early poems

CALLING

In the endless sleepiness of life we all wonder

what’s around the next corner –

can we find elusive happiness?

Or will common sadness bring us down,

so we pay the price of death?

Of a white road we dream, onto Shangri-La,

a place of pure love and unrequited wishes.

Over the hills I wearily wonder, not knowing what is next.

When my bloodlines have died

and my own have betrayed me, I stand alone.

No man, woman or beast can help me,

fate will judge me and destiny will sentence me

for my mortal crimes of being a man.

I stand up tall and laugh in their face, for who is the fool?

Me or the world, or do we all suffer together?

Will peace and love come to me and let me live

in suburban bliss or in incarcerated solitude?

Fate will answer my calling.

WAIT

He stares out to see, searching for his destiny,

knowing one day he will see his kindred again.

Before she went she told him to search the ocean

with his eyes, for there she will be.

A love born out of the insaneness of life and of random

chance, they had each other for awhile

and then had to painfully part.

Life’s pendulum swings forth, one chapter ending

and another being born

in which they’ll meet again, is a mystery.

Even if it’s the next life or in a different place,

nothing will break their love. Not even death,

for time is their ally, each empty hour glass bringing them closer.

Distracted he walks up the beach, caught up in his daily routine.

Something in his mind, hidden, says wait, wait…

OIL WORKER

Leathery skin from a relentless hot desert sun, hard as nails attitude –

don’t give a shit what you think. Work till I get rich or die

doing my job, black gold.

Now just like my daddy, a legend of a man he was,

created me in his image

to work the wells, day and night.

For what it’s worth, I love this job, my life, my black gold.

Cost dad his life when the wellhead blew, fifteen years ago.

Now in his memory I do my graft and put dollars in the bank.

My son will be an oil worker and he’ll remember his granddad,

never met, legacy of the oil fields. Tough work, black gold.

YOUTH TRAGEDY

Many millions strong, an army in the making

of powerful emotions and thoughts.

What is my generation to think of this?

Young in my own eyes, two generations under me

are rising above me right now.

Some make it, some don’t, some are good and do it right,

some are bad and do dark deeds.

They better do it right as soon they’ll be running

this damn country, coming into jobs

and careers – responsible ones.

Laws of averages, rise and fall,

what do we make of the crazy ones?

Stealing cars, selling drugs, mugging pensioners.

What comes around goes around

but right now many fall and some don’t make it.

Teenage suicide, hard times, cost of life.

Only so much prison some can take.

White, black, asian, all creeds.

All the same and an island of emotions,

let loose in an uncertain world.

Good ones are separated by a dividing line,

doing apprenticeships, finding jobs,

a new career. How the gap widens, of no in-betweens,

just people who live their lives and in their own worlds.

NAKED CONCRETE

I lie against the concrete floor ninety degrees to the brick

wall, red brick, naked I am – to the bone.

With darting eyes I stare at the windows above me –

menacing black bungalows.

Will you all see me and point and look, call the cops?

A naked man in our yard – oh my God!

I feel the dust and grit under my ass, blown

to my corner by the unfeeling wind.

Can I become unfeeling? How did I get here?

Is it drugs, a crime, or am I twisted?

Naked I am against the wall, hard concrete

and shrivelled cock, lost.

WHAT MAKES A MAN DO WHAT HE DOES?

The man who almost boasts I’m up for attempted murder

as I knifed a bloke who attacked my wife. Does this make me bad?

What about the bomber pilot who does his mission and bombs

a city, killing the enemy in their beds. Is he bad?

What about the woman who abuses her own son, 6 years old?

Is she bad, does she have a reason or is she so deranged?

Ask some shrink and what will they say? Why, it’s all cause

and effect – life made them like this and will continue to do so.

I make my own opinions and I do my best to be a decent bloke

but my past hovers so near and far, I move on and do my best.

Tell me… Can a murderer become the man he was before?

Or should he be condemned to death, an eye for an eye?

Answers are hidden…