Evidence of Things Not Seen

He'll get his in due time
Who ascribed to time the power to heal.
Everything happens in due time.

Ticking clock, nurse, bandage,
judgment, karma, God, all at once.
These lies we tell, to what end?
Winter to winter, nothing changes.

Longing is as longing is, a restless arm
Reaching out in the lonely dark, only
A tender pillow stuffed full with memory
Where once before you were.

Summer to summer, everything changes
Do not look to time to heal.
Let be that whatever it is, will be
A thousand lights of what was before.

I’m Not Sorry I Lied

There is nothing here I wish to write about
Nothing of note happens, except we wake up
To struggle for everything,
Even air to breathe I tell you
The sun is too hot, oppressive even.
Words don’t flow so well
When your skull is aflame,
Your skin tingles
Without the possibility of orgasm at the end
And the sound in your head
Is the music of angry horns,
Angry men screaming obscenities
At other angry men.

Everybody needing a drink,
A shower with soap,
A good night's sleep,
Cheap dollar,
Sex that costs nothing
But time, the price of a rubber hat
To forestall the plague;
Unruly towhead children gallivanting,
Intoxicated by the possibility of adventure,
Destined for disappointment,
Perhaps a little conversation
To make like that was the point all along.

There’s quite a bit to be written
About Sunday mornings,
I will leave that to some other person.
I have enough to deal with already,
Why add to it blasphemy?
People lose heads over that around here
Twenty eight years I've kept this head,
I'd like to have it a while longer.
But for you who’s taken the time,
Don’t leave your windows open
On Sunday mornings,
You will pay for it with your sleep,
And be sorely tempted to launch missiles
At saints in worship.
That's worse than blasphemy.
I wonder what you’d lose for that.

If per chance you find out,
Leave me a note
Leave my name out of it.
Around these parts it pays not to be found
In the company of those who throw things.
Unless your target is one of those
Sinful homosexual people causing famine,
earthquakes, wars and things.
You can throw things at them all you want.
Or find yourself a Shiite,
They make for good piñatas
Best still, get yourself a woman.
But be sure to pay the dowry first.

You’re still here so now you know
That first line was a lie, second one too ,
There’s quite a bit I could write about.
These days I cannot care enough
And I’m not sorry I lied.
If you're offended
Find a hobby, or a piñata,
Or go to your nearest cathedral
You’ll find a gay man to throw things at.

You’ve Already Been Warned

Tomorrow the world will start all over again

There is no certainty here, only hoping and longing

And praying to unseen principalities, angels, immortals,

To God the father of Jesus Christ, same who walked,

And worked with sinners. Who died himself in thieves’ company.

Supplicating for understanding, for forgiveness, for tomorrow

That wipes yesterday’s sins away, and the hurting

And the hating that spews venomlike to kill all that is good,

Destroy all the loving and touching and longing that came before,

And was good and pleasurable and all that, even if only for a while.

But the deities are silent so far, and your entreaties are naught

‘cept the beating of wings in an empty room where no one hears,

Or cares, other than you alone who in addition to all else

Must now face the possibility that your mind is going,  

And you’re just that one step from the street corner,

From a dearly held bottle, cardboard mansions on doorsteps,

At the mercy of coppers, strangers, marauders, sex with strangers

For money, or booze or drugs to keep your mind, or what’s left of it

From remembering that time so far ago, across time and space

And reality of kingdoms promised, reaching for ends that exceeded

The present grasp but still possible for one who of whom it was said –

‘You are the boy king', image of Aten without the oedipal complex,

Edward VI, minus the tuberculosed lungs and cousin sex.

You see, this is how it all begins, first wanting to feel nothing,

Hoping to forget everything, thinking forgetting is how to stay alive

Till one day you’re overwhelmed by a Niagara of reminiscences

Barreling in, overwhelming intoxication and supplication

To a faraway God of doubtful provenance, in an empty room,

Then wondering if conversations with mirrors and walls is evidence

Sufficient of a pickled mind, needing a little deliverance before

The nightmare vision of street corners, cheap booze and buggery

By giant dicked strangers becomes a reality

With which you now must contend, in addition to all else.

If one then must flee this flight to psychosis, it follows thus

That every petition and entreaty to celestial beings for a tomorrow

Disconnected from history must be withdrawn and replaced

Because to run from the memories, you must run only to the abyss

That calls you with the voice of sirens, the promise of sweet relief,

Of catharsis through purgation of the mind. You’ve already been warned.

But how does one unpray a prayer without looking a fool?

You howl! That’s how. You fill yourself with righteous indignation,

Gather your anger to give your tired heart all the courage to stand steady

At the twelve gates of pearls and demand an audience of God himself

Against the certain protestations of Peter, holder of thy kingdom’s keys.

Whatever path you choose my friend the matter at hand remains

How do you get on with living when today’s as hard is this?

And hopes for tomorrow rest on nothing but quicksand and saw dust

And faith is lost to fire for nothing. Don’t look to me to tell you how,

Or elders to form your fate. None of us know how, this too is our first rodeo.

Even the stars will not guide your feet past the immense darkness

Of this unending night. So get on with it and know in your heart

That you are no longer obliged to certainty, or endless penance.

Today’s hard enough for you to grow, but not so hard to break your soul.

So get on with it. That’s all there is to be done. 

For Elsa

Stay with me

A little while longer

Find with me reasons

To forget the clock

Allow me the time

To say some clever thing

To make you laugh,

Ignore the foretelling voices

Whose calls you ought to heed

Stay with me

Just a little while longer

With your beauty

Flowing free as highland waters

On ice, at sunset

To quench my thirst

Restore my being

Still my haunting apparitions

And bring me peace

Stay just a little while more

I’ll write my verses for you

With hope you’ll stay forever.

Absent Heroes

I am saved from madness

By Neruda and the verses he wrote for Matilde

Reminders that love is still possible

Though we be separated by time

And ugly history. Hurting too is inevitable

Taken together, to make a living

Of all our existence.

Henry Charles Bukowski

Kindred spirits, you and I.

Writes his mind as if it were my own

Reminisces of his Jane

And the other broken people

Flitting past by night light

They are my memories, my kind of people

Langston Hughes!

I will call, you will answer

You will bring history, perspective

Words, tender offerings

To help me shatter the darkness

Smash this night, break this shadow

Make from it a thousand lights to guide me home

Tennyson,

With you, my mind and soul make music

Make atonement, find forgiveness

Mourn the passing of the faithful

Friends like brothers, love that ends as all else,

Leaves nothing, only hurting anger

Then hate or indifference. It’s all in the loving

I will not look to Ted Hughes to speak to me of forever

But it is you I’ll remember when I see

The toil of all our ages lost to intemperate men

For whose sins we’ll pay with the blood of absent heroes

In time, in full. Unless I pray to a god I cannot see

For redemption, for deliverance

From a hell he hath by his own hands made

In December

I am amazed by fire

That burns, leaves nothing

But distant reminiscence

Of affection lost

Dreams deferred

Indefinitely.

Longing that persists

Through the days

Resurrected by sound, music

Images, real and imagined

Memories that rise unbidden

To wreck righteous terror

On those feckless lovers

Who set the fire

With minds intact

Eyes wide open

Then only to lament

And wonder…

Endlessly wonder

What could have been

The possibilities

Broken souls together

Facing the world

Mocking them

With whispered words

And private jokes

For not knowing

That we know

That together

Even the fiery fire

Of the desert sun

At noon, in December

Is conquered forever

By the consuming passions

That come alive

When I lean to your ear

To say I’ve missed you,

I wish you were here 

Something Missing

There is something of me missing

Lost in the space between that first stolen glance

And the time of the clashing, dancing eyes that say;

‘I want you, you want me to want you,

I’ll have you, you want me to have you’

There is something of me missing

Lost to the nights reaching to grasp

The naked flesh of a comely, fire haired girl,

To reach the heavens, to touch God, to keep alive

The nightmares we prayed never to end.

There is something of me missing

I know it in the best of times, riding high

On mountains brought low, valleys elevated, liquor

Spilling to the ground to honour the gods

And ruin the ladies’ pretty shoes

There is something of me missing

I know it in the worst of times, drunk, fighting, losing

Violent battles with the demons that shadow my days,

Memories, like ghosts, that rise to take from me

The simple pleasures of a warm night’s sleep

There is something of me missing

Look! Can you see it in the rage that quietly burns

With the fury of a thousand hells, waiting its hour

To taste the air it needs to break free,

To scorch the earth, leaving a scar that never fades

There is something of me missing

Can you not see the madness of passing passions,

Aspirations that take the place of seeing, of living

Of certainty about who I am, what I’m about,

Who I’m supposed to be. Can you not see it?

Look! Look at me next to you

Body and spirit here content in the familiarity of now

Still searching, not finding, longing for another

To touch my hand and make me forget

There is something of me missing still.

Made in Africa

For believing as we do

That glory will come in the morning

We, the sons and daughters of God

Our tomorrow is secured

Our destiny guaranteed

Though my faith be without works

And righteousness without humility

I too Sir, I have bought my salvation

Paid for over time

In instalments of tenths

Through brokers – preachers

Merchants of deliverance

Yet we still believe in the old promise

Of truth and justice, of peace and plenty

Of Heaven, angels and souls in melody

What else would you have us do?

Summoned to this bustling bazaar

Where everything is for sale

Allow me Sir to tell you a tale

A story made in Africa

Where children go to war

Where the men die young

Where the rich take their wives

And their daughters too

But our faith is unshaken

That glory will come tomorrow

That our dreams will come through

The fallen will rise, be honoured

Our sins will be forgiven

Our souls sanctified

What else would you have us do?

Us, wanderers, saints and bandits

Sons and daughters of God.

Verses for B

I see in the faces of strangers I meet

Faint echoes of your lovely smile

That smile, the one I miss so dearly now

The same one that hides a thousand truths,

That lights up your eyes,

That calls my name and brings me home

My soul will find its way to you

I know this like I know the skies are blue

Like I know not to touch a fire

Like autumn before winter, spring before summer

I’ll find my way in time to you

To the far away shores of your warm embrace

I hear your voice in crowded rooms

And in the ethereal silence

Of my quiet time; it is then my darling

That I write to you the little verses

I’ll read to you to make you smile

When in time I find my way back,

Back home to you

To hold your hands in mine

As we walk slowly through the streets

To the sound of passing cars and barking dogs

Will be for me a dream fulfilled

And if the earth should swallow me then

I’ll go on my merry way

A man at peace with the world he leaves

Except, I still want to kiss you

To carry you off your feet

Like I’ve seen Bogart do in the movies

And place upon your charming lips

A kiss that’ll say to you in a moment

All the things I failed to write

And all the things I’ve dared to dream

I’ve heard it said that only children dream

But I dreamt a dream I found an angel

A vivid dream I still remember

My dreams came through with you

So now I know that I’ll be fine

Through this sojourn and more to come

If at night you sing for me

And call my name before you sleep

Something Happened

When you come home, my son

you will see with your own eyes

that something happened to Africa

You will see it in the red, naked fury

of the flames that pour forth

from the belly of the sanctuary

The dark, portentous plumes

of smoke slowly rising to touch the sky.

The bluest sky you ever saw

The gathering of flinty eyed men

spitting damnation, curses, vulgarisms.

Their machetes dripping little pools of blood

Armed, frightened policemen

Running! Running from the fire

and from the men with the machetes

The bloated corpse on Market Street

feeding the vultures and scavengers, hungry

gloomy children watch with open mouths

My neighbour’s daughter

crying the saddest tears she ever will

as soldiers have their way and shoot the sky

Green weeds, their angry tentacles

strangling the aged and falling walls

of the old primary school by the church

The empty church, looted and burned long ago

Now opened to the elements, squatters, miscreants

and the vermin that live in dank places

Lonely mother, wailing through the night

Mourning the children she lost, and

the life she’d hoped to have

Rows of white clad corpses

packed tightly like sardines

waiting for burial in the potter’s grave

My son, when you return

you will see like I see and know like I do,

Something happened to Africa

Something happened here