flat.fish.flesh

Unfettered so unmeasured joy
is by its nature innocent
and ever young, just like the boy.
A mystery prize, though ready spent.

Can daily grief articulate
the count of love so ready meant,
then add the lines and calculate
the final sum of that which went?

As since there be no written mark
by which to gauge his handsome height,
the eye of love need not be clerk
to weigh a line that’s infinite.

And in this finite field of ours
there sure resides unbounded space,
the silent smile that age devours,
not hemmed by either hour or place.

A blue country sea
of war town bordered water,
internecine slaughter,
perches by pine tree.

Summer sea of old,
after work is done,
basking in the sun,
all its fish flesh sold.

Salt flat sea of gales
blows your voice away,
in the setting spray
fills your ancient sails.

Shitty sea today,
cited by these walls.
Hear the final calls.
They all drown by day.

Star black sea at night
etching out its mark,
shooting in the dark
cool deep waves of light.

Echoes of those distant paths
which wish has washed away
have cast their final sunset nets
and caught one word today.

When all the fanfare falters
and drum’s begun to slow,
the heady light keeps falling.
It dims and turns to go.

Forget about today’s tendrils
as you salute the sun.
Lift up your head. Throw back your hair.
Ignore the stuff undone.

The quality of life is such.
One day is but a mark
smudged out on every gate and tree
as light descends to dark.

Then run a tongue round word again.
Impress its pressing din.
Dip deep into the old worn world
its contents to take in.

And practice well the noise to bark
as time to voice it grows.
Raise up a song to utterance.
Why then you can let go.

That last year was my last year as
innocent death virgin.
Unpenetrated by the loss.
Unstuck by deep dark pin.

This public house stands testament
to a sweet time ago
and it’s still close, a corner bar
to my old man and ghost.

My first love was a first love,
a one that does not die
but keeps on coming back to me
along, along the line.

Each street in town is friend of mine.
I’ve known them all this long.
And memory is buried deep
in bricks and walls and song.

Every Tuesday’s Newton’s birthday.
I’m sure you must know why.
His fruit fell down, remember,
that day his bird didn’t fly.

Each and every Wednesday’s woesday.
It’s the same song all of the time.
That day? Which day? Blursday? Huh?
It passed just fine.

Unday, Bluesday, Moansday, more.
They all form an orderly queue.
Coming around, with every week,
to spend them again and anew.

How do you measure what you lost?
Not in days nor rhymes.
Why must you be quite so abrupt
when writing out these lines?

The season’s sickness takes its wholesome hold
as rash of green breaks out on Winter face.
Pink buds declare a pox on all that’s cold.
Frost’s bones are broken by the Spring embrace.

A plague of light injected as vaccine,
to resurrect the corpse of last year’s youth,
infects the flesh of artery and gene
to spread the word about life’s lived out truth.

The new borne tale, well told to old born ear,
discovers new instalments to the fable
are published by a fist of frond and fear
that stamps its mark wherever it is able.

Rose blooming jaws of cursing skin and breath
cough up the germs that bring a life to death.

The stuff that I spat out at height of night
would better be well felt than understood.

Mad skin does not check what it tells the light
to mask it from the world beneath a hood
but twitches to the rhythm of some deep
and unfrequented parlour of the shoals.
Enticing us with presents we can’t keep,
it bursts and blushes out in feeling coals.

Not noticing how I perceive your bones.
These darkly hidden blues contain its tones.

If it be true that when you left
you took a part of me,
then surely too, it must be so,
in me some of you be.

Is it that slice that wakes at night
and wanders until dawn
or handsome chunk of mad cap life
that rants and raves with scorn?

That frame we hung about the world
that we might clearly see
how things are actually done,
not as they claim to be?

In tears that fall from time to time
as do befall us all?
In each of those fine words you chose
still echoing down halls?

Defiance of a world unjust
in ways that show our care?
Do I myself wear gleeful grin
because you stitched it there?

This rule does not only apply
to me but all you too.
To everyone that sparkles still
with light that’s due to you.

So is it true? You have not gone?
Who do I find with me?
When walking round this city’s streets
in me some of you be.

Since I have built myself a hidden jail,
tall sided room of shade, of lived out lust,
cemented every keyhole, jammed each door,
so shield my auld not passing love, I must.

Not covered out of fear or shame or doubt
but guarded from the bleaching of the clock,
is this pristine collection of a life
that gains protection here behind this lock.

A cage to capture that which passes on
and gag a calling voice least it should break,
that drains an earthly sun before it rains
its rays upon the memory you make.

Fine trove that keeps you here and lasting on
yet truth be told, the treasure, it has gone.

Today we aimed to gain a kingdom wild,
tall stack that towers above the rolling surf.
We climbed up hill and rock of green soaked isle,
a honey scented world of flower and earth.

Above some gulls cried high and circled low.
‘Unruffle please this world, you city boys.
This life of cloud is ours. Be gone. Yes, go!
Fine feathered lords rule here. We are not toys.’

Scrambling on and up to hidden peak,
our visit was to honour that steep land.
Doing battle with both wing and beak,
their stares were there to scare us back to sand.

We left them to their cliffs and rugged nests
and glad of our retreat, us urban pests.