Pain. A poem.

Pain is my best friend. He lurks in fibre and ligament, playing hide and seek amongst time-worn bones and weary blood. He enters my thoughts and hopscotches through my brain, tugging on discontent and dreams better left alone. He wanders through my cells, arteries, and veins, grasping at the walls of my heart in a gentle bear hug of regret. He is the one friend who will never leave. Eventually, he will set the table and dine upon the last of me. My first book of poetry, The All or the Nothing, is available now as an e-book from most … Continue reading Pain. A poem.

Bliss. A poem.

Today, she gave me bliss. I was confounded but content, my feet mired in tar, holding me firm. My mouth unfrozen this time, heart quickened but not expired. Conversation played across a court; a sporting event, a contest of champions. I would send the ball, she would receive returning service like a tennis pro. So perfectly matched, like two people moulded from the same supple clay of our sculptor’s eloquent fancy. How can such beauty be real? Does it only exist to haunt my dreaming and waking hours? I wanted to profess to her ghost my wants and needs, how … Continue reading Bliss. A poem.

Cel. A poem.

Each day in this cell passes like a film cel, a moment captured in acetate, rinsed and repeated, on perpetual loop. The subtle changes in aspect of each textured frame, a motion blur of constituent parts, every event a cinch mark. If only we could edit our dailies, to make sense of the narrative, to remove the chaff that haunts like a dime-store critic in the background of every shot. The emulsion soon grows thin, the script is pure melodrama and the cues are overly-theatrical. It can’t be saved in post-production. This life, winding in 35mm, fed through perfs before … Continue reading Cel. A poem.

Finish Line. A poem.

Down again, in November showers that wash the sin from my crown. Out walking my black dog in the rain, skirting hills and wither deep. Just another day in here, Under my skin Under the hood Where the engine strains and groans as it drags my weary chassis to the finish line. Where I’m content to lose again, to choose again. And choose life this time. Even with its witless overtures and empty virtue, it holds the one thing that burns like fire and wakes me from my bitter sleep. Continue reading Finish Line. A poem.

All Because Of You. A poem.

That overbearing, all pervasive dark matter, the swollen river that floods my heart and breaks my banks, chokes my throat and pierces my brain stem, that sticks it’s bamboo needles under mental fingernails, creates tattered meat from perilous fortune, twists my will until my spine shatters like crystal and leaves me a pointless fool. All because of you. Continue reading All Because Of You. A poem.

Haiku Friday. ‘Lost Muse’. A haiku trilogy.

Lost Muse. A haiku trilogy 1. Purpose When it takes its leave. Gone: the purpose, the will and the testimony. 2. Black Where do we exist, now that the sun is dimmed, fallow and so spent. 3. Steps What I would give to hold her hand. Another step beyond this despair. My love for the 5/7/5-syllable majesty of Japanese haikus will never dim. As will my longing for my muse, no matter how hard I try to extinguish it. Steve 🙂 Continue reading Haiku Friday. ‘Lost Muse’. A haiku trilogy.

The Sadness. A poem.

The sadness creeps over, a ponderous behemoth, encompassing my lands and being. It seeps into my streams, polluting them with its murky ill-will, making a mockery and a mire. It kills off my grass and trees, turning my greens to blight, leaving animals once proud and determined now abject and homeless; caricature mascots. It crawls over my buildings, infesting every room and board, making inhabitants into castaways with the shore so near, so far. And everything collapses under the weight of its load, a gravity far too serious for this light head(ed) over heels, a Hercules turned weakling, bent knee … Continue reading The Sadness. A poem.