I believe the night to be beautiful And polite in its quiet understanding Of letting people be Alone with their monsters That others would never see For the dark cannot differ Between the shape and its shadow Nor cast colours by their causes Or ask more of friend and less of foe To night all belong Both the dreamer and its dreams The silence of frozen lakes And the songs of eternal streams But here in the deep Within the halls of man’s own mind The dark reigns ever awake In hope to one day find The answer all eyes seek Yet doubt to ever know; If the soul is but a seed That once then shall never grow…
I saw my children standing in the rain Their faces lined with age and late reason Watched the abandoned bicycles And broken seesaws Being pulled down by the weight of raindrops Their hands, long and thin, like dead seaweed in the summer wind Their legs green and gold, like new leaves suddenly old Seemed painted In the moist color of quiet The abandoned delight Having dissolved In the lament of the rain They turn; the motion a sad song An unfinished lullaby To look at me with eyes Half awake but never asleep As if I with my window earned wisdom Would know Why all things grow Only to die If life in the very virtue of living Is a lie But they know the answer As well as me It is better to forget than to believe what we see In the everyday aftermath Of the daily demise Of choices left to chances And promises made before goodbyes For in the end all paths Shall return where they began Even the oceans with all their eternity Are but remains of the rain…
All I can think about is dust and dusk And drowning in a shattered sea Made of glass Like a photograph of a falling man Who is never truly falling But eternally trapped With a suspended scream In an endless dream Like a dreamless wraith; Weightless and wordless As an orphan in death
But sometimes the night is too strong for me to sleep And the dreams I have are too dark for me to keep So I become a cobweb on the far wall Or a three pin plug lost in a socket Some crumpled paper on the floor Or a faded face in an old heart shaped locket A catharsis of cause Building prisons to be free An empty ship sailing An emptier sea
Where there is fog in the air And yet I stare Like a blind man blinking Without thinking at the sky Wondering in my own vacuum About the mute purpose of ‘Why’ With voices at the edge of my vision And footsteps at the back of my mind I am dreaming of being asleep And afraid of losing what I cannot find
Thus, in this black and white world In this sharp and smooth world In this loud and quiet world In this bitter and sweet world In this dull and fragrant world I shall remain awake Till a different tomorrow
I was born out of the blue Like a star without a face And shall one day be falling too As dust without a trace In hope that when I am gone Those very few whom I knew Kept something of the light With which their wish came true…
I wore a blanket for a cape For only in dreams I can escape The mortal wounds So lovingly applied As an afterthought of ache
Oft nights when the world Is turning inside out Being snowflake proud of rainbow vomit and papier-mâché pyramids Growing in a mindless ocean of silver sweat I sit as stillness amidst the walls Like a spineless spider flat and small Aping what I think Is the rhythm I cannot find Do I mind? Do I mind? Stars falling like dandruff on blank shoulder of the night Do I mind? Do I mind? Knowing my common mind preaches that I am one of a kind
The cactus upon the windowsil Looks down on the street and see Other trees meditating Like monks on a subway free Half dead and half high Having two views of one life An ever burning driftwood Entombed in blue ice I am that monk That beggar with bright face Having known no sunshine, I shine Having known no misery, I make mine From the refrigerated leftover of a burnt down town Crying over T-shirts and Blazers, Tank tops and gown
The world with its thorned tendrils and tremors of love The world with its crow’s claws and feathers of a dove Knows the weight and cost of a coin unspent For this life; a tragedy, for this life; a parody Is best lived,unmeasured and as if each day is on rent
I have seen geisha queens Dance on aspen nights Play with children made of fire And love men afraid of light I have known threadbare hearts Bare it all upon the floor And yet be trodden upon Like a foot mat at the door And so much more, so much more I have seen and chosen to ignore The what if and why not The why now and not before So much more, so much more, now no more anymore
Soon our bones shall sing
And words once said would wander
Aimlessly, answer-less, as a
Bee buzzing in the desert
For a flower under a rock
And all they who could hear shall know
That the heaven silent above is but a symptom of a world
THE HUMAN ANVIL 