This blog

Poetry is not something that I claim to be any kind of expert in or master of; it is simply something I engage in when I'm taken to do so.

Given that I've had neither time nor motivation to write something for almost two months now, I guess the moment of writing the current crop of pieces has passed. I'm not sure when I'll start again.

So instead, for now, I'll post a few poems from the last big poetic outburst I had, back in 2000, and leave the blog rest with that for a while.

The first piece is Lost Taxis, from which this blog inherited its name. This poem epitomised the moment I was living in back then, where it felt like so much was moving away from me (love, work, health, friendships, family... even my home) and I didn't know where I would go next. Then, as now, the future was unclear and I had regain direction in my life.

Lost taxis
She packed her bags and mine
Closed the door and climbed
Into the ready and waiting taxi
That drove her away from me

I stood on the well-worn stoop
Considering how quickly her cab
Became a lost snapshot amid
The hundreds I saw that day


Cut
Blunted
By wooden
Words she
Tumbled
On my fire
Choking
The dying
Embers I
Had kept
Breathing
For her


Pills
Breath rides out slowly from my ravaged chest
Spilling thickly into numb air
Which I pull back in to seal my heart’s fate
Crushing it deeper into end’s maw

Wound too tight, an old clock bought last week
To be broken by this fool boy
Learning to live with a man’s fear of life
And how sharply it falls away


Thought
Silence hangs across this town
Like disconnected phone lines
Scoring fine, black boundaries
Between our heaven and earth

Where once crackled a million
Hot-charged moments there lies
Desolate in deaf summer heat
A bleached, tattered phone book

Noticing the wind teased leaves
I stop, caught by static shock
Sent running fingers on my neck
As once, I remember, did yours


Call
I saw dawn this evening
Clipping light
Around the telephone’s edge
You spoke

Sent child-like streams soft
Spilling through as
I fumbled for a cup
To save


New
Sliced white sunlight fell over
Her body as I drifted into
The room from a warm sleep
Filled with dreams of hungry cats

She is there now, burnt onto
My eyes by that brilliant sun
Resting softly on her naked
Skin I had dared to kiss awake


Dive
I reach blindly for you
Hands loose in the rain
Fumbling numb with cold
Air rushes into me as
I gasp
Shocked with the force of it
Skin death-white
Under the faint moon
Cracking in shrieks of
Sudden lightning
Blasted as rock
Whirling and stumbling
All at sea on the solid ground
Whipped and tackled by wind
Washed away, drained
Blood peeling from me
Turning again
Calling
And, wonderfully, you are there
Soft and steady
With your coat on fire
Eyes catching the light
Before drawing out its soul
To drink it deep
Curling pools of dark
In the night
Teasing behind
Flying strands of hair
Hands outstretched
From long and winding arms
Blazing a trail
To your body of water
Begging me to dive in
Stripped bare
Breath-taken
Lips cranked shut
Heart asunder
Feet screaming
I do

Tinnitus II

My siren has come
Soft with wolf's eyes
Her velvet embrace
Advanced, unasked

She whispers a song
Melody of eternal love
But I cannot requite
Such sharp passions

Tinnitus

I dropped and broke a TV set
Wrapped its cable around my neck
It cracks and loops a horror scene
And rings my ears with dying screams

I drag that box towards middle-age
Ceaseless whistling that never fades
An old dog hounded by howling noise
Wrought on nights out with the boys

Seasons

The rotation of a sphere on its axis,
Nudged to tiny oscillations

Spins life's fine thread; birth and death
In four revolving seasons

Hard-husked snow and weeping ice
Pin-sharp purple mornings

Spiced green buds on knowing limbs
The nagging lust of dawn

Wheat fields blown in rolling waves
Summer's glorious furnace

Wool-wrapped ambles in golden parks
A pause to renew our learning

This single ripple in the cosmic pond
Brings nature's tidal sigh

We find our dreams washed therein
And count turns until we die

The submariner

The submariner
Glides deep and cold
Frozen at the helm
Amphetamine stare
Feeling his way by
Long, dead pings

Stars die tonight
As slick, sick seas
Swallow the moon
He rides far below
Isolation melting
Slow and silent

Now fat, dirty heat
Sweat, thick as tears,
Sweetens his lips
He licks them, fully,
In feral anticipation
And begins to rise

Thirty-something

Fear stands beside me
Whispering shot doves,
Unborn children, and
Seven-to-forty in my ear

He breathes slow death,
Dripping pitiful, plastic
Desires in deadly globs,
Blanketing my poor worries

I ask nor offer choice;
Place blank bullets in
His overloaded gun and
Cringe, ugly, as he fires

Winter trees

Tree in winter
To the eye, you stand
Dead to the world

Your lush facade
Long yellowed
You are revealed

Rough and ill-grown
I stare as you sigh
Waiting in mist

For new days
Spring and fresh
Buds promising life

High cocoons

Itemised for expedition and
Packed with precision we
Encapsulate our lives in
Tiny gallery exhibitions

For fear of attention we
Focus on division and
Blanket our resentment of
Our graceless condition

Jetlag

Like silt on a river bed
Minutes gather, drift.
Carried lightly above
I dream of my sleep;
Ache through the hours
That wash around, past

Fragments of reflection
Smashed, set spinning.
Caught and lost, again
Caught... Unrecognised.
I surrender and roll
Overboard to drown

Towers at dusk

With the cold, black eyes
Of ten thousand trophy sharks
The city's towers stand, watching
Beneath grey, asthmatic skies

We called them to attention
Sifted sand, smelted steel; we
Brought the mountains down
In this great, dark intervention

And now, painted pastel-pink
By the ailing brush of winter sun
They crowd lost and lonely
Too long left to stand and think