how words got me in trouble

there is no privy to the nuances
of men with hollow tongues
our wills
wants
wonts
and truances
all verbally spar arms

but why then is it so
that words must tender meanings
when civil tongue is fluid
and eyes work just by feeling

and so i speak through glass
and satiate my impatiences
were all alone together
olfactory with no fragrances

it crusts it's edges when i talk
no pittance for the penance
before i run amok
evict my mind's tennats

winter comes
the city settles
seasons change
i feel it breathe
exhaling steam
polluted kettle
whats concrete outside
within seethes

the cars
aloof
they sleep on sleet
shored ocean bile foams
observing shadows
always greeting
while in their dark i roam

then years from now
the sun ascends
lights roads for us
and answers
whilst my eyes singe
i can pretend
that this town wasn't handsome

all allusive alliterations
corrode conspicuous connotations
and these high pitched reverberations
are muffled by muzzled lips

enunciated hasty
your words are so abrasive
and with your porous skin so tasty
lets tongue step social waltz

his words sound so unique
then you hear on the phone
of how he lip synced lies
with his own voices tone

you meet somebody for a night
and abscond with his image
meet someone at a bar
who's at bars meeting people

-

this pebbled cobble
with it's edges still rough
has it's way with the tide
until it's had enough
while the months are still young
the tourists are still few
the days here are long
and the air breathes like new
in a few weeks time though
hell - perhaps even days
arrives calms greatest foe
with it's frantic displays
crusty jugglers and leeches
hunting crayfish and roe
cigarette ends on beaches
it is my time to go


-


he hopes it rains a saline rain
that keeps the waters warm
he hopes she pangs a certain pain
that keeps her wanting more

she paints her portraits with her tears
they keep her brush stroke straight
he fills his inkwell using shears
writes sanguine words irate

then when the critic comes around
he'll warn them for good measure
but what he thinks they do for passion
they only do for pleasure

-

you asked me to write something happy
but please mediocre instead
the former comes off just too sappy
yet the latter will go to your head

your guitar that you practised for years
got outdone by a kid from taiwan
if we sit somewhere nice and share beers
i'll lie to you that you're number one

we whine words we practise on stages
we complain that we're all getting old
expecting better from upcoming ages
to go through with the promise of gold

the now seems to always be raining
yet yesteryear and tomorrow are warm
but with phrases so full and pertaining
we survive every day of the storm

-

this place rests uneasy as it tremors with murmurs
and as glass is broken the near future is set
from mere silence - to violence the world's erupting in fervours
as he sits back and lights his cigarette

first come yelps then the screams hither noises galore
there is nothing left civil no not here any more
still behind the flames past the blood minarets
he is still sitting calm smoking his cigarettes

buildings crash bridges topple hear society crumble
after one final anarchy nothings left to abet
hear the sanguine sky whisper hear it cry hear it mumble
see the last one alive light his last cigarette

sparks descend much like snowflakes onto streets once alive
no one to see him leaving no one heard him arrive
there is no one who fought left alive to forget
to find one who remembers follow the scent of cigarettes


---
in our favourite room the floor is an ashtray
and your face is difficult to discern
amidst the wisps of burning incense
oh, you were so picturesque

we barred the doors
and the windows
pressing our faces to the glass
noses smushed
eyes darting
we watched the seasons go

we saw structures crumble and empires rise
until they in turn collapsed as well
we learned to listen
we learned that nothing is forever

we stood up much older
letting go of each others hands
we wiped our knees clean
and headed outside
where even the summer
feels cold

-

my young sailors ashore
four pints in - maybe more
a days wage on a whore
and they're flying

men turned tougher than nails
all from hauling those sails
but for now they chant tales
and erupt bars to wails

through the gap in their teeth
onto land spit their grace
once was tar on my ship
now is soot on their face

eat now, drink now and laugh
throw the queen a loud hail
live these evenings rough
for tomorrow we sail
-

the time it takes to accept time
takes more time to get used to
a memory scarred with scents of thyme
may take one years to wade through

the distant chime of ancient bells
the seaside roars and whispers
a worried story a face tells
a months untended whiskers

peel muscles
skin
rip tendons
then crack the skull asunder
though a gruesome note to end on
it leave the mind to wander

-

i would like to explore your geoncentric universe
the one you surrounded with the barbed white picket fencing
where you locked yourself behind pearly gates
where you locked galilleo in a tower
and dedicated him a church
five hundred years later
i want shotgun in your limo and a drag of your second world cigar
i want to see the view from your apartment
which you can keep
can i please walk your pet and hug it

If you're pencil, I'm paper;
we're height marked on a wall.
I'll be five foot seven
when you're six feet tall.

Here's a bad place to stay,
it reeks of years of our sweat.
Let me take you away
to smoke foreign cigarettes.

If you're tide, then I'm beach.
You are water, I'm land.
We can travel the coasts,
wet our feet and kick sand.

Moon reflecting the sun
and to earth the lights fall.
The night as we know it,
not so dark afterall.

On Rail

south of Budapest
old houses
to older country
where amidst the rails
sparse
unkept
and patchy
the poppies grow
and yes
i do miss those at home
yet they have thorns
and these are redder

Of Bows & Arrows

whenever he could
the archer would ascend high
to shoot his falling feathers

and at dawn
descend to the delta to sleep

wrapping his bow
in soft words and smoke
he protected it from himself
when his nightmares
tossed him about his cot in his sleep

nothing he had was enough
to protect his most prized time
from himself

broken and cracked
the arrows go nowhere
and rest comfortably in his arms