The Geranium Hotel Poems

The days are pumped forth from the lungs of the mountain Good morning! watch as the heaviest cloud falls into frost The wolves crawl from dreams into forrest and field Skinny, charming, and sore with the loss of a death in the family The plague of blisters that keep is stretched in the sun Moaning poetry and song, without pants, solid and lying in gravel We illustrate our selves as if we were ghosts, and I love this We swap words like we were swapping lice and disease If this were war we would be friends, or lovers, dead or alone The nights are governed by the eyeless and the armless The sheets are torn into strips, turned into ribbons and tied to branches Venus looks down as she smells the crushed bay leaf She wonders how it feels to keep a record of time and history Fires burn with fuel collected by different generations The angry, the resigned, the creaky, the one frightened of direction Birds make their nests on the ground, in the quartz and the soil Shell fish are ...

Where are you now? Are you catching white whales and golden calves? Searching for lumps buried in glands? Kissing thighs, playing church organs? Where are you now? I had a vision of you at war Dressed in olive, hungary, working to stay alive Smiling at the men, all nameless I had a vision of you dying from the inside out Do you still ride horses? I would imagine you have moved onto cars Or maybe you prefer the convenience of public transport Catching the bus, dressed in old blue jacket Looking out of the window Watching it and your thoughts fog over Where are you now? Groaning at the waitress Tying up the shoelace Dropping them off Catching the elevator Do you enjoy the new way, the new rules? Let me ask you again, where are you now? Fade out.

You couldn’t have placed it The nagging feeling pulling at your heart Your life became broken up The tone continued to ring within your ears That was the 1950’s God was real My words will not swarm at you My eyes will not hold you there Paris is not a work of art As San Francisco is not copulation Over breakfast I was surprised You held back Preferring to count the seeds in the jam The future wasn’t made from that moment, no But it felt like everything was building to it That was the 1950’s You were real As the water hit against your face I shuddered, words clearing my head It’s such a long road with the length of the world Sunrise to sunrise Seed to seed God became a word to scatter To fertilise and watch grow Paris becomes art San Francisco is union I’m not here to communicate with you To throw words at you You will hold back regardless History has built up to this point And it need not explain That was th...

You could see a reflection in the glass Just for an instant it was there You haven’t slept for days ‘It was him, in front of all the books, it was a flash’ A big boat In the rain Filling with water Sailing out into the horizon and sinking into the ocean All the time in the world We will spend it fighting Fighting and dancing Reach up Up and out The higher we reach the closer to the dream of Patti Smith we get to Geraniums represent friendship and folly No they don’t they represent me, I am the Geranium of this house The Geranium Boy who goes out to burn tall buildings Why do so many of your bones creak when you move? Is it because you constantly try to turn into a Eucalyptus tree? Keeping your eyes to the sky for two Magpies Which direction did you come from? Does it matter? We all fall south and we all move north, Crescents and Obelisks are forever on my mind A boy called Leigh I was 24 years old I had neve...

The sky opened like brown paper packaging All the people shouted- no sound was released Planets fell against stars, against suns and comets Amazing, we were dazed turning and collapsing Hair floated up, we were sad and smiling and different Eyes gazed out against the connecting moments We were losing, claiming seconds abstract, a theory It was grave, their were stones, concern was in our hearts Jewels were in our metals, thoughts were in our woe Piano notes came against the last day's light The real words were parted from the silence with bruised shadow Precious lips were open, there were no cameras to capture the sparrow The river was free, full of papers and jackets of war May was followed by floods, famine and alcoholism Piano's stood, alone, baring their mouths open and ready to devour Caution was buried with the granite, bullet shell and whispers No one nudged against the Hallelujah, nor saw the tears of the handsome lad A love letter was sent to heaven...

You can save strangers with whispers But then you always saved what you could You dug great holes, smashing rocks with a touch But then the earth was always yours-  A Congregation of thousands, centred on you. You started wars with your poetry, written on an island But then words were always your lovers You resurrected the dead with your blossoming orchards But then the roots reached deep, calling for the old A Congregation of thousands, centred on you. You screamed away clouds, called to you storms But then you always did hold fast in the rain You taught wild horses to bow and play tricks with the light But then you liked to see the kingdoms collide against nature  A Congregation of thousands, centred on you. You burnt down whole cities with a lick of your tongue But then you did like to watch smoke turn into sky You invented light for the day and music for the light But then you added people for the gods and gods for the people ...