Tag Archives: society

Venus and Mars

I have to stay up “till midnight”
You will be asleep by then –
Then the watchman leaves into the streets
Overlooked by Venus sparkling over the city.

Midnight is a long time away now
As far as the North Pole in winter
Where the giant clockwork machine turns the universe
That ploughs through the fields, tuning up bones and larks eggs.

After two years of seeing each other you ask
1. Is there more to life than love?
2. Lets play hide and seek with the stars.

Sleep draining sleep; until Venus strikes her bell.
Dream of me as the thin wooden man on the battlefield
Struggling with the red eyes of Mars in the shadows.

Sleep, darling, sleep safe in your soft bed
While Venus sparkles above you – unforgetfull of this hope . . .

A reprimand from the absent guest at the A.G.M

You invited yourself along and all that you do came too. Carolyn’s shrub, wet with pain, you passed by as if you wore the night like a fairy tale. Now what have you done with the oyster of your mouth? Counting the steps of my vertebrae up to the moon that rattles in my brain amongst the deadwood of words; A white lie in the dream of corridors echoed through the old building like a rampant albino nettle. The piano played like a skeleton in the hunger of my heart; the music was a dark closeted room of loneliness; Despairing in the maze of rooms in my identity of ice and fire. A spoil of war put at your feet by the red ghost of love.

How often unfairness drags me through prison walls laughing
How often has unfairness blunted my own words in my own heart?

Tired alone and defeated by the stress of cats mewing in my brain
I left you to the spoils of war fashioned out of the ivories of my bones.

Now you have formed a mystery with me
Your inbred arrogance slips through the closed door like bath water.

I can hear the voices of the roses inside
But all I’m given are the pledges of distant voices.

My imagination is plastic and it is clay
It is formed into whatever you want it to from.

If I were a man made of glass windows
The world would see the fool inside in his red fur coat.

But it seemed like a normal day to Jehovah
And I seemed like a grain of sand in a fire.

 

2000

Life surrounds you, hems you in

Life surrounds you and hems you in
People like antibodies congeal on you
Drag you down to the ground
Pin you to the floor so you cannot travel

The place where you grew is far away
Those you grew up with are trapped
By life congealing around them

A force for life or a force for death
Loved ones are separated from you
the power of strangers crowds around them

And each man, woman and child
Is helpless in the sea of humanity
Is sown into the fabric of life
Absorbed into the quicksand of society

Freedom is a level 10 in the heart
So many of us barely reach a level 2
We sit into the tapestry of life around us
Like birds without homes flying forever

2002

Song: Picassos old man painted pigeons

It’s another winter’s day and I’m sitting here alone
The night descends, the air gets cold and I’m a long, long way from home
The super heroes of my youth could be passing in the street
I hear the occasional trampling of their feet

It’s a day like any other
That brings you down to the ground
And makes you think of the ordinary things
Going round and round

And Picasso’s old man painted pigeons
He didn’t paint nothing more
He just liked to paint pigeons
That gathered around his door

There’s a stillness in the room I’m in and a quietly ticking clock
A few children’s voices playing run around the block
The roar of underground trains I can hear beneath my feet
A person rattling a paper bag as I write upon this sheet

And Picasso’s old man painted pigeons
He didn’t paint nothing more
Piccasso’s old man painted pigeons
That fluttered around his door

And I’ve got that waiting feeling like a statue in a square
That people all are passing by as if I wasn’t there
But in my world I’m not made of stone, I’m not waiting for anyone
I’m thinking about the everyday things that everyday people get done

And Picasso’s old man painted pigeons
He must have counted everyone
And Picasso’s old man loved his pigeons
And he watched them fly in the sun

Pigeons they are everywhere
Some are here, some are there
You can love them if you try
You can love them if you care

And Picasso’s old man painted pigeons
Maybe they’re not so well known to you
But Picasso’s old man painted pigeons
That’s all he really wanted to do

Memorials to murders

Memorials to murders
Stand like bus stops in our land
Wreaths on every corner
It’s hard to understand

Babies and teenagers
Old ladies and old men
Blood stained city corners
Where’s it going to end

You can walk across a pavement
You can walk by a door
Where someone fell dieing
And won’t be seen no more

Killers are growing numerous
There’s a handful in every street
And justice ties its shoelaces
And is tripping over its feet

Where’s the heart in the system?
Where’s the heart in this land?
They try to play fair like in cricket
And let evil gain the upper hand

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