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Children in the Soul GardenChildren in the Soul Garden

I'm tired of the constant roses
That germinate in my cheeks,
I wish to prune them
Back to roots.
How full they must've looked
As I took your spiritual virginity
During a process I didn't fully grasp.

It was then I realized
That we are more
Than human beings;
This life can't part us.
You saw me through an eye
Set above the two
You look through
And down the centuries
There I've stayed.

I struggled to believe
All that you've told me
Until I felt it myself and knew,
I saw through closed eyes
The way you held your hand
In front of my face
And put the other behind me –
A magnetic feeling bet

NecrosisTracing the tracks
of tractor wheels,
the ruts lead me
to a cemetery.
I pass the grave stones
of those I’ve known.
I wish for their sakes
I had mourned.

Fairy-rings grow there,
the moss like black squares
on a chess board
against sun stained grass.
I think of this land
and wonder whether
if I dug deep enough
I’d find the bones
of the men who fought
and died there.

The trunks and branches
of trees I knew
are cut and piled.
I offer my own limbs,
but am not accepted.

The bramble bushes
in which
as a child I’d hide
when playing with my friends,
have been pruned and trimmed.
I’m told this aids growth,
I preferred it bef

PurifyIn a sink
Of bleach, bicarb and disinfectant
I add soap for the sake of it
In an attempt
To wash my hands of you;

It only burns my skin –
Red raw and peeling.
I wrap them in cling film
And black backed tape.

I pad like an alley cat
On the glass
Of stolen cars
And broken windows,
Though I'm not light enough
To avoid bleeding
And so leave
A trail behind me.

I'm mailing out my medical record
As much as my CV
While I wait
And take
My tattoos off
With a Stanley blade
To re-arrange them
Into another shape.

BulimiaBulimia

Arms wrap around
White ceramic
Curved like the inverse of a spoon.
Bleach and piss,
A picture of two lovers,
Something less than this.

Fingers search my mouth
And throat
And find the stench
Of cheap meals
And expensive cigarettes.

Heave –
Lungs deflate
And I cry
Onto the lenses
Of my glasses.

Up comes the meal
I have just prepared
Into the hole
Where all shit goes.
I try to crawl
Inside it.

Lost in NeverlandLost in Neverland

Children dress in their parents clothing
And in their naivety
They imagine maturity, precipitating it.
I have played dress-up
In some strangers clothing
And am so far gone
I have forgotten
Who I was before it.

I am imitating Peter Pan
In my own warped Never Neverland.
The lost boys wear my face,
I see myself as I make sure
I murder each of them.
As they reach maturity
They attempt to put
Their daggers in my belly,
I must cut them loose.

Bruises from YouthBruises from Youth

I will exchange these tattoos for bruises
And collect the set of raspberry coloured wounds
That travel down from flesh to bone.
I know what I must do
To make them stay
In the hotel of my skin.

At six ft three I feel small
Like two children
Standing on the other's shoulders,
Wearing a trench coat
To disguise their youth.
A boot polish beard convinces some,
I've not yet fully figured out the trick.

ReverieReverie

I'm told by creators
That she is an android,
No more real
Then the dream that contains her.

Still I kiss
And attempt to reprogram
The binary of her mind.

Tenderly with her lips
And not her tongue
She touches me,
I know I've succeeded.

And so as I sleep
I see
Her hair
Falling from
A pony tail

And her pale skin is smooth
Needing my uglier palm
Against her rounded cheek.

I think of her eyes
And hope to return
But cannot
When I close mine.

SedativeI dismiss your despondent lips
that I’ve seen smile
too few times.
I must shiver
when I’m with you;
there’s no warmth left in your face.

Inhaling the exhaust fumes
of retired buses
forced back into labour,
I feel myself slipping
into the unconsciousness
I cannot find at night.

I dream of you,
it does not surprise me
the way it did the first time—
I sit and think
while I try to eat my breakfast.

There’s a homeless man
standing over me when I wake.
He asks me for money,
I’ve still got my wallet
and give him what’s inside it.

A pigeon with broken toes passes,
you’d have wept.
I follow and f

CombustionI can smell the smoke from fires
that tease the sky outside,
in suburban gardens
that make up this city;
set around a cathedral
like the centre of a clock face.

From the inhalation
I have ash on my tongue
and on my teeth.
It may whiten the enamel
the way bicarbonate soda does.
My smile reads like a newspaper,
may I replace it daily
as I press the grey into my gums
and try to outwit my reflection.

I have gathered cuttings
from new growths;
the saplings are far too young burn.
They must know the flames.
I hear them scream
from beneath the bark –
it does not burn but blacken.

The blossom is browning
having fallen from the branch
beside

DiligenceShattered glass falls
From sky-scraped clouds;
A woman throws herself
From a window sill.

A club beneath
The buildings base
Where angels come to fall,
Sex is bought and bargained for
So often vaginal,
Sin dictates
Celestials'
Indulge in anal.

Amorphous masses
Satisfy each perversity
Discovered in adolescence
And realised
In adulthood.

Sanctuary of SaltSore salt sickened fingers
against swollen temples.
The sand berates his face
and the eastern wind
pervades his ears.

Receding skin peels
back to beak and skull.
The beached bird,
twisted by the sea,
is tumbled up on shore.

The crazed dying eyes
of a pitiful albatross
is left on land—
a sanctuary;
where hungry jaws find it
early in the morning.

ArtificeThe rain outside is audible,
A static crackling.
The grey sky parts like tidal paths
On rocks
For the blue to come through
Behind it.

The tress, it seems,
Have forgotten their breeds
Though they settle for rainmakers
To deceive their spectators,
Watching like gargoyles
From their windowsills.

ObjectiveObjective

The perfume on my pillow
From where it framed your face
And the eyes that found me
Looking back
At them

Like sundials
Wherein I lost
My sense
Of time.

Smoke and ButterfliesSmoke and Butterflies

There is a butterfly struggling for life
On the windshield of a car.
Its wings are rich
But living isn't bargained for.

The man inside the Ford Mondeo
Inhales the smoke that snares,
Fumes that take away
What he shared with her.

His wife sleeps,
Pressed against another man.
She's unaware her husband discovered
The love she shares without him.

But she's slept with lions far too long
And breathes the way
Her husband does.

There is a man somewhere
Parked under stars,
A hose pipe from his exhaust pipe
Is held by the window and the doorframe
And he inhales it.

JacobThe roundabout at midnight
under Octobers first moon,
taxis take the turning
and leave their fare on the pavement.

Jacob's fists are bleeding,
he tied a neckerchief around each.
There’s not a taxi that’ll take
a bruised or bottled man.

He takes the night bus to A and E.
There he’ll find weak-kneed strangers
turning bandaged dressings to Japanese flags.
He’s made to wait ‘til morning.

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Calvary CrossCobble stones still lead to the final destination
of the intended paving; a deserted church—
God has abandoned it.
The stained glass since seems foolish.
Those without homes have claimed it,
leaving the streets on pilgrimage.

The homeless lie along the pews
in sleeping bags and bin liners.
Inside the church they’ve carved the wood and stone
making higher levels, a tier system
to mock and make a government.
One man sits at the top with his missing eye
and a broken jaw that never healed.

There is a boy who’s forgotten his birthday.
He decorates the alter with his own idolatry:
the pen knife his father gave him,
the stone f

From ChariotsI’m sat on the back seat of a bus,
facing sideways and inwards,
attempting to impress a dancer.
Her leg warmers reach her knees
and her ballet shoes are held in her fist.
The pink ribbons wrap around
and across each knuckle.
There are hoops in her ear—
two the size of bottle tops,
the others like medallions.

At the end of the bus route is a village,
it is grey and mournful. I was raised here.
I’d never noticed the veiled pill box hats.
The churchyard seemed smaller
when I played hide-and-seek in it.
I stand here in adulthood and notice
the lay of the land; the strange geography,
and the ornamentation that loved ones left

The Green BeltInsects put themselves on leaves,
skewered by sunlit spears
that filter through trees.
In the shade beneath,
wingless insects find thorns
like shamed samurai
put upon swords.
A dragonfly makes home an iris
and the songbird sings mournful.

A man rows an old boat
with pale paint-chipped oars,
sat opposite his daughter.
Their dog watches the water
wishing to drink
and rid the white saliva.

Coal smoke
strengthens the smell
of meat on disposable barbeques.
People dip their feet
up to the ankle, others to the knee.
They watch the rowboat weave between
the hired pedalos.

Tread LightlyTread Lightly

It's a year on from the time they split
And he's doing chalk drawings
On the same pavements
People spit phlegm and chewing gum
And at night piss and vomit on.
The images last long enough for photographs
That he'll pin on his wall
Where her paintings used to hang.

Instead of attempting to find another course
Or returning to how he was before it,
He teaches art skills to troubled children
At the youth centre and at the prison beside it.
The pavement sketches are a hobby
To prove that the less life of something
The more important it seems. He has discovered urgency.

She continued on the art course,
Producing piec

The Sun Was Setting SomewhereHow sweet her face was as I remembered it,
shadowed in the hood she fashioned
from the corner of the ethnic patterned blanket
she was wrapped in.
There was something of the native
about the way her hair
fell around her face.

Beneath the blanket she was naked,
I attempted to describe her sex –
the colour, shape, smell and taste.
Her arms were crossed across her chest.

I thought I could walk on the ceiling
from the position I was laid in.
I couldn’t; you wouldn't tell me otherwise
a I tried putting a foot in front of the other
and falling.

Pest Control PowderPest Control Powder

Ants attempt to nest in the kitchen bin,
Moving on the metal mechanism
That lifts the lid with a pedal.
They walk over tea bags, take-away containers
And bacon fat that has been
Trimmed and discarded, it deteriorates –
The bag is full of flesh.

The insects are better fed
Then those who use the oven
And the telephone
To feed themselves and others.

Beneath the grease deposits,
The white plastic is reflected
Like the scar tissue on her bicep
And the way it caught the light.

The sound of her breathing
As she sleeps
Over the noise of aeroplanes
And the rain outside us,
Has the same effect as the powde

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by ~Obsidian-Nightfall, Nov 17, 2011, 3:53:57 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Urban & Spoken Word

Trapped in pixels
As prisoners,
To hide behind
And fear the jailor.
I'll wait.

They shave my head to skin
And other days to bone,
Though overnight it grows.

An outstretched hand
Cannot reach.
A fingertips width
Could be the length
The kestrel travels
To feed.

But as I am
I will make sure
The blood on my sheets
Is my own.