bloody good poem this:

Come Wraith
By Raven

And no one ever intimated
I would remain the victim of lunacy

long after the moon had released me

My lips are alternating patterns of
tidal motion

ridged with time

I fall hard between the lines sometimes
the letters above and below

leaving me no where to go
winding away in that slanted scrawl of yours

The Moon
ebbing as she does
waiting

Come wraith
dance with me beneath the scarred surface
of my fingers
within the thickening skin
we find something tangible
desirable

copper blood
for a bronzed kiss

The Moon
bulging again at last
her demure allure
gleams reflected
insanity

You avert your eyes
when my laughter reaches shrill

I know love
you will come to me in the still colour
of fable

perhaps after dinner
we can seek the answers

I wish to slick my flesh with
your indolent touch

My wants
are but particles caught
in the Moons soft beamed siren song

And you knew
I would become
didn't you?

Come wraith
laugh with me as we sip from sacrifice
and allow the chalice to topple

spilling moonlight over

the fine hairs striving
for sun
the tender sound of
fare thee well

My changes
aligned to the phases

And sometimes
its enough

Spring Morning

Everyone has their own way of sleeping:
in nine miles of beaded silk;
wrapped in a pirate's beard;
thumb-sucking coital curl,
or starfish spread.

Each has their own way of waking:
soft and creamy lip-delicious;
gelignite start up,
or sputter-crawl blanket roll
to bury your head and wish
there was no day-awaiting pounce.

I'm wrapped in a huddle of pale blue
polar fleece and little hearts.
Spring is blossoming chirpily
outside my window.

The hollow beside me echoes emptily
as the soldier bear has dragged from his post
and gone off to war in his corporate box.

I have 15 minutes of blanket cuddles
before the floor claims my feet
and the day busies off in random directions,
stealing my mind for mundane occupations -
leaving no space for free styling -
no time for seven voyages with Sinbad,
or the tales from Arabian nights.

Only the wicked Queen
swirls upon her iron shoes
behind the ching of cash register,
the ting of cutlery.

The 26th Day

Shaun says it’s 26 days
till the end of the world.
He says so many others have
predicted the end of the world:
Nostradamus, millennium doomsayers,
aligning of the planets hopefuls,
and yesterday’s collider atom smasher,
300 feet below the surface,
with its black hole potential –
now I’m predicting my own, he says.

But he still went off to sit his exams,
and is making plans to move
to Auckland next year.

And maybe there is a small lacework
of black holes beginning
under all that dirt in Europe,
like a dirty little secret brewing,
a black tea, into which
we will all submerge and stew.

I wonder whether we’d know?
Would we get a newsflash
that Paris had been converted
to a negative?

Or would we all cascade inwards so fast
that it’ll end like the flick of the stop button
on a video remote?

I think I’ll pay my electric bill anyway,
so if there’s time I’ll get to watch it on TV.

Awakening

To the beat of arched light,
cathedral climbs of stone
ribbed like bone,
reminisce the angels.

Blood like fire,
wings pearlescent marble,
they beat through city streets
glancing coloured prisms
from the walls.

How the architecture changes
from Roman to postmodern.
They marvel at inherent creativity,
rise beside highrise ghettos,
decadent, dishevelled, still
awakening the beating gift
of muscle beneath ribs.

Flatmates

I am silent.
Silent as -
not the grave -
some other place,
where you cannot hear
the worms turning
around bones.

I used to like your fringed
black eyes - infant fingers -
slipper feet -
to think you were so new
to this land, new
to being in the world
with only you.

But the six-o'clock slam
and slap of jandals
as you claim the bathroom first,
sitting by the log fire in your jacket
with the heater blasting,
and the roaring of ear pressed to door
as you listen listen listen,
fill your ears with us,

have made me silent.
All my sound sucked in
to the hollows of my lemon cheeks.