All Saints Church

Crafted plain on coronets
Behold the mask of Xanadu
Let go of all of your regrets
And let this love encompass you.
The suffering shrieking loving gasp
Of women falling in a trance
Of saintly love, the sacred asp:
I know the dancer from the dance.
I court, infer, and interfere
With tongues of silver, bright and clear,
Beyond the thought of mortal souls,
A shivering when the bell tolls.
The cast of painted silhouettes
Are broken, drunken, underdressed
And holy, pious, heaven bound;
Their thoughts of Jesu make no sound.
Redeemed at last by broken wings,
The blighted hope of better things
Declines, and tilts its head to say
"Watch as the birds all fly away."

Van Gogh

Cypress trees, delirious, line the road
His fluid hand walks. The sky and mountains
Melt into blue obscurity, and wake
The cool moon out of tinted shifting clouds
Above the rippling carpet of the grove
Where crippled olives bend and intertwine.
He stumbles on the winding track that falls
Like a stream over curling hills, and leads
The way down to the glowing town below.
Bone-tired and reeling from the road he finds
Himself among the clink of glass on glass,
The radiating orbs of lamps that float
Above a throbbing yellow wooden floor.
Each object in the room is lurid, raw,
With black outlines and fighting captive tones
That burn from prisons, painted on the walls,
And fry his fevered eyes with every look.
He sighs and props his frame against the bar,
A hawk's skull wrapped in crêpe, a ginger beard,
An antiseptic smell, a battered coat,
The emerald poison he pours down his throat,
Which makes the tactile world a crowded mess
Of colours swirling, objects changing place
And rushing in towards him, falling back
To resume their places, vivid and still,
Alive to his command, his brush, his will.

His temple a beating drum, he breathes in
The warm air of the tranquil summer night,
With quiet starlight hanging overhead.
The leaking from the lamps across the bay
Is blurred and looks like spreading fire,
And drops as burning ether to the ground,
Lighting gently on the lapping water.
With hurried steps among sleeping houses
He finds his way back through uncertain streets
To stair, and lamp, and blue-walled room,
His sturdy wooden bed, the creaking floor,
His wicker chair, his china water-jug,
All outlined, wavering in pastel shades
And flat, lit softly by the open door,
Calling him to rest his spinning head.
But he is frantic, strides across the room
And flings the window open wide to see
The sky, alive with strange fantastic light
That eddies in a thousand melting pools,
And streams in milky channels, curving back
To meet the blackness of the crazy night —
Amoebic tendrils, quavering orbs that split
And fuse into flashing patterns of flame,
Shimmering waves of burning dust
That flare in green and blue across the hills,
Blinding prophetic fire, a hundred suns,
The moon, the mother, spreading glowing gold;
His mind, alive, electric, has been touched
By the bright aura of a midnight hand.

Two years have passed, his aching soul has slipped
From luminous inspiration to pain,
Dull wanderings beneath a stormy sky.
On a dark day of tortured thoughts and rain
He walks into the fields of swaying wheat,
Black crows, black clouds, the thunder of July,
He takes a steady breath and plants his feet —
He turns the pistol to his chest and fires.
In the last moments of his fleeting life
A fragile light breaks through the closing door:
Il dit "La tristesse durera toujours."

Daydream I

Sweet desire is riding to a fall,
Rising to a white crest, crashing back
Broken on the smooth, worn rocks.
Humid winds through arid woods.
To dance with you on balmy nights
And watch the circling swifts devour
Insects that hatched and died that day;
The gift of summer tightly held,
We will have our day in the sun
And walk down buzzing country lanes.
We'll sit on hot brick walls, and talk
Of effervescent August verse,
The mirage words of sun-stroke minds.
We'll stay inside and pull the blinds
And sleep the baking noon away
And waking, jump into the lake
And kiss there as the sun declines.

In deep violet silence, between pulsating walls
And the smell of the sunlight burning the tiles,
Synesthetes converse and spin deafening tapestries.
A brutal flash of luminous dust in this tranquil month
Ripples upon the stair, past the crippled face of
The grandfather clock, and the steady spreading
Waves of light, conceived within the broken mechanism.
Dust that fills minds plagued by angry numbers,
Unmet demands and threats, daubed in orange,
And the bitter taste of dry words, which crack
Like peppercorns between dull forgotten teeth.
These ghosts cry as they walk under arches, and cower
In the rose garden at visions thrown by owls' wings,
And listen to the dark concerto of the silent flowers.

Savage Beauty, Down She Goes

Milky-eyed creatures clutch at straws,
Slip up in sludge, and fight like bears,
In desperation bolt their doors,
They say a prayer, make for the stairs,
And push their children down into
Compartments, to be safe from harm.
They panic, don't know what to do,
Make quiet noises of alarm,
And turn with ultimatum eyes
To their old friends, and draw their knives,
And run them through. They conjure lies
They hope will last them all their lives.
The mud is rising to their necks
As they grope for the ceiling vents
And try to reach the upper decks,
But all this effort's a pretense:
Their wild eyes can see they're done,
In freezing slush they're going to drown.
They see there's nowhere left to run
And struggle as the ship goes down.

Theme de Diablo

In doldrums, purple, I have lived,
And let the starry embers fade
Without opening my deaf eyes
Or chancing, dancing with restraint,
I flung about for reason, truth,
And tongued my failure out and in,
To love the cloud that keeps me from
Divinity. In mortal spent
Explosions of unholy rhyme
Declaim and prophesy my might
Tonight, the temples all will burn
And twist in agony of choice,
The voices of the red insane
Horde leap in tongues of crimson flame.
They stutter, sputter at the bush
The lamb of love in pride denied,
But flow like polyrhythmic gods
And let the demons come inside.
The mayday flag is out tonight,
It ripples on the balcony,
The fettle-footed warriors
Have hipped my hop and murdered me.
I save no square, I spare no inch,
From beat-up voices offering
The forfeit of untold delight,
Deafening sound and everything
On fire, and dancing on the tomb,
I shake my head and start to sing;
Be well my brothers, break your heads
And suffer not to be reborn
But turn the devil's music up
And dance until your clothes are torn.

Achilles Street

Standing still among swaying silhouettes
of bare branches, willows in the wind,
I bathe my tired eyes in sandy skies
of amber. Slung carelessly in the wake,
leaves shiver and yearn for the defeated sun.
Beneath my feet the sodden earth trembles
and the grass is limp, uprooted, blue.
I must have dropped my compass in the park,
lost my purpose, wandered down the wrong path,
sprained my ankle and slumped to the pavement,
watched the last light fade from the black eyes
of windows, staring from cold empty apartments.
I miss my white-walled room, and my love —
I am stabbed in the heel, lost in the woods,
a wandering spirit fading in the dusk.

I push into a blank-faced crowd
I trip into a blind back street
I watch the moon escape the cloud
I lose my way with wayward feet
I trace the patterns on the stairs
I hear the distant car alarms
I wash my face, forget my cares,
and fall into sleep's waiting arms.

The End

Together, drums in circles multiply
In tribal patterns, layered one on one,
The knights are gathered round the round table —
They laugh, they speak, and drink their throats away.
Later, I dance and wound.
I wait, debate, I feel my sin.
I thrash and lose myself among
Insane cohorts, my screaming
Rose turns to staff, Steph that lung dead deny.
I salt and pepper turn and compensate.
I satiate and lie, identify.
I take, definitive, enforce the law.
The throbbing muscle makes my darkness thaw.
I lose my meaning, stare into the sky.

The Dance

"The houses are all gone under the sea.
The dancers are all gone under the hill."
T.S. Eliot

The bells are ringing grey from leaden skies
On trampled granite, blasted black statues.
Poseidon plays in fountains filled with ice
That chills the open faces passing by.
Heads craned to see a sword-thrust to the clouds,
A hundred eyes roll back as if waiting
For sudden rain to wash it all away.
They cluster, cold, round columns, with
The shuffling steps of killers on death row
And circle slowly, freezing to repent
The burning guilt that weighs the lions down.
The statues stare thoughts of mortality
Into the daydreams of the souls below.
Just streets away, the alleys open up
A quiet refuge, slow capillaries
Of rubbish bags, lost theatre-goers, fags,
Discarded gum and vomit stains, kebabs;
Duality of grime beneath facade.
In canyons sheltered from relentless light
Diffused through cloud, an ache behind the eyes
That flares in neon bursts, turned up to meet
The odeon defiance and the rush
Of crushing crowds oblivious on the streets
Of empty light, hollow frivolity.
From casinos and steak houses it seeps,
The momentary warmth of frying fat
In take-out lamb's-blood stew mincing machines.
The night will eat these helpless sheep alive.
The blinding idol burning incarnate
Screams out "We have you now, there's no escape"
And down below lost souls are paralysed,
Struck dumb and humbled by the flashing lights
Of howling billboards giving no respite
Or love or hate or thought or consciousness,
Just frantic choking hands that reach and flail
Into the void. The winter night coming
Fast out of grey impenetrable clouds.
Coquettish mannequins stare derision
Silently through the glass of whore-boutiques
With fabrics, diamonds, sirens under lights,
Blank expressions, and everything's been sold.
The pushing mass is going underground,
The circus lit up as the dark comes down —
The dogs are out, the rabbits rushing home
To burrows, boroughs of suburbia,
Clutching bulging bags of the day's rewards,
They shiver, stamp, and mill in clouds of breath
Condensed by cold, and mixed with cigarette
Smoke billowing from saggy prosperous cheeks.
And only feet away the gutter fills
With refuse, seeping slowly to the drain,
The double yellow lines are sprayed with sick.
The lamps are lit on Oxford Street, fever
Rises to frenzy, orgiastic souls
Rush in and out of cold glass-fronted stores,
In contagious and rabid vanity
They lick the strings of spittle from their chins.
Freezing people are falling on the streets
Into waking death, half-life, futility;
Their throes, so slow, look almost choreographed —
Like insects writhing as they're torn apart,
They dance beneath the cold hypnotic lights.

Prayer

Oh take me now, sweet angel of mercy
He cried and, crazed, craved insubstantial lips
Of ether, pulsing, floating in the air
Beyond the veil, blank distance too obscure
For groping hands in darkness to attain,
On lovesick lonely days dragging like inches
Further across a never-ending plain.
He died, denied, he screamed and tore his hair,
He raised repentant arms into the sky
And spoke in martyred words a simple prayer.

Repeat

I'm in control, with my self-will
As strong as concrete, never to
Collapse into a fetid pile
Of rolling eyes and grinding teeth.
I'm coping well, it's just a sweet
Indulgence that I satisfy;
I'm bigger than a chemical,
I do just what I choose to do.

Despite their doubtful looks they barely know
The lengths to which ecstatic hearts will go
And will deny the truth when the room spins:
In la-la land the powder always wins.

Mein Irisch Kind, Wo Weilest Du?

Collapsed into a gentle tender lamp-
shade piece of floor that holds up my spent frame
with warm light shining on my ardent heart—
missing, resuming sweet unconscious paths
in soul mate on fire woods of potent calm.
The love of you that keeps me from the harm,
I lay and don't obey but bring you back
to suffering heaven skies under attack.

This is it, the feeling, the fit—
never doubt the truth of it,
universality nothing more,
but flipped up pristine love
of clanging bare true
feelings on the floor.