Steve Wheeler

Have you seen the moon?
Have you really looked?
A harsh mistress or a dainty maid
A balloon deflated and then remade
...

I want to hold you
You want to hold me
but we're separated
by a sea of pain
...

I write about fracture
I write about bruises
Regrettable accidents
Nobody chooses
...

Before they got
Their hands on me
I was unconditioned,
Roaming free
...

When I met Annette
We went out for a bet
We were like puppets
On a movie set
...

Joe says one thing but means another
He's the master of the double entendre
They pop up everywhere, and I
Can't stop them coming, though I try
...

The foul mouthed obscenities that issue from his lips
send shivers down the spine and a convulsion to the hips
Like clockwork from his lips another execration drips
just when you think he's finished, yet another oath he'll trip
...

I wanna go where the mad things are
I wanna drive in a big fast car
I wanna party with the movie stars
but it all comes back to bite you in the end
...

Catch the current as the waters flow
the flood gates open as the levels grow
it's just the start for all we know
and the river rises
...

A man once tried to emulate the tale
contained in the epic poem of Kālidāsa.
He asked a passing cloud if it would convey
a message to his lover many miles away.
...

Within the empires of my mind
and through all my great imaginings;
across the vast, empty terrains of time
and in the folly of my frantic gatherings;
...

A slip of the tongue
was all it took to make her
flow with silver words
...

The war has been quite terrible
The explosions have been bad
The destruction in our village
Has made everyone so sad
...

The disco Rollarena
down by the yacht marina
was a human melodrama
I wish I'd brought me camera
...

If I could
then I would
steal a star right
out of the sky
...

Dream me into existence
and I will be there
hovering like an autumn mist
in the vestiges of your mind
...

Moses once stood near a burning bush
Nero fiddled while Rome burned out
The twin towers collapsed in a mighty rush
'Cos there's plenty of arson about
...

Time is running out
but no-one ever follows.
Grief is a bitter pill
that everybody swallows.
...

If I could only write poetry like Nigel from Half Man Half Biscuit and spill the beans on the more obscure aspects of modern living or how my life has been an utter train wreck but I dare not risk it not even for stardom or for a potentially larger than normal royalty pay cheque

If I could liberally pepper my prose with names of all the places I've never been and tell the stories of all the bad things I've never done that were largely innocuous but some were downright obscene even though most of it was fun but actually it wasn't because it never really happened
...

You're as poor as a man in a cellar
You're as rich as a Rockefeller
You're as wise as a print by Titian
You're as kitsch as Eurovision
...