Where did all the Yokos go?
The women who can tear apart a soul
and seamlessly and without
a second breath
stitch it back together
and create a new psyche,
not a monster created in a back street lab
with Guinness flowing in the bar next door
and the brutal sound of a Karaoke machine
ripping apart a classic tune,
but with the energy to change them for the better;
the muse dies quickly when there
are no more Yokos…
causing revolutions in the world
Quiet now,
for its hard to keep drowning
when you keep pulling me back
up and making me
gasp,
splut
ter and whee
ze for air,
to let the extra weight of water
cough through my teeth and spray into the void
to which I escape.
Quiet now,
lay back in the blistering sun
and let the seagulls perch on the stern,
puff in the heat, pant with overwhelming exhaustion
and save the strength
for as I falter, so too do you,
It raged around me and I refused to see the bullets race,
I declined the black invitation edged in guilt to see you suffer
and I purposely lost the war
so I could win the fight,
that I could see your enemy square in the eyes
and outline their own blood that they tasted
with bitterness, the sadness they had caused you.
I lost the war with rational intention…
I lost the war and abandoned territory, but by doing so
I won the fight and gained self-respect…
It was like watching industrious ants
remove the dead and dying
from a destructive battle with termites
on the day the council brought a skip round
for the street to use.
The recently cleaned curtains had been twitching
since the first rays of light burrowed underneath
with bristling mole nose and soft soulless feet on
creaking stair in blind anticipation
for the promised skip and the tremble
of making sure what could be gone
was gone.
The skip duly arrived and was saluted by curtains
I wish I had the courage
to say goodbye,
farewell, properly,
to look myself in the eyes
shake my hand
and go
with a whistle of fortune and
follow myself towards
anti-climax
that is offered the very best
when they find
absolute strength
of character to leave, leave, begone
from the pull,
squeezing heave
of the weight of expectation insisted
by the moon
shining brightly
into the dead centre of hope…
my hope today
now gone.
I cannot help
but wonder where you are,
blood of my blood
tainted by greed and polluted
by urge to take beyond
what is reasonable…
…blood of my blood,
you start to fade but I hang on
to the confusions of your life
and wonder at the marvel
that could have been
instead of the path I know you found yourself
upon and to which you once said
I was to blame, that everybody
was to blame…
except you…
I am afraid of the Sandman…
…I am afraid…
of closing my eyes at night
or during the day and knowing
that it could be the last time I do so
as I realise that the Sandman
is not just the spirit who puts you to sleep
but does so via violent dreams
and sprinkles encrusted poison
into your eyes that makes you groggy
and weak as you succumb naturally
to the smile of Morpheus …
I am afraid
of letting go and seeing the Sandman,
If I could call out but one name for all time,
I would make sure it was yours
for the sound of it beats the others in stature and rhyme
as it sings, floats through the breeze, moaning as it soars.
I would call out your name in pleasure and in pain,
I would call it for all it is worth
for it is the only word that both drives me on and drives others insane
it is the sweetest most beautiful name of all in creation and Earth.
The death of the good Ol’ Boy…
…So easily forgotten, a simple statement of fact
but now the Good Ol’ Boy sits
contemplating the empty screen
for hours and knows that this
mocking blinking cursor
that beats as regular as his own heart
is a true reflection of the barren-state
that resides, the complete blank stare
that breathes with heaviness
of a life that was always wrong
and the smile of satisfaction
that the Good Ol’ Boy is dead
inside.
The modern day Triathlon bypassed the Greeks of old
and their noble thoughts of brotherly love,
instead naked wrestling
was the order in which men were tested;
but is such a hit
in the modern world that thousands take to it
out of sheer desperation
as their country wages war on the ordinary
athlete, swimmer, long distance walker
and they gather their families close
to their hearts and wave goodbye
across crested waves to a world that
doesn’t want them
and wave hello to a continent