For far too long now poetry has been in the hands of a privileged few, made up of intellectuals, academics and middle class liberal bohemians, who with exception of a small minority have sold out to the literary establishment, which brings with it all the coercion and compromise that you'd expect from a corrupt patriarchal institution. The poets who choose to use their words as a weapon against the dominant ideology, are marginalised and ridiculed for not writing 'real' poetry.
You won't find these voices of dissent being studied in schools and universities, you won't find them on the shelves of corporate book shops or in the coffeehouses of the bourgeois , who seek to promote competition rather than cooperation. You'll find them in the raging of the ocean, the howling of the wind, in the eyes of the hungry, in the hands of the oppressed, in the arms of lovers and friends, in the screams from every slaughterhouse in the world.
Poetry like any other creative form of communication seeks to show the beauty that is being killed within us and hopefully show us a glimpse of what is still possible.

I am flesh, blood and bone
I am at the same time
both strong and fragile
I have words to share
I trust you enough
to understand my position
The poets who are honest and sincere
I salute you
To the fakes and collaborators
I hold on to my bitterness
for a more appropriate moment

FAILED DREAM MEETING

Between the folds of fragile dreams
we attempt a union, a meeting at the words rough edges
I lunged into the mist desperate to connect
I felt a stone shift and grow dense in my heart
my arms were empty of you

This night as I creep towards sleep
I have a feeling of cracking stone
that divides into shards that glow with warmth
will I see you in emerald green
floating amongst the most beautiful of horses?

Inside a fine yarn has been woven
a music so tight it traps vibration in dynamos
turning backwards
causing a tenseness that spreads to fingers
that grip axes, spades, pens, and other hands

I make a pledge to always look inside first
to pluck at the yarn
On the border between magic and dream
my passport becomes a rosy amulet
that parts flesh from bone
the quick from the dead

I stood on the edge
knew you were calling out to me
I was afraid
forgive me

ONCE MORE (AGAIN)

Once more the hunger has withered the flesh
Once more the desert wind has sung to the bullet
Once more the shoulder has carried the gun
Once more the sky has held the plane
Once more the churches of deceit have played a part
Once more the sea has cradled the ships
Once more the children play in the empty bellies of tanks
Once more we are draped in the elegant clothes of butchery
Once more our differences are exaggerated
Once more we tolerate the fragrance of war
Once more we are betrayed

Once more this is all i can do
all i can say is that the methods of love
must be applied to world politics
Once more the beauty of the sheltering wing was ignored
Once more the huge devices of death
torture the grandness that is a human body
(my love lives in the creases of your ankles)

Once more this peace was imagined
Once more i yearn for a sharing of this endless cold
hoping that the mosaic of these days
will hold together long enough
so that i may reveal just a fraction of myself
and that you may press a blemished body against mine
until we hardly notice the missing fragments
and the thick twisting flames that dance around our bed

AMERICAN ROOFTOP

Kate takes me up to the roof
"You can see 12 American flags from up here"
Some people are sleeping huddled against
the chipped asphalt
In the day they drink beer
and topple water melons off the ledge
exploding on the sidewalk or the hoods of rich cars

One day the landlord barges his way in
not before 7 or so people have gone running up the stairs
He sticks his neck into the room, looks around stiffly
We don't take our eyes from the screen
"You lot live here?"
"Oakland, Clarke St. off Telegraph" Carlos assures him
The slum lord nods his head in disbelief
tries the door to the stairs
"Whys this locked" he wants to know narrowing his eyes
Carlos drops buttering him up
tells him to "get the fuck out
and while you're at it you can fix the toilet
that you promised to do a month ago"

We stand and smoke Drum looking out over the city
Kate is getting together a benefit show
so a woman in Philadelphia, who was date raped
by her Professor, can pay the court fees
One of the bands can't play
"The drummers quit, it's always the fucking drummers"
and her face sharpens as she blows out the smoke

BURGLARS TREMBLE TOO

I like running my hands over marble statues
in churches and cathedrals.
I like putting dead sea shells
over my eyes pretending to be a sea monster.
I am confused by the sharpness of numbers.

neither is the ancient rule amisse

Doing in the figure of a lamb
the feats of a lion
has been a way of surviving
Perplexed and helpless
down amongst the dust
or in springs of indifferent waters

Oh, let me perish in the fire!
From the cellars full of dark air
up and down the winding staire
is there anybody there?!

If I should see them tonight
let their heads by slickly combed
their blue coats brushed
and their hair so nice
let them come tonight
let them utterly consume me with a kiss

this is how it is for me
is this how it is for you?
It must be different
and it must be strong
If my attempt be so much glorified
I will no longer trust

we are living in a disinherited portion
of a whole
The wind shall not sow
The clouds will not reap
and we will perish in the wilderness

we are unseen
we are unseeing
son and ghost
set up as father
idols of the parasites
spilling from the vaults

you touch me with your noble anger
and within me calls ancestral songs

Mapped on a Blueprint

The shadow boxers dance with their sparring partners
practicing in the hallways and kitchens
comforting family fights
setting the patterns for later relationships
"We hurt those we love the most"
I don't believe in this dysfunction
don't insult my intelligence
Love donates itself to 'the cause'

I appraise it's value
turn it in my hands
to judge what worth it may possess
my blood thick and sluggish with alcohol

nothing yet has been completed
the angels continue to watch over us
listening to our arguements about the dishes
our carried on hostilities
that agitate and bind

while we wait for change to rescue us

INDIAN RICE

ENVY

We salvage what we can
from the tight opinionated vendettas
that are left on the roadside
of our car crash love affairs
We collide in darkness
drive off the jetty
into seas of jealousy
We spin round jeered on by
the on coming traffic
held to ransom
by the mechanics of love.

At the lovers rendezvous
we hold to the meanings
we've cunningly manufactured
settling for the unsettling situation
Every day the love fatigue
searches you out
like a dentist drill
the taut nerve endings
creating weird coastlines
where sultry winds
blow the bed clothes
from the geometry of our shape
you lie beside me
and I try desperately to unravel
the fabric of your sleep

THE DIALOGUE OF BODIES

The dialogue of bodies has it's own propaganda.

THE CHEAT

I pass my hand over your face
the canonized flesh
I am the disbeliever
you the motionless swan
a half open window
brings in the silver air of the dawn
The slack outline of my jacket
thrown over the back of a chair
is proof that I have a life
beyond these walls
The smell of my creed
mingles with your scent
You wake with an unrehearsed elegance
in the mirror
I see something melt then harden
my fingers follow the framework
I know this is more than I deserve
and I'm ashamed

SPECULATIONS

burning disguise
in the naked rage
something bad was fired
it kindles ambition
soaring to the top
half being
part star
floating amongst
the sounds
in need of a throat

hovering over
the foot notes
of a life
coming down to earth
with talons flashing

HOLD ON

The sea is in a wild rage tonight
There is no safe port
The wind steals our words
An unhappy moon shines
I don't understand why we
have to part like this

UNDERNEATH THE CONDITIONING

This is the morning after
the brute without a heart
This is the morning after
the shattered statues
have fallen to earth

This is the day
i raise my voice
against the conqueror's religion
This is the day
i take sides with the animals

This is the night
we embrace each other with hope
This is the night
we change forever

THE GARDEN

She unplugged the phone to sever another level of communication, to further isolate herself from any situation that might increase the likelihood of a conflict. Ever since Elizabeth's accident the tension between their families and each other had grow nearly to breaking point. The realization that now things were different, Elizabeth had lost a physical part of herself. For Finlay this became like a force field that she could not go beyond. An emotional barrier that would not permit her to feel the other womans pain. This had been the hallmark of their relationship. Two years ago Finlay had told her parents that she and Elizabeth were lovers.

"Look darling you're very young you've got your whole life ahead of you".

Her mother turned away sobbing into her hands.
He enclosed his wife in the crook of his arm, her face looked as if it was burrowing into his chest or else it was somehow being sucked in, absorbed by a greater power and authority.

"You're trying to destroy us"

She stands in the garden a green hose pipe lays stretched and uncoiled across the lawn. The colours soothe her, the yellows and greens of the tomatoes. Some resting red and swollen on the loamy earth drawing in the last rays of the evening. The leaves of the corn seem to visibly relax themselves and hang like tired arms. The fanned out leaves of dusty purple cabbages, on which slugs have chewed intricate lace-work, are frozen in the scattered light. They resemble huge marzipan roses. The stillness here is comforting, it is not like the eerie calm of a factory that has ceased to function where the machines stand idle with a silence that is sinister and demanding.
It is the tranquility of things growing. Here there is a connectedness, a harmony that effects her self purpose. When she works in the garden the rhythm of the day changes. The forced exhilaration of the city becomes intolerable.
She knows her father has probably tried to call her by now. She resists the urge to plug-in the phone.

I BELIEVE MYSELF

His breathing is shallow and out of rhythm
eyelids as thin as petals
the light presses through the darkness
and pries them open

He changes position
scratches where he thinks it itches
it's like he suddenly forgot how to do it
can't imagine ever sleeping again
and the night is just there
it's exaggerated length stretching off
into the stuffy distance of the room
He rolls over onto his back
stares up at the ceiling
the blank eye of a shark
that never closes
He has reached the point
where something must be struggled for
it is familiar but it is of no comfort
a cold stain of breath on his shoulder
an ageless and endless fight

NIGHT FACES

During the night, faces i thought i'd forgotten push their way into my sleep. The silent wrinkles between my thumbs begin to sweat. Nothing keeps happening. The bland optimism of the morning sunshine makes it harder to conceal my bitterness. Everything falls short of my exceptions, but i can always depend on my enemies.