The Pure River of Clean

And into this pure river of clean
Go the masses.
Angelic from the words of others,
Eyes glazed with the final documentary,
Hearts pulsing from their family hug.

It was so funny when they left, and we laughed a little,
Then snapped at each other through envy, us individuals.
Thoughts are better than holidays to Greece,
Being itchy side by side

Who prefers the pounding stab of loss,
Than the levelling smack of gain?
Less achieves more.
Expulsion lightens the load and brings on soaring heights.

What did accumulation give us but litres of lead?
A coffee and a fag, we feel full when we’re empty dead.

It changes when you care,
When you care you’re blind to the panic of accumulation.

Deaf to the freedom screams of your old exploration,
Colour-blind to the rainbow of opportunity sparkling in the abyss.
But who denies the null of calmness when truly given?
No one fights that, that thing that’s stronger than an epileptic giant.

Love is a shiny object. How much does it cost?
No matter, we all seek it like the dog it’s bone.
They didn’t walk through any walls, you know,
They just chatted to the gatekeeper and asked about interior design.

So where were the people?
Where were the guards?
When the elephant tusks came a-rushing.

Tumbling down a padded alley, wailing for blankets of gold
That shield us from questioning sunlight, no I won’t be told!

There was a signpost here once, I remember, it led me,
It pointed to where I was going and where I’d been.

For this is this now, where for others now was yesterday
We move divided, the waves of change are just that,
Waves.
Where the seamless joy of the perfect stitch
Is our cradle-rocking, goodnight kiss.


Who do we kid with question marks of progress?
A kaleidoscope chess game of yawning pawns.
I can’t wait till I buy my first friendship
Spending feels better when you’re in love.

But so does hunger.

The women threw their newborns in the river
Such was the rush for salvation.
The drug that lasts forever they said,
Can I have some honey with my concrete?

The choking infant was silent
When they burnt the last wardrobe.
A remainder from the games of hide and seek
That he had been fed for breakfast, lunch and tea.

And when the splashing froth fell from our knees,
The river was empty, and our feet were icky with
Puss of our children’s limbs.

Compartmentalise, please.
Speadsheet your life.
The problem is in G7
Eliminate the cell.

But the virus was in the
Software
And the hardware
And the logic riddle of a
Three-sided square.

Don’t run through corridors with electric hope,
Don’t sell your nose-hair to the river toad
Don’t listen to nonsense from the arrogant man
And wipe clean that tear for a thousand Peter Pans.

There was a moment back there when they stopped to listen,
But silence costs paper, and the sun rose too fast.
Still, who complains when they get a free sun tan?
Who wants a bite of my honeycomb crime?

Accept life, accept suffering,
Don’t accept acceptance.
Keep demanding colour until a
Fresh circle of dancing animals is painted
On the whirlwind of your mind.

I want to take you out and smile in the sunlight,
It doesn’t matter who you are, as long as you love me,
And no-one can tell that I hide from love like I hide from Tesco,
Scared of accumulation, scared that it adds up to zero.


* * *


It’s when you see yellow and blue in an overcast sky,
When you feel sunlight at midnight
And smell fresh moorland air
In a landfill morning.

There’s a strong rhythm of joy which
Expands into frothing rapids
And turns skin into mirrored armour.

And the scales have new accuracy
Simply because there’s nothing left to distract them.

While fat chickens cluck for seed,
And swarming fingers grasp for greed,
Those contented march to the beat of their home-cooked drum
And question nothing but the price of petrol for the school run.

So interminably happy,
In their straight-jackets of trust,
Soaring on their fixed-gear tandems with no handlebars.

For when those apples burst,
Their seeds will root in all soil, sea and rock.
And because the children of this fruit
Have the invaluable strength of balanced support,
They will inherit the earth.

And those of us left behind in our
Cloaks of idealism,
Will ensnare ourselves
And starve to death

The river is no illusion, it flows invisible.
An ever-running current of hope,
Drowning the fear of a masochistic world.

And in this pod of ying and yang
Grows a humble fever, the body is replete.
Accumulation is assimilated,
Neither without, nor within.

Which wispy dragons flew into the night?
Did the children cry or giggle?
Who protected the storm from the weather man?
And what channel was it on?

I’d never seen so many flowers fall into the valley,
As when the moon stopped spinning and the tide-banks burst.
Those with some-one’s hand to hold only took a handful,
And those with empty arms reaped all they could bear.

So later, like the carcasses of farm-slaughtered cattle,
The dead flowers littered the window,
Each a red mark for the angel of death.

But the lovers weren’t as ruthless as the angel,
So the flower hoarders lived,
Lived in their new humble understanding,
Waiting for a hand to hold.

But this form’s not unbending,
A richer chorus here unfolds.
Where the shepherds and the sheep feed each other
Like it was in the days of old.

When the village walls were a spreadsheet,
A guide to your neighbours’ desires,
So when a box was ticked,
The wall got stronger.

But here in our spherical world
These walls stand drifting;
Our neighbours three-sixty degrees.

And as the currents of the seas
Dilute our care into meals-for-one,
And life-insurance panic,
The cry comes clear from the bleeding screen,
Who asked the heavens for a faster drum?