Words - Haiku

Words are like lava
sometimes a red hot liquid
sometimes hard as rock

Heart String Theory

Dimension 0: From the void , the point of my existence.

Dimension 1: The line - the big I. I am.

Dimension 2: Fragments of being. My mind is split, my heart is broken. Continents drifting apart on a map

Dimension 3: Turning in space. Your image frozen. A collection of movie stills.

Dimension 4: The life I lead. My tube connects with yours, intersecting at stations.

Dimension 5: Choices made. Or not. I married you. I never met you - I turned to pick a flower as you picked another.

Dimension 6: Hairs on an anemone's tentacle. In this life I say hello as I walk past you, arm in arm with Jimi, Albert, Marilyn and Mary.

Dimension 7: The doors of my first infinity shrink to a dot. I don't always find you. The timing is all wrong on most paths in this universe. I die in so many ways.

Dimension 8: Different beginnings, different endings, different infinities, different universes. Mysteriously we are still connected.

Dimension 9: As I lower myself to search for you I crumple and fold, falling from one eighth dimensional infinity to another, forever.

Dimension 10: Nowhere else to go. All our possible possibilities and impossible impossibilities become the dot above the i in time and infinity. Our heartstrings vibrating in the tenth dimension create our subatomic existence.

In the mirror of your eyes I see me.

The Unknown version


Crunchy Weta Version


A fantastic animated overview of the eleven dimensions

The Man Who Wasn't There

For Ashraf and family

I remember walking, then nothing, then
a crack thud cacophony and unholy heat
flesh rent and welded, yielding
macabre meat mash sculptures
carelessy flung upon adze edged mounds
ex-spaces ex-homes ex-lives ex-posed.
With nacrous eyes and metallic mouth I rose.
I noted my legs moved - but not for long.
I collapsed, grateful for the advice to lie down,
and the warm blanket offered.
In the dust, I found myself lost.

What can be named that doesn't exist?

A soft fog dissolves first the edges
then the material of my matter
I am haunted by dim bells and Gregorian chants
A faint scent of dew-bound Magnolia
sweetens my breath and slowly numbs my nose
My hands gently folded,
I rest in peace.

When Words Are Not Enough - Warning:Graphic Reality 1 2 3 4



Save Lebanon

Ringing Of The Bards IV : Let the feast begin.

Welcome to Ringing Of The Bards IV.
Tonight we have a feast of poetry for your enjoyment and consideration. Before we begin I would just like to extend our best wishes to a few poet's family members. To Scheherazade's mother who is not well, to my own father who is in hospital, and to Ashraf's family who have been living in Beirut. Those of you accustomed to saying grace before eating may wish to put in a word.
First up we have Katy who wants to make a special request on behalf of Ashraf. He’s from Lebanon, which as you know has recently been attacked. She wrote a poem for him called Ummi (which is Arabic for mother).
Now, on the table in front of you, you will notice some special Water as provided by Rohn. Abhay has provided some "bread for the family" with his tale The Old Lady From Far.Billy likes his bread buttered but his kids like their's Toasted. Has Shirley provided honey for the bread? Read her poem Things That Sting to find out.
Bob of Average Poet and also a musician is providing ,usical accompionment with his Concert. Between courses Michael P Steven observes "the passing guest, who pauses to admire the music & smell the fancy food.." in his poem Sonnet. The delicacy known as Crunchy Weta replies to him with a discussion of their last dinner get together.
As the main courses are brought out Bryan Coffelt likes his Hearty Stew of Truth Hot! and disgusts all the guests with "famished dogs gnawed on orphan toys". Stonepoem not to be outdone, hints at cannibal treats in the poem Consume Immediately. Talk like this sends Swan reeling and she wonders if Famine is not a better option.
Well naturally with these sorts of conversations going on, talk soon turns to the serious matters of death and wars. Ozymandiaz - "I was building bombsWith thoughts and ideasLighting fuses with words"gives us apocraphyl. The Poetryman from Poetic Justice gives us Echoes of London. Brian talks about Fighter Pilots. Erin responds with a heartfelt Cenotaphs - complete with audio.
Desert brings a lighter mood to our table. Ian gives us a beautiful wobbly green jelly. Travis refreshes our palates with a slightly wicked Cheese Fetish.
Cecilia who has so far graced our table very quietly, suddenly asks if we can See Me - is she talking about the dishwashers out the back when she says
"she doesn’t know
if truth is good
when scrubbed like that"
Read on to find out!
Finally, before we all shuffle out into the cold night air, Ashraf stands and delivers a poignant Reasons and leaves us with the question - Isn't that why we write after all, in order not to feel alone?

Next weeks Ringing of The Bards is being held at Cecilia's place. I also note that the slot for July 29th is still open for a host. Why not give it a try!

In Dependence Of Mass Destruction And Mass Production.

You were a petulant child
When you cut your mother's apron strings
On July 4th.
Free at last
To carve your way
To riches and glory
Through native lands
Yanking God's bells
With chains of black men:
Mass production
And mass destruction.

Now look at you.







Liberty:
Free to bear arms and kill
In your own country
Or any other of your choosing.
Free to ignore the United Nations
And global warming.
Free to consume
Forty percent of the world's resources.
Free trade peddlers behind protectionist doors.

Fraternity:
A brotherhood of multinationals
And arms dealers touting WOMADS
And more rounds of ammunition
Than there are human beings
Per Annum.

Equality:
You have so many kinds
And not so kinds.

Now look at you.

In dependence
On oil
Laws and Lawyers (Oh how you value liberty)
Nuclear weapons for security
Nuclear electricity
Current deficits and alien immigrantry.

WAKE UP America.
Smell the thermonuclear coffee.
Your PRESIDENT'S a bad JOKE.
Get off your LAZY burger buns
And show the world
What a true MAJORITY of AMERICANS
THINK. Mass action.

(VOTE!)

Over the Hump.

Enough navel gazing and grazing.
Name the game then do what you do.
It's time to dance with the flowers
and play with the auras of trees
and focus the will: get on with the giving
and

Drip

Drip

Dripfeed

and bend and stretch and bend and stretch and

Drip

Drip

Dripfeed.

Mad Woman and Dobermen (Apologies to Joe)

For Leigh Who Was There.

She, garbed in velvet dresses
Strawberry blonde her crowning tresses
- fire and ice - sugar and spice
Constructed herself a castle.
A fortress with walls of her own logic
Reinforced by twisted steel.
Below, the foundations,
Dark dungeons of despicable depravity
Where demons lurked and gnawed.
Above, turrets of torments past,
Always on the lookout.
She cherished her precious red jewel
And her trustworthy Doberman
Flawless in her devotion.

Her prince, having pledged his fealty,
Thus boundbyher laws of gangland loyalty
His love always one step beneath her trust,
Watched his friends picked off
One by one
By perceived but imaginary lusts.
On and on ad ultimatum.

The doberman, faithful to a fault,
Channelling her psyche,
Hounded his friends at the gates.
Their visits admissions of guilt
Evidenced by calls to justice
Fear and unfair.

Ironically her logic was infallible. Indeed

The call of his friend
Who'd cried his departure
Was the key to the end
Of this no win disaster.
Humbled by the lessons learned
A man emerged, Scarred and burned.
The princess though tis sad to say
Is none the wiser to this day.

Version By The Unknown


Version By Crunchy Weta

Still Life

Another rainy Macy Gray
music dripping down
tearing, rendering anew
a wine bottle collage
harvests forgotten

Continued writing the book
"Everything I Ever Thought"
Unabridged, unadorned'
a manual of slothosophy
existential reality tactics

As I remember oneness
there is nothing to be relative
time stops and ego dissolves
Yet. There is a fluidity
in the rigidity
of still life.

If I knew Then...

Or: Occaional snapshots from a journey through the heartlands of old poetry.
Sometimes you do it..have a cringefest revisiting old poems. It's like reading an old diary, complete with secret marks to hide your innermost fears - should the diary ever fall into the wrong hands. I have just undertaken such a journey after reading a recent post in the most excellent Po'et`ship. You are invited to take this journey at my own peril. It's a collection of poems from the late 70's through to the mid 90's. They are snapshots of moments in time - not a continuum and hardly reflective of a fairly full life! There are transitions from naive innocence through to a hardening and cynicism, with a glimmer of redemption. If other peoples poems about their love and life bore you STOP NOW!
It is with much embarassment and humiliation I give you...

If I knew then what I know now,
I wouldn't have felt a thing....

1
Like a newborn
I couldn't walk
But you led
You lent your hand
Over new ground
We moved
Together

Your questions were my answers
I sat there, sure, certain
Nothing was said straight out
In the open

Like stars
We had followers
And advisors
Like the moon
We were in view of all.

One day
When together we are alone
We will talk
Not of tides
And breathing
But of this eternal thing.

2

I'm glad you don't wear a digitl watch
Where would you find the time?

Your delicate wrist has been wrested away.

The face I'm wearing says shockproof
Don't believe it
Nor waterproof either
Definitely not waterproof.

I wonder who is telling you what you can wear.
Does nothing seem more precious
Than the hand that holds the whip?

3

As the days grow longer
Lepidoptera Socialus
Emerges from her chrysalis
Gracing our calendars
With clockwork predictability
She traces her path
Across my heart.

4

These nights I'm lying here, it's alright,
but sometimes I wish you'd ring
just to say hi how are you and
how has your day been?

These nights I'm lying here, wondering
am I just an acquaintance, a casual
John saidyou can tell a friendship:
It's when someone seeks you out.

These nights I'm lying here , thinking,
every once a week (twice when I'm lucky)
we drink in the city refinements and supper
afterwards the desserts, such desserts!

Those nights I lay here, contented,
until the next night when nothing happened
no call, no letter, no I was just passing by
and I decided to drop in.. you don't mind?
As if I would!

No, if only you would impose (in the nicest sense)
Ask something of me, let me sense some continuity.
One night you said you were selfish with your time
Am I selfish wanting it? Perhaps I am.
But its all I ask, though not my every once a week
-please not the convenient packaged every once a week.

These nights , I'm lying here
Awaiting those rewarding touches, awaiting
Your reaches, your requests, your lips,
Awaiting release of our acquaintanceship.



5

Oh God, he gasped. I see colours
through a haze of black and white
Beckoned by the glowing vision
he ran, stumbled and fell at her feet.
Unperturbed by the swirling mass of sterility
Entranced by her majical movements, he smiled
I love your colours. What else was there to say?
Her eyes, her smile, her body.
He felt that joyous, exultant energy
emanating from within her shores
That energy, probing, dancing, touching
and expanding his own.

Then she saw through his mask
standing there, how he was
He felt not the icy blast of exposure
but an exciting pleasure
liberated of the sweaty suffocation
that was his mask.
He felt the freedom of a kindred spirit.
Distorted realities caved in around her
pulsing out, washing through him.

A sun became a supernova
exploding outwards upon itself
to become a black hole
but it's light goes on forever.
Inside the black hole
one becomes a spot in the void
bathed by the original light.

They exchanged words
comfortable but unnecessary
They shared the vision of the octopus
and acknowledged the destiny
they both knew.



6

O wicked lady, what sport were they to you?
Don't you think I understand the things that you can do.
Remember then the golden rule
The best at games will play the fool.

I've been down these long hard trails
Tasted wood and harnessed nails
Baby if you love me make me cry.

It's easy now to laugh and play
Don't really care, same old day
Baby if you love me make me cry.

Don't let me drift between sea and sky
Make me freeze burn wet and dry
Let's travel to our utmost.
I make you laugh , you make me cry
I make you live, you make me die.

7

Where do you go when everythings the same scene
when the cynic, not looking for love, sees all clearly.
Is there a new thrillto kill the boredom, blow the insanity.
A bar woman with big tits, skintight arse hugging hot pants,
a drug with no end, magic with power, lips and a tongue.
Someone uglywho doesn't care, eyes that know
Someone beautiful without fear, who likes to swallow
Hell burns eternally in my cock. Love gets boring.
What is romance when it all becomes a game
when I don't even care that I don't know your name.

8

Soon time to settle. Always known it
wan't forever. It was fun...
had to be done.
Now it's going
don't want no fuss
Soon its just the two of us
as good as all we've known
Its not really giving it all away
embracing it, it's a place to stay
Regret as a concepts gone, cos now
I know I'm moving on.


If you are still here.. not very pretty I guess. If I knew then...