Forget

Late night collisions with apparitions,

like fevered winters precipitate,

the sweat and the heartache,

Everything I've wanted to forget.

My father's struggle in dreams I render,

A faceless man broken asunder,

in the depths of his bleak ocean,

Our arms stretched at the periphery,

devotion unheard our eyes dimmed.

The bonds we form seem destined to

bring us hope then tear it down,

For I let them in and let them win

those weary games we played,

Everyone I've wanted to forget.

First love a twin shadow silhouette,

A moon blessed escape from solitude,

After daybreak reveals the precipice,

I don't want to believe or be in love.

After yearsI've come to see,

My timid surrender to memory,

Painting with that palette so bleak,

a vision of life so full of strife.

For to forget,

is to feign indifference

to the lessons of experience,

To submit oblivious of irony,

to a life of mere remembrance.

To let go

is to see what was

as the whispering winds that

brought me to this shore.

 

The Road

As we drove through that ochre dust
Reverberations of an old life
Howled through the marrow
of my bones.

Those bare footed escapades
through the unforgiving savannah,
Tethered only to a yearning
to follow each honest impulse,
From heart to limb.

We lost no sleep
to the howls of beasts,
We were the eyes of the night
and knew that the roads were
trails of where we'd been,
Not paths for where we'd go.

Halcyon

An ancient drum beat heart,
tuned to mother's rhythm,
Our sound travels through
this sea's caress in waves,
Soft against new skin.

Ripples of wonder in dark sanctuary,
Of my lot in the world outside,
Between love and indifference,
till flesh and time collide.

A return to forgetfulness,
a new seed of the universe,
Yearning to be expressed,
felt, heard and caressed.

Mother... Father.... Oh the dreams I've searched for your hands.

Through the Lighthouse

Like the songs of shells in the ocean,
The past feels like an inconceivable dream,
Breathing beneath this lighthouse
as its eyes permeate the night.

Lost in the shadow of a family tree,
I was but a struggling amnesiac.
Till I felt the weight of my bones
and learnt the art of breathing,
through the length of arid days.
Till I learnt to be of service
and soothe the pain of vanity.

Now through these stone walls
and this sword of light,
Free of the borders of skin,
A stranger no more,
I am found upon those waves
that carry the lost home.

The Tipping Point

Our patience with lizard skinned schemers,
The humble turned decadent,
entitled, malevolent and arrogant,
Insidious architects drawing margins
to elevate their earnings.
Preaching equality from throne rooms.
Their words of peace birthed
inside the barrel of a gun.
Those extractive, exhausting reprobates,
Those green card patriots,
Those "virtuous" devils who hide
in the shadows of faith.
It wore thinner than a razor's edge
and we turned livid.
Furious with them, then ourselves
for having ever fostered their ilk.
We stared out our windows,
then walked out our doors,
peered above our fences
and cried"no more. No More!"

Brothers

Brother, my eyes swim in a retreating light,
between the shadows of our twin plight.
our hearts gripped by winter's collar,
furious and blind, bleeding summer.

I ache for a return to those times,
when as brothers we'd trace
those hills and rooftops,
unknowing of this end.

For were our lives not writ
with the ignorant ink of men?
wrapped in traps of intellect,
wearing muted masks to cast illusions
of strength that fool none.

Hostage to our tragedies,
only to find fleeting solace,
at the bottom of a bottle,
estranged from feeling.

Yet even as we raised
our walls and our voices,
we were loved.
By the casualties of our silences,
beyond our deepest afflictions.
May we be candles to our children...

True

Love... Do I even stand a chance?

Beneath your glowing veneer,

Where I meld with old fires

and those vapors of doubt.

For here I have been...

Suspended in forest green,

Watching timid hopes wake,

deep in the sweetest ache.

 

Tell me true...

Is there a tender thought of me,

safe from those flames?

Or is this a dreamer's lot?

 

For with you,

I have no bonds of breath.

The Divide

Who decides which side of the divide we reside in?

Were the lines drawn on primordial earth

or is this the unfolding of the lottery of birth.

 

Collapsed upon a chair, gripped by fever

The scales of justice weigh down against her.

A statistic in a maligned welfare trend.

Name tarnished, fate condemned

Single mother of two on minimum wage,

Piecing together a dream in a sweltering cage.

For young that can rise  & be proud to stand

Above the  cost of  birth with a poor hand.

 

Outside malls, crowds line up for iphones and ipads,

Willing hostages,  to marketing and expensive fads,

A  generation raised by TV on ritalin and  fast food,

Proud children of Gekko because "greed is good"

Self worth outsourced , income outspent

No time for introspection , to examine discontent.

Some claw  up the rungs , no values to represent.

Inherit the keys to palaces, pull the strings above the scene,

Ancient story on repeat,   power a drug  through poverty obscene.

 

On the corner across a street

Where they say the" vagrants" meet,

With  hands stretched out towards a fire,

A  community in these times deemed dire.

A brother questions  the point of it all,

This business  of  robbing Peter to pay Paul,

Through  jobs with no meaning

for  debt with no ceiling.

I killed in Afghanistan for peace at home

Now I'm forgotten , my welcome worn,

Tell me it's true, this spin about a meritocracy,

Show  me a place where sweat and blood is currency.

 

Oh who decides which side

of the divide we reside in?

Were the lines drawn on primordial earth,

or is this the unfolding of the lottery of birth.