Arrogant Reign

Arrogant rain
spits violence in my face
whatever way I turn;
pursuing and taunting.
Spiteful playground bullies
and malefic Brandt line despots alike
yearn for such unassailable power.
So what recourse have I -
here on this shelterless street?

Neither protest nor revolution
can threaten to turn or topple this
regime of icy wetness.
And yet somewhere in the lining of this coat
must linger a scent of Jacobin conspiracy,
because my spirit refuses to be broken.
Each forward step has become an act of resistance,
calling forward the day
when I will stand -
here on this shelterless street -
and bathe my face in the light
of a gentle and gracious sun.

Sin

Sin

First taste of sin was in the dark.
The sound of crying echoing off the walls.
Your crying.
You have every right to cry.
You’re only 9 weeks old and the virus in your chest burns like hot coal.
Outline of sleep-deprived parent appears over the cot,
a fierce voice barks hot breath into your face.
Hands grab your little arms a bit too tightly.
There’s a heavy pause, followed by unrecognised words,
“Sorry… I’m sorry… It’s OK…”

Sin and repentance.
Simple and quick.
Sour and sweet.
It won’t always be so.
By the first sound of the school bell sin has struck more times that you can count.
This is the world that makes all Victim.
Worse.
This world turns all Offender.

Close fleshy lids and recall the times you’ve been scorched
by lies and scams,
by names called and rights revoked,
by property taken, identity mistaken,
your body used, trust abused.
Coerced and compromised.
Even if you resist its name you know sin’s forms
the way Adam knew Eve.

Now look about.
This talk of sin occurs on the salt plains where
there is no topography of differentiation.
Dirty fingerprints are on us all.
Beauty and beast find empathy in their scars.
But who invited this?
This life?
This world?
This injustice?

Tell me how an innocent bush-boy becomes a stoned-soldier;
how in a twist of fate the victim becomes the perpetrator.
His broken heart becomes cold and calloused.
And with every crime he tells our story.
For we are all enlisted, young.
Now our grown-up minds store toxic pools,
our tongues razors.
Cats claws have grown in our paws
and the truth sags through lack of exercise.
Actions provoked reactions and it happened.
Sin found a host, a home.
A soul to shame,
a name to blame.

And

If I was God...

and I wanted the world to see me,
how would I reveal myself?

and I wanted the world to hear me
what sound would I use?

and I wanted the world to smell me,
what fragrance would I choose?

and I wanted the world to taste me,
how would I share my flavour?

and I wanted the world to touch me,
how could I create the texture?

Crew

with thick black pens
we scrawl our names
and with chromium blades
we etch our slogans
embellishing our identities
on your glassy newness
a pack of hidden faces
gambling on the turn of life’s next card

heat from the five-oh
raises Marijuana pulses
and liberates sticky soles
from the gum strewn street
augmenting our attitudes
towards your Democracy
maverick colour seekers
with black and white dice loaded against us

Conscience

What future for a city
When the seers become the seared?
When the Looking Glass is lost?
and blind to our disfigurement we crash on.
History chooses not to watch;
She turns her face from the ugliness of our excess
Perhaps tomorrow will bring a tissue
To wipe the paint from this old moll’s face?

What future for me
When my edges become exaggerated?
When my roller-coaster has so much height
and so little anchorage.
Has calamity become inevitability?
Or will Humility’s voice restore to me the day
I first heard back the echo of the street
in the dark alleys of my own heart.

The Block

LOBBY:
Aloof from vulgar tarmacadam
the polished chamber of soles
is listening suspiciously
careful not to breathe a word

101:
Anatomy of aspiration
Turning plastic into paper
Guaranteed happiness in cold green glass

201:
Telemetry of tragedy
Flash burn and exit wound
Crimson shadows creep across beech laminate

301:
Juxtaposition of Joy
Blue dot means green light
Ecstatic voices pillory their Rumplestiltskin

401:
Serenity of sloth
Press red for instant pleasure
Caustic fantasy severs humanity from personality

501:
Immanence of ideas
Grey carbon traces a footprint
Conjured opinion regards unnecessary future

ROOF:
Ruling sand and quicklime
the panoptican of metropolis
is watching flirtatiously
hoping to catch a wandering eye

Mass

Latin octaves rise to sculpted arches
then fall into the creases of lime-starched robes
and incense seduces our nostrils
with Mrs. Robinson allure.

At all points of the compass
I am surrounded by sons of Adam
and daughters of Eve;
Yet each one cocooned –
suspended on a gossamer axis.

Choral voices glide like drunken bees
through the sandstone honeycomb
whilst October sun invades the hive
with its golden promise.

Do I resist – decline this Holy meal?
Should I critique – in righteous suicide?

I reach, partake.
Mix hope and memory.
My first my last.
My one and only.

Technorati tags: Manchester, Poetry, Poems, Urban, Creative Writing, Writing

Grace

As she moves through the crowd
her theramin footsteps
leave the palest impressions
on the York Stone slabs

A brown child turns to see
and his ice cream drips
a raspberry vanilla tear
upon the place she paused

But she’s in flight now
not omnipresent
yet swift to aid
- a darting, dancing Starling

She sings contralto reassurance
to the city’s dizzy minds
her promiscuous kiss
is balm for all our guilty lips.

Technorati tags: Manchester, Poetry, Poems, Urban, Creative Writing, Writing

Avalon

O noble, enigmatic Tor,
robed in rumours of mystic mischief.
Has the friction of new centuries
worn thin your ancient spell?
Does your silhouette still impress the skies
in ways that tar-etched city grids cannot?
Are you really more sacred now than the
poppy strewn cenotaph?
And how can your static loneliness
fill the earth beneath with currents of electric soul
that are not eclipsed in an instant by playground voices,
chanting and dancing in primal chorus.
What do you know of enchantment Tor,
aloof from human vice and virtue,
guarded from the dark arts of urban industry?
Are you perhaps a mere folly Tor,
To the dream of a transcendent elsewhere?

Technorati tags: Poetry, Poems, Urban, Creative Writing, Writing

Whole

Through cycles of growth and decay
we change
but never cease to compete.
Our myriad connections go uncelebrated
yet our minor contradictions are vilified.
The lonely hide in their paradox
yet the hostile thrive with mechanical ease.
Reductionism gives no answer
to the question of the city;
it must be swallowed whole
by wide open eyes
hovering like India 99
absorbing the thermal image
imprinting the human grid
upon the retina of our souls.

Technorati tags: Manchester, Poetry, Poems, Urban, Creative Writing, Writing