On a top floor balcony I sit
in our great east coast city
as the night fades into day
among concrete business monoliths

The last few visible stars fade
into skies turning slowly black to gray
all silent save a lone street cleaner
slowly chugging down empty streets

Sun still drowned by tattered ocean
although under lighting horse tail cirrus clouds
with a soft saffron glow
alongside cris-crossed contrails

She's empty, a recepticle ,translucent.
No obvious personality ,
Deconstructed.

She is battered and bruised
Misused.
Frightened to emerge.
terrified he might see.

Playing dead, guarding
her sanity.
defending a personal reality.

Recieving body blows,
crushing all self esteem.
Grinding her to a tiny nub.

Tiny crumb of self
remains, .Something to hold onto.
When all else has fled.

Deafening waves of blood
Pounding in my ears
The quiet noise
Sudden darkness fills my eyes
Rising on the flux of my panic
It was the clatter of my clutter
Flowing in rushing rivulets
Down the banks of my life’s stream
Washed to the brink
Of eternity’s open maw
The crash cart enters
Harshly inducing
My reentry into the now
Briefly dead
But now reborn
Giving me two birth dates

* Due to a stomach ulcer, an artery burst. I died and was revived. This is my first poem on this experience. Cat.

Coal-bright heat
pulsates a primal beat,
this light burns white
in the squalid night.

The windswept fury
in a drunken flurry,
toppled kerosene lamp
leaves the table damp.

Morning slips in sly,
waking the bleary eye;
pollen grain breezes
peddles raucous sneezes.

The need for your acceptance
will usually keep me quiet,
but not today.

I feel weak, but strong,
alone and surrounded.
I feel left out, expected,
dearly loved and neglected.

But if someone,
anyone, can hear me ...

I want to be seen and forgiven,
in control,
yet out of my mind.

Lost, found,
locked in
and locked out.

I want to be anonymous,
but who the famous talk about.

I want to be remembered and forgotten,
and one day, one glorious day,
accepted.

i only heard a sound that day,
day went out with silence;
sound followed.

songs of angels fell,
my listening ears fancied them well.

i only heard a sound that day
a few clouds spotted
with birds flew over,
upturned
faces listening--
small wind blew through
blue-green pine needles,
sky turned grey.

i only heard a sound that day,
lonesome
and glad for it.
sound of quiet laughter
children make
at play.

I see them now:
Mother and Son:
Some distance from me,
Partly hidden by one
Of a dozen Formica
Partitions that lull
And con…

Partitions that lull
And con
Middle-class matrons
And young lovers on trains
Into a false
Sense
Of privacy…

Lulled into that,
Fair, forty and fat,
She holds her unreluctant cherub
In an embrace that
Is very,
Disturbingly
Familiar…

We had an old kerosene-based
water-heating contraption.
The release valve was on the roof,
just above the kitchen.
The water when it got too hot,
especially in the summer
would bubble noisily onto the tin
annoying my poor mother.
So one phrase from our mum
we heard many times a day
There goes that damn kero stat again,
in exasperation she would say.

Youthful vigour buried in history.
Forsaken by her kith and kin,
Languishing in mute agony.

Reversioned poetry

Naïve or Unassuming!

A great deal
For your everlasting and solid support
As always,
albeit I impose positivity
In all human beings
I at times portray a default
though it may just be
An act of lack of wisdom

And

As they always said
Naivety meaning stupidity
but I learned as time lapsed
ere I really collapsed
I became unassuming
Slightly a shade better
Than being gloomy