Monthly Archives: March 2020

by

I tried to unsee but all I know is

Christ

In the way he says

I’ll never turn you away

Christ

In the sunrise,

In my blindness

Christ

In the Buddhist, in the Tao,

Beyond the temple

Christ

In the fallen and in the raised 

In my childhood,

Rosary light across the sea

In my weariness and in the lightning

Christ

In the multitudes

In singularity

Christ in their patience,

In their common sense

Christ

Despite current events;

And within them

Christ

I see you in Mollison and Lovelock,

In Antarctic heat waves

In rainforest relics

In my blistered conscience

Christ

Where I thought I’d escaped

Where you carried me

Christ

In expansion and condensation,

In the shield and the suffering

Christ despite Tiananmen,

Christ in Hong Kong

Falling apart and breaking through again

In fish and fields,

In their fearful hesitation

Christ

Whether I make it or I don’t

Christ

In every substance and story

Whether I’m sane or insensible

Christ

In the focussed timebomb of the present

Christ

Despite all instants, all irrelevancies

Love

Is your name and I am here because truly all is

by

Post-Stoning

Audio version

Take the glamour off

Chipped nails,

Cracked coffin lid

I am done with grave-digging

It is finished

He told me there was no going back

If nothing else, I believe what I see

I’ll be your witness

If you make me a reliable one

Now the woman

The sinful one,

Caught in the act

I see the fault-lines slicing her

Into pieces of you, him, them

Hoard of voices bellowing

Warning

She’s a dangerous one

Marked by her desire. You keep away

Cats in heat have nothing on

Her inescapable hunger

Teeth within heart-finger-mesh

She is a net that will swallow you whole and spit out fragments

Owl-coughing wing-swoop death

And lonely

Like the lynx,

Solitary and content to pad the echoing snow-killed slopes

And never lonely

She is a heath-wren in spring

And the honey-bracelet myrtle-leaf

The dagger-tip Hakea pointing outward, and to the sky

She killed me and now I unearth from

My ashes and rain-soaked fields

Repentance

Fire baptism branding

Bark scorch-marks and blackened skin

Survival of the fittest,

The unchosen chance of the leeward

He said go

I am going.

by

Nothing’s amiss then

suddenly

Negative pressure

Mist feels fine

Blood simmering beneath

Go to fill the kettle

Waterless

Boiled down to bone

Still clear to the irises

Walk slowly to shade

Lava pillow glowing, growling

ruptured cap quake expulsion

I am criss-crossed hollow mined harrow

Can’t get burial out

No aerial stand-by

Not even an emergency yet

Drawn and quartered in the waiting room

Everything tastes of you and I am suffocating

So be it

There are worse ways to be awake.

by

Curiosity

Was an efficient assassin

That’s not the whole story, she says

Without giving her a timeline

I make my offerings to hope

Without needing a true name

I leave my cave and begin with slow, eager, thankful steps

Back towards your mystery

Going by old trails of birthright and mountain singing

Cool solitary air and visits from hands

Expecting nothing except

Correction

Peace

Pain

Sorrow

Goodness without limits.

by

Drumroll Fear

Thanks for the wake-up

Good games are short ones

Recapitulation

Postulation, proselytisation

Power bank sharp little left

Curve past the drafts

Sometime shakeless

Could be colder,

Take the temperature away

Far here where is the only space right

Caught now finally

Heavy metal trap

I lost less

We gain, growing

Pain only

Sickness for sale

Passed over pale

Perfectionist retail

Re-mail your post to overengineered host

Something will give.

Always gotta you.

by

This fucking game

I just don’t want to play,

Sometimes

So here is my hand

Blanks and jokers and an abundance of

Can’t be bothered

I used up all my best anger

On imaginary kings and countering

Small hands and suspected foul plays

Let’s not forget the hearts

Two aces, at least

Diamonds on the inside

Stop pretending to be a lone shark

My partners know my countenances

If nothing else,

I’ll donate a black queen as voodoo collateral

And dance,

Watching them all from the wings.

by

Ghost Loss

Perhaps, as they say

Everything is tapestry,

I was simply

Seeing upside-down and making

Faces from lines of trees

Seeing churches in crumpled scenes

From this side, a fool

From another, an invalid

Either way, don’t deny me

Adjustment time

Sudden restoration to right orientation

But still seeing those shapes

Maybe always will

Maybe you can too,

If you want

But who has time to court weakness

It is strength to know

One’s own speed and wisdom

To know how far one can travel

No folly to admit loss

Even of something you were always

Convincing yourself

Was only your imagination.