GREAT THINGS ARE WRITTEN


Great things are written in the sinks of low men
Behind cupboards and beneath carpets lie love poems and broken hearts
And below stormy windowpanes there the friends that turn trials into dropped skirts
I have seen an eyeball that has seen men who have made myths
I have seen men who have lain on soft beds with women with hard hearts
And I have heard the story of Sapho’s last parade
Great things are naught but great thoughts
And thoughts are the nougat that is soft and sweet
Like sonnets written by men for boys who play in orchards
Dreaming of photographs of slips and stockings and suspenders and skin
You live and you learn to piss in sinks
You learn and you practice the art of ripping up carpets
Like playing billiards or tearing down pillars
Being reckless and watching wives and guitar players die
Pretending invisibility is a talent that we all would want
Great things have seen days that we could call better
But the wine still comes from Greece and the accordion player he is English
Great things are written in the sinks of men with dirty nails
Holding dirtier souls onto leather shoes
There is, of course, a man who transcribes all the deeds of the present
And he lives in a palace built within a castle’s walls
And he rapes angels and fantasises about the Garden of Eden
Where there were no books or words or judges or pushy maids
I have seen old women with young men tattooed on their breasts
I have seen old men with old hearts drum a young beat
And I have heard the story of the last piano player
Great things are written on sides of mountains
Where naked lumberjacks punch one another for the love of god
Behind a city’s high wall and beneath a town’s low spirit lie books of Hate and Books of Love
A syringe in an arm is the only thing that keeps the banks full
The banks that are full are the only things that keep the curtains open
We are torn but we are pretty
We are open but we have secrets
We are in bed in a garden
We are underground, underground.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lake Daff-Dilly

Image
Fish on the water Scales floating back and forth Grey clouds hanging high White clouds beneath A naked man asleep Drowsy with whiskey Strange sunlight on his calves His chest slowly rising, slowly falling The smell of wild herbs Smoke from the kitchen fire Sex on old blankets Lost on Lake Daff-Dilly Old myths talk of death The women think of birth Some wish they could leave The men pray on boats Trout stumble in their wake Drunk on the water's cold The flies were made by old hands The rod belonged to a dead uncle God I hope there is more whiskey The fire is still going I want you on old blankets Lost on Lake Daff-Dilly
Read more

Blind Me And Guide Me

Image
What is it you want me to believe in? Is it the flock of birds flying like joined roses floating The peak of sensual age? I turn Twenty Nine and the climax is mine The plea of a generation held together by torture? The torture of the prophets- Whitman, he nurses us Is it the course touch of a hand roughened by sand and rock? The path that applauses every step to Sodom The generous buddhist- bearded with eyes closed? In bed with the russian before dawn, We Let Him Down! The cold winter warmed by cynicism and a centuries irony? You can warm my arse with your country charm The poets lining their pockets with fools gold? Lining up to be shot by the artists- a war with out generals The skeleton with eyes to the stars? Awake and noticing how the apple never rots Is it the shop keeper that keeps everything shaded? The man who keeps a statue of Apollo at the bottom of his pool The mongrel God of Egypt and Babylon? So large his nose was singed by the sun Is it the song of hope written in the s
Read more

Whose Language Will I Speak?

Image
Allow me a little time to rest the clamour Upon the contours of your form The mirror gaze within your reply Will flash and fall and rise and build response Verbal shouts and gutteral groans In my room we both are right In hotels we are wrong Where will we die? Where will we scatter? Face down, lovers bodies, Russian grasses, Russian ice Before that I will paint you I will bury you in colour, on canvas While you tell me of your youth Of chasing birds and pretending you could fly The clamour is merely collection of one stands A collection of songs Trapped within my head, resting on your form And the guardian angles are sculpted into the architecture And I can see beautiful shade below your stomach As your leg is raised and it is an arch One to hold and make prayers from As I bow down and taste the flesh of man What will happen to us? Where will you die? You who was born to the poet and the siren Where will I go? Me, the hunter who has yet to return from the hi
Read more