{"id":5011,"date":"2013-02-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=5011"},"modified":"2013-02-15T15:47:46","modified_gmt":"2013-02-15T20:47:46","slug":"muddy-brixton-morning-and-other-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/muddy-brixton-morning-and-other-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Muddy Brixton Morning and Other Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Poems_585x585\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Muddy Brixton Morning<\/span><\/p>\n

Deep down it hurts,<\/p>\n

Bewildering cycles and still<\/p>\n

The dreams pulsing with the rain and the people,<\/p>\n

Distant utopias mirrored in eyes seeking<\/p>\n

Forgiveness and mystery – the best the worst and the treasured<\/p>\n

Waiting to continue<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Night winding down to<\/p>\n

Quick smiles and hanging lights and cigarettes in bloom<\/p>\n

With pretty wounds reconciled in hearts and sweeping hopes<\/p>\n

And conversations lingering in rain and on we tread,<\/p>\n

Morning marching<\/p>\n

Hope warriors on the trail<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am amongst them with her at the centre,<\/p>\n

Heart string to my chord<\/p>\n

Still strumming whilst I pace helpless,<\/p>\n

Wanderer of nowhere in twilight of touch<\/p>\n

Until the darkness creeps<\/p>\n

Bewitching, with echoes of the past embracing madness<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At sun\u2019s rise<\/p>\n

We must all go to bed with beasts, corrupted;<\/p>\n

It is the only way<\/p>\n

Down in the dirt scratching for sense amongst the petals,<\/p>\n

Hearing the moon cry and tasting her tears with<\/p>\n

People and places fading like the bar\u2019s din swallowed by the streets<\/p>\n

And the scattered yellow leaves like angels fallen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Duplicity Shielding The Rain<\/span><\/p>\n

Duplicity exists in the frames of the windows that shield the rain<\/p>\n

And the sound of horns,<\/p>\n

Within our human nature of chemical enchantment<\/p>\n

And the drunk tramp\u2019s sign requesting food<\/p>\n

From so many soapy beseeching eyes.<\/p>\n

If you become famous they will sell you and if you don\u2019t<\/p>\n

They will never know and they<\/p>\n

Will care less.<\/p>\n

Serendipity of the vanquished arising from the mud<\/p>\n

Like it was written in the stars;<\/p>\n

This is no place for fools or madmen or men with dreams<\/p>\n

Unless those dreams are green and course in city bars between fine sheets.<\/p>\n

Throw me a duvet to embrace the cold,<\/p>\n

Erect a monument for the starving,<\/p>\n

Ball your graces to the sky<\/p>\n

And never forget what it feels like to be defeated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hero Trickster Born<\/span><\/p>\n

The hero trickster died when his infinity shrivelled to a mind.<\/p>\n

All our worlds are shackled and oppressed.<\/p>\n

Imagination faces a sickle and a sand-worn smile,<\/p>\n

Is left pruned to extremities at best<\/p>\n

And at worst is left for dead.<\/p>\n

Most of you are moribund and sightless.<\/p>\n

You nick your flights of fancy from the refuse of swirling nights<\/p>\n

As laddered doldrums slop against your polished hulls.<\/p>\n

Who is he anyway \u2013<\/p>\n

Hero trickster coughed of ale?<\/p>\n

The phrase is a blink to a swallowed star,<\/p>\n

A nod to the black beyond,<\/p>\n

A chewed cudgel of memory<\/p>\n

Swollen and flaked like old bread in a pond.<\/p>\n

Is this how ghosts see?<\/p>\n

Through the murky depths of splintered word and floating weed?<\/p>\n

Do things go forward because that is what we see or because<\/p>\n

That is what we are?<\/p>\n

The old man I met in wales saw leather men and a backwards stream<\/p>\n

Within his castle of ghouls.<\/p>\n

He and a thousand other moments have taught me<\/p>\n

That the world spins, sucks, shakes<\/p>\n

At the roots of truth and dust;<\/p>\n

That even buried bones are not safe from questions.<\/p>\n

That even love is a trick of motion.<\/p>\n

That in the stillness creeps a symmetry which would mock our guns<\/p>\n

And cries,<\/p>\n

Our hero tricksters in their rags and riches.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Horse and things<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazing that some people<\/p>\n

Never think about death and keep their shit so tight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My mind wanders like a kart pulled by a Donkey<\/p>\n

Through thick fog.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I drive determined and hunched<\/p>\n

But sometimes I like to throw the reins<\/p>\n

And wait for the bumps.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not like some,<\/p>\n

Though.<\/p>\n

I keep the reins close enough to avoid cliffs and dead ends;<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just how I was born or raised.<\/p>\n

Take your pick.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes I find fast roads where the air is clear.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I hit deep mud and stop moving at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I never forget<\/p>\n

That there will always be potholes and jams,<\/p>\n

No matter the lungs or legs of your stallion;<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just how it is.<\/p>\n

All Platitudes and analogies and horses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wings To Fly<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

African children load AKs in brief half-lives<\/p>\n

As we serenade our whimsies behind walls;<\/p>\n

But that is no news.<\/p>\n

Whoever looks here for fairness was always doomed to fail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poetry has no edge to cut the abyss<\/p>\n

Nor might to move earth\u2019s mud in search of diamonds.<\/p>\n

So what is it in the face of man\u2019s suffering?<\/p>\n

Perhaps just an indulgence of melancholy lines<\/p>\n

Or a meek pastime of the privileged few.<\/p>\n

But for me it is more than that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For me poetry is the rapper\u2019s rhythm from the tape<\/p>\n

Which makes the child soldier jump up and dance.<\/p>\n

It is the phrase which crosses oceans and deserts<\/p>\n

To bless a captive ear with a moment\u2019s freedom.<\/p>\n

It is the thought which weathers decades to emerge<\/p>\n

Unsullied and brilliant in the eye of a raging storm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For me the meaning of poetry is there.<\/p>\n

In the spinning centre of the wind\u2019s might.<\/p>\n

In the silence which gives man the wings to fly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deep down it hurts,<\/p>\n

Bewildering cycles and still<\/p>\n

The dreams pulsing with the rain and the people,<\/p>\n

Distant utopias mirrored in eyes seeking<\/p>\n

Forgiveness and mystery – the best the worst and the treasured<\/p>\n

Waiting to continue<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":5252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,219,199],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5011"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5011"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5259,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5011\/revisions\/5259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}