Tinder
It’s not often an autumn sun
with cool morning air renders
my day glorious for a frisky gallop.
As we set out, she asks,
“how are you doing?”
I sigh inside, trying to remember.
“Have I told you I’m getting divorced?”
She has heard the gossip
spilt from bored lips
She offers commiserations.
Turns to me.
“Now you are free to be selfish,
to do whatever you want.
Best get a Tinder account”.
She describes in detail
about Plenty of Fish, Match.com,
Bumble and Hinge, which use
interests, not just photographs!
“Use Snapchat for boob pictures.”
The bewildered look on my face
prompts a “joking”
followed by “they can’t save them.”
We crease up, laughing.
I consider asking her advice
about flirting ‘hard-core’ online.
How not to feel like a dinosaur,
my dusty bones hung
from a ceiling by steel wires,
in the museum of Gen X
next to a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
I’ve been oblivious to this shift
to a digital ‘fucking’ world.
To “Do my tits look big in this?”
The pick of the standing dicks.
A mutual masturbation society.
Twenty years in secluded bliss
of not knowing ‘cybering’ exists.
An online Virgin bloody Mary
waiting blue to be impregnated
by these the New World Gods.
Flawed
It was not that you lacked
flowers more beautiful
in your own back yard.
There were hummingbirds
that hovered at your window edge
living jewels of the air.
Poets of exceptional touch
that spun gold threaded
words into gleaming magic.
Artists that cut faces
from cold marble megaliths
who smiled under sweat.
The whittled wooden horse
you carried inside a spare pocket
was flawed from birth.
Summer Time
I sit between the eagle
and the raven of autumn.
Weeping, shaking,
fingers trembling
like spread wing-tips catching
thermal uplifts.
Cloud burst tears
fall on rocky ground
wash wasted thoughts
in guttered gravel ground.
High view perspective vertigo,
breathless at the fall
graceless grasping hold.
The raven says relax my grip.
Release copper leaves
in autumn wild winds.
But it is summer time.
I cannot squeeze the sun
to turn down the sound.
First Aid Kit
From the first time
I absorbed your words,
it was a clear compassion.
You stood, soul stripped naked
on a world stage to faceless crowds
giving your confessional in a sea of sins.
Eyes cast down with a weight of lead lines
resigned to rage, canister contained.
Counting down the days left
writing in spilt blood,
bruised blues soul
singing chords
bled out.
Like a child
what gift could I bring?
To this crucifixion of self being,
to see your tainted crown of thorns
a sword impaled, weeping rich Tempranillo.
Spread eagle nailed in self-loathing,
pain waves radiating outwards.
I’m made a Mary Magdalene.
I wash your feet in tears
heart held in hands,
in understanding.
This first aid kit,
my offering.
Dumpster Fire Press 