A Simpleton's Request

Koshu Kajikazawa - Hokusai, c.1830

When I die, as I'm bound to do,
Don't put me in a box;
Confine me not to neat little rows
Or anything that locks.

Don't freeze me in abhorrent age,
Forget my memory;
For it was not the I that was important,
But what I saw in me.

I should not wish to be remade,
An echo wandering out of age;
Let my voice be heard in others' laughs,
Not in a mortal cage.

I do not want to be confined
To the beauty of the earth;
Damned to lie beneath the skies,
These cold eyes seeing dirt.

The questions that I could not answer,
The beauty that I missed,
Inherent in a skylark's call,
Concealed within a kiss

Are not for you to go on seeking,
My quest is at its end;
I lived for me, so live for you;
You, the dust, my friend.

Life is made of smaller things
That move within the whole,
Orchestral movements caught in bursts
That spark amongst the coals.

Brief fires burning to consume,
So others may bask in heat;
Piles of ash and ember thrown
into little rows so neat.

Let me die as I intend to live,
As grandeur in darkness gropes;
An ephemeral spark in eternal dark,
Lighting love, and joy, and hope.

Please Keep the Exits Clear

Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X - Francis Bacon, 1953

Dance with defiance,
The circus freaks & lions
Are crowded round your cage to permit you


To condescend your dreams,
But they're picking at the seams,
And now it seems like they're going to rip through


The bars of your cage,
Which you constructed in a rage;
Underage liaisons & your vices.


Now you're trapped by the same
Faceless mass with no name,
That took you by the hand in a crisis.


I can stay if you want me to,
And we can have another beer;
But I'm not driven by greed
So I'll stay if you need,
But please keep the exits clear.


See, I'll come if you need me,
But I won't do more than that;
Deceptively needy,
Consistently greedy,
Know your exits or you'll be trapped.

Fireflies

Das Irrlicht - Arnold Bocklin, 1882

We, fireflies; burn for a day
And think it a forever.
Flitting through the cosmic dark;
Wisps of twilight rising,
Caught like silk on Autumn's leaves,
Hung amongst the ageing trees,
Frame the rolling amaranth skies,
Which round the quieted fireflies.

The Lovers

The Lovers - Rene Magritte, 1928

Watching the bubbles rise through your pint

Like grains of sand in an hourglass,

Whilst the rain beats down on the pane outside;

These smaller prisons to pass.

Those eyes that flirted, perverted by season,

Lines run amok through heartache and reason.

You could take a pen and scrawl on each one:

'Here is December 2008,

When I realised you couldn't let go of your past;

And here is the New Year's Eve of that year,

When in favour of cheer you forgot your own heart.

Here's where I saw how you always sought ease,

Clutching at fading memories;

Too scared to entrust your fate to me;

Your future, your past, your elegy.'

I loved you for guilt of what I had done,

But it led me to crawl at your heels,

In paying my debt I ensnared myself,

And your touch became my seal.

But time has embittered the lash of your laugh,

And the rain has run dry your lips;

Though your nylon-clad thighs chain my joy to your whim,

and your face has my vision eclipsed.

Still, sat here with you,

In this jailhouse bar,

I'll seek a collusion at last;

You're the face of love,

But you're not the whole,

You're a memory of the past.