Uproot / Plumes

Rip out the cables
Severe with your teeth
And be burned by spilling sparks
Be blind by spitting light

you're being uprooted
from the circuit board
and washed clean
under fountains of fireworks.

The clock's going back
back to before
before lightning bolts
shot through your insides
before stringing smoke
threaded out your lips
before milky cataracts
hooded your eyes

This is what you'll do
Because this is what I want you to
and out the rupture
goes plumes of ghosts.

Paper wing

Bats in the cave
flutter and make wind.
Something's got them stirring,
Something's made them thrash and go flying.
Metal claws through paper wings
Make heaps of black snow.

It slips away,
down tornadoes,
spitting and hissing.

Why have you left me?
Why won't you come back?

The Trees Have Fallen

These fingers are curious
for just being here.
made twitch by some lightning.
and I've nothing to say.

All that you see
is an effigy in air,
An illusion caused
by an arbitrary glare
of the sun through the clouds.
And when I'm gone
there'll be just the faint ringing
of a voice in your ear,
singing of nothing,
which will then disappear.

Through glass rails of rain
I'll walk behind you,
Among an ocean of bodies
As conscious as the waves.
An apparition with no purpose
But residue in your heads.

The wind's blown the trees down
And they've faded into sky.
So all that's left is a breath
that ribbons through your hair.
Quickly forgotten,
because it wasn't really there.

a Harlequin hiding

In a beautiful mansion on top of a hill,
all the taps are running.
I wait downstairs with a listless face

the flood water grows and moans overhead,
the boughs of the house wail under weight.
Water trickles and drips on my face.

Then it all shatters
and drops like a sheet
like a blanket of dust
wrapt over me.
I open my eyes when the sound has stopped.
Chandelier crystals in front of my face
are a thousand blurred mirrors, misted by breath
On the wall hangs two paintings, weeping from wet.


One, an ocean, perched by a ship,
shoreless blue and
guilded by sunlight.
The other, a harlequin,
hiding from the king.

Constellations

and the bloom of the sun

hypnotizes.

Maps made of sapphire guiding

mariners to shore.

Toiling foreign bodies,

piercing through skulls.

And you look down from on high

at them you are not.

I will never be you,

never so high.

No lack of wanting shall

place me there.

Lonely and disjointed

you hang for our pleasure.

your person cemented

wholly forever.

and I can do nothing

but sing to your name.

the sun is now yours.

you are now constellation.

you are constellation.

Whistling Feathers

an arrow has pierced me, blown through my chest.
warm blood passes o'er me, spilling like a gust.

and with that I'm lain tenderly to earth.
alone & dying in a backwards birth,
what's left of me, unfurling,
in an empty clearing.

So many arrows fly overhead,
their whistling feathers whirring toward someone.

blood is all around now
I can see all of its colour.
Hues dissolving to one another.

I can hear the hunter coming,
sliding through the bending green

so I lay within some whisp’ring grass,
comprehend their rustling speak,
their dither of my grimacing face,
how i’d used to pretand.
"You stupid little fools" , I say,
“What could you know?
This hunter is my friend.
You'd never understand.
You just fall at the wind.
Obey any command."

Satisfied, i smile and let loose the red tricklingtreacle
as drips onto earth, that spill from my lips.

I try with wavering wrist to fire arrows toward some meat

but they arch in the sunlight, sigh like tired rain,
they float from my reach, like falling paper planes

Here he approaches with dagger in hand
I give in to you, hunter
I completely understand.
I try to speak but you silence my lips
and quietly, gently, you press metal through flesh

Midnight (On Repeat).

My sinews have sparked in rigid semi-slumber

"Am I not meant to be somewhere?" I asked

but the pillow gave no answer

And the mocking clock kept laughing.

I've begun to feel this nook lose its comfort

Sleep, has sighed and left me here

and the sheets grow cold in the wake

With dawn still distant, worms rise from under.

Like dim stirrings from the building walls

That surface only steeped in night

Cornered by coloured legions
of luminescent eyes.

With whom was this memoranda dispatched post haste?

Where is the dossier that describes my arrest?

that haunts my bedside, halts my rest

I can recall no signature being given.

I will my memory to divulge

What it is that keeps me waking

that contorts my body to this shape

Cranks and gears in tissue draped.

How did this envelope me?

I've been left to mechanics

and I will never wake

I'm locked in a circle til this clock expires.

and the minutes, the hours, the days

the minutes the hours the days

theminutesthehoursthedays.

Mothcloud, pt. I

Close the windows and turn away
Behind all the noise just hear this
Twisted bodies stumbling through the night
Quietly, we'll hide in this
May the world collapse all around
Because tonight, we will be untouched
I do not know you and I don't think I must
So silently, we may drift like this

a cloud of silver
silver silken moths
we are dancing
at the ball of the tzar

Behind the static, just hear this
Come away from the window
You won't like what you see out there
Just raging seas and thunder-clouds
Look at the light-bulb, flick'ring here
Gathering moths, kissing its shell
I'm waiting patiently for footsteps
And when you arrive I'll be right here
With a sun-blind brain that rushes to speak

Synchronicity.

And then a bird sang
and soon others sang with him
as the sound, in echoes, rose
and finally it seemed
that everything was alright
and the beetles and the flies
they swarmed and pulled us under
and all was in harmony
Synchronicity.

Senses are swallowed
are flooded by leaf
a leafen blanket that covers us deep
and everything was fine
if we just shut our eyes
and the merlins and the kestrels
they swept one up in their flight
and all was in harmony
Synchronicity.

And this birdsong has caused
all the pieces to collect
in that one’s eyes, in their nest
and everything was alright
as its gaze awaited something
and down between the meadow blades
all the voices sang together
and all was in harmony
Synchronicity.

Oh, Pied Piper

There is a man I see sometimes
who visits me in secret

I abandon to his wishes
as he drags me by the heels



(Take me through all your
subtle landscapes

Until I'm left
drowned on the shore)



He's the shadow hidden
under your desk

He's the lycanthrope
beneath your coat



Tell me all there is to know
Shield me from
the halogen glow



Drag me out the maze
this grin has grown so tiresome

Pull me out the door
that leads to the fall

Before they regroup for the kill


Take me to this dangerous place
our subtle expanse

so far out of reach








O sir, let me use you as my pillow


O sir, paint the sky different colour


tell the curtain to forfeit its shape.









sorry friends,
do i frighten you?
















apologies.










Gaskets have been blown
&

Icebergs (with poor intent) have rippt my hull asunder


Excuse me now,






he beckons...




he whispers:




"Tiptoe out your window."







I hear his pipe and follow thus
slither down the drain pipe

Wide eyed in the night



i revel in this madness
and drink all its mirth.
so I thank you, madman, for all your work.





I give myself wide eyed into the night
I give you me and abandon place.

a Wolf Howling

I am the Narcissus that you see in your streets
Snatching all your hearts in paths where we meet
Glancing at glass where reflections ensnare me
Hearing the howls of your aching revelries
Your women, they tease me but I see that they wilt
A million lucid eyes enchanted by beauty

I am the Minotaur you see in your alleys
Shunned from your cities - your vision rejects me
Restricted to the labyrinth of your cloistered back-streets
Mockingly whispered for my grotesque mutant shape
Gazing from obscurity your daughter's flowing feet
With grim aspiration, an encounter to speak

I am the Pygmalion you see at your heel
Pulling the threads of your scented trail
Swallowing them with a ravenous thirst
Like wolf after lamb, sinking teeth into flesh
Sculpting white marble if I can't have your body
My skin becomes salty, this lust overcomes me

Most Men Will Not Swim Until They Are Able To

In the water I swim
I soon will drown
Such is the nature of things
Man is made for land
Not for cold, bitter sea
Only crazy thinkers
Curiously embarking
To vague drifting
And eventual sinking
Take a route like mine

Just take my advice
Believe in what I say
Dwell on earthly rapture
Savour primal nature
All which it entails
Sea is for the doomed
And doomed is what you'll be
If foolishly you follow me
We are made for land, not sea

Forget your dreams of water
And just grin in your parade.

two Birds in Flight

Water laps the oars
And drifts by lantern glow
I think I see you
Through the thick lake fog
But this air grips the shouts
I just want the brushing
Of a boat against mine

But I'm finding it hard
To connect
I'm finding it hard
To see through the fog.

June 22nd 2006: Or Looking Down at Lightning Clouds from an Airplane at Night

distracted & detached
sleepwalking in glass palaces
chapels touch the heavens
the walls are melting
quarks & neutrinos
plasma & black holes
gliding_electric
artificial glow
stream through our video eyes
?where am i?
i'm lost in this city
this is the beginning_thisis the beginning_this is the beginning

slip among the dots and waves
only the soft ribbons of cloud beneath

but don't look down
don't leave my side
it's safe up here
don't look_please stay

all focus gone
this is where we want to be


the air is so clear
the air is so clear
the air is so clear

Raindrops

Up in the clouds
I'm distant and scattered
Blown by the wind
Torn in the gust

I want to be a raindrop
Fly into the sea
Dance in its depths
Till the sky disappears

sing me to sleep.

Anatomy

What's this that I see?
Naked and shivering
All colour evaporated
All features erased
All voice mute
All skin transparent
This pale ghost
Like a castle reduced

What is it?
Vulnerable and open
All rock scattered
All towers lifted
All sound silent
All courts revealed
This vacant castle
What people live inside?
Under crushed mortar and stone

the Warring Magicians

I have lived a thousand years
Waiting in these woods
And I've seen a thousand souls
Floating past these trees

I watched lovers dance
Amid the autumn leaves
I heard children's laughter
Carried by the breeze

I whisper things to them
That slither in the air
Of all the wars & magic
Through so many years

Whispers that would seize them
If this breath they were to hear
If this breath caught their ear




I am so tired.
Let me sleep.

Mothcloud, pt. II

Bodies siphon to the exits
All alone, the lights start glowing
Our dance is nearing
Born of two fires
Enveloped us
By insect flutter
Our subtle place
Will transpire
The swirling moths
Rising higheeER


{WALTZ}


But once we fools expire and decay
And this frail wish falls away
As a ghost within a forest
You will be conjured for me.


And through pale woods, I continue searching
Followed by a howling wolf
And though it has unravelled from me
I will always be in clouds of moths