Hugging the Devil

It’s funny how you can become that which you hate the most.

Sit with a murderer all day long and you’ll want to kill them.

This can happen only if you are the object of their hate.

Then, of course, it is not murder but only  self-defence.

Love works in the same way; powerfully yet  slow.

This is why a good priest will at first sit outside the cage,

watching carefully, waiting for the bars to bend in his favour.

For only then may he enter and safely hug the devil.

The Silence of a Dry Twig

A dry twig off the old branch
of the long dead oak tree,
that stands alone against
the slow outside curve of the
more than man deep stream.

A dry twig held in two clean
fingers and an everyday thumb
chambers the silence inside,
the prize of the noisy mind
that now pushes skin on wood.

A dry twig cracks its silence out
freezing rustling feet and closing
cheeping beaks; soothing wind,
water and thought into a single
image that stops the clacking clock.

A dry twig severed and emptied
discarded on the muddy bank,
is tidied away to the magpies
nest high in the dead oak tree
where silence rarely falls.

Evolution: Birth of Medusa

From a worm, wiggling in the bed of the Med,

to a sperm, banging my head on an egg.

Behold the evolved: a sperm with a perm.

Angry at life, what a fight for my right yet

not lying dead with the rest but the next.

Long curls at my birth, a mop on my top,

there’s some debate: It just isn’t straight.

A cheer, and some tears, and then sneers.

Their fear is clear, two sticks quickly click.

It is licked.  A woollen bonnet lies upon it.

With a flick and a nip the curls are on it,

sentient dreads shred the pestilent threads.

Their hand-made fleece is in pieces

but there are no moans; they are stone.

All dead, standing at the bed of their Med.

Apple Schnapps

I am rotten.
An apple on the edge,
at the very top of
my oak sided barrel.

I am drunk.
With my own dark ooze.
This juicy fermentation
trickles down to those below.

I am manner.
Wasps fight for the ripe,
nibbling at my soft flesh.
Stinging the hand of god.

I am patient.
Crushed and bled dry,
pigs scoff on my core.
My essence distils slowly.

I am power.
In the voice of your youth,
renewed strength in his arm.
Fuel for your weakened mind.

I am death.
The impulse of a thousand
stabs and cuts or tightened fists.
My enemies fight on my command.

Tree Frog Tears

my throat is dry
from hearing the croak of
Nima’s tree frog
talk Mister President
our tears become rain

Gone Away

your link here
another 404 page –
my obituary

Skyward Paws

tired dogs rest belly up –
paws cast smouldering shade after
walking on the sun

Passing of a Nut

I am a nut upon the ground
where broken husks lie all around.
Squirrel teeth have cracked the shells
and chewed the life from all my pals.

My crisp and shiny skin stands proud,
I will not hide within this crowd.
Soon my rodent chum will eat his fill,
but greed will make him take me still.

I’ll ride away stuffed in his cheek,
he’ll jump here and there just like a freak.
Spit out into a hole and stamped right in,
I hope to lie here deep, and totally forgotten.

The Last Mile

wise feet know their path
through threadbare carpets –
last sip of hot tea

Charcoal Grey

My first car was a hearse.
I expect that it will also be my last.
This continuity, strangely, is comforting.
It has shaded my soul.
Charcoal Grey is
more than a colour swatch option.
So I walk.
To show I am alive, and
to lengthen the journey
between pick up points.