Praise

Though my jolted words cannot praise

Like choir of angels; or even,

Like earthly lyre of poets

Yet even the hoarse voice of orphans

In a cold church reaches the heavens

So I thank you for the beauty of stars

And midnight mountain fields I cannot

Even begin to describe

And I pray you keep your little ones close

And away from the wolves howling at the moon.

Two Pals

As I wait in line to board the 17 tram

A man barges past, followed closely by his pal

As he barges past -- it will be his last! --

The smell of piss and alcohol rubs onto my coat

As I board at last, my eyes seek out the pair,

The minor road rage of men beyond a certain age

Infects my better self and soon my eyes lock on target, a pair of seats;

There they sit, whispering, conferring about some escapade

No sooner had my eyes rested on and convicted

That hapless drunkard pair --

40, 50 years of age, stubble and greased face --

The doors open and they hop off the stairs 

And are already on open urban ground 

All ready for the lights to go green

So they can run with unexpected speed -- 

And then it hits me.

Like a painful sorrow scream

Like curtain torn in two

My eyes can suddenly see

In front of me -- literally! -- are two chubby kids

They have been friends since kindergarden

Clear as the day, and still in a way

Having the time of their lives

And then I realise:

Whatever layers of age are thrown at them

Children will always be children

It is only the pain that is of men.

Despair

Less than none

But greater than one

Nothing to look forward to

But to all fears succumb; 

No dream to wake

From, no kiss to make

Up, no fight to take

On, no, no, none.

Greater than one

But less than none.

Advent 24

Only time will tell

If there's a hell

Where Son goes down

If furnace of dancing stars

In a final flash of light

Will ever breathe gold

In tales of gods foretold

You will not grow weary

You will not grow old

The laurel for you to hold

As the world dissolves

In races held in foggy cold

And though evil howls in dark,

And lies and missiles fly alike

While friends and nations fight;

One by one the candles light

So make room in my heart: come,

Saviour of the world!

Changes

What else should we change?

Now that the cries of the drowned

Have been drowned out by drones..

Well, we could lower the age

At which children are obligated

To kill each other..

We ban it in Africa

But the way we kill and maim

Is much more civilized

And so, if more are mobilized

The aggressor will finally learn its lies.

What else should we change?

Well, the insistence on change?

Before we are flushed down

For a few pieces of change.

Warrior

I fight
With my little eye

Something beginning with

I

Charades

It's like a rehearsal

Where each emotion
Is waiting to come on
At the right time;
And each motion
Has significance beyond life.

"To everything, there is a season,

And a time to every purpose under heaven."

Organ Donor

Things fall apart
In the blink of an eye
That gleaming white 
Your bone or mine

Meat on bone like
Soup pork of peasants 
Hiding cartilage in dark forest

Your place or mine

Knife cuts apart then
Faff with words like AI
Matches like for like
Your words not mine

Fire must continue
Man's rod of spray fire
While you flee or advance
You stepped on a mine.

Lost In Translation

 "Shock," Bess said, "Neck-shockers, Aliyah."

Heart

Sacred corner of heart
Where Master makes His home
Lets Spirit freely roam
Take captive so's to free
Monsters 'fore they would flee.

That corner yield no more
Like flag struck with its pole
Like landing on a shore
Don't let go of what's free
Take us to victory.

Tundra

Sticks and stones had brought your bones
To this edge of the tundra
Where the river flows into ice
And trees like stakes they turn to horror

Herded into hard labour
While nomads were left to live
Tending their reindeer, only next door
Could speak of hard working bliss.

A world away, the trees felled for the

Suburbs of swimming pool dreams,
Or maybe an inbuilt sauna;

Others left,
For dreams they left;
No stove in bathhouse by long rail line
Samovar could be exchanged

For the long line comfort of shops,
Full of cereals;
Corn starch fullness -- oh my goodness;
And speech was always

Freely bought and sold,
Not packaged in 5 year plans of old.
But you stayed, a part of you always stayed

In that bone freezing cold tundra
You were saved from escaping
You returned in those gaping
Trains to quietly assume

The quiet life
On the other end of the empire.
We never spoke a word --
By that time, another train,

Never one minute late, took you.
Yet I too, carry a piece of 
The tundra within me.

Shapes for Change

The square, triangle, and circle met

By the forest among sprites they wed
By the river their promise kept
But then came concrete -- and they wept.

.

Concrete said "change" -- and it came
It whispered "forever" in vain
Since that forever was like
Plastic, battered by rain:

Nature may have laid waste
To the hubris of bad taste
Not claimed by later ages
But the memory remained,

Albeit in powdered form,
Of towers and their hamlets torn.
Unlike stone and clay --

To replace, or excavate --

Concrete lives in nasty limbo.

.

So shapes that had once met
In the mystery of the forest
And had resolved, through people's minds
To inspire, and to remind

Why we've all been sent here
From an alien land of ideals
Were now cornered in the brutal
Century of modernity:

That's why they wept!

 .

There will be light;
It will all be chewed up.
Given their singular plight,
Nature and people *will* overcome --

But for now, there is blight.

It's Nothing

I can't talk about anything
So I'll tell you about everything:

The way I try to grab at all
While afraid I'll lose it all,

The way it may seem to go well
But what will be no one can tell,

The way I don't know what's the way
And afraid it will all wash away,

The way I search where exit is
Yet I feel that I should quit;

Resilience is the new buzzword
But for me it sounds absurd;

Foolhardy, or desperate:
Could be words that better fit;

Good intentions? Yeah, I guess,
But I'm burning less and less;

I can't even get one night's rest
To clear my head, then stay abreast

Of all that is required of me
To keep running machinery;

But where the ship sails, where to look:
Winds change faster than they should;

Some say just enjoy the ride
But with so many by my side,

Where we will find land --
Keeps me awake at night.

Aliens in Rochester

In metal carriages we ride
Down the aisle

With solitude as our bride;

By rivers not yet divorced

From nature yet preserved

Like pedestrians reserved

They always look, and always

Look the other way.

What makes a city livable,

I wonder.

Extended Metaphor

Flying is like death. Once you've got your ticket you're just going through the motions. You think you're special but there's plenty waiting along for their turn. You think it should be dramatic but you look into their faces, sunk in, like they've done this before, many many times over, each in their own special way. That discreet, small gin at the duty free: maybe go back for another one. He stares back at you, as if to say, "I was someone once, don't look at me like that!" And then, to himself, "I still have it, I still have the money to fly!" You scurry forth, into the arms of a gleaming booth, conspirational, a modern day Illuminati. "Would you like a free Mastercard"? Life's temptations never stop, right up to the last moment. But once you have your boarding card, the options gradually narrow. On your last call, you have to go and board that plane.

Death is like flying. You' ve given over control to powers greater than I and you feel slightly giddy and excited about it all. Like maybe a carpenter's going to pop by any second and he actually has a sense of humour. "Sorry about the scary business of dying, my Mom loves a bit of drama," he would say, frowning when you give that blank stare like you didn't know it was Mary running the show all along. You're worried Mary will enter next and she'll judge you for something you did, but no, she's fixing the gate with Peter as a group of lawyers recently barged in and craftily, insurance doesn't cover the damage. Back to reality -- there's excitement, like the first time you land on a new continent and everything's different yet everything's the same. There's no hand luggage, you yourself are your own baggage and the scales, well... how was your diet, did you feed on every word that came from the mouth of the One? That will lighten the load. 21g the weight of the soul? Nonsense. There's a 20kg limit, just like the good carriers on Earth, but there's plenty baggage to offload before you get through. Feelings of spite for those who spoke behind your back. Feelings of shame for things other people did or didn't do. And most importantly, shame over tbe words you said or perhaps should have said. Forgiving yourself and forgiving God for the creature you have become, or would have liked to be. Forgiving yourself for the life you so wanted to save, the life looking back at you, on your smartphone, looking like your younger self, full of naive hopes and fears --  but he wasn't yours to save. Letting go of that shame, letting go of that anger. Letting go of debts. Your own debts. Giving over control. To the one who Was, Is, and Will Be, Forever More. Saying thanks to Him for the pains, the earache, the passengers next to you elbowing you across the stomach and clapping with everyone when the pilot lands down with a thud. Suddenly you want to shake everyone's hand, like you learned at Mass, but the Peace you longed for, the Peace that surpasses all understanding is already here, it was always there, you just needed to become small enough to see. For in a plane you are one of many, you're not the one deciding on the course, but it can take you every which way, as long as it's forward. Forever forward.

Gifts

if you sing that lullaby then don't pretend

gird your soul that all'll be well in the end

let not your child grow up to think it was a lie

then pass on worries, wrapped in stories

to give some fleeting respite

if you must sing, first listen,

would you believe it, if you heard it yourself?

the man rummaging through garbage,

he was a child once, what did he hear himself?

what hopes did he have, and what remains of them?

does he hear them prodding him on

or just hear them complain, on and on

who gives him hope, courage, to face another day

whom to love, what to look forward to:

I can't say, I can't say

but I must believe somewhere buried inside

all of us, is treasure waiting to be found,

a blessing freely given that no

power, great or small can ever take away

and I must live as if a day

will come, when nothing else will matter.

Soup

It was at the airport,

I had just purchased a hearty

Soup and sandwich and sat

Down by a seemingly quiet seat

Next to an older couple with

A promise of stoic dignity;

Instead, the man told about his hopes

Of getting a job, riding on

An email expressing vague interest;

"What should I reply," he said?

As he kept untangling and dissecting

Then tangling again, every nuance

And nuisance of each potential word,

"They say desperation is the worst cologne,"

He offered, in quiet acknowledgment;

The woman just sat there like

A muted channel, with only

Vague platitudes, barely filtering through;

I had to stand up and finish my soup

Elsewhere. Stung, I could not bear to hear

What all of us were born to fear

That rejection is shame and whether

You dish it out or receive it:

It is disgusting and cruel.

So, like the countess who ordered

The beggar to be removed

'fore she crossed the scenic bridge,

Lest her guilt move her to

Dangerous places; l left them,

Then and there.

Weasel ditty

“Profits dropped this fiscal year,”
Chris thought he was in the clear,
“though lists of fixtures shift the reason.”
Chris thought he was King of Reason;
“Resin is inedible still...”
Chris kept in bed incredibly still...

Welcome..

.. to the graveyard of
Poems that no one reads as I
Walk among you, you were
Such pretty things;

Full of ambition to
Change and inspire to
Relate and make pause for
Thought --- you expired.

Few people know what makes
A work classic but words fall
Off at each end of the line; 
Thoughts and sentences have

Shelf lives in rhyme; 
I thought I could make you think
But my poems weren't that great;

Still, they got me through a difficult time.

Banks of riches

By the bank of the river I sat down;
I quickly stood up, angry,
I hate it when my clothes get wet
Especially my underwear
But it was only my trousers
A little cold a little damp
With a dash of wet sand
That could be dusted off.

What makes us city rats
So foreign to nature
From earth to wood
From stone to concrete
From bricks to bricked devices
From rigged tents to rigged choices
From bubbles in water to people in bubbles

I hasten to the river

And no longer mind
If my clothes get wet.

A Matter of Life and Death

Life is an art
Death is a dart
Dart strikes the board
It's over, Lord!

Snakes and Ladders

you can eat fresh lobster in 'pest or Kinshasa

leaving the fresh Danube or Congo none poorer
who will eat, who'll mourn when they see the leftover

did I push, while climbing ten feet on the ladder

Rest

 Spirit of God % whose peace we seek
     Look upon % your restless child
    Don't deny % the rest he needs
And don't deny % the rest their needs

Kake

Time has become like two vigilantes

Tearing the fairground apart

What set in motion

Set in stone the notion

(A pure fiction, for which I must apologise)

That two fighters will start a fight

Over a ballerina whose young round look

Belied her age of tempest worn

The lioness from mountain torn

(A memory precious, that I do not own)

The shoulders must touch the floor

The rules stood, the joints locked

And moments of inertia swayed dance-pull

Trip lines force grab dress neck

Torque on torso stretched

Clenched wrists lens 

Blurred lines dark spots

Temple vessels temple statues

Temple statutes must stand and art

And sport will enrich our lot

Healing, food we mull and get by

The rest is just for fun.

Mayflower

Taxied to the edge of space

I flushed A34 it said

Please make your way to the gate

The edge of life will be at stake

Don't look back don't hesitate

To piles of salt precipitate

Those whose conscience obligate

Farewell look to farewell state

Outside the bubble of time

How strange this fear of death

You win you lose it's life

But soup the soldier's mess

And those who hold on will perish

But those who let go relish

The gust of wind that's blowing in

On that cold October day.

Hunting game

"Darling, lock the door,"
With unsaid dread
Behind the voice
It'll be like that, 'gain when
War fare's have their way
And etch the mem'ries chaos
Into sons of fearful heads
Of house
Full house the flush but rules
The royal head will speak again
The common blood will spill again
For no less'n's precious as that'ch you learn
On own skin lest your kin forget;
Your own sin, clumsy
Was to think
You'd eaten from the fruit
But no, you had to taste yerself

And spit
The bloody seeds that cut'nto yer flesh
So cries and wails will be our lot
Cos killing has become our game again.

Cob

Nature gives respite in countless ways

The rain keeps flowing down 'long arrayed reeds

In earth we placed our trust

In earth we fell to dust

Yes our thoughts had melted 

But the lives the house had sheltered

Lived on in walls of stone and cob

The loves the house had weathered from

The outside storm,

The lovely lime,

Had stood the test of time

Yet even the house will fall

This planet too will be like a blob

In the history of the universe

But something tells me

A record has been taken of that time

I reclined and took a sip of wine

In that house

And that moment, though vanished

Has in some sense been etched

For ever into the fabric of all

What then, in the end,

Will remain important in all of this,

Like clues in a detective story?

I don't know

But it will be there as evidence

Against me

And I hope someone convicts me

And that, in that liberating prison

I will be in the good company

Of people who could not believe

But who longed,

From the moment of birth

Less

This disease

this black veil of heavy fabric

weighing down though I know

gentle bliss is but an arm’s reach away;

but my arms won’t sway

something is missing

some piece of the puzzle

reflected in every raindrop;

nature, but a backdrop

to gods of artifice,

walls of nowhere

so ingeniously built;

so why loud noons of cities

should light the empty heart

of every citizen of the skyline;

while with every beat we welcome

the alien empire of machines

that dissociate and atomize

our very selves, broken into cells;

each to our own, each own

homogenized to nothing

to own nothing of themselves

to speak nothing of ourselves.

I see the light, but it says, "I am cold steel" 

"go and steal the nothing"

"go and feed from nothing"

"go, to nothing";

now I am become less than death

for life precedes death

but nothing precedes nothingness;

so I, will cut this fabric and look outside

and maybe I can join those

“some of you”

who look at the stars

Leighton's lost painting

By the light of the moon

I choose the hues to brush
On lost canvas;
No polls -- no door to door will stop
The sky to fall to bay to pier
The cold air leaves no space to veer
Wakes me up at night I
Walk to promenade
Two locals seek the stars and find the calm
They let myself be charmed

Half glass

Like a Hollywood feelgood flick:
You escaped, for now,

but the stakes just got higher;

Like an East Europe horror film:

You escaped, for now,

but the stakes just got higher.

Big Reveal

The wires been left open ended

Voltage signals showing floated

Trip to mars bars aprubtly ended

Brain bar one deliberated

Short fuse:

For a while, the thoughts had rushed

But, 'fore it all made sense: they stopped

A ruse.

Just one thought short of the goal

One goal short of the ball

Reuse.

One post short of them all

I could not decypher,

Could not make sense 

Of it all.

Maybe meditate.

Maybe wait.

[Wait!]

Maybe be quicker to take notes next time

Or trust revelation if important enough

Will bide its time while you write

Glass

Your 

Glass and beady eyes

A cross thousand yard sales

To give thousand yard stares

Filled to blue brim spice

Hips that duly tice the

Paradise that lies between

Two dunes of vice

Caps on, caps lock: The

Beggar who keeps giving

Non-stop; shops a run

Round the block

I too, beg to differ

Round bends of indifference

I scale stairs of dark

Fear clouds take form I

Pray for rain to haver definite

Respite indefinitely, like.

Run

let tears tear the world apart
let pears drop then fall apart
on field of tracks with sweet exhaust
when sweat exalts and pain exults
save the day in your head
for if you’ve saved one day,
you’ve saved the whole world
— time, that mortal enemy
frozen in constant flow —
and if you’ve written one good poem
you’ve written them all

Veritas

asked to lie between, two strands of quicksand
in weaning veritas, in asking sanitas
made to say what in sanity, is vanity

Queen of Chance, will I find you?
as I sail away on a tapestry of intrigue
and circumstance, how to stray true

to the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and rebel against the rule of blue blood
redeemed in wads of green mud

give no-face, no fears, and most of all
no desires that poor thing could turn against you
treat it for what, and who it is — the wolf you feed

Changes

the lonesome organ grinder tries

the effervescent elephant sighs

the picture perfect bubble pops

the picture has too many stops

and all you got me were these

lousy crocodile ears on the rocks

the piano man will sing for you tonight

his famous blue raincoat

hung on his head

in a street in Belfast, where

you too, could be famously kind

if you could only read my mind

I want my Eminem, or else

we could be in trouble —

for boys, they just want to have fun

time, after time, tearing down the walls

to find anybody who is in there 

lost in space or rock formations

and who is way out, playing the air guitar,

some Sergeant or Major

riffing on G major, alone

in a tin can they call home

drifing towards the Sun

here it comes, out of the silent planet

afraid to shoot strangers

afraid to shoot angels

I believe in changes instead

waking up in the morning

and going through changes

a journey through the universe ablaze

with changes

Calvary Hill, Esztergom

 

How glad I'm to see you

Chapel on hill
I see you from window
Like a candle afar

How great of you, friend
That I wish for
That your calvary
Can stir hope in me

Tonight the stars and the chirps
Of hoppers form one purpose
Now it's peace 'cos for a few blessed hours
Death's been defeated

Some hope I longed for
Finally pierces through
Some ease I prayed for
Arrived in one piece

Blessed night I pray don't leave me
Til a blessed Morning comes to greet us
Til then let me heed your call
Better than ever before.

Angels Mean Business

Morning has broken
A new hope's been broken
It's the last straw that breaks
The camel's back
It's the last call that makes
Me hope you won't come back.

Garden

In the garden that you kept
You were free to make ends meet
Like two roses you could keep
Petals wet but did not weep

Rain came down the road wept mud
Car rushed down the cold made naught
A thatched roof bolt the frame called hut
Hot fought hard for blood I leapt

What makes you feel alive Sonny
To see yourself die, honey
The kids just grew up, on telly
Come watch it it's all real, well ---

This garden, where does it lead? Hell?

This road, can we escape?

Or through it find while letting go

Of hope, that there is something

Funny

Beyond rot

Reed

Between the reeds I walked

Spied my shadow cross a path

From earth to marsh twas hard

To go on but I must, dusk had

Begun to settle the heron flew up

I thought maybe my soul could

Rest in escape, the nest

May have to wait, the best

May need to scrape what good

Is left in keeping team intact

For half a decade only to

Throw it all away

On the whims of men who know

Naught what it is to create

Meaning...

I mean in this limited way,

You allowed us

Your Hallowed dust

To pretend and play

That in this one play of our lives

We may have a stake

In how it plays out

So, then,

Out your candles!

Blow out your candles, Laura!

And so goodbye.

leaves

what i said back then,
may not have run that deep;

you thought one, then ten,
and drifted back to sleep.

trying to glean what
gods of tea leaves leave us
or skies of chariots tell
from a distance

about being no more.
i reached out for
my own withered hand.
it was gone.

Training

The short songs do long serve

The short selves we do place

On long shelves we do sieve

On short shelf lives we please

The long lives we do ease 

Into lives shelved at ease

The beers hold in your hand

The bills told you will stand

Get off now while you can

This train is your tran------

[cuts off]

To Will and to Tell

Here in the Switzerland of our mind

We have the haves, but we have not have nots

The grass blushes that it is lush

And the chocolatier just across the hill

Has the way and has the will

To mix in milk and lower the bill

So to be Swiss is bliss

Cantons can tons of proof supply

Other countries of how they're subpar

Where every question is addressed

Democracy is far from dead

But, to be sure, this is only in our mind

That the Swiss are to us so unkind 

It is our own failures we dread

When gazing at the grazing cattle

In our head.

Event Related Potential

If I could speak of what I cannot speak:
It would be more than the bear could bear.
Police with ears in wax,

Lest sirens of justice tax
Greed and cowardice,
Covering their tracks.

Reporters take heed:
Lay low, there is no need
To uncover truth.

In truth,
You don't bring new sense:
You are a nuisance.

So stay meek,
And do not speak
Of what you cannot speak.

Lovejoy, Nostalgia, Treasure, Outside the Bubble of Time

Come along now,
For the trinkets and laces
The goblets and traces
Of laced poisonous faces
Nods on flinters lint
Dropped dead gorgeous hint
Crime’s your uncle and
Hide your carbuncle
Lest you be seen
At the crime scene
And spotted for
What you plotted

At the market fish soft
Fills the air, so fresh
You don’t mind it’s not
Duck roasting, but sea
Calling fresh salt-brine
Spraying ‘gainst granite
Element on element
Thinking in my element
Til, lacking a few breaks
My head nearly breaks
Trying to fill gaps and peer
Between the planks of a Pomeranian pier

It was here!
I exclaim
As I pace nervously to and fro
Counting paces
Recalling countless places
Where I could go wrong
While seeking treasure from the leisure
Of my own fleeing years
“St. Mary’s Church and Main Town Hall”
Fading postcards of nostalgia
VHS tapes of screeching line-asia
Palin ship-horn leaves-port Asia

It was here!
All in a dream.
Untangled like a present
In fine wrapping paper
The present was the wrapping
By someone who tried ever
More vigorously than I
The present was in the giving
The present was to be in 
The present, in the presence
Of someone greater than I.
Greater than I,

Hue to the end

the night sighs to a close
and as the dust settles from portal stars
so arise questions of circumstance
if it is bidden to be beholden
then holding moon and napping sun
will be freeing Sabbath, mean den Sabbath
but not all is helpful, my son

Histle

hello world n it’s Mr Lard
humpling along the boulevard
with waves gently crestling and fumling along
towards gondolas of mindly oolong
shahuffle and shifling shooze
bubbly frizzle and cavooly cooze
riding on top a soliton
tongling solidly among the furloin
it’s Mr Lard now is it not oh I’m sorry it is not
mistaking these funny names you have
will cost us much, how much, it’s nothing
See Lard, well I’ll see to it I’m sure
that bumbling fumble you present us
I’ll smile mona waxingly they cure
Your money is not welcome here
But notes plastered on stadia
And houses of fantasia will
Clink the glasses of news toffers and tills
Click the wirings of swiss and velopes and frills
On back raptors I break into plause and pills
In evenings of London I plausibly feel but deny
All links with less than 3 degrees of tie with photographs
Just to show how professionally we take our graphs
Finals whistle it’s cold you’ll get histle
Large wooden sheds to live in garden room fizzle
To minister the foreign affairs of footballers partying
Bed bites, bad bites, parting gift Mr Lard:
Keep to walking on your mahazing boulevard.

When

when we fly, we fly
higher than birds of prey
lower than birds of steel
fears become like dimples at one's feet
interesting and sweet
and pain, well more real
but with more strength to bear
like shrubs growing up to the sky
thickets where birds can nest
in safety
when we crash -- no one talks about that
the depths needed, when people look away
"'xcuse me, got a minute?"
walls of cold air rise,
glass, that when hit, bruises
I do dream of your gardens
where without reproach or despair
everyone can be looked in the eye
and in it, find again ourselves

Fake

Under grass roof I buried my fears
Over glass roof I shattered myself
I engineered a fake smile in digital ink
I called it "real smile in pink"

And now flowers sway in virtual breeze
Follow each piano key maybe it will
Let me escape "hell on earth"
The latest fragnance by gasoline dreams

Under milk wood the neon is glowing
Under space suits the founders are going
Scorched earth suits the rockets a' blowing
Gorged filth is real most real in the morning

Poison

Take your daily sip of poison

Pay your lazy slip of a tongue
Feel it seep into your pores
Keep it eating up your mores

Those lies buttress against a wall
They're now your lies you voted more
Push your foes off til they fall
News the news we always call

Tear your face off we have no more
Throw our spines off we need no more
Under earth the scales we grow
Here now comes the monster show

Begs the question is it not so
That I should clean your dirty soul
Small-time crooked mud-wallow
Evil were it not shallow

So we'll be spat out but will not
Be fit even for depths below
Just unending misery
Petty habits, slave to grow

So wrote, possibly hypocrite
But one who was sick at the sight
Of people's -- including his --
Inability to act.

And so goes the broken circle
Over and over again told
Should we be surprised even
Richard Nixon has got soul?

Same goes for our own no show, how
Well it had all started but you
Can only be blindsided
For so long, all the people

All the time, and so on and so
Forth, what any of it is worth
What is the way out of here, kind
Thief and saviour of this world?

Boston

Alone in Boston
Where pavements are laid with red bricks
And lobsters are laid in fried chips
Twas here that Jesus was asked his net worth

Then quizzed on his network
And his team of disciples that will work
On his latest spinoff:
Project longevity

Beachhead: eternal life; plus killoff
Of sins, in other words
Guilt-free projected layoffs
That would otherwise hurt high-flyers' souls.

Alone at North Station, commuter's engine
Rumbles on, a voice comes on
There's been a crash, we start
Once we clear the tracks

Back in town, people to lean on
At the diner's next to the 7-11
Buttered toast and potatoes,
Half-mashed, decorate the plate

Do they get smashed here?
Or do they stick with rolls
Of weed that permeate the air?
The sea, witness, rolls back and forth

Downtown, at a Bakers
Genuine Parisian chocolate eclairs
Are traded for the smile underneath
A baseball cap, while the phone taps...

"Back to reality," so Eminem goes,
The train bulges and bellows
Inside earphones, you listen to the tracks
Your life fell through the cracks

"Time is running out," exclaims 85 Rewind,
You're your own boss now, move on
You're in Boston now, go slow,
When running for your life.

Trials of truth

All those new sounds
From those newshounds
Set on news, bound
Try within bounds,
Press dressed impress,
New ounce of truth
Fresh pressed juice no
Nuance of truth.

MMIV

Out of the blue you appeared
The mist off the Cliffs of Moher had cleared

You turned back to me

And turned your back on others

I'm grateful for that 20 years back

And for the 20 years since

Balm

like a black, thin dress slowly floating down
so envelops darkness the palm tree;
success, like a lying caress
melts and frees the soul
of images of distasteful homes;
more than places or statues,
the universe is inherited by the
caprice of fleeting hopes,
streams with trees that gently roll;
hidden underneath it all,
treasure from before the fall,
a flute from which sounds the call to awe;
peace extends like a handshake
that, in memory, none can break;
I did once wish you tarried so,
that you could stay, remain
and let our hearts burn,
lest everything you had told us
just became this hazy dream;
lest the paintbrush of physical laws
would diffuse and dissolve all
that we had built in vain, for good;
I did wish I could be a child again
and erase all my past mistakes,
the baggage of time that is not really mine
and instead mine all that is forgot;
I remember now -- way out of the city
you baptised someone in a stream
and however much that group and their silly views
we are now at comfort to reprobate, yet they
still appear like an innocent dream
compared to all the highly regarded filth
spewed out by online news streams;
I remember again -- a flower, the only
friend in a garden made foreign by hands
busy rewriting the story of robbed lands
a city, with a tall gothic church standing witness
to a long overdue visit after more then twenty years;
or at the edge of England, walking among
Victorian houses that looked like they had piled up
while reaching for the peace of the crowning hills;
we've walked far since then,
and maybe it's just that,
jumping from age to age,
I have to admit I've aged;
if I'd be at pains to retrace
our steps and our missteps,
let me ask for strength
to find the old anew
and embrace the new of worth 
as if they were an old friend