt
Father, Husband, Son,
Do you take it all in
To give it all back
Is that the way that life is?
Is this my life,
Dusting, wiping, sweeping,
Weeping at night
When day is done,
Ironed his shirt,
That smelt like some bitch
He was fucking.
Did he think of me
When I was young,
Young in the crib
With my father touching me?
KOSOVO.
At peace
Winter rain
As if peace
Lay in the palm of my hand.
Winter mist
Cold of morning
Fingers warming
Before the flames
Of a comfortable fire.
Choosing life
& freedom
As if choice and freedom
Are facts given, proven.
At peace
Rain falls
Mist wafts in
I look out
From my prison in
The walls of my identity.
Freedom is like that,
And peace, fragile,
Like the shell of an egg,
Like the shell of identity.
The palm of my hand
Is like a hill
On the edge of my horizon:
Beyond it possibilities lay.
Possibilities of peace
That politicians deny –
Or refuse.
A call to arms is like that,
It shatters prospects for peace
Like a child laying slain.
In a shallow grave.
Innocence is like this,
A broken shell,
Lonely and brave.
The palm of my hand
Is like this,
Ruptured, broken, bleeding,
Like an egg-shell, broken,
Like Kosovo.
All her tools of sacrifice
The witches science
Weird markings upon the ground
A lamb slaughtered without a sound
Cups of blood and passion
Ripe and dripping in pools
Too wide to be ignored.
Pain and pleasure bewitch
The man who has no place for desire.
He looks back, instead of forward,
And what he uncovers is a wilted flower.
In her perfect feeding frenzy
Man is measured by his destiny
And with each deliberate step
He is undone by his undoing,
To forge his path and sing his songs
Of homecoming and murder along his path,
Of passive whisperings in the dark,
Of shadows and clumsy elephantine steps.
His bewitchment is complete!
She cackles, who is she to say
Man was made for better things,
Others are out there, staying silent and in
tune,
They don’t miss the mesmerising,
The tantalising essence of mother earth
And her spirit, rather they strike at her core
In their unabating need for more,
To suck her dry and cast her aside,
She’s a plaything and they’ve
Only come along for the ride.
I see of woman a double measure,
The pain, and the pleasure,
The gain, and the loss,
As with every single dollar
Tighter around the neck goes the collar,
But all along we want to be taken in,
Cared for , looked after, but she is there,
Ware her grin! And look again
Into the eye of the beholder! Comfort her,
Don’t cast her aside like some forlorn bride,
And in the morning as she rises
From the mist of day in the making,
Hold her close to stop her trembling,
Take her hand and watch her steps
To see she doesn’t stumble. Her road yonder
To a higher mountain, all life is riddled
With this mystery, of dawn and dusk
And the passion of a mist that softens
The new day dawning.
THE ANCIENTS.
The
ancient curtains were drawn. We couldn’t
see them; we didn’t know. But they
modified our behaviour and conditioned it.
We
watched; we sat; we waited: for what?
Who could say? We were growing
older by the day. In trying to find our way
we got lost and were overtaken by the forces of life. The world rolled on without us. Still, who were we to change our minds? Oh yes, we saw it all: the fall; the end of
day when the sun sinks like a fire into the belly of the world; once I saw a sunset
and watched the horizon turn blood-red; I thought the very world would be
consumed. But that is only poetry. In reality a day had ended. A storm was foreboded. The clouds were gathering to unleash their
fury. I went into town and at the tavern
drank to quell the uneasiness that was creeping up my bones. It must have been then that I began to
think. Ah! Such drunken thoughts! The kind that freedom licks at with her
crimson tongue. I wanted the world to
dance to my thoughts. I wanted to laugh and
sing. I felt alive; for the first time
in my life I felt truly alive, and I wondered if I was mad or just awake. It was awareness that I felt; it had entered
me and shown me the world in a different light.
No more would I see things as others saw them: how can I say it? Suddenly for me objects looked alive. Solid objects seemed to move before my eyes
as if I could see them moving from one point in time to the next, from one
space in existence to the next. But how
could I communicate this to anyone? They
would think I was insane; and my most terrible thought was: maybe I am! So I strove to control my mind. To make things appear normal again. But my thoughts were not to be so easily
persuaded. I could feel the weight of
the world pressing in on me. I thought
there were invisible shackles of life that I was about to burst through, and
that if once I did there would be no returning, there would be no place for me
on the face of the earth. Then I felt
myself falling; it seemed an eternity before I hit the ground, and when I came
to the skies had opened and I was awash with the rain.
Long
years have passed since then. The memory
has been dimmed but not erased. For a
long time my only fear was that I was alone with this thing. In the end it did not matter for what I found
was a world of lonely people living together if not in harmony then at least
well enough to call it life.
The ancient curtains were drawn and modified our behaviour and conditioned it….
The war has begun, the war that cannot be won
At the point of a gun. And in the
sun we watch
And wait the unfolding of our fate,
And on television we watch the missiles
As they are loaded onto jet-planes.
The author of disaster, with a smile and quiet laughter,
Points which way the missiles are to be laid.
The papers relish moments that last forever,
And Christ is called upon to bless this war
Of the righteous, where all of us may bare witness
To the last setting of the sun.
Should I dare to sleep when the world is awake
With fear of Armageddon?
The munitions store makes profit galore
As the rest of the world waits and listens
To the clock of the apocalypse
Like a great hammer ringing in the news,
Bringing home the bacon,
Finding sweat and blood and bones
As it seeks to bury a nation in war and retribution.
The threat is within, but the fear is without,
Coloured in truths more righteous than thine:
Let’s kill those bearded
bastards!
Outside our door Big Mac beckons like before,
And Coca Cola is a fine fella;
Our Prime Minister stands with his hand on his heart
As he calls an early election,
Feeding off the fervour to annihilate bin Laden,
And all his like minded crusaders.
There’s nothing finer to feed my ire than war
And her mighty companions;
Fashion stinks – this is the apocalypse!
We’ve stepped in, all guns ablazing,
Thinking to win the unwinnable,
As if we had fought this war before, or thought
That bigger guns can win everything.
Don’t you know she smiles as she sows,
And all the world is her plaything?
When day is done we stay up late,
To watch the unfolding of our fate,
And the world holds her breath in anticipation,
What is the master stroke, who will hold
The banner aloft when all the world is burning?
Sink my treasures into the sea,
But, my General, don’t come for me,
I’ve fled my home to be without you.
And what can I do to appease you,
When all the world is burning?
O, shove me aside, I’m a playwright and a mime,
I am here to amuse you,
And when the time comes, for me to point my own gun,
Perhaps it is you that I am choosing.
Your war is not mine, that can be fought
With missiles and genocide, I’d rather take my side
With the guilty, to wash my hands of the apocalypse,
And choose a path of peace,
That war can be fought without firing a cannon.
O, know you don’t believe it!
And as I rise, slowly from my grave,
You might begin to understand that I remain undaunted.
I’m not smiling anyway, there is too much still to say,
And few in the world are listening.
Paths of peace, to practice justice, not retribution,
What do you hope to gain, if not an innocent child,
With your aim, and all her future sons and daughters?
Are you so unworthy that in exacting your toll
You become like the monster you are fighting?
Don’t fight this war, don’t choose me
To fight this war for you. I
would not know
Which target to point my aim at.
And when we fight, how unholy to send a fighter out,
And to not let him see the truth in his opponent’s eyes,
To fight this war with computer-guided missiles,
And never taste the death, the carnage of war,
Of bodies strewn over the floor,
Don’t tell us that this doesn’t happen.
Death is her beauty, she’s a scenic drive,
What more can be said, how much more
Can death be fed before she is bloated
On the carnage of war, a carnage not unlike before,
As people die protecting the righteous?
Where is the justice of caring for our kin
When all we do is go after bin,
And not give a bugger of the many others
We count along the way?
And as you fashion your missiles
You count the cost in economic dollars,
And our profit is all we’ve got for our shame.
Tell me once more of glory in the morning,
Of our righteousness and their blame,
And when bin Laden is buried in his shallow grave,
Tell me once more, as we drive by
The munitions store, that he was the one to blame.
I’ll rest easy in your truth and honesty,
But don’t tell me again, or I’ll feel ashamed.
I never said I would tell you any different.
She can’t be moved or turned aside,
Her power is almighty, she is God’s lonely child,
A flame of light when the rest of the world has turned dark.
Love is her name,
She doesn’t seek to find blame,
Or to level retribution, she thinks all war can be won
By putting away the gun, by loving our fellow man.
All difference aside, she holds my pride,
And will not shirk her duty when day is done.
It is in her beauty we stand, on a foreign land,
Hoping and testifying to a greater plan,
One that does not feed on hate or prejudice.
We are a part of love, no-one can gainsay it,
The war without is a war of power,
It doesn’t love and it shows it.
But love is a power, she is God’s truer daughter,
She believes all prejudice can be overcome in time,
And when love conquers all we will know it.
So sit and think that justice stinks,
And an eye for an eye shows no mercy,
Retribution in kind is for the mind
That has not set itself aside from fear of the unknown,
Of love in the heart like a terrible dart of awakening.
I did not ask for this war: I shun it with every ounce
Of my being. Let us put our
prejudices aside,
And our thoughts of retribution.
O, the world is at war, and we
don’t even know it!
Then take me away, bring me to a brighter day,
Where all of our differences are set aside,
Let us look inside, and find no place to hide,
But see ourselves without pretension.
Then love, to place a stake in our heart,
That our blood may run freely.
I have come too far, I have seen too much,
I cannot go on without you.
What will be our battle cry
when all the world is burning?
I can’t go on, I can’t sing this song any more,
Ashes and dust and that that came before,
All of life is a trust in the hands of monsters,
Whose care for wealth and power
Is the tallest tower, they don’t care
That everywhere people want to be free
From the toll of war and retribution.
Make us small, don’t count on us like before,
We no longer want to fight this war of the mighty.
Set us free to build better bridges,
To set aside our differences,
To work towards a solution that encompasses all.
What are your food drops if not drops into the ocean,
Fodder for nothing, when all our thought
Is on exacting the highest price
For the wrong that has been visited upon us?
Then let us alone to bury this bone,
Love, that is her intention,
We might not fight this war
But love’s mother is the mother of invention,
To find a better way, to conquer without guns or missiles.
O, tell me I’m wrong, but what is wrong
When the world is at the point of Armageddon?
The War of Ages is upon us, the War of Nations,
The War to End All Wars, but what is her price,
This hungry bitch, this other face to God’s daughter?
She is the one man has made of her.
See her hungry but never see her victorious,
For how can you win this war?
She is as she has always been,
And all the wars are fought because of her.
I love the semblance of reason that escapes
In ways we cannot imagine, often
When the world is not looking.
Into the eyes of the insane we might see
True fear of God, or his bastard off-spring,
Reason for killing, the power of death over life,
That we are all cannon-fodder.
But keep from me His mercies,
I love rather his daughter,
That she might take us away from here,
That we might achieve something higher,
A taste of the divine, without the need of bloodied wine,
And hands that commit murder.
Yes, she is powerless, as the nations war,
And our world is burning.
I
entered you from the dead zone;
I
think you know what I mean.
I
saw you standing there, you and your bomb,
And
man you know I wanted one.
The
power and the glory, the song and the shame,
I
felt it all burning inside of me but I felt no blame.
The
bomb I saw on television
But
it didn’t show the store.
I
thought I’d phone the President
But
the signal was engaged.
I
felt a movement quickening
Like
nausea rising through me.
I
saw it being wheeled about
Like
a baby in its pusher;
Then
they loaded it on the jet-plane
But
the destination remained uncertain.
The
bullets as I loaded them
Weighed
in my hand like the vested interest
Of
a Nuclear Missile and I smiled at the idea
Of
a missile’s weight resting in my hand.
The
President’s phone was still ringing;
My
brain was clear though my vision was misted.
I
thought it funny that he should be so busy
When
I was about to usurp him for the day.
Bethlehem
in Tokyo a war of trade;
Then
who was loading the missiles, who was getting paid?
As
I entered the President’s Chambers I was trembling
But
I swear I wasn’t afraid.
Who
knows what stands between a man and eternity?
(If
only the femocrats will forgive me).
In
his cold unblinking stare I saw myself standing there
And
I wanted to run but had no place to hide.
If
you think I wanted favours
Think
of the favours I could have been granted
I
held the President’s life at the point of a gun,
Something
clumsy and precious and somehow to be feared.
What
was I thinking? What thoughts betrayed
me then?
I
should have been out shopping; anything; something…
Instead
I stood on the razor’s edge of life and death and everything.
I
thought of fucking every woman who ever graced the earth.
Animal
then, nothing more, the beads that lined my forehead
Cursed
my eyes with a salt like sex and the President
Was
a pathetic creature laying slain on the floor.
Never
before had such a tense moment passed between two men.
I
approached his table then and saw a button glowing red.
It
should have been written in a novel, I thought,
And
glanced at the plush circumstance of the room.
Then
a door opened wide and a man walked in.
“How
he got in I’ll never know. Thank God
You
had your pistol by your side, Mr. President.
Now
it’s time to go below, The Bomb
Should
hit Tokyo in no time.”
Down
Below. “By the way, Sir, did you know him?”
“I’m
a hairs-breadth from history, does it matter that he was
A
brother of my youth?” Above the surface
of the world
A thousand nations were exploding bombs in the name of Peace.
The Typewriter.
The typewriter speaks in strange tongue
Whispers to me at night time when all other sounds
Are hushed except for the hum of my mind.
The typewriter listens to the stirrings and aches
Of my soul and heart; it is my friend when all others
Appear as strangers. It listens
in upon all my secrets;
It is there when all my friends are gone; gone to other havens
- or other beginnings: in any event gone from my life.
Beside the typewriter a cigarette slowly burns away;
My attention has shifted from it to the page; and the coffee
Black in its cup grows cold, as forgotten as the sun and wind
And rain. Every possibility
opened or promise broken
Finds its way through the keys of the typewriter onto the page.
In the middle of the night the ghost of my being taps away
At invisible keys of existence as if the stuff of reality
Were not enough to keep me alive.
In the morning
I witness the ramblings of a madman etched between the lines
Of the printed page. I struggle
beneath the weight of the
Typewriter; I cannot allow it open reign over me.
You will never belong to me. You
will always find a way to be free.
Me, I tap blindly at your keys, my despair binds me to your reality.
A great burden, lightning bolts burst from his forehead
To strike the typewriter’s keys, the daisy-wheel echoes
Like thunder as each smoking letter is etched into the
Mountain’s side. The sweat on
Mohammed’s brow is the
Colour of blood and his fingers are black from the tension
To wash the darkness from the valley beneath him.
Drawn to
the Water.
John, I’m
only dancing, she turns me on,
Don’t get
me wrong, I’m feeling my way, like a blind man,
I’m seeking
something but the words don’t know,
I’m
speaking to you, do you understand my song?
The words
go missing, the words get in the way,
Too many
people are saying different things, when I’m blind
I go
backwards and find semblances of things strange
A turtle
riding a wave I can’t go on this way
When a
child plays I look the other way, I am seeking
You out in
this dry and parched land, someone to hold me long,
A promise
not a song, a twist of fate, immaculate for that,
A poet
rhyming like death at her doorstep, my brain
Is a
thunderstorm, a cage where lions roam, see her
Moving
blindly, a calamity, a catastrophe, words of hope
And design,
she treasures each moment like a unicorn,
She
comforts me when I am alone, and I seek her out
In all the
smallest places, between the neurotransmitters
That
explode within my brain, I know she is coming in, she has found
The space
that occupies my mind, the uncertainty, the doubt,
The reasons
without, and inside all I feel is pain.
Go away,
don’t try to trap me again, my words are angles
That cannot
be set aside, and who will win this ride, and who
Will wither
and die, and what will you make of me
When all of
my hurts are on the inside? She tells me
why,
She has a
strong grasp on her instincts, and her reasons why.
- I have
only what I am made of, a transcendental thing, the truth between words
Where
wisdom resides, and pattern , like a torn cuff, absent,
The things
we are made of. And she comes riding,
her name is divine,
Her
stallion is filled with power from the inside.
Then give
me her, give me her reasons, don’t allow me
To sit in
this room filling with reasons I don’t understand.
What will
you make of me, will you tell me what is right
And what is
wrong, will you give me meaning outside my doubt,
What is the
point of living when the room turns inside out?
What moment
hopes to heal, what wounds have I
That they
appear powerless to mend themselves, when will the walrus
Stand up to
be measured against the many sins that have been committed,
Who will
turn right from wrong, to make it a prison
Of the
righteous, the men who stand aside in song, invisible
Like the
night, hidden by values of might?
She has
driven this car, and in driving she has driven far,
But I was
standing beside the road watching her.
My thumb
was out as she sped past, and I watched as she crashed
Headlong
into the dark, of things out there parading like lost souls
Desperate
in the wilderness. I shouldered my
sling, what was I thinking,
She turned
about but in the river I was sinking.
Fashion me not,
And forward
come, like a tide that is drawn to the water.
