I hear the distant drummer now
He beckons me from far away.
Catching me alone somehow,
his rhythm calls me to the fray.

I dare not ask from whence he came
For in my heart I fear the truth.
So I continue to play the game
And console myself with wilting youth.

Oh drummer boy, why can’t you cease
those endless poundings in my brain?
For I’m not ready to share your peace
And I’ll decide when you come again.

Another one lost
One more family, one more friend
But it's me who pays the cost
Although they've reached the bitter end

As the hounds of hell
Lick death
From the souls of my shoes

i recall the rusted hold
entrusted
broken

lah lah lands gates held open

beautiful in its desolate hush
the petals of a summerbloom
slumbering with its dainty head
held aloft by its bowed head

she loves me not

..

Death, it sucks. It sucks for those left living
Those photos, with you and I smiling
They make me so sad, I want to scream
I need to run, to hide, to never dream

There are so many of you gone now,
All stuck in a book, a frame or a box
Friends and babies, pets and a lover
Uncles and aunts, a dad and a brother

Black and white, sepia or in colour
Your faces on my walls, flat under glass
Imprinted in my brain, embedded in my heart
Smiling, paper faces just tearing me apart

A string of words without a tale,
the voices drown in a sea of lies.
A hidden council pulling strings,
the truth denied or led astray.
I see the cracks that grow through time,
the gaps of queries, widen today.

thumps down
her packsack on
the pink phone
in a hurry
leaving home
I did everything
tried to love
but the fires
were larger
the ash consumed
destruction violence
her playground then

a wave and gone
not even a look

Love is a pain
a slap
the rains
that fall cold and
steady
seeping
like the cold
that will blow
stabbing
the beauty haunted
foreboding
exhalted

Celluloid Immortality

Sixteen millimeter memories
smiles frozen in space
ghosts in slow motion
living moments in Time
false resurrections.
phantom epiphanies
tricks of modern technology
keeping the dead alive

Thalia, I look at you with sore eyes

And see the pale beauty that has been washed

From life my own, made fit to be held here

No more than lonely voyeur of your grace.

With raven ribboned hair strands on your face,

In dark allegiance with your ornate eyes

So emerald green that they can scarce disguise

An inner poised exquisite stillness lies.

That breathless, fragile as your porcelain

Visage that holds me here almost afraid

That I might mark, or otherwise invade

the season of romance
arrives
and it comes too
me
like a knock on the heart

for all my words
Im tied
and fumble

leave them in tears
and angry
watch them
walk away
close the door
promise myself
not to open it ever
again

but of course I do
each time
I take the step
further out on the
bridge

the beautiful
and the wind
alone
and empty

...