Smoking Heaven
‘Do you think you can
smoke grass in Heaven?’
he asked seriously
and he repeated
himself endlessly
and one time he
asked me and I
told him:
‘Fucking sure,
you’ve heard the
story of the
weeding of the
5000?’
he nodded his
head furiously,
‘Yes, Yes!’
he said
and he never
asked that
question again.
In The First Place
‘Where are you going?’
his mother asked:
‘I’m going into town
to get drunk with a few
friends’ he answered:
‘Tell me, where are you
going’ she asked again:
‘I just told you ma, I’m
going into town to get
drunk with a few friends’
he said:
‘I’m going to ask you
one more time, or else
I’ll get your father’
his mother demanded:
‘Okay ma, I’m going to
sniff some glue and get
high in the park’ he said:
‘Well, why didn’t you
tell me that in the first
place!’ she said before
closing the door,
satisfied.
You Know The Feeling
You know the feeling,
when the pen moves
leaving a poem in its
wake,
when the brush is in
the driving seat and
your hand follows its
journey,
when the singular
note rolls into a
symphony,
you know the feeling
when the smile of
your lover stretches
back centuries,
when the sounds of
children
create other
universes,
when the last clock
melts into oblivion,
you know the feeling
of the fire,
the soil
wrapping bones in
celebration of what
once was,
that feeling
of returning home,
you’ve known that
feeling
time and again.
Evensongs
Let the world know
you’re winning,
even just for that
moment,
let the world know
you’re at the wheel,
let the world know
she rests in your
hands even for a
splinter of shattered
time,
let the world know
you were the world
and it was perfect
just like the
morning smile of
a child or the even-
songs staring like
mesmerised cobbled
lanes of tranquillity,
let the world know
you’re winning
just with a blink of
an eye,
that’s enough
to let the world know,
you’re winning.
Outlaws Of The Bird World
Legends have it that Magpies
did not weep and mourn at the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ as
all the other birds did and they
refused to enter Noah’s Ark
and took to the roof and swore
and cursed the entire journey
to safety:
poets with wings,
these birds of defiance,
my brothers and sisters,
I hear your outlaw jail-bird
chorus and I write them down.
