Weathered Train

I arrive at the station
And
Catch myself
In the glass;
Held by my reflection
I
Ruminate
Journeys past.

Rain trickles down the window
Like
A teardrop
Down a face;
A sterner glance reveals
Some
Idle drops
Out of place.

Raising my hand to my cheek
I
Feel my thoughts
Come to be;
Distantly a voice claims
My
Tears have come
Silently.

I stagger about my spot
Here
To see who
Called my name;
Friends from home quietly stare
As
I see us
Still the same.

On this train from present to
Past
Visiting
An old flame;
Blinking eyes in disbelief
I
Wonder why
I’m on this train.

Those Olive Eyes

Apoplectic lights
Burn and blind
All
Caught
Beneath this
Giant red tent,
Bar Lithuania’s finest;
Gyrating
With all the sensuality
Two teens can bear
(and bare they did
with revealing relish
before
drunken, hungry eyes,
coaxing my own).

Nicotine smoke
Pushed breathlessly out
Of strange lips
By crushed people
Inhaled with relief,
Then;
Second-hand
In its element,
So removing me
To the K-holed
Mind
Of somebody else,
Senseless
(but with more than I).

Faltering under
Those lights’ gaze
And everyone
Looks
Exactly the same
When captured
Within their frame;
The beats beat
Ever on and on
And one faceless fool
Is dragged
From this techo-jungle
Unconscious
By a friend
Foaming at the mouth.

Fear drives
The fearless
And
Fear drowns
The fearful
As one more body
And
Yet more bodies
Get dragged
From this arena
Of sweating ravers
And
Posing DJs:
And I find myself
Drowning in fear.

I twist,
I turn,
I seek to escape
Because
Those beams of light
Sear my being
And tell me
To tell myself:
I do not belong here.
But
As I struggle back
A hand clasps mine
And I am
Held
By a vision of her.

Sobriety
A gift,
Here and now,
When through
The blinding
Clarity takes form –
And she is beautiful.
Momentarily
Time stands still
As she comes
Into focus:
The caring touch,
The sweet smile,
The delicate disposition,
And those eyes…

But I am
Shaken
From my reverie
As bodies
Begin to
Collapse again;
Lights return
Seething
At being shunned
And
They cut through
Us –
Held hands broken,
The signal crystal:
This isn’t my fight anymore.

But
She looks at me,
Tellingly,
With those
Big ‘round
Olive eyes
Catching all the lights
Luminously,
And something
Commonly shared
But
Sincerely rare
Becomes suddenly clear:
She believes in me,
Utterly and irrevocably.

The Silence

There has been silence

Deafening from my pen

In recent months –

A tumultuous silence,

An agitated silence,

A frustrated silence,

An inevitable silence –

Brought on by inaction.

Just as life deadens when

It seems finally ready to alight,

This silence descended just

As I was finding my voice.

It has reigned over me

In silence,

With a silence the silence

Is envious of –

Even though it is of

Its own orchestration.

It is such a silence –

A deprecating silence,

An intimidating silence,

A battering silence,

An intruding silence –

That takes thoughts

Of constructing narrative

And distorts them,

The void bitterly

Betraying its empty spaces

By filling them with

Lethargic apathy.

Months pass by

As Spring blossoms to Summer,

With hours clocking up

In a place filled with

An oppressive reticence

Guised within

Idle conversation.

My pen gathers dust

On the shelf back home

While the silence collects

On my portable pedestal,

Weighing heavily

In my chest,

Getting heavier

All the time.

That silence becomes a drug

Inhaled with

An addict’s relish

Through the ear in the dark;

Its embrace easily accepted

Because it means

Taking flight

To a desk in my room

Without a license,

Within isolation.

But it is at a festival –

Exposed,

Where silence is vapour-thin,

Mythical,

Without form or shape

But with its participants

Nonetheless –

That it becomes progressive again,

Twisting into spiralling

Columns of sudden noise

That my weakened wrist

Struggles to record perfectly.

Five minutes of production

Beneath a sporadic ray of sun

Within my tent

And all is well once more –

Because silence only ever

Becomes its bearer’s end.

The Dancing Lantern

The Dancing Lantern

Parts the soaking crowd

With one blinding wave

Of his right arm.

Sweat clings shirts

To bodies

As the masses dance

In rhythmic homage

To this faceless god

Walking amongst them,

Arms out-stretched,

A green beam of light

Arrowing from his eyes,

Above the revellers.

Dressed in plastic white,

Shrouded in

Miscellaneous light,

He is Jesus incarnate:

The women flock to him -

Seeking to freeze-frame

This second-coming

Systematically recurring -

While the men

Gaze enviously on,

Wishing to have

His occupation,

The best job in the world:

Uniting the mindless

As one prophetic vision

Of fist-pumping colour.

Moon Shadows

There was sincerity in serenity

As laughter filled the air

On the beach that night.

The world sat back

And simply lit our way

With a blazing night light,

Casting moon shadows

On the hilly sand around us.

And where we would

Normally have fumbled

In darkness to move,

We could see every face,

And each attached shadow.

The ease of our flow

Was the gain of our youth,

With our coming-of-age

A pass into the doldrums

Of the dancefloor.*

We always meant to go back

And commemorate our

Old haunt with one more session,

But the lure of cheap drinks

And strange people

In the conformity of clubs

Is too strong for the thirsty.

The beats operate

In the sea’s stead,

The rhythm bringing hope

(a drunken delusion)

Where waves brought peace

(without intrusion).

And there are no moon shadows

Where we go now,

Just lights in strobes

Splintering our lust;

While back on the beach

The moon casts its silhouettes

In fond silence,

Fleeting in form,

Yet with dashes of shadows

Come and gone –

And free.

Always free.

* Oddly a rare retreat sometimes –

Lost from madness

Within more madness,

Only the sought madness

Is unknown,

And better because of it.