I am afraid,
not of life or of opening
myself up, perhaps even to ridicule,
God knows I’ve experienced
enough of that, more than I care for,
probably less than I deserve;
I’m not scared of that for
if you’re not terrified of death
how can you truly feel alive?
I am troubled,
by all that I am,
the insanity in the letters,
the voices whispering gently
that this word not that word,
not any word
but them all, is to be captured,
I trust my eyes as much
as I trust my soul
and I will trust my soul
until the end; I will trust
it, for whilst it may lead
me astray from time to time,
it will not do it with malice
or feverish gold digging intent.
My eyes may be failing,
however I see the feminine in you,
the beauty of compassion,
of searching for the answer
in a realm which once you despised
and acted the Tomboy
for the boys to admire,
The thousand cast iron lamps
sets the scene in a Sunset Boulevard way
and the silhouette of a hundred dancers,
their skirts flying, lifted
by the whispering fog,
their hair tied back and tempting the trilby
they wear, the adjustment and nod
to femininity only seen as the
plucked flower, dead soon,
dipped in gold leaf, sits proudly, stuck fast
by a silver pin through its heart,
erect and glowing in the dampness
of the drooping Boulevard air.
The hero shakes in the clammy mist
I fill up the day so I don’t have to think
about anything but words
that appear one keystroke
at a time, but even that somehow falls
into disgrace when I consider the art
of the typewriter,
the quill with fading ink
or the press on its first run,
for all right minded people
to take solace in;
I cannot offer anything new
for by filling up the day,
by refusing to live in my head
with its stark boundaries
and all too clear regrets,
I break sweat, not for the first time
as I bang my head against thick,
blackened and bloodied bars
that hold me back,
that resist my shakedown
as they rattle in the dirt
and concrete, small creatures scuttle
around my toes, feeling the chill,
feeling the draining perspiration
that runs down from the small
of my back
and I sweat and I howl
against the only light
in the bludgeoning room,
my tomb self made,
one exit,
no idea how I found myself here
I fear for your soul, as you lurch
and stumble, in the manner of
Frankenstein’s Monster, stitched together
with bloated handcrafted hate
and led by money through the nose,
led by old school isolationism,
led by ignorance
and greed, the I want led by the I have…
I fear for your soul.
I fear for your heart, the once at least
caring side displayed by a Camelot King,
a chair-bound, three times anointed knight
and the fun loving Sax man,
all had their breakages, their misfortunes
I hear your voice in the darkness
and it reminds me of cold autumn rain
as I hitchhiked north
and saw the white threat of
angry spellbound snow
on the distant
Canadian mountain range
and I find myself crying
for the memories
your words placed in me,
as I once became the new kid in
the small Oxfordshire town,
as I was the new kid
on the highway finding temptation,
and the glory of a lift with a beautiful woman.
It is the gentle sweep, brush like,
It’s hard being a shadow,
especially though I tell myself
I’m not an illusion,
that the ghost in me
that is ignored,
that is playfully abandoned
from time to time
exists and feels pain like a Winter’s breath
on a fading scar,
rising with pinched assault
and damnation in the dead
of lost cause night…
I am not an illusion,
a conjured trick of morphine,
a dream,
a nightmare that an addict once had
in bleak black and white stereotype,
the noir in the film…
The small stone,
misshapen by history
and the waves that lap at the Gods
smoking tobacco
as they hold back the Nile,
sits perfectly still
on the edge of my wooden desk
now
only serves to remind me that the world
is forever calling out to be explored
and whilst I have forever stained
its appearance in indelible ink
with the date of its discovery
and the place on the Nile
in which countless eyes
ignored its white dimpled shell,
The dragon in my skull
is breathing too hard
and making my eyesight
blur, seem distant and the claw
from the left foot is tapping out
Jazz moves in time to Beiderbecke
as the heat from its nostril
clouds over my right eye,
steam punk future,
one electronic eye patch
covered in soot and dragon grime, as Buddy Rich
smashes out hits
against my temple
the headache in perfect drum beast time.
The right eye,
never the same since the day