Soul

Battlegrounds

A flash of gold and red and grey,
a deafening chorus of heartbeats,
a moment the present solely exists;
this is the anthem of war.

My right hand has been grasping
for months at smoke,
vapour caressing my fingers
while sliding through hopes.
My ghosts lie not behind me,
but in my very mind,
inside my breaking heart.

Another shard of glass
fits neatly into this endless puzzle;
a broken vase that was never made
for the purpose of gluing back together.

My Cumorah

I dream for the silent places of truth,
the places of Wulf Young or Joseph Smith.
I miss Young’s sea breeze that bites at the tooth;
for trees that quiet the world, I wish.
I hope for voices to ebb away
and the motors o’erhead to leave this place.
I desire to keep the world at bay,
but without such truth, I have this space.
I have this rickety back patio
with a rusted brazier for a centrepiece,
the sight of industrious workers below
and a constant suburbia with its own special peace.
The noise never ends, never lulls on this hill,
but something here lies that holds my heart still.

Shadows

It is at my side,
always,
the place the light doesn’t reach,
at least for now.
It is dark
and simple
and unremovable;
not the plaything of Peter Pan,
but the worst of times.
It is not sewn on to be hewn off,
it is an intrinsic part of the whole.
Sometimes it is silent
and small,
a cirrus cloud on a summer’s day.
Sometimes not,
sometimes that towering cumulonimbus
that silences the sun’s rays.
It is at my side,
always,
always.
It is at my side tonight.

Spring 2016 et al.

I’ve written this poem before,
written of the newness of new sun
and the enlivening words of the dead.
Chaos is what I once thought,
once believed,
but everything returns to where it begins,
finds home where it belongs.
I’ve written this poem before
and so have a dozen dozen others,
those enlivening words of the dead.

A Hard Truth

I’m meant to be dead,
meant to have drowned in my own mucus
more than two decades ago.

Chest infections,
pneumonia,
liver failure,
respiratory failure,
tumours…
This is my resume,
my physiological portfolio.

And I’m stuck in between
hope and desire.
I hope for a bit of pity,
for someone to pet me,
for the basest of human connection.
This can happen now or tomorrow,
can happen at all.
Desire? I desire all.
I desire true love
and true passion
and true adoration above inspiration.

But I’m meant to be dead.

True things take time,
and I am disadvantaged by image too.
I do not qualify for lust, let alone love.
Have you ever tried going on a date
without physical possibility?
Well, no possibility means no result.
No possibility means no chance.
And even if there were chance,
if some mad god smiled on me,
it’s only one more chest infection,
only one probable heart attack,
only one slip of my control by my eroding hand,
only one step before fate is realised.

Happy endings are made for few,
and I am on the farthest end from there.
Death is the friend I have been taught to know,
and death is the friend forever at my side.

Importance

At a certain hour
before rest is yours,
aquamarine and forget-me-not
become nothing more than blue.
Royal, scarlet, ruby;
they’re all reds.
And lemon and gold,
just yellows.
Eyes and heart become
pieces of the whole of you,
and shades of love disappear
at a certain hour
before rest is yours.

Disability Resides In Me

Disability resides in me.
It doesn’t matter that I’m a writer,
doesn’t matter that I’m a student,
doesn’t matter that I’m attracted to certain things
or believe in certain things
or dream of certain things.
The purpose of my legs is ornamental,
the reason for my nerves is exaggeration.
Disability resides in me.
Of course it is not my everything;
I am brother and son,
uncle and friend,
fan and failure,
heart and mind.
But this does not change a fact,
does not change my needs,
does not change the truth of a label.
I am not anything less for it, but

disability resides in me.