The Vein Neritic
The tides move in, clockwise
Up
Running rightside
Omens of still moon’s silent
Wax
Tugging water
Somnambulant, basking pillars
Drenched
Kelp ladders stack
Hangs at noon, dangles
Slack;
Fools see stasis
The tide falls out, counterclockwise
Down
Memory drain
Pools marooned, evaporate
Under
Slumped silva
Exposed hectares of fecund
Flesh
Wetland deserted
Passages through shadows
Shaded
Lost and found
I have been the marchers, seen them fall and picked their bodies up
Been the waiting devils with bloody mouths
I have been the smashed glass in the pavement cracks and the man that breaks the bottles
Heartbroken and the breaker of hearts and the beating heart itself
The savage, the learned sage
The jester, the vexed
The hard-shelled crab and the soft interior
I have been the touched and the untouchable
Been Snyder, been Thoreau, been the shit on both men's shoes
The blessed, the damned and pronounced damnation
Spoken in tongues, with fervour, like a man possessed
Been the stopped heart and the stopped clock
Raised the sacrificial knife and squirmed in terror in its shadow
Been the victim and the perpetrator of crime
Been the numinous, been the base
The machine, the ghost in the machine
I have been death, the destroyer of worlds
The harbinger of doom and the dove of peace.
I have been the dream shaman
The capitalist, who cannot see his dick
The thick thief and sick as a dog
Been the gentleman, been the bum
The waves and the fleet figure that rides upon them
Eaten the archetypes, drowned in stereotype, cackled at the forgotten sun
Lost and won and won and lost, and lost and won
Been the blind, anaemic dawn and the faces in the black earth
The rough hands that snapped a neck and cried with a body in hand
I have borne the wounds of time and laughed them by
Shared dual conscience, drunk the soul dry
I have been dismembered and put back together, bone by bone
Sunk beneath the quicksand, sat upon the throne
Been heart's sorrow, heartsease and Parsifal himself
The lowly coward and the warrior brave
The traitor and the judas paired, Janus-faced
I have been a paragon and often a disgrace
Been the squaw, the surefire steel that saves the day
The new wreaths on an old tomb
The unworn baby's shoes in the bin
Been the start, been the fin
I led the awful wrath of the mob and I have campaigned for justice
Been in love, lust and felt disgust at both
Been a soldier, been a deserter and fought through
To live in nightmares, dreams
Clutched the bare seat of a fugitive reality
Been chaste and chased new beginnings with an awful thirst
Been my best, been my worst
I have wallowed in sin and begged for her cold touch
Taken it all, way too much
I have stretched long limbs and glanced sideways
Been found, still deep in the maze
Broken a yawn at the dawn of our time
Forgotten the best, remembered the worst and cursed it all
Hated the moments and loved the years
Feared the incoming message, feared the daylight, feared the beast, feared the night
Lived for and detested and yawned at the fight, yet fought on
For without fight fallen we, and cursed
The hunger with swift hatchet
Buried in our thirst
Life two - The Orangutan
Fleapicking family sample canopes
Tree to tree orange nearmen swoop
An elevated life
Mid-scratch
Whipcrack the bullet matriarchal strikes
Farewell heart of darkness baby ape -
Hello cage
Eon interred through gilded bars
Boiling point reached
Seize the day the padlock left
Ajar
Gory revenge upon the gaolers
Then free
Family swooping relived in riotous ecstacy
An easy target
Police round from manhattan rooftop
Dying breaths easy - to the jungle brain retreats
This is the second in a series about reincarnation. The first death was a barnacle, reincarnated above as an orangutan. Where to next? All suggestions welcome...
Cracks
This is about the city and the people who slip through the cracks in society. I wrote it after a conversation with an old homeless man.
Remark from the gutter:
‘How ‘bout, half past never?’
Downtrodden, trodden down with gunblack boots. Trampled into,
Gum residue. Stiff like a good collar under a good suit.
Hollow abscess horror. Rib sticking. Sucking flesh:
Ersatz real. Broken like bad china skin peel.
Frieze at the ministry
This church, neglected church.
Acid scars, cardboard bedheads for the gloom. Stuffed into,
Dirty tins. Showered with the binjuice of the loom.
Old Harry on his shoulder like a parrot stuffed.
Acid scars. Eyes jagged like bust dodgem cars.
Fingers light in poverty
Fingered by silver, gold
Sold flesh, hand of Harry chokes his neck like a collar. Blueblack horror,
Paving cracks. The moralizer accompanies through cut throat.
And the old goat steps in front of the number nine.
Paving cracks. I never caught his name in time.
image by dan ryan, tech polaroid doyen/environmental champion
Cease to Participate
by Daniel Crockett
There was a moment there, between the
Stopped clock and the stopcock drop
Silence
Golden like that gargantuan Buddha
A reminder that we shoulda
Violently
Flown the coop, bust the nest
Climbed the shelves
We coulda been, golden
Ourselves
Bathed on dawntouched roadsides
In gutters, candlelit youth
But the truth - out there, rubbed in faces with
a vandal's
lack of care
Evaporates like promises, to the four corners of the air
Is it enough just to trust
Blindly
In the burdens we all bear?
In ambition
Or scream a question to the earth
Why Will You Not Love Me?
Reality found;
A vision
Administered like a sticking plaster
Bound
A wrapped, rapt
ballgag for the mouth
To support this sagging flesh
The light bright gets doused
Until
(this a guess)
Saul rubs his hands, the fire takes,
Then roars
You will not contain me!
The flames howl in their lick
It kicks like a mule
This reality slick
Framed in a bastard square
Like
The guts of
any
good
flick
The streets whisper like a lunatic in the dawn
Suddenly awake
It beats on the bars
And shakes
No concession to a yawn, or a stretch
Just the steady and sick momentum
Of cars
Declaring their hate
There is nowhere to hide in the cold morning light
Get out get out before the night
That's it
I'm done
I will not wait
It's over
We're through
Don't shut the gate
Believe it
It's nigh
I cease to participate
The battle of water and land
Under darkling moon the dayblack sea
Extended an arm to silence the sun
Gold the residual glow and hiss
As that disc, extinguished, fell
Then the water jumped up to roar;
I am leviathan, the sea is within me
I declare war on this, mother land
Then the peagreen water commands
To drown the lichened rocks, the sand
To smother
To strangle all in a yawn of ice
Rigor Mortis brung with dawn
I am leviathan, the sea is within me
Nothing but birds remain, pinwheeling
Keening for their loss of perch
Angry at the sea come stealing
Tired beneath the church of sky
Until at last, exhausted they fall
And go under, evermore
go under, evermore
*From the 'Battles' series