Mark Heathcote

Restrain me because I want to bathe in your sun
I want a southern moon to shiver on you
from the naked shadows, I'd be casting all over you.
Restrain me; I'm like an applecart toppled over
...

From my home beneath your window
By sight I love you
By divinity, I kiss you
By touch, I embrace you
...

Father, poverty is a gift
ask any bird taking a rain bath.
Son, don't make-me-laugh
there's nothing but rain
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Let me fall under some natural-disaster
the eye of a storm picks up the hereafter.

Be felled as if by a random act of god,
...

Fleeting as an ocean wave;
once, surge waters knocked us both for six. 'I know-
and it is as if only-yesterday for me.
I held your hand in mine a lifetime ago.
...

When rivers run cold, it makes you wonder if they were ever warm
Why we ever went skinny-dipping, swam naked in a thunderstorm
When fires turn to ashes, it makes you wonder did they ever burn.
Why was the air sulphur every other silent nocturne?
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River street urchins
The gutters are swelling
[Waiting] for the sky—you, I
To reach—the storm drains of joy.
...

Do our dreams leave impressions?
Like fossils leave-footprints
why count our possessions?
With others be—wolfish.
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The still pools reflection, what clarity, within its deepest depths it holds?
Until a trouble mind bestirs, silts of time. Looking for what else unfolds.
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A river of stars
a bed of roses still in bud
we're but water lilies
learning to be rainbows
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A hand up brother, a free man's gift
we can share this summit in a handshake
it's barren; nothing to steal here or take,
there's no dividing line, African Rift,
...

With barely a whisper
I was almost blown over
Like a straggling-stalk
Of green corn, I'm bent
...

Wasn't it curiosity killed the cat
I-truly-believe intelligent people do nothing
Knowing to do something unbalances the scales
Tips the world into further chaos
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The wedding cake couple
held hands on-top in vigil
clinging on to each other tightly
there ‘I do's written in song
...

I go missing at school when I'm
-seated-near-any kind of a window
eyes-glaze-over like a frost flower
that grows and melts in the blink of an eye.
...

The sun has gone into the shade
And turned a corner
she will not be returning
not neither soon… nor later
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Life isn't a fairy-tale
It's a dog-eared storybook.
Then it's closed folks,
It comes to an end.
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If I covertly look into your eyes
I see before me my destiny. Clearly-
see my both hands resting on your warm thighs.
See our two lips kissing feverishly.
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In such a way it should be contraband
Her heart & soul fluttered heavenly south,
As a butterfly's wing kissed her hand
& then her cheek, & then her open, mouth
...

You'd like us to talk, well it's banal.
Your kisses inflame my thoughts,
like a war correspondent's journal
all they do is lead to more pot-shots
...