LIPS

Last night I dreamt I kissed a woman;

And she kissed me back

And pressed her body against me.

I did not recognize her.

She was not from my past.

Perhaps she is my future.

For the rest of the dream

We tried to find time

To be alone together.

But in the morning I woke

To blasts of leaf blowers.
Her lips had flown with the wind.

DOUBLE DECREE

The word went out in secret coded hope

So none would know and few would even care.

The priests denied and hid it far away

For who’d believe if they all saw the snare?

And those who suffered it were cast away

By those chosen to make the business gain.

Crosses on backs born bent to bear it all

But frills for those exempt from all the pain.

Yet when reform and print shed light and truth

More lies were told than any voiced before.

The plate went round and gathered up the gold

Of those who knew just one side of the score.

Have you in your earnest and true belief

Ever wondered why some were found then lost,

Drifted far off and then were shunned and hushed?

Where is the ground on which their hearts were tossed?

But still those fiends of foresight seek new fields

And not the pits of those destined to die,

Where once were gardens green and blooming bright
Before the death decree rendered them dry.

FORSAKEN NOT FORGOTTEN

To know you died lonely and forsaken,

Your body unable to bear your pain,

Wrenches my heart and quenches my spirit,

Scalds me with guilt and sears me with shame.

What misery you must have sadly borne

When life buried you in pits of despair.

I wish I could drown in the tears you cried.

I curse myself for my withdrawal of care.

Without your soul the world’s a pale palette.

It meanders under monochrome skies.

Sepia scenes soaked in dull tedium

Stain every scan of my imprisoned eyes.

CASPIAN DESCENT

The Alborz mountains steadily ebb.

Beneath them lies the leafy plain,

Quilted with collaged farms,

And hamlets cleaving to cliffs.

From the peaks a winding road

Edges down through deftly
cut clefts -

Incisions of men and mechanics

Skirting the scree of nature’s rifts.

Then the descent offers

Carnivals of assorted sceneries.

Grey gravel gives way to mossy moors.

Soon conifers conquer with emerald needles.

Beyond the pines all is jumbled –

Deciduous mantles of scarlet and yellow

Arranged by chance in patterns -

Erratic but explicit in grandeur.

As the land levels out on to the plain,

Green and gold meadows nestle

Beside quaint homes and waving palms.

Then the land kisses the water.

The glittering blue-grey sea

Caresses its slim sandy strand.

High-rise lodgings jostle for prestige,

Just as it was in the time of the king.

LIFE SENTENCE

Amidst the marks of mucked up memories

There are several I will never

Novate nor sever.

They clustered when they careened

And crashed into my expectations.

Faking fun you flirted forever,

Far away from friendship,

Flinging my fragile affection

Into fiery flames

That I never ever fully forgot.

I know now that you used me

And I was ripe to be ruined.

Youthful beyond your years,

Yearning ‘til younger eyes

Made my head turn

Tired, tearful and trapped.

Yet we dared into dreams,

Dramatised and documented.

Drifting and drooping,

Dreariness dogged our days,

Until a dangerous damsel decoupled us.

Slipping into my slumbers,

Snaking around my soul,

Slithering inside my slender veins,

You enslaved me,

Splendid serpent,

Soothed me and slid away.

From then on I was spent,

Though I thought otherwise.

Still now I prize your poison,

Relishing its rough reminders,

And drinking every drip and drop
Before they mar my empty mouth.

JUDGED

Auburn semi-desert,

Tired under the bleak sky.

A tattered terrain

Willing itself into existence

For billions of years

Has finally collapsed to near nothingness.

Flat, it goes on,

Seemingly forever.

Only random mounds

Of oddly rounded rubble

Punctuate the predictability.

Like it, I am nearing exhaustion.

My feet are wounded

From the rubbing of silicon sandals.

Gritty dust works like powdered emery

On blisters that burst long ago.

I escaped - 

Daring and exhilarating -

But the onset of weariness

Caught me by surprise.

I need to pace myself.

I need to rest.

I need to lean

Against any rotting edifice.

Disturbed, a dusky cockroach

Scrabbles its way between the cracks,

With an alert antenna visible,

Twitching in the weak sunlight.

Survivor of the judgement,

Just like me.

Survivors devour survivors to survive.

Food is food.

As a penalty for its stupid curiosity,

I capture the creature.

My meal wriggles, frantic, its extremes visible

In my clenched fist.

COASTAL GHOSTS

I love the lunging growl of the shorebreak

In the last moments of wakeful still night.

It sings sweet songs of years long gone and dead

And comforts me, soothing my splintered plight.

Waves roll and thump and then the sea turns mute

Before the next set crashes and crumbles

Across wet sands of sounds and murmurings,

Rocking rigid stars with rage and rumbles.

But in my lonely bed all noise abates

As my eyes close to see a smiling face;

And your laughing voice drowns out all rivals -

Only sound sleep disperses our embrace.