Let us open all the doors
And invite the ghosts in.
Let us empty the cupboards,
Dig up all the bones
And lay them out: let there be war.

Let the wheels turn;
Enough of this stagnant peace
That is no peace at all.
The thundering lie torments me;
I am disgusted by the deceits that
Underpin it.
Better the honesty of war
Than the deceptions of a false peace.

Line up my enemies;
I will cut them down
And bow to their deaths.
I will honour them like brothers
Who meet me on the battlefield,
But for the cowards of this war
I bring only your burning house,
Your ruined fields,
Your broken family.
Be brave and die well;
Hell has a place for the coward
But the noble dead line the halls
Of Heaven, rejoicing.
Now, come, let my sword feast
On your nobility.

War on falsehood;
War on the idiots;
War on greed;
War on all that divides me
From you and
Myself.

Let all my enemies perish.
Let the dark and the light alike
Be equalised in victory or defeat.
But let there be war.

I will cut the wings from angels,
Pull the horns from demons’ heads;
I will wade through the blood of
Good and bad alike,
Because the war is endless.

Constantly arising,
Falsehood blemishes the page.
There is always the Foe,
Always the battle raging all around me.
For others, peace and the green field.
For me, the slice of sword
On shield
On skull
And bone.

(And now we sit here,
The silence growing vines
About our tongues.
Poisoned water in the well
And the list of crimes
Between us.
Let there be war.
Let the land burn.
Let the forests fall,
The mountains echo with
Blade on bone
Steel on stoney face
And all the armies of us
Exhaust themselves in a tide.
Let there be war.
Let the rivers run red
For a season;
Let the borders close
And all the songs be of
The bloody fight.

Kiss and make up?
Let there be war.
Turn the other cheek?
Let there be war.

The air is thick with lies.
The forests are tangled with briers.
The mountains are full of thieves
And the rivers are choked with weeds.
Let there be war
And purging
And the redemptive fire
Of death and glory.)

Fight me.
I said, ‘Fight me.’
Do not be understanding.
Do not yield for the peace.
Do not bend yourself
Any more
From the shape you were born to.
Who are you?
WHO ARE YOU?
Show yourself, truly, or not at all.
Stand on the dusty battleground
And fight me, as you are.

Screw politics.
We are warriors,
Or could be.
I cannot sit yet on the porch
And rock myself to senility
Telling tales of former glory
And the comrades I once knew.
The war goes on
All around us.

Fight me,
Then we can turn together
Towards the innumerable foes.

How can I know your strength
If you will not show me?
I do not yet trust your sword
Beside mine.
Those who have not fought,
Do not know one another’s shape.

How can I love a man I have not fought?
How can I love a woman who fears me?
Fight me.
Let me feel your strength;
Let me measure you,
That I may then love you,
Knowing who you are.

Let the heavens open
and arrows rain down;
Let Hell burst on the Earth.
So long as I have a sword in my hand
and an enemy before me,
I will never be displaced.

Do not curse me with peace.
I would fade like the captured tiger
Or the dark, cut flower.
Fence me around with Peace
And I will make War with it.

Bring me a war!
There must be a war, somewhere!
(For how can I know who I am without battle?
Though I have seen boys become Men,
Become corpses
In an hour,
I have seen such a flowering of life
Before Death
As I have never seen
In all the village halls
And householders’ days
I have ever known.)

Come here!
You!
Come to me!
I am not afraid to die in front of you,
Only afraid to die without living.
(And if I should die by your sword
Or your powerful word
Or your look at me askance,
I will die happy
And real
And full of blood and laughter and fire.)

Oh, do not let me die in bed!
Unless I was fighting there
A battle worthy of my death.

I know.
You think I am a thug
To speak thus of War.
Admit it!
Speak true words!
You see a brute, a warmonger.
An iron fool.
Listen to me.
I am playing my part.
I am playing my part.
Play yours!
Without fear.
At least I know what mine is.

Are you a child to cower in deception?
Be a man! Be a woman!
Ach.
Bring me someone real
To spar with,
I am sick of your foolish illusions,
Your pretensions of mortality.

I have nothing to hide.
Do you understand?
I have nothing to hide.
Nothing.
And so I am
A God.
Now fight me.

This is the darkroom.

Here is
Every river you never sat beside;
Every lover who never really knew you;
Every kiss that missed the mark;
Every touch that was too clumsy.
Every field you did not play in;
Every star you did not wish upon;
Every moon you missed watching;
Every blanket you did not lie on.
Every smile that was witheld from you;
Every summer sky that was clouded;
Every friendship you never made;
Every tree you did not climb.
Every car you cannot drive;
Every bicycle you cannot ride;
Every journey you cannot make;
Every dream you cannot shape.
Every hope that has not happened;
Every chance you did not take;
Every childhood you did not have;
Every kindness you have not known.
Every mountain you have not climbed;
Every fairy you did not see;
Every spirit you cannot feel;
Every dance you were not asked to join.
Every bravery that you could not summon;
Every future you will not chase;
Every race you did not run;
Every insult to the dignity of your soul.
Every shaving of the grandeur of your spirit.
Every bruise and every scratch,
Upon the surface of your heart;
And every flinch of your body
At the impossibility of life lived free.

Here is the history of your disappointment.
Here is the catalogue of your just
resentment.
Here is the dark winding sheet
In which you are wrapping the stiff child of your life.

Here is
Every father who could have been there,
But was not;
Every mother who could have nurtured you,
But did not;
Every family that could have known you,
But could not;
Every town that could have prided in you,
But could not see;
Every culture in whose arms
You twisted to be free.
Here is the memory of being among your people.

Here is the delight of travelling in unknown lands
that you have not known
And here is knowing yourself at home
as you never have.
Here is your carefree living
unlived
And here is the joy of living in the fullness
Of all the responsibilites
that you flail in.

Oh you guard this darkroom tight!
How you do.
Without the darkroom, love,
Who would you be?

In here is
jumping as high as you are able
Into the vastness of your life;
Here is the knowledge of the Underworld,
Being lost in the ever-dismaying darkness.

The darkroom is not the demon.
The demon is what locks you there.
The hero knows the darkroom;
The lost live there.

Dark night. Wild wood. The moon howls. Gorse grasps, branch cuts, brier tears. You run and you run and you run. The ground is broken and betrays your feet. Ice grips, frost crackles. But this is not the night of beauty. You are lost. Crows cackle in the dark — this is their midnight. The darkness owns the land. Feet twist, hands reach, and you run. Why did you come here, Ivan? Why did you leave your warm home, your loving family, your beautiful wife? Why, Ivan? Unknown beasts move in the shadows; this is no longer the adventure you dreamed of — the call of the wild has led you into darkness. These are the lands of Baba Yaga now; this is the country of the black witch. Bones crack, blood churns, sinew stretches — this is the last resort. And you run. You came on horse-back like a prince, wearing your valour like a flag; you came in like a hero returning, triumph in your eyes. You came in bright colours, a messenger of the sun. You were open and free and gave your heart to the wind. Now your horse has fallen and ravens have eaten its flesh and the sun is a memory of another life. This is Baba Yaga’s land. Her iron teeth grind the frost. Why did you come here, Ivan? What did you long for when the sun was shining that led you away from the light? Were the prophets mistaken? Was not love enough? What greedy thirst came in the sunlight for the shadow lands, and why? Your armour has rusted that shone like gold and your flaxen hair is white; your hands that stoked passion and played the sweetest music of summer, they are bleeding now. Why did you come here, Ivan? Even the moon is laughing now, though you composed a hundred songs for her; she is no longer your mistress; your only intimacy now is with the dark.

Did it begin with a dream, Ivan? Did a shadow pass over your sleep? Did some crooked messenger appear at your door and lay your soul at your feet? Where was the sun when you turned your back on daylight and rode to the dark woods? This is not the rainbow’s end or the crystal light castles of splendour. This is not the bright revelation of dawn and the promise of possibility and birth.

You ache. Muscles burn; breath gasps. The air is poison — the wind whispers all your failings into the ear of your heart. Your golden shield with its fire-bird cracked and broke in the fall; your sword of truth and beauty shattered in the cold. Now swamp sucks at your feet and all your fine furs cannot keep out the chill and damp of the marsh. Twisted root; snagging branch; the wilds are wilder than you dreamed. All the faces of the dead are gathering in the dark; all the voices of the ancestors are crowding to chide you in your weakness. Why did you come here, Ivan?

Somewhere far from here, your baby is sleeping.
Somewhere far from here, your beloved is awake. She is wondering where you are and she cannot help you.

Somewhere, Baba Yaga has smelled your blood and is mending the gate of her dark house. It is not far. Already, the hut turns on its chicken foot and the skulls on the fence are chattering. Now you hear them in the night; now you hear nothing. Baba Yaga will make your bones into fence-posts and grease the gate with your fat. Nothing better to drink than a hero’s blood, Ivan; nothing better to eat than a hero’s sun-blushed flesh. Still you run — deeper into nowhere, lost in the darkness. Silver birch does not speak to you now of magic or the fairy-folk, only reaches for your eyes. Alder broods darkly in water; Elder whips your back as you run. And whichever way you run, you are coming closer to the hut in the woods where the dark witch lives. Why did you come here, Ivan?

You are trying to remember, though the dark night tears at you. Who sent you to go I-know-not-where, to fetch I-know-not-what? Who? Why did you go to the house of the deathless? Why did you leave your fine castle and all the beauty of the sunlight.

You came because you had to, Ivan. You came because the sun is not enough, though your brothers said it was so, though your father did not believe in the dark forest, nor your mother, who kept silent. You came because you were until now a child and thought the sunlight was the whole kingdom. Because, one day when there were no shadows, a black finch came and rested on your window-sill and sang its song of sorrow and flew away and none of your advisors could see it or hear it, nor your sisters or your child or all the kingdom, only you. Because the little black finch sang a song only you could hear, you followed it. Though they begged you to stay; though they banished night and played the music of heaven for you; though they brought you golden apples and clothes spun of silver and silk to wear, you left because you had heard and you had to follow. Not rising up like a star into heaven; not like an angel on its wings of sunlight and glory, but falling like a wounded deer or a sickened branch; like a drowning man, you disappeared and no one could save you.

Now you have worn iron and ashes, worn out your shoes on paths made of coal. Your staves are broken and you have torn your cap three times in the forest. All your tears of self-pity have been cried and they did not make a river deep enough to sail away on. You have spent all your glory on remembering how to walk and there is nowhere left to go. You who were made of fire and air now crawl on the ground with the ice in your face; you who were the champion of light, now moving only in darkness.

She grinds her teeth and sparks fill the air.
She scratches her chin and the trees shake.
She flies through the night, hungry for the blood of fools.

You are beginning to starve and there is nothing anywhere to eat.
If you had had a choice, you would not have come.
If you had known how dark it was, you would have lit more candles and moved closer to the fire and slept on the breast of your beloved. You are not yet blessed by surviving the darkness, and not all do. She will drink your blood like nectar, Ivan, and no one will remember.

Dark night. Wild wood. The moon howls. Desperate, longing, you begin to eat the shadows. Though they are bitter, though they are the food you swore you would never eat; though the laws of the sunlight forbid it, though it means you will never be free again, you begin to eat. Now the night will always be part of you. Now you have tasted poison and the fruit of darkness. Never will you be an unblemished hero of sunlight again.

And Baba Yaga laughs and the trees dies and the water churns and you know you are going to die and you cannot go on. You cannot even crawl further and you lie in the dead grass and the mud, face-to-face with the dead and you no longer have the name you were born into — you have forgotten sunlight and all the tastes of sweetness. Everything has proven you wrong and still, somehow, you know that you have made the journey that only you can make, though you have eaten shadows and are becoming part of Death, still you remember the chord that awoke in you when the black finch sang on your window sill and you turned your back on the sun. It is all that remains, and only now is it finally enough.

And the black witch eats you. She breaks your bones and makes butter from your blood. She hangs your skin from a birch tree and leaves your skull on the fence and in that mess of gut and heart and bile, she rummages her bony fingers like broken sticks, like shards of shattered pot. There in the belly of your dying, she pulls out something, tenderly as a mother, or a lover, or a grandmother with some precious jewel, and she wipes off the grime, blows breath too sour for the daylight. Some tiny form stirs, and shakes itself and she warms it with her breath of the dark; it stretches its small, black wings. And begins to sing. On the ageless, eternal finger of Baba Yaga, it sings the song that was sorrow in the daylight, the song that no one but you could hear. In the dark night, it lifts its voice and Baba Yaga smiles. The withered trees blossom in the underworld and the dead come to life. The black finch sings the song of your soul, the song you were born to sing and you alone and you remember. No longer the dark night has power over your fear. No longer the wild wood anywhere but your home. The moon howls and you sing, wild, mad, terrible and beautiful and the kingdom of heaven shakes, because a soul has escaped the tyranny of light. Now you have gone beyond sunlight and all of creation sings. You are returning — the broken shield and sword of beauty in your arms, you ride on a horse made of death and moonlight. Never again will you sleep in the golden castle of the sun, but you will live and breathe and laugh with your beloved and your child in the valley of the shadow of the death and the mountains of the everlasting life. You have been I-know-not-where and fetched I-know-not-what; you have worn iron and ashes and the clothes of the dead, but you live.

Now your roots tangle in the love of the dark earth.
Now your head blazes with the remembered fire of heaven.

Only in the dying light were you made whole, and you caress the world with your song of glory and the dark, the sunshine and the night. You who were born into sunlight, Ivan, carry the black finch on your arm — no more sword and shield; now there is nothing left but singing the song that only you were born to sing.

Those who have been crushed,
been broken by tasks too great,
who failed themselves
and all their people;
Those who aimed at the sun,
but fell to Earth, then deeper still;
Those who were caught out,
got their hand trapped in the door,
missed the vital clue
and slipped on the beanstalk,
the banana skin
or the serpents’ poisoned blood.
Those who didn’t know the answer,
for all the riddle’s clues;
Those who were seduced by fairies
and did not wake up;
Those who did not tie themselves
to the mast,
or were tied, by uncunning hands
and clumsy knots
and fell, cursing, into the sea.

Here we have all the names
that are not heard in songs;
Here we have all the forgotten sons
and daughters,
who did not return and
from whom word was never heard.
The streets were not paved with gold;
there was no golden fleece;
the unicorn was not there;
the giant truly was too large
and too much to handle.
The rooms of this place
are stacked with broken swords
and crushed skulls,
ankles twisted at wrong moments,
fingers snagged on clothing
and second-rate shields
split by the first-rate weapons
of too many foes.
Luck was not on their side,
and not enough back-up
arrived too late
to help them.
It was just another day
for their enemies.

The weary and the crippled;
the lost and the unloved;
the unshining, undazzling,
the almost-adequate
and the woefully inept
(though not those whose lack
is legendary and have sneaked
into fame through infamy.)
Those whose feet slipped,
stepping from boat to shore;
Those whose sword-hand
wilted with fear,
whose determination
was lost in a bottle
or a bed,
whose allies were
badly-chosen
and left them to burn
in the dragon’s cave,
divided up the gold
and all the fame
themselves.

Here we don’t have
Hercules,
Odysseus
or Gilgamesh;
Here we have
those who thought that
Icarus was a good
role-model for success,
those who thought that
dragons were smaller,
gorgons more susceptible
to flattery,
giants clumsier
and fire not quite
as hot
as the stories tell…

Their songs were not tuneful;
their stories were artless
and badly told;
their battles were messy,
simply skirmishes in the war;
their love-affairs were quick
gropes in the dark and
dissatisfaction and a stain
here and there;
no demigods were born
of their unions.
Their great declarations
were made whilst drunk
and quickly forgotten,
or never heard,
for the din of the bar
around them.

Their names are not written.
Their deaths are recorded in lists
and tally charts;
Their monuments are empty spaces,
the thread of grief in another
unrecorded life;
They are the food of Death,
not glory.
Distracting fate with their blundering,
their tasks were immaculately served.
Without them,
the heroes would not stand
a chance.

Well, I’ve been down to the ashram
And I’ve worn the orange robes.
I’ve closed my eyes and visualised
Seven spinning, shining globes.
But, you know it doesn’t change a single thing,
However much I try,
(Because) I feel like I’m a hundred and five
And I think I’m gonna die.

I’ve been painted green and wrestled,
I’ve worn a crown of thorns;
I’ve fought with sword and staff and axe
With the hunter and his horns.
But whether I’m the sacrifice
Or being carried up on high,
I still feel like I’m a hundred and five
And I think I’m gonna die.

Now the Black Block’s throwing missiles
And the clowns are throwing flowers;
The police and politicians
Are invoking extra powers;
Now some folks are saying
that Armageddon’s surely nigh;
Oh man, I feel like I’m a hundred and five
And everyone’s gonna die…

The bank-man’s got me twisted,
He’s got me by the balls;
He sends a thousand letters
And makes a thousand calls.
I’m so goddamn broke it hurts,
And money just passes me by.
I feel like I’m a hundred and five
And I wish that I could die.

Well, my woman’s gone half-crazy
At the terrible fix we’re in.
It’s all that I can do these days
To keep her from drowning in gin.
Coz you know it doesn’t help us,
If we drink or we get high.
Sweet mama, I feel like I’m a hundred and five
And I think we’re gonna die.

Well, my brother’s lost in Peebles,
My brother’s in Peru;
They’re both as broke as I am;
Ain’t nothing they can do.
I’m overloaded with all this talent,
But the well is running dry;
Lord, I feel like I’m a hundred and five
And I think I’m gonna die.

My books just can’t get published
All my story’s told for free;
I can’t afford to pay my rent;
Gonna live in a fucking tree.
But even that won’t help me
In a tree-house in the sky.
Ah shit, I feel like I’m a hundred and five
And I think I’m gonna die.

But cursing’s not the way ahead,
Nor moaning all the time;
No matter just how goddamn hard it gets,
It just seems to be a crime;
I’ll just keep treading onwards
You know it’s not a lie;
If I live ’til I’m a hundred and five,
well hoka hey, sweet mortal life,
I’ll give thanks and praise
Even in the pitch-black dark, because
One day I’m gonna die.

Fuck Apollo and all his weightless radiance.
Fuck Zeus, Aphrodite and the rest;
I’m going to Hades to hang out in the darkness.
I’ll find Ares and put barbs in the swords,
twist the tips of spears and
maybe crack a can around
Hecate’s crackling, cackling fire.

They can look for me in the whore-house
and the gutter-lined bars;
I’ll be shattering myths,
breaking bottles over Eros’ curly head
and fucking guileless nymphs
between sheets of blood and whisky
and poisoned dreams of hope.

They wanted a messenger,
but wanted to pick the message;
I’m going to stalk the motorway
with apocalyptic declarations
strapped to my glorious body;
I’m going to wait by marriage beds
and proclaim the supremacy
of infidelity, deceit and the
thousand petty deaths of the soul.

Fuck the healers
who dare not heal;
Fuck the orators
who peddle lies of light;
Fuck the winged messengers;
Fuck the heroes
and their muscle-bound
impotence;
They can come gold
for all I care;
They’ll all die in their time
and I’ll be there,
laughing.

I’m going to torture poets,
break musicians strings
and chase the Muses to hell.
I’ll break canvases,
shatter stained glass
and poison the well.
I’m going to make vinegar
from the golden apples of the sun.

Today, I am the dark angel;
The god of boundaries
has his face turned towards the shade;
I will usher souls into darkness
and they can fend for themselves;
I am sick of the light
and all its insubstantial promises
of salvation.
Saved, from what?
For whom?
You are all free, already;
I am tired of your constant, mortal
misapprehension of your life.

Look for me in the shadow,
the gutter and the nightmare.
Today I am the dark angel;
If you want to wake up,
then do it yourself.

She wanted to know how the ‘in’ felt;
so familiar with the ‘out’
that a glass wall of her own making
hedged the air around her.

She wanted to feel the warmth of ‘kin’
but did not know the words
for ‘hearth’ or ‘kith’ or even ‘aah’
spoken in the golden fireside.

She looked through the window
and saw Baba Yaga & dangerous bears
where there were only porridge bowls
and a sliver of butter.

She who does not know how to turn silver into gold;
She who knows too well how to turn herself
inside out,
but not right-side up;
She who has eaten too many forbidden seeds
Is not sure about this upper world now;
The familiar claws are absent, and so
Must be imagined anew…

That there cannot be a hand out-reaching.
I knew the Lord of the Dead.
How can you expect me to think
that you are not him in disguise?
Again.

She wanted the warm embrace
but turned towards the cold
damp bark
and wondered why it did not
warm her;

She wanted to know princes, but
could not help slaying them
wondering where the love went,
as their blood stained her delicate feet.

She wanted simplicity and the firm ground;
when she asked for certainty, the earth
split open and swallowed her again
and again
and again.

2.

Too familiar with darkness to kindle light;
Too weighted by the heavy cloak of days
to lift her feet in dancing;
Too expert in the ways of the soul
to let her spirit fly;
Gravity had told her: I am your only ally.

Now she fell back into the Earth
and neither ‘in’ nor ‘kin’ nor ‘kith’
could reach her.

This is my country;
Here I am the Queen and
royalty may be a fair exchange
for the lives of other worlds
and the ‘aah’ and ‘hearth’ and ‘kith’
of them;
They were never my kin
and, besides,
the Lord of the Underworld
is the only one who ever
really
knew me.

3.

But, though she wanted the dark,
the light kept haunting her;
In the familiar, comforting nightmares,
shafts of sun appeared through grimy windows.
Withered trees began to blossom
and though she chased them with a crushing foot,
snowdrops began to grow more quickly
than she could press them into death.
All her silver jewellery
and her Plutonian riches,
glimmered with impossible, golden light.

In the centre of familiar despair,
treacherous hope was born and born
again;
though she tied it tight to stones of grief
and dropped them constantly
into the intimate well of sorrow,
hope sang its song to her,
betraying her monarchy with
whispers of insolent possibility.
Though she commanded its execution,
Its corpse would never rest;
no grave could keep it.

Songbirds were born on her window-sill
every morning
and however often she visits
the river to forget,
she cannot wash love
from her hands.

4.

She who is tied to the wheel,
cannot help but turn;
She who is not dead,
cannot help but be alive;
For all her dark garments of shadow,
she cannot kill the light.

Though she veils her eyes,
they are beginning to shimmer;
Though she decries laughter,
it bubbles from her
while the dark guard of
her determination
has its back turned;
a spring flows,
for all the concrete she pours
against its birth.
Though she is the Queen of the Underworld,
everybody knows she was born in Heaven.

She wants the ‘out’, but ‘in’ is taking her again;
She wants the cold, the dark, the brooding,
but warmth and light and dancing
are reaching for her;
Soon, a crack in the sky will open
and she will fall again,
but upwards;
What messenger of Heaven will
pluck this fruit of darkness
and initiate her again into light?

5.

Can I never know home?
Nor exile?
Can I never know kin?
Nor isolation?
Can I stand neither
enfolded at the hearth,
nor in the stricken heath, deserted?
If I cannot be in familiar darkness
or light,
Who am I?

She is the one who crosses constantly;
she cannot reside, but
make temporary camp;
Not in heaven, nor hell;
Not in soul, nor spirit;
Not in the embracing arms of home,
nor in the wild and
desolate ecstasy of solitude.

One day, she will learn;
Though she asks for constancy,
there is only her coming and going,
the tide of her washing the
light world
and the dark;
One day, she will remember:
she cannot carve herself
a monument that lasts in either world,
Only pile stones as she passes,
temporary testaments of being.

One day she will remember how to sing;
whether it is sorrow or joy,
the rising or falling chord,
there is always the music of the movement;
it is the only constancy
she will ever know.
It is the messenger that lifts her up
and reminds her to descend.

One night or day,
for all her defences against sufficiency,
it may just be enough.