As A Stranger.

Be in this world
as though you were a stranger
unknown to any, not even blood
to speak in a tongue
which nobody hears
and thus ignores
walk barefoot to find comfort
and naked cross all oceans
greet all
as you would have them you
in the wilderness you roam,
for only as a stranger
can you find your true home.

The Raven’s Pity


No more will ravens scream their way
to lynching ropes that swing and sway
though not for want of knotted hemp,
as now the mob is unrepentant
and seek the hangman’s dream once more
of blind injustice to explore
his coward’s heart put to test
upon the voiceless and oppressed,
but even birds of misfortune
will have no truck with fascist tunes
of vainglory bereft of art
and for their gibbet darkened hearts

Beyond The Bull of Mammon

My mortality is Manhattan
in snow cast February
the chill of The Battery
from the cold Atlantic lows.

I join the dark clad lost souls
departing in turn
an elegiac procession
into subway tombs
as the night brushes day away
like death does a life.

Yet the world carries on
as Charon takes my coin
to a dirge played on an old violin
in the aching hands of a youth
tired beyond his years
doomed as I
to this underworld of unrealised dreams.

We are below the living, below the neon suns
which offer no warmth
to those who remain.

My mortality is Manhattan
in snow cast February
and how I, from my tomb..

..yearn to feel winter’s chill once more

The Deluded (a brief defence of poets)

Deluded are we
the lost of humanity
yet be the most humane
because we seek beauty
and evil
in equal measure
to sing of their duality.

Deluded are we
the writers of no wrongs
but righteous all the same
for the light is bright
as is the dark to us
and thus is not one state
more precious than the other.

Deluded we may be
in our insobriety
we are more clear headed
than the stone carved philosopher
whose thoughts
carry the weight of marble
whilst ours, the feathered skies.

Argot

This language of the dark
is debased by words
to speak out loud
would all comprehension dismiss
it is the poetry of touch
of eyes in waiting tears clad
above a sigh
released from parted lips.

This language speaks no disdain
for such crass noise
belongs outside of our Cant,
there is no syntax,
grammar is obsolete
a look, an embrace
and in silence
understanding is born.