A Lovers Tryst – HEG George

Don’t hold me to blame. 

The road was never straight 

nor the wind mild of frame 
Your bedside monitor screeches 

one incessant, contrary acoustic. 

Giving notice to all abroad that 

time has moved on elsewhere 
Let me raise you up and brush 

away the marks that play a 

cracked tune on your broken 

parts, like a drummer breaking sticks 
The glass of your eye 

holds the drink of my heart, 

where champagne bubbles try 

to revive an empty space no 

longer receiving its rhythmic pulse 
The mood of your limbs, 

restrained by dysfunctional form 

and snared by aseptic plastic, 

bring a darkness to this room. 
And, like an Indian encircled 

wagon train, Dante’s allegorical 

limbo encircles your bed, pining 

for your life renunciated husk

A Road To A Short War – HEG George

A white hot finger points your way, 

pushing air aside with each advancing message. 

The renting of air with thunder clap abroad 

makes too much noise, chattering like rattling lungs 
Whispers to an unacknowledged Lord 

bringing forward promised prayers. 

The elastic of fear bringing Him ever closer 
Listen, above the din, a whisper. 

Just a faint whisper in the grass. 

A tap on the shoulder, a poke in the chest 
Cold, so very cold, yet burning hot. 

With stench of faeces left too long, 

the shadow of death falls over this life. 

As yet unknown to its carrier 
This cold, sucking, life-withdrawing colourless odour. 

This all-pervading, all consuming watered soul, 

so thinly veiled with blood and flesh. 
This breathing vessel of emptied life. 

With ice rink stare upon which skaters cut 

figures to the reapers dance 
This day, this very focal point, 

where time no longer elapses, shall 

feel the clod but not the shovel. 

And keep a watch without relief

An Autumn Tableau – HEG George

When you come to stay, you’ll stay In a box, 

much like any other. With its own rich vein 

of concrete running between two green 

rivers of grass; supporting islands of tainted 
leaves too corrupt to remain at home for another 

season. A bird feeder stands lonely sentinel in a 

changing Eden, the only nod to nature’s needy. 

Where a magpie, whose beak shares the accuracy 
of the boxer punching a moving bag, eats the once 

yearly offering of seed from its moving target. 

And two black – ringed turtle doves, the epitome 

of Athrodite’s children, throw a lovers spat over 
the single bird feeder. Whilst mellow music 

drifts upon the same wavelengths as the 

shrilling calls of the birds. One, more 

harmonious than the other. 
A dog, lying in the heated comfort of the box, 

tries to urge a bark, but settles for a growl, at 

an autumn intruder. It’s head following the 

ostentatious jig of a robin, like a type writer 
Jarring between upper and lower case. This 

fleeting balsam that comes once every year, 

tasting of deep velvet shiraz, willingly shares 

its richness with those that bring a glass. 
No rights witheld. That’s what you’ll see 

when you come to stay. If you look.

Self-Reproach – HEG George

An offensive mirror 

produces my face, 

and ears listen to a 

hackneyed heart beat 
The stench of stagnant 

breath confirms my 

identity and smoker’s 

status. Sixty a day 
The cold floor held 

by blood drained feet, 

a razor held in hand 

at mannequin angle 
The bile in my throat and 

the fur on my tongue 

congealed with the sickly 

sweet syrup of life dripping out 
The door behind falls open on 

its own axis and the mirror 

reveals an empty room effused 

with a pall of used smoke, 
Like grey mists rising on a moor, 

seeking fresh lungs to enbalm. 

I think I see a shadow of someone waiting. 

And I think that someone is me

The Changeling – HEG George

I am the newly born face of munificence, unquenchable beauty. 

My tides are full with bountifulness, like an orchard to the table. 

My fleece radiates guiltless white, bestowed like a lamb, fresh 

upon its mother. And the flight of a newborn world is upon the wing 
My once childish demeanour has grown into a handsome face, 

with the offer of a pristine horizon as dowry. And the fruits from 

the fleur de mer are bound for the land, to walk amoung its forests 

and cultivate its soil. Free of tarnish and burnished by a new sun 
As the cloud’s rivers carry food along my valleys, carved 

by mighty glaciers, the King Fisher learns its trade and 

apes are low in prominence. As yet to chase the flame 

and its future dividend 
But, as with any river, there are two shores upon which to live. 

And there are signs that a sheep in wolf’s clothing stands two 

legged and tall upon the other shore. And like the changing of 

the seasons, too soon its cold has become warm and its warm 

become hot. Wrapping a ring of savage finality about itself 
On that bank, benevolence has changed a once accepting face, 

to one of prideful leers. And the once responsible mien of its 

manhood has lately become the childish game of a drunken 

fool to be frittered away, like so many coins 
And changing tides recede onto unredeeming shore lines, as a 

water fall’s once prized cascade becomes scorched by a pitiless 

sun. And yet. My heart still resonates with the cries of a dying 

humanity and should our eyes and ears only perceive it, there 
is time to nurture this changeling yet. To cross the river and 

force back the spears of gluttony that have breached this paradise. 

To grasp the hands of an entire peoples despair and lift them up, 

like a father to a child and the righteous to the atoned 
For without this change of games pursued, we leave behind a 

dessicated husk of rock. To become one of many such trinkets 

that orbit the lights in the night sky.

The Funeral – HEG George

Respects have been paid 

by those with good manners 

and by the mawkish with 

restrained curiosity 
And now, I sit in a chasm of nothingness. 

Raging seas crashing from my eyes, 

whilst salty rivers run from my 

nose to the tip of my tongue 
My day is slate grey with 

nimbus clouds abroad. 

And my ambivalence riles 

against a once merciful Being 
No longer registered are the passing 

differences between the sun and moon 

or the advancing hours of a stagnated clock. 

Gone are my reasons for either 
I have become Omega, last of my family. 

And now I sit, beneath a canopy of pain. 

Waiting for her whisper. 

Oh, dear God. Let it be soon.

Cancer – HEG George

Hold back the hour. 

Stop the tears from flowing. 

Breathe again untainted air. 

Take back my bones, my breasts, 

and race forward to passion once more 
Hold back the hour, 

before the ravaging of every sinew 

and fleeting glimpse of salvation, and 

forced pity encroached upon my earth 
Hold back the hour, 

before tested strength 

proves weakened failure 

and commitment runs a ragged road 
Before privacy alludes 

and birds no longer sing for me, 

or the pinch of reality is drugged 

away before the fluttering of breath 
Now bring back the hour 

let the tears flow 

I’m ready

Without The Sea – HEG George

 
The sun’s beams penetrate me, 

with fingers delving deeply beneath 

the blanket of my surface 
And the clouds rise up, as bitter as the 

moon eclipsed sun, only to fall back 

to earth, with life on the coat-tails of 

every drop 
On these benign waters rest the swimmers, 

whose hearts I hear play the perfect beat 

and whose skins I caress like a lovers breast, 

encasing them in champagne bubbles. 
Yet, they ravage me, savage me. Narcissists 

seeking the elusive liquors of promised bounty 
And, though I envelop the rocks at the edge 

of man’s domain, I hold from him the abyssal depths; 

sparing him from his frailties, and hiding from him 

my vanities 

The rivers are my children, so easily breached 

by the lifeless, upturned fibrous husks of acorn 

shells, travelling along my viscous exterior. 

Their David to my Goliath, making fools of 

all my tributaries. 
The seagulls flying above me, singing their 

homages, drain away my windswept salt from 

holes in their beaks. Like so much brine ejected 

from salt-encrusted lakes 
Like a harbinger of bad news, the moons tides 

recede within me like elasticated yawns, 

revealing the lost souls of battles ancient; 

illuminating elysium’s reflected glory 

upon the silvery face of that Lunar watch keeper

Sleeping In The Rain – HEG George

Every step forward brings an 

energised momentum. Leading 

me toward a portal which leads 

me to the Styx ferryman 
I am confronted with this resoundingly 

unique shape, the emblem of its industry. 

His coffin puts out its tentacle seeking my 

name 
Past aisles filled with ‘fag-ash’ Lils and lipstick 

smothered whore’s, I walk inexorably 

on. Past the row of walking stick, 

benefits claiming, blue badge carrying, 

hand-me-downs. 
And those ‘mutter-under-the-Breath’ blue 

veined brigade, always ready to Judge the 

dress you’ve chosen for such a solemn occasion. 

Well, today I didn’t let them down! 
When I get there, what I see is a pseudo-realistic 

pantomime. A Frieze of alibaster-marbeled 

features, a mask of barely recognisable 

‘What used to be’ 
I’m confused. Am I supposed to love 

this empty form of you? Should I kiss 

your brow? And taste the loss of you 

on my lips. 
Or enter into a pact of believing that 

you lie there, waiting to kiss me back. 

What I want is to be guaranteed this 

will never happen to me again. 
I want to be able to give my love to 

someone and not have it thrown back 

when their ‘use by date’ has expired 
I want the time, before time stopped, 

to start again. I want the muscles in my 

neck to become unknotted and my wine 

bill to become averagely normal again. 
Oh, and I want his wife to know I 

was the other woman

Scream Into The Night – HEG George

I listened with intent and watched with 

practiced eye.That came to me through 

scream on scream, word on word and slap 

on slap. 
My mind wandered to its own recess 

To safe harbour and calmer sea 

Where was succour and treat me gentle, 

a moral compass with strength of fibre. 
Instead to tie me down and roll with 

suppression, a weakened road until 

journey’s end. Re-sowing that furrow with 

visions of war, destruction without refrain. 
No acceptance of truce to save the young. 

And in your eye shall grow this stain. 

This Mark of Cain remains as testament 

to the power of one soul over another. 
And when this life ends this mark, this riddled 

sore is carried over to begin again 

Pandora’s box with hope removed 

contains this mind of youth, 
baring plaster o’er the cracks of despair. 

The seeds of doubt retained within, 

the low esteem to fester like a weeping 

wound. Salvation lies within a temple sought. 
A She from which to learn. 

A muse from which to draw. 

A guide to lead until strength grown. 

With which to fight this Gorgon’s child 
The spawn of the triumvirate. 

But, the strength desired, the muse to be drawn 

lays disappeared beneath a crumbling fear and 

shadows felt. A surface of lies so thinly veiled to 
hold back the tides of doubt and damage caused. 

Finally, to watch the tormentor’s life drift away 

with no spark of redeeming light, or release from 

bonds held. 
No mark of passing, no retribution on hold. 

The screams still remain and bring forth 

a new sunrise of guilt to colour the day.