LIFE IS TOO EASY
There's weather enough for us all
And hope for the hopelessly voiceless to call:
"One more day up here, we'll die of bliss."
Photography offers a hint
The younger the subject the older the print
One more day up here, we'll grant your wish
To please go quietly
There's comfort reviling the heart
And glass that's as strong as the axes are sharp
One more day up here, they just can't miss
So please go quietly
Go quietly
Life's too easy
CLAY
Fear the watertight who shimmer by
Patiently tasting the poison their captive released
Ours is not to rock the treasure-ark
But to be given its key and a recall of parts
(False start)
Where the journey ends with tickertape
Screened on the skins of balloons no-one thought to inflate
(Long wait)
I arrive in time to emulate great heights
Alchemising clay to anything
Fear the socialites who whisper by
Gliding on thermals their bodyless offal secretes
(This heat)
Turns our flesh to stone and back again
Aping desires encoded in four-letter poem
Dead loam
Where the journey ends with tickertape
Screened on the skins of balloons no-one thought to inflate
DESTROYER
I don't believe in any of that sugary horror stuff
I'm numb, till you throw me to the floor
Howling "stand no more"
I can't eat, I can't sleep
Without your triage and telegraph
I'm a rudderless antique oil-powered destroyer
How long, how long till you throw me to the floor
Howling "stand no more"
I can't eat, I can't sleep
MEANWHILE
You broke the locks off the cages to let the trapped animals out
And I'm holding you to account for this
Suspicious architecture rises on the plains of our doubt
What I never had, I miss
You pulled the tablecloth off the table, leaving the meal intact
But I've lost my appetite
We're spinning up into the fiction that there's no going back
We're stepping into the light
Meanwhile on earth, witness the birth
Of a show that you can never turn off, that you'll never know
Long dead stars will light our way
Unrepentant caretakers of radio
Meanwhile outside, currents collide
At the join between us and the sky,
This ride flew
ASTRAY
Now is the season of counterfeits
Shake the invisible hand
Bodies rust over like abandoned cars
And rocks that are softer than sand, land
I'm on the side of the first to win
Having inspected the knives
And let go of primitive loyalties
And paid for the privilege of wide eyes
We're allowed to go astray
All that you want is to try to make sense
Of landmarks you pass on the climb
But all that remains of your inquiry
Is noise in the shape of a sign, what a line
We're alone and proud
We're a blank white shroud
We're at last allowed to go astray
ELEGY FOR THE OLD FORTY-FOOT
(Poem written by John Herschel in 1840 to commemorate the dismantling of his father William Herschel's 40-foot telescope.)
In the old Telescope's Tube we sit
And the shades of the Past around us flit!
His Requiem sing we with shout and din
While the Old Year goes out, and the New comes in
Merrily let us all sing,
And make the Old Telescope rattle and ring!
A PILL TO KEEP THE PLANE FROM CRASHING
If we get through this unscarred,
I will auction my cold heart
If we crawl from this burning tube
I'll agree to believe you
Hold the door
Hold the door
Is there room for one more?
My sign
My sign
Said everything will be alright
Are you comfortable
Are you paralyzed
Are you compromised
Are you satisfied
Are you desolate
Are you recognised
Have you had enough
Have you opted out
Are you not surprised
Are you good with lies
Are you tolerant
Are you organised
Are you confident
Are you too polite
Are you in or out
Do you medicate
Do you hesitate
Do you disbelieve
Are you resolute
Are you credulous
Are you really here
Do you feel slighted
Are you on your own
Are you on your own
Are you all alone
Do you know?
Hold the door
Hold the door
Is there room for one more?
My sign
My sign
Said everything is fine
RED QUEEN FREEZES
All this waiting, is it ever for a reason?
While the reason slips away beneath the everyday
White picket fences circumscribe the lies that started out
Innocent as not complaining when you feel slighted
Now the waiting escalates and coils around your neck
Years like scales falling away but always just too late
And what we thought was lost is not, because it never was
The past exists only in present people's memory
The one we fill with jewellery and sound and endless waiting
And someday soon even the tireless regal athlete
Will stop, and drop her sceptre to the ground and scream:
"Enough of misdirection. Enough of manic waiting."