The Fall from the Classical

O Dyslexic poems built
like a row of condemned buildings,
short of some scaffolding.
The thread barely holds,
syntactically, stops and stutters,
breaks off mid-thought
at what might have been a sliver of wisdom.

Lines divert, meanings crash,
form dilapidates, contents trash.
Something has been lost altogether,
the artifice, the skill, the metric chisel
has been dropped.
Any child can riot a crayon
over a page of white noise.

O Dyslexic poems built
like a row of condemned buildings,
that won't hold up any longer;
there are no more coliseums, no more cathedrals,
just long lines of shopping malls,
and bubble-gum sentiments.
The season of falling standards
resounding, everywhere around us.

Just round for a cuppa.

'How honest can a person be?'
In the ensuing silence
the room assumes an immensity.
Someone clears their throat.
A window is opened.

Everyone hides in plain sight,
behind mugs of coffee hoping
this awkward pause will soon pass.
Mr and Mrs Smith, keep their underwear
well and truly ironclad.

'It depends what you have to hide,'
someone admits. At this Mr Smith wipes sweat
for his brow, Mrs Smith kneads her handbag closer
into her lap. Readying themselves to depart,
separate as always, untouched.

'It's not like we could all do with some counselling...'
Mr Smith remarks, 'is it...?' 'Yes...' Mrs Smith says...'
'...who in their right mind needs that?'
They make excuses worth leaving for.

The Maturation Process

Thirty years playing at the perennial child,

when will you grow up, just before the coffin?

Grab yourself by the brain. Become
the Catherine wheel you are. Sing a wall down.
Dance until kissing armies are created. 

Tame the private gloom with beasts of laughter. 

Spontaneously combust the toxic doubt of insecure Self.   

Embarrass yourself publicly and take it as spine strengthener.

Ultimately, we are all dead, so courage to do (and in doing be done),
something that might make you look a fool is a fine art gallery.

It is not the sadness in dying

but the sadness of not living intensely

that should shock you out of docility.