The Jester

The words retreat into a distant place

and I can’t find a single thing to say.

All poets must eventually face

the silence of a thoughtless, wordless day.

The bull is sleeping, quiet in his shed.

The peevish lover shrugs and folds his hand.

The great white shark stopped swimming and is dead.

My castles have all crumbled into sand.

Alone, the jester howls his madcap song

for he’s the part of me that will not sleep;

that carries on as though there’s nothing wrong,

blows raspberries at me when I want to weep.

I know he is the part of me that’s best

and yet today I wish he’d let me rest.

The Dreamer

In poetry we hide our dreams

so nothing’s ever what it seems

and though it feels this meter’s tight,

between these iambs, there’s a fight -

two lovers sing their sunken themes,

his songs are whispers, hers are screams;

she shakes him but he still daydreams

of endless lovebirds taking flight

in poetry.

She has her sensible routines,

grows bored of his romantic schemes

and yet, too often, in the night,

she dreams of fictions they could write,

her bedroom lit up with moonbeams

and poetry.

Night Crawlers

Inside my dull head

words whirl out of orbit -

thoughts buckle together

centipedes churning

parallel lines

sharp as black flints

burn as they fall

rhyming like mirrors

the gravity of you

rearranges a blizzard

builds a man from the snow

provides a fresh carrot

Ophelia

Ophelia, your burning heart

gives off more light than heat

but even though we are apart,

I hear its mad drumbeat.

Ophelia, I do not know

which of us is insane.

You beat me up with great gusto

yet know I love the pain.

Ophelia, I think you’re great.

You handed me a match

and told me to self-immolate

so you could hide and watch.

Ophelia, my burning love

gives off more heat than light.

I hope that it is just enough

for you to think I’m bright.

Ophelia, you will not drown

if you come swim with me.

Instead, together, we’ll sink down

in love and poetry.

The Contents of this Sonnet

It’s fourteen lines, ten syllables in each.

It has its turn, obeys those ancient rules

reluctant boys don’t listen to in schools

but there are many things you cannot teach -

the meanings hidden deep beneath the words,

the things which just the two of us can see,

the secret story told of you and me.

The words themselves are for the fucking birds

who only see the beads and not the thread;

who hear the meter, not the beating heart.

They only understand what can be read

and even if they tore these words apart

they would not ever see what goes unsaid:

you’re always at the centre of my art.

To Bang a Nail

I see a nail, I bang it in.

I contemplate the daily news.

A steady hand, a jutted chin,

and when I listen to the Blues,

I only hear a strummed guitar

and some old black guy wailing.

I drive a boring family car.

How I love to bang a nail in!

But now I’ve read some poetry,

deep water is disturbed somewhere -

I watch the wind dance in a tree

and find I’m thinking of your hair

and how it dances in the breeze.

My steady hand begins to shake -

Why should I stop to look at trees?

Why does the Blues make my heart break?

And in a rose I see your face,

each passing cloud’s a ship in sail.

I find I’m staring into space.

Ah, who has time to bang a nail?

For now I find I’m writing too -

at least one poem every day.

Ignoring what I ought to do,

reality drifts far away.

It gradually occurs to me,

as all these clouds go sailing by,

I’ve lost my mind to poetry

and when I hear the Blues, I cry.

Perhaps this is the poets’ curse?

A fragile mind of grief and woe

which feeds on chaos for its verse.

I think of Plath or Lowell or Poe

whose dismal stories are so sad.

What spectres were they fighting?

Did writing poems drive them mad

or does madness drive the writing?

The Birds

I’ve been in love too long

with a scoop of empty air

to hear a voice that isn’t there

sing tumultuous birdsong.

A bird poised at the edge of a wood

made everything a toy.

She slit her own throat, singing,

to beguile a passing boy.

He bent to dip a feather

in a drop of her spilled blood

but when he came to write of her

the words flowed out as mud.

I have been swallowed by my own heart,

sober and fever-less at last

and everywhere

confused crows on windowsills

contemplate tapping.