S  e  c  r  e  t  s   blackmail press 24
David Barnes
Australia

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David Barnes has been an active poet since1996 and published in Australia and at many online poetry venues in America, England, and France. His work has appeared in Paris/Atlantic, anthologies released in 2001 & 2002 by Empowa Inc, Firefly Magazine U.S.A., Anthology Number (ll), Inside Out:  A Gathering of Poets, Blackmailpress Issue (11), and The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature: Issue No. 12.  He also publishes and edits a poetry journal called Numbat pdu: http://www.aceonline.com.au/~db/numbat/

in still places

st. john boys home

  it was on friday
i said i would be there
help, raid the storeroom
supplies.

  “i was caught creeping
                     in shadows.”

the cobwebs
of my mind– burn
the thud of discipline –
strikes.

i flew elsewhere
down indistinct fissures
away from consuming
claws;

  “in to the longed-for
             abyss–of– nonexistence.”

i was neither here
nor there
although my friends knew
where i was;

i did not see, feel, hear
rain beating against windows –
or the howling
wind.

infinite in
my childhood-mind
a phrase kept hammered me.

  “hey things
            are, as they are; it’s time.”

time to make your final run –
no more
walls.

after, there were
no more
Walls.


____________________

Shadows alive in sun


In solitude
my nights are a failure
but then, so what.

I am the bloodless battlefield of life -
and I weep like a child
for the past.

the thing I fight for
is my bit of inmost center
of peace.

Although desire maybe dead -

I am still a man
weather-beaten- windswept
out-waiting pain.

sunlight continues to filter on
as drizzle creeps down clothes- in puddles
beneath my shoes

I must confess
I have become fatigued over
the years.

It is enough you are within- as often
I am beaten.





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