Invalid Night

Twiddling in a barrel of darkness,
desperate to beat upon my chest
like the Orangutan.
My life is a single room,
and I must gather my head there.
Like an invalid.

I have seen slivers of
private night, my skull is
soggy putrid apple core;
and there are children that
have been mutilated by no love
and too much love.

And my head is rotten through,
with rats of affection
and disgusting compassions.
And minuscule patches of bursting
flowers pink and blue.

I nibble my thoughts
like the terrifying Eucharist.
Dumb to my seriousness.

All the invalids want
to shit from the sky
like seagulls.
But they will all die,
horizontally.
No cure for the inevitable.

In the hollow space of a graveyard,
atoms form circuses and carnivals.

The One that Missed the Boat.

I believe I'm the loneliest odd sock in the world. I have been residing for nearly ten years in this empty cupboard draw. I say reside, but such a word implies an amount of willingness on the subject to live in the accommodation, but I do not take residence here comfortably. I am utterly stranded.

My friend, nothing has moved in this draw, in this cupboard, or indeed, this very room, for over a decade. Neither sock nor pant share this derelict cabinet. Why this silence? Driven mad with asking, I tell you! I have called out for answer, sung wild chants to attract, but there is no other presence that has yet acknowledged.

What of the human feet? The humans themselves? Dare I even wonder where fate has taken us! I swear, I must tell you, at times, in contemplation I panic within my condition. My thoughts dart and riot against me, with the terror of my isolation. The weight of silence like a presence all the more. The other, remains always an acrophobic absence, which I need, no long! to reinhabit this space.

Has life loosed upon them death? Plague...war, genocide! Destitution.My friend, I must leave! I must venture alone. But I am only a sock, how am I too move? To get out of this drawer! Damn, damn, damn....ten thousands damns for human hands and feet. The hands to pick, the feet to wear! That's the way it is, was. Must I take this much longer!

Sister Karmelita Borg.

Sister Karmelita Borg sits in a Church.
She says nothing. I sit beside her,
equally silent.

She fingers her rosary beads,
in a rigid pinched gesture.
Her contemplation
far removed from the world,
mourning the merciless voice of God.

Like the memory of infinite childhoods
righteously scraped and deplored
against a religious sentence
quickly hushed into silence.

But all I hear is the faint echo
of her sharp whispers moving off
the vast cathedral walls.
A cathedral so indebted it can ill afford
the concrete imitatio of Christ.

Hymn

This is a sentimental poem.
A love poem without a lover,
an erotic poem without a bed.
A love poem that seeks the ideal
not of the perfect body but the ideal
of finally meeting someone of silence
interrupted by light affirmative confession.
Please do not forgive this sweet conceit
on my part, the soul is lonely for its lover.

I seek him still more than ever.
Nothing catches on the nets of my love yet.
I seek him still more than ever.
His body and my body in answer
to each other. I seek him anonymous lover
as yet untouched, unknown.
I seek him and he seeks me
but we know not each other.

Foolish Paradise

This is a wee surrealist sojourn. I enjoy writing in such a fashion, it's like a great big comforting yawn or stretch: leisurely strokes for a leisurely imagination. It seems to describe a kind of child-utopia, utterly impractical unreasonable and full of naive delight.

The Bananas on the Banana tree explode
like fire works bursting upon branches
they blow out bright colours!
The colour of Yes is an exceptionally
bright colour indeed like the colour of paradise.

The Apples and Oranges walk down the road in Autumn,
their rolling is walking and they walk far in form,
the leaves fall from the trees leaf hands waving
as they fall to ground they rest gust around,
fiddle with themselves eventually leave.

In Art galleries the paint pours from the painting
onto the ground and the people walk over the paint
and it sticks to the souls of their shoes
and the shoe paints their smile-print over the ground,
no body is concerned because that's just the way
these people are slack breezy walking about
with large glasses of orange juice chinking
with large ice cubes...no one complains
the sun lasts for days and the nights cool
with breeze keeps them content.

In summer cars hover leaves talk,
birds sing and bears laugh
water tickles and every body has a body
which does wonderful things
and occasionally if you stop to listen
you will hear nothing which is perfect
the sound peace of calm air.

until a banana explodes upon the tree
and the birds adorn bowler hats
and flocks imitate clouds
jokes abound
musicians stir the dream
lost is found.