Tagestour

Words like throng and cram and suffocate 
of themselves explain little, if anything at all.
So we must add to it thread by broken thread,
layer by invisible layer
using words as though we had not yet
invented them.
Words like metal and train, bake and burn
menstruating woman in hot August sun.
And the words which we omit are as valid
as the words which we choose.
So we shall not give vision to cool soft winds
or pitchers tall with crushed ice water 
nor give sound to crisply laundered linen
or suggest vase for freshly cut rose.
Behind every single half impression
that we may have managed to vaguely evoke
lie images too enmeshed in the weave
to ever begin carry things other 
than the fragile ghost of the message.

Biko

I see you
a long time ago
stalking
dusty roads
somewhere
in old England
face covered
by mask of silk
glad given
by some lady
whose nights you stole
and her diamonds too.
But she forgave you,
somehow sensing
in that vague way,
or the look in the eyes
she could not see
that you could die
for a cause
that your outlaw soul
found richer
than all the diamonds
yet to be stolen.

Because the world is round

We
in the flat earth society
hold vigils
for those
who use geometry
to garner reason
from a void
that has no circumference

Madeleine

Building sandcastles
can be treacherous
when broken waves and
shattered souls congregate.
Footsteps that give off no sound
leave no trace, no remnant.
Some things have no meaning,
no answer and no hope.
Such actions are beyond the point
where reason and purpose collide.
Destruction and fragility co-exist
but that is not to understand
why hope is named a flightless bird
and left no forwarding address.

Abortion No.2 

The girl alone
walks steady
the street of curves,
for footprints
have no past.
Times dead
betray
times living.
The girl alone 
looks to the stars
big and twinkling
and begs them 
understand
but the stars
conscious of their breadth
and bright
are beyond reach
of things but born,
so they give no clue
as the girl alone
skirts the margin
of her blood milk
way.

In ash

In ash
we reduce
what was not
into
what could never be.

In ash
lies memory
and energy
converted to nothing,
more or less.

In ash
lies admission
of mortality
and finite.

In ash
no music
or sound.
No decibel
to wake
what almost was.

In ash
sits the problem
to all our answers.

Source

Jack the ripper’s mother may have been blameless,
this option must be considered in any analysis.
Gave him endless and unbridled love 
and sense too of right and wrong.
Told him that all women were God’s creatures
and how each of us in turn had flaws.
By the same token, Jack’s father too may have loved the boy,
held his tiny hand for dear life as they walked
the back streets of Whitechapel on grey, rainy nights
when unwashed women took silver from unwashed men
with apparent gratitude.
Jack, even at this early stage may have been his own man,
sought order in social chaos,
wondered if the glint of steel might not wreak calm
and purpose in the endless fog.
This is all supposition of course
as he may have been an orphan too.