CLOUDS

clouds are fatty

clouds are lean

clouds get mouthy

sometimes grin

rolling across answers

like mealy-mouthed transfers

clouds lie cunning

clouds lay low

clouds know secrets

often sins

when shit reveals sacred

when silence grows greater

clouds are honest

clouds are thieves

clouds live den-like

sometimes leave

miraculous letters

when whiskered is fail-safe

clouds are trusted

clouds stay banned

clouds are silent

underhand

in penance for nothing

for no ruined landscape

clouds are bone-free

clouds of the wand

clouds hallelujiah

undermined

what’s happening this time

when we refused the sign

5.25.21 nyc

Photo: 4.4.26 CP UES

what we forget to remember

are the flat tires fixed

by roadside strangers

we forget when young we

snatched the cane of an overlord

and righted the elder

with no intent

like a swan necked round a lover

feathers laid back in alarm

are you my hero

are you here to harm

this is the universe crawling begotten

this is the friendship

we are faced with uncertain

how many times have I drunk

elixir well spoken in language

I know when I’m drunk and broken

it comes back forever

this drink this reposting

beware of the bulls when they

crash through the wrong

I am drunk and unhinged

bored with bleating song

Make a video of this

you panting sad poseurs

this city ain’t dead

though it makes a great poem

this city ain’t dead’

though it makes a great poem.

3.3.18 nyc

PHOTO: Tim Tapling

 

Of course I am

how can I not be

terminally urged as I am toward the sea 

when the aching breeds

tempests and honest tornadoes 

how can I not be

this knee jerk reaction

to past midnight poems

refuse dropped at the door 

at dawn

how can it not be

soldier of ancient roman regret

crossing with me at the light

of course I am

how could I not be

everything real honors the reborn

everyone ancient prods the norm

as it should be

as it should be

how can it not be

 

nyc 8.11.25

photo: Reservoir 8.9.25

 after the release of a scathing new biography of the disgraced Duke of York

 

she had things to consider

like the cost of wine in a bitter winter

tariffs and misprints and over-extenders

all the pieces missing from the middle

summer had already been heated

like arguments among sheep soon de-bleated

the noise overtakes the exchange

her knee jerk heart plays no fiddle

respect the delete

what can go wrong

a host of sparrows in drunken chorus

hawks with peace signs wander among us

tunes lie laughingly in secret nerves

she’s learning how to navigate a toothless grin

at one oh two a.m. for her regrettable sins

a bit of bourbon

not enough to pretend clarity escapes her

like blood flung from a painter’s brush

a touch of light in The Night of No Fireflies

thumbprint on the end of rushing

a round of applause for the 

truly outstanding wherever they are

these are the times of generalization

fill in the horror

the accusations

random flicks at a pretend nation

something other than ruined creations

sirens cry like wounded reminders

under the crowded footfall of curious minds

tough shit the bastards cry

bite harder she spits in reply

`

 

THE GLEANERS

 

Leave the grapes

on the vine

for longer than the rest

labor has been overrated

hunger says it best

workers are the construct

of fat ones strutting sated

from the farmhouse to the table

leave the wheat

in the fields

to be picked at by the birds

the ones who burn the

construct down

are those who tend the earth

ownership is rape

peace is compromised

leave the grapes

they’re yours and mine

 

the gleaners will be heard

 

8.16.18

PHOTO: Tim Tapling Contemplating eternity : Flaybrick Cemetery : Bidston : Wirral : 01:Jun:2025.

before she reaches

the end of a thought

there had been no one she could speak of

working with the dead 

as she was

the shortened firearms still daunting 

unrelated matters notwithstanding

mischievous mispronunciation 

is acceptable now

to some this is fucking unbelievable

whatever happened to 

worship of the form

a roving eye on the oncoming storm

revealing the antidotes to heartbreak are

leaves shaken from rakes

curled and ready for war

ice cubes embrace a fever sore

blistered from revealing more thinking

a quite extraordinary skill

like a mayfly alarmed by less than a breath

when the "l" in "salmon" offers regret 

pouring over ancient scrawls

hand drawn revelations

burnt and wounded innovation

stumbling through the crowded malls of excess and delusion

the builder answered her confusion

our suffocated nation

our panic in time

our forced equivocation

our memory’s rhyme

when he could never bring himself

to a semicolon

smaller than the rhyme

 

7.25.25 nyc

PHOTO: Tim Tapling 

Reprise : Millers Quay : Birkenhead : Wirral : 30:Jul:2025.

 KIND OF BLUE

 

Late at night in a field of bad dreams

I breathe like a stallion
an old one it seems

I thrash in my stall
I shoulder that awl

Late at night in a field of bad dreams

scream like a lone one

grasp the last song line
and murder the rows 
with my awl of demean
Late at night in a field of bad dreams

I am kinda blue

and you know what that means

late at night in an crazy ass stream

I swim to you

and you know that that means

 

1.23.15 nyc

Photo: Tim Tapling 

Feeding competition on the incoming tide : Blue Hour : Hoylake : Wirral : 22:Jul:2025.

 

WE WERE CREATED

 

assigned to the future

tentative like furniture 

you haven’t yet bought

for rooms that are

silent as the drones 

you have

yet to drop 

slowly for a better view

when there is a story

we hive like bees among chapters

parsing a tale to suit

we straggle at sentences

like the time I dressed naked in your poet’s shirt

drunk-filled with poems

running from doctrine

misunderstood among the hoi polloi

we grasp what matters

parsing commas for relief

reasons for all this shit

suspended in disbelief

every mistake belongs to everyone

my love for him

is all I know

I mask yet I won’t begin to follow

we were created by our own kind

children are born free

a lesson unlearned for eternity

my love for him

is drunken sometimes

I grasp what matters

I struggle for the rhyme

we are created in evolution

greet the bastards with crime

signal the masthead

bolt from the line

my love for him

I roll like the credits

over a serial killer film

And then like the lottery

it’s ours in the end

like ours in the friendship

like ours to re-friend

I grasp what matters

my love for him has been in tatters

struggling for the rhyme

created in evolution

greeting the bastards for every solution

memory loss the time-honored escape

Being here is what matters

Being here is the rake

 

10.10.20 nyc

Photograph: Tim Taplin Last light over Nth Wales : Burton Marshes : Wirral : 29:Jan:2025

Click on art for full view

Glare

 

from decision

a revision

mistaken for benevolence

 

Glare

 

when the answer

reels up

smacks the heart with insistence

 

Glare

 

at the bottom of

the blood red glass

desk lamp the focus on the ask

 

 

Glare before fall

 

Glare when it ends

 

Glare will begin

 

 

like the poet said

in underground rhyme

this brutal heart with the hole is mine

 

3.24.17 nyc

Photograph: @Tim Tapling Sunset through the trees : Pensby Cemetery : Wirral : 29:Jun:2025.

 

From your memoirist

the museum of magic

holds many treasures

among them the loss 

and loves in great measure

hours with you in

your crowded rooms

recording your life

in a cigarette brume

the evasions

confessions

the repetitive wanders

your weary return to

the love you remember

how did I not guess

the bread crumbs you saw

on the trail that she left you

her constant recall

of the life that was you

after days spent in

your hot crowded rooms

the kitchen walls

laden with antique spoons

avoiding the cat

who knew who knew

your history as plain as the devil

memory as sharp as

the gavel that sounds in your heart

you were always meant

to return to her ring

the woman who loved you

the boxer who came slowly

to the ultimate win

you were always meant to

unfurl silken bondage

she’s yours

you are hers

in the forever hereafter

you are ours

in that magical theater

a drink at the bar

a line in the sand

a strait jacket moment

you are ours when

we can

find a way out of the ropes

the box and the past to

reconnect with great love

at last

at last

to release a white dove

 

For Magic Man SK

8.19.16

Photo: nyc 1.17.13

Click for full image

 

ROTH

 

tonight I cried

prepared as I was with 

a pinot noir

and a pipe truth be told

so that I could drift afar

from a smoke-filled brain

to a wine-dressed heart

remembering what grew me

what words overthrew me

a writer had died

was he all that, I thought

or more like a builder

a plumber, a doctor,

a runner, a cyclist, a teacher,

a mobster

who raps the truth

with poetic restraint

tonight I cried like I did for Lennon

and Janis not Ian but Joplin the saint

I cried like a child who can’t

find its toy

poured a glass had a toke

with such risible joy

tonight I cried

for all I was worth

hereafter indulging in heroes

now gone

still gnawing at nerves

still proving their worth.

 

5.23.18 nyc

Photo: Author, NYC. UES 6.11.25

Jeanne Moreau likely quit drinking around the age of 57. 

 

 WINDOW

she had a window

once of beauty

elusive carousel ring

they stopped to

watch her as she passed

men who kept her

wondering

why they never

prized her thoughts

why her opinions

never asked

they sought to own her

own her laugh

she sometimes lost

sometimes gave in

stayed on the horse

‘til night’s upswing

she looked around her

growing older

leaving beauty to the past

what grew in beauty

grew inside her

the window opened

learned to fly

a mirror is

a useless map

 

8.24.12 nyc
PHOTO: nyc 5.13.2023