The Geranium Hotel Poems

I am the chief of the elements It's a small world I no longer know where I have been What flowers I have smelt along the way I have known love more intense Never a laziness in regard I will sit on this hotel bed Looking out into the universal space Trying hard to hear the birds as they fly by It is rare that I am so alone And I check my phone for messages Check my technology for god Seeing if I still really care If waking up to a room full of people Beats waking up alone The machines all strum together Leaving nothing for me to do I will give up this season, this hemisphere I will give up this faded love And track back to when I was diseased And whispering an intense love When I knew so much in ignorance Now forgotten with education and stagnation I want to swim out to the breakers Swim out to my questions That all got washed to sea I sit here on the hotel bed, thinking of the indigenous What was stolen, returned, given and taken again I think of the p...

This is the poem titled Japan Full of rage towards the city I will never know your streets The heartbreak of your command Naked men bathing with bamboo in the wind Cymbal on the wall Characters of gold and earth I want to find your ancient name Your coloured demand There is laughter with this meal No angry silence full of dreams unfulfilled The trout swim well The rocks do not suffer water And here in this Jungle of earth I look for time unspent Train whistles moving further away A moan in the sleep never mistaken for bliss I wish to bathe your sweet skin Smelling of promise and history I wish to walk further I don't know anything anymore I am colourless, bruised A storm cloud moving over the garden My hair gets longer, the children sing The days get shorter, the old people argue I have nothing to say about these new times Can I be your gun? Can I sit in your holster? Can I answer ask you questions As I lay fruit at your temple Sit below your alter I ...

Casual glee So far out of sight In all those different colours But my bone has marrow Invisible Like halos and breath Here on Triumph Avenue Tongue against tongue Lip against lip Could I feel right In this rain Against white walls of school With hymns and crickets I watch the sky fall If only everything was as magic I listen to birds sing As my beard grows With the Sage goes to seed And all beings begin to shake However vibrations still Loss is given to the writers History becomes the new season Illumination is covered Could I be alone tonight? With eyes shut Here three feet off the ground On Triumph Avenue Needing something Carving my initials into the walls of a tomb Lizards doze While flood waters rage I need more words More symbols of song I can only hear myself I've found I need noone Here beneath the arches of ivory On Triumph Avenue I am probably wrong

Slow distraction I need you Help me blow my mind Will I know when to stop this rocket? Stop singing this song? Will there be a lesson Taught to me from the gods? Will there be a myth? A great ode for me Written by the ancients On drum and stone! And I know the days are getting longer I know they are numbered I know I am wasting the only the thing I have But I can't explain And I will walk further Along the page I will go further than I have ever been before And think of all the regrets that I have Think of all the pride I should have Think of the shadow where it meets the ground And I guess I will fall Fall at the speed of thought Fall at the speed of snow Fall at the speed of the guitar strum Fall at the speed of Kerouac's Disease At The Speed OF KEROUAC'S DISEASE I never wanted this I was raised to have manners But I wont thank you for giving me this The sea smells rotten The buddhists are lazy The meat should be given to the oracle ...

The smoothness of an image Caught beneath so many Here, as the rain falls Beware these recollections Great sighs are proclaimed Loud and through the trees Where final leaves are falling Purple, serrated, full of sorrow And muscles are pulled Limbs they are arched Creases become catchments The skeleton becomes a wall Great Lakes are filled From the rain on the ground Great reflections are felt As they ripple away Water is everywhere Water it canters Like horses, wild and fast Useless we stand As the world throws us around We pretend we can rise Yet we simply spin from east to west We gain no foothold In the soil full of rotting leaves In the ground of this island So we look out beyond our ledge From the border to the sea And we think of an island Full of expression and song Full of each other

When it gets too bright We will steal some dark sunglasses Put on our white collared shirts And you can quote Rimbaud "Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers, Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue : Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds. Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue." We can look at the sky and watch the birds Kick the red dirt on the road Our shadows will invoke the night The ocean will freeze with our whispers and conversation The clouds will curl and sour When they hear our songs, our poems Spoken from the reddest and plumpest of lips Thrown at each other's bosoms, thrown high, caught low Words that shall blanket us in grey Words that shall cover us in sweet love  Words that shall feed us and keep us running away, together Words that shall embed our age, with memory ever lasting Poems of deep emotion, lying in the sand Words of freedom, moving in our palms Thoughts ...

The cabinets are full of medicine The schools are full of books The ink is fresh upon the ribbon Safety should be on the lips of all the boys! I heard the church resound with prayer I tasted the tea sweet with sugar I saw the cloud break with light Safety should be in the dreams of all the boys! The streets are empty of dogs so vicious The alleys empty of thieves so cunning The copses empty of vagrants wandering Safety should be the chant for all the boys!             What is medicine when the disease is in the heart and cock? Your books teach nothing of love or the damp embrace of the curve  Ink shall always dry upon the ribbon, like water on the hot rock Safety is hell when love is vacant  We will pin the rosemary to our chests and burn your church to the level of the grave We will taste the sweetness in the kisses of one another in the morning of these new days The clouds can be dark, the clouds can be light, it ...

The boys drive the cars their mother's drove They have emasculated them, hardened them Sawdust settles on the lips of the men As their hair falls from their parts and gets blown back Tradition is a venture for the economically wise Everyone knows heaven comes at a price Fashion is an art that happens when no one is watching To judge our nature is to wish we were born in a future age Lost in a desiderata amongst words unfound The problem has solutions as we know and all medicines expire In my coma I saw the way to the long, long death- in waves The abandoned clothes were left for the cramping limbs As we watched the flames strangle the feeling, we pulled glances up from the ground And all the crowd gathered to take pictures of the black night No one could have stopped the recollections of the youth We realised nothing had changed in the tenses Nothing could have stopped those birds from roosting on the ledge The marshes are drying and the houses can now be built ...

Living on a crest, I guess it is nobody's fault The red line leading me to the choking gasps Every picket in every fence could be a new letter in the alphabet A look from you could be a cigarette freshly lit The music winds down and I can smell the soap on your skin You are losing weight but it's what you like to do I have been stacking crates of beer for money, but I can't seem to do it right Every time I cut my tongue on the words I swallow I spit the blood on your garden I can hear the motors rev, they sound like the cold voices in an old folk song I want to read your letters again, I want to see your tan I want to tell you about the trees that grow in a land you will never visit A moth flew into your drink but you still drank it You saved the insect with your finger, drunk with thinning blood A ghost tried to watch you piss but it was too fat to fit through the door You tried to steal my shirt but you had a change of heart It's what you like to do ...

The absurd brothers Oily hair leaving marks on the window You know what's chic, you know when to run The Indian can't grow a beard but he can drive the bus Fingers are cold and the bath is empty You wish your mother looked like the singer You wish the summer would start The glass was smashed and it looked like ice All the shards were frosty blue The comic ink stained the concrete A ferris wheel will make your blood thick Magic came out of the fox's hole And you heard a banjo, you thought you recognised the man in glasses Are you going to apply for the job Are you going to insist that you meet the dying poet? You know you are handsome when you are polite But I think you know you can be smug And let's not forget we all reflect too much On what we all practice on So the evening will come soon, but the summer is shy I have to go too but I will leave you my folk records And I know you can store pictures of me Behind the drawers or beneath the perfume...

When you close your eyes your see snow flakes and white mice And you promise to yourself that your going to win back your mind After you lost it in a card game on a bad hand at a square table And the amber piss is warmer than the air that you breathe But the fog that lifts up around you and everyone else Smells the same and is as warm as the applause that comes to you from the orchestration pit The garden would grow if it wanted to, but all it wants is to scream into the wind The ridge is green, the stump is grey, the road has gone so you make your own Every little trip you've taken you've taken a story of an artists life to read along the way But you have never told your mother where you were going You have never paid for your ticket or the paper that you use to fuel the fire You know of little villages that the highway bypasses full of farmers and their sons Jacking off in haysheds, swimming in the dams, covering naked shoulders in clay mud You know of the men...

What sweet words can you sing to the word tonight? What hymn to the thieving boys will make them feel? A matter of ability that you ricocheted off the past And none of us saw you close your hand in the dark Will you try to hurt the darkness that closes around the strangeness? A mutation around the ground that keeps us standing Although all our names are written on the list that is pinned to the door And we see someone has drawn the curtains closed The drums are all beaten hard and the drums are all beaten rough As the boys all walk down the side with no chance of stopping The gate swings wide, the gate swings open And plans go awry, plans all back fire Dangerous words are spoken, rearranged, buried and put to sea The wind rips the sails and the destiny has no control, it takes no notice All the flowers are put in water and colouring The result of a genius plan owned by the writer and his lover We listen to the witnesses words, the same words as the poem In a voice s...

I walked into the room while thinking of our little story I should have written it down If only on my stain covered sleeve I should have turned it into a song And whistled it to the wind You seemed to have it transcribed onto a look An expression close to criminal intent A cross between lust and hate and docile integrity It's a joke I suppose, left out to sprout in the sun There was a way I could have left Yet no way out but through that door Its like trying to understand why a smell reminds you of love Why a certain pair of eyes reminded you of night Is it cruel to give someone else Your love? It was built for You, it has Your dedication written on the title page But You shall not receive The lost mention of the peppermint grind Your eyes were so dark all I could see were the reflections of the street lamps It will be your story I carry Though I know someone else will get to hear the ending I was just the start Though I did give you courage To walk through th...

As the fever will burn the malady As the frost will scar the flower of summer As the key will be cut to fit the old door As the string will fly within the wind And our mother's will sing at our deaths And our father's will weep at the tales Friends we are now eternal, friends I can hear your songs Every one of your foot prints will stay in this sand forever Everyone of your kisses will stay fresh on my cheek And your reflections will stay upon the waves Never torn, never frayed, never faded Sing my name to the sky And sing of this day to the earth Do not forget the love that did not rescue us Do not forsake the memory of the past Every one of you will live on in the orchards As we eat the fruits and bury the seeds I can hear you weep, I can hear your sobs I can your prayers in all the different languages My friend your embrace is my daylight My friend your kiss is my medal of honour Today our names are written in lists Rolled off tongues in prayers to t...

It shakes, You can't explain why There is a silver line to everything An aluminium edge You fold up into time Tangled in the sheets of wind The lightness of a city that is lost at sea Did you spread your arse for a sailor While the lamps burnt at either side of the door The pulse quickens As the cymbals chime And the beat falls like scattering china We are the men who wait Tonguing the balls of heros While the gods look down and release the monster hope And the thunder roars The thunder echoes in our golden vases Deadening flowers And hardening cocks The embrace is tight The boats are all taken out by the painted waves of evening whose dream are we in? The silence is on the very end of sanity We need a basic rhythm The basic embrace The glasses roll off shelves And the blood explodes along the panel Hall ways are where we meet The different levels of hell are imploding And I am hard with words on my tongue I am the utensil for language Lost at sea,...

The shadow that leaks from the open fly The denim is stiff from too many drinks Spilt in the crotch of the whiskey husband And the floating applecores fly through the air Softening the ancient Skin that has been passed from the Romans Like a lesson learnt from history Your family tree carries nails in it's trunk And a young man with a deer horn knife has carved the initial of a man into the bark Not unlike the bark of a tree fallen on its side Somewhere in an August, Somewhere with horses in the night The vibrations are being strangled with the whiskey breath And all the stars are reflected in the fest drop of excitement You can smear it, you can taste it Sweeter than any sweet you can rot your teeth with And the mobile phones with all the friends Are merely the new notches on the butt of the flintlock pistol And the bruises next to the notch are the marks from the cane While the warm beer has been drunk and then sprayed all over the white moon To calm the mur...

Take to the woods and walk amongst the dead flower heads Do you pretend you are alone or pretend you have company? There amongst the forgotten roads that lead to gorges and plains Would you have followed leaders that would have discovered them for mapping purposes Maybe ultimately crawling into their tents to cut their throats or make love to them Unreasonably meeting the voices that are deep and come into your dreams You become jealous of the seasons and jealous of the sliding clouds Nobodies fault and nobodies victim you fall into the mindset That nobody will call your name at night, nobody will miss you And I don't know if you should write autobiographies dedicated to the street Wearing gritted smiles on one end with worn out shoes on the other But you are the son with the golden hair, you are the son with the broad shoulders I'm not going to sing the song that is about your life, about your voice About the times  you have fallen behind And with all the lett...

A sailor hat and a trenchcoat farewell One side of the apartment dedicated to the shifting mood A star, a mirror a pause to stare If you owned the whole of Chelsea what would you change Ha! misplaced your birthday? Or just your mother? A camera in your pocket with the crumbs of a cigarette Sweet youth with sweet lips where kisses explode If you were the king of New York would you have a queen? If you were the prince of Coney Island would you have your own Ferry Or just sit on the shore and think of Demuth? And what of rock and roll? what of love? what would you hold on to? Crowns grow cold when not worn Film cut in half and hair shorn short Did you believe that when you walked into a room eyes moved? Did they? Were you their sweet young thing? How well read would you be if you didn't have that presence? Your baby, your plunging sweetness The girl who had the sweet tooth who nursed you While you had your teeth removed What did you have hidden in your room? A s...

Jesus, you left a lot of men to swim or sin Your thick hair cut by the shepherd's shears And when you left your secretary was at a loss She had so much mail to answer, so many invitations To galleries, openings, functions and house parties So he went himself, John, he went himself With his baby, his lover, in his tight blue jeans The first party was next to a basketball court The hostess was called Ruth and she had a strawberry curl She whispered to John, She held him close And she told him 'There by the Elder tree was were Whitman kissed my boy' She handed him a soda but he wanted something stronger So he fainted in fake panic The go-go girl handed him her drink to get him on his feet No harm in seeing double until the morning awakening The girl asked John what he did He said he was recently put out of work Due to the sabotaging finger of God's command She smiled and winked but he had to go He left his baby there with the tight ...

At the zenith is the kicking emotion  Painted with blue and edged with saxophone gold Your happiness is sour and rusted in a muddy gown The anger and frustration kicks at my chest And I think of invisible wings taking me somewhere else Anywhere else All over the world I hear the strum of guitars And all over the world I hear the call of beauty But here You are one of the piteous souls who strive And who are forever spinning like the world  Around a Sun trying to get closer but never touching You will never change And I think of Demuth, I think of Charles The only thing that calms me on this Tuesday He understand what he was and who he was He was not threatened by these things  Sitting at the table of great men  He knew that to be great was to laugh and not care You care too much and laugh too seldom You are threatened by beauty and by loneliness I dwell in loneliness' beauty And this is why I will dwell in the ideal of D...