Wild Nights

While at life's tavern
I sullenly drank
A toast to dreams
That died.
The landlord pulled
More frothy ale
And spoke to make one cry.

Self Diagnosis

I draw boxes when I doodle;
I wonder why.

War Poem

With his last will and courage
He captured just enough ground
To be buried in.

Sucking the marrow out of life

Yes, I too drink in the wine of life:
But sometimes I must piss...

Old Photos

Folded around its fraying edges

Sun-stroke blurred and beaten

Forever captured; two faces gleam in

Looking back: one, a boyish me

And the other a youthful you.

There I sit – in hopeless forever

Hugged into the crook of your elbow

The bottoms of your trousers – too wide –

The space between us, lengthened

Like shadows in cool evenings.

I don’t recall the moment when

But it seems too sunny to see

Like driving at dawn

With the news always on

And I hear her “look at me!”

As I repeat now

With small bodies eager for moving

But then, as her finger pressed

I was already looking away

Even now I think I’d

Drop

From that bridge

And then, if not now, I knew

You’d save me.

Boy, Man

From mist, light:
hard shadows lengthen the day;
once, cow-parsley on road sidings
promised luxuries beyond what
you, young boy, could imagine.

The damp night opens around you now
like a closed fist
relaxing. 

Cooled ardour in  a summer breeze.

Leaves seem like surreal green spots
as grey becomes blue.
And birdsong - positive as music -
is only catcalls and threats.
Eggs are easily broken;
Small and blue like ice;
small heartbeats brought to life
and ugly skin to frail bone, stretches.

Teeth clench then backs press
now against each other.
Two Cs - one as in a mirror -
Reflecting back to back
a naked gun-slinger's dead sleep.
A baby unborn but grown.

All the little weeds and the hot smell of
growth.  All is vacant like lots,
puddles of digital seeing of the
unimaginable and the pale
obviousness of scripted passion.
Such went youth; so went man
and then goes time -

The Party's End

The glittering things were taken down
and packed into dusty boxes
with romantically curled edges.
The lights were switched off for
another year and new locations
thought of, new things to do.
The winter seemed milder
but for how long?
It always seemed, around here,
to come back and bite,
broken mirror sharp;
cutting the most washing-hard
skin.
There were times when the
heady stench of warm bodies
felt good.  Now it repulses like
cigarette butts in ashtrays
piled high in old pubs.
Urinals marinading chewed gum.
The party's end brought with it
a hope and a thought of
something lost
and something yet to come.