Tattooed Enigma

She sits in front of me

A row away to the right,

Draped in those ebony locks

A vision of cherubic perfection.

She sits over hunching,

Looking from time to time,

Away from ardent page

Where she talks to herself

Through loops of tribal sketches.

Talking of overt authority

And the people’s consent,

And their leaders true

And their killer’s moves,

What spins in your mind?

I ask thee classmate,

Girl with the dragon tattoo.

For it caught my eye

First and foremost,

That snaking shape

That reared grandly

Across her left shoulder,

Swirling from under dress

In one long sinuous curve.

O’ twisting Green Dragon

Why your fierce eyes,

Is that not thine guise?

Do you spurn thy mount,

And yearn for thine skies?

*______________________________*

Meaning What

I’ve heard this before,

Again just now, about

Milling around meaning.

Myopic nomads in desserts

Yearning for better whys.

Myriad hordes through time

Enter this vaunted debate,

Agonising over reason and how

Naught in tales or lives

Inspires great thought or heart,

Never aspires to lofty heights

Going on round the meaning cart.

Admiring hawkers and vendors,

Never seeing the solitary roads

Deep in the market’s twisted lanes.

It’s not pity nor cousin empathy

That stops by my modest house,

Is it disdain then when I see

Swaying drunkards tottering about?

Other vintages just catch my eye

Nothing more and never less.

Learning from growing rocks,

Yielding to the sighs of the unsaid.

Minds opening eyes brightly keen

Imbibing essence from empty cups,

Near the surface, `neath the frothy waves

Easing through seas in my submarine.

*_____________________________________*

Lingering In the Small Hours.

Three have rung since midnight,

My pen paws and waits

As I collect my still friends,

Those quietly yearning thoughts

That meditate and wait,

Till we begin the call to hunt.

Friends and my mates

Away in the distance,

Perhaps by some need,

Have communed, and are

Still on churning walls

That call to webs,

Which stretch net-like

To catch collected feeling.

Over, and down hills

We chase the essence

Of my ticking heart,

My Lady, she so fair

I map every point,

Of her soul on body

That wears it's beauty.

Complexity that beguiles

Yet with no wiles,

Save her I's and My's.

Glen Goyne calls to us

As Baileys raises glass,

But we can't answer.

Constitution of body

Allows not sweet partake,

Of that sublime spirit

Trickling from Emerald Isle,

And my anguished wail

Travels the Highlands.

The silvered packets

Of eight and ten,

Attest my morning elegy.

The cigarette burns

Consumed by intake,

I hold it 'twixt fingers

That casually flick ash,

And then a question.

What smokes me?

Must I rhyme,

Continue my pantomime?

Should this be dropped

And that left behind?

Could I change my ways

To swim in strange streams?

Would I care to listen

That someone writes my dreams?

And I wonder

As I'm wont to do,

Does all end well?

In fire or ice, or

The urinal of want,

In some obscure corner

Of a garbage dump;

Will we find on the floor

Like in bad cups of chai,

The sodden dregs

Of our dreary world?

But now as before

I must content being,

With the songs of redemption

That Jamaican lustily sang.

He who was shot with lead

Still believed and said,

Love and peace my brethren.

*----------------------------------------*

Stirring Emptied Cups

There are birds here

There and now in then,

I can see them

Could watch beaks and eyes,

But then and now still

I can't hear their souls

Or yet perceive flight.

There still be flowers

Here and there,

Sometimes in when,

I could look at them

Can caress their petals,

But now and then

I couldn't smell their being,

Still can't sense their colour.

I sit inside and out there

Having held my empty cup,

I had seen it's clay

And known it's every crease,

I drank from it

Then and till now,

I sip it's subtle content

Here and again will,

In slowing trickles

Spill onto paper,

To begin my wait

For visited reflection.

*-----------------------------*

My Refusal.

Pondering the lay of the world

Witnessing the way of events,

Floating in this listless sea

Do you not feel sick?

Don't you taste that slimy slug

Slithering ooze bold and thick,

As it cloys the world and self

With trails of fiery words, soured emotion

Closing your mouth with it's clammy plug?

Can't you hear that rattle and clink

That follows the slam of drawers,

As clacking keys move vault doors

That clang shut in cavernous sound,

And yet fail to muffle the constant blare

Of the wailing whir of money counters?

Can't you see the vivid smear

Of leering Pride and mounting Ego

That rapes the innocence of good Intention,

While the hustler Greed chalks his cue

And pockets his ball in the left corner,

As he eye's Necessity's deepening cleavage

As she bends over the table clad in sultry red?

Don't you smell the thickening fumes

That rise from the bog of arrogance,

Which bubbles and boils in this heat

With the wafting perfume of lilies,

From crushed petals strewn about,

That swell through the stench of smoke?

Shouldn't you sense, by now,

The corruption of an imperfect ideal

Or the pandering of weaker wills,

Polluting the instance with circumstance

Inviolating the mitigation of damnation?

This is the home stretch, no doubt.

Nearing the future with soft tread,

Ought the blade cleave the mists

While the ploughshare yet exists?

*---------------------------------------------*

Right then, Nobility.

Some time has passed

Since the witching hour began.

And having watched a drama

Of men and empire,

Where Union Jack rode forth,

Pensively I sit

Thinking is his language,

And drinking his scotch.

High in my house, sixteen floors

Keep me from the ground,

I lean out of my window

And look.

To the right,

The dunes of Arabia abound,

The desert that passively saw

The inception of man.

Man who'd tread her sands

And spread to all the earth,

Taking from her fingers

All that she would give, and more.

A loan never recognised

Yet disdained with interest,

Her payment instead

Is spit in her face.

To the left,

Piles of mortar and steel stretch.

Those towers that house

The teeming masses,

That throb and thrive to get

Entry into exclusive comfort,

That now slumber to begin again

that pointless scrabbling,

Perhaps forgetting something

In their dash for success.

For the din of baying hounds

Drowns our ears, and sense

Fails to pierce patented helmets.

In our patented leather jackets

Wearing patented felt boots,

As we hunt that wily fox

Who looks back, all the while

With a wide grin.

But when I turn

Mine eyes below,

Life looks back at me.

Amidst a sea of cars

Parked neatly like bricks,

A lone figure works.

A wet cloth swabs

Testaments to edifice,

For that is what they are,

Removing the grime

From the desert's sands,

Off shiny chrome shells.

Tiring now, he finishes one,

Pushes his cart to the next,

This one's run-down

Old and battered,

But still that man

Took no pause.

With none to oversee,

He cleans that beat up car

That is somebody else's,

And moves to the next.

Should I have looked up,

Away, I would see the floors

Above me, and naught else.

For the night-time halo

Of our civilized world,

Shields our view

Of the sympathetic stars.

*----------------------------*

Stilted Smile

The joyborn free giggles

Of those pig-tailed little girls,

Skips on heat that mingles

To rides humidity's threads.

A flipping coin to those adults,

The plodding resigned sods

Who waver between laughs

And tears.

House, park, carnival or life;

the background is an oblivious spectator

To sundry puppet shows of motley souls,

Celebrating humanity, that mimics convention.

Adrift , bereft of barbed anchors, I watch,

From the solitary island of mind.

My being stares out at the breakwaters,

Unsure of the sea-foam, it's salty sting.

I wish, I would that I had seven-foot legs.

From silence, dragged from the thought,

I hear click-clacking of wood on tile.

And through the pell-mell world world,

Wades a lone stilt-walker

Ploughing on with seven-foot legs,

Walking on a here that's somewhere else.

His blue coat-tails swish ducking heads,

Under red top hat, I wonder where his is.

Stilt-walker, on your wooden feet.

O' Stilt-walker, what do you see?

People ooh their dawning ahhs,

Laughing at the gangly figure

With the odd gait and toed knees.

They collect all their mewling herd

To clutch to cling to the ends,

While shutter-bugs flit and flame

Until the final frame is clicked.

Then without even passing thought

The moths fly, buzzing away,

To the nest shiny draw.

Stilt-walker, on your wooden feet,

Stilt-walker, with your painted face,

O' Stilt-walker, what crosses your mind?

The hesitant clouds are numbered,

Their choice is made for them

And they disperse before the onslaught

Of that resplendent Mr. Noon,

As his goring rays will the mulling crowd

To seek shelters of shade and fan.

I see him unthinkingly shrug

And shuffle to lean on kind wall,

He pulls himself to his throne

Slowly stretching his reaching shanks,

He pulls out a yard of black cloth

That wipes a sweat-logged face,

And undoes those cutting straps

That gaspingly free yearning feet,

And grimaces, straining to bend,

To wearily rub aching toes.

I see the flash of artifice

Turn into a silhouette,

Of a man.

Stilt-walker, on your wooden feet,

Stilt-walker, with your painted face,

Stilt-walker, wearing your stilted smile,

O' Stilt-walker, what do you feel?

*-----------------------------------*

Overture : A Tribute to Neil Gaiman

The pen's whirling dance,

It's twenty-six step tango on page

Revels truth, in what the mind could be,

And folly, in only what the heart see's.

That sensual movement of emotion's finger

Drawing designs on intellect's chest,

Where each lingering stroke is, and

Has purpose, beyond creation.

Lost in transalation, lost in spell

The couple moves cheek to cheek,

dancing on the beaches of infinity

Leaving us their footsteps to read.

For in their wake, if one could see,

One would realise the hands of Destiny.

Thumbing through the truths in his tome,

The card dealer of the ultimate game.

They exist too in Dream's dominion

He who whispers them to meld his power.

The ruler of ephemeral allthought

Where if, and could, then we would.

They bear the brand of Desire,

That scintillating, bemusing spoor.

It, that's pawing shell ever grows,

It that resides in every living heart.

Sifting through them one can find

That wafting musk of Despair,

She who lurks in every shadow

That enters her grey-scale halls.

Some have sprung from Delight,

She who skips in every laugh.

She, who has no rules to joy,

Playing hide-seek in glass forests.

They've wandered Deliriums desert's,

Trudging through her fractured domain,

Under half dripping suns, stopping by

The inquiry booth by the White Rabbit.

They resound of Destruction's rage,

Whose solemn dirge breaks worlds.

He who lusts for the end of each, all,

He, who divines the last fall.

At the end of their slow waltz,

The whistling wind settles down.

And as flying hair veils meeting lips,

There is the sound of Her great wings.

And there is Death.

*-----------------------------------------*

Where I Am.

Lying on patchy carpets of sandy green,
The day-kissed sky enfolds existence,
In breezes of willowy white fingers,
As for that moment, I live and write.

Reverie broken by mulling disbelief,
I turn my face to the gathering milieau,
Of bellowing seagulls, that clamour to seek,
The cause for my reticient positivity.

The world's orchestra, it's unseen maestro,
Sibilantly provide the fuel and purpose.
Or so they caim, and secure a herd hold
Over sodden skies, flying under the horizon.

The seaspray drives me to different currents,
That lead me through riptides to darkest abyss.
My sea floor is fathoms deeper, it's surface
Scattered with far older thoughts.

The happiness of sheep, in itself,
Contends contentedly with chewing cud.
My happiness is a many wondered thing,
Bright sides offset by darker understanding.

Innocence intrinsic in a baby's smile,
Enters the world to faith's benediction, and
Fundamentalism's twnty-one gun salute,
That slowly seep into that ideal, in stacatto.

Progress is a feverish snail crossing quagmire,
Of blotchy indistinct tragedies, that ferment
On certain curtains that conceal, the world,
The end. So the politicians mote it be.

The dead's bodies have become horses,
That causes whip the mileage out of.
Love is now neatly shelved, orderly labelled,
By the middle-age virgin librarian that is society.

Rebels without cause strive for resonance,
Floundering in individual meaning's deep pond.
Those who come after, looking at us through glass,
Are future's illusions regarding dead pasts.

That which lies beyond a grasping mind,
Further hindered by self's choking smog,
Is relegated to the gates of nothingness,
Which are thought to open, but never do.

So smile, laugh and love, in ignorance-
We are the punchline of a cosmic joke.
And yet, I am Jonathan Livingstone,
Seagull, and so much more.

*----------------------------------------------*

Deceptively Good Roads

Back when we yet haunted caves,
huddling around meagre fires,
Peering past the mouth of security,
Didn't we wonder what was beyond?

Seeing mountains, didn't we wish bigger?
Hearing bird song, didn't we fantasize better?
Sensing an end, didn't we hop faster?
Tasting failiure bemoaning we weren't stronger?

When the night's quiet was eviscerated,
By some jungle's feral manifestation,
Feeling an almost tangible caress over our jugular,
Didn't we pray for four walls?

Wrapped in pallid straw, straining to ignore
The garrulous meetings of stomach lining,
Crawling to escape the world's accusing glare,
Didn't we beg for deliverance, even a mirage?

But as Time sashayed through history,
The road improved. With only the rare
Pothole to cross, we put down the pedal,
Ignoring damage to chassis and soul.

Civilization's girders lined the roadsides,
Along our fast lane. We laughed,
Accepting and ignoring the illusuion of others,
We sang a myriad groaning tone.

The drunken sun had staggered west,
Shadows kept gettting darker and deeper,
The further we ventured into Civilization,
The sketchy horizon barrenly stretched.

An inherant sense warily perused our direction,
Disturbed, we paused to confirm our bearing.
Pointing bent sextants at daylit skies,
Hope becomes a wet finger waiting for fair wind.

Turning to a broken billboard for relief,
We pee on tattered corroded paper that
Show helping hands being viciously spurned,
Could we concieve, that we took a wrong turn?


*--------------------------------------------*

Prelude

The wily blank page almost took me
But let go, and bested me in disdain.
Dissonantly, I retreat to the yawning trenches,
Sliding, into that grim muted throb.

Inside, the ones wear matte grey gas masks.
Festering wounds and twisted bones
Ignored, as a field of eyes swings towards me,
A bulb flashed, and in every eye I saw me.

Peering past ghostly smoke, I turn to tread
Over pulsing embers, alongst gutted corridors.
Through holes above, the broken hulk of edifice looms,
As footsteps in ashes of hubris mark my path.

In grimy half darkness I grope my way,
Past littered broken things and jagged edges,
Stumbling through the clawing pregnant vacuum
Until I reach the end, that thrice-damned wall!

Sickened by complacent defeat, lethargic spirit,
With last vestige of breath, I beat against
The iron vileness that chokes the multitude of words,
They who create and people my world.

Battered hands shatter unyielding indifference,
Until it cracks, and expression trickles forth!
My war cry melds with the growing storm of sound,
As the legions of words leap the barricade.

And riding the crest of that omnipotent wave,
Enraptured, I am become a forge!
Flinty ideas become the iron-tipped arrows
Which desecrate the vaunted halls of apathy.

Pages fly, ink spills and broken words die,
Until The page kneels under my bladed nib.
The melody of word song fills the world,
And something new, shoots from the bullet holes.


*-----------------------------------------------*