Wooden Fruits

The improvised songs,
Boiled kettles,
Lazy Sundays in bed
With the biscuit sweats
And papers,

That painting
By the wardrobe
Of Adam and Eve
Pre-apple,

The kind of love
That closed doors
And found islands,

It was all there
Lined up
And ready
To be shot at.

They were sold
On make believe.

Young love
Is wasted on the old.

The Digital Zeus Escape

We synchronise
Eye crazes
On-line,
Off-line,
Wrestling the genius
And issuing declarations of love

As lonely dreamers design
Popular worlds,
Clouds
Familiar looking
And lost,
Undisturbed oceans,

They distribute sunglasses
With their parallels
And smile
Like they’re
Creating time.

There’s supermarket bulk,
Well purchased
And instant,
Celeb declarations,
New and widely prescribed,
A god-like nutrition
In almost existence.

We gather with great attention,
Intentions kind but belated,

We want to swap this planet
For something aggregated.

Together Forever

They felt love
And it’s constant,

It was a bit like velvet
But electric
And endless,

Transitional blankets,

The white noise
Of happiness,

The tremors
Of special;

Even when they curdled
Like milk in the sun,

Pulled hair
Till it hurt

And skirted with sanity,

They knew they would
Wrinkle and tinkle
Forever,

Together
As one,

Fallen feathers
And sun.

2011

Dark clouds hung low,
Handles fell off
Fatigued briefcases
And brogues
Were torn from their soles.

The despot bogeymen
Who once saw their faces
In cafes and palaces,
Became the dried blood graffiti
On huge fallen walls.

We held onto anger
Like loose change
And past wounds,
Taking in excuses
With saline
Through tubes.

Worry not.

In a pub somewhere now
There’s a genius lurking
With a plan
To save all of our souls.

Never Stare A Ghost In The Eyes

The mice scuttled,
Dry skin flaked
And the moon
Looked back at you.

Never stare
A ghost in the eyes,

The endless hollows
And the

What will
I do next?

Come back to haunt,

Till your walking round
Old estates
Talking about your day

And feeling memories
Like a fever,

The insane want
That the streets ignore.

Too soon it’s you
All white
With a bruise
For a smile

And a washed out
Solution.

Never stare
A ghost in the eyes.

Social Networking

We dip our heads
Inside the digitised coven
Of made-up friends,
Shared decisions
And wonder,

Integrations show a billion-fold increase,
Funnels leading to fastigiate tree formations,
Information hustles in circles,
Trustworthy whispers
Transpute bloodbath conspiracies
And then fade into simple saluting.

Mordacious symmetry snaps,
Slick reinfusions of knowledge
Fizzle then pop,
Neon primitives rustle,
Ensnared in the woodruff,
Archaically tracing their paths,
All rattled and squeamish.

The pitfalls are amalgamated and visions conscripted,
Wayward oddballs poke their fingers in
And pander to plurality,
Softly ashamed in the dark,
Ready for polygraphs and rewinds,
The calculations of glory.

We pull our heads
Out the pixelated womb
Where chatter lies clipped,
And we quickly remember
The art of kissing.

Redneck Wisdom

Sometimes life twists your nipples
To jolt you into action,

Sometimes it twists them
Just to cause pain.

But if you look down
And truly observe
What’s happening,

Most of the time you’ll notice
You’re just twisting them yourself.

Bleating Sheep

The boiler
And the persistent winds
Tell us,
Speak,
Speak!

The boiler
And the persistent winds
They tell us,
Sleep.

Memories Are Smoke

Memories are smoke
The soft looping dance of lost
A drift never caught

Freedom’s Laughter

That sweet tar-footed day
We got caught up in leaves
And watched the sky
Split its rainfall,

We laughed and knew,

We held each other tightly,
Not too brittle still.

We caught each other crying
As if our joy was the prelude,

And suddenly we realised
We were nothing,
Womb to worms,
Except free.

I remember hearts almost bursting,
The smell of wet wool
And tree sap,

A wind singing new hymns.

There’s a beauty in knowing
You’ll be fallible till you die.