MERCY

What brings you to this loathsome place

Where black dogs bark and guilt abounds?

Weren’t you once led by skill and drive

In topmost surrounds?

I came here for my redemption

Yet I was miserably misled.

There’s no forgiveness for mistakes,

So my soul is dead.

The victims call for execution

Of we who bled losses unseen.

They howl for gore and restitution.

Why should I be mean?

But surely there’s much more to life

Than dwelling on an unjust past?

You’ve tales to tell and verse to craft -

Lines of hope to cast.

But don’t you know the pain and shame?

Only I see doubt in every face.

Even though I know tedious truths

I see no earned grace.

And few seek works from my weak heart,

Most think they reek of pose and mime.

And the sages of our dazzling age

Reject me every time.

Then there’s no hope my wan lost friend.

I will weep to see your body sleep.

Your ashes I’ll give to kinder hands -

To feed the oceans deep.

BUTCHERED

As the night light slinks around all the walls

Of my fortress built of loss and forfeit,

And the fragrant rain beats on my windows,

I will yearn for sleep and quiet comfort.

I scare myself so much at times like these

That my exhausted heart becomes so old

And beats with rhythms of a shattered drum

For the times that it’s been both bought and sold.

I had once hoped for a woman’s kind warmth

But there’s none left to quash my nervous sighs,

Or calm me as I dream and scream ripostes

To all their rumours and their bad-mouthed lies.

A time will come when all will be cast off

And baying crowds will slay another soul

Whose trust and faith were butchered and buried

While the good and worthy measured the hole.

THIS DAY

This is a day I will remember -

I feel closer to you than ever before.

Once we conversed like strangers,

Now there’s much trust and even more.

I am jubilant to see you happy

And proud to know you’re sure

Of years ahead and lifetimes

Together on one or other shore.

We will swagger through love’s jungles,

Ambling coupled as we explore,

Knowing our souls are tangled

Like tracks across the wildest moor.

Perhaps we’ve been in each other

All along as Rumi would implore;

Or maybe it’s a coup of chance

That bids us join and fly and soar.

All I see is pure perfection

In your face and mind and more,

Tendered as gifts to please my heart

And marvels for me to adore.

PHOENIX

Are my treasured memories

Collapsing into comas of oblivion?

Does the darkness of lost years

Hide our ruin in false hopes?

And yet the reminders of you

Rise up with every morning’s light

And swoop into night’s blistered dreams

Like a phoenix in fair and fancy flight.

I walk the beaches every day

And marvel at the shades of blue.

I imagine you gripping my arm

The way you used to do.

I see your black eyes shining

As you speak and softly laugh.

I marvel as the sun kisses

Your skin just the way I want to.

If only we had been brave

And taken those final steps.

Our hearts might well have saved

Our babies from their nothingness.

But I still pray that you might rise

Adorned with triumph’s sashes

From the flames that severed us

And turned unlawful love to ashes.

I WANT TO

I want to see your skin glisten

With the droplets of a shower

As you dry shy and shaded,

A pageant for my adoring eyes.

I want to feel your body pressed

So warm against me as I doze,

And the cuddle of your arm,

Your breasts teasing my ribs.

I want to smell the perfume

Of your hair against my cheek,

As your head rests in a place

Between pillow and shoulder.

I want to hear you breathing

Through the darkness of night

And count the times you sigh

Or moan or speak in dreams.

I want to taste your mouth

In the first moments of day

As morning makes us restless

And desire grants us delight.

The painting is a late nineteenth century work by Edgar Degas.

HELL

Once again I am trying to sleep

And failing to rest

As another loud party

Spills on to the street.

Ugly shrieks of women

Hideous laughter of men

Inspired by alcohol

And who knows what else.

If I complained

It would achieve nothing.

I’d seem a puritan

Or much, much worse.

And there is no

Argument with fools.

So there can be no

Discussion with drunks.

How do I know

If the women are safe?

How do I know

If children are at risk?

Such a sadness

Overwhelms me

On nights like this.

What has become

Of my nation?

Where is the culture

My father fought

To preserve?

When did such tyrants

Conquer our land?

Why do I feel foreign

Washed up on dry sand?

Who is to blame?

Is it my fault?

Then let me die

Before they kill me.