willspring

the puddle you plapped on through
were once a well e’er tranquil deep
still i spared your feelings sheer
tho’ none allowed me tend my own

were we running out of time
to cultivate me with you
or are you glad i’m gone now
to bare horizons me bestrewed

the inner guts of my skull
once a hill of bones replete
a place you called golgotha
now one through iris shone with hope

i fear we have had our time
to cultivate the me from you
must confess i’m gladness gone
to horizons tilled rain bestrewed

sometimes things don’t work out
once thought it ne’er would for me
& sometimes you have to leave
before the seed can dare to bloom

know there can be no more time
feel the inner guts of my will
gone to build me a new home
to far horizons hum bestrewed

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

not for this world

& the hooded skies emptied
o’er another fallen star
it was only love undeclared
it was only consciousness after all

growing up was unavoidable
& i was taught to be unlovely
but not them
they could not have shone brighter
had they been allowed
& a hidden christ could have shown itself

how long had i been walking here
turning white noise into useless words
for all the things that could ne’er be said
for all the eyes i saw that were dead

sleepwalking down paladin lane
where even the hobos had their song
& harmonicas to play it on
just heavenly bodies now
tainted by god’s grey earth
i’d ne’er shine so bright as they
i’d ne’er fall so fine as they

where were you, hidden christ
to save us, misery, one & all
when we found no place at the table
when another epistle went unpenned
when grief was failure to participate
when i lost myself again

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

GUEST POST // Ears Wide Open (Dublin – A Rite of Passage by Miljenko Williams)

The voice of Mils makes butter melt.
His poems are lush, heart-freakin’-felt.
Yeah, lend an ear and you will agree
He deserves to be our first nominee
For audiohood on site Unbolt.
His talent is a much needed jolt
To lift our game and write effin’ good,
To not fear being misunderstood.

Dublin – A Rite of Passage

Before I was soiled: I was
oiled unhappy;
toiling and boiling like
cauldron of darkly wizard-
like pose;
a fingerpinch of spite,
of masculine passivity,
of man who never was become.

Now is another matter:
now he is become:
now he runs like training-
man; now the game no longer judd-
er[r]s, shakes or shudd-
er[r]s out of mind, or sight of flailing
in-
com-
pet-
i-sham.

And of all the sites and scenes delivered,
like rapt-
tured box of heavenly gifting,
the rite of pass-
age which most delivers me
is the right of
so
passing close
you do

give me.
The laughter and tears;
the fears and the hurts;
the love freely expressed:
the goddamn life you contain and inscribe
and so simply
define, with your brain and your being and your

goddamn beautiful face;
your his-
and your her-
and them-
stories bloody out there you unfold and retell and
spin ingeniously around me and my soul and my
being and my hell;
still untold, still unfollowed, still unknown by
most out there.
Dublin: I love you, more
than you
know.
Dublin: I love you, because you and your people
weirdly know how
to make me this [s]well: [s]weller
than [s]weller ever was.

And whilst time is still ours, the future is still
built – upon pasts that are passed;
upon guilts that begin slowly to wash away in
[time-
{s]-
hhh} I say, as
I discover the suddenly that the man
I become is more than the son of his father.

And pictures and faces and sounds and dis-
graces; sexual wroughts that pilfer
my thoughts and make me
happy again; as
happy as free man and
woman can be.

And the days and nights I pass
in remembrance of Dublin
past, and future maybe perfect too,
remind me all the time of you.
And a life recovered
is a life remade;
retaken as warriors burrowing violent
under-
growing and gnawing and
hurting and sad,
and ultimately the [bad-
d-
es–
{t]-
i-
me} of all
is what has recalled me away from
the life I could
live.

And maybe it’ll work, and maybe it won’t,
and maybe it’ll break us;
but if we don’t try and see, and check in and check
out,
we always shall rue the night-
and day-
t-
i-
me-
s
we refused to
pursue the
one life we’d lead
and even enjoy:
good Lordy, oh my …

:-)

… that really such a sin?
To hope for such win?

So I begin where
I start: before and after a-
part of so many experiences,
imagined and real; the soul
and the heart I have refound in
Dublin.
And then what is real if not in the hug
of your embrace?

For a future
begins to replace the before and
after which started so hurt,
and now begins rightly to
away fade to
black …
… not the black of all bad, nor the
black of all pain; just the
black of all colours: the
rainbow of
sane.

Text by MILJENKO WILLIAMS
© All rights reserved 2016