The Geranium Hotel Poems

I lie awake in the dullest bed of our time Outside you are making the myths and legends For great poets and historians to document So as you, my lover, are remembered forever You walk the back streets in fine handmade suits Beating, fighting, maybe killing Those who won’t be missed For the coins in their pockets And leaving poems ripped from books you have stolen In the bands of their hats or tucked in their belts You leave Byron, Shelly, Homer and Keats Never Wordsworth, you say he has not the substance To be left atop a corpse You steal the books of poetry for me From great houses along elm lined lanes All leather bound, finely printed on magnificent paper And at dawn you enter, what you call, the dullest room of our time And we make the love that keeps our hearts beating And the neighbors complaining through the walls to morning When you sleep I study your face for new signs of aging I dread the day I see you in a hospital bed An asylum, yelling poetry, stabbing yourself with bl...

We walked out of the cafe Like two soldiers gone AWOL Leaving the bordello The world miles from our shoulders You asked me what my favourite word was I told you 'Triumph'- off the top of my head You asked why I said I like the way the word rises and falls Like a man breathing before he awakes Or an army that takes over the world before it crumbles For each man triumphs and then decays Rises and Falls Like a man breathing before he dies The two syllables are forever together And forever in the bonds of hate Repulsed by the others state, their beauty, their ugliness Forever on the lips of men who believe they can grasp the word In the palms of their hardened hands You and I shall both triumph As well as, I suppose, we can And then we shall watch as our love decays And fight to be the last survivor Waving to the shore for help... I then asked you your favourite word It was 'Wall-flower'...

I have never been introduced to you Though I know who you are I know what you do, and who you work with I know you are the only one who talks to a girl Who talks to nobody I wonder would you talk to me? Would you read my poetry? Would you introduce me to your family? Would we go broke together and die with out a death bed? Would you spend your money on me? While I spent all mine on you? Would you speak to me like you hated me in public? but rang me when you were alone and drunk and full of lust? Or would you ignore everyone and say nothing but just look at me and squeeze my thigh? Would you share your meals with me Would you listen to my music and buy me old vinyl records and play them while we have breakfast in bed? Would we grow bored after six months? Would you still straddle me at Sixty? Would you teach me your native tongue So I can order fish on our annual holidays? Most importantly would you read my writing? And even if you hated it, tell me I was the b...

Eyes watering against the dust The landscape is different but the clouds look the same Shapes that change and slide and sway All of summer's grass stays golden Here in my thoughts of home and khaki shorts The malice came with knowledge But our ignorance kept us excited and kind and we knew there was nothing wrong When we felt ourselves slide and sway wearing nothing but Khaki shorts At night we would lie on our backs with cigarettes listening to the distant music a wild guitar and the voice of a poet with lyrics of love and questions of reason With our cocks hanging out the legs of our khaki shorts Here the memory gets distorted Summer must of ended, you must have left in a rage I must have met the Italian barrel chested with the darkest of eyes Did you keep the letters I wrote? I didn't keep yours And now the dust rolls over us in this african desert And I can't possibly wear anything but Khaki shorts and I think of you...

Forget the ancient televised frowns of your numbered mother Know that there shall be a genocide, a great fire, killing your father's seeds of influence You are the velvet sun on fire and it is time to reinvent a perfect instant A brilliant second to dwell within, full of a million different hues Sweep all instruments aside and chose between school boy dreams and grand rose gardens, each petal catalogued in the library of Alexander This is the instant to die unannounced and to be reborn as an army of angels One which screams words of ocean grandeur and Trident, naked and strong, leads with his poetry This revered tower of babel is fading with its own spotlight reflected back onto its side Shining off the waveless water where the wind awakens the divine amongst the reeds And the vastness of your jewel encrusted decision is yours to ponder Will you shrug away and burn the jacket of ageless obsession- a warm summer dream to own Or throw your self from the highest ledge, n...

We were searching for the silver spanish lady Perfume laced letters for our friends in our pockets A concrete fist keeping us in New York And we tried to outline every heart beat with autumn leaves We can't be bitter at the pretty tombstones We can't be angry at thoughts that are etched in brilliant blue We can't be disappointed in dangerous youth alone and crying We can't be let down by a nation whose guilt is chiselling at the pavement End of love flying through the night It flies up with every shudder It reminds me of a bitter apple core Being thrown out a car window ' LIQUID APPLE CORES ' I watch them float in midnight streams after kissing a free form after talking to my hero and we walked down the golden tunnel As the stars were blown off into the wind Like hay seed and dandelion though more golden And we decided to reward ourselves With a new myth and fable in our honour

I have to tell you about a stinging pulse that nobody has yet tamed It comes from a depth without perimeter, without the boundary of God In the cover of trees when the moon shines no light The ancient men would beat their feet against the bare ground in honour Leaves flying around the feathers in their hair I have to tell you about the unbending, heavenly, rock hard pulse Great war machines of men can not contain this thing It comes from the natural grit of sandy plain and foamy shore The angel's stench of sweat is its cause to grin and it bares all in the distance of time The Stinging Pulse that all bow down to, all wise men must follow And search their adolescent pockets and their death beds for The silent spark in the eyes of the dead that explodes like a fire cracker above the heads of the children that go mad with the excitement and become slaves To the urge, to the musk of that heavenly beat It is the sport of kings, of Emperors, of Princes and Lords Conquering...