Alistair Adkinson

My sails are down,
the wind is high,
the waves are crashing into me –
the coal-black ocean water
...

Tell me a story, mother,
and then put me to bed.

My friends have gone to heaven, all,
...

I wrote this song with a helmet on
Standing at the bottom of the ladder of success
Ducking stray bullets, hand grenades, and napalm
And staring up a secretary’s dress
...

I have been out lurking
these past few Autumn nights
in lonesome, cobwebbed corridors
in the shadows, out of sight
...

We have built an uneasy peace, she and I
Cobbled together with semantics
And no-man’s land borders
We dare not cross
...

Do you remember window-unit nights,
and dreams of curtains floating on an ocean breeze –
some never-will-happen fantasy
that helped us through our early days?
...

We could shed these artificial clothes,
these rags we wrap around us,
and swim in an amniotic astral plane.
...

I have tossed love from open car windows,
while speeding into uncertain nights.

I have watched old lovers return to my life,
...

I’m a smoker’s lung,
torn open, bloody, and corroded,
waiting for the surgeon’s knife,
to save me, or do me in.
...

Is this what I want?
An ugly detente?
A cold and silent war?
...

I dash between margins
and use high-minded jargon
to justify behaviors
within my own mind
...

Her armpits are hairy
her best friend's a fairy
she don't like Moe, Curly, or Larry
she likes candle wax and lithographs
...

Spiders come forth!
And don’t forget your silky ties;
it’s time to garner up the flies,
now that timeclocks have eyes.
...

When the sun comes up tomorrow
I could run away
Change my name
And seek fortune and fame
...

Under the eyes
of your gloating pride,
I strive to become a man.
...