DROPPING ECSTASY WITH THE ANGELS
Below you'll find the first few lines of a selection of poetry from my second collection, 'Dropping Ecstasy With The Angels', click on the various links to read the whole poem. 'Dropping Ecstasy With The Angels' was published in the UK by Bluechrome in 2004. If you live in the UK, you can order this book at any good bookstore. If you live outside the UK, you can order it direct from Bluechrome or Amazon.co.uk. Alternately, and much more attractively, you can buy a signed copy direct from me. Click here for further information.
The Apple Of My Eye
I am absent, as I have always been:
The reckless father
Who spiralled out of orbit
Before you were truly flesh...
First Cut
I honed my razor against the rock that was you,
Guru, who showed me the power of words,
The mystery of creation, the glorious chaos
Distilled from the destruction of order...
Frankfurt Airport
Stopped over in this sterile air-con place
We sit, squeezed into soft plastic seats,
Gazing out the plate glass at idle jets
Nestled in quiet neon darkness...
An Epitaph
You are returned to the shadows of the name that was never you,
Yin: dark, passive, quiet, all-absorbing. In the end
Your name became you. I'm told the lupus tore the petals
From the flower that was your face: that your smile shrivelled
To a dry parody of itself; and that you never laughed again...
Innanna Descending
This pencil lead
Has turned to diamond dust,
My mouth metamorphosed
Into stony silence....
La Que Sabe Singing
You are soil, sediment,
The dark blood of metal,
The clock hands
Of magnetic points unspun...
My Father The Painter
My father's hands smell of pine forests:
Rich, raw and resinous.
His face is a summer thunderstorm,
Dark as cumulus...
No Daisies
Arid, this acid soil:
Silver-grey, it whips in the wind
Like ash from dead cigarettes...
Rose Thou Art Ecstatic
She sinks down under the weight of stolen kisses,
Her wings a petrol spectrum of helplessness,
Flustering in the furious wind of gravity's angel...
The Morning After
The woman at the desk in her pristine white
Makes me feel like a mangy, overheated cat,
A trollop, a slut. She smiles icily
Between calling forth these anxious women...
Virtual Virus
HELLo, I am just a gHOST in the macHIne
an ephemeral wIMPering WHISPer,
i AM not HERe or tHEre or
in the telephone wiring...
An Angel Of Obscurity
If you tried to lay an apple on my head
I might attempt to tempt you
To bite the bullet,
But these never were
The arrows of your desire...
Naked And Now Dead
What does it matter now, this derangement of the senses?
I have kissed the black cloud till its juice has penetrated my lips,
Dripping its thickened blood down my chin, my chickenbone chest,
My hollowed out belly...
Sinking Into The Sand
With each moon passing I sink into the sand some, and then some more.
Secretly, in the mirror, I rearrange my face: scrub down dead skin;
rub smooth, worried lines...
Big Man
The Glasgow smile, an any city smile:
A clownish parody of laughter
On an otherwise impassive face...
Arc Of Descent
Soft as an ocean, her skin, soft as cream,
White as milk and moonlight,
She dances half-naked, diaphanous,
Weaving webs between the legs
Of lounging diners...
A Beautiful Chemistry
120 beats to the minute
And accelerating, until deceived
By the illusion of stillness:
The chemical simulation of nirvana,
A foretaste of paradise to come...
An Affirmation
Great Spirit that is all we are
Whose myriad names contain
The recognition of our oneness
And the continuation of our will
To live in love
Here, as in the beyond...
Brahman
There is more to this, so much more:
You can hear it
in the blackbird's call
in the silence of the mountains
in the hiss of tyres
on rain wet city streets...
Spindrifting
I am featherblown in hallucinating winds
Faltering in flight
With falling dream obsessions:
The spirit of night possesses me...
A Neo Post Modern Love Poem
When I was a neo-post-modernist
I went down to Woolworth's and bought a tent
Then I embroidered the insides...
A Chemical Romance
In the beginning we were surprised by love
The magnificent bright sun of it,
A childish scrawl of yellow crayola
In a broken line of blue sky...
Buddha Poem
You taught me to be here with my full attention,
To cherish each moment as precious:
More sacred than memory
Or the dreams that tomorrow may bring...
Women Singing
You, your all
Is in your giving,
Your wisdom
In the brass veins
Of your voice...
Waves
Feel the waves that give us our birth,
Lift us through life, take us to death,
Return us to the Earth...
Intoxicated
Full moon. Chill night.
Clouds clatter across fathomless clear sky.
A blackbird calls from its sleep, a descant
To the rush of streams in snowmelt spate...
Sartre's Eyes
Blackbirds shone out her ears
And she shook rosy apples
From her hair...
La Que Sabe's Bell
I grow lighter
On the wings
Of your liquid sound
And am taken
On journeys
I cannot fathom...
Heaven And Earth
Heaven and Earth shall pass away,
But my words shall not pass away:
One more cigarette
And I shall perfect my immortality...
When Angels Collide And Bang Their Heads
The sand is winter grit between her toes,
Red as disgorged rock, red as gut lining,
The red of inner Hebridean granite sun...
Mother Of God
Mary knew neither the pleasure nor the pain of sex,
But she understood the terror of being visited by angels
And the more straightforward agonies of childbirth...
Containment
A fake tan, you smile and talk of double glazing,
Gesticulating carelessly,
Rose wine perilously swirling in cut crystal:
Aching to be absorbed,
To be at one with the thick pile
Of the carpet softly underfoot...
Asylum Antechamber
Black cascade, a fragile note hung trembling
In the thick white air: a swansung requiem
To the degeneration of myriad miraculous visions.
Then tell me, what did you see before you spiralled
So recklessly into the abyss?
Graphomania
Did you not once allude, that through the cracks in the world
Other possibilities might make themselves manifest?
Discordia
Eris, you're a terrible child,
Throwing your toys
In violent tantrums
Of whimsy and spite...
When The Thunder Spoke
She cries shrill curses at the sun, our mother Kali:
It's her doing, the thunder that rips the valley,
The rain that lashes these flounced silks,
The wind that sours the seed and curdles the milk....
Spirit Of Iona
Iona of my heart/ I return/ a pilgrim to your willing shores/ in a sackcloth of rainbow ash/
coming alive in your light/ coming alive in your dove feather hands/ I bend to the rhythm
of your breathing/ my city-tainted spirit, humbled by the eloquence of your silence...
Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God
Strip the lids from sleeping eyes
And live in sunlight forever more....
Starbright
We will never know the names
Of all the constellations:
Geometry conspires against us
Awakening To The Light
You are, you generate and you radiate out a light so bright I cannot look. It effervesces in your
eyes and sparkles in your hair. It is the joy that spills from your mouth: it is so huge,
you cannot name it or contain it...
The Apple Of My Eye
I am absent, as I have always been:
The reckless father
Who spiralled out of orbit
Before you were truly flesh...
First Cut
I honed my razor against the rock that was you,
Guru, who showed me the power of words,
The mystery of creation, the glorious chaos
Distilled from the destruction of order...
Frankfurt Airport
Stopped over in this sterile air-con place
We sit, squeezed into soft plastic seats,
Gazing out the plate glass at idle jets
Nestled in quiet neon darkness...
An Epitaph
You are returned to the shadows of the name that was never you,
Yin: dark, passive, quiet, all-absorbing. In the end
Your name became you. I'm told the lupus tore the petals
From the flower that was your face: that your smile shrivelled
To a dry parody of itself; and that you never laughed again...
Innanna Descending
This pencil lead
Has turned to diamond dust,
My mouth metamorphosed
Into stony silence....
La Que Sabe Singing
You are soil, sediment,
The dark blood of metal,
The clock hands
Of magnetic points unspun...
My Father The Painter
My father's hands smell of pine forests:
Rich, raw and resinous.
His face is a summer thunderstorm,
Dark as cumulus...
No Daisies
Arid, this acid soil:
Silver-grey, it whips in the wind
Like ash from dead cigarettes...
Rose Thou Art Ecstatic
She sinks down under the weight of stolen kisses,
Her wings a petrol spectrum of helplessness,
Flustering in the furious wind of gravity's angel...
The Morning After
The woman at the desk in her pristine white
Makes me feel like a mangy, overheated cat,
A trollop, a slut. She smiles icily
Between calling forth these anxious women...
Virtual Virus
HELLo, I am just a gHOST in the macHIne
an ephemeral wIMPering WHISPer,
i AM not HERe or tHEre or
in the telephone wiring...
An Angel Of Obscurity
If you tried to lay an apple on my head
I might attempt to tempt you
To bite the bullet,
But these never were
The arrows of your desire...
Naked And Now Dead
What does it matter now, this derangement of the senses?
I have kissed the black cloud till its juice has penetrated my lips,
Dripping its thickened blood down my chin, my chickenbone chest,
My hollowed out belly...
Sinking Into The Sand
With each moon passing I sink into the sand some, and then some more.
Secretly, in the mirror, I rearrange my face: scrub down dead skin;
rub smooth, worried lines...
Big Man
The Glasgow smile, an any city smile:
A clownish parody of laughter
On an otherwise impassive face...
Arc Of Descent
Soft as an ocean, her skin, soft as cream,
White as milk and moonlight,
She dances half-naked, diaphanous,
Weaving webs between the legs
Of lounging diners...
A Beautiful Chemistry
120 beats to the minute
And accelerating, until deceived
By the illusion of stillness:
The chemical simulation of nirvana,
A foretaste of paradise to come...
An Affirmation
Great Spirit that is all we are
Whose myriad names contain
The recognition of our oneness
And the continuation of our will
To live in love
Here, as in the beyond...
Brahman
There is more to this, so much more:
You can hear it
in the blackbird's call
in the silence of the mountains
in the hiss of tyres
on rain wet city streets...
Spindrifting
I am featherblown in hallucinating winds
Faltering in flight
With falling dream obsessions:
The spirit of night possesses me...
A Neo Post Modern Love Poem
When I was a neo-post-modernist
I went down to Woolworth's and bought a tent
Then I embroidered the insides...
A Chemical Romance
In the beginning we were surprised by love
The magnificent bright sun of it,
A childish scrawl of yellow crayola
In a broken line of blue sky...
Buddha Poem
You taught me to be here with my full attention,
To cherish each moment as precious:
More sacred than memory
Or the dreams that tomorrow may bring...
Women Singing
You, your all
Is in your giving,
Your wisdom
In the brass veins
Of your voice...
Waves
Feel the waves that give us our birth,
Lift us through life, take us to death,
Return us to the Earth...
Intoxicated
Full moon. Chill night.
Clouds clatter across fathomless clear sky.
A blackbird calls from its sleep, a descant
To the rush of streams in snowmelt spate...
Sartre's Eyes
Blackbirds shone out her ears
And she shook rosy apples
From her hair...
La Que Sabe's Bell
I grow lighter
On the wings
Of your liquid sound
And am taken
On journeys
I cannot fathom...
Heaven And Earth
Heaven and Earth shall pass away,
But my words shall not pass away:
One more cigarette
And I shall perfect my immortality...
When Angels Collide And Bang Their Heads
The sand is winter grit between her toes,
Red as disgorged rock, red as gut lining,
The red of inner Hebridean granite sun...
Mother Of God
Mary knew neither the pleasure nor the pain of sex,
But she understood the terror of being visited by angels
And the more straightforward agonies of childbirth...
Containment
A fake tan, you smile and talk of double glazing,
Gesticulating carelessly,
Rose wine perilously swirling in cut crystal:
Aching to be absorbed,
To be at one with the thick pile
Of the carpet softly underfoot...
Asylum Antechamber
Black cascade, a fragile note hung trembling
In the thick white air: a swansung requiem
To the degeneration of myriad miraculous visions.
Then tell me, what did you see before you spiralled
So recklessly into the abyss?
Graphomania
Did you not once allude, that through the cracks in the world
Other possibilities might make themselves manifest?
Discordia
Eris, you're a terrible child,
Throwing your toys
In violent tantrums
Of whimsy and spite...
When The Thunder Spoke
She cries shrill curses at the sun, our mother Kali:
It's her doing, the thunder that rips the valley,
The rain that lashes these flounced silks,
The wind that sours the seed and curdles the milk....
Spirit Of Iona
Iona of my heart/ I return/ a pilgrim to your willing shores/ in a sackcloth of rainbow ash/
coming alive in your light/ coming alive in your dove feather hands/ I bend to the rhythm
of your breathing/ my city-tainted spirit, humbled by the eloquence of your silence...
Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God
Strip the lids from sleeping eyes
And live in sunlight forever more....
Starbright
We will never know the names
Of all the constellations:
Geometry conspires against us
Awakening To The Light
You are, you generate and you radiate out a light so bright I cannot look. It effervesces in your
eyes and sparkles in your hair. It is the joy that spills from your mouth: it is so huge,
you cannot name it or contain it...