The Magick that Surrounds Us (2021)

Number 42 bus,

drab, grey, morning.

I Climb a crystal apex in my mind,

Prehistoric spirits speak,

Tell me I was born from nebulas in bloom,

Churning Silent wombs in space.

Purple smoke whirls inside me,

Scent of sage and pine.

I see a shadow flit across,

Bones rattled.

A figure gone, lost in darkness.

Cave walls, smoke, fiery sky.

Syncopated chanting,

Feelings of ancestral affinity.

Bell rings, my stop.

Off the bus, walking now, down Preston Street.

Drizzle, smell of donuts, children playing,

Car radio Morrissey.

"There is a light that never goes out".

I sit on a wall and drink a Sprite,

Beside me sits the ghost of Joileef,

Dolphin chieftain, killed by trawler net in 2006.

The quarks, in the atoms, in the molecules, in the cells,

That make up the wall of my left ventricle, connect to his.

We talk.

He tells of Kingdoms, under the sea,

Creatures unknown to men,

Darkness versus light.

He reminisces over chasing immense shoals of tuna,

Weaving through forests of kelp.

I leave and enter a shop for rizla,

An Egyptian, Coptic man stacks humous in the chiller,

Rappers with guns mumble on a TV in the corner.

Somewhere between the pet food and the lager,

A burning river of aether flows soundless.

An unseen tumult of energy,

An artery between worlds,

Which draws us near and keeps us high.

Tapped into with spell and prayer,

Interstellar witchcraft.

I walk down to the beach.

Sitting on stones, waves crash in front,

Dogs bark, drunks shout, pebbles crush underfoot.

I smoke another joint.

My mind whirrs giddy.

Shhhhh, says the sea and calms my buzzing head.

Alchemical brainwash.

My dreams and desires manifest from dark matter,

The place where Gods are born,

Into a universe of pure thought.

Visions of double helix serpents,

Gnarled and twisted together,

And the Gnosis Veritas Apple,

Rotting on the sawn-down cross section of the tree of life.

Concentric rings of existence,

Ripples on the corpse of time.

I open my eyes and the drab, grey sky has transformed into indigo dusk,

Hazy, I stand.

The unmanifested place imprinted on my mind,

The space between atoms.

Silence.

Photons cascade, protons vibrate, electrons surge,

Emotions rise.

Love bubbles up from antimatter.

Love bubbles up.

Love.

Love.

Love.

I Dreamt of a Ghost in Space (2020)

Naked and alone I slept,

Darkness seeped from my pores.

Heavy slumber enveloped me,

And into my dreams I fell.

A voice called out and drew me in,

From millennia away.

It spoke not in words and I heard no sound,

But I knew its meaning clear.

So I did its command, followed the voice,

And left myself behind.

I journeyed through other realms,

And nebula saw me fly,

Past ancient lonely moons,

Of planets of burning stars,

In clusters dense and galaxies wide,

And then I came to rest.

In a putrid cloud of gas and dust,

There I found the voice.

He greeted me and doffed his hat,

Happiness filled my heart.

He told me of his life and loves,

And hopes and dreams and fears.

This alien ghost from an impossible world,

Now alone and scared.

By some strange will, our wires had crossed,

And fortune brought me here.

I felt his soul connect to mine,

And the love inside his heart.

He asked for me to bring him home,

To live with me on Earth.

I thought of my life and the void in my heart,

Tax returns, post office queues,

Gin and tonic, lonesome walks.

So off we flew through Universe,

Myself and my alien ghost.

But as we neared to planet Earth,

I lost him 'round the moon,

So back alone into myself,

Sadly, I return.

Just a stupid dream, I wake,

But no, it felt so real!

 .

The feeling of my alien ghost, it never went away,

Carried in my heart,

Over those years so long.

Then twenty years later, a knock at my door,

There stood a girl in a hat,

Who smiled at me, and I knew it was him,

My alien ghost reborn.