Ripening

Before reason began

to change my tortured life

I succumbed to passions

that drove me to despair.

Fear, lust, anger, envy,

poisons that possessed me,

smashing my destiny

to shards of sorrow.

I barely escaped

an untimely end

through blind coincidence,

threads of providence

salvaging my future,

allowing opportunity

to  redeem tomorrows.

The Quest for Equity

A mortgage is a contract

between buyer and lender

letting you possess your house

with monthly payments

for twenty or thirty years

until the borrowed amount

as well as the interest

is completely repaid,

Then you own your house.

This allows citizens

as long as they have credit

to buy what they can't afford

and live a better life.

As in all business deals

some flourish, some go broke

in search of the promised dream.

When a few lose their homes

there is little sympathy,

except from friends and family.

No one else seems to care.

When thousands lose their homes

and the credit market collapses

the lords of commerce grow rich

at the expense of the people,

so our feeble congress

gives taxpayers the bill,

while C.E.O's bail out

in golden parachutes.

American Retreat

Violence sweeps the globe

evoking sympathy

in concerned citizens,

but little response

from the overwhelmed.

Iraq, Afghanistan,

cancel the pleas

of Congo, Haiti,

who invoke the help

once shared with the world,

but are facily ignored

by a declining nation.

Declining Days

As the sun begins to set

on another fading empire

that grew with war and theft,

brutally crushing resistance

while calling for democracy,

the world is without pity

for the sufferings to come

in the good old U.S.A.

Despite all our denials

of territorial intent

we held sway over the earth,

proclaiming benevolence

as we consumed the fruits

of other people's labor,

oblivious to our decay.

Rome, Holy Roman Empire,

British Empire, all controlled

the destiny of  nations,

now relics of history

awaiting our presence,

as we rush to join them.

Gary Beck

This Is Crazy Talk

Weird how crazy

can take you in her arms

like a baby,

shake you till blood

pours from your ears

and your bones are as soft

as silver;

but after a few quietened days

peace turns bland

and the silence becomes

a scream and your mind

becomes a carnival

so you need her again,

fingers sewn with razor blades

and a quiet voice whispering

- you know this is real,

don’t you? I am the truth

the world whispers is a lie,

you need me

like to need to breathe -

so you call her up

make a date

soon you’re crying

in her arms again

Avalanche

Snow bruised the black earth

at eight, at nine, 

then ten ‘o’ clock; but by midnight’s bell

it was sliding from the roof

in clumps of iced rain

gleaming under the streetlights.

At two a.m, lacking all sleep 

and all dreaming,

I bare-footed out to breathe

the last breath of another

freeze-dried winter, packing my hands

with dirty ice till they shivered

like the wings of birds

shivering in their sleep:

while the snowball moon 

dripped sour-milk light

I threw snowball after snowball

deep into the snow-black,

hearing nothing of their landfall

over the steady avalanche

slouching from the gutter.

Shuffling indoors to demand sleep

from a bottle, I wondered

how many more mis-fired winters

I might limp through before

the rain froze hard enough

to icebox me away. And while 

the white-toothed moon

laughed at my back

I dreamed of a factory

that stored snow in paper sacks

while winter died,

and my iceberg drifted away.

A Delicate Operation 

Doc, I need a scalpel

to ooze away the fat,

slice through

the anxious membrane.

Scalp the terror

of my own front door,

sever the nerve in my tongue 

that makes it stutter

and creep, prune the dictionary

to a few choice phrases

pared to the brittle bone:

but all you prescribe

are tiny white snowballs,

solid lumps of clay

mouldering at their core.

I need a marksman, 

but instead you fling grenades

into the infected zone,

hoping one of them

takes out the enemy

without exploding 

in my hands. Doc I need 

a scalpel; but you only 

give me a hammer.

Aleyn 

we are the people

born without skin

light rain storms us

words lightning us

breezes dash our ships

onto rocks

we are birds pelted

by spit from trees

your eyes are anchors

we cannot raise

your smiles

barbed wire lashes

your world a cemetery 

your laws a babel

you need us

to try so hard

to come in

but we are the people

born without skin

we cannot bear to loose

the little we have left

so we hide in the shadow

of every raindrop

every punishing glisten

of snow

we attract no reward

if found wandering in the street

all you can do

is judge yourselves

by how little

you leave us alone

In The Black 

I step inside and close the door,

leaving the light switch alone.

There’s a faint blue glow

from the printer by my desk,

a envelope of light under the door, 

but that’s it: I’ve locked myself 

in the windowless office

and stand as part of the gloom. 

The telephone is road kill with two legs

in the air, the computers

microwave ovens with nothing

left to roast: the corner desks 

are fresh-dug graves, those lamps 

bend their heads to rest 

beneath the stars, floodlights so distant 

we’ll never know whom 

they light.

But here I stand breathing out

the light, crying out

look at all this folly you have made;

listen to how fast you make

your heart beat, how deeply

you knife-wound yourself with weapons

the daylight pays you to make.

Why not hide them away

in the backs of those that need them

and come out in the night

to play? I wish I could; 

but they have made me

so well, these daylight men, 

that the only night I own

is here at the end of the day,

when the sun bleats its little light

like a sheep whose dam has died,

and the little pride I feel 

is little enough to stand me here 

in this imaginary gloom, where I fill 

the abyss of promised slaughter 

simply by holding my breath when a stranger

knocks on the door, hello, hello?

- there’s nobody here but me.

Wishing Well

I wish I had no eyes

- the blind man said:

then I wouldn’t raise my brow

when I feel the sun on my lids

and remember how it felt

to walk into a summer morning

and see the rising heat

ripple women’s bodies

like skirts of summer winds.

I wish I had no ears

- the deaf man said:

then I wouldn’t turn my lobes

towards the blur of your lips

and scatter words like seeds;  remember

car doors slamming at midnight,

the whispered kiss of a glove; the blessed silence

when you hush the light

and hear your heart beat

its soft waterfall beat.

I wish I had no legs

- the man in the wheelchair said:

they’re a ballast weight

in a hot-air balloon

I can never throw over, never feel

that one pure moment

when clouds run at you like morning breath

no-one has breathed before you;

and you wonder why skies never have names

the way seas and rivers do, 

and how you might name them

if only you knew them.

I wish I was dead

- the live man muttered: I have eyes,

I have ears, I have legs

but I never see far into those skies,

never hear a silence louder

than my breath; never walk

further than I need to

on perfect summer days

when the rippled sun is bodied heat

and tears freeze before they fall

on my hands, my precious hands;

- my hands are open wide.

 

Ian Mullins