Muse

I am Lorca’s iguana,
Kafka's spine
Schopenhauer’s sloth,
Rimbaud’s barren love child.
I am Blake’s opium stain,
Burroughs needle
In the grove of the vein,
Ginsberg’s anus,
Kerouac’s road,
Millers Capricorn
Hot white load.
I am Wordsworth’s daffodil,
Hunter s Thompson’s
Little white pill,
Sartre’s word,
Poe's death bird,
Sextons lover,
Bukowskis' another.
I am Waldons log,
Dylan’s dog,
Hughes crow,
Plath's sweet low.
I am Elliot’s wasteland,
Beatrice’s snow-white hand,
Carrols Alice,
Neruda's phallice.
I am Jims nod,
Nietzsche’s god,
Gibran's east,
Yeats rough beast,
Ownes doomed youth,
Rilke's truth,
Huxley’s mage.

I am my own blank page.

I lost my identity today

I lost my identity today.
It slipped away,
like a wiley dog
on a thin leash in the park.
It didn’t even kiss me farewell,
like an infidel lover
leaving in the midst
of a hot stale night.

I searched everywhere,
picked every star apart,
smashed every glass to pieces.

Others told me I’d find it-
in the bottom of an empty wineglass,
the last drag of a joint, the fizzle
of LSD on my tongue. I’d find it
in the puddles on cheap city nights,
in the crystal splinters shattering my nose.

Friends offered to lend me theirs,
sometimes I’d steal from strangers,
running down the street with
their identity clutched in my fist,
like a bright woven scarf
flailing behind in the wind.


But draping it over
my bare shoulders
was like wearing
a silk slip in the rain.
Clinging, chilled to the bone.

I’ve got used to sleeping alone,
standing naked in supermarket queues.
And when people ask about me,
who I really am.
I shrug, letting the labels be rain
sliding off my back,
forming puddles, mirrors
on the floor,
to watch your reflection
grow empty.

Where are my Dreamers?

A man rakes leaves into a young woman
Bound silently to accomplishments.
All hail the American night,
These monstrous angels run,
An appearance of the devil,
Explosion of birds.
And I came to you
Androgynous, liquid, happy-
As the drowning man.
Bitter winter blessings,
Clothed in sunlight,
Clustered in watchful terror.
Come disciple
Does the house burn?
So be it.
Drugs, sex, drunkenness
Battle
Earth, air, fire, water.
Everything human
Fence my sacred fire.
I am guide to the labyrinth,
I fear that he has been
And will not come again.
L’america
It was the greatest night of my life.
Midnight moment of freedom.
‘O god’ she cried
Of the great insane.
Poet of the call girl storm,
Rhonda-
She looked so sad in sleep.
The day I left the beach
The diamonds shone
Like broken glass.
Grand highway,
Hour of the wolf,
Voice of the serpent,
Velvet fur of religion.

What are you doing here?
Where are my dreamers?
And the walls screamed
Poetry, disease and sex.

For Jim Morrison

When Beatnike Die

We spent the summer drifting
Like dry rot on the lake.
Our dreams hanging over,
Drooping on the boughs
Of willow trees as adolescence
Passed us like a cloud.

Then later your mother
Fixed the lemonade,
That we replaced with wine,
And set out on each others hearts
With knives and forks to dine

Each day burning out
Like the choke of cheap cigars.
The smell of mildew,
Of you, damp on my pillow,
Kept me restless through
The listless storms of night.
And the faint glow
Of dead end stars,
Kept me burning
In your sights.

We spent the summer chasing
Sparrows that we thought were doves.
Trailing our fingers in puddles,
Making ink blots on the carpet,
And talking idly of love.

Then later your fathers’ winter
Crept up into your blood,
And even the kiss of Isis
Couldn’t pull you from his touch.
Like a dead leaf released
From the trees, blown out
To be a sailor on the lonely
Mans blue seas.

I spent four springs waiting
For the lamb to be reborn.
I thought I’d picked the root,
Instead I chose the thorn.

Dance of Budapest

The sky flashed white

Burned black

Then cracked.

We were in the park

Watching the Samurai

Dream with death.

The rain stripped bark

Dogs crawled in the mud

But calm to the storm

The Samurai stood.

We ran for shelter

Under the carousel

All around us

Thunder fell.

You placed your hand

On my thin green dress

And so began the dance

Of Budapest.

Sow of Dreamless Sleep

The stone forest breaks beneath my feet,
after I stole away from the drunken feast.
Sick in my heart, Sartre's nausea
and the mirror of Narcissus reflected
in an empty wine glass.
Away, away
into the arms of the ancient ones,
my wooden ancestors who serve me silence.
Bone of bark,
the broken body of leaves,
who reach for me with splintered vine
and from my light shot eyes black out
a falsetto pale blue sky.

And in these woods,
away from man made desire
and loose lipped gyre,
do I take my waning self.
And in the darkness do I stumble
across the beast,
that sow of dreamless sleep.
A boar, that ghostly apparition
stood at the door to hell.
The black blood of flies
buzz around its carved iron face.
It's listless grin,
that hideous mask of holocaust nature,
of leathered skin.
A body hot and salty to the touch.
Whilst I
A stone cold silhouette
against the depth
of time
and space.

Prom Queen

With your withered violets,
drowning in the marsh,
amongst the trash of lavender
and bones of peach.

Cramming mud into
cock kissed cherub lips,
now your dress wrinkles in the tub,
opium stitched wrists come undone.

Rose thorn snags between your legs,
beneath the bridge you drift,
in this, castrated white dress
torn from the breast.

Playful as a kitten
you dangle the kitchen knife,
soft shades shatter the blade.
Red hair the flame of youth.

Ophelia, erotomania,
watch the moon hit your windowsill,
that uncracked ovary,snow of sin,
that bounces off decaying skin.