GOD IS TWO BROTHERS

God is two brothers, one dark and one light,
Riding out Time in a tiny ship;
Half day and half night gives little room;
God knows that a rose, red rose or white,
Is a rose is a rose is a bud is a bloom
Is brown blown petals and a drying hip;
And the length of Time’s budding, blowing park
Walk the arm-linked arguers, Light and Dark.

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

OLD SAILORS

Two tars talked of sealing and sailing; one said with a sigh
“Remember gulls wheeling and wailing, we wondering why,
“And noting bells pealing, sun paling — it vanished like pie!
“And then the boat heeling, sky hailing, the wind getting high,
“And that drunken Yank reeling to railing and retching his rye,
“John missing his Darjeeling jailing, and calling for chai?
“While we battened, all kneeling and nailing, the hurricane nigh,
“And me longing for Ealing, and ailing?” His mate said “Aye-aye;
“I could stand the odd stealing, food staling, not fit for a sty,
“And forget any feeling of failing, too vast to defy –
“Home-leaving your paint-peeling paling too far to espy –
“All because of the healing friend-hailing, the hello! and hi!
“And, with the gulls squealing, quick-scaling the mast to the sky.”

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, August 2008

No No Nse Nse

No
No
Nse
Nse
And things like that
May look like nonsense
But there is
No
No
Nse
Nse

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, August 2008

PHOTO OF A DEAD IRAQI

Hard to describe blown-off-ness of a head:
No head, neck, shoulder – only flopping flesh,
Unfinished ending of a smooth-limbed, fresh,
Strong, naked body on white-sheeted bed;
A tangled, mangled churning; then, instead
Of the anticipated face (serene
As marble statue, Christmas figurine)
Instead, disorganized meat, spilling red.

No face or brains or hair. We’re sick, confused.
The torn-off torso seems to have the calm
Proportions of an adult – look again:
The genitalia of a boy of ten.
“Collateral damage” is the term that’s used.
Beside the body, on the sheet, an arm.

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

SONG FOR PLANET EARTH

The tall trees are so green, so green,

Hidden birds sing so sweet;
And men, women and children are
Starved, raped, and murdered.

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

KNIFE OF NIGHT

The knife of night
Spreads swirls of black and white
Over the slice of here.

The taste is bold:
A pinch of cold,
Spiced with primeval fear.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2008

WHEN LIKE A BRAINLESS TOAD

When, like a brainless toad in the swamp of God’s mind,

The Universe bellies up its throat to emit a cacophony of galaxies,

Who can be sad to know that the raucous noisemaker is merely mortal

And that one day peace undisturbed will return to the swamp of God’s mind?

Published: Ambit 190, UK, October 2007

BAHAMAS

You are my Bahamas,
My land of promiscuous promise,
My exotic erotic erratic-ecstatic strange land,
One of the many unrealistic hopes of my life.
If I could have you, all would improve,
I dream.
I suit your shores as the single-anchored boat that drifts about with the tides.
Your morning glories cover wild bush in vines,
Unpotted, ungreenhoused, unnurtured, untrained, unrestrained.
Droughts are real, with months without rain;
I watch a small rainstorm that comes up and passes nearby.
And real rain washes the soil from the fields and the lawns to the sea,
And storm waves smash up high over cliffs and flood roads.
And in heat-shrill summer
One strip of a palm frond clatters in no breeze
And casuarinas stroke the stillest skies
Most delicately.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2007

POST-HUMAN

On the graphed time-descent of years since birth -
The time-line of my life from birth to present -
The initial line dividing life from nothing
Hangs like a thunder-cloud atop my life
Dividing ME from Ancient History
(That rumored world, alleged before I lived)
And threatens dispossession once again
Through final death if I should make one slip
In seeking to survive to the New Age:
The genome-driven world of nanotech
Which will allow my line to drop forever
Beyond humanity, across starred gulfs,
Into a Universe-wide consciousness:
The interlinked intelligence of all.

Published: Ambit 190, UK, October 2007

BEAT THIS LEVEL

Forget that crap about some God or Devil –
You’re on your own against the Universe;
But till you’re free of our Stage One’s perverse
Orientation, you won’t beat this level.
The Heaven idea is fraudulent, and worse:
Father McKenzie wields a deadly shovel.
Stage Two’s extended life – hard, but don’t snivel.
Stage Three: genetic change, youthful reverse.

You must want Life – must fight Death all the way,
Ignoring social norms, pressure from peers;
Such life will need a gamer’s vigilance.
Your other futures are: ashes, or clay.
And if help’s late, as you slide down the years,
Cryonics is your waiting ambulance.

Published: Ambit 190, UK, October 2007