The Geranium Hotel Poems

I dreamt of the woman last night The old lady of the piano And she sang me her nursery rhyme A message of wild, ragged, glory The pin points of light formed a desert A bright wasteland holding back the dark Perfumed with the smoke of history's war planes Crashed and burning in their white and grey ash The ceremony continued with spectacle I felt as though there was water rippling to my waist My imagination conjured elephants Wading, slouching, coursing through their delta The windows were closed to the shadows all iced We struggle with images that sit and shift behind us Like we are unsteady with Love and Loneliness and Liberty And stones that circle fire will reveal beast and bird in flame The oldest voice, it wailed down at me Singing of the brass statues of the naked gods Holding their Leopard skins and spears Hewn so masterfully The old lady she sang at me With words that were etched into the bells of freedom She spoke softly the phrases that were dress...

Does it really matter what road your on? Or that the leaves around you are dying? That the stones are pulling at your feet? Or that the birds are southward flying? And you know, what girl doesn't love a poet? And what boy doesn't love a girl? What expectations do you put in your promises? What sort of secrets can't you tell? Does it really matter when you finally leave your lover? When you finally hear the silent alarm? Does it effect you when you sweep those dreams away? Along with the tears and broken charms? And you know that the skies are swallowing the days? Like the days are stealing what little time we have But c'mon what girl doesn't love a poet? And what boy wouldn't love that girl? Does it really matter that your spending the night alone? Or that the old hotel ahead is a grave of lust and dust Does it matter that its lights are fading like our looks And like us the owner is a man whose past you can't really trust And you know we...

Only the King with his crown on the floor should be reading this For he is the only one who will understand Visions of the day that introductions took place After the nudge over silicon and wire Bright spots appear, there is no recollection Have you since been stolen by another melody? Sung by someone wrapped in velvet, casting long shadow I remember your shadow, dark like your Chilean eyes I would happily follow it through what is left of these days Celebratory dinners of fried chicken- romantic no? Trapped in the wardrobe, with only another boy for comfort Half way up stairwells, trousers down, cocks out   My god, boy, you were always my king Do you know this? Films that caused hysteria, on darkened couches, under softened blankets Massaged muscles, I like to think that there were times that I made you feel good But there are different words for the same feelings, the same emotions I can never forget your eyes, I wond...

An education, it seems, is needed For me to learn that I am not a sunflower Greek Jew An education, it seems, is needed For me to know that I am not an infinite German of happiness An education is needed For me to know what the beauty of rent and geraniums are For me to be able to tell you what music is What art to like and what birds to watch flying across the morning sky An education is needed for me to know When to stop loving you To keep my discipline in shape To keep my suits sharp, and clean and neat An education, it would seem, is needed To tell the difference between Cohen, and Burroughs, and John Wayne's ghost To know when to plant orchards or cement To know when the stores are closed And when and why their windows will be smashed An education will be needed For me to know when to wait by the cemetery In the sun, in a woollen cap, grey eyes looking at the grass An education, it seems, is needed For me to discuss the voodoo media with my father For me...

I will keep this poem simple For all you poetic fools I was somewhere in Africa In a hotel without ghosts Death looked down From his balcony He was cool, blue eyes, and bald I stood beside a pool without water Looking at him on the seventh floor I had a hundred american dollars And a book of american poems He knew what I was looking for I did not understand what he saw Maybe he had a woman naked on his bed Sipping her tea or sucking pomegranate seed Behind me I knew was a continent Full of assumption and age About to be consumed by my own desire To see where history started (Yet I find myself becoming abstract) I turned my vision from death And turned it to the sky The weavers were silent The Stalks sat sighing on the roof An iron bar that held up a burnt light Was their perch They did not have a master Yet they knew that I was there They knew the blood that was in me Was tasty and full of spice They knew my heart was traditional And my ribcage made of go...

You find yourself embedded in an opera of sex and fair skin Stained words of home that beckons and cymbals that crash Mirrors react with the sun that shines Books of London and books of Rome all burn as the strings are tuned Maybe you should have taught yourself how to tie lace and the rope of a flag Maybe you should have learnt to sing the song of master and slave There is no room in the photography booth, no room in the family There is too much room in your underwear, too much hair on your chin You have too many battlements, too many conversations, too many cigarettes It's impossible to wait for the new horoscope, it's time to go away Perhaps there is a chance that the mountain can be moved, but not to you The forrest moved to Macbeth, the garden to man Deep in the artists studio a story was told to you of Geraniums and fire But it was cold and early, dawn made you feel old the gods were asleep The horses were going mad and the creeks were running black It'...

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 ...