Autophony

She's complicated. She'll charm you with charts, statistics and that corporate smile. But look into those eyes, they're fiercely bohemian. She's complicated. Her chatterings seem to resonate with happy sounds, but listen with the other ear, to an unhidden lament. She's complicated. Her silences agonise, her voice echoes in her absence. And yet there is a mild dread as her name flashes on the ringing phone. She's complicated. Sometimes she's a poetess, shallow, romantic, trying to hide a sardonic, world-weary wit. She's complicated. She could be a spiteful Fury, wrath unabated, but that's just to hide the lamb-hugging girl within. She's complicated. She's an enchantress, a fool, a tyrant, a nurse, an imp, a priestess, but she's generally a good friend. She's complicated. Published in Making Waves - A Poetry Anthology , ed. Pam & Bill Swyers; Swyers Publishing 2011. ISBN: 978-0-9843113-6-1.

My face is pockmarked with breaking dreams, hope oozing away like yellow-red pus; the body haemorrhages desires to the ceaseless illness of survival. But the blood festers within, raging impassionedly, impotently until it bursts through, ebbs, clots and dries among feeding flies. Published in  Making Waves - A Poetry Anthology , ed. Pam & Bill Swyers; Swyers Publishing 2011. ISBN: 978-0-9843113-6-1.

I look at the ceiling the blank, blank ceiling and the blemish-less, soulless angel white walls loneliness my paramour prostituting my fingers. Black, muscular bodies dripping with the sweat of construction bricks torsos barely contained in tattering loincloths did they feed each other? Or was it a place to make out consenting or seduce or gang-rape some starving servant-maid? There clearly is sweat in the congealed cement, spittle, semen perhaps, blood too, rich red blood, either fallen or murdered; concrete needs its sacrifice. It never is an anodyne, colourless, antiseptic suburban flat; listen to the walls, for there is always a conversation to be had. Published in  Making Waves - A Poetry Anthology , ed. Pam & Bill Swyers; Swyers Publishing 2011. ISBN: 978-0-9843113-6-1.

Yesternight I thought the stars came out, twinkling towards infinity, the moon was a sil'vry orb as she played hide-and-seek with the dream mists; I thought I met the Queen of England and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on a helicopter over the Caribbean sharing a turqoise curacao in an electric-lighted reverie ; I thought I saw the sun rise, red, orange, yellow to the avian symphony of magpie-robins, mynahs and red-whiskered bulbuls; I thought I saw the hibiscus buds open and the frangipani leaves shed dew; But what I truly saw was the grime-laden red city buses with their overloaded, quarrelling commuters; What I truly saw was the trains stuck at bright red signals that wouldn't change to the green glow of progress; What I truly saw were my office lights in the false ceiling, the monotone of the air conditioner and the stern, upstanding computer screen; What I truly saw, was yesterday. (A bit of the Carpenters' 'Yesterday Once More...