There I was.
Alone late at night –
a simple movement or words.
I wondered.
What is left of myself?
A little splotch of blue-black ink.
Or days running away like wild dogs.
In the end……
I thought it is best to sleep on it.
Far too many mean stories around.
And people with dismal intent.

​
​That shaft of beauty
leaking from the streets.
The love for words and solitude.
An ink-soaked pen to write
from beginning to end.
But mostly, to keep looking-up.
To be drunk on blossoms.
And not to be lost,
even in darkness.
How glorious this would be.

​As I eat and drink.
I realize that the world
is full of concrete poetry.
Everything going towards
‘how many followers’.
And neon signs
advertising some kind
of liberation.
Maybe the poets are running
like the rest of us?
Too afraid to live in
gentle anonymity.

​
​In my new day.
​I am someone else.
​No longer attached
​to the black shadows.
​And wise enough
​to recognize the woven sun.
​Soaked through
​with love and hate.
​I cast some
​shadows of my own.
​Engraved in the
​streets I walk.
​The sun smiles at me
​Such blood – sizzling
​days, I thought.

She lived in a house
and had luck
both in and out of bed.
But eventually,
luck runs out.
And she became
a lady in a castle.
While the man was
telling her another story.
Straight, lush and worse.

I remember my dad
listening to Sonny Stitt.
Telling me that old
jazz was the best.
My dad was full of contradictions.
Like strange men behind desks.
But that is the price of living
with other people.
You have to live with
such contradictions.
I think sometimes
the way forward.
Is to continue alone,
just like the dead.

Today, I let the waves cross over me.
And held the mountain storm.
Until only the fragrance
from bygone days was left.
This is what they like.
Yet, their secret tears
hidden in the street shadows.
Still wet my sleeves.

June,
an age old sun shift.
A lone magpie dives.
Not for our sakes.
Only for ancient stone.

​But still,
​the earth shakes.
​Enough to remind me.
​That I am always
​in this world.

A man without feelings.
Who does not know
the depths of sad beauty.
And who denies his heart.
Will snipe and waste the way.
I am not free of both
passions and sadness.
And still see the blue-tipped
edges of the sky before me.
For me, there is no loneliness.

An illusion perhaps

A bank of dark clouds
drift in from the peak.
Crying…..
‘We never stop being parents’.

What is going on?
I thought.

Like a portal to dream.
I remembered I’d seen
all this before.

But my world is larger now.
And I don’t have to wait
to travel in this world.
​