MISSING

I saw his picture in the paper, a handful of years after I brushed the hair
From his eyes and held his hand as we ran down the stairs, papers hastily
Stowed in fraying backpacks; the lecture over, smartest of the semester
The quietest smile, the worst handwriting; he shaved his head for charity, once.
Left the holes in his jeans unmended. Wore his glasses in class and
In the dark at the movies. Come on, he would say, race you. He always won.
Dance with me, he would say, run with me, sing with me. Be with me.
Tell me your dreams.

I saw his picture in the paper.
He didn’t look like he had changed, but I never could keep up.

Vanish

The clock has been set,
Run the numbers round and round
Sound the alarm,
That buzzer’s going beep
Two years from now,
It’s in the cards, spread in silk
And spray painted on that wall
Shadowing your favourite walk,
One word higher than anyone could reach
Vanish –
Tacit permission scratches out from
Your pen, the lines between are empty
No one survives in a vacuum,
You’re doing your best to fill out
The forms you’ve taken,
Is it good, is it bad?
The clock counting down doesn’t
Tick, it flickers red, red digits
Silently reshape themselves,
You would do the same
Twist and torque until you can secrete
Yourself between the typeset, proportional
To your words, the osmosis of syllables
Into dead space, forging malleable allusions
Onto blank relief;
The clock won’t tick and it won’t stop,
They’ll mourn you when you’ve gone
Beat their breasts and wail your praises
Deaf and dumb, even though they pore over
The letters you left etched behind every
Closed door and unturned stone,
You served them notice, every other word
Spelling out your ideations,
That alarm’s going to ring;
Babies should be held, pressed to warm caring skin
They fail in their efforts
To thrive, if held at arm’s length,
Our physicality is the catalyst that spins
Them into someone real, whole
Alive, you hold the world at an arm’s length,
In the other hand, skin stretched over knuckles
You clutch your pen tight by your heart
That flickers red, red slowing down
Blotted over and over until the words
Run together and become the same string,
A net of gnarled knots that cinch tighter
With every loop and whorl
You set down what you know,
If only the clock would tick, tock
Giving rhythm to your final beat
Drumming your fingers, waiting to
Sound the alarm –
Time’s up.

Shadow

Nightlit, she comes to me
At silence’s deepest hour
That breathless bitch,
Beyond a reach within my own,
She comes to taunt with blood red
Lips, and smooth unpainted nails
That know the knots that will
Unfurl the flesh from off my bones,
If passion and aggression colour
Dark gold her eyes, then she will
Pull me to the water’s edge
Where rushes rooted murmur still,
And show to me my fear of her
Tight sinewed clutch, mirrored
She kneels at the lake, as such is her
Contempt for this feebled living soul,
She claims her beauty in the ugly rage,
That stalks my shadowed thoughts.

Restless and Unreasoned

Night presses blunt nails
Into my shuttered irises,
Crooning scratchy songs
That bounce like the skipping
Beat of ancient grooved vinyl,
The half-sleep of limb and
Mind, unwinds the tight mesh
Of reasons restraint,
Brain snagging on exit
Wounds, talk and walk
Hallucinate, the scuttle
Of dark spots across
The walls, convulse
In the twisting grip of your
Split face, your disembodied
Carnality drags me under
Shame needs no consent,
The razor edged butterflies
Take wing with sooty moths
Drawn to the flame of self
Destruction, makes for a hard
Berth, slip under the covers
Of darkness and care not
For the inevitable turn of day.

River Mile – Topography of a Minor Madness

Can the leaden heart weep?
If molten in the cradle, maybe;
By now hard and solid, beaten
By hand, into place;
I cannot, will not, reconcile
That carefully cultured face
You paint for your good works,
With the only one I have ever seen;
Yet when I have said, and you are done,
You blindly, with stiletto blunt,
Sink platitudes into the lumpen mass
Hanging heavy where my heart
Should be.

Rough Landings (with apologies to W J Turner)

You can only fall so far before the
     Ground
       Stops you dead,
Sprawl on the floor and stare
               At the dust bunnies,
                   Who peer out from shadowed
            Lairs;
Terminal velocity ain’t the cause,
     It’s acute deceleration that gives
        you pause
To ruminate on the lack of positive flow,
            From one anode to another,
Losing your electrons is a bitch;
Chemistry was never my strong suit,
            Biology leaves me cold and hot
   And Geography always fails to
                        find me,
                         In the right spot;

The horizon curves forever flat and grey,
      Freefalling and waiting
        to hit the earth; 
                Dysthymia and dysphoria,
                   You have stolen my heart
                        away.

I can only see from here.

I can choose to stand by your side
Interlocking fingers tight,
Rest my head upon your burdened shoulders,
Let my heart ache for your tears that spill,
Unaffected;

I can climb the highest hill,
Scramble across the rocks,
Born when the Earth was new
And marvel at the valley below;
I can duck down low beneath
The storm bent bough,
Let its splinters catch my hair
In the tangle of its dying leaves,
And scratch my face with jagged twigs,
Once fresh budding hope,
But I can only see from here;

I can walk a mile or so,
Wearing through your soles;
I can skip down Needle Alley,
Breathe in the highs and lows
Of the city blocks;
Break a crust, scatter its crumbs
And mix them with the poverty of choice,
But I can only see from here;

I may let my fingers brush across
The steel and stone, the bright burnished finishes
Of commerce and culture;
Read your words of wisdom and scripture,
Lay eyes upon the undeniable impulses of your being,
Tilt my head and say, I understand,
But I can only see from here;

I can chase the waves that lap the ever
Baptized pebbles, rolling on the shore,
Slide across the slickened seaweed, following,
As the bay curves away, the headland
An admonishing finger juts out to
Orphaned islands in a shallow sea;
The tide slops on once distant lands,
Taking and breaking our cast-offs along
A common current,
Satin mists slip from the rocks
Studded with the simple jewels of shell and
Gaudy purple sea stars,
But I can only see from here;

We flip a coin,
Entropy and apathy, inextricably wound
Inscribe one face,
The flipside glitters with polished empathy,
Golden with the fires of a nascent sun,
It spins and tumbles in constant motion,
Its fate compelled by the forces of
An indifferent universe,
Mindlessly seeking,
To balance the books of our existence;
It clatters and rolls, teeters on its edge,
We would look if we could,
But I can only see from here.