Her City

The artists and poets, whose years past,

Are washed away in ordinary grime;

The dirt of centuries of worshippers

Who did not notice as gods left their shrines.

All day, her city is frantic

With the mirror's ennui, her twisting visage.

Preoccupied with arts of finance

Poems of blue sky.

Parisians walk by quickly;

This is well known, but

I shall not quickly forget

Their looks of disgust.

Her city is become a whore,

Whose romance is cheap, too well practised.

Where are her dear poets?

They show us they are alive

With lipstick kisses on a gravestone

And the sounds of hearts breaking at night.

Apple Pi With Mustard

I woke up this morning
Thinking pi equalled three;
Crooked birds flew through
My window, sang out of key.

Walked ceilings for hours,
Cause it's more fun that way;
Then misshapen sun
Heralds ending of day.

I stand up to sleep,
I sneeze, and I sigh;
It's a messed up world
When three equals pi.

Moving On

Get out of my head!
I shout the words
At your photograph
That I've gone and found again.

It seems so easy
So free. I am exhausted after
Shutting you out for so long
And in weakness I relax.

Sometimes it takes a second,
And sometimes days, but then
I remember what it is to wake,
And remember to forget.

Fuel For Your Fire

Hogmanay in a mental home;
We sip our drinks and weakly
Wish one another glad tidings.

Sing Auld Lang Syne
For the schizophrenia patient
We used to know.

Fireworks outside: I get upset,
And they decide it's better for me
If I am sedated tonight.

A new year means nothing,
No new calendar upon the wall.
It isn't me who makes my plans.

How many of these tedious 'years' must I suffer
As they cheerfully introduce themselves to me?
My quiet brain laments its absent friend.

Artificial Days

This winter sun has left us,
The sky is tinged with blue and yellow.
The trees begin their silhouetted dance,
Strained eyes inside begin to focus.

The grass underfoot is burning
In the passionate fire of our heavy hearts.
I can see it, on the horizon,
That line of red beneath the deepening blue.

Lamps flood the room around us,
Light your candles on the stove.
Ignore the seduction of the night,
Bend your will to press on
In artificial days.

Sky! I sigh, please not tonight,
Night sky, your dark skin may be perfect
Your face transformed, sweet breath
And come to bed eyes,
But circumstance separates
Our tear-strewn cheeks.

Adult Haircuts

We are children of the winter
Early evening, reborn into the dark.
Streetlights are almost close enough to touch -
The stars come down to hold our hands.

A clock tower disappears
Into the freezing mist
That embraces us all
As if in a dream I half remember.

Its fingers curling underneath our scarves
These adult haircuts leaving us numb.
The cold makes us weep
As we rejoice in this gift of temperature.

-

I was a child
Reborn into an unfamiliar night.
In your car window, I think,
Those strange reflections glowed.

My eyelids were slowly drooping;
It may just have been a dream,
For I could scarcely believe I was alive.

Colours In The Sky

I thought it was a sunrise
Whose slender fingers
Tousled my newborn's hair.
I thought it was a morning
Whose breath danced upon my lips.

The fingers shorten,
Breath dies, light fades.
Woken briefly for that beauty
Before it is lost.

I thought you were a sunrise
When you walked into my life,
Your soul skipped blissfully through mine.
So beautiful, but setting,
It meant the same to me.