Contained.

Quickening, I feel
Chrome-plated veins- now tested.
This is challenge here,
Confronting, canines bared.
Do I look and then lean in...?
Licking fangs that threaten to puncture and drain me?
Or crawl away feebly in reverse
Slapping my senses as they beg to push-on
Steed-like in their stature.
Grotesque to grovel away, defeated
At 38, I have collected many battle scars,
Eaten my experiences, chewing them to great length
Expecting to anticipate the return of what's been learned
...and the timing to chime on queue.
This life is a battle-zone.
Fought for victory, defeat, victory, retreat...
Cleaning old wounds that ooze when memories ripen
Vindication dies down and Pyrrhic conquering buckles.
I am encased in my diary of 'Done'.
Strategy now beckons with a new voice
To linger longer with the tablets of 'Think Twice'.
The dagger swung in the dark fueled by adrenalin
Yields more than a hefty slice to any foe
It can pierce greater enemies that trigger much worse
Inflicting irreparable damage within strata upon strata
Of what may have been left, unaccounted for.
Triggering 'regret' is a foolish mistake
A long-haunted Mistress that will gnaw like no other
Sanity is far too precious a countenance
To barter with juvenile conclusions that punch on impulse.
Nearing the end of my third decade in,
I wish to reign in on that 'untouchable' fighter.
To pet with compassion and relearn a few things...
I retain my youth in other ways,
After all, 'Hope' springs eternal
In the background of any play.
I am weary from my travels, though yet undefeated
Sometimes the win was detrimental to my cause
But necessary nonetheless.
I remember now as often as I can to caution my moves
To whittle away at primary motives,
In the event I may uncover something-
Unaccounted for.
The devilish child lives in me yet
The lurking wish to delve into hysteria;
Cascading mirth brought on by 'living dangerously'
They are too far behind me now
Memories I hold dear that when recanted,
Spatter and hiss for some tangible tie to the 'now'.
I look back but for a moment, smiling, wise with age.
I can no longer afford such meaningless game play
Mine is a history of violence
That through right-handed manipulation,
I tinkered enough to fan-out the pain
Begging the mirror to show signs of forgiveness.
The remedy of seeking 'no-reflection' grows tired.
I peer in now and long for kindness...
To Love and be Loved, by the self that I am.
Though my past would have me aged and cane-bound
I attempt to find peace but not by vein of boredom
To travel on with confidence and less abuse
From the battle-zone of 'I'
The Lover & The Fighter; contained.

Intermediary.................

You should know as I do,
There is professionalism in aged fingertips
Gifted with higher sensory reception
To fiddle with the senses...
Yours, Mine... Some one's.
Intermediate self against self;
I tap my own fancies without moving a muscle
...and beautifully enough, muscle finds its own way
Contracting with its own thoughts,
Memories- Expanding
Certification.
There is a haiku hidden in every breath released
Each ancillary component has meaning
A definition all to its own
Collectively, they write novels
Whispered in transit; constant
A slow-moving volcano
Lava-licking, permanence-sticking
Scarred in the most lovingly manner, within.
The inner tattoo holds the most vibrant shades
Melodious encasement of what two can do-
When they are one.
For all skins many languages
The softest, kindest whisper errs not
For any cautions sake
It wraps airtight in its magnetism
Sucking in every static clinging electrode,
Conducting-
Magnificence.
The past orchestrates the longing of today
The hour that lives in the now has priorities,
Mine flow in myriad direction,
There is no 'stop n' go...'
I suck the bone of patience- daily
Knowing that eventually
All the stewing I do within my own existence
Will be tasted in time
When in the most potent of moments,
Trust is again found.

Procured.

In like a sliver, deep tissue reawakens.
Saxophone humming penetrates, I am alert
Muscles around the nape begin crawling...
Hibernating in their isolation...? For Winter? Forever?
But then, were they ever truly sleeping?
Hypersensitivities say 'no' and the tickling over senses,
Reverberate, undulate, ejaculate.

Sight immobilizes, sound travels quickly, touch begs in silence
Taste terrorizes the tongue, sweating in waves
The smell of skins melting, while the mind orchestrates;
Theirs is a desolate cry for a true strip,
Baroque in quality, the potential for fervent memories
They are lunar in their landing.

Volatility seeps in, attempting to steep regret
But fuck that mindless notion,
When the love drips in through either door
This convoluted consummation demands full attention
Full throttle; full frontal and when the pitch is hit-
On all fours.

This is the dehydration of the senses
The cock eclipsed the squelch and the scream
No sound issues, only the thick, sticky vacuum of 'enter'
The 'sucking in' found on this map, is the dilated pupil
Sexual, sympathetic affection, in a dimly lit circumstance
Tears the moral seams and loosens the cognitive reasoning

I can shake the nerve for one night.
Without boundary, judgement or discovery
There is no consequence when the relaxed muscle is given-
In the true absence of expectation...
So why then,
Is committing to the simple act of 'release'
So difficult?

When one makes love to the soul within
No amount of moisture, clench, squeeze, flexing, cavorting
Can replicate the trade taken,
That comes to pass between the eyes.
The 'come' from Love is most gratifying
...and far longer lasting.

A gold nugget procured in understanding
Holds greater value than the stone that was stolen,
Swapped in exchange for weakened flesh.
Fingertips that trip over goose-flesh,
That they have come to know and love- brag in silent excess.
Needing nothing more than the memory they make-
Together.

...it is bliss

The atmosphere here is, Etruscan bronze
I follow and feel, feebly at first
He says nothing,
No eye contact could be more clairvoyant
His fingerprints bear my signature too
We share no words, we never do
The volumes of understanding betwixt us
...they are enough.
I smell dark hair, unkempt and soft
Bovine in stature, steps taken are in earnest
I am diligent in the attending of his lead.
He walks with purpose interwoven with patience
That though we are aligned in this synopsis
It may yet take several more long moments
To find our mutual footsteps arriving,
At that porch where perception sharpens
...and I'm ready...
Ready to walk in and follow for the last time,
Into the entry of all tomorrows.

I am eager in  my recanting
Recollected again and again,
Embellished only by the presumption of why
Why such decadent imaginings reveal themselves to me
Over and over and over again...
These aren't dreams that plague my mental scope at night
They are memories of where I am headed...
Into a calm state of relaxed and contentment.
I see the figure who teaches,
He bears the outline of a Lover;
A match to rival nothing known
...and everything desired, craved and ached for.
Kind eyes that hold no damning secrets
Warmth pervading his every exhale
Imagine.............................................................
Ooh, I have and it is bliss
Bliss to mark the messenger and take care,
For tomorrow may bear gifts worth receiving
...and I want to be ready.

- you see...

I woke and felt loss
Loss for lost security
Security that had padded itself down, undetected.
Undetected and now, revealed in the aftermath.
Aftermath, apocalyptic in its damage
Damage unaccounted for.
For I have fucked my life up- you see.
See here how I took little comfort in the 'leery' side of life
Life that has shed skin and persevered despite
Despite the painstaking awareness.
Awareness that rosy-colored shades can become tolerated
Tolerated for the greater good of all components now lost.
Lost to a cess-pool of indifference
Indifference, consternation, cowardice, caprice
Capriciousness...such a lively word, with sinewy meaning
Meaning, that in this instance I would trade had I the time
Time to rewind and make better
Better.....
The decisions of these tomorrows.

...such a highway as this...

Mature love has evolved as the day has ripened
Reassurances are no longer needed, wished for- required
These seasoned feelings walk tall, unabridged
Living for every quality moment,
Earned in the wake of their new-found 'knowing'.
As time climbs fervently on... unaware of its escape
Thankful only for 'everything' and the breadth of its meaning.
True retirement of the senses,
At last- the Soul- now comes to Life.

It could take a thousand lifetimes
Of recycled spirits to reach this exquisite, desired end.
To finally lay the exhausted soul to rest,
That wanders not for freedom's sake-
But for the gratitude it seeks to be made worthy.
A man-made sole has not the length in store
To tread such a highway as this,
Therefore, hope is born;
Into the heart, mind, handful
To coddle, make love and adore.

Even now, eager eyes, tongue's and memories
Linger in hallways; hidden pathways, and
The emptiest corridors, aching in their cognitive fear
Concentrating deftly on peripheral nonsense
That often belies the wounded heart...
Let us not mention again, such minute trivialities
The scorn of bedside manner at their end-
Bodes the suffering enough, for what is to come;
Another Birth, purgatorial puberty and again
Blistering through the same  mistakes, scarred and error-laden  
To the yet, impotent youth, stifled in its own arrogance.

To curate and revere the outcome of our pain,
Glorifying the burn-marks of experience;
What a lily-livered lament.
Bosch told his visual tale in great detail
That we may see with visceral regret,
How the Soul can come to fear Hell and all her belongings...
Who chooses such a fate as this?
Who takes that malevolent hand of emotional destruction
Kissing into the bleak and curdled coagulation of nothing...?
Comforted by the 'void'?

But Oh, there is a flip side...
Where wrinkles form through smiling;
Despite the greed of ignorance
...and waking from yesterday and her many moons,
Filled to the breast with affection and joy
Milking these truths for what they are,
...coming away with wisdom.
Mutating beautifully into a cocoon of completion.
I want the afterlife of understanding
To look back on a sunset filled with honeyed aftertaste
...and tangerine tinge...
Bestowed upon, in gift- to my ever-loved posterity.

...fat...

I suck the words and they squeal
They are fat and overripe with promise,
Bursting at contact with the moisture
In my mouth.

...that burrows...

Tickling the lobes, Ideas beware
I am pulling through this sludge
Shoulder deep, strong
Fuck the grip.
Bound but still in control
The deep end is my home,
...and I have to wonder,
Chilled grin in tow
What life would I know- without this?
For there is, invariably...
The 'Flip Side'
...and eventually, I will own it.
I ask myself
I stop myself
I wither from time long-spent in the galley of 'why'?
...and then I re-hydrate...
From hope,
Potential...
Understanding.
When I'm sinking,
The squeeze and squelch of my swallow
Delivers those tears to the depth of my belly
Sucking in...
Slapped by the dreaded, '...but...'
Enough!
If I am to succeed in this life,
I'll fuck the '...what if...' into the ground
And ride it's wake into Victory.
I never got ahead thinking that I may fail
I never smiled wider from taking the 'easy route'
I need do the slapping now,
Taming fear that burrows beneath my nerves
Attempting to fuck my love for the 'risk'

Risk is everything,
When the gamble is right.

Declawed.

Oh, the slow blinking eyelid
Filled with cream, it slides down
Saturating the ocular portal
Dilating pupils declaw themselves
Myopic in their motive.
For therein lies an hour
With each muted flutter of shutter

As lashes protect,
Each, its own entity
In deep love, they have fallen
From the angle they inhale
Select to the scope of themselves.
Tunnel in their vision, they
Wander in unison
Taking in with each perception
A dialect- unknown.

The eye, without ear
Understands each sound.
The eyes without touch-
Feel every tantalizing skim,
For fingertips whisper too,
As they graze in assumption
Of what the gut now shouts.

The skin- each pore though blind
Can see the beating heart
...and all V8 of its power.

Thickness of the 'Human Will'
...along with everything unsaid
Polarizes 'need'
Where growling starvation intensifies.
That magnet draws life where it is dying
Dying to be seen...
Felt....
Heard....
...remembered.

Attempt.

I rot from the inside out now.
There is nothing about my physical condition
That has played a role in my eventual fate.
My emotional context will turn every last strong ounce of me
To lifeless waste
Useless-
Spoilt.
I have directed this voyage of life
In error
To pride myself in remaining sensitive
Has been my clever downfall
I built a weakness beneath my stronghold
A foundation of fools
Cracker-thin and without insurance.
Had I spent more time in the pool of disdain
Absorbing the hatred directed towards,
Eating and learning its coarse and poisonous habits
Making them mine...
Habitually, Dedicatedly, Morosely and Distinctly.
I would be stronger today.
Double-fisted and gifted
Able to make assessments and Strike
Straight to the heart of every heartless foreigner
Known to me; to my life, my loves and my woe.
Hardened, strengthened, cornered and full of spite
If I sucked in all that fodder
Chewing and learning every fucked and dirty secret
Each connived and devilish act-
Would now belong to me
I would own the gift of War.
Able to lift a finger and win
With little more than a fly's deflection;
Ease of the opponent's surrender would become futile-
More evil would become me
I'd need blood, bones and their Memories
To feel a worthy win.

Deceit, disgust, derelict and divisive
To allude to myself that this may have been an easier fate
I am comatose in my thinking to have even travelled that path
Who I am is a mixture of Time;
Tenderness found its way around terror
A child grew to love Hope before Hatred
A Home before a Hovel
...and escape the consternation of a broken spirit.
To write is to remind
To read is to remember
To share-
Is my attempt in letting go...

Skull with a Memory...

De-oxygenated and stale
There is the smell of stillness;
Nothing.
Only now is it clear,
These are dreams in death.
I lie in wait, each synopsis- slower
Will, once I am gone, time stow these captions
In an envelope....?
No. Time has no purpose but to march dutifully on
For the next life to appease,
Document.... and radiate.
A millenia before me, there was nothing
No sign of my 'coming'
...and once I'm lain to rest,
All pockets will be emptied and washed
Waiting for the warm change of another.
I am a locust at times, to myself-
A plague of the ages
Eating away at the heels
The quicksand of today.
...and like Time, I too- am dutifully bound...
To forever remind and resemble in thought
That pissing away these delicate seconds
As they form the hours of who I am
...and the way I am living...
Must be whispered in cantata-like form
To arouse a gentle persuasion
That before I dimple further and
Skin shies from want of touch-
I should touch and be touched
While there is yet,
A kindling in the eyes.
Dormant days I have kept
Slagging away at my delicate needs
I shall make up for lost time
Once my mind sets free the notion
Hoping too at some point-
That without effort,
The drapes of circumstance will part without warning
Introducing new life into emptied, echoing halls
Where wings long flutter,
Yet seldom are heard.

...beyond measure

The weathered heart is weightless
Though the leather exterior is tough, puncture looms
And yet for all my ramblings, Love still courses through
Stitched and restitched, woven- wild
The drills of days previous lighten in intensity
Forgiveness now claims their aftertaste.
I shag the dead weight of yesterday
Whether I moved an inch or ten
Today's muscle is unique to this moment
I commandeer that instant any way that I can
Some days less tough, some days- more
My compass has wiggle room
Even when I curse its bastard mistakes.
I split myself in two, the stronger Soul- made stronger
The weaker... slumped over and still
The two shake from this departure,
-each from the loss of the other
And two steps out from that cocoon of 'self'
Toes turn and reunite...
Stronger strength and weaker deficiencies
They are bonding further;
Tighter, useful...clean.
Console yourself in times of trouble
Be the back and the burden
United in hope.
This idea of 'One'
Holds appeal beyond measure.

The 'If'.

I'm cornered, concerned
Fixated on 'direction'
Any...? Which...? Where...?
I have roles to play,
Standards to meet
...and vices that need smashing
Yet here I am today,
Bound by nothing but a circumstance
A number, a name... A 'case'.
I want nothing of these things,
No assistance, no freebie, no handout
I want emotional sustenance
Reinforced confidence and especially-
Especially security.
I want to grab ahold of 'The Right Thing'
And swing it high into the sunshine
How plausible is this wish...
Its foundation will run as thick and sturdy as I create it to be.
I pair to no one in this lifetime
I am my own private entity,
And though this ship of one gets lonesome-
I have but myself to blame
When the going gets tough.
I rely on me and having said that...
I set about working on the the 'when'
As opposed to the 'if'

Flex...

Skin too, emits memory
Scent billows, wafting through past
Yesterday's echo delights once more-
Potent though invisible.
I lick the roomy caverns of my psyche
Moistening dormant sight
Visions that have laid comatose...
...nearly forgotten,
They yawn and soon vibrate
Loosening their once more sticky state
Like lactating nipples- expressed.
I smell youth in the afternoon
In a foreign country where I once
Donned my structured attire
And daily, tied my religious blue-striped noose
The grey pinafore with perfect matching pleats,
Emphasized the stoic 'unfeeling' guilt of my
Catholicism.
Needless to say,
I appreciate those times,
Gravitate even- when they choose to rehearse
I love the clinking low-worn heels
Disturbing the quiet uniformity of still halls
Large concrete steps that beg to shred skin
This is England in my mind
An eye so worn with delight and pride
So few can compare with the richness of their own
Early eighties............
Red woven shoes, and their minuscule gold filament
Such retention, locked for years and yet easily reared
Clearly, within my own suggestions
The time spent in religious recanting
Has less to do with religion
Than it does with my own child-like intensity
Something I still feel at 38
Abandoning never-
The wish to succeed;
To continue to learn and evolve
Using memory as muscles-
To flex.

The day throws a snippet of memory...
Sun through trees and wind whistling leaves
I'm in England again
Certain.