Paint your nails red
Paint your lips red
Paint the world red
Paint it red

Dye your hair red
cry your eyes red
bleed your veins dead
go to bed.


These are my most favourite bits of poetry i've written in the last few years. I hope you enjoy.

Speak Softly

War on the was on terror has begun
so wipe your tears away and take a breath.
Unblur your eyes and try to choose your gun
paint, bullet, art; remove your right to death.
Urban warfare, revolution's first child, spreads her wings and proclaims that "Man Did This"
This love, this art will one day be exiled;
provisional, but freedom always is.

Night falls, the walls of the city are ours
reclaim our ground, the street belongs to us.
Away from them we hide by daylight hours
coloured streets, painted stains we leave and thus
our lives fragmented, stories, you can see;
beauty is not enough, but art could be.


For Fianna

Once, in reply to a doubt, I asked someone who i love very much "How could you say such a thing? You know i love you more than possums and intelligent monkeys and silver engines and left handed anguses ETC. Also, amber buttons on green checkered silk. Which is poetic, no matter which way you look at it." And i meant every word.

The Moon And I

Subtly, it was a Sunday, i lit
and smoked awhile.
Upon the grassy verge i lay
and glared at the moon - she dared
to wear a mocking smile.

My heart bared, uninfected,
i touched the near night sky.
So far away from everything,
and my emotions undirected
the moon and i, we cried.

Sipped shyly, the night's cool air,
waved to the moon's own man.
Playing as he was a teardrop prayer
on a silver lute. Silver notes, floating
down to land, on silver threads
who left their silver there.

Call to her myth though he's silent
save his lonely notes of pain.
Her mouth was empty and so i lent
her my words to sing over and over
and over again.

The moon sang and i listened
and the silver music held my head.
Our heartbeats slowly quickened
and i fell asleep on the grass, my bed.

You walked away

if in my moment i held no fear;
as i stood alone, in the moment,
growing old,
the heavy clouds i saw but said no words for you to hear,
it's for the waves that lapped my lonely feet
were cold.

__________________
i'd rather have a life than a living