...

...





Honestly,
wish I hadn't gone.
Saw a different side to Earth that day,
ugly as coffin splinters.
No spring buds warm promise or flower tips lit that grass.
Earth had nothing to give me.
Quiet as monsters claw tapping under the bed
tap
tap
tap
stop
it came.

Still can't taste anything.
Feel drunk on absence,
a hollowing spirit
shaking my legs like chains
cursed numb my tongue,
double shot my words dead.
I don't believe in them anyway.
Words.
My words were only ever the ghosts
of someone else's thoughts.

My thoughts are all wrapped up together,
haunting sheets of guilt
rip,
can't untie them,
this guilt holds closed a body so full of nothing
opening up could shatter any heart
under its empty weight.
My heart has sucked space inside out.
I've got the vacuum of the universe in my gut.
People ask questions,
they don't want me to share,
I'm sick of hearing their honey and mud.

Wish I hadn't gone.
Wish I hadn't seen Earth so hungry,
scavenger scheming,
whistling maggots, slobbering soil.
Before that day the Earth I knew just
grew fruits,
shared roots,
I'd never seen it eating.
Earth doesn't eat fruits.
Earth eats death
and grieving.
Feasts on grieving.

That day, Earth opened up,
cold, dry gums parted,
gaping, lipless mouth crumbling
as men I'd never met before
fed it the left-overs of your body.

Wish I hadn't gone.
Sorry.

I stood silent as Earth devoured your scraps,
toothless jaw closing over your bones
to never let go.

Wanted to kick ground,
yell in its face,
punch out these fists so tightly plunged
in black jacket pocket
but didn't.
I did nothing.
Listened to strangers talk like that was you down there
falling apart in Earth's full belly.

Performance Poetry: Free Verse Lives!

Whack!

Bam!!

Performance Poetry slams... are dead.

Brown bread. Burnt.

Fallen, jam side down,

hit ground,

K.O.

Time out.

Clear the ring away

because poets will not fight today.

Won't judge. Won't jeer. Make this clear.

Speak quiet enough for everybody to hear.

Slams are dead.

R.I.P.

Now, feel free to fancify your verse

where crowds won't curse or prey you are worse

than their own stanza.

Where hands are applauding. Not marauding.

Mouths cheering. Never sneering.

'Well, his rhymes OK but that metaphors weak.

He does go on abit. Hey! I wannna speak!

Make my mates all rate him low.'

There's no bitterness like show bitterness,

no bitterness i know.

Ding! Dong! The slams are dead!

There's no place like this home!

Our house crushed flat that wicked deed.

No more yellow bricking it before you stand to read.

Just sun gold ink on paper skies

and thoughts, coloured outside the lines.

Beer soaked wisdom. External rhyme.

Share lyrics and laughs.

Write shields, not swords

because friendship is cut by scoring boards.

Competing is unavoidable, in work or family.

Let poetry be a sanctuary.

A cloak to curb a hurricane,

though it only has one thread.

Make this known wherever we tread.

Free verse lives!

Slams... are dead.