Luka

We walk as if wrapped
in sticky candy floss
You are already there
and all I can do is stare
at the back
of your mother’s neck

Young people everywhere
each one a dagger
into her heart, each one
A reminder of what is no more
and all I can do is look
at the back of her head

(contd.)

It’s been quiet and loud
Both at the same time
So no words came out
Of my brain anymore

But in the sawdust dawn
An image emerges
Of you, wrapped in a shroud
unlocking all that I left unsaid.

What comes out

In this muffled choking
The fear that
I cannot breathe more images
Of what is
Unspeakable

Men thrusting their words
Views and money
Down your throats
Our guts split wide open
As we watch them tear
Down what was

A delicate web of comforting
Lies
That’s what comes out
In the wash

The right buzz

fingers sliding down

the frail

Finding what is

missing

Who are you to judge?

I want to know
What it’s like to be
Inside your head
Without me

#blueskypoetry

Seekers

Lifeboats of hope
In right or wrong

Three steps down
One forward two back
As I navigate

Waters of knowing
From what is
Who was
How came

The wisdom owl
Screaming into my ear
It‘s a lie all a lie
And yet
The nugget must be taken

The Crack (2/2)

Quiet nights
Stormy mornings
I will not hold you back
Farewell my love
You managed to
Slip right through
The Crack.

The Crack (1/2)

Smooth ass floors
Sweeping grounds
The new year holds
Down your promises
Of the last

Can we survive
Another round
On the carousel
Or are we sliding
Into the past.

Fateful as it seems
Nothing makes us falter
Until we get to this
Heads offered at the altar.

(Cont’d.)

Fog (2/2)

As long as I can see
All this
The world will stand still
No turning allowed
The car stuck in the driveway

Jamming hard on
The garden shed roof,
The crickets have
A field day.

Fog (1/2)

As long as I can see
The hand beneath my heart
The driveway shrouded
In picket fences
Fog and mist the shape
Of wrath

As long as I can see
The moor over the desert
The strands of weed
Pulled out of your
Tussled, sun bleached hair

(cont’d.)

Soft nightmares

The ferret in the garden
lock
took me by surprise
teeth flashed brightly
head all cocked
the tiny steps
on my sore soles

When I looked
again
it was gone and
all there was —
a whistle of the
elder flower shrub
as dusk set in

I had dreamt it all.

Seven

Seven rounds
your bullet fired

Six pens
writing my shame

Five drops
of blood seeping through

Four letters
always the same

Three crows
circling over the tree of life

Two choices
none was made

One life
no questions asked

Seven years too late.

Neighbourhood chatter (2/2)

In the room
next door
my love ties his laces
ready to fight through
another day of platitudes
and bureaucracies

In this, my room
I hold up my lantern
thinking of you and
shaping a whole new world
on the unmade bed.

Neighborhood chatter (1/2)

In the next room
my daughter chatters
her way
through streams of stories,
not one like the other,
fantastic realms of possibility.

In the room downstairs
my friend bemoans a
lost love, a life
never lived,
a path now overgrown
with the debris of broken dreams.

It's the end of 2024 and I write From The Mercenary's Den in which words tumble onto the page, pretending to be poetry.

Here we go.