shake your made money
jingle pockets full of change
but for all your wealth
and haunted machinery
there will always be
a kid with dried gourds on sticks
filled with sun-dried seeds
dancing the rain of pummelled
skins stretched on wood frames
weaving patterns of counter
and pulse, free, beyond your claws
such ordinary
ambitions - for cold gold's gleam
and fire rolling free
embellishing night's edges -
tattered scales glinting
beneath moss centuries deep
as if your slow dreams
seeped through lazy armour
to cosset you deep,
deeper into forgetting
absent, avoiding
the way the world failed to match
your terrible majesty
you multiply me
from almost gone to human
some softer magic
hidden in the words you shape
or the fact of you
crouched between light and darkness
afraid of nothing
save anything for yourself
sunlight edges you
begging your elements home
do we smile, perhaps
touch, unsure whether to fear
we're unreal or real
silent, we become, an end
a beginning, more than us
face my enemy
fingers stained with metal stink
and quick transferred muck
from pockets hands and purses
through each of thousands
of transactions difficult
as the month's last spend -
choose food or heat - or light as
whim-bought shop coffee
to use up jingling shrapnel
rather than carry
it home - no wonder monarchs
(engraved foe faces)
don't carry the stuff - the weight
of memories would end them
Cause and effect
Energy naturally brings result
Obsession to transformation
We are capable of far more than we realize
But we tend to figure that out quite late in the game
prowl like you own me
circle slow as if unsure
i'm prey, threat, or mate
move liquid, stalking, through light
and shadow across
the spilt-drink-sticky scrublands
you marked your hunting
grounds a night long in your past
sleek with raw muscle
you want, which may be hunger
or, if i am lucky, thirst
badly loaded cargo vessel
no port will offer harbour
flag, name, manifest all altered
on various occasions
to no avail - no one will own
up to owning what's rotting
in the rusting hulk, nor what bleak
horror will gush and dribble
when that sideways lean starts capsizing
some things sleep can't reach
to heal, some broken things high-
shelved and time dusted
and even if you could heal
could you heal, really,
and be the person you are
now in the wild world
weather worn and wiser, ha!
wise through surviving,
enduring, isn't wiser -
just quitting refused
or not pretty enough yet
to get married to
so i lay my weary head
and still hope for miracles