Her World
(by Andy Cash)
She had shown him a new world
Feral, sensual and wild in beauty
Flying free, a forever butterfly, in a new Eden
Yet he was now a lost soul
A new Adam alone with femininity
It was her empire to roost
Lust left him in an abstraction of paradise
To age in shameful silence
Mark Sheek’s Oil Painting: The Paranoid Schizophrenia Of Richard Dadd (available for sale)
Siren Song
(by Martin Elder)
She sang the siren song
Until she could sing the song no more
And the song was drowned
The words lost
The trees burned
In the fire of another’s love
Of reckless gain
And her hair falls
In layered strands
Remnants of the finesse of what once was
To strew the land
What’s left of hope has become
A tired empty tear down one side of her face
Whilst the other stares
In vacant disbelief
Trees now denuded of paradise
Stalagmite stumps of make believe
Her lips full and pursed with pregnant words
She cannot sing or speak
Because the words have gone
Not even enough for a lament
All that’s left a final scream
A dying swan
A sound which can never be heard
By those left to walk the land
Heads buried in coats of despair
Because nobody listened
No one really cared
But for her the memory is still there
The memory will always be there
Skies break over moors
(by Randall Horton)
Skies break over moors.
A pale rider on a pale horse,
Looks to suckling,
Not destruction.
The horse faces horror
And rises.
Randall Horton
Mark Sheeky’s Oil Painting: The Resurrection Of Napoleon Bonaparte (available for sale)
Wax
(by Nicola Hulme)
Life melts , slips away,
pooling slowly, before cascading
over the edge into decline.
Cooling, hardening, leaving a path,
too soon traced and overlaid
by the next generation.
Once illuminating,
bursting with energy,
flaring and flickering, finding
cupped hands of protection
against the breeze,
spluttering and guttering.
The light now fades,
a naked flame chars
a crumpled wick,
sending up a plume of silvered smoke.
The candle shortening, descends
into oblivion, extinguished.
Is it an endless sleep, oceans deep?
In Karma, do we rise again?
Or, when flame is dowsed
and all is black
does death defeat us?
Darkness and nothing more?
Death welcomes us all; unbiased and inclusive,
Inevitable mortality holds no prejudice.
Some rush towards him,
giving the Grim Reaper a hand.
Others run from him
on supplement and vitamin fuelled treadmills.
The indiscriminate scythe offers strange comfort;
levelling the playing field.
You cannot take my life,
barter or buy it to lengthen your own.
My spark burns until the day I’m snuffed out.
I am grateful for every second.
Just So Greek
(by John F. Keane)
Cassandra’s fractured face seeps into hollowed rock
Quick bow-spray spatters white across spectral seas
Cool effigies dream of thespian victories
Winged artistry, brave hands and tragic sorrows;
Mimetic marble strives at dawn to recollect
Ecstatic festivals and nights of wanton dance
While colours leap from distance, filling us with spring
And pallid plastic dreamscapes with primeval song;
Uncounted species and genera of lost loves
Rise tall and stalk like phobic shadows of dismay
Through trembling phonic moments on forgotten strands
While our new Muse awakens, thumbs sand from her eyes
Takes morning ship to Corinth, eying spindrift waves
Occluding Thracian smiles and foreign faces
Unheeded on her long and voiceless voyage
Towards a distant shore of endless origins;
A few more lines weave Phidian visions taut
With drowning lovers and heroic inference.
Mark Sheeky’s Oil Painting: Wax Cataclysm Of Phoenixes And Unphoenixes (available for purchase)
She’s Cold
(by Dorinda McDowell)
She’s cold.
She’s almost drowned out the sun with
her tears; they did not stop for days:
see that sun almost falling from the sky!
The black menace in the corner is
a frightening reminder of her
desperate journey.
The sea was cold.
Yet…
It is still the same sun
and it hasn’t fallen from the sky.
And she sees the flowers
and she loves their vibrancy.
They are from the earth and she
is on that same earth, and
not on the leaky boat now.
She takes the mug of tea
from the kind lady.
She is safe.
Part of her aches for happier
yesterdays.
Her youthful, aged heart sighs and
begins its crippled recovery
towards a slowly blossoming
new hope…
Ever Changing
(by Nigel Astell)
Blue sky rider
signal flower red
traffic light hill
Standing upright defiant
history remains black
against life itself
Cycle of demands
our turbulent earth
ever changing world.
Mark Sheeky’s Watercolour: The Schoolboy (available for purchase)
The Textured Mistress
(by Nigel Astell)
Underneath black flowing undertones
a cloudy mystic eye
appearing not to see
sexual wanting, watchful other
your not-knowing stares
staying hidden within painting
Textured Mistress reveals nothing.
20th Century Faux
(by Linda Cosgriff)
Be my beard, she pled; I have a female lover
and I love you like a brother.
I will, he said, for I love you like no other
and I will love you ‘til I’m dead.
The Leveller
(by John F. Keane)
The pale frog sprawls across parched canvas.
Cave-eyed in represented sentience
And limbless repose, he loves us not.
Across the craggy border goes the grieving man,
Cast from his hall of pride into a harder place.
His robes are rags, his sceptre now a staff
And all his storied wealth is barren slate.
The pale frog blinks and stirs.
His mottled, bloodless flesh gleams maggot-white
Across the starless void.
The Reveal, When It Came, Surprised Him
(by Linda Cosgriff)
I thought you were God, he wailed,
not frog.
I thought you exposed, he sighed,
not toad.
How can the amphibious, he wept,
be so insidious?
City of Promise
(by Nicola Hulme)
Gleaming city of sleek dreams;
sky-scraping arks, housing bright sparks
in power suits who contribute,
custodians for generations to come.
Grime and greed crept up the towers
polluted minds, killed Hope’s flowers.
A scarcity mentality ordered more,
politicians decreed more, nations demanded more.
Green mould envy infiltrated, penetrated
poisoned the air, rotted all Lust touched.
populations flocked to the City Of Promise, only to find
the gates locked, leaving barbed-wire-strangled aspirations.
Children homeless, helpless, starving for acceptance
eyed classrooms where obese pupils consumed
knowledge and technology whilst spitting venom at teachers,
blind to opportunities squandered by their sense of entitlement.
Those who had, threw their arms around it.
Those without, schemed how they might take it.
Depressed buildings crumbled, anxious highways collapsed.
Fires burned, acid rain fell, darkness descended and all was ash.
Yet, amongst ruins the red rose bloomed.
Beating hearts, replaced by flashing cursors
in single occupancy cubicles, tapped keys, professed love
to pouting profiles; edited, filtered, cropped.
Planned futures together, anticipated red-blooded
pulsating embraces from days of old.
Romeo found Juliet in Cyberspace.
He offered a virtual rose.
Without nourishment of tender loving hands
the rose faded and drooped,
hanging its sterile head
in a cold world of desolation.
Juliet was infected by a virus.
Romeo watched from behind his firewall.
Her account flickered and died.
Their connection forever lost.
Mark Sheeky’s Oil Painting: Triumph Of The Mechnauts (available for purchase)
As flesh turns to crêpe
As sky fades to yesterday
As the rose powders
The Eye pulls out the past
There’s the house where we made moments
it glows under a moonlit stage
empty for new blood
repeat of chances
promises
dreams
love
life
Fading flag of time
one last chance to mast
Step this way to death
Hang your stash of moments on its branches
Jigsaw in haphazard un-order-juggle-throw-sway
Step back, forward, back
Link you-to me-to-them-to that-to them-to it-to they-to who-to there-to why?
Understood backwards
Checkmate
Curtain
Mark Sheeky’s Oil painting: The Shore Of Forever (available for purchase)