Cave trip to Mars

Why did we come to the red planet

The red sandstone caves

Where water once flowed down Martian well

And Civilization once braved

Why did we come back here?

To discover the bones

Of the long dead ancestors of Earth

Can it be true that the red once was blue

Can it be that Mars gave us birth?

What was it like, old father old mother?

To be the first life forms in the system

To grow and devour

Then feel the sun's power

When all your dreams went down the cistern

What did you see Martian sister and brother?

Martian cousin and Martian uncle and aunt

Did you remember to love her or did you discover

Love was a seed you couldn't possibly plant?

I wish your trees and streams hadn't died

I wish your rivers and oceans hadn't dried

It must have been good for a time that life

But life can quickly change hue

When the green comes out of the blue

Red, is the colour of war

Was there famine and pestilence that you abhor

Did the horsemen come riding to the count of four

And did Apocalypse beg the question

Or had the Red death never a mention 

A good day too

 Butterflies flicker across the sky

I think to myself is this a good day to die

Storm clouds come roling in, a front is on the rise

Too many people to know, with too many eyes

All about me the rains do fall

Like rocks from heaven off heaven's walls

All around me the young they die

And fallen bodies in the ditches lie

Come back slowly like an Arabian moon

Pulling the tides across sand dunes

No water to drink and none to cry

But you better think quick if this is a good day to die

The last adventure of a crazy loon

The last yuri geller to bend the spoon

There are too many fingers I hold up, too many to see

And the last middle finger you give it to me

Black trench coat

 You've got your black trench coat

Walking around for miles and miles

In and out of bus shelters

Under bridges like down turned smiles

You've got your full length trenchcoat

to keep you from the howling storm

Anywhere you go, your

Black trench coat will keep you warm

Storm Anon

 A- wailing seven witches go

3 pigeons step toe to toe

Temerity speaks their chattering beaks

And one magpie in the hedgerow

Dark sweltering blue cumulonimbus

Sweating heavy with sadness

Troubling winds tremble the saplings

Straight-backed they heroically struggle

Flexing lampposts tapping windows

rattled ravens, jackdaws fly off with crows

Backdoors swing open, as welcoming

A thunder god, come in tormentor, it says

To kitchen, come dishelve the dish shelves

Creaking ironwork of barns

Stand hollow and empty to new harms

Hills hollow howling through tunnels and caves

Wild winds over tame, trammeled graves

Only bones dry, freezing in shackles

Chained now to the earth, love saves

The day

Written in bold the blunderbuss wind gust

blows away roof from frame

Exposed now tool jewels to the baptising rain

Cain on a crane, and Herod on a hook

Come swinging their murderous looks

In the eye of the pain

Oh to numb the pain

The elemental refrain

Of the wind

It's monosyllabic yawl

And cry again and again

Some beast awoken we had best let sleep

But we were not looking

We had stopped looking so deep

That our souls were in this pain

This universal trap which we all feel

But cannot name

And no name, no name comes up again

When we all run and hide

From ourselves

Anonymous blows the windy storm

Though we try to name it

No name seems to fit

Hold vigil

 You must decide if the sound is enough

The gleaming of the glove

In the shining of your love

You must, you must

Throw down the gauntlet

And hold up the vaunted

Prize pigeon in the mottled skies

And say yes, today

I shall fly away

And hold vigil with the migil

And Virgil on the furball

Fringes of forever, the belief

In Bees and heather

On the slope of a grecian bay

Where the shepherd keeps his watch

And the goat herd dries his socks

And all is quiet

As the see on a calm day

Demeter's daughter

 What became of Demeter's daughter?

She spent half the year down under

Married to a fella named Bruce

I tried to console our mother

But she was too far gone

In sadness over her loss

To manage the farm

and all of the animals ran loose

I brought her flowers from the cave mouth

And planted new oak trees there

Yet the Prince of darkness kept my sister

Down in his underground lair 

My mother Demeter was wandering

Lost in the land she had known

Who could have stolen her compass

Who could have left her alone?

We all eat of the fruit we aren't meant to

We all fall at temptations mouth

So who is the one who torments you?

Why do the swallows fly south ?

Water clock

 I wish I could act like it never happened

I wish I could forget but I can't

Like you do

The sun across the fields

I remember like a glance

A look in the face

From the eye in the sky

Shining down in radiance

But I don't wish to conflate or paint

A false image

The mascara foundation

That covers the nation

In false eyelashes and expectations

There is enough that's already made up

I just can't deny the break up

Didn't shake me to my foundations

Yet what I build my house upon

Are ideals and values that are shared

They mean I can bear the petty

Inconstancies of another's frail heart

Or capricious moods

Regular like the tides of the moon

And yet

Without such forces

Would life still run its courses?

It shan't

It is a water clock dripping

And a river rolling

And the time you dip in your toe

Is never the same part