Peter Lilly: Poems

Sullen pestilence gnaws tunnels through  my foundations like expanding cracks in pressurised glass. I lose my symmetry. Hot disappointment dances these wrinkles between my eyebrows. And I'll never  again  complain  of boredom. In this cell,  I am the nucleus. Echoes of my past  bite my skin in all directions to manipulate an exclusive existence and  tear me asunder. Hot disappointment patronises and accuses, my effort is insufficient; I cannot duplicate myself and this cell. I must be one. Existential sedatives delicately massage my unrelenting questions into uneasy slumber, and the stimulants release exhaust in genius foghorn complaints. Hot disappointment singes my jealousy in the latest realisation that the cure is better than any symptom anaesthetic and the cure wants to talk, always. Beloved sorrow sharpens teeth and nails at the parting of every friend, pupils still sparking questions and ...

There's a dissonance in the rain, tiny moments of silence interrupted by repeating aqueous impact, then running into streams; the capillary veins to the sea-sky heart, and out to the artery clouds. The earth respires in water and everything can breathe. Written May 2011.

I have missed the sun: softening the pavements with blissful warmth; enticing petals to open and expose their reproduction in splayed peacock beauty; immediately splicing reels of nostalgic summers, ice cold beers and fascinating fires, projecting them red  through closed eyelids; pulsing a single tear, the best kind of tear, from the well of appreciation to tenderly evaporate from skin cheeks; Causing what was dull to glisten and deepening every colour with respiration and the smell of photosynthesis; re-igniting the love of water that shocks the throat with cold, suspending the need to breathe so one may fully appreciate all that is reflected and absorbed; somehow diminishing stresses and concerns in the truth of essential relaxation. Yes, I have missed the sun. (inspired by Vitamin D) Written on that first really sunny day in April 2011.

Some of these questions break apart on impact, and some penetrate; hollowed darts injecting deathly poison, injecting rescuing medicine. Life-saving doubt defibrillates with pulses of reality from a zealous coma, so one can grow. Do not fear the weight or the stone will have already crushed you. Lift it and proceed, grow strong. Questions scaffold the steps of covenant and it all makes sense. Talk across the whispered answers to find yourself alone, there's not even sand in this desert. Sedative nerves trap stimulated eyes which dart from vacuum to abyss. There's no progress for content in monologue; Only for presentation. Listen to the answers, explore the essential taboo of questions until, apprehension no longer cracks your voice with conditioned guilt and it becomes, merely the way you live, and love. Grow with questions. Written 05/04/11.

Twisted rails, flying sparks, flying soil, spilt whiskey strips the varnish from the bar, smiles cause wrinkles. Temporarily buried in the chaos of questions all options eat either your flesh, your bones, or your skin. I cant shut myself in this chest if I'm not sure if it's made of wood, or card. Twisted rails, an unexpected, completely foreseeable collision with consciousness, for the want of a solid conscience. So you have a theory? Unfounded and shallow, like my empire! It is merely me. Twisted rails, what? Room for improvement, swing at me with your circumcision; a mole hill in a garden. Occam's razor led me here and it sends me away, disproving itself, still correct. Flying sparks of friction, not attraction. Of collision, not excitement. Flying soil, disturbed surface; not from raising the dead but from burying the living. Spilt whiskey strips my skin if i'm not careful. And I'd rather age from smiling because it is not me in the chest, it is the body, and ...

Do you really know yourself what to expect? Curses run dirty veins from your mouth and blisters ambition with indecency, and the heat of incompetence. Cauterize your severed fingers. You can stand the smell of burning flesh but not the sight of blood, and you love the inconsistency. Listen for these special whispers breathing gold-dust glitter into open ears; muffled instructions; cancerous elation. Zeal for the self bleeds dry as death is always impatient. Ignorance helps, like a sedative; masking the terrible symptoms of consciousness. You transcend the self by pushing it lower, not by raising above in ecstatic meditation. Burning bridges of foresight, painting individual hindsights, kiss the sand that will bury you. Your words are temporary like sleep temporary like life temporary like death. And wait for no external approval. Written 30/03/11.

Show me your solid streets that carry the weight of hefty commuters; (a dangerous swarm,) and I'll show you cracks in the earth's crust that entire cities might slip through and writhe in the burning magma of hades. Oh if your shops were empty with broken windows! Life after death of capitalism would make honey taste that much sweeter. These faded warning signs were the sages of damnation and their preaching voice is worn and raspy. Pavlov's politicians breathe trinkets and television, making you salivate, ringing shiny bells while they take the food from your plate. we're in this together but we really hate each other, this big society's not room enough for ego, immigrants, exports, production and the stacks of disguises for the storehouses of hate. We're in this together... but never you, it's always only me, in a collapsing city shouting about the feathers which stuff my pillow. The Egyptians loosened their shackles, thos...