brought no bell,
or call-to-arms,
no rush of Prussian
blood to head
the ball into an
empty net, no change
in current sea levels...

no harm befell
the coppiced shoots
of brutal resolutions,
proving atheist
relationships are
worth their weight
to any fool...

and
no-one but
the very best,
would deign
to chance a
second guess
of getting into heaven

on this first day
of the year.

That we
are even here,
in this strange
existence, is
incredible enough

but of our peculiarities,

consider love...


You see,
I'll wager
love needs more...

and,
despite knowledge
to the contrary,

when our time comes,

when all
that I have shunned
and scorned, comes
home to haunt...

I will convince

myself, some part
of us endures,

that we go on,

reformed...

When waving
to passengers
on passing trains,
I have observed
that a I elicit
a more favourable
response

when I remove
the clown mask and
put my clothes back on.

Tolled
one-rolled-bone away
from sweet inconsequence

thereby, the flicker
of an exit-sign, the
grand idea of life's
unlearning flirted

hinted
hands around
the throat of fate
were ultimately mine...

and to the
suitably anesthetized,
the rubbing clean
of canvasses,
the pulling down
of blinds,
appeared enthralling...

a cobbler's thumb
of fumbled ruse,
the blueprints
to a master-plan,
a calling card that
meant no other morning
after all...

Bowled
one-rolled-bone away
from all that greatness

an acolyte
invertebrate, upended
in some milky way,

the lateness
of my dragon-chasing
thawed all rude persuasion

reanimating appetites
in dubious remains.

Watched
you in white.
How you crossed your
sceptered body, glazing
ludicrous contortions

Supple-legged exaggerations
***-shod, patent platforms
towered, figure-hugged
and cut to high indecency...

Ah, the slow-cooked
incandescence, that you
struggle to contain....

though pay no mind
to likes of me,
a letching scrag
who yearns to see you

set yourself on fire....

Come mid -winter
they will wait

wait to hear
this lease of life,
call, frost-lipped
on the shortest watch...

To crystallize
the pent unmowed
with isolated vocals,
I draw breath...

address
the talling Solstice
as some celebrant
of picturesque...

I shape the names
of absent faces

warm against
December sky

All abound
in crimson throws,
low lamentation
bids farewell,
for beaten folk, who,
troubled tread
for light has failed
to find them.

Endorphins dull
the sting of use
as fractured boarders
pall away.
Three times removed,
yet leaving nought,
save footprints
far behind them.