Lux Burning
Gracefully I acquiesce to your condition,
‘tis one of darkness, thinking you know all of me,
caressing the silken skinned mind of me,
you place me on the outside of your magic circles, You
think you are closer to poet laureates, in the sanctum of your inner forests,
casting five fingered pentameter spells to the excommunicated sonnet
one finger up, middle, gingerly walking the parameters
crazed like a repeating pantoum tirelessly seeking a ring that fits,
backward flipping over mirrors of doom,
oh the sum assaulting,
watching the emptiness of you, touching all the cracked parts of me,
those deep valleys of the unblessed unhinged,
I hold the mirror up to you from my guarded circle within
tainted you touch the tortured for a little while, just for a little while,
verses that speak to you in your quaint little removed territories,
like prayer beads each word the innocence of anything left in you is bartered,
like a dog, for a pat on the back, well done old bean, well done,
yet, it is not you, they congratulate – you’ve yet to meet that part of you
that satiates the giving into that old traitor, fear of The End;
you like to believe you are more than me, much closer to “It” all,
but that we certainly have in common, “dear friend”,
that chapter, you artfully avoid, The End.
you break the strands of brevity, the brevity of human life,
like breaking a poet’s poetry, like branches of a life from my tree, – not yours –
like twigs for kindling over your unrobust athritic knees,
but the remnants remain, and they fertilise the path
to the wildfire mind deep well-lit within, flickering against your walls
and like brilliant blood flowers these thoughts and poems grow underneath
stones thrown taking firm root from rot, words and visions
expand in time more blinding light over dark platelets radiating,
thriving like a jungle of wild ivy they climb your walls from the ground up
and penetrate the facade of you, eventually – witness the stark white cells
contained and expanding, abnormally well-lit the white trying to eat the well red,
checkmate cancerous are you reading me yet?
cracking what is left of me over your knees,
tossing the waste of it all into the fire,
I crackle and spit, like there is no time left, the light leaps,
pearls from a broken crown shining illumine-sent grim realities,
that reflect something called into the ignominious, unwarranted beyond doubt,
still the wisdom explodes like stardust and Big Tom Thumb firecrackers
does his best rolling towards you aflame, hot twirling like dervishes,
shrapnel words like cursive mirror balls menuetto
passing through your open windows
across a floor well-mastered, polishing the unpolished,
this aint no disco, the vibration inside you echoes, “last dance golem”.
You, braille stroke what you think you see, you do not think, but,
you have absolutely no idea of me, you are unrefined, no level 4 mon petit,
burnt sugar roars unsweetened, it bubbles and eventually toffee forms
hard and brittle, light dunked in heavy for a little while this candied poetry
eaten and swallowed, such an addiction could be holy or unholy,
You, not me, a half-baked mystery, parts pegged chapters let slide
like sweet jewel drops sacraments melting on a tongue of no words left,
tears dissolve down an uneaten folly the walls call us in,
the sponged heart squeezed for all its worth, you chew slowly
on the song of its bouncing gravity, savouring the starburst flavours
of an undressed crazy imagination softly rising like hot baked dreams
without the peace piped icing and candles, like torches held aloft, above it all
and there you sit slowly spit roasting
eyes blue-flamed the whites bubbling up
like toasted marshmallows sliding down padded walls
like lost alabaster stoned rabbits running late running late
holding their watches to the fading light taking it all in,
my camp stories, you stand by the open gate,
incredulously you can taste the warmth of me,
like fine brandy, a rollicking good laugh
at the expense of all the uncompleted chronicles,
you think I am hilarious, sometimes, you think I am not;
I could be medicinal, who would have thought, this of me?
where warmth emanates and you can taste the last of me,
where poetry vacillates, even more enticing, the choice -
of this way or that, here, you are spoilt for choice of directions to take,
in the Labyrinthine passages of me, messages on the cavernous walls for decoding,
it makes your fingers write secret code, slick in response you write back
as best you can, despite your mind saying, “no what is the point of responding” - yet You,
respond with your incessant messages on the spit ball walls,
this perhaps could or could not be,
some furtive fecund love story –
but never ever,
mere fast soft-serve poetry
click clacking across keys
which key do you think opens
the answers to the unequivocal mystery of my lack lustre poetry?
like a cocktail requires simple syrup neat 1, 2, and 3
hot water and Irish Moss in your coffee
soothes cut glass in the throat gone voiceless, like stones thrown,
coughing up abstract, remedies expresso neat;
inside the heart flutters, slowly commencing to beat out of time,
something “in” You commences to speak, slurring vociferously,
on a table under stark light intubated you are put under
wearing a breathing mask and a tube down your throat,
they ask you to count backwards from 100, you make it to 97 not 3,
not nearly enough numbers for your preconceived notions,
like too much absinthe oiled green with unspoken bitter jealousy
in your adjunct facile verses, You, begin to belittle
what small greatness still remains inside me,
with little knowledge of me, you’re fuelling your dark conquests troll-like, pathetically
last thoughts before going under the knife, mine not yours,
the anaesthetist joins in,
for a while the last number of see, 2 -
eyes measuring the count
garnering ignorant thoughts on a life,
a big little life You think, “but never lived like me”,
silence crescendos the applause dulled behind your eyes
that hidden self, yours not mine, those fuzzy shut doors now closing …down,
erratically rat-a-tat-tat, like a heckler ‘n koch the life of your message it pounds,
an MP5 submachine gun, rat-a-tat-tat up the page then down,
wet tongue now rat-a-tat-tat licking fingers, you turn over
the Hard Copy’s bloodied pages, the open cavity
with your earnest thumb like a silent assassin, like a surgeon,
you look inside this body of work, what’s done is done, you watch on
the unstoppable story spreading,
you take it all in and over you,
green envy like rampant ivy,
without even knowing what’s what
(You, thought you knew it all),
all the words,
but nothing ever of importance is said,
nothing of significance, full stop.
Still life,
like a drunk abstract pointilistic nowhere near hallowed steeple,
is in idle conversation transcending surreally with Picasso and Dali,
throbbing along a strong recalcitrant spine Van Gogh bone weary
and the steel inside resounds like chords of a Mephistopheles
mandolin monk-like background chanting mantras,
each chink in the spine a definite message,
a bar raised like a Jacob’s ladder rung like a well-timed bell,
what escapes rises higher
clinging to a precarious dream and begins the contracted climb
standing stoic and immeasurably defiant in front of you, it wants like lust,
waving its white flags, it wants to speak, - but trust? Trust??
no chance golem – trust is wasting fast away now –
it holds back the delicious taste
of just not yet, just not yet, let’s dive a little deeper,
into the salty brine, hidden between the folds of dilemma,
wasted sheets of poetry written, waste deep and sinking fast,
hidden notes found in the precise folds of costume and mask
creased sharp and defiant the words all like fish swimming upstream
become eyes that stare back at you questioning the reason for it all
they watch cannulas dripping juice into a little life, a little death applauds
the dog-eared pages now dramatically barking for relief
like a howling dam in heat
"IT" - that evasive “something”, pulls in the seaweed strands of a body of work,
found in the drowning time, it’s all gone Lovecraft cathedral dark confessionals,
that immersed spine incongruous hard-boned unbreakable, a monster shark
you pull it back into you like it’s caught in a net;
you think the spirit of me is trapped
up in your bourgeois bag of words,
imprisoned to never be released, to die a very slow death,
like you understand it all, the bittersweet bone raising knuckled game,
the strategically placed poet gone all Poe
in a coffin incinerated honeycomb melting death of me,
like minted forged joints knotted you haul in some treasure, like Candy,
I’m the velvet pouched pursed lip mojo bag, full of jangling keys,
where entry is rigged with tripwires, and lit grenades to show you the way,
I am très non unhabitual, so far removed from reality,
from the extraordinary unconventional die another day
I’m on my way Home, didn’t you know?
the sweet tart body of work that is and has been me, which You,
try ardently to ignore, but you turn around to face me like I’m an addiction,
to pull heavily back into you, like a fresh catch, a vibrant coloured school,
waxy skinned, crayon scaled, each scale like a leaf on a tree,
a part of the bigger story, weighed in, yet not the whole,
yet to be found in another school’s playing field, regenerating;
where those clawing trolls sit either side under their Hellish gates watching
my footprints imprint as I stroll over the bridge above them, as above so below,
watching you walking the line upside down reflections never cast shadows,
perhaps there is light in the mix, somewhere,
waiting for your changing features of fate,
you cast old red shoes off your feet and barefoot you follow the trail
to the addiction of following something bigger other than yourself,
that you thought unacceptable in me,
this contraband captured of something Other, where monsters like trolls
hang around watching like idle vampires counting steps wanting to draw blood,
feeding on one’s demise, they spit you out,
like you are unwanted loose teeth, they spit and they grin,
your blood dripping double down their two-faced chins
like doctors, god-like, they think they have a prognosis and remedy
for your every sin,
the poetry like drugs kick in and Morpheus does His thing;
you are writing automatic in a state of grace;
all in your mind, no dancing fingers across noiseless black keys, the freedom sets in;
there you sit upon your steely barbed wire electric fence, bleeding not I, but You,
that terrible territory you touch gingerly, there for the grace of God go I,
then the unexpected left which you failed to see initially presents just right,
lifts you up and the velvet and raw reality that slides like a child in full glee
down your throat, fills you up like you’re obsessed,
and gifts you no gentle guarantee,
all those naff little salty words swallowed whole Kilpatrick
like small periwinkles re-dressed, like sweet soft little codeine pills,
dulls the pain, what’s left, stings the heart like salt on an open wound,
“if only I’d known”, You, not I, you hear yourself say.
for once you stop to think of the merit of tearing another into tasteless strips.
Ah, it’s intriguing, when you consider in these quiet frantic moments,
What’s swallowed for one, comes out the same way for all, in The End.
Now, you understand, “It”,
"IT" - is all terribly and lusciously complete, but then,
that’s just the brutal beauty of integrity staring ruthlessly
at another’s reflection, not yours, as they lower you in,
and understanding, there in that one scene,
is part of the sum of the full me that is now seen -
the over and done of the You that is in me,
against your treasure chest press the tomes of me flipping back into You rapidly,
you slip into the great In-between, the bardo of poetic purgatory
the true territory of me, where there for the grace of God go You, not me;
you are possessed;
what you value more than truth, is now the precise death of me -
which without thinking is the darkness unseen within you,
inadvertently your judgement waits for the death of you
and through, words, thoughts, and deeds,
the dark bedded leads inevitably to the unwanted truth of You,
it all regurgitates full circle gargantuan a little life, little by little,
like a stain that cannot be removed.
A life for a life.
karma doesn’t reverse - it completes the cycle -
kick a person to the curb,
the curb comes calling well timed back in spades for you
and this is quite close, closer than it has ever been -
yet, you are ignorant to the true unknown parts of me,
and like the bitter stalker you are of me, you are addicted
to what it is of me, that is not in you, you see
it burns, yes it burns deeply beyond your recall,
you make your way through this new strange terrible territory
privileged, you think you are that rare breed, bleeding more than me,
still,
I am on the other side of your labyrinthine stairs
your obsidian night eyes sparkling like a poisonous sharp fanged ophidian,
a tight vengeful reflecting coiled-like thing, a serpent trickster within,
the curse of jealously brutally laid close and bare within You,
that murderous little death, like a fading orgasm
you rise to the occasion and douse my copper veined stories
in the deep leafed hidden gold mine of me, in vinegar’d honey
with your fuel of lies passing the torch
to your gormless bedazzled minions
now not by your side;
the body of work within me, still shines
you can’t help yourself in the dark
for a bit of my light, you are torching the little that is left of me,
the lux burning gold lit embers of me, you poke and prod
turning over the blackened scorched coals, hidden treasures unseen
hidden in the dirt beneath flames, safely deposited there you’ll find me,
there is the fiery shining being in that terrible grounded heart of me
ash marked phoenix
glistening ignition,
the key placed just so,
revving the engine turns over
and purrs like a big cat
nonchalantly
pouncing into this journey,
your heavy soul, like feet pressing down
on the pedals merely accelerates me
the upwards moves inwards,
forever and ever inwards,
gears changing upwards evermore upwards,
throbbing vibrations, lifts me like a white feather
presses me against the windshield of mortality
I melt through it more easily than I would have thought
I melt into immortality, upwards, inwards, outwards,
like echolocation – it is sensed rather than felt,
swiftly the escalation pushes me through –
changing gears full speed upwards
held in the unread palm now opening,
foot hard pressed to the floor,
once more I fall crystal-ball-orb-like
back into you;
if only the outsiders could make sense of it all.
then You speeding, without gift or emotional intelligence,
decide to take the ecstatic self-aware empathic curves of me
some type of farcical control of the one writing,
but your mind is so much slower,
the finish line of me is already determined
slowly dissolving effervescent in the burning chemo mind
the intravenous numbs
I am at peace, believe it or not,
and you? Well, you are eager and keen
to put the fire in me out, for all time,
you understand implicitly to bolster your mission,
I am the part of you that requires abolishing.
what is me? I am nothing, yet everything.
you are everything, but nothing in the mirror like me,
you are closer to life than the final death of my image
abandoning the pure grit of what is purged
that which you have absolutely missed,
in the crevice of the hung gallows of me.
this much is so desired, and observed,
distressed and undressed, we re-dress
what you lack in yourself, you take what is of me, away from me,
yet, it is a most peculiar thing, together in one way or another,
we speed towards the unknown, different roads, yet,
that place after the Chapter ends,
the “Assured Commonality”.
a little death draws nearer to You,
each time you knock me down,
you knock yourself down.
your messages are by now, all thoroughly received,
this subtle invocation with the spell to shut down –
everything within the Poet – of me,
this much is read, universally it is seen,
defamation delicious to you like a cat has its cream.
you have summoned something
you could never have dreamed
in your wildest of dreams -
the pages of a book
like the legs of a life
opening wider
birthing climaxes
higher and higher
new life rising
to kiss the lips of fresh pages,
unopened like letters
envelopes you’re closing
shutting down
the other something in me
that will never in You be found
nor lost in the absence of You
your doppelganger kisses your mirror
the opposite of You, you think
the rhyming hollows of You confused,
the gaping wide-open silences of You
immersed in the bardo’s black symphony
locked in you, the You that is not me
broken in yet, You are not You just yet, free -
you see, You are still very broken to me
unable to kiss wide open awake
those fast closed sleeping eyelids
the windows are glued wide open, now You see,
through floodlights under watery gaze like a manatee,
where the soul waives gallantly and whispers,
“come find me.
come find me!”
all that has been and once lived outrageously
drawn like artworks reeling their breath brackish back in,
the You that is reading, and torching the poet, you detest in me
a ghoul wanting and stalking your ghost writer
and their full heart unseen, to bleed out
upon your fresh invisible marks
like stained dark unfading ink it sticks fast
on the pages You once signed eons ago and agreed,
all scrolled away now removed from the walls and the tables
and wrapped totally Up, buried deep in the lounging dark crevices of You,
which you thoroughly don’t officially unofficially warrant or see, You sit unseen
speaking to novices like ghosts in their empty chairs,
submerged in the glue of their dreams
much later,
again, the unscrolling
the re-signing,
X marks the spot,
the unseen, is eventually seen
I could eat and read You,
like you’re something
novel and deliciously sweet,
called forth intermediary
dripping honey peppered like chilli mead,
like it means something to You, not to me,
more than any of your devoted torturous dreams
all of You
lit like candles, on a cake,
blown out, blown away
from the unread me
a lush decadent redrum velvet cake, bombed like a cold Alaskan and lit
to be eaten and fully appreciated,
your melting words like icing salaciously licked,
the story unravelling sweet strawberry fields
in the middle of it all, the pergola heart seen,
red velvet delicious like Life bleeding the jam of its beat
oozing deep melodies within the deepest in-between,
the fathomless winding unchartered labyrinthine layers of You,
kept inside me, the You kept deep inside me unseen
eventually you see me, like watching an 8mm film reel
I walk towards you like a succubus in your dreams
then,
like the ghosts You all are,
You walk soft and saccharine
right into and through me
You think you are knowledgeable,
but integrity and honesty proffer the unsubstantial more blithely
and barters blindly the feeble unreal seen for the real ghost unseen
treacherous traitors
You are held back
by the betrayal of
uncertainty -
I walk first incredulously
far beyond You, before You
silently immersed,
You, eventually fire melting, all cave in
all around You
the footsteps lit
the Lux burning
the footmarks scorching
dancing flames around each page of You
turning You over and over, powder puff, fragile ash
forever and ever like an ever-present breeze
with You and in all of You, evermore
in the haunted breeze lifting
yours,
eternally,
the labyrinthine
Candide
in the church of You,
that vacant space, filling up
the congregational gaps
those nailed kneeling on pews
now unable to move, communion crazed glued,
the true Ghost arrives religiously on time
self-righteously walking through
all the windows and mirrors of You,
your scattered thoughts reflected in mere poetry, and
You, are found
wanting much more than your written scores, ever could be,
You are now covered irreverently in marked modest sheets
lines marked and crossed on 5, like a password, black-balled,
another dimension reaches that level in strides,
You are a strange hieroglyph
under cover a key,
turning hidden the reflection for your safety,
a penny for your thoughts placed neatly on each of your closed windows,
it’s a sight for sore eyes to be seen
the unprocessed middle of the road
covered and hidden beneath beige calico
is easily lit
the Ghost moves
forward through
the Lux burning
well-lit
It pulls You
from the middle of it All
the singular mess
towards the higher road
where you are re-dressed and now newly met;
true Ghosts arrive in 3’s
like a life somersaulting backwards
to the starting line
written and imprinted
into your thoughts
from the archipelago of mine
in the chronicles of wasted time
you hear the echo resound,
it beats against your brow
above
your unmoving
cut glass windows -
the words heard and not read,
“thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”
and so the hunters drag you on and in
and You stand with them, casting stones, You
drop the witch down and in
with all the other lost stories
Ah, but the witch in Her ruinous poetic way
breathes and spits out treasured runes,
Love spells she casts far from beyond the grave
and there before you, witch hunter,
She walks towards You through ruins
full body onwards and into your eyes,
It is impossible for her to stop, you see,
for She, Lillith, never dies, she still breathes
In You,
dear reader,
She lives on and on and on
Lux vitae
Burning light
Love spells she casts from far beyond
what is nebulously out of layman’s site;
for only what stands and watches from inside your eyes,
witness the rising of a poet's last rites
Candide Diderot. ‘25
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