Her journey along the path overgrown
with Honey Locust trees
has written storied lines of braille on her skin.

Pyschogenic scratches
from Nettle leaves
lead her twitching fingers
to healing wounds precariously,
but the black swan -
on edge, instinctively initiates
  biting feather-plucking.

Eyes blinded by glasses
of distorting mirrors,
while seeking hurried healing
for her molehi...

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the flowers lay torn

with seeds split into thorns

loose ends are dead ends

where the rose bed once slept.

city of sawdust and debris

freezing beer exploding

the roads lead nowhere

in the papier-mâché maze.

milk jugs sit solid at doorsteps

with bubble domes of ice

ribbons hang from bridges

celebrating the new millennium.

crossbars peak out of overg...

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the cold squeezes out
every drop of these heavy
lemon-juice teardrops;
while my hunger has me so light
that my inflated thoughts
carry me above townhouse smoking chimneys
and through the angry grey
bubble-bursting clouds
into airborne pedestrian prison.

plagued by corkscrew aching pain
in my back,
from sitting on milk-crate chairs
and writing on slippery concrete stairs
outside the ...

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drowning on the closing page of winter

along the filth stained streets,

downtown Cape Town,

i walk upstream

through the sea of turnstile smiles

searching for a drop of sincerity.

drifting towards my vagrant home

with struggling sluggish steps,

my starved, lethargic

lactic acid legs

weigh heavy

hiking hungry.

trapped in a wayward ever-mend

cul-de-sac

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Among stumbling puffs of bar smoke

strung fumbling huffs of guitar croaks

serpent charmer fingering nylon tightropes

trapeze mastery floating notes seamlessly.

polyphiloprogenitive poet

launching dancing pages on rocket ships

shooting starry winged syllables off lips

dripping rhythmic shaking hips.

Lungs absorbing tufts of juniper soaked

drums bubbling cuffs of...

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we exist in a black & white world

where they burn your flag & your pride

if you stray outside the confining outlines

loose cannon jazz leads to blue looks

for swimming upstream to birth cool

in a pace which rips through rule books

black sheep are shot for grazing at night

in a fight against driftwood wearing hoods

instead of uniform peaks, woven in lilywhite

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we coexist in this orbit -
a morbid existence.
   as a type-Ia supernova
I am the white dwarf,
      the stellar parasite

absorbing your totality
until destroying our binary system,
  causing complete eradication.

this is how our companionship ends;
an explosion to vivid
to comprehend 
 colours and lights that delight
onlookers in the night.
  yet despite the beauty and perplexity

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walking home 

she stopped and asked me

mash and gravy
or a chippy for tea?
 

red-faced i replied

i'm skint
i'll eat any,
will you have me?

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close your eyes,
and turn off your mind
my sweet, blue valentine.
accept that we won't find
love in this lifetime.

no matter, how we desire;
water cannot be turned to wine,
a camel cannot fit
through a needles eye.
and we will never know love -
for it wasn't made in our size

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  shiny race cars whiz
    around the monopoly board
    chasing flags and champagne
      in a head spin of burning rubber
      and thirty five million eighty-six'd dinners.

every roll of my dice
lands me in a pit of snakes
sliding down as i shoot to score
my shots and knocks
have chutes behind every door.

sensibility walks in
in a probability suit
      hooting that i won three ...

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I shot into the starry night sky

on a Miles Davis blown trumpet rocket

fizzing higher and higher

with electric waves whizzing

from the soles of my beaten scuffed boots

through my body

and up to my head,

spiking each strand of hair

to stand stiff like a saluting soldier.

buzzing on brass blown bubbles

and bass drum beats

my feet started shuffling

scuffling t...

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My hands sail

with seasoned seaman steering

  precision

slowly southward,

along the waves

  of your hair,

before beaching on

        silky skinned shores.

Navigating marked territory

my fingertips travel,

      tracing

  southwardly patiently

journeying my modern odyssey

along your ribcage paved path

  towards my epicurean mecca

of lush fuzzed mead...

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One copy-paste drunken night while I tried to write,
My most honest farewell to life; my magnum opus -
‘Ode to Hopelessness’; detailing my internal strife,
Of perpetual bided time, line by melancholic line.
I had seen more than enough, this was my bowing out -
I had fought off the cuff, this was my final bout.

Awkwardly I slouched, balancing pen and paper,
On a pillow as I wrote; seated a...

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While feasting and drinking
weapons lay unmanned
as the attack came swiftly
flipping the board with flash floods
hollowing the halls
swallowing the hoards.

Without moats
dug in preparation for the onslaught
horns began blasting their deafening mort
halting, shaking sitting ducks
in the firing-line
for a live fire final round.

   ashes to ashes
     mirrors burned to smoke on the g...

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 I
at the foot of my altar
a candle burns at both ends

running out of gas, a dying star
shines through the skylight
magnified
sparking a flame.
the veil catches ablaze
burning in half
top to bottom
revealing a million
scattered puzzle pieces
lying below a gold spray-painted calf.

in the pile of ash, that was my altar
lies a pool of melted wax.

    II
standing behind a pulpit
...

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ice

melts

with rivers bleeding,

blooming into springs alarm

shaking me

from my hibernation slumber.

cocoons

             crack

ripping the silk woven caskets,

opening baskets for spread

wing’d departures.

moss runways launch test pilot

butterflies into the cool crisp sky

for flutter’d first flights.

ice

runs

through me

unwilling to yield...

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On blue moons,
between barstools
and broken beds -
I have moments
where my
beer-battered brain
opens the cage,
brave enough
to let my own bluebird
fly across a blank page.

My caged bird sings
in tweets of pain,
dragging
my life-sentenced
ball and chain
across
the telephone lined terrain
of purgatories page.

Painting the space
in hues of blue,
birthed by ballpointed dissecti...

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https://soundcloud.com/rob_cohen/salvatio

              wenn du lange in einen abgrund blickst, blickt der abgrund auch in dich hinein

    I
as a child you painted the sun
shining with your burning smile

you sang in school halls,
sailor laced pubs and broken bottle bars

in button-up paisley shirts
and alligator boots your moves shocked electric

skull composed rock n roll rhythms...

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самая большая радость - это жизнь
самая большая боль - это жизнь

memory burns into a loop
of melted vinyl
smooth touch
    scratching sound
a bottomless pool of broken noise.

white nail polish
glides into letters on a blackboard
forming romantic verses
      screeching to a halt
with the ripping of cuticles.

drifting into an afternoon siesta
waking to overgrown streets
electron...

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a gramophone set on a plaque
spins an entangled equinox of sound
stirring the empty white room
where drifting comet paintbrush strokes
splash from palette
onto the canvas
filling pencil sketched stencil outlines.

behind the blank stare
a box of melting crayons
leak into the canyon pocket of the rotten
rusty mind's trapdoor opening
dripping in a kaleidoscopic waterfall curtain
of a ra...

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prelude

sitting
strumming
steel strings
blackbirds feed and sing

speeding cars pass
rattling ice cubes
in a whiskey glass

on the wall
a misty painting
where blue smoke
and cherry trees
meet

    fade in

curtains open
spreading the scene
for hungry eyes
wide

absorbing
every trace
in a dizzying
trance

lights flash
reflecting
three masked figurines
slumping in a ...

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twenty seven came and went
              three strikes, not out

first: a stomach pump curve ball
ejecting the dissolving pills
            second: cushioned by an airbag
after speeding down a swerving hill
                  third: plucked out of the night air
from a fourth-floor windowsill.

    i followed the path
from calculator comfort and white picket calm
down into the servitude ...

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City of flickering dust crusted lights
along homeless haven'd stained shaking sidewalks,
where lampposts tell twisted tall tales
seen in the reflections of shop window views 
of the stalking capitalist machine.

Billboards bellowing lucid interpretations
smile over split milky-way highways
launching battery driven cars on candied clouds
nine miles high while dandruff snowflakes
fall from...

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blazing the tall grass of the past
acting the big bad wolf
huffing, puffing cigarettes
and blowing up Peruvian powder.
dancing on stages and tables
while growling my agony
in moans and groans
to joy division tones.
howling into the night
to back beats and guitar solos
shrieking with a might
heads could explode.
black ink burning my pages
with a darkness which could shake
brooding Bos...

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Autumn leaves sing in khaki demise
wasting no time in the crimson-stained snow,
lying in smoke-berry and fading rickshaw sleepiness,
with violin and violent Hallelujah's -
Winter cries
along with the bird on my windowsill
on cold steely silent nights
in wingless speckled September.

Flowers all laid to rest
in rasping acoustic nylon songs
bemoaning the lateness of the rising sun
and ea...

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I

a voice in the pocket of the outside crusader
screams in diluted darkness
crawling on blood flooding knees

from prison cell dead end canyons
crossing deep graved cave ravines
curtained by smoke and steamed mirror terrors

light burnt out under collapsing night
bound in the noose of lingering rope
tightly tied to faded flashlight demise

stretched synthetic wet-suit fabric
torn a...

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through sixth-sense lenses
built into focused-frames;
the unacknowledged legislator
zooms in on the landscape hidden in plain sight;
to dissect, digest and divulge
an abstract autopsy of societal abnormalities.

disguised in makeup of mythical tales,
the parallel pictures hide in satirical details
dressed in innocent historical fables -
revealing esoteric plot-holes in reality
and magni...

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Flooded mind in an arid desert existence
my oasis is a
square peg in Maslows hierarchy.
feed me paper plated possibilities
while my lungs burn
for ink stained atmosphere.

Outsider,
silent observer and undesignated critic -
the ticking never stops
without poetic deconstruction
of societal wastleland shaped bombs.

Born into this
I decry my morbid existence,
spent in solitude
spent ...

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Preface |
I was on the balcony of a dingy bar one evening and overheard a girl say the words 'downstairs people'. It may be that she was simply referring to the people on the street below us, or that she had birthed a divinely diverse contronym.
I staggered over to her table, like one of the biblical Magi who pre-drank on camelback all the way to Nazareth, and commended her creation. I asked if ...

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* in medias res *

December
came carrying deaths club,
dancing in a blue cloak
designed with black crosses -

Helios
rose blazing furious
spitting suffocation infused flames
(unlike the century had seen)
erupting in sketches of Spain.
Choking lungs spread on airplane wings,
stained in Eastern skies
from Chinese caves and marketplaces,
plagued breath blew death Westward
in scythed m...

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