Inferno’s Archetype [poem]
I think I may just be a closet arsonist.
Although they always try to fit asbestos gloves
around my charred enflamed and probing hands
and make their vain attempts to wash away the
palisade of fire which stands between my brightly
blazing dreams and fortune’s fragile guillotines
I will engulf their crude repressive fearfilled
riot shields with heat-ignited fuel-drenched rags
in bottled cocktails unconcealed. I rain them
down upon their heads until the blanket sound
which marks their vast extinguishing experiment
can be pronounced officially as dead.
Summit Mist [sonnet]
Somehow you got your heat into my flow
and tinkered with the workings of my heart;
I thought I’d hurled you from me long ago
but every tactic used you did outsmart.
It’s like I chose the highest mountain top
to climb although ascent means certain death;
such scaling heights as yours (each side a drop)
enthrall me — I can hardly draw a breath.
But yet your body gives me confidence
and — like no other flesh has ever done —
you baste me in your moistful hole intense
and melt the avalanching midnight sun.
While on your summit all I see is mist
through which no other mountain can exist.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
For Every Dream which Drowndly Dies [poem]
We turn over the same bit of soil with our clodded shovels
time and time again. Like nodding donkeys on an oilfield’s
dour terrain our motion moves perpetually, verse with no
refrain. Prosaicly [phonetically speaking – note there’s no
mistake] when we’ve finished with our spades we try to
smooth it with a rake! This patterned repetition is embedded
in our psyches as an over-slightly loathesome spikey lump
of worthless writhing superstition. Obsessive-compulsive
behaviour, said the uncredible shrinking man whose lack
of obvious mercy far outweighed the hurting crowd of
interspersed subliminally underversing fountainheads.
If only we could grow some substance to our metaphoric
beards we would find that from then on there would be
no further processes which sanity proclaims as weird
(nessly) charging blame. For every dream which drowndly
dies, ten thousand more will take its place; but only when
some courage makes our unevolving souls begin to grasp
the higher branches with our empty-fingered hands will we
then find our wings to fly and make a stand against the lie.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
This Awkward Art [poem]
This life is a latticework of leftover
drownful dreams which, when painted
with our drainlike thinned-out blood,
leaves desperadoed ebbing stains
of wholly homemade gravy-feigning
pigment wash upon the canvas
brushstrokes’ brave and brackish
left-outsided wilting undergush.
We do not need to be defined by what others think of us
We do not need to be defined by what others think of us – by how many flattering comments or “likes” we receive from sycophantic adulators – by how many profile-views we get, by how famous we become or how financially successful we are. For all that is merely superficial, reinforcing narcissism, which easily becomes ego-boostingly addictive and has no value in reality. We should be defined, firstly, by our attributes of love (such as kindness, selflessness, humility, compassion, generosity – what we give of ourselves); secondly, by our willingness to grow in grace, insight and awareness (the maturity process which has nothing to do with playing at being “grown-up” but means evolving into who we are meant to be); thirdly, by our creativity (what we heartingly draw on in ourselves to make something exist which wasn’t there before). It is these which should be our starting-points for self-definition. There are others too, which follow in their wake… ❤
The Most Humbling Aspect of Human Existence
The most humbling aspect of human existence is that it is possible to believe in something so passionately that one would be willing to die for it or even kill for it – yet that something turns out to be just another pile of shit. Self-delusion is such a real possibility that we must question everything until no stone is left unturned…
How Words change their Meaning
I’m always interested in how words change their meaning – especially when it’s a downgrade. Take the word “mentor”, for example. There was a time when this referred to someone (usually an elder) in your community who you could get alongside because they were quietly wise, authoritative, learnéd and knowledgeable. You didn’t have to pay them a cent for they regarded it as their duty to pass on their accumulated understanding via apprenticeship to the next generation. That was in the days when success was measured by wisdom and laudable achievement. Now the term is just an Americanism, whereby a mentor is some slick motivational salesperson who you pay to boost your ego and tell you that you are the best (even if you are not), control you and goad you into making loads of money and becoming a big shot, because in the USA success is measured not by your wisdom and acumen but by how much money you make and how much of a “celebrity” you are. Words change. Times change. And the downward spin of civilisation continues…
Mosquito Bite [poem]
In the same way that the cowardly
mosquito heatseeks another bloody
victim in its templezone — or indeed
the way that any other parasite
sets up a simulated limpet home
in a place where it does not belong —
those other creatures that I used
to flat revere (but now no longer
even write them in my dreamful
songs) will take the shirt-tails from
your naked arse while all the while
pretending there is no way that they
harbour any interest in your brass
and tell you that they only want
you for your mind (though we know
that they want nothing of the kind).
And thus on goes this stupid strange
unmerry little dance. There’s one
whose tongue is hanging from his
jaw (from which a group of puppet
strings protrude) while the other sees
what she can claw with tooth and nail
from deep within his treasure trove.
And let me tell you now that she with
breathless charm will never fail to
vanquishly disarm the mind behind
that tongue. Carefully using the
attributes which mark her gender out
not only will the tongue be pulled to
full capacity but he, not knowing any
better, will donate his whole entire
savery so long as she will freely give
to him her scraggy loins — he sucks
her flaccid tit, she sucks his limply cock;
it won’t be long before he has a hyper
nasty shock now grasping that it never
was his fire that she sought but every
little thing which glitters, everything he’s
ever bought. And so the dance goes
vainly on. At one time it would be that
she was seeking someone who would
give her safety when, with child, she’d
need protection in the wild; but now
it’s just a pale reflection of that primal
primitive desire. For sure it’s not to make
the offspring safe (for she is far too
selfish to with him create another life;
she doesn’t even want to be a loving
wife!) but solely to accumulate the
gleaming wealth that someone else has
earned. Eventually he will then be soundly
spurned when — with all his stuff long
gone — she, like the mosquito in that
stagnant swamp, has found another skin
to prick (another prick to skin) though
neither dancer taking part, unless they
have a change of heart, can ever truly win.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Summit Tryst [poem]
When you looked me in the eye and stared into my soul
for several minutes long (or so it seemed while timeness
passed us by) as you lay upon that cold but lively heap of rock
[it was, you said, the highest point of ground around — a fact
which spoke to me of huge and heavenly angel ultrasound]
I saw a thing I’ve never seen in anyone before:
It was a wholly open door behind which hid a hesitant but
lovely hand whose fingers pressed upon the wood, readied
so to slam, as if expecting footsteps lest some uninvited man
should through presumption take that stretchly stride to
realms beyond your mind and taste the drenched and
deeply dreamfeast that you truly muchly are.
The heart of me was spinning round so fast that even
I was sharp astounded when I richly moonly scented
perfumes from the air which flowed from way beyond the
entrance to that door. The beauty of that summit tryst is
knowing wide and downly that there could be so much more.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Virgin Flow [sonnet]
It was on a mountain as I recall
the first time on mine your silken skin flowed.
You had to do it then or not at all
(that’s what you said as you veered off the road).
Then we bumped through the darkness with greedy
desire. I was hard; you were wet inside.
“Please don’t think that I’m being too needy”
were your lyrics as you opened up wide.
But our needs were reciprocal, darling;
just as our moves seemed so choreographed.
My heart you were hornily abducting;
and I will never forget how you laughed!
Those hours when my head lay on your thigh
convinced me I would never say goodbye.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 