The Cushion of The Years (Shield against Apollyon)

 

Tonight, at 51, With the duvet pulled up to my ears,

I will play myself to sleep,

With the cassette replacement,

Of the tape my mother bought for me,

To mark, at 15, my passing into a sort of infant maturity,

A bud that does not resemble but contain,

The bloom of tomorrow,

And it's foregone conclusions,

She tucked me in with words,

And self fulfilling prophecy,

"You're old enough now, to appreciate this"

She predicted.

Tonight, at 51, I tuck myself in.

And in putting on the cassette, I pull up the covers,

The padded cushion of the years,

I pull them over my head,

I kick fast to warm the bed,

Like I'm running home,

And I am 15, 

And the Shakespearean blanket of warmth,

Covers my ears,

And forms a barrier from my thoughts of the present,

A barrier for all the years that are out there,

I am home

And she is in the other room just feet away,

As near and as far as present day,

And for some reason, Apollyon, comforts me,

With his scathing enmity:

"I am an enemy to this prince,

I hate his person, his laws, and people,

I am come out on purpose to withstand thee!

Here will I spill thy very soul!"

And for all the spat out fury of the blow-hard,

And as dangerous as he is,

It gives me resolve,

To stay beneath the shield of sheets,

The field of sleeps,

Until my fears dissolve,

And the cushion of the years is thick

And thicker the more the years go by,

And I will burrow in that bed,

And shelter from Apollyon's cry

Even a Broken Clock

Even a broken, old fashioned clock

Is correct 2 times a day,

And perhaps if I stay as I am,

You'll come, in time,

To see things my way,

If time is the variable,

And not the nailed down, sealed in truth,

Then the fixed hands of opinion, 

Though opinions rotate,

Will point to the proof,

And if truth is the variable

Then what good is it to me,

If I require the eternal energy

To keep up, constantly,

No, The truth, this truth is my truth

And the time is on the shelve 

And what ever time it is, the truth is,

It's always 1 minute to twelve.

Thrown To Wolves

Bequeathed to me by the glare and crackle

Of the grey-black TV light 

And lurking lurid colours

Late in the lacking night,

The door cracked open,

I saw fear without fright,

I woke without waking

I could not see but somehow knew.

I saw without sight.

And I, by the sly of the older boy,

In the recreation ground,

Lost innocence of eye through a window

After church, at the back of the mound,

And no amount of gouging could pluck out

The loss that I'd found,

And so from man to boy to man,

We go around and around

I was thrown to the wolves

And wanting

I was shown to the water

And left to drown,

And all the flesh that followed me

And the hot seed of desire

Smouldered in the scorched earth

As it forged its false path of fire

And the trail I blazed

And left

And found and left and found

Is the path I trail with breadcrumbs

and led my children down

And threw them to the wolves

As I was thrown before,

When I woke up in the night

Looking through the crack in the door,

But the wolves are much hungrier now

They are ravenous and bold

They are predator and four dimensional

Not like the wolves of old

And the demons that they summon

Or the demons that summon them

Will not stop, will stop at nothing

And the wolves will come, and come, 

And then will come again.

The Investment

 The investment

one drop,

in an ocean of drops,

one cardboard cut-out,

in a sea of props,

one stop,

in a mall of shops,

the least,

the beast,

the mundanity that's so underwhelming,

 

and who will notice me

would you look on me?

 

one ant,

on a hill of ants

one lonely kid

in his gym pants

and vest a vested interest

in the uninteresting

but here comes the investing

 

you believed in me

when frankly you were out of your omniscient mind

you invested in me,

when bluntly, I don't mean to be unkind

but there were better candidates

people who would validate

such attention

did I mention

that your undeserved favour,

was a flavour I couldn't savour

like a drink offering

I am merely proffering

the notion

like the ocean,

of drops

the favour never stops

and though you spend a billion

for one in return,

like a crazy fool god

you never seem to learn

I'm afraid to say

that slowly,

I'm coming to see it your way

and I'm just starting to receive

the thing I must believe

 

that you love me.

29.01.2011