Now it holds me, now it speaks.
Crumbling the skin away to see what’s underneath.
Cupid kill me, cupid teach.
Beyond the heavens, with the devil at my feet.
I want to heal you, I want to kiss.
To consume the time that threatens abyss.
For in this moment your beauty lies.
Inside my heart, my hands and eyes.
Tell me more about this place where the flowers grow.
Darkness, you say, is but a dream spun in fractured states.
That has little place there.
These flowers, they sparkle like crystals under sunlit ponds.
Inviting us to dive for mislabeled treasure.
There was but a crack on my mind.
Nothing really, but would it matter?
If that fracture, grew worse and worse.
Not there you say, that place it heals.
Swaddling all in divine clouds of relief.
Keeping the broken pieces of the shell in place.
And the mind where it belongs.
What use of the heart then?
The heart it seems is praised.
Raised up high like a crown.
The land vibrates under soft understanding.
While love sews tapestries of tales, and memories together.
They are there too, you know they are waiting.
How could an angel not sit at the throne.
Heaven?
No, not yet. The safer place inside your soul.
Where you barely tred.
I don’t want to stain it all with coatings of yesterday.
These things will be washed away, only lessons remain.
Who can go?
All are welcome.
When can I leave?
You’ve already left.
You rage within me. A silent storm.
A tempest with temptation to drag me through heaven.
Cutting my wrists on the divine.
I let go, disappearing into the eye of all your wonder.
Lost in your turmoil and torrential rains of change.
God’s grace, bathed in divine light.
Casting gold over cracking skin and fallen vows.
The vessel inside, so empty at the beginning.
Now overflows like a cup of human kindness.
What troubles does she have at the seat of the saints?
What ails her heart that cannot be soothed?
Sweet words from Jesus must mend the wound.
She smiles at a knowing, a celestial secret.
Whispered to her in the musky wooden rooms of god.
All this is but temporal.
All pain is marginal.
Your being is relative to the consciousness you invoke.
So why does she smoke?
Through hollowed tears that paint the walls.
Cries a thought, uttered more in lament than desperation.
The lights fading.
A love abating.
The prayer for a heart on the edge of nothing.
What demons and ghosts stole it away.
Which angels plucked it from the earth.
Has god really written the last passage in its tale.
Or has the other heart deserved a second chance?
These questions lick at the mind of fate.
While others close their eyes to possibilities.
They lost the beat, the rhythm of love.
Those roots that went deep, tangled and clogged with mud.
Twisted with happenstance and rode the whispered jokes of time.
All beneath the silent wings, and bells ringing out a new era.
While eucalyptus air fills the lungs.
And we cough up the oil of yesterday.
For heaven can wait, while paradise before us blooms.
With all this talk of heaven.
Lapping at your feet.
Washes only the surface.
Never flowing deep.
For inside the bones are rotten.
And the sins stain and swell.
Redemption is forgotten.
Perpetuating this hell.
A result of you burning our bed.
I lie on the cool grass and watch out for comets.
Racing from Olympus to Paradise.
I pulled off the ropes and entanglements.
Escaping with my life, but not my soul.
Now these clouds that cover the milky way.
Blotting out the moon.
Are really the smoke from the ashes of our home.
Yet suddenly you appear, covered in moon dust.
With starlight diamonds in your eyes.
And you take my hand, and tip the sky over.
Shaking out the stars.
Promising me treasure to be found from our ruins.
Blinding me with Midas light.
Lies, they kept her from heaven.
A raging ghost of self-contempt.
Is it fake when inside there is truth?
For in the dark, all can see her tears.
Slipping into the cracks of hell.
Crying out to change.
/
Fall
Into
Heaven/Hell
Underneath that crystal water.
Of crushed stars and dreams.
Dwelling like a memory that won’t die.
Lies a soul.
Frayed and tattered.
Filled with thoughts of eucalyptus leaves and saffron.
Tide up in heartstrings and self-made knots.
Tackling the torrents soundlessly.
To drown silently in a rising tide.
This was their gift to you.
Keeping the truth and the pain out of your eyes.
Packing soot and coal into the sockets.
Trembling inside and yet still.
Like a sewn up teddy bear.
All glass eyed reflective.
Placid.
Who let that rain in, to wash the hope away?
Deluged in dopamine and on the brink of decay.
Each drop inched closer.
Under the door and down their spine.
Exploding the sky with a grey that blocked out heaven.
God made the rain, the floods and the tide.
To wash away the sinners, the soulless and already sunken.
Yet she was always destined to float.
Catching stars in pockets and wiping the salvation across our mouths.
But the rain came in.
Straw ladened and camel shaking.
Soaked in misery and shame.
And now she is lost under the surface.
Ripped away in the undertow.
Growing gills and thicker skin.
Crashing on someone else’s shore.
There is no flesh upon your bones.
Such rays of moonlight only dazzle the naked blood.
You drift through me like a ghost.
Swallowing hungry souls.
The waters relent.
Heaven subsides.
And though all around hold their breath.
Inside the caged bird dies.
The after-burn of lust sees your soul coil around me.
Tunnelling my desperate thoughts up into the sky.
It is a beautiful flowered prison that I daren’t shake free.
A circled decision giving me reasons not to cry.
These bones lay in your care.
Fragile, like thoughts of eternity.
You bleed a million tears.
When the breadth of distance smothers.
A coldness creeps when time rushes like ghosts.
You grit your teeth, holding onto a dream.
Burning like a roman candle, hollowing your resolve.
Which voice now echoes?
Which prayer now chants its finality?
Breathing life into togetherness.
Binding us with golden thread, wrapped around heaven.
You know, and you hide it.
Keeping it safe, even from me.
For I have destroyed such cities before.
And crushed the pillars of peace in your mind.
But no more.
The blankness of the shadows that pass.
Yet wonders dwell underneath.
Hidden stories that flow like lava mines.
Emotions running deep.
Eyes that meet on the train.
Skin that breathes all the same.
We are each a spark of light.
Glowing intermittently in the cold expanse of now.
Reduced down as the 20th century folded.
The devils may click their tongues.
Hiding in caves and pits of pain.
Dipping into those darkness pools.
But we are stronger in the sun.
It burns away the filth of forever.
Shedding the past so the wings can rise.
Renewed and burning with our soular flame.
So you may move with purpose and an elevated heart.
Often reminded of the angels you’re among.
Into your ear I promise heaven.
Though I’m sure we’ll go through hell.
Consider this a quick confession.
Before falling under this spell.
My love is mined in deep deposits.
In caves of the dark and unkind.
But there’s skeletons buried inside my closet.
And devils lurking in my mind.
The plane took off, soaring into the sky as the sun died on the horizon. All was safe, all parts working. Wheels stored safely as the streaming sound of pressure encased them. He looked out of the window and watched the ground give way. He sighed. He’d hoped for a failure. Maybe later when they were out over the ocean, no chance of rescue there. No one ever survived a plane crashing into the sea….
Through your bloodstream I do course.
Eating your oxygen and exploring you from within.
Until the time you breathe your last.
Picking me out with razor blades and intent.
Smearing me across the wall.
To be transfused to heaven.
Expelled to the hell without you.
A crimson coat of apathy.
Because my love suffocated.
From the inside out.
SKELETONS IN THE SKY
I hear the angels whispering to me, quietly in my sleep.
Loudly when I wake.
Cracking my skull like an egg.
Dipping their fingers inside.
This life.
Sun shined yellowed and fresh.
Stretched out and taut like a lamb on the rack.
Hurried time, and love spent.
Empty like a tramp’s bottle.
You gave me the promises you couldn’t keep.
Tucked under my mattress for the day it rained.
Waiting for the monsoon.
It poured, and I was washed away.
Washed out to sea like sardines and ship wrecks.
So I wait now.
For that dark sky to open up and swallow me again.
Suck the light from my bones and spirit me away.
Like skeletons in the sky.
Solar pirates for the soul.
Yet gone before it happens, before the decay.
Drifting in the cosmic sleep.
One you can’t undo.
Until I wake to discover, you loved me too.
AUREOLE
Changes take you to the place.
The feelings, dressed in faith.
Little voices whispering your name in silent spaces.
You take me there.
Gripping my hand which shakes and flutters.
A heart, in flight like birds of paradise scratching the sky.
The only thing that fades is the darkness of the past.
The bright light I see in your eyes illuminates and disorientates.
An unknown, which used to creep like ghosts, now welcomes like a field of poppies.
Oh that heady take on life, blurring into our bones.
You come to rest on marbled floors.
An altar in which I can pray.
But you lift my hands and shake your head.
Kissing me with our new commandment.
The only religion is love.
You fall into my skin, changing the air I breathe.
Needing me, as I need you.
Worked from our souls rising.
A Perfect circle.
Taken from Everyday Miracles – out now
Shuffling off this mortal coil.
After years of strife and toil.
Turns my sight towards the sky.
And spit in Satan’s salty eye.
For though I’m old and known to break.
With bones of chalk that tend to ache.
I know the spin of my moral compass.
And what is true within each one of us.
For Satan wanted my soul one day.
When down on my knees I was to pray.
And promised heaven and all the earth.
If I would part with what I’d had since birth.
But I knew that slippery cunning devil.
Was not true, or on the level.
And would leave me lost, sad and doomed.
When the horsemen rode to their apocalyptic tune.
So though he lured and tried to test.
Reach within and corrupt the best.
I resisted hard and asked god to linger.
While I flipped old red the finger.
And now I fall into the unknown whole.
With my heart intact, and still with my soul.
The plane took off, soaring into the sky as the sun died on the horizon. All was safe, all parts working. Wheels stored safely as the streaming sound of pressure encased them. He looked out of the window and watched the ground give way. He sighed. He’d hoped for a failure. Maybe later when they were out over the ocean, no chance of rescue there. No one ever survived a plane crashing into the sea.
Closing his eyes, he saw their face. Lost and troubled as the chaos of the street bustled by. The taxi had hurried them, throwing his bags into the boot hastily before cars honked behind. They’d said their goodbyes already upstairs. Held on to each other as the tears threatened. At least he’d held on. He was unsure now how hard they had pulled into them. Deep inside his brain a voice had whispered ‘they want you to leave’.
Opening his eyes, he saw the seatbelt sign switch off, the little ‘bing’ sounding all around him but nowhere particular. The plane levelled off and he saw the land corrode into the ocean. The lights from the city behind already blurring into a distant memory. People got up, walking up the gangway as if their restrictiveness demanded a rebellion in movement.
He turned again to face the window, the little tears of condensation streaking backward like the ones in his eyes.
–
The flight was uneventful, and despite his longing, did not crash into a blazing wreck into the sea. He was somewhat thankful, no need for others to descend into nothingness because of his own wants and needs. The country had changed now of course, and he felt like a stranger in his own land. He felt as if he’d outgrown that little island, when in truth, it had all shrunken into ambivalence.
The next few weeks were a haze to him. He slept longer than his body needed. He ate less than what was required. The maddening howls of loneliness engulfed, playing out a wicked pageant each night. Pagan dances of despair trooped through his mind as he imagined the worst. And the weeks fell away into months. The sun rose and died each day, giving way to the moon which seemed more allusive and tauntful. Appearing and disappearing with differing brilliances.
And nothing changed.
No word came. No celestial movement of fate. He prayed of course, every day. Wishing, hoping, threatening…apologising. Words tumbled from his mouth like a waterfall, lost in the roar of tears that welcomed the rising pool of pain. He was confused and sad. These descriptions falling short of the abject horror that they encompassed.
He got up late one Wednesday. His bed had become a grave, and he pushed away the covers like soil from his skin. The weather was grey, and he saw little movement outside his window. He could hear the birds whistling their busy tunes and saw a couple of collared doves pecking away at the grassy bank at the side of his house. The birds circled, one seeming to protect the other as it scoured the grasses for something.
This was his life he thought there in that moment. The tragedy of nothingness. The on repeatness of filling hours that stretched like days.
Sitting down on his bed, he joined his hands together. They had marks on now of course, bloodied scabs that were struggling to heal. Punches to the ground and walls in frustration. His hands stung when he washed them always, bits of skin pealing off and disappearing down the drain to their own hellish adventures. Mostly he would pray in his head, but this morning the words came forth strong, if not shaky. He prayed for others, for those he loved. He asked why his circumstance refused to alter. He prayed to be sent the needs to change his situation. If god was refusing to give him what he needed, then at least give him the chance to change it for himself. He saw the light, felt the feel of god’s hands upon him and trickle into his heart.
This prayer lasted a long time. The doves had flown away by the time he had opened his eyes again, and a light rain had begun to pepper his window. The house groaned around in its ordinariness. Things were quiet. Things were the same.
He went about the day, holding onto something which he would never tell anyone. Like something stolen and now hidden in his pocket, he buried this secret in his heart which struggled to beat in a comfortable rhythm. The day came and went. The tasks and encounters rose and fell with the usual absurdity.
It wasn’t until the following night when what he had tucked away bloomed again. A flower of thought that had grown from the thick mud of despair. He had played the game of this life, by the rules he never agreed to. He was of service each day, giving and giving; yet never receiving. It never used to bother him for he had much to give. But when you lose everything, you become stricter on what you give away.
Now he felt like the coconut husks in his garden, pecked at each day by the birds of life. Strips of him torn away, revealing nothing underneath. His prayers had gone unanswered. But he stopped that thought then. No, this was not true. His prayers had been answered, when he prayed for others. When he gave and prayed and wanted the best for other people. They got what they needed. Even the rotten ones he was obliged to love. As if blood bound them in an unspoken covenant.
Prayer works. But not for him.
When he wanted…no, needed something. It never came to him. It was as if the gates of heaven had closed to him in a display of much unfairness. Why was he so beyond getting what he needed to make it through the day?
This thought stuck in his head, like food stuck in a throat. Uncomfortable and unpleasant. He was angry at God. But who wasn’t at times? But he felt more than anger, a betrayal almost. He fell asleep that night, not pooled in his own tears like always, but shaking into a fevered dream of reckoning.
–
He woke early, the rhythm of his heart thundering him awake. His phone was silent, barren. Nothing in the night had sprung forth despite the difference in hours. What were they, seven hours behind? They lived their day while he slept dreaming of them. They dreamt of something else while he navigated through the day thinking of nothing but them.
Rolling out of bed he went to the bathroom to wash his hands. Purifying his body, washing away the dreams and nightmares. He looked in the mirror…..
What stared back at him made him weep. A man stood there, but a wasted vision of a human. Sunken eyes, gaunt expression. As if the sadness had spoiled from the inside, wasting away the flesh. He noticed one of his eyes was a milky colour, his once hazel views into his soul fading away into a grey of nothingness.
What to do now, he thought to himself. Brush his teeth, fix his hair. Get changed and through another day for what purpose? The same as yesterday, the same as tomorrow would be. A parade of nothing and inconsequence.
He knew he had fallen into a depression. He had hoped to shake it off or fall out of it again. Why was it so easy to get pulled in, and not the other way around? But something extra covered him today, that final magic element of hope seemed to have disappeared as he slept. A rousing song, or prayer usually helped. Taking stock and being appreciative. But no, something was different today. The same grey clouds outside, but something was different there in his bathroom. He could not even hear the birds that usually chattered and warbled beyond the walls.
He took a razor and made two clean cuts, long and deep. It was the kindest thing he could give himself, and the biggest apology.
What reflected was a surprise to him. A little light glistened in his eyes and more haloed above him. He turned suddenly, hoping to catch a trail of it around his skull. But it seemed to follow him, quick as a flash. He felt it then, a sudden strength lift within his bones like they were being pumped with magical force. He made to pray but remembered suddenly and abstractly that God should not be called upon in a bathroom. Negative spaces.
Running from the room he collapsed onto the landing, the banister casting a ray of light over him like prison bars. He watched as they seem to lift upwards, the sun disappearing behind a cloud. The bars faded, and he closed his eyes.
He pictured the world above in his mind, the ascent of this man who had become so troubled and desperate. Hands guided him; little voices pushed him further until he was at the gates of heaven. With one push, the gates parted. He opened his eyes there and bowed to give thanks. He let the words tumble out, washing appreciation over his life.
How long he remained, he’d not known. The bars of light did not return, but when he stood, he noticed the sun was hovering off in the distance now beyond his window. He wiped the tears away and stood in his new world, just as his phone in the other room began to ring.
I dare not touch, a hair upon your head.
Or your skin that falls like rain.
Into my arms I dream you would tumble.
Kissing your lips that welcome me like a traveller’s light.
Burning out of the darkness.
Threatening sweet cherry deliverance.
I would peal back your skull and dive into that sea of thoughts.
Swimming with you in circles.
Hand in hand on a celestial ocean of knowing.
To know you. To touch you.
To take the pain you feel and burn it within my own bones.
I place this pedestal only for you.
Keeping you safe and aloft, closer to the heavens.
Where you belong.
Where do you go, when the anger shows?
The pulsing in the veins.
Threatening to tear the skin.
Close these eyes, in need of such protection.
Blood as thick as oil, and a heart as black.
Words splinter me?
Rising my inner mercury.
My hurt vibrates to sonic sound.
Angels crying to the war in heaven.
The fury felt through a thousand decades.
Torn from the very books that celebrate such divinity.
These thoughts and callous kisses close in.
Peeling back my lips to bare these well-worn teeth.
The bones break and shift.
Ascending my temples as you try to look away.
But look deep within this life.
Into these blackening pools of my eyes.
Do any of us win?
Struck skin and nitroglycerin on the tongue.
Blossoming florets of purple that do not smell sweet.
They only anaesthetise me in an opium blur.
Sending my skull once more into the floor.
Illuminated, the folds of heaven.
Bitten torn feathers.
With plucked thorns from our skulls.
That you and me.
Bittersweet.
Red, like the veins of a tree in autumn.
Washed in golden light.
Drunk with sacred hymns that sing in your bones.
I see the lotus bloom in your eyes.
I want to hear your temple sing.
These snow covered aspects, higher.
Above the shelf we cannot reach.
Tickled by the zephyr underneath.
No longer the caged bird that sings.
But the sparrow that stole the sky.
Though darkness may surround.
The angels still call your name.
Blessed and crowned.
Pulling heaven and the moon, down to earth again.
This life, that fear of loving.
Of believing what is all around here.
A junction in your bones, fragile and misdirected.
Second hand bodies that fall like sad embarrassed eyes.
Only when the lights are out.
These fears call out your name.
Swim into your dreams and pollutes this bloodstream.
Who touched that velvet treasure?
You take rib, and scream a pleasure.
I feel the truth like each vertebrae.
You dislocate.
You propagate a new feeling within me.
A love so tender and tasty, it reeks of construction.
Of chaos and completion.
Slid off the bone of life.
All the noise seems to fade away.
To a coffin quiet existence that allows me to hear the future.
While you cover this love in salt for protection.
And I hold your bones in mine.
Counting the path of your spine.
Silently whispering to the angels a thanks.
For returning what once was ours.
Havoc and Consequence 