DEGE

If I compare myself
to Bukowski, Burroughs, Poe or Thompson

Take it not as literary self-aggrandizement

Just that in many ways I made them all look like wowsers

and yet will probably live fifty years or more than any of them.

I've contracted a terrible disease.
Where I expected to be immortal,
I now know I have
DEGE
Degenerative Elven Genetic Enhancement

oh woe
alack alas
I won't live forever,
nor my poetry.

But I'll have a fucking great time doing it.

Limbless trees ashore, like spars puncturing slate grey clouds of sail
Racing with monster white capped waves of leaden green

The heaving motion of rain swept deck
Undulates beneath my feet, like a twisting serpent

Smashed against jagged rock, the sea scatters into needle spray
Brine stings the eyes, and crawls the skin

Breath labors heavily
Yet there is exhilaration in the moment

Defying the power of Neptune
I shout out obscenties

Barren land is visible, through my glass
I claim it as my own

People only view you
from far, far away.
You are the richest painting,
the tops of the tallest trees;
to be seen,
but never touched.

Your arms stretch,
and swell, but never seem to strain,
though the clouds swirl
above your golden curls.
The storm above
just bides it's time.

The rains drop heavily,
on your over-burdened shoulders.
You are solid and strong,
but struggling to raise
the gray mass
that would tear you down.

This thing we share
Has brought me to insanity
If this here is love
I think we invented a mental disorder

At times I fall for the fairy tales we used to tell
Now I think about the hours I wasted on dreaming
And it makes me want to break all my mirrors
See, everybody knew I loved you with my heart and soul
If you couldn’t see that then I can recommend an optometrist

An old man sits on a churchyard bench
with his memories of times long ago.
When he was the Vicar of the church
and the people he’d come to know.

He recalls when he married a couple
on an almost perfect summer’s day.
And how with joy in their young faces
they knelt there before him to pray.

He remembers when he christened twins
who cried the whole ceremony through.
Their mother tried to keep them quiet
but there was nothing she could do.

My dad was a man of many words,
Unfortunately most of them consisted of profanity.
But it didn’t stop him clipping an ear,
or the side of your head, if as children we produced vulgarity.

He would weave sentences so intricate and clever,
constructed entirely of, Fuck, shit and wanker,
that left a person astounded,
that made neighbours scatter.

If a clergy man passed by, the air was azure with blasphemy
and thick with malediction.
he made it quite an art,
And took great delight in his addiction.

The open casements by my bed,
speak the sound of the Georgian shore,
when the moonless black night,
blinds in dark my open eyes.

I can only listen
to the rhythmic lapping water’s edge
on the nearby stones and sand,
saying,
Swoosh to sleep now,
Swoosh to sleep now,

In the whispered shush,
like the small curled waves
seeping back from shape,
I softly curl away,
into my seeping dreams,

`

the old crow
that blotted out the sun
perched upon a fencepost
and made faces
I have only ever seen
with nose pressed
against the pane
as I spied
ochred leaves
straddle the spine
of a willing breeze
to where tomorrow
could not yet be

`

The truth is boring… is it not

What fires, the mind of man incurs,
scheming such an unworthy writ.
Can evil so temper the imagination,
be given over to an uncaring wit.

Crying from high, sounds saintly,
actions are strewn as devilish cur.
Inside can burn an insipid hatred,
control is as always solid, with Sir.

I carry not the burden of genius,
this I forgo for a sense of being.
Feel their blades plunge the back,
turn, look, see cowards fleeing.

The poor new newspaper said
Oh yah
now I can paint the rain
And people will believe me

The richest one said
Oh no
And I can invent people who would support your news
So what do you think?

The poor newspaper said
Cool
Let us play with nuts and dumb heads
The richest news said oh no
Don’t say that
But say
Let us wash some empty minds
and drive the intelligent ones to madness
but
think of how much money we can make
pitting the madness against the void