Beer Tap

I think I’ve been duped,
My wallet has a defect you see,
Notes keep escaping,
And a pint materialises,
Left upon the taproom timber,
Bills and pledges be damned,

Escapade after escapade,
Money goes out,
Lager flows in,

In our tavern laboratory,
Ale-soaked as it may be,
Over numerous dizzy weekends,
We’ve tested this phenomenon,
Though the results are often hazy,
The bank statements don’t lie,

Session after session,
Money goes out,
Cider flows in,

This vampire of funds,
This defective leather beer tap,
Could it be a problem?
Mayhap,
But I’ve got to admit,
This bronze nectar is sublime.

Muted Soul

Stashed in this dark cubicle,
Like a vintage speaker inoperable,
I languish in pained silence,
No more does poetry and music escape these lips,
No longer do I monologue,

I am alone,
No incoming voices,
No mechanics come to fix me,
Just perpetual let down after sore event,
Spurring me to depressive inaction,

With each crank of the dial,
I am less myself,
Turned down in volume,
A muted soul,
No longer to produce a syllable nor tune,

The loneliest sound is a single teardrop.

Bad Vibes

As they say,
The face is a masquerade mask,
And the eyes are windows to the soul,
But windows can be boarded up and blockaded,
And a masks purpose is to deceive,

You never know the intentions within,
The bad aura that permeates its design,
The gentlest smile can hold the most umbrage,
A held stare can be pure amorous obfuscation,
Cordial words can hide poison within,

The back of your skull often suspects something,
A defence mechanism for your peace of mind,
That sixth sense hints at hidden danger,
You’ll wish you had heeded the warnings,
That imperceptible lightning of negativity in the air,

The bad vibes,
Rancor hovering about an angel.

Night In

Is there only one way to spend a night?
While the throng bathe in their alehouses,
Falling down their own rabbit holes,
Drinking up the booze and bodies,
As for this clown,
At times it is better to stay home,
So I do,

A serenity is filling this hovel,
I greet the quiet like a lost sibling,
Embracing my duvet and cushion friends,
The fireplace licks calmly at my toes,
I’m simply existing in my own space,
Catching up on that picture or that tome,
It’s a personal health visit,

You can keep your fireworks,
You can have all of those jazzy shots,
You can have all of the rowdy fun,
I’m having a night in,
Just this once.

Phoenix

Her words were as an errant furnace,
Viciously melting me down,
Magma in her breath,
A suns core of spite and rage,
Each word burns hotter than the last,
Broiling blow after blow,
Tangent after criticism,
Tangerine flowers and brass fall from me,
Depositing hearts and memories in scoria on the floor,

I am now only a pile of ash,
Bestrewn across this wasteland of a life,
Tired and stale,
But this won’t be the end,
Not this time,
That same fire that destroyed me shall remake me,
I’ll be a phoenix this time,
Erupting like a volcano to new heights,
And I’ll lay waste to your animus this time.

Shrapnel

It was unclear what invoked this detonation,
The world has many stray matches,
A look,
A word,
A revelation,
But erupt it did nonetheless,

All I can glimpse is burning confetti,
Metal shards of a man,
Sharp as a tongue of a soul in pain,
The heat feels like tar on the skin,
As if I can touch the heartache in its mucus,
Munitions from a heart and mind imploded,

But observe,
Those piles of singed petals and broken glass,
That is what it looks like,
When a life becomes shrapnel,
Reduced to a sorry wreckage,
No phoenix here.

Horde Of Hydes

There’s a bit of Hyde in all of us,
Another personality,
A ferocious side with darkened eyes,
An internal antithesis of the good citizen,
We’re capable of both the greatest and foulest of deeds,
Holding your hand one moment,
Chewing it off the next,
Stealing and killing one another,
Maiming and slaughter upon our tongues,
We pretend to be little Jekylls,
But its a lie,

We’re a coin with two sides,
And just like the good old doctor,
It all comes down to illicit chemicals,
Endorphins and uppers,
Dollar notes to the veins,
A warm body to savour,
We become beasts to get what we want,
Ofttimes indistinguishable from evil,
Commit sins for the most miniscule of scraps,
To colour in grey lines,
We become Mr Hydes.

Cellophane

I pulled that cellophane over my head,
Covering my mouth and ears promised clarity,
A carrier bag emergency exit,
A suicidal aegis,
To drown out the voices,
Those noises of normal society,
To nullify their edges,
Their droll criticisms,
And as each breath was stolen in plastic,
As the clear veil grew foggy,
It was as if a great weight had dissipated,
Like oxygen leaving blue lips,
Normality could scold me no longer.

The Kiln

There is a heat within a creative,
A golden core,
Cultivated by quills and easels,
Stoked by pokers of artistic intent,

It’s a kiln,
But in place of flames,
A conflagration of purpose,
There are constellations of mental images,

Nebulae of inkblots,
And verse on the tails of comets,
A sun exploding held in stasis,
A masterpiece created piecemeal.

Garden Of Corpses

This nursery is held often out of sight,
Behind church walls and ragged hedge lines,
Out of mind,
At least that’s the hope,
This garden of corpses,
Decorated by obelisks and headstones,
It’s home to crops like you and I,
Planted here by fate and chance,

The rows are a series of stories carved into granite,
This old soil holds more than morbid botany,
There are memories planted here,
From babes cooing to final embraces,
Joy and rancor and fear preserved,
Every romance and broken heart under the sun,
All eventually find themselves interred here,
Along with worms and flies,

Awaiting a harvest that will never come.