Poetry Drafts

Like Magic Moons

You slithering snake, tongue forked
And spitting,
My air guitar needs no tuning
Or tissues,
Our songs are screams at night;
Hollow yet bright
Like magic moons
Or Gouda.

Drought

Love? No. There’s none left, dry
the well once sparkling, dry
the tired eye yet searching, dry
the silent throat still burning, dry
the desert of dreams: mirages
no longer skim afar,
burning bushes wither,
the whispers of night
turned cold.
Love? No, the torrent times are over,
the flower blooms
no more.

The introduction reflects what I intended to write, the main body what I actually wrote, the conclusion what I now wished I had written. Ho-hum.

To Feel!

Oh, to feel again! To feel!
Punctuate the windless void
with beat from hearts, tap
from trembling hands of light,
of desire, of rage!

Oh, to feel again! To feel
something touching me
there: to punctuate the void,
a numbness animated,
a needle needs but one end!

Oh, to feel again! To feel
another’s heavy heart,
another’s lavish light,
coming and becoming
desire, wind, and power!

Oh, to feel again! To feel!
To punctuate the windless void!
See Desire slowly rising!
Feel a welcoming wind’s embrace!
To feel! To feel! Oh, the Joy
it would bring!

Time / The Weary Wanderer

Stars born and stars dying,
Time had seen them come and go,
no children burn as bright as those
forged in the name of fire.

How long the path of the weary wanderer,
how much further still to go,
only Time will tail they said:
malapropism in a foreign accent.

But Time wouldn’t tell, couldn’t
tell, without hands, or legs,
to stand on. Time felt abused,
left to expire,

chastised for just staying true
to the one pukka power. How long
or how much longer will Time keep
going, as silver stars align

and the world of Men obsesses –
over nothing.

The old man shook his head, questioning the genetic makeup of his only son. There must be something wrong with him, force feeding a VHS tape into a Betamax recorder; any day now he’ll probably start questioning why the phone cord is curled, and then demand an extension, or, Lord forbid, a colour television.

She always tried to wind him up, but no matter the buttons she pushed he remained calm; keeping his accordion close to his chest.

Rosanna was the daughter
he would never have, a fleeting
thought in a young man’s mind,
a reason that became no more
than hope, and his one source
of longing.

Bats in Batter

Like a beer-battered bat at dusk
I pursue my blind bisecting,
cutting the deep crisp skin
never finding the change –
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 – proud to be upright.

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