POEM ON THE OCCASION OF MY CANONIZATION

Goddess of chance and fortune, hear my plea.
Let me not hate, and put into my sock
Feathers not lead. I'll delicately mock
More often than I'll smite an enemy.

Because they are such fools – though vicious too.
And goddess, always keep me on my toes.
Save me from smugness. Years ago I chose
to see respectability as flu

It stops you breathing. After all these years
I'll take what small successes come my way.
And so I'm here. At Pride, also the day
I do my Paltrow, smiling through the tears.

Honoured to be, thanks to my friends, and Luck,
The Patron Saint of Things That Rhyme With Fuck

THE POET TO HER YOUNG COMRADES 8

We might well lose. Our enemies are smart.
They have the guns and money. And the power.
Do not assume that this is not their hour
to gloat, stamp on each face and break each heart

that cares and weeping sees the world decay
music and kindness. They won't understand
why victory seems to crumble in their hand.
We'll die in pain. And quite soon so will they,

Our only consolation that we told them so
Cold comfort of correct analysis
inadeqately argued. Synthesis
Perhaps the last sad true thing that they'll know.

Death's dialectic. Ashes of our brains
Mingle with theirs. Hot winds sweep empty plains.

This is one of the flash pieces from Eastercon

SNOW

Snow falling slowly and the music died
in slow diminuendo. Giant flakes
as white as skulls echo that slowly breaks
like waves or snowdrifts. And she sat and cried

icicles on her lashes, broken strings
taut round her hands. The snow fell without sound
and sheets of music lay upon the ground
now blank as snow. It is the silence brings

A sense of death from cold. The music loud
for one last second a cacophony
containing ends of every symphony
In one last chord. And overhead a cloud

Dark as the end of music. And her death
was silent and as white as frozen breath.

Not bad for five minute improvisation...

The Other Flash Poem from Eastercon

Murder at the Convention


The guest of honour blew up on the stage
quite silently. Emerald flames that smelled
of parsley burst. A centaur's sex call belled
over the intercom. A sudden rage

caused bloodshed in the artroom. Canvas tore
and sculptures crumbled. It was hell in there.
The cosplay elf with her vermilion hair
burst from her corset.Embers all aglow

still won the Clarke and Nebula.The vote
based less on sympathy than on our fear
that he'd reach out though ash, through death could tear
and take each con attender by the throat

and each of us would choke.grow pale and fall.
Convention murder happens to us all.