Vetr

The air is thick, damp and heavy
with the breath of people
long since fled to warm comfy
homes, deep walled
against the dead cold
of November evenings
blue black night skies sharp
with blue white stars, burgeoning
shine stark like ice splinter shards

As above, so below
frozen panes laced with crystals
refract the warm amber glow
safe heat against deep froze
ramparted silhouettes
municipal stone towers
old solid buildings: stalwart
lookouts through the solitary hours

Footfall trips and kicks hard
against unforgiving ground
a solitary echo against subzero
empty space filled only with ice
and a harsh lucent reality clearer
than the overhead abyssal skies
of overwhelming silence
a place so full yet devoid of presence

This city, that is a ghost
covered with hoary frost
once full with noise and dust
commotion and a heat hazed lust
silent witness
against winter’s progress
whilst the populous, remain oblivious
of season’s change: centrally heated
buried deep, in tv unreality.

amīcus

On days abandoned to silent contemplation
when elation, has been sat on a back burner
that’s been on slow glow
for the last 17 days and furthest
from your mind was the idea
that anyone gave a damn now
that anyone might draw near
and say.. How..
is it going?
How are you doing?
You’ve been quieter
than a church mouse
in a midwinter’s
midnight empty house
with a window creaking
in the empty wind
and only ghosts
to keep you company as friend.

Except, the mark of the friend
is the one who raps
on the quiet door
when you could no more
raise a hand to write a mail, make a call
throw a rebuttal against the dark wall
that is mood and self imposed solitude
that comes like a baleful black cloud
sitting on the sunshine
deadening the sound
of your heart
beating in time
with your over active mind
that insists…
retreat is the best option.

It isn’t.

The sign of a friend
is imposed connection
when they push you
step on step
cajoling you to tell them next
asking when you’ll phone or text
and if, after a day blurred to four
they’ll tough love push some more
and demand a response
in recompense
and self repentance
for your pointless, personal exile

it’s understood it is worthwhile
connecting, not retreating
losing self-abnegating denial
in exchange for speaking
your mind, your heart, your soul…

and knowing,
your friend,
without judging
will listen
and lighten, the load
returning the favour
you once told
them, in their darker times:

a true friend will know
and call
and will never require
anything reciprocal.

…thank you.

Siren’s song

The seas lie, calmer and flatter
than an obsidian speculum
reflecting deepest slate grey skies
the colour of my eyes on
darker days

Inert waters
belie deeper currents
where subdued ire
and frustrated wonder
flow in eddies and undertow
that pull ever deeper

Cinerescent clouds
pallid faced
paler than ashes
dullen and silence, words

that fall in cascades
with no sound
but pound
and ricochet
like buckshot
to no effect
like hailstone pieces
that bounce
off the frozen surface

this perfect waveless
self possessed
reflection
that lies a smoothly
dispassionate
imperturbation

All I want to do
is break the surface:
this perfect glass
and dive to the deepest
place
where currents sweep
and roil and pull
a maelstrom of action
the only place where I can clearly
hear you call
away from the deadening calm
in the flux and flow

where, in the swell
and chaotic fall
it is all,
or nothing.