Watched them clear away the tables
thought tonight was the time
they would finally
wash us away
after one thousand guests
dined in our wake

One thousand people in love
or else hoping if they sat long enough
love would become
*** was never ours
it was borrowed like time
from the death throes of G-d

One by one
we drowned old fools
beneath the surgery light
we toasted tomorrow
as they do in Hollywood
and poured another wine

I can still hear you singing
though where you are
I do not know
watched them clear away the tables
the colour leave your face
the water **** the stone

You would not recognise me
I have grown so old and slow
love now the blue pill of evening
that blurs all features
and cause the edges to glow
they ring the bell for closing time

I wonder how long I must wait
I wonder when it is my turn to go

Spent the evening walking nowhere streets
dodging horns and sirens of hungry motorbike taxis.
It was a parade of street-food vendors,
security guards half asleep by bottles of whiskey.
Every woman I passed was beautiful,
laid their *** on the numbered tables
as off-hand as their mobile phone, their purse;
their bored men. Each one had their toenails painted,
wore short skirts and vest tops in the stifling heat.
The best of them wore tight dresses of black or red
and ate their food in the same studious manner
I imagined they would take to the zip of my jeans.

Could feel the sweat roll down my back
kicking gravel out my sandals every ten strides.
The playboys rev their motorbikes
as if it were a talent they had been working on,
a kind of siren song to tempt the free women.
Each one is on the lookout for a bargain.
Each one streaks past to some indiscernible point
where they will bury themselves amongst
the massage parlours, karaoke bars, and short-stay hotels;
Each one a straight-up brothel once you make it through the doors.
I feel too awkward in this ******* town to order a sandwich
let alone try out my second language to ask for a cheap *******.

Every foreigner here had some kind of breakdown.
Some kind of complex that drew them like a moth to flame
to some place where white skin is enough to feign riches,
stimulate desire and place you amongst better men.
We steal a living for a year or two of forever blue skies.
We eat good food and toast ourselves every evening
with cold lager and palm leaf cigarettes.
We cannot read a word in these humid streets
where every single building holds a portrait of the King.
Spent the evening with my shadow, both alive in the night
beneath the heady aroma of cooking oil and street-food spice,
both hurting to become, both slipping out of sight.

They say the house ached
with an energy
his chord *****
haunting the A/C hum
colours crawl out
of failed cartoons
in schizotypal terror
dismembered icy blues
that take in everything
through bloodied stems
the retired boxer
******* the umbilical
with his head carved open
to dementia and night terrors

They say the desk-lamp shook
from pill-induced tremors
the anxiety of perfection
never borne out in creation
eternal battles between
pleasure and Satan
between the chorus line
and bouts of sanity
two self-portraits
twin the whitewashed wall
one frail and brilliant
with gaunt fears of hell
the other fat and docile
in the face of death.

Lived the life of an artist
long before I became one.
Pressed to guitar strings
until my fingers were numb
to all exposed skin
that was not my own.

Listened to one thousand sad songs
over and over
until the pointless chords
clamoured over one another,
psalms of living
fall on deaf ears.

Trawled archives of *******.
Lauded aristocrats of cheap whiskey nights
and black coffee mornings.
Garnished my days with addictions carried
by better men
in love with real women.

Grew thin, moved about the apartment
in the graveyard hours
tacking songs to the walls.
In the absence of chains and ***
I fixed myself with neon lights
and cigarettes.

Spilt paint over undeserving paper
beneath the halogen bulb
to colour radio silences
of past friendships,
mountains I should let recede
like a ship in the night.

Stood alone in crowds
to witness the onset of a moment,
openings and closings of mouths and doors;
each one to allow another person in.
I go home alone
and sleep with my thoughts.

Be kind to yourself.
You have come so far.
Each emotion you feel tattooed
to your skin
the seasons wash away like chalk.

Be kind to yourself.
You are braver than you thought.
No longer scared of what lies
beneath your bed
but what awaits when you wake up.

Be kind to yourself.
You are worthy of love.
Only you give permission
for forked tongues
to leave passing words as lasting scars.

Only you can adopt old failures
and stack them as obstacles
upon each new path.
You cannot dictate what will be
only – who you are.

Be kind to yourself.
You are doing enough.
You cannot always be switched on.
Sometimes you have to lay down
and breathe –

it is not greed.
If you are always exhausted
you cannot help anybody.

Be kind to yourself.
You did not grow
from a single cell
born from a dying star
in order to feel so small.

You did not close the door
on friends when you expected
more from them.
Why beat yourself up
for who you were before?

Be kind to yourself.
A faltering dancer who gets up
again and again
draws the loudest applause
at the curtain call.

A person who spent half their life
at war with themselves
knows the value of peace,
the feat of getting out the house;
the measure of good mental health.

Be kind to yourself.
You have come so far.
They say ten thousand hours
is the time it takes
to master an art.

You spent so much longer than that
learning the patterns of your heart.
You can pull at those common threads
that keep you together
even when you are falling apart.

Be kind to yourself.
You are stronger than you thought.
Like Leonard says,
“there’s a crack of light in everything. “
You do not have to be perfect.

You do not have to live in the dark.
Be kind to yourself.
Make sure you get to the end.
Do not worry
how you stumbled at the start.

The ***** house entryway
was lit up like Christmas Eve.
Two women lounge on stone benches
offering bored smiles between cigarettes
to each passer-by with an empty wallet.
Mosquitoes kiss stagnant water,
hover at their exposed ankles.
******* dress reflects her cellphone halo;
only ghosts of love are alive in these streets.
The Police know not to come.
For the married men
they are cheaper than divorce,
a scratch-off ticket-
like betting on a horse.

Red dress takes a stab at English
taught by her mother
to draw my attention.
Speaks just like my students
and looks no older.
Only came out for dinner
but the weekend is alive:
the sight of her lipstick and stockings
salts my hunger.
I stop in my tracks.
Sound of distant thunder,
I offer my name
and a drink;
she offers me shelter.

Leads me by the hand
beneath the fairy lights
into the dingy bar
of bad karaoke and
football on the big screen.
I order whiskey sours
and we sit at a table
playing games of conversation
over the ashtray as I stumble through
my sentences.
She plays with my fingers,
tells me I am her favourite;
that tonight
she is willing to kiss.

On the second drink
her black eyes covet mine.
Swollen in longing,
I tell her she is the most beautiful
thing I have ever seen
without a word of lie.
Though she blushes
and plays with her perfect hair
I know there is nothing I can say
she has not heard one thousand times.
Leads me by the hand,
places mine on her hips
as she turns to face me
in the half-lit room.


We hesitate.
I kiss her collarbones, her neck,
work my way to her lipstick;
kiss her ******* the mouth.
She deadens in my grip,
begins to work at my belt.
In the half-light we close our eyes-
she becomes flesh,
I become paper,
knowing these were the cards we were dealt.
She pulls on my hair,
when I finally surrender
she speaks softly in English;
she moans in Thai.

Laid exposed in the aftermath
she draws her painted fingernail
across the outline of my tattoo.
Asks for the meaning
but does not understand the answer.
We linger for a moment
before reality resumes
and the illusion is over.
She leads me by the hand
to the funeral wake of the weekend streets.
The storm is over.


Pollution blots out the stars.
She says farewell.
I say

see you next week.

I started leaving the door open for you.
I started to write and live honestly.
Endless nights spent chasing
another song of defeat
across the ashtray
forgetting my own words:

you can create art out of suffering;
you should never create suffering for art.

I started waiting for you.
I started to notice the decline of my moods
coincided with sublime precision to your
tail-lights in the distance.
Half-drunk
I had forgotten my own words:

suffering may be borne out of love;
love should not be borne out of suffering.

I started leaving the door open for you.
I started to expose each sleepless night
and commonplace hangover
as a symptom of a malady
and not a way of life.
You helped me to recall

peace arrives once the war has ended.
For peace, you do not have to fight.

I have come a long way.
Those endless nights spent clouding the mind
to a comfortable blindness
where I did not have to witness
the war at my own front door.

I have come a long way.
Locked in fear I could not communicate
with my foreign tongue;
learned that good company
was the mere salute of open arms.

Learned to swallow breath
as I once did pills, *****, and cigarettes
to find that patient calm.
Chemicals promise anaesthesia;
only pain is left when supplies are gone.

I have come a long way
from the departure lounge,
staring at heaving grey skies
and contriving a paradise
no one could hope to find.

Walked suicidal through
tourist-lit streets of central Bangkok.
Half-drunk I wondered why
I continued to breathe;
why my heart refused to stop.

I have come a long way
from believing happiness
is a steady state you can attain
through time-lapse images of victories
and failures you forgot.

Fell in love with an older woman
who would sleep beside me
when she could not see her son.
Through nights of *** and amphetamine
she would sway through each melody

even when the meaning was lost.
Taught me how to speak Thai in the moonlight,
left food on the handles of my motorbike
when I was too hungover
to face the day.

I have come a long way.
Travelled 6000 miles to learn
that home  means anything
from a constant pleasure
to some happy accident.

That love is not pillow-talk;
it’s the rain on the windshield
that gives shelter from the storm.
That truth is not what you hope to find.
but the words that you meant;

fractions of yourself
you could never leave behind.
I have come a long way.
I have made love in enough hotel rooms
to tell you the ashes of yesterday

can be both the aftermath of a flame
you cannot replace
and the fertile ground
to change your name
and start over again.

I have come a long way.
I am still my worst enemy.
Every day is still a fight;
each moment filled with darkness
when I cannot see the light.

I have come a long way.
Stood brave in the entryway
of every opened door.
Made a toast for all the people I could be;
all of the people I have been before.

Pink pill turns black
on its tin-foil hammock,
putrid cremation
beneath a butane lighter.
A choir of bullfrogs
sing the advent of a wet summer,
whilst trembling hands gather
to capture the fumes
through the paper vessel
of a makeshift straw.

She gathers spring flowers.
Places them in a jewellery box
alongside the ring he has never worn.
Wide-eyed, she speaks in Thai
on their sweet scent,
amongst the burnt incense
and his vacant, impatient stare.
Tarried for the next hit of nicotine,
for the self-immolation
when he is left to sleep alone.

Lungs tarred with amphetamine,
she will return to her infant son
as if nothing has happened
whilst he wakes
to a morning bed of ash.
Mosquitoes fog the windowsill
as they languish
in off-hand, stubborn ***.
She falters to a ******-
he keeps his cards to his chest.

Dawn croaks its miserable head
as he suffers a silence of symphonies
with no words.
No common tongue;
heart brays over
a pillowcase of pebbles
and a mouth of sand.
She paints her nails,
smiles with professional assurance.
She lives in a comfort

he cannot understand.

She left me white flowers
on the balcony
on the day she stopped trying
to win my love;

the first time I watched her tail-lights
with a crumb of regret.

Used to leave a loaf of bread
on my doorstep
whenever she could not find me,
drunk, alone;

furious in her offer
of easy company.

She left and in her absence
I found little solace
in the poetry I kept from her.
All these pointless words;

another lover lost to meaning,
another lover lost to impossible

dreams of perfection.
All this time afforded to me
to form my words of purpose
and total inaction.

I have never met someone as beautiful as you.
I can’t believe you are going back to China.
I can’t believe that I will never see that face again.
I can’t believe I didn’t at least try, at some point.
You are leaving forever.
Every day I stared at you in awe.
But that was the problem - I just stared.

The first winter I ever loved
coincided with my introduction
to Summer.

Three years younger,
she had defeated China
and in her wake lay one thousand men,
mouths hung open;
straining for her ear-shot.

Every taxi driver
spent more time looking in his rear-view mirror,
every ticket collector tarried
in the purchase; a hope to extend the moment
that he could be there, with her.

Used to watch her across the office,
her pencil skirt, precise eyeliner;
the way she would smell her tea
as it brewed in the flask.

Used to stray outside her classroom,
listened to her speak Chinese
to a room of students that would listen intently
as unfamiliar tones spread
across her easy smile.

She sang her tentative songs
over vague karaoke nights,
we sang together in English;
our neighbours sang in Thai.

I took her to the mountains
on the back of my motorbike,
she talked softly in my ear;
her legs pressed close to mine.

The first winter I ever loved
coincided with my introduction
to Summer.

The most beautiful woman
I had ever seen.

I lay still beneath her friendship,
bit my tongue in misplaced passion.
I stood and stared as she walked on by,
into the arms
of anyone’s

but mine.

After a long stay of depression,
he awoke on his motorbike
beneath a searing rainbow sunset.

The mountains arched silhouettes
as he tore through the highway
in the still-image of youth.

Slow evenings spent unwinding,
numbing himself with changes
and the crudeness of a new tongue.

On the shoulder of Kalasin,
in a nowhere-town province,
he had tasted everything.

Ate with his hands
on decorated tables,
trekked the petrified forest

on Christmas Eve;
somewhere between all of this,
he finally learned to live.

After a long stay of depression,
he rolled away the stone.
Found himself six thousand miles

from anyone he had known.
No one can speak English here.
Today, he learned the word for ‘home’.

She left me a gift bag
of coconut oil, expensive shampoo,
instant noodles, and bug spray.

Focus slips as she
presses her face to the bus window,
staring out at a town
she will never see again.

She believed the town was a prison
until I taught her
how to ride a motorbike.

Dodging ***-holes and stray dogs,
I clung for my life,
primed for purgatory-
whilst she screamed love ballads

at the top of her lungs,
believing that if she drove fast enough
she could make up for the time she had lost.

As ghosts appear
along the country roads of Kalasin,
the drumlins will be
a mere sequence of pixels

and Chinese whisper memories.
I smoke, lean on bad habits
across the fence of solitude I built

so meticulously by hand.
Another night spent drunk
under the stars – alone.
Desire spikes a fever in hindsight,

thoughts stray to her upper thighs,
blue eyes, and untouched lips.
I wonder whether reaching out

for somebody in the dark
would have been enough
to abate our bespoke
and desperate loneliness.

She left me as another moment
I let slip through my fingers.
A life-time spent

wringing my hands.

Somewhere, amongst the debris
of cigarettes after ***,
chemicals to induce sleep,
I forgot what it means to love.

I forgot what it means to breathe,
to sit still, and just be.

Somewhere, beneath these hooded seams
of solitude and well-versed grief,
beats a heart less cynical,
less tamed by vague distraction.

My nervous ticks and bad habits,
line of best fit for a near-hit
of satisfaction:

This is not enough, I know.
This is not nearly enough
to cool the bray of life
that still rattles meaning in my bones.

I forgot what it means to love,
what separates a house from a home.

Somewhere beyond this thirst
for brand-new words
is a gratitude for all that has been.
Every cliché holds a truth.

Every sentiment, a cocoon,
that I should lie so still inside

until I am wholesome,
until I am new.

The distant park
Was a graveyard of dead stars.
Each streetlight a system of worlds,
So many lives between each mote of light,
Indistinguishable in their unique love,
Bespoke hate, and the drama of the modern age.

Drunk laughter behind transparent
Double doors. Another hotel balcony,
Another cloud behind the canopy
Of marijuana eyes
To unsettle me from the crowd.

She points out, when you look closely
You can see the disorder
Amongst all constellations
Of life and love and litter;
Of discarded Coke cans
And temporary highs.

She says this is not a scene
To imbue the ****** of a present mind,
More to baulk at the incompletion
Of one thousand to-do lists;
A million reasons why
You should just stay inside.

She says you can see the human swell
Of ignorance, our city lights
Blotting out the stars
In a black ocean of broken politic
And irretrievable fault lines-
Divisions between us all.
Lives twisted with professional smiles
And eyes lit with stunning indifference.

Still, I have felt charity and warmth
On the doorstep of lunatics and fascists.
I have read the love of life
In faces of those who gave up.
I have recounted countless artists
Who saw beauty
In moments that precisely lacked it.

I have spent too many nights
In anaesthesia,
Fleeing each instance of feeling
And terror; all the tremors
That tell me I am still alive.

Continued to stare at the lights
Long after her voice
And the laughter inside had gone.

Heard waves in the traffic.
A world so large, so expansive,
It can never truly sleep.
Every broken heart,
Every war-torn land,
Every promotion,
Every one-night stand.

I wonder what would happen
If we all stood still.
If we all took one moment
To observe the motion
That unfolds beneath
Our static windowsill.

If we all took one moment
To recover our loss.
The wars that we won,
The feelings, forgot.
The hell we retain;
Our paradise, lost.

The secret of my energy
can be found in my false libido,
unwanted erections,
vibrations on the
inner-city bus.

My blue collar life
with a white collar tongue,
tried pyramid schemes,
tried working for the right thing
on the wrong side of the bar.
Worked on my oral ***
until going down was an art,

worked on my poetry
in the hope I could ******* through
the empty spaces,
clear absence of a career path.

The secret of my energy
can be found in my distance
from anything or anyone.
The secret of my energy
can be found in my contempt
for telling those I care for
about who I love
or what I ate for lunch.

Tried drinking green tea,
meditating by the ocean waves
until I sang the ballad of the sea.
Tried tuning my guitar
to the point the strings would snap
in the hope of portraying emotion
my talent had always lacked.

The secret of my energy
can be found in my distaste
for positivity and pessimism,
for conservative thought
and overdrawn liberalism,
for whistle-blowers
and tone-deaf singers
of flag-waving anthems
and golden age dreams.

Tried holding my hand to my heart,
pledging allegiance
to red wine, white skin, and blue truth.
The secret of my energy
can be found in every idea
I had reached out for
only to find that in my pursuit

I could only become the sum
of all that I knew,
of all that I was,
of all I outgrew.

Turn these restless limbs to stone
so I can get a modicum of rest.
Clothe my bones, walk me home;
steady the clamour of my chest.

Blot the stars with a marker pen,
place a ceiling over my dreams.
No news at ten, play remember when,
when the future falls at the seams.

Place all useless guilt in the dirt
so I can finally lapse to sleep.
No three year hurt, I will iron my shirt
and line my pockets deep.

Hide the misery amongst the flowers,
the ash amongst the living.
These early hours, these mythic powers;
find the solace of forgiving.

Pull me from the Ground Zero rubble
so I can learn to stand again.
Be my double, first sign of trouble;
my anchor and not my chain.

Shield the summer from the rain,
let me walk with a peace.
Free from pain, my voice will strain
for the melody of release.

Heave all words of lazy defeat,
throw them to the pyre.
Been white as a sheet, a snowman in heat;
flame of grief turned to fire.

Mask the eye too full of fear,
leave the door opened for the light.
So used to tears, so many years
at the mercy of the night.

Take me from this dead-end breeze
out into the open air.
I am on my knees, these hopeful pleas,
that you will take me there.

I stopped waiting by the phone
I stopped pressing my glass to the wall
straining for vicarious sound
I stopped waiting for distraction
to prevent me getting bored

I am alone
I am alone
but feel loneliness
only when I feel I ought to
The rest of the time
it is music
or the silence in between

I stopped pacing the floor
as if movement meant
I was doing something

I stopped looking for love
as if desire were the same
as feeling something for someone

As if holding out for change
was as good as holding a person
as if sleeping alone
caused dreams without reason
as if snatches of warmth
gave purpose to the seasons

I stopped collecting forget-me-nots
I stopped bleeding out my liberal heart
every time there was suffering
or hate in the spaces where
love should have been

I stopped waiting for someone
to doctor the still
where sorrow pervaded
the canned laughter of living

I stopped looking for someone
it was only then
I could start forgiving

Left her crying in the driveway
after forcing her way through the window,
feigned a car crash, a sudden death,
so I could sleep alone and warm
without discussion across the pillow.

Drank whiskey and coke,
distant and remote-
noted her painted nails,
her short skirt, her knotted shirt,
shaved legs
in anticipation
for something I could not give her.

Made an excuse to sing the blues
until the pills took their hold
and muffled my strings
in a tranquilised series
of half-toned grins
and yawns that sing
the death of another evening.

Would rather take to art
than any flesh, bone, or heart
that bleeds upon my feeling,
would rather cling to a verse,
a muddied crime, suit, or hearse,
that leaves me high and dry
and staring up at the ceiling.

Left her nursing her wounds
whilst I search for an excuse
why I cannot love without leaving.
Left her alone in her bed
a feast of wine and bread
that has no taste,

that has no rhyme or reason,
for why I keep ploughing the field,
for why I keep moving through the seasons.

There is no meaning to my motion,
no depth to my frantic gathering of breath,
no distilled calm, nor consequence to each brief,
suffering emotion.

I am just a ladder to climb.
I am no stairway to heaven.

She comes here,
consumes nothing,
offers all
but what I desire.
Folds my laundry,
teaches me Thai,
goes down on me.
Massages my shoulders
to tempt sleep
in restless sheets.

But I cannot write
a lullaby
with her sleeping soundly,
like a lie,
by my side.

Departure lounge. Crown of tears
probably dried upon my father’s shoulder.
One year before I touch down again.
Everyone will expect some change.

Tried to swallow consciousness on the Bangkok streets.
Too much heat. There is no familiar face –
I cannot even read the road-signs.
There is no culture shock:
I had lived with that my entire life.

Made friends with the strays
for we had a common place.
Caught in no man’s land:
a need for hunger,
some awful drive to be free.

Left Bangkok for the coast.
New faces to hear old stories.
Born new, kissed each night on the mouth,
shared a hotel room for the month;
relinquished every memory

in a flood of beer,
old tears, the reservoir
to cleanse ourselves of doubt.
Dictated each depression

to a room full of strangers
until I could frame every disgrace,
put them to bed
until I slept full and new.

Fell in love with a singer,
red hair and a voice
that climbed a ladder to heaven.
Bid farewell in a country of mourning,

wore black until I found colour again.
Descended each rung
until I found that rock bottom
was still much higher
than where I had come from.

Wrote poetry and songs
nine hours from the foundations
I had built upon.
Black-eyed and clueless,
wrong side of the classroom,

I tried to teach a foreign tongue
in a place where I knew nothing
and no one. Far from every addiction
that once anchored me in place,

I shaved my face, pressed my shirt,
made amends for every cigarette end
that once painted the frame
of all I had amounted,
all I had done.

Fell in love with a town,
a pink sunset, stretch of rice-farms
and apple trees that patterned the view
of all I could see.

Still broken, still maladjusted,
still craving those twisted words.
Take my motorbike off into the drumlins
each time that I fear the worst.

Still broken, still singing
a song I cannot sing,
yet each muffled string,
each half-worn verse
is a half-formed reason
to rehearse
the melody I gather
each fateful, live-long day,

I cry out for meaning
before it fades away.

The advertisements tell me
to make a website.
From there, I can sell myself.
My bad habits and poetry,
my every night, stop-gap routine,
as if I am tired of chasing women
and am looking to get clean.

Place a filter
over every image I’ve seen,
place a void between myself
and reality.
To cut out the ugly spaces;
the maladjusted rock and dust,
the invasive thought

that I could end all uncertainty
by taking the plunge,
knocking back a few shots
before jumping into the canyon
and forsaking my circle-****
panoramic snapshot
for a chance of real feeling
the lawn mower forgot.

Another glass of Hong Thong
and Pepsi, another cigarette burn
as I scream *******
at the top of my lungs.
2.a.m in the morning-
all the girls have gone home,
so I ******* over yesterdays:
my ex-girlfriend in her bikini shot,
the high school girl I never laid-
but imagination was enough.

Stay up until the ashtray is full,
until each bottle is empty.
Until I run out of interesting
things to say
and finally begin writing poetry.
The crickets sing their curtain call song,
the blackness of night
as I black-out my lungs.

Wait for the paltry feast,
for the ***-shot girls,
for the dying embers
of a wonderful world,
where we smoke trees of green,
red blood and liquid too,
of fermented grape;
forget all of yesterday
and all of tomorrow too.

I see skies of blue,
I see clouds of white,
I see iridescent plumes
of neo-liberal,
comb-over groomed, Eton schooled dog-*****.
I see colours of the rainbow
that have all turned to grey,
too scared to offend anyone,
to say what we want to say.

I see enemies shaking hands,
saying “how do you do?”
I know that they’re really saying
“I ******* hate you,
I didn’t come to argue,
I didn’t come for the truth,
I came for my fifteen minutes of fame
for the twelve million hits;
for the five million views.”

They tell me to make a website
to sell myself.
For each time I stood
in the moments I fell.
To chronicle the crawl
of each cancer-drawn progression,
of each failed urban sprawl;
for each whiskey-drawn confession.

For each moment I stood tall
through the instances I felt small.
They told me there was a market
for each lazy, drunken drawl.

They told me to sell myself
as a failing beacon of mental health,
as a mass of demons,
all bite and no bark,
only to come alive
after blood-shed;
after dark.

Long divorced from love,
owned three guitars
and slept with nine women.
Remembers every song,
every poem,
scarcely recalls their faces;
lilt of their tongue
as sleep took hold of them-
not him.

Trigger finger over the snapshot
through each baulk and ****** of passion:
"this is the poem, this is the verse
I can lay down in print
and finally live again."

Night sky too full of uncertainty.
Cannot observe a desert scene
without a commentary
on each unanswered question.
She is dressed in sequins
but what for the spaces in between?
He cannot accept filler,
blank spaces that intercede
moments of ineffable beauty.

Maddening crowds emerge,
bright-eyed and stupid
to each early, pink noise morning.
He awakes, drugged to the eyeballs,
slow to movement; formulation of words.

Each night a battle of sobriety
as the sun does bleed
in the skyline before him.
Each night a generation dies,
subtle points of light
lost in the noise of the modern day.
Screams pointlessly, without need:
"don't forget me, don't forget me..."
would rather leave a scar

than no mark at all.
Lives for the colours
he cannot see, for the common thread
that connects everything.
Tweaks the string of each broken seam

to expose each diversity,
each personal loss
as a collective sigh;
every sleepless night
as an off-white lullaby.
Born for collision
beneath a dying star,
long divorced from love;
he is married to art.

Cross-legged and bare foot,
Spice on the tongue,
Iced beer through a straw;
Makeshift ****
On the white-wash balcony
Over dusted streets.

Revolving procession of strangers,
Exhausted stories born new;
Doctored through years of rehearsal.

I am every man.
White skin mistaken for affluence,
Exchanged for free gifts
And easy ***.
I never need to remember
Their names. They are always gone

By the afterglow morning,
Nights of mad love with no consequence;
Climbing heaven with feet on the ground.

Bruise of her mouth,
Stifled ******;
Surface wound on my shoulder
The only evidence
She was here.
Impermeable, remorse stale

As last night’s cigarette.
My open door births a crack of light,
Too slight for anyone to pass through.

We were together
Staring out at the black sea;
A void in some backwater alley
Of central Bangkok.

You were laughing at its beauty
And like the stars I stared blankly,
Looking for everything I could not see.

Alternating undercurrent
Of raw sewage and street-food spice,
Alive in the shadow
Of a searing neon skyline,
The moon made of bone;
We blacken our lungs
Six thousand miles from home.

Set in greed for *** and company,
The familiar lilt of Latin tongues.
In a dream I still need to breathe,
Still need to feel the heat of love
Or at least the touch of anyone.

I lean, habit-ridden
Over the railings of misspelled lovers
That carved their names half-drunk
With hotel keys
Into the dandelion paint,
That with gradual loss,
Succumbs to the traffic
And falls in the breeze.

You wept at the sentiment.
I baulked in their loss.
I drew you in closer
To keep hold of this dream,
Before the night fades,
Before time has forgot,

Before life pulls us apart,
Before love loosens its knot.

Winter let you down again.
Hidden in layers, still your thin skin
Breathes in every particle, every wave.

In the heat of every symbol of love
You grow cold and depraved.
Beleaguer every drum,
Every instrument of calm
Until you are left with your breath
And what happens when it is gone.

Smoke a cigarette
When your mind will not rest,
Unwind in the secondhand sheets,
The daily reminder
Of your ineffable lack of sleep.
The pills that you take;
The ache of routine.

The panic button,
The false alarm,
A new lease of life
That swiftly lost its charm.

The talisman of a heaven-sent sign;
Extinguish the stars
For the city light lullaby.
Hear the ocean in waves of traffic,
Hear the truth in interludes
Interceded with static.

Hold fast to the tracks
You have trod before,
The pyrrhic loss,
Each opened door

That seemed to close
Each time you reached out,
Each time you fumbled for change
In your pockets of doubt.

Winter let you down again,
A dalliance with autumn,
Your terminal friend.

In the heat of love,
You grew cold for shelter.
Away from your moods
That shift with the weather.
Away from the rain that follows the storm,
Another surrender;
Another false dawn.

Stood, ill-assured,
On the other side of the classroom.
Shirt pressed, 5.a.m shadow,
Shoes black as sleepless hollows.
The waning attention of wandering minds,
Hearts strung to a breaking point
They believe will relent with age.
One decade, the fence.
I want to reach over and teach them
“I am not okay.”

Homesickness blues,
Blue skies; confused.
Paradise has slipped from view,
Occluded by opened windows
In emptied rooms.
Let the light fall in
But it falls on nothing.
Dust kicks up in the wind;
Brief interlude of a confident June
Before falling down again.
No single tongue that speaks my own,
Home was when I talked to you.
Now that you are gone
I wait by the phone
And hope you are waiting too.

There is blood on the brain,
Your hair on my floor,
Your glass still on my table
To evidence the night before.

You were a kindness,
My fantasy, my misery;
Blowing smoke out of the open door.
Brief surrender under the shelter of
Our shared and selfish storm.

You brushed your teeth in the mirror,
Heard you sing as you tied your shoes.
It was all you as you stared at your phone,
As I disappeared from your easy view.

You were vague and authentic,
Quick to the bone; the truth.
A desert scene of transparency-
I held you high and soft
Beneath the neutral moon.

There is warmth after rain
From where your light came through.
Sat here again, a drink in hand,
Toasting the shadow of you.

Drunk again, on my own again,
without a friend in sight.
I learned to read just to pass the time,
St. Teresa she tells me:
"Be gentle to all and stem with yourself,"
and you will find the light.
But some of us see only in dark,
and we come alive at night.

Been trying to breathe, been trying to see
what William James told me:
"You can alter your life, if you alter your mind,"
my kaleidoscopic eyes-
and act as if you can make a difference
and "be not afraid of life."
But I've been running scared, darling all of the time,
life chews me up and it spits me out.

I'm tired of words, to see me through,
oh, I need someone tonight,
someone tonight.

Like Carl Rogers says, you gotta hang tough,
"I'm not perfect but I'm enough."
"What is personal, it is universal,"
if you just open up.
But if I should die, it would take a while
until someone beats the drum.
I flew so many miles and still,
and still, my sadness has won.

Held my breath, took the plunge,
took the flight to the other side of the world.
Disassembled everything.
Started over again.
Still, sadness is the shadow over my shoulder
and Marlboro my one true friend.

The fan fills noise in the corner,
in the space where voices had been.
Still covered in lacerations
from all those who reached out for me.
Keeping busy in the day,
buy and sell in the backwater streets;

if solitude breeds clarity,
then loneliness breeds insanity
and both arrive so rushed and so brief.
No need to lock the door
for no one will ever come.
If I should die, it would take a while
until someone sounds the drum.

I flew so many miles
and still, my sadness has won.

You took me to the Mekong River,
handing my documents over the border,
to the temple of the left-handed Buddha,
in the hope it would all make sense.

You took me to the brink of a stolen calamity,
you stayed with me in poetry; my eventual insanity.
You kept me with your golden voice,
you kept me with your wit.

You lost me with your genius;
how you discarded it.

You drove me to a calling that I could not fulfill,
just make statuettes from the ash that lines my windowsill.
Call it art, or call it a longing,
call it that animal burn for some kind of belonging.

You were a father, you called off the saints,
you cooled my tongue, my off-white yogi;
taught me these songs of pain, these songs of love
were meant to be sung by everyone.

Not the clever mind, nor the metronome heart
that keeps time with this life, that keeps pace from the start,
but for the stumbling folk, the slow off the blocks,
the maladjusted, the criminal; those who only see dark.

That this chip on my shoulder is a flute in which to sing,
that each failure I live, is a story I should bring
to the table of life, to the feast of recovery,
for every impatient soul with a hunger for discovery.

Each broken chord is a chance to sound alive,
amongst the crackle of the static, there is another side.
Another wasteland companion, another strangled voice,
that amongst all this hopelessness; we always have a choice.

To bend or to break in the shatter of our soul,
sometimes the glass must be half-empty in order to feel whole.
That some convenience pleasure is not always enough,
sometimes we must bear the burden;
sometimes we must hang tough.

Because the words will come, the sun will rise,
amongst the debris of yesterday, there is another side.
You took me to the temple and on bended knee I pray,
that I could lift a suicide, with just the words I say.

The streets are filled with violence,
your room of cheap perfume,
let's sleep this off together
and wait till the madness is through.

Another year is over,
another chance has passed,
another cartoon president,
how long will this madness last?

Because every dream of the future
is a ******* nightmare now and
the second Berlin Wall will fall
before it even stands.

So hold me close now
and we'll let this moment stay,
we'll hold onto the finer things
that they can't take away.

I don't know which way to turn,
I know the left isn't always right,
but this life is a **** sight easier
if your skin is pure and white.

Now the police are the criminals,
spilling lies, they speak in tongues,
we'll happily drink down their poison
so long as we all own a gun.

So hold me close now
and we'll let this moment stay,
we'll hold onto the finer things
that they can't take away.

Another year is over,
another chance has passed.
This empire is built on shifting sands
and nothing is built to last.

Another cartoon president,
at least he'll take our country back.

Another cartoon president,
red, white and blue
unless your skin is black.

Cracked heel,
Tiger Balm,
Dust of yesterday’s streets;
Sequins from all tomorrow’s parties
In the lining of unwashed clothes.

Cats sleep in the dirt
Beside ashtrays of white monoliths
Stood brave in a bed of stale ash.

Foreign tongue, the lullaby,
Familiar habits, the birth-ground
To finally be new again.

Spheres of ghost-light
Prevent secrets from slipping out
Into the night.
A hundred beautiful women
And still, I sit and stare.

The air is thick here.
Stone-bench vigils
Through evenings that do not end.

Only strays and electrical hums
Threaten to disrupt the peace.
Tears fall. My hands shake.

There is no reason to be sad.

The beer is flowing
All hot and high,
Insect repellent on the house-
A restaurant by the roadside.
The streets a little easy
Now that the tears have dried,
But the population still dress in black
For the year the King had died.

I’ve been doing a little dying too,
All the faces I have been,
All the places, all the names;
All the waste I’ve come to see.
It piled in the entryway,
Too many obstacles to leave,
Too desperate to sit and stay,
Witness the death of the autumn leaves.

Too much steady state back at home,
Over here, it’s chaos in the streets,
Used to take a pill to make me calm;
I used to lie and steal and cheat.
I used to have a drink to **** the day,
Now I take a load off of my feet,
Nurse it back and eat well and full;
There’s no trouble in falling asleep.

I see the waitress get a head massage
In the middle of the working day,
I mind my manners a thousand times
Still, my brain does not behave.
*** lingers on every corner,
In every blind-alley retreat,
Every time she smiles at me,
Or hands me my receipt.

Now I sing for life and I sing for death
And neither is full of fear,
Sometimes I tell the world to go to hell-
But at least I sound sincere.
At least my poetry is full of me
And not the absence in between
When I wake in this sober state;
When I fall down to my knees.

This is not the perfect life,
I would never claim it was,
But it’s a thousand shades brighter now,
In the shifting of the fog.
My notebooks are all clean and new,
My eyes alight with love.
This is what true living means,
This is not what dying does.

I have been the crying drunk in the hotel lobby,
The mosquito bite in the thin white sheets.
I have been the monsoon rain in the tropical heat;
I have been everything you said I could never be.

On the streets of dust I can eat my fill,
No more clouded eyes, no more ash-filled windowsill.
No more patient wait for my timely death,
No more passing glance; no more loneliness.

I will find my place with this foreign tongue,
On the precipice I write my immigrant song.
This culture shock makes me feel alive,
It kick-starts my heart; I finally turned the tide.

I finally made my peace in this call for arms,
In this incessant storm, I could feel the calm.
Could feel it loosen my bones,
That age-old ache, that I kissed on the mouth,
That I tried to replace

With every chemical within my reach,
With every pill or lie
That passed through my teeth.
I have been the crying drunk,
I have been the victim, too long.
I sit still and breathe.
I write my immigrant song.

The astral bowl was full of green smoke,
the tin roof, the fairy-light canopy;
two friends suffered in greed.
The backwater shed,
a monument of beer cans
blow listless on the lawn.

One says,
"I have not given up on my dreams
I have grown tired of sleeping through them."

The other, an insomniac, glistens:
"Merrily, Merrily, merrily, merrily..."

The television was on mute.
A flag assembles from the garments
retrieved at the end of the war.
A red-eyed stare
as they lament
the dried rivers in the carpet.

One says,
"There are eyes on me all the time
so I drink myself blind after work."

The other, a pessimist, decrees:
"you drink to steel yourself for the cliff-face-
no idea where you are going."

The sky was granite
as they ****** outside.
One turns to the other and says:
"I try to live an honest life
but it always feels like a lie."

The other, still *******, replies:
"we keep our secrets close to our person.
Now please - tuck yours back inside."

Collected sea shells
from every shoreline she came to.
Held onto a collar
from every animal she had loved.
Shelved old receipts
from every memory she could cling to.
Drank to forget all
she could not hold in her hands.

Moths stir the windowsill
preparing for her next cigarette.
She had lost interest.
A long time ago.

Agentic gratification:
the sugar hit,
the line of sniff,
the awful ***,
the pin-drop peace,
the loneliness.

Collected tattoos
from every song that saved her.
Gathered dust, the silhouettes
from every trophy of conquest.
Hoarded suitcases
from every time she had ran away.
Stayed inside to forget
all that she could not see.

Moths stir the windowsill.
People are just noise in the streets.
She had lost interest.
A long time ago.

The line of freedom was drawn,
fortunate passports found
amongst the rubble of Ground Zero.

The future was not a boot,
more, groping hands through
intimate pockets
and blue light that decimates
the privacy of dreams.

No concentration camps,
Bernays fuelled the fire­
in a wolf's disguise
until the crowd would herd itself.

No Aryan prophecy-
hatred more efficient
when its hands are untied.
Small disparities linger
the stem of deception:

the bottom-feeders are sterilised,
benefits withdrawn, foundations exposed
as ******* palms gather the loot
they lifted through the ceiling.

Sensory comfort provides
the leisure of a clouded mind,
a blood sugar spike,
the Soma of our time.
Under halogen lights
they make love in the high-rise

then labour in sleep
for what love cannot afford.

Continents divide.
Africa: the cold shoulder.
Asia: the factory line.

Oceans swell in neoprene heat
as sling-shots are drawn
beneath a dying star.
Old skull of Palestine,
cross-hairs on the White House
and a contusion in Pakistan.

Doors of perception only open to addiction.
Separate from G-d ,
draw more blood from the ground
like a smoker in the inexhaustible
process of quitting.

A belief in infinity
that will last until the world's end.

The line of freedom was drawn.
Everyone believed that they were on the right side.

They took down the eaves
after all shelter was destroyed.
Left a pay packet
and the desolation of ailments
that sang long after
the contract was done.

Fed the blade across my bicep,
irretrievable fault lines
from everyone I had called a friend.
Every message in a bottle
was a disturbance to still water,
the peace I gathered alone
but could not sustain
with two hands, one mind.

Stole the salt from my hunger,
the youth from my face:

I would not let them take the music.

Filled every cup to feign optimism,
clouded eyes that had seen too much.
Every plateau I took to,
they steeped the gradient,
each flower, they reminded me,
came from death.

They took down the saints of kindness.
Cut each nerve ending
as I slept on broken glass.
Left a pay packet
and a phantom of good will
once I finally loosened the strings,
sailed away at a snail's pace,

my boat savaged by the tempest,
my sails torn and weary,
my flag falls low, at half mast.

Winter left behind
a labyrinth of addictions,
chains of solitude
that took you the whole summer
to break,

Long sleeves on a sunny day,
pockmarked with exhausted pain,
delivered in fractures
only you can see on your face.

The mirror: a split-screen
of everything you see
versus
everything that you feel.

You have been staring
at your plate until everything
has grown cold.
You have drowned yourself in changes:

it is no wonder you do not feel whole.

Winter left behind
a fraction of yourself.
You scale the branches
in the bloom

only to wake up ******,
alone,
another winter's afternoon.

Tried to fulfil
the caverns in my eyes,
sleepless nights that echo
the chamber of creativity.

So much to do,
so much to do.

So many symbols to contrive
so that when I die,
I do not leave.

When did this ridiculous past-time
become a reason to be?

There is more truth in the flute
than a lover's tongue,
more heart in the metre
of well-formed words
than there is to belong
to any God or anyone.

Tried to fulfil
the hunger for movement;
restless flicker-book
that rearranges
the same old routine
of skipped pages
and human error

into art and reason.

Took to poetry when I learned
only pain gives perspective.
Happiness an impossible horizon,
fake as a headline,
a mirage, a migraine;
an ever-setting sun.

Mistakes are off-set paths
neither trod nor spoken of before.

Ghosts of old wounds and insults
slew the grain of progression,
each forecast of the future
births one thousand skeletons;
one thousand potential lovers.

An overdose in Dublin,
French lips; a slanted bow.
Blue feathers at the festival;
a taken woman who changes
the colour of her hair
when everything else stays the same.

Took to poetry when I realised
The Moment does not lie
on the tip of the tongue,
nor the beat of the drum,

that sense only comes
long after The Moment has gone.

Love swallowed you up

Old tyrant in shapeless clothes
Lining the pillows with used tisses
Blew smoke rings for the illusion
Of an open door

Arrhythmic moods
That collide in the hallway
Love were the moments
Locked inside the bathroom
Alone

The winter used to feel long.

Ecstasy was a pill
on the tip of my tongue;
a common thread I missed.

I used to walk the streets
as if I did not deserve my shadow.
The imminent falling bomb
the only reason to exist.

Sobriety was a sleight of hand

hiding in plain sight.
Paradise were the moments
where I did not have to fight.

I used to sing for love
I would never get back again.

I used to talk to God
in the absence of a friend.

The winter used to feel long.

The summers were too brief.
Turned to every medicine
for transient relief.

I broke my back for a living.

Now I drink in the sun-glass shade.
No anaesthetic; no clouded mind.
I walk the river

a thousand miles
from all I left behind.

Spring-loaded,
Nervous energy;

Often wondering
In an archer, a yogi-
Gathering static strength,
A tension
With the potential
Of absolution;

Else a stopwatch wound
Too tight. A pointless climb,
An effortless demise-
Out of time,
Out of mind.

Cannot walk slow.
Baulk beneath
The cathedral,
Lengthening of the shadow;
Another wasted day.

Often wondering
if idle or incomplete,
Whether the chip
On my shoulder
Is a flute
Or a fatal malady.

Managed the cap and gown
With a professional smile.

Found my audience
When I gave it up.

Often wondering
What I am doing,
Sat drunk at the typewriter
Alone;

Often wondering
Which is more fearful;
the void
Or the comfort of home.

Did you ever fit the cut?
Did you ever sing in key?
Did you ever light the match
To the pages your prayers have been?

Did you ever get in line
In your struggle to be free,
Did you ever cheat in love
To find some honesty?

Did you make it out the crowd
Just to find you are missing out?
Did you ever have too much drink,
End up ******* in the kitchen sink?

Did you ever cheat death
Just to feel alive-
Just to see what it felt like
On the other side?

Did you take drugs
For that same reason?
Does your mind shift
With the patterns of the seasons?

Do you look to the future
And forecast a storm?
Do you ever plan an early night,
Then fall asleep at dawn?

Have you ever fallen in love
And acted as if you have not?
Have you ever drank your demons
Under the table; under the rug?

Do you feel confused too?
You know, I haven't got a clue
what I am doing, where I am going
- is that the same for you?

Summer time,
Eyes vibrant; alive

With occluded featureless smiles
And women in vest tops;
High-waisted jeans.

Innumerable particles of dust.
Old autumns,
The fallen, forgotten;
The flying are free.

Local cover bands play
In the central courtyard
Of the landmark church.
Lazy vendors, market stalls;
Head shops selling smoking papers
And gauze to gather the dregs.

Alone, acquiring old technology
To keep my search for intelligent life
Away from the screen:

Typewriter to enforce thought to my word,
Punch to every letter like swollen breath-
No going back.

Record player to erase perfection
And leave what is human.

Constant temptation to stay inside,
Dream of our day in the sun,
Constant recollections
Of debts accrued; summers spent

Glass in hand, stretched out on the grass.
Free time without the desperation,
No imprisonment from the moment,
All hot and high
Over dwindling supplies,

Simply laid to the elements,
Burgeoning love
Before the scars came.

Tattooed a hundred reasons
Never to fall again.

Part-time gardeners tend to fenced-off fields.
Far from the commute,
Freed from the suit; the neck-tie
Ceases suffocation.
Sweat paints a Jesus face
On the lining of their backs-
Old grey t-shirts
Toiling an enterprise
That paints beds of dirt
And enlivens the stems
That wilt with age:
Their weekend Eden.

Straight mile to the beer garden,
Old foes, friendly faces,
Residue rings, the sweat of lager
And loose change over numbered tables,
Stained and chipped
In the entropy of revelry.

Crates and boxes of wine,
Patio furniture not orientated to the screen.
It is easy to believe
The modern life is free.

Teenagers learn to drink,
Learn to love what will finally
**** them.

Parks filled with cannabis haze, dried snacks,
Picnic baskets beneath disused goalposts.
Single mothers dutifully mind the sandpits,
Longing for an ashtray; an outlet.

Someone to stand beside them:
To say they are doing fine.

Air cools by evening, shawls appear
Over exposed shoulders.
The high-waisted women,
Shudder a memory
In my lack of a moment.

Paranoia of approaching darkness:
Another day without conclusion.

Cataracts that form in the night,
Tomorrow’s stain; last year’s trauma.
All the money we spend
Trying to forget.

Asleep; skin cools and reddens.
We praise our vanity,
our hangover;
our morning
Beyond the experience.

We forget September,
The onset of winter.
Details sharpened
And losses forgot.

They drink in the beer gardens,
We bathe in our love,
Until the warmth gives out,
Until the feeling is lost.

The cello sings Ave Maria.
Distilled calm; blister packs
In a wet July.

There is peace in every grain,
So fine. Wore away the stone,
Three drownings in the sea.
Annihilation

To build a monument
We settle upon:
Our paradise recovery.

There is warmth after the rain.
Ukulele played on the
Gran Cervantes balcony.
Off-white scars;
Pyramids with no eyes.

Every stoner sleeps.
Every kind heart cries.

The Arc of Life sings a lullaby,
Still I cannot get calm.
In a wet July

A comfort to staying inside.
We tried, wore away our lungs,
Three renewals in the sea.
A leap of faith,

An old keepsake
We contrived upon:
Our lunatic discovery.

There is movement in death.
Pollen falls to the ground;
Exhale of recovery.
Dead-end joy,
Statuettes with no eyes.

Every criminal weeps,
Every kind heart lies.

The cello sings Ave Maria.
The strings that heal
In a wet July.