Circles

Circles, (first draft completed in 2013), is a "collection" of sixty poems that form "loops" taking the traveler through a gammut of emotional experiences before completing the circle and ending up looking into a night sky. 

After "starting the loop" we enter the "first circle of desire" via a series of images to a "last circle of desire" filled with five elements in the form of five exotic women, before "completing the loop" sees the traveler deposited on the "sequined hem" of the universe and once more gazing at the stars.

Awe

Alone on the shore of eternity’s sequinned hem
And all that it enfolds
Endless realms stretch beyond my mind
And all that it can hold

Yet creation’s womb was smaller than a grain of sand
So tonight I playfully mask heavens glory
Cover everything that ever was

With my mortal hand


As You Were


Why did you do this to you?


Comprehensively change


Lack the heart to push through


Find yourself somewhere new



Why did you change your sweet face?


Languish, unknown, unseen


Where the sun never shines


Ageing, growing new lines


Yet I remember when you were beautiful


I still see you as you were


Why did you do this to you?


Choose to run from the truth


Spread to fill a sad lie


That everything is all right


Why do you hide in the dark?


Re-inventing the wheel


Hid under layers of dust


Where all emotion corrupts



Yet I remember when you were beautiful


I still see you as you were



Why did you do this to you?


Always push me away


My love still lingers behind


Another captive of time



Yet I remember when you were beautiful

I still see you as you were


I remember when you were beautiful

I'll always see you as you were


Daughter of the Beat

At first, like everyone we ever see, shes an image, an assumption


Gazing from the page at me, from a time before Id even heard


Her name, let alone stood on the cusp of these innermost thoughts


Lain bare as words for all to read.



I know my walk in this garden of candid prose will be unique


Seeking more than others seek, I'm following a path thats


Mine to find, revelations from between the lines leading to


Appreciation.



On the day the photograph was taken, if Im not wrong, her eyes


Reflected more than a cameras lens. An energy reaching out


Decades on a fragile being, aware of her mortality


Knowing shell soon be gone.


Smiling, I'm enjoying alternating shades of light and dark


Finding depth beyond a perfect face, colour beyond


Black and white, happy that words can endure death


Making more than fitting epitaphs they tell a story.


Its through her words the beat goes on, she herself


Has gone but if eyes are indeed the gateway to a soul


I wasnt wrong.  Turning the final page I also offer words


Hoping shes found the peace that she deserved.



Equilibrium


My love is like a liquid, drink me slowly, dont walk by


Im as thin as tissue paper, as weightless as a sigh


Dont leave me lost in darkness, a victim of false pride


We can get along so well if you dont look deep inside



Dont ask too many questions, accept what you see


Ive no means of telling lies, I just speak truthfully


Im sorry if Ive hurt you, sainthoods not my claim


Meet me half way between your pleasure and my pain



Leafing through the years we may find just cause


For the odd way that I see things so different from yours


A meeting of bruised apples fallen from a tree


Echoes of an Eden where wed both prefer to be


If you can feel my sadness for the people that we were


Join me in my longing for a place wed both prefer


I like to think theres hope, the tunnel ending in a light


Well find out soon enough which one of us is right

Heart Shaped

This heart shaped memory

Sunk into the ground

Is marked with simple stone

In manifest devotion

Love lies subterranean

Drowned in the breaking

Of times restless waves

Sailing on an endless

Landlocked ocean.....



Hyena


I pick the bones of my elysian fields


As clock hands work their way around


A sad face marking passing hours


Spent scavenging your memory


From pictures that besotted me


I pull ragged little bits of love


All night through my longing plays


Like an insular game of lone charades


A dark sarcophagus held your heart


I tried to crack its outer shell


And win your shining x-ray smile


With futile hopes that lie exposed



You left with such indecent haste


Now burning questions sting my lips


As I lick this poisoned chalice clean


Savouring its strange metallic taste


At the end of the path that leads nowhere


All the answers to the riddle writhe 


Within me, myself and I - like a splendid carrion,


Served nightly in a thin membrane of dreams



Lump


The lump inside you
The lump in my throat


My metaphor
Your metastasis
My anger
Your acceptance 


My resistance
Your reticence


My diatribes
Your diagnosis


My weakness
Your will


My pulse
Your peace


My rage
Your rest


My present
Your past


Me here
You gone


Awake
Asleep


Vocal
Voiceless


My elegy
Your epitaph.....


Miracle

I heard your voice


A disembodied plea


Pregnant with the past


Calling out to me


Across the tides of time


The place where beggars chant


For some kind of release


From all the things they arent


I pen these codes lines


Like spiders on a page


Like voices on the breeze


Like all the games we played


All I have is this


A mirror soul I seek


Loving what you were


Plugging holes in me


Things cant be the same


Now youve been and gone


Leaving memories


I recall at evensong



If I believed in God


But half of how I should


Hed open up your heart


Like any lover would



Hed whisper in your ear


Why you should be with me


Smear mud across your eyes


Until at last, youd see

Rear View

All I had to do was subtly glance behind me

A surreptitious rolling of the eyes

To see you there, sitting in my present

Yet somehow belonging to the past


I wanted to see if I still found you beautiful

Traced the familiar contours of your face

A numbing sadness tugging at my heart

Feelings from another time and place


I heard your voice in the here and now

Felt your presence just behind

Not something I had to recreate

From the forbidden corners of my mind

Wishing I could say I hadnt felt the yearning

A desperate desire to re-connect

Resolutely I drove on through gaps of silence

Always one to humbly genuflect

With trepidation I felt the old fires burning

Of the love youd chosen to reject

Ive often tried but theres no going back

No dressing the wounds of your neglect

Wisdoms lines trace the pain of learning

Framing the damage thats been done

I pull away with no thoughts of turning

No more rear-view glances at the one

Ripples


Ripples spreading out
From the drowning of a stone
A moment spent together
Experienced alone

The beating of your heart
Sat briefly next to mine

All consummately swallowed
By the shifting sands of time


Tiger Balm



Sweet simmering tigress
She did things to me
From an oriental karma sutra
Seeming so tame
When I stroked her stripes
Growling gently
Just like a pet cat should

When I knocked
She let me in
When I tried to fuck her
Primal spirit stirred
She pursued me
Clipping my legs
Like I were a frail gazelle

In that moment
I sacrificed myself to her
To her perfume river smell
To her tiger balm
Laden with promise

Like the bars of old Saigon

Steeped in curling smoke

I wanted to be loved
For a very long time
Not guilt-stained Agent Orange
Rolled over and over
Like a helpless flower-power
Bombing Neolithic
Gutted and hung out to dry

I became a dead student
A dirty deformed dollar
Put through a waffle iron
By a delicious whore

My wilting body melting
Like a prawn cracker
On her rudely outstretched tongue



Heaven's Dull

What shall heaven be?
For an ant a cosy nest
For a chick its mothers breast
For a cat all warm and cream

Tis only man that shall complain
Tis only man with fickle brain
Shall want the Lord to entertain
Heavens dull we shall complain

Dying Swan

I want to multiply exponentially
Until the world is full of me
people with whom I can agree
Thought clones from a central tree

Mirror, mirror in the wall
Who's the fairest one of all
My own crown and coronet
A dying swan with no regrets

Sweet Nothings

Least said soonest mended
So I said nothing
Never dared to utter
My unfathomable love

Mustn't cause offence
So I said nothing
Never ran the risk
Of saying how I felt

Mustn't rock the boat
So I said nothing
Even as I bled
From your neglect

Better to keep quiet
So I said nothing
Swallowed the pain
Of losing you for good

Grown men don't cry
So I said nothing
Lest a tremor in my voice
Should give the game away

All the times I said nothing
Lie stacked like corpses
Fading in my memory

All the times I said nothing
Lie within like tinder
Waiting for a match

All the times I said nothing

Lie within like tinder

Waiting for a match

All the times I said nothing
Beating balled fists
On the fortress of my chest

All the times I said nothing
Acting a non-speaking part
Unbearably repressed

Least said longest broken
I should have swallowed pride
Better to have loved and lost
Than never even tried


The Sequinned Hem

Alone on the shore of eternity’s sequinned hem
And all that it enfolds
Endless realms stretch beyond my mind
And all that it can hold

Creation’s womb waxed smaller
Than a grain of sand we’re told
And I mask the heavens glory
On this starlit night alone

Span everything that ever was
With hands as big as galaxies
Peering through my mortal fingers
At alternate realities


Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

To be identified as the author of this work.

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