SAGE

SAGE

The Burning Sage smoulder's the twilight phantasmagoria,
Ghosts of scented smoke drift from a blackened clay pot,
Creatures sing our Sun to Morpheus arms,
Silence of their heart beats a deeper wish now,
Simple dreams of love in the long grass replace digital desire; 

And all it took was our loss of freedom...

By
David Nickle Read
©D.N.Read 2020
All Rights Reserved By The Author &Photographer

Link to books below:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3ADavid+Nickle+Read&s=relevancerank&text=

David+Nickle+Read&ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1

Coronavirus Kerfuffle - Bellicose Smile

Bellicose Smile

Ghost wandered living lonely,
on the screaming silence street,
rubbish rattles wind blown west,
where last week walked our feet,

A dog barks in the distant haze,
spring leaps wildly on,
upon our green the grass grows,
mowers for now are gone,

A billion eyes behind their glass,
listening to the birds,
the talk of folk within four walls,
speak no outside words,

Where wild and free we yesterday,
would to our river run,
now we see the light through pane,
unfeeling of our sun,

The Kite sings piercing eerie notes,
oblivious to our plight,
while we wage invisible war,
every breathing soul to fight,

Media madness fuelled the fire,
money fanned the flame,
panic pierced our human world,
leaving us all lame,

Supermarket hollow husk,
doctor with no sleep,
those who can ply trades from home,
newspapers raping reap,

Fear their filthy currency,
fickle, fecund, vile,
will when this is over,
see our bellicose smile,

The Duke’s princess mother passed,
a thousand like her since,
when people hear the word news now,
you see them flinching wince,

A byword for belligerence,
a byway for the hack,
who thinks a pen’s primary use,
is stabbing in the back,

Money for your misery,
a penny for your pain,
and they’ll sell it back to you,
read on your Bat Flu plane,

You suckle on world violence,
grow fat on massacre tears,
see our bellicose smile now,
a mirror of your fears,

Make no mistake we see you,
make no mistake we’ll come,
how will you feel in the colosseum,
when those silent voices shout only...scum.

By
David Nickle Read
©D.N.Read 2020
All Rights Reserved By The Author

Long Time No Write

Hello again folks, after a long absence, I'm happy to say I'm back. I guess a few of you are still around, so hello again to you and...tell your people. For those of you new here, a warm welcome.
Now, without further ado...back to where we left off.

I've recently released a new collection of 76 poems in the anthology, 'You Won't See What's Coming...' No, it has nothing to do with the current madness afflicting our world, I'd written all these well before any of this...anyway, I wrote this book on and off for about two years, between an explosion in my Gardening & Visual Art concerns, romance and travel...quite a ride in which I had some amazing experiences, that I truly hope are reflected in this latest, and coming collections.

The kindle edition is available for free for 24 hours on March 23rd and is also available in paperback...links below:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08668V3M2  - Kindle Edition

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0863V6DSQ - Paperback


There will of course be lots of other bits and pieces coming, like the usual photograps, paintings, a sculpture or two, walking stick...a whole bunch of poetry you'll only see here and others that'll end up in collections similar to the above.

Speaking of which, here's a photograph I took of the Moon in all it's glory over the Chiltern Hills, South Oxfordshire, here in the UK...which may be the cover of the book I'm currently working on...

Hope you enjoy, as always, be well...try not to get swept up in the madness, maybe order the kindle version until this Covid Kerfuffle is over so the delivery folk don't spread or catch it...and hope I don't get in trouble for just annihilating the sale of the paperback...

Apple

Saturday's Pub garden, littered with a thousand twisted cigarette butts, the scattered smouldering tombstones of last night's drunken dreams.

Here birthed the Friday madness wild, thirsting gin soaked mind of child, like infant nourishment craved consumed, the gun within was there exhumed, a firing squad of gin bemused, revellers revelling, devillers devilling, swirling whirling plastic smiles, pavers quivering raindrop tiles, summer rain seeping in vain, from neon roofed city's inane, to wander country lanes insane, a blind walk of the drinker's train, speeding locomotive taught, relearning burning ethanol thought, tearing selfless selfish death, the last epiphany with one last breath, before the darkness deep draws down, the flickering light beneath the frown, where the suicidal businessman drowns, his sorrows borrowed from newspaper dreams, that filled the once fragile mind with screams, in descending begging please, release him from social unease, moments lived but to appease, a fathomless confusion clear smoke screen, that flashes with the cursor black, it's wires snigger behind your back, while slack jawed starring swearing you, convinced you are one of the few, who knew but never said a word, beguiled you smiled, brush muse away, the stroke left blood for them to play and pay and stray inside your mind, soul secrets there in stealth to find, and all forgotten rotten, men in white wheel you away, they say poor soul's gone round the loop, and there you sit in a rocking suit, pinstripe straight jacket just for you, and all that's left after their scoop; is the popular poisoned and once bitten fruit...



By David Nickle Read 3/6/17
All Rights Reserved By The Author

ODROERIR

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Odroerir-Mr-David-Nickle-Read/dp/154303845X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487369737&sr=8-1&keywords=odroerir

Insomnia's Online Sickness

Torn light flashes from Casms of the dark,
 a fevered fantasy entwined within crazed vision,
burning sickly, the raging nightmare,
an age before sleeps gentle touch, fog bound,
warped and trapped, in a tempest of abstract thought,
here to be lost, in a sea of wide eyed staring dreams,
where music has no dancing rhythm,
and songs are silent screams,
where the shattered ghosts are real, and invisible to fact,
 in the plain sight of a mind's eye,
or clear to minds of eyes, that through yesterday's blindness truly see,
where petulant worry grows as a virulent vine,
that climbs to an indifferent sky, and past demons come calling frantically,
to be relived, and then to die, to be buried in the yard of bones,
washed  clean by worms of time, in the portal of a wanderer's last sole step,
before soul crosses it's line, as the clock stops and starts at opposing ends,
of the universal loop, that rests in the mind of a giant,
in the ocean his hands can scoop, where he drinks a world to quench his thirst,
for rest to take his pain, where the reader finally understands,
that this is just one drop of rain, in a storm that breathes fire constantly,
within one human brain, the depravity of the internet,
driving all insane, where the righteous spill their blood,
 as all that's right is slain.

David Nickle Read 22/9/16

EU-phoria

In the coming madness or false hype, depending on who you believe, we as a people have choices to make; do we stay in the EU or do we go. We have questions to ask ourselves; will things be as good or bad as we're told by the usual sides that tug mercilessly at us for the satiation of their greed and lust for power. All that really matters is that we as a people still hold all the power; all we need for that to be a functioning reality is unity within ourselves and maybe not within the EU...this is poetry's twist on EU-phoria.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1533076707/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_IimlxbZ79PPAA

~To Have & To Hold~

I would like to let you all into a little secret...
We have all heard people say, "When you find 'The One' you'll know; you'll just know"...
We all so desperately want to believe it...
Our hearts & souls call out in hope, willing us to believe it...
But we just don't quite get there...
The shadows of doubt creep from the edges of thought...
This idea so sweet & noble hides behind a pleasant veil of fantasy...
We run there for comfort, but it's never quite enough...
It's easy to lose hope...

I beg of you not to...
There is always hope...
You must always carry on...
I know this now...
The rumours are true my friends...
When you find 'The One' you know...

I became engaged a week or so ago...
To the one...
To have & to hold...

~Dawn Hound~

Dawn breaks with the bounding hound,
awoken from sleep to the far crow sound,
high in the Oak Woods their cackle and caw,
high rising the sun to the Earth’s  morning thaw.

The Cockrels are calling as Hens rustle wings,
high over head the wild  Sklark sings,
frosty breath Sheep bleet a greeting to day,
as the Horse wakes and whinnies to fresh smelling hay.

In the distance a Woodpecker drums on the Pine,
alone in the Oak wood that fattens the Swine,
near by a white  flock of emboldened white Geese,
call with us all to the upcoming feast.

The Artist there stirs with his first cup of tea,
and the Poet next door waves a hand that’s pen free,
the tired musicians strike a tune for the new,
as fires are lit down here under the blue.

The rural bohemian Winter’s full swing,
of long blackened nights when we paint write and sing,
of crisp early mornings tending to the creatures,
as here we play out Oakley Wood’s ancient nature.

©David Nickle Read 2016

All Rights Reserved By The Author

The Fact Magical

The trouble is, when we stripped everything
back to facts alone, we lost that which made
them worth the study in the first place;
their majesty, their magic and their beauty.
You can say that the feelings of love are
chemicals being released into our blood
triggered by instinctive needs, we are social
animals; If this is your belief, is there not magic
in the 'fact' that our simply being human makes
us love...

~Skin Tight Illusions~

The night left the world to burn,
a Human lament of time lost them the Moon,
as the neon dawn flickered into fossil death fed life,
the City heaved a leaden breath,
and false day began the harvest,
where into the seizure,
 light bright night,
sneaks the government agent 'vice',
seeking the company of human misery,
as the concrete lips of a metropolis whore clamps
down on the fetid cock of consumer greed,
that hungrily coaxes the Sterling seed,
as guilt shovels red tape turds into the gaping and expectant
mouths of the ‘Work Til You Dies”
pinstripe clones of the brain washed west,
conditioned creatures of futile drudgery,
the media drugged slave in his golden cage,
berating the ‘Free To Screw After Breakfast’ crowd,
brightly dressed and one third proud,
a rainbow cause, a black cause,
a white cause, a bored cause,
all causes of the causeless complainers,
dressed in pink skin tight branded delusions,
only the most popular and expensive will do,
slurping on high protein illusions,
of sculpted hair and orange tanned skin,
who’ll soon call themselves a race,
and champion their cause, to bleat blindly within the herd,
and fuck into mindless oblivion,
with designer drugs and cheap tasting pricey liquor,
two days of every five don’t think, the other five think just enough,
were you to think past money’s honeyed snatch, you’d be a danger,
stay numb and compliant buying false comfort,
as ‘The Man’ harvests another piece of your soul,
you spit downtrodden mantras daily at the free,
as you drown in mass ego jealousy,
cashing in breath and blood...




©David Nickle Read 2016
All Rights Reserved By The Author

~Corridors & Sewers~

The first of 2016

http://amazon.com/author/d.n.read

Night Study Sketching

©David Nickle Read 2016

~Last Night~

His fire under winter stars,
cobalt blue & burning cold,
vapours rise & twist with distant suns,
as the flooding Moon's silver sheen,
fills wood hill & river valley.

Where shimmering frost reflects the dancing sky,
and Sirius smiles a cosmic wink,
from distant frozen vistas,
to the little man of Earth.

He's gazing higher than 3 am dreams,
he'll catch a canvas night,
by oil lamps frantic flickering flame,
his thoughts in poetry he'll write.

His scribbled extension of soul,
in wayward season's bosom kept,
the drifting pain of tangled heart beats,
left behind on icy roads.

He's shedding the skin of social pretense,
thrown ragged to the gutter vile,
where the old blood runs as a ghostly epitaph ,
seen only by Owls & Vespertine wanderers.

How many have come before me,
who walk under heaven's fire,
searching a footstep's soul,
for the tarmac councillor's silent words.

A shooting star's blinding arch,
scars the eye of memory,
branding his mind with the vision,
of forces elemental.

They surround him with ancient whispers,
singing songs through soil & sky,
as the Zephyr bows to the north east wind,
he brings the night through ink...alive.




©David Nickle Read 2016
All Rights Reserved By The Author

~Thought’s Playground~

 My heart,
can you see me,
I’m way up here,
in safety I watch the dark & swirling turmoil,
within a river of confusion,
where thousands walk in chaos strides.

If I were one of them,
a face in a dazzled crowd,
would I perceive the maelstrom of my existence,
would I know better or worse.

If I witness the sea of light,
and hear the sound of singing stars,
would heart & mind’s waking comfort be undone,
a dawning sense of the surreal.

If I accepted all before me,
would I see my soaring soul,
way up there calling down,
my heart,
can you see me.




©David Nickle Read 2016
All Rights Reserved By The Author

~Tear Step Trip~

The long distance trip began,
soul sniper’s soaring bullets strike,
fired from the ethereal plain,
through root stem leaf & sap,
the infant rind of classic verse immerse the senses in a warm violet haze,
it haunts you from the indigestive thoughts of a library wholly devoured,
a third eye’s meditation sight, 
shamanic auguries that rend the walls of the timeless,
ancient garden.

Here the seeds of knowledge grow,
becoming the fruitful truth of clarity,
digging deep through concrete streets,
to awaken from tomb-land slumbers,
the forgotten farmland’s bones, 
where a river’s ghost flows through lands of shrouded genius,
it’s vaunted banks lined with downcast faces trapped,
society’s boot upon their gift;
held down by dirty plastic soles.

So their secrets they covet,
heart pressed and blooming,
flowers in the dark casting webs of coverts scents,
drawing night’s Moth where the Butterfly should reign,
and there she plays in silent strokes,
screaming unstrung violins,
drawing her bow of a vision held,
over ghostly quivering strings,
she hears the music in her rhythm’s heart,
beating at the bars of her paranoia’s cage,
she imagines flights of fluid dance stilling the ordered echo of her prison,
plunging scowling laugher's faces,
beneath the humming tides of sunlight.

She takes a Christ like step,
upon the sea of tears,
waves rise from her light skipping sole to break upon my wayward shores,
where the Seagull cries of the long distance trip,
from here to evermore,
drifting endlessly in the brink of perception,
to walk the event horizon of her dreams,
and whisper my name to her soul...






©David Nickle Read 2015
All Rights Reserved  By The Author

~Nature & The Machine~

~A Snake Smoking Soul~

The heavy soled snake slithers,
from the secret home of fear,
through the blood’s guilty river it slithers,
seeking the vein truth of a drug’s silken preface...
it stirs the silence from thought’s clamour,
turned in mind from congestive will,
to the night of freedom’s cool caressing winds...
shedding a skin of shadow between the ancient rocks of a paradise refrain,
imagined in whispers or whispered to imagination,
it sings, singing, singing, singing wild notes of forgotten torments,
as once more you feel your face in the sun,
freed from the grave of the flesh,
a sojourn in the spirit’s dance...
where the snakes waltz through infinite orchards,
under trees of infinite forbidden fruit,
offering the infinite naked Eve,
a bite of infinite sight,
in a finite cell of bones,
where the demons of temptation steal infinite finite wills of wax,
melting in the immortal flame of mortal mechanised madness...
unseen until thought of,
unthought of until felt,
unfelt until the heavy soled snakes slithers,
from the secret home of fear.





©David Nickle Read 2015
All  Rights Reserved By The Author

Disillusionment & Cigarette Butts - My latest book

http://amazon.com/author/d.n.read

~Corridors~

Scribbled poetry,
from crooked dreams of hospital pavements,
outside littered with spent cigarettes and scattered comforting daydreams,
inside they wait on time’s constant hand,
relentless ticking counters of life,
slow passing paranoia’s whisper,
hung heavy in corners as dusty factory cobwebs,
down endless shining sterile corridors,
flickering lights a mirror of life,
where one goes out,
another’s switched on.

Circles circles,
endless circles,
locked here in the desert cave,
things aren’t so different,
the shaman wears a stethoscope,
adorned in bright scrubs,
they dance with death,
stealing his glory where they can,
incantation’s of medicine’s tongue,
chanted over heart beat rhythms,
smeared with blood & enemies unseen,
count to ten Mr. Read...then dream.






©David Nickle Read 2015
All Rights Reserved By The Author