IMPRESSIONS, BONDI

on afternoon sand

bare skin gulps

the last baking hour

a shorely breeze

blows a spray mane streaming

behind

headlong plunging breakers

up on the still hot Promenade

an OW-ing toddler

barefoot trots after mother

and beachside cars

                             begin

their evening exodus –

make way for the afterwork

                                       joggers

here

          I am

I make myself

an eye

an ear

make of me taste and smell

and am

          a moment

finite but unbounded

A GLASS, DARKLY

It never sleeps. It is

      what wakes you

trembling nights weeping

      while

dreams melt in darkness. It’s your

sweat soaked sheets

your churning empty bed;

the rain against your window

soft, insistent, constant

each drop a murmur in

       reason’s diluvial roar.

Drag it to vertiginous highs

       or bury it

in anonymous hotels stick it

      with a needle try and sink it in

a sea of booze;

only when sated will it

      vanish

a pick-up hustled you for drinks;

an evanescent tracery

etched across a stormy night;

an unfinished poem

in the memory of a monstrous computer.

A GLASS, DARKLY (II)

It’s your mast-lashed arms

your unstopped ears

and the sirens’ song

It’s strapping on a smile –

being strong for others til

you’re left with only yourself

– til

the edifice implodes

beneath

its own facade’s weight

It’s rituals and rules – your rent

paid straightway the cheque clears

to push

          from reach

that always beckoning

overdose

It’s holding on until

your fingers finally break

The voice that whispers

Fuck it –

jump

(Seventeen Syllables About) REALITY

Perfect we all want.

Sometimes love is just being

fucked up together.

THE MEMORY OF OBJECTS

when the mercury slides

and rain

          sets in a few days

the bedspread

          in the damp recalls

our sex

SEA POEM

Wish I could tell

                   with words

                   my thoughts when

first our eyes locked

that Saturday summer night

but it was only sounds

the instantly irrelevant crowd

the engines and ocean beneath us

echoing

          rumbling

                   whooshing like

the air out of my lungs

and one

solitary

deafening

heartbeat.

WALK

Here’s to them

the jokers

who smile at the world and wink

                                                          because

the world does not deserve

          to see

                   their tears

See them

the pretenders

those who know how to hide

everything but their souls

the brilliant fools

the gamblers

the diligently mad

                             who build us

castles in the air

                             and then

hurl themselves from the walls

the faithful ones

the lovers

giving the whole heart only

                                                when

they give their hearts at all

the lonely ones

the left

the ones who wonder why

                                      they’re easy

to walk away from

the strong ones

the unbroken

the ones who mainline caffeine

to keep another beast

at bay

sure they just can’t do this anymore

                                                          then

doing it one more day

Here’s to them all

the living

the life.

REVISITED

Not exactly original or

poetical to observe

the earrings

                    winking

down from my bathroom

cabinet

sweetener tabs incongruous atop

my bachelor coffee tin

the nightstand bobby pins or

conditioner

shampoo

toothbrush

(pink)

resident now in my shower

the pillow soft beside me

redolent of you

all this and none

is new –

what tragedy

if no one else

had felt this way before.

An altered I

winks at past and tomorrow

and opens now

opting not to watch

          this once

for spiders amongst the bedding.

ONLINE PERSONALITY QUIZ

A rose

a German shepherd and

the Eleventh Doctor Who

I should live in London

          and

am far more

interesting

charming

romantic

funny

smart and beautiful than

me.

NIGHT POEM

some nights

fingers

faltering circles on

my chest

breathing

changing

rhythmic

flicker of dreaming eyelids

her skin

are all the sleep I need

MORNING POEM

There

smiling open

lovely brown eyes.

DIALOGUE (Internal) 2014 Version

Loser

loser loser

loser loser loser

loser loser

loser

loser loser loser loser

          loser loser –

loser loser loser loser loser

          loser –

loser loser.

Loser –

Fuck you.

Watch this . . . .

IDIOT (Unicorns)

An idiot believes honesty

answering simplicity in trust

festers no resentment.

A halfwit believes friendship

born of love and love

born of friendship need

not mutually extinguish.

A moron thinks, observing

friends who have

          for absent friends

rarely a generous word

somehow he’s the exception;

that

baubles once accepted

childlike won’t be

snatched-up and flung in snide;

                                                knows

his own faults

and needs none new imagined.

An idiot

considers

to take up a heart

when one’s own lies

ignoble.

A moron remembers

and means

what he says.

(Seventeen Syllables About) MOVING ON

My darling, unless

          you’re on my mind, I barely

                   think of you at all.

RATIONAL EYES

We can’t

keep doing

I don’t really want to

stop

it’s my own fault

it’s yours

I like

          and we keep on

need

I hate

you

          make me

feel

IN/OUT

Either

always

          in the corner of

your mind

                   or

completely

out

of mine.

OPEN AND SHUT

The art of playing the game

and never giving it away

of baring all

and nothing

                   at all

of hiding under a neon sign

the art of being

completely

open and shut.

COGITO, ERGO SUM

Some have the gift

of choice –

which universe to inhabit –

moulding from their mantras

          worlds.

Some find it easier

to shatter a mirror

than look at a truth

          reflected.

Gathering the shards

they scrabble

a fractured picture –

a stained-glass filter.

This side, the altar

the other

          the seducer.

Delusion seeks an accomplice

in imaginary crimes

 – a scapegoat for desire –

admits to a vague complicity

          but

never responsibility –

rarely touched by

                             reality

of which

it nearly always

complains.

(Seventeen Syllables About) SEEING

Life in red and black –

          light and darkness dimly glimpsed

                   through eyelids screwed tight.

THIRTY-EIGHT (Certainty)

If thou regret’st thy youth, why live?

– Lord Byron

At seventeen a poet

fancies himself

                   Rimbaud

stomping on tables

and pissing in complacent coffee cups.

At twenty-one he’s Byron

trying out for size

                             his muse

on every caprice –

a madman shooting flaming arrows

never staying for the blaze.

By thirty Yeats and Eliot call

mystical, cynical, bewildered;

enamoured still of conceits

but

faithless in effect;

squinting through swirling sands

at a shadow that may be

a slouching beast –

or just

a marching line of afternoons

          and coffee spoons.

No sane illusion

survives to middle-age.

A poet ages faster

and more slow

digging

with the pen

for unsellable gems;

labouring

          not for an audience or

himself, but

the work –

certain as dying Keats

that his name is writ in water.