May 2022

Bats in Batter

Like a beer-battered bat at dusk
I pursue my blind bisecting,
cutting the deep crisp skin
never finding the change โ€“
the flaw origin.

Another day, another year,
another life will pass away
before daybreak arrives
and I find my headstone
covered in red roses -

thistles line the paths in shadow
and the lawn no longer mowed
and the sad shrubs that once
bore fruit: sweet, sweet
truth.

Like a broken bat at first light
I return to the cave called home
and the headstone of old
in waiting,

all roses long since gone,
withered lives paired up
in a marriage of doom,

like a pawn in a game of chess
already won: purposeless, yet

awaiting the next game.

i

i am not grown up yet, barely reach
the threshold for glyphs, an uptight
upright with a speck of dust hovering.
i am to you and You a mere minor:
an ell callously knifed but safe
in survival; a divided soul searching
for home to become as intended
a freestanding character
a moral champion for the self
without neither head nor tail: an
I โ€“ proud to be upright.

I remember; recall and relive
Every silent scream sent Your way
Every cold cut of steel received
Every thought of escape perish.

I remember. Yes, I remember

Those dreary days of growing
The small-biped instruction manual
Unfitting a roadrunner โ€“ read
and reread.

I remember. Yes, I remember

The phoney foundations built
Like a yesterdayโ€™s shivering shower
Washing away like a torrent of tears
The last of the lingering hopes.

I remember. Yes, I remember

I remember, I recall and I relive
Every silent scream I sent Your way
Every cold cut of steel I received
Every thought of my escape perish.

I remember. Yes, I remember

Everything.

For the One Still Searching

Through a moaning mist of future days
Thorough silent creaking shadows
Mindlessly dancing, Purpose twirls
In search of something
A solid something: a break
Caught and claimed
As finders keepers; Purpose twirls
The cotton skirt flutters and flies
Around the red raving sandals
Keeping Purpose afloat, hovering
Above the safety of solid ground;
Eternity half gone, Purpose goes on
Searching for someone to seduce โ€“
For the one still searching.

A Fortune Told

Time reared its rusty scythe
towards the fortune-teller;
a fortune-told now rests
beyond the reach of existence;
time moves on, ticking to unwind
the perpetual feathers tickling
the twinkling eyes of night
into laughter.

Teddy

Teddy did not move
, but there was room:

no
physical constraints
no
chains;

Please move I said, the basin
is dry
now, the demons gone
and I have this towel
to dry those weary eye
s,

โ€“ lakes never swim the poster claim
, but Teddy remain s
in stasis: soaked yet
dry; his eye

prostituted like
the dove I bought
at breakfast;

Teddy did not see my chain
placed upon his furry skin

Teddy did not move

, ever again

.

A Favour SVP: Amazon search for missing books

I am having a dispute with Amazon. They claim my books are available for purchase in all of their regions, but when I look I find that in some regions they are listed as unavailable or not found at all (which is strange considering they are print-on-demand).

I am hoping that this is because I am searching from the UK, so I am looking for a few volunteers to do a quick search in their local Amazon (.com .ca .es .fr .au etc.) and message me the following:

seller: who is selling the books, is it Amazon or some third-party seller

availability: if you can purchase them, and if they are available through Amazon Prime

Price: in your local currency

Please search for these two ISBNs:

9781916364301 (Ghosts)
9781916364318 (Imbalance)

With Thanks ๐Ÿ’œ

Reynoutria Japonica

But I want to evade the world, I say
with a forced smile like a simile
cheaply acquired at a countryside
auction: the barn barely surrounded
,
,
by wire, the fence avoided as
life versus live wire will surely sting.

But why evade the world, you say,
avoidance is
not sexy,
not listed
as a pretext to fading
into sunlit solitude without shade.

So why do we evade the world,
why do the thoughts invade us,
keep us apart in apartments
and houses built from clay; why
do we avoid The Everything
that matters.

Meaning of Memories

I carried a debt deep within,
an unawareness of place and time,
a lingering doubt this place was mine
to rule and ravage as I found it
inappropriate: approximate
like a half-rhyme sanctimoniously
split over two vaguely poetic lines.

I saw you going further: forcing
a full rhyme at the cost of โ€“ of, of
the sacrificial crucifixion: named
forevermore the plurality of pens,
the chopping of a single glyph:
an enjambed word!
a single silent s, to start a new line
to confuse and to contain
a singleminded rule of rhyming.

I carry a debt, one I never intend
to forget: you words dividing,
searching for meaning of memories
and migration: birds, beach or
the hill of Babylon;
I will never become another.

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