Chaos Matters

Roll of Seasons

2015-06-03T22:39:00.003+01:00

It’s a revolution what it does to the time
how it’s dark at 8am one day and before

you realise it the year unfolds and you see a 5am sunrise

the birds know as the twigs they gather have the right density
the trees know when to grow new leaves

of course the air knows everything

we, the very youngest of things knows more than anything
until a fat meteor smites our face

striking off the very nose with which
we taste the wine or gently pass its bow

in tender moments of affection and how
in the spring you dare the summer opportunity

the autumn contemplations of the dying leaves
the winter’s huddle under skins open fires

so many reasons for the roll of seasons

babies born in winter learn to grow hair quickly
learn to walk and yell out for their share of the blanket

how he has grown old yet nothing changes
like every year how winter comes early

but summer lasts forever
his face disappeared into the sunlight

May 22nd 2015

5:37am

Recent works

2013-03-22T09:48:00.000+00:00

Author's picks

Old Ghosts
Born ever so Barnstable
The Morning Song
A Murder Story
Dance of Life

Ones to watch

Old Ghosts
House of Doors
Out-side
Dead Weather
The Sound

Stage Frame

2013-03-09T15:30:00.000+00:00

Life beyond pale elegance
Trees grasp fruit till they
tumble Earthway

The sun's shiny spokes rotate
The expectation of the crowd

It can wait a minute more
take a breath
before you pounce

Pause a moment
time cradles you in its long arms

A Murder Story

2013-02-23T23:49:00.000+00:00

Some things are happening
in the road under the lights
Shouts disconcert the slight
Ripples in the air that stick

I glance out the window and
see a man running with a pair
of blades held above his head
blood streaming down his naked
back as he passes at the top of his voice.

The air breaks into pieces and vapour
leaks into a distance from vapid tension
blind trust knows there is little to extract
no space for the spoils of war
keep it dark and death in the corner
a locus for spinning barristers
phrasing perpendicular to meaning

carefully matched phoneme for the circumstance
listen to the pulse one two three
listen to it dissipate after burning bright and brief

now a silent echo
increasingly everywhere

Old Ghosts

2013-02-16T14:23:00.000+00:00

They sit together
alone

those paths well
trod

now worn dry

those things they found
familiar released

an ascending weight
inverting the grave

tipping out
old cloth

a dry leaf still holding
fast

ignoring the fate

of the tree

shootin'

2013-01-26T19:57:00.000+00:00

the guns are not so much the real problem
the people, they ain't neither
it's the rats in your shoes that makes it erupt
it is long term hatred brewing in the shadow
carving out hollows into which old ideas fester
fully fledged dreams and ideas from the implanted
who they were
and where they came from
how this is possibly
important to those
who lay claim to
enormous resources
can they vacuum up the souls
as they linger upon the threshold
of another day
shootin'

Age

2013-01-08T11:31:00.001+00:00

It is in the absence of pretence the honesty of fading memory falls like feathers after a storm.

Long Lost

2012-12-29T12:34:00.000+00:00

A friend in a snowstorm leads the way by shouting
but at a distance waves their arms in futile hope of recognition
as though shapes between you became easy pickings

the fruit that dropped last summer tasted fresh and juicy then
but now appear like the mould gardens time made
them excuses feel like rusted chains around your ankle
word carved legacies of pain compressed for convenience

The crevice opens so his mind wanders away to forget
but the truth tumbles in reversals of logic like the footprints
guilty around the trunk of an axed old tree removed from the garden
so nobody sees it their own problems take precedence
as they are supposed to

they are alone in the bedroom
but the ghosts outside the window clamour for their meaning
A man in a dingy escapes from the holiday that has driven him mad
A horse in the desert wanders this way and back again in search of the rider
But the air is heavy and the taste of gasoline ever present

The intensity

2012-12-10T21:09:00.000+00:00

A planet hurling through space fascinates the observer
casting as he does rays of light in the general direction
he wants to see things in, and of course they are there
waiting for the line of his vision

The travelling through the spaces does not wear down
the edges it takes with it the waves and heat of wheels
turning - it carries itself out of the wafer
sliced between chronic insistence upon
subsistence and breathing

Whales floating in the ether
fins carefully directing motion
travel though timings and watching
the burning clock ahead
reasons to act not defer
convinced and intent they surge forth

And she waves her arms and I shut my eyes
the patterns of pain absolved and their spines
laid back into semblance and the agony
becomes a vapour evaporating
taking the metallic silt with it

And now my gaze returns
and dreams play in her eyes

Pain

2012-11-19T23:04:00.000+00:00

Kicked a toe
against a piece of wood
with all the force it needed
to throb with pain
for thirteen minutes

Born ever so Barnstable

2012-11-15T00:21:00.000+00:00

and there in your wake lie the doors
closing in the face of the face of thing
just around the corner peddling winged
greased monkey ratchet steward
this pale element of fig stew wretchedness
this sorry excuse of humanity is the barest
extreme possible, the wildest reach of distant
thought could see beneath its skin
radiant and alive it was
gleamed up and ready for the cycle to flare up
and explode into smithereens

Deluge Blues

2012-10-30T22:12:00.001+00:00

It was full of flowers and bees eating the nectar

as seconds pass through your skin

weapons upright held above their heads

their unfurling minds reeling at the task before them

the full edge of their platoon pitched as they were

and a spy discovers the truth that the enemy are

not so bad after all their women all lead to criminals

who's prowess with deadly force and volanoes and cats

drown out all but the salient storms that flutter under his hat

it is as though the man has to travel the same path every three hours

a lifetime of jumping out of planes and landing safely somehow

while wrestling their wounds deeply under the round

buried as they were while turning up and around

the wakeful shake of that storm that wreaked the city of towers

the people are tougher than that and snorkled in their living rooms

the screaming of the rich many floors up

won't be able to get out to buy their weekly sup

or even walk the dog seventy floors down

the beginning of the event and the frown as the leave

after a show with many feathers and snow

but nothing much else as the actor was held

in a traffic jam and so we heard the

outpoured heart of the first to come forth

and speak to the crowd start a movement start a walk

until it is brisk and they shout

as the wind dances ahead

House of Doors

2012-10-14T13:47:00.000+01:00

strange house of broken doors
wheelbarrow ferry boats
hot rivers living in the light
we live inside each others pocket
but never cross paths

Αναδιάταξη

2012-10-06T01:08:00.000+01:00

Rush me to the good bits
skip over the pretty scenery
the queuing for tickets and waiting
take me into the heart of the action
where the shooting guns are killing the young
take me inside the debate, on the slick twists
of blades into truth and the evaporation of trust
for the man who told the truth

drip dry real

these legs are carrying me for thousands of miles
over the years they have developed more strength
erupt in vague waves of pain that fade instantly
as does imagination to the stream of memory
sliding over it like a tide over a river bearing down
with an insistent attack upon reason
what we think haunts and festers

A wave rushes in and over you
and as you swim in the sea it aches with the real
the silence of dreaming surrenders to the rushing in of sound
wiping clear the thoughts you can not share
unless by accident you stumble upon them

on a highway
into a city
clay talks
and looks pretty

on a space journey
it pays to sleep
plenty

but on the back of a horse
it pays to not sleep much at all
although some swear that the beasts know
what we can not ourselves tell

In Love and Memory

2012-10-03T06:37:00.000+01:00

Memory is time
and love is the building of it
remember the man sitting by the well
a failure to distinguish
misses appointments
including one with death
escaped by unnecessary
dithering couldn't help it
the heart and the soul of it
the electric pool of Aid Schick
or the gruesome hand grasping taking
the measure of what you considered yours
but was ours until then

Dance of Life

2012-09-21T07:35:00.002+01:00

Like wires wriggle and explode into a dance
writhing snakes in a cabinet finding their place
in the maze of things, this creation of Dr Strange
a cosmic game of darts of the hand of a watcher
you work it out yourself at the side of an ocean
lost in pockets of leisure and taken by the wind
into the cloud to swirl and dance slowly air
rushing through strands of gold and your
figure slows as a toe touches the sand

The Sound

2012-09-14T21:12:00.000+01:00

Thumbed pages turn under our fingers
but there is nothing to do to stop the flow
of the river flowing through the afternoon
together teaching each other
new names for the weather

Spelling out verbs for the sake of making sound
whispering loudly and calling over a waiter
with just the right gesture

Intact and alert
vagrant stupid
avoiding yesterdays
and divining definition
for tomorrow

Infinities grow in the distance
between the first sounds
and the end of all sound
the first light at the dawn
and the last one to go out at dusk

Morph

2012-09-05T21:24:00.002+01:00

The Buffalo and the Swan
the barrel of a shotgun
against fine walls of china
the delicate urn of silk
strung together fine metal
spun threads extending through hooks
taking the weight spread it out across the surfaces

the well wined barrel of a man
and the fine boned china doll
who half his age looked older
in his fabric eyes his beginning
was kept a secret in the absence of time
the silence broken by disambiguation
when forgotten last and disintegrating
they matter not to those who
play the deadly game
one foot wrong
reflects on the architect
a natural selection too far
an opportunity of death
as if it were the sole path
to a promotion carried out
impress the firm with that mouth
that was her final achievement

The loud report of a gun
cracking the air with
a sudden rushing at the target

it had missed
and the creature took another step further away

Surely So

2012-09-03T22:47:00.003+01:00

The angel and the antilope
the wizard and the queen
the maze and the arrow
the guidebook for the crazies
the weapons of the protectors
the violins played at dawn
waking you from your troublesome thoughts
a flurry of stars across violet peaked hats
worn for the laughter and the fun
the wheels spins sideways the punch-holes
in the ticket and the nods of the never to
close angled faction of literate thieves

Transformed

2012-09-03T19:12:00.002+01:00

The director yelled cut and so we did
starting at the roots the tree gave way to the blade
starting large and working until up
in the branches finally the twigs
and the leaves that were going to fall
later that year were severed from the Earth
the connection of life and matter broken

We trod upon the carpet of bark and pain
the blood on our feet was our own
severed by shards of splintered wood
we waltzed on pain
spread out both arms and spinning

the ground swallowed us whole
dragging us down into the mantle
so we transformed molecules until silver appeared
we were able to melt into obscured veins

the vapour found a vent and into the clouds
we rise

A localised experience

2012-08-23T19:40:00.005+01:00

They called it a localised experience
Something between made up and symptom
carefully draped it over the body in the hall
that sound of the paws of a panda
syncopates with hummingbird wing beats

exactly why snakes and spiders
give most that shuddering reaction
they shake the air around your body

it is that instrument on their necks
its irresistible purring and carping
ít's the greater city around you
closing walls and eyes through doors

becoming others
the round bouts are an indignity
a bus passes by and whips
a puddle at the waiting passengers

they move slowly as if captured by film too fast
memory records every other moment for a moment

Out-side

2012-08-12T19:34:00.002+01:00

The breeze rippled through the antlers of the forest
and trespassing through the day a ghost of love lost
hard steps on her feet and pushes into her sides
the violence of the sea as waves crash into cliffs
is not deep felt anger it is the vagrancy of a storm
out at sea being brought in by the wind that makes it
hurling itself at plant and rock with indifference

the way she shouted was not like that!
It is more like a branch in a river
she knows the sounds blown into each ear
do not engage his vision onto any horizon
love is more easily broken than formed
and hatred is only quelled by death
and until then, festering in the walk of old men
to their thrones
outside stone windows

The sea is vast this summer
the trees are talking candidly about the behaviour of animal life in general
so vulgar and impertinent

the bob cat stayed deathly still sitting on the branch
and the branch only moved when the wind tells it to

Inside her

2012-07-18T12:01:00.000+01:00

Each year we get better
at it

each part of us improves
with age

as I look into your tearful eye
and speak

you silence me
eventually

even the litmus exposure merges
differences become silence

the edges so smooth
you could be emancipated

a mustard concoction
angels on toast

riding my icicle
as though it were fire

Force Field

2012-07-18T02:10:00.000+01:00

Cold heated manifests approbate righteousness in a box
labelled and closed for nobody to see again, ever
and if nobody ever does see it again, then it
may no longer exist but be more effective
in a state of nihilist ecstasy

Rolling in that dust churning down the corridor
the family gathered around the table and
the loudest voice, the one that you would not dare to argue with
forthright in its urgency
definite in decree
the forces that make you do things you can not question
this vast arena of doubt

Happy plaything
little drifting candle
summer is the only candidate
she is sliding behind the scenery
keeping those backstage
warmly content and ripe

She offers herself to the breeze
places her hand thus and thus
looks left, glances right,
extends her entire foot
and the camera tells lies
to make our eyes hungry

Old London

2012-07-12T23:12:00.001+01:00

the tongs stroke the old stones dragged
behind a barrel of snow crusted wares
it is evening and the street seller
has had his day in the crowds
his money safe in the barrel
and his repertoire proven
his net cast over the stream
of puzzled faces slipping past
every so often one bites
and asked what the coloured balls
hanging on his stall meant
and he could begin
unfolding old newspapers
and inserting exclamation points
to waiting atmosphere

The selling of goods on the street allow the shopkeepers difference
the sound of hoofs on cobble stones
betraying infarction around old bones
and the new circus at Piccadilly
may mean anything to anyone
the one at Holborn or indeed Chester
this idea of surrounding ourselves with rings
we drive around clockwise
it is only natural

this manifest arrangement of streets
bedazzled imagination floundering
feeling first to reach the apex of the
moon shined coast line

the angels and devils shared a cab and took it down underground
below the rats and trains below the waste rivers and worms
into that place of allegiance where the broom stalk flying fish
examine the daft stories taken home by soldiers that become memory
when what actually happened resorts to thinking only while asleep
the patterns in the sky were explaining why
nothing would make sense when shopping

defend yourself from the angled sting
again and again ants wander up the hill and enter its crater

a groove in the tooth of a lion
where death may be inflicted
as her jaw falls and blood spurts
the animal at first paused before the life rushed out
the candle is wax again rewind time and all the sand
sits in the top waiting in suspension
an orderly queue of grains fall
from the space cleaned out in the attic
upstairs where thoughts decay