My country is in chaos.
Seats of power are exchanged,
Unelected come-down
And steep fog of uncertainty.
The poor are painting their signs,
Others lock their doors.
Tear gas spills in streets
Far from suburbia,
On the shoulder of Europe.

I struggle to sleep.
Not for tragedy
But missed calls
And lack of shelter.
For you and your
Darkened corner,
Bleak winters-
The last time
I saw you in the sun.

Petroleum fills
The lung of the sea.
Swarms gather in luscious greed,
Footfalls over concrete:
The peace sign
White poppies
And paper cranes,
Stubborn **** in the rock,
The busker with fingerless gloves;
The nightclub spilling over
Into violence.

I strain my eyes,
Not in tears
But in chemicals
And lack of vitality.
For you and your
Elusive path through life,
Over-complicated strides.
Simple, temporary medicine

That is the comfort
And not the cure.

The stars blot out,
One by one.
Each neon skylight
Fractures the night
In pink clouds.
Flowers die over the railings
Where they could not
Save his life.

I contain my breath,
Not in calm
But poisoned blood
And lack of air.
I can barely breathe
Without you here.

My country is in chaos.
Earth spins in a slow disease.
Still all I can think of is you-
Whether you are thinking of me.

You said you loved your freedom,
The iron in your chains,
Rearranged the furniture
To mimic the movement of change.

You said you held your secrets
Like a cigarette in the rain,
Close beneath the shelter
To keep alive the flame.

I know the room is empty
As you pace on through the night,
Empty bottles and bloodstains
From where you threw the fight.

I know the sky is vacant,
I know the glass is full,
I know the nights are so long
When there is no one there at all.

But you will make it through my friend.
You will greet the morning of your life.
You will sober up, you will calm down,
And everything will turn out right.

You will roll away the stone my friend.
You will wander and you will roam.
All these obstacles stood in your way
Will one day lead you home.

We are a global society
When we want oranges in the fruit bowl,
When we want out of our rut
Just long enough
To brown in a patch of Spanish sun.
We are a global society
When the Japanese car breaks down
And we are in need of a cheap fix
To keep food on the table,
Some Latvian mechanic
Who helps us find our way home.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When the zeroes run low
And there are spaces,
Foreign faces,
To which we can point
And blame.

We are a global society
With our sweat-shop chic,
American coffee chains
Selling Colombian ground beans,
Frappuccinos in plastic cups-
Made in China
And served by a Romanian barista
In Italian heels.
We are a global society
When the demand is high
And the payment is low.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When hands reach out for help
And our pockets are too shallow,
Our time, too brief
To commit to a unity
We feel is dragging us down.

We are a global society
When the football is on,
When the lager is Belgian
And the supermodel, Greek.
When we cradle that bag of Cheetos
After smoking too much ****.
We are a global society
When oppression is overt,
Caricatured in bulletin posters,
Threatening to land
Upon our own front door.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When poverty seems contagious,
When we have to clean up
Someone else’s mess,
Still we scar the Middle East
Only half-interested in an exit.

We are a global society
When we get sick,
When we borrow another doctor
For our ailing NHS.
When cities of white people burn,
We are a global society,
When Africa is divided,
We are nowhere to be seen.
Prime mover of the commonwealth
Yet we fall beneath the breadline
And living easy is so rare.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
Under the false flag
Of a golden age
We were conned to believe in.
Our nation, our island nation,
Lost amongst a sea of misinformation.

When you walked out the pub doors
On a sea of tears and last embraces,
The town stood still.
You broke my heart,
Set it back into place
So that I could feel again.

I was amongst the grown men
Turning backs on each other,
Wrangling our hair,
Pacing the floor,
Until we could not hold back
The occasion any longer.

I know when my plane comes
There will be brief handshakes,
Warm, worn smiles
Fastened from the heat
You gave so generously
To a town that grew cold
In your departure.

You taught us that kindness is enough.
Now rejoicing in private sobs,
Return of feeling for someone else.
This town we complained about,
Until you moved each man to song.

French lessons over the ashtray,
Anecdotes and private jokes
As far as the ear could hear.
I remember when the chemicals took over
And you danced in the sunglass shade
Of a darkened room.

Your energy bounced off the walls,
A pink-noise that echoed as I came down,
Nestled on my shoulder, totemic,
As I fought the speed, tried to sleep.
Beer bottles remained, the splintered ends
That serve as proof for last night’s fireworks.

You always made sure we were safe.

Our chance encounter,
Brief moments which collide,
Leaving marks,
Etching names
Onto stone that cannot wear away.
You taught me that sea of strangers
Is not a place to drown,
Just an avenue towards new land.

You could drink all the time
And it would not consume you.
Get stuck on a blue mood
And still leave your slumber,
Wide-eyed and hopeful for balance.

You left us standing in the rain
Our minds a roulette wheel,
Scattering between goodbye and farewell.
I guess I did not understand the stakes
Until you walked out of those pub doors.
I guess I had forgotten what loss meant,
Those years running from the blade of love
That cuts so finely the line
Of grief and glory.

I am bleeding here.
I am not sure when it will stop.
I am feeling again.
Thank you, friend.

Thank you.

It’s crawling up the drain pipe,
It’s crawling in your bed,
It’s coming back to remind you
Of everything you said.

It’s standing by the broken lamp
That used to light your way,
It’s filling in the empty spaces
When you’ve nothing left to say.

It’s fogging up the window,
So close you cannot breathe,
It’s watching you undress,
It’s watching you retreat-

Into your habits,
Into your sheets,
It’s waking you up
When you’re trying to sleep.

Into your whiskey,
Into your tea,
It’s spiking your food,
It’s all you can see.

It’s the rat inside the wedding cake,
It’s the rain on a perfect day,
It’s the wind that rattles everything,
Every cymbal in your brain.

It’s coming from the blind side,
It’s arriving without warning,
It’s brave and dark in the moonlight,
It’s small and fearful in the morning.

It’s Muhammed in the headlines,
It’s Jesus on the cross,
It’s the bias in the history books,
It’s the meaning that got lost.

It’s playing on your heartstrings,
A song you cannot sing,
A broken piece you cannot fix,
The calm the pills don’t bring.

Into your pockets,
Into your blood,
It’s getting to you
Much more than it should.

Into your mirror,
Into the screen,
All that you feel, all that you see
Are ever-decreasing spirals
And absent routine;

It’s pacing the halls,
It muffles your scream,
It’s holding your tongue,
It’s the mould in the crumb,
It’s the secret you keep from everyone.

It’s the reason why you stay inside,
Why walking the street,
Why leaving the house
Is like turning the tide.

It’s the jet-lag gloom
It’s the familiar ache
That weighs you down
Every time you wake.

It’s crawling up the phantom limb,
It’s the corpses in the sea,
It’s the debris that covers everything,
This constant anxiety.

The skin at the bed of her nails shone, tight.
Forever healing, windows that rattle
With the changing of her moods.
Love was a locket, an heirloom
That insisted its presence
Upon her bedside table.
She could turn out every light
And it would still be there.
Steady metronome,
Lifeless thud,
Invasive thought.

The carpet gathered artefacts from late night walks.
Bad habits clung to the walls.
No pillow talk, only muffled strings,
Failed symphonies,
Conversations three years old:
Memories that play Chinese whispers
Across the faces in the ceiling.
Irregularity of breath,
Sleep comes, clothed in Zopiclone;
A mind that never rests.

Narcosis in the morning,
Nausea over dried toast,
Sweet flamenco on the radio,
But there is nothing to calm her bones.

The red wine cast last night’s shadow,
Hollow in the eyes, first hit of daylight,
First hit of nicotine
To prove she is still alive.
Anxiety: the ball and chain,
Always dragging her behind.
Living as a ghost,
The people at the bus-stop stare,
The traffic, the signs, the passers-by,
The doldrums in the headlines,
The rain upon her window;
The heart attack and vine.

Prescription pills in the afternoon
To get her through the day,
Until she can get her fix,
Have her fill,
And finally hide away.

The high-street parade comes alive after dark,
Lanterns on the lake, the fish-bowl
Of a small town, familiar tongues that roll;
Memorised anecdotes across the ashtray,
The lipstick on her teeth.
Clumsy in victory, each stumble confined
To look as if she has walked through life
Without ever missing a stride.

There is nowhere to breathe
But in the solitude of her insanity.
She paints the walls
To the colours of her moods:

Grey in the long, long winter,
Blue in the onset of June.

Throw the window open
To bring cool air to a room
Which gathered heat
With all the thoughts
Bouncing off the closed walls.

Night. The sky, a bruised purple,
The clouds faint, infra-red.
The trees are cut-out silhouettes
Placed in the foreground of endlessness.
1.a.m. The night is still.

There is the hum of a plane in the distance,
Last train now long past earshot.
Thin blue curtains play at the breeze,
Tickle my shoulder
As I kneel at the ashtray,
The windowsill altar.

Ornaments reveal themselves
In the black gardens below.
The gnome with the broken tambourine
That kicks up in the current,
The wind chime on the Apple Tree;
The bell on the house cat’s neck.

Staring into space all night
But with this view
I do not have to strain my eyes.

Do not linger on the details
That are lost in the shadow.

Always made time for the moon.
The quiet one at parties,
Only came alive at night,
In the company of those who drink wine,
Swallow pills in the morning
To see the day through.

Room scarred with scorch marks,
Stains from drunken falls.
All those endless nights,
Dead bedsheets,
Waiting for the chemicals
To push my head underwater,
To find sleep.

Windowsill vigils,
Awake with the moon.
Kept myself alive
For these pockets of time
Where I do not need to talk.
Where I do not need to move.

I was not blessed with rhythm,
Was not born to set things free,
Still working with the wine and the ****,
No longer dancing cheek to cheek.

She was the puzzle piece that did not fit,
The sound of the rain, the snow, and the sleet,
The white-noise lullaby that permeated summer
And invaded all my dreams.

Now I’ve given up on love and war,
I have nothing left to fight,
No reason to stay sober,
It keeps me warm at night.

It gets me loose in the crowd,
It keeps me spinning in my place,
Think I spoke to a beautiful woman last night,
Only, I can’t remember her face.

I know you feel it too, my friend,
On your phone in a crowded room,
Checking your exits everywhere you go.
Yet you stay for the company,
You stay for that minuscule chance
Of a late-night spoon.

You stay out for the hope
That you will not miss out,
You drink to forget,
To white-wash self-doubt.

You hear the beautiful music
And although you’re set free,
There’s an ache in your heart, saying,
No beauty could come from me.

I was not blessed with composure,
All the subtlety I lack,
But no man is perfect-
We’ve all got a hideous *******.

I’m a slave to my *****,
I’m a slave to my cravings,
Cigarettes, *****, and late-night food,
until I've spent all my savings.

I’m a slave to the working day,
To the white-noise thoughts
That rattle my brain,
To the chemical feast
And the paltry remains,
The scratch-card defeat,
The guessing games,
I’ve grown up now
And I’ve grown up strange,

I am not blessed with charisma,
I am not blessed with a tongue
That can say what it means,
It just runs and runs and runs...

I’ve been walking in circles and complaining
That I will never find my place,
So many fruits to pick out from the tree
That I stop and stare,
Watch them all go to waste.

I was not blessed with rhythm,
Was not born to set things free,
But you’ll come to like me
If you sit a while
And spend some time with me.

It is not true that everyone
wants to reach for the stars.

Some of us just want to get high.

Gave up on being a saviour,
A martyr in the thicket of danger,
I won’t fight for my place
In the Free Speech Corner.

Gave up on being a bleeding heart
Run dry.

I won’t burst into flame
To prove a point:
Burn myself out
Until the chip on my shoulder
Sings like a flute.

Gave up on being a shelter,
Passion rains upon your window,
The traffic hum of weather
Just sends you off to sleep.

I won’t kick for the current,
Float to the surface,
Wait for the ambulance.

Gave up on being a lighthouse
Stood brave.

I won’t hold a torch
For love off in the distance.
I won’t carry death on my tongue
Until the moment comes.

Been staring at the screen too long,
Seeing faces in the whitewashed wall.
Been staring at the billboard
Promising a Brand New Freedom
And yet never felt so small.

Been fighting for inner peace,
The war inside my mind.
I find it helps to breathe,
To find that positive energy...
But I tend to just stick to wine.

Been giving up on giving up,
Then, giving up on that...
I’ve been a poet
And a life-long friend,
And I’ve been a selfish ****.

I’ve ****** on a stranger’s garden fence
When I was drunk and high,
I’ve disappeared for weeks on end
And never given a reason why.

I’ve been collecting memories
And turning them to lies,
I’ve become a shoulder
That you can lean on,
But one that you cannot cry.

Went crazy in the hotel sheets,
Took a pill to help me sleep,
The afterglow burned me out,
The after-party was letting out,
Been throwing up for days on end,
The winter blues, the long weekend.

Been falling into old routines,
Been lost inside my absent dreams.
Meditate on the toilet seat
To gain a modicum of sanity
In the caterwaul of the working day,
In the onset of reality.

Been picking fault in every line,
In every footstep, in every rhyme,
In the clumsy way I tie my shoes,
In the way I do not keep up with the news.

Been staring at the screen too long,
Hearing voices in the silence.
Been claiming love and poetry
But I think in *** and violence.

Been fighting for inner peace,
The war inside my mind.
I just find my way
To fill the day
And let the clock unwind.

Shadow of two-year guilt,
Rather be erratic than static.
The world rolls its tongue
And everyone is talking
But me.

You said
Something good will come out of this.
You said
That I wanted to be unhappy.
I could reach so far
For impossible dreams
But it would not be enough.

Sleep feigns rest.
Bedsheets weather to discomfort;
Hypnotic inducement
As the sun comes up.
Alarm clock, *****. Cigarette for breakfast.
Food sits in the mouth.
Chewing on plasticine,
Sudden fear of choking.

I do not remember when I got so bad.

Lacklustre tyre swings,
A noose in the half-lit cemetery.
No amount of air
To tame the breath.
Folded, years of divorce,

Of cold toast, early mornings;
My insufferable self.
You said
That I wanted to be unhappy.
You said
That love would never be enough.

Felt gospels, locally hand-stitched, hang from the necks
Of the white stone columns. Seven in total.
Wandering eyes have read them all a hundred times.
Each one belongs to a name and number.
The mass assemble on the ground floor.
The circle tiers are near-empty,
They keep their coats on.
I wonder if they are closer to G-d.
The bald island only visible to them,
The vicar’s pure white hair.
Pews are formidable with adults, Sunday best,
A silence dark with giggles, the stained glass
Shone a rainbow of torture, ******,
And I did not know what we were all there for.

Christ hung beneath a turquoise sun, kaleidoscopic agony
Etched on his straight white face. You could play a tune
On his ribs. The vicar stood bored at the platform;
glory in monotone.

Finally, we rose to song.

The adults stood tall, autogenic. I became lost in corn stalks,
Wind of reverence, spirit, mass delusion.
Everyone seems to sway. Some close their eyes. A few
Hold a hand to the sky. A grown man is dancing in the main aisle.
He is making a mockery of himself
And the adults do not stop him. Do not scald him
Or tell him to keep quiet.
The grown man seems to notice no one.
I wonder if he is the closest to G-d.

Water near-boils in black pipes, the wind outside
Seems to find its way to my chest. I choke myself.
Leave our scarves on the burning metal.
No instrumentation! Menace. I mime the words.
Cut my eye teeth climbing garage roofs,
Stole a turnip from Mr. Sutton’s patch -
The air is too holy here. Hypnotic. I cannot breathe.
A football shirt. A pair of jeans. The singing stops.
Prayer begins. The vicar drones, we answer back.
Repeat after me, repeat after me. He is talking
About next week, the order of service,
His out-of-hours devotion, our spiritual homework.
Dismissed, the mass push angrily to the doors.
Quick to their cars,
We always stayed behind. Slow, slow.

My parents led me to the pulpit. The vicar was smiling,
My name was on his list. I wondered if I was getting
The eighth felt gospel..
“You are to be confirmed.”
“Okay.”
I did not know what confirmed meant.
I did not know what submergence was.
The vicar took my hands. I puzzled at his dog collar,
His snap-necklace. My parents stood in the periphery,
The cheap seats; a happy occupation,
A successful operation.

I was to be new again.

“...and let the Holy Spirit pass through Edward,
And help to guide him through inevitable trials.”

My arms were shaking like a tuning peg.
I was a filament, quivering, giving myself away,
Flashbulb memories of disgrace. He must know.
“That’s the spirit of the Lord inside of you,
That’s why you are shaking.
It is working brilliantly.”
The vicar put his palm to my forehead.
Pores magnified, barbs descended from his nostrils,
His overgrown eyebrows. His holiness. His age.
He did not smile with his eyes.

I was handed back to my parents.
They looked pleased with themselves. Did I pass the test?
I looked up.
The ceiling was impassable.
There had been no breakthrough.

Drove past the hospital. Asleep in the passenger seat.
Surgery on my soul. Clean, clean.
There was static on the radio.
The shaking had stopped.

You were the bowl of oranges.
Lilac skin and a blue heart
On your sleeve.
The lights and colours that erupt
In stars behind closed eyes:
I saw you even when I drank myself blind.

You were the solution of words
Once all the chemicals lost their kick.
The Truth was out there,
We stayed inside sheltered routines
Which blacked out the skies,
Cast a ceiling on our dreams.

You were the Earthly phenomena
That kept me from drifting to the stars.
The coastline in my breath,
On my tongue - to everyone.
You were the name my friends
Were tired of hearing;
The name I cannot forget.

You were red wine;
On my lips and on your dress.
You were... Late-night farewells,
You were the sun salutation,
The birth of a nation
That could blossom into colour in my mind.

You were beautiful in the cloud forests,
Astral depths: we never had to speak.
What age did we reach
Before that daydream started to ache?

You were the faded fantasy
That I held like sand in my hands.
When we kissed I would tremble,
I would lose a little more of you.

You were sad singers.
Old souls that tread the line of their sanity
In fine-point precision;
You were the art that coursed my veins
When surrounded by grey food, grey rooms, grey walls.

You were the messenger with an olive leaf, a blue feather;
A signpost for dry land. You were the panic button
That would take me to the safe place in my mind.
You were the way I said ‘I love you’
In a voice that was finally mine.
You were my lighthouse in the distance
And all the words I cannot find.

I lost my St.Christopher in the high-rise brawl.
A...one-sided affair which I used to my advantage
To get a day off from school. Even now I think
About searching through the grass that has seen
A thousand residents since. Felt the pain
Of losing my father’s necklace more
Than the boot over my head.
I never threw a punch at anyone.
I did not want to let go of anything
If I could never take it back.
Sticks and stones, sticks and stones,
Sticks and stones is all that they give you
To tell you that words can do the same.

I loaded myself with cheap wine and cigarettes.
****** out of my bedroom window
Every time I was depressed and drunk.
Which... happened a lot.
Even now I think about crazed moments
As if they have stopped occurring.
As if I have stopped collecting
Ornaments of delirium
That stare me out through every move.
Laughing at the mirror when I realise who I am.
The loneliness of a satellite:
Forever turning the Earth without a place.

I lost my sanity on the wrong side of the bar.
On the wrong side of love,
Strong belief that I am always in the right.
Strong belief that I will never get too far.

The televisions are humming on Suicide Avenue.
Scarecrows hang in the allotments
And the residents scream white-noise lullabies
Into their pillow.
All is quiet.
All is still as the street-lights turn off.
George leaves for his night shift at quarter to one,
Careful not to wake a soul.
Floodlights on; signal to the curtain-twitchers
That he will make it there on time.

The house-cats have broken out on Suicide Avenue.
Flat tyres fill the driveways
To remind us of the cost of leaving.
The residents quicken heartbeats
To the breaking news.
The teenagers send laser pens to the stars
In the hope of bringing something down.
A scar still feels like a mark
You have left upon the world.

The residents do not give a **** on Suicide Avenue.
Nets surround the disused trampoline,
Cameras fitted over plasma screens,
But there is no one to catch the fallen.
When solace is required,
All is quiet.
When peace is required,
All is noise.
The youth are lost on Suicide Avenue.
There is only one route to take.

We parked at the side of the road,
You put my hand up your skirt,
Said “I’ve had a lifetime of hurt,
Make me feel that I am not alone.”

Could hardly kiss you for the lack of breath,
Could hardly look at you in the fear
Of how it feels to forget.

You had a man at home.
I was more alone than you could ever be.
Felt no sympathy for your cause of misery
Amongst luxury;

Could hardly say no in this lack of flesh,
This tom-cat longing
Once all the daylight has left.

We parked at the side of the road,
Old-stringed guitar: all rhythm and no tone.
Limbs splay across the gear-stick;
Passionless and cold,

Weak delirium of instinct
Was enough to get me through.
Could hardly speak to you

Once the engine started again.
You pulled your skirt down,
Turned the radio on,
And wondered *who cheated who?

Let me write my books of poetry,
Sing into a microphone with no connection.
Let me wash my hair in the rain
As a means to get myself dry,
To find a connection;

To cleanse my skin with ancient water
That tiptoed the forest before Man.
Let me punch the code of my identity
Into the melody and not the spreadsheet.
Allow me to **** all the people

I was before I felt alive.
Old means for yesterdays,
Ends that caused me
To start over again.

Let me send letters to New England,
Let me drink coffee on the pedestal
Of a day spent sober-
Buckle of the grass in the wind,
Mind lost to cloud canopies
And transparent heartbeats.

Let me kiss a foreign tongue
To learn that all lies taste the same.
Let me take off my clothes
When I am alone, simply to remember
That I can.

Moon: a companion,
Windowsill vigils at dawn,
Medication for the side effect
Caused by the cure.

Let me wash up in the Jovian seas
When my feet are rooted to the Earth.
Let my mind pester the working day
With dreams for tomorrow,
With catastrophes blacklisted in the sky.

Let me write my books of poetry,
Songs of sadness with no tune.
All the feelings I forgot,
All the passion I outgrew.

The old man tempts smoke down
The throat of green beer bottles
From the night before.
Cigarette a tool of precision,
Smoke falls like a lozenge
Until the bottom is occluded; endless.

When viewing art he takes to the moor,
Emergent properties of flocking birds,
Overhead patterns he can understand
Without knowing what it means.
Creation is ongoing, cumulative.
Bone upon bone, centuries of death
To build a monument for living.

The old man paints fissures on the foundations
That cultivate famous skylines,
Smoked windows interrupt sunlight;
No one is looking out for him.
The flocking birds circle the air;
Static black on the page - angry, restless.

When making art he suspends disbelief,
Essence of life locked in time,
No beauty in the fault-lines of a face
If no one has seen it smile.
Empires are falling, unknowing submission-
Tower of Babel, Interstate Highway;
All roads lead to terminal erosion.

The old man bites the skin
Around his weathered fingernails,
Fear is his mantra.
Cigarette a tool for soothing,
Smoke falls like a lozenge,
His hunger is permanent; endless.

I should have forgotten your face over time,
Red flush on your lips after a bottle of wine,
I should have pushed you out of the door,
But still I loved you,
Still, I came back for more.

I should have left you in the hurricane
After you drowned me in the flood,
I nursed your nails after they tore a wound,
Like any good lover would.

I should have kept talking about the starlight
And not the darkness in between,
I should have met you after the pills,
After I finally got clean.

I should have forgotten your claim over time,
Ruined songs now a white-noise lullaby.
I should have seen it coming,
I have seen it all before,

But still I found I loved you,
Still, I came back for more.

Ground zero again. Ghost ties to old moods
now that you have found happiness,
or at least the line of best fit.
Lips interlocked incessantly on the astral beach,
over the September permafrost
where I held up the chains of my cell
just long enough to kiss you.

Chambers of blue blood, of blue feathers
interspersed in the lining of our pockets:
I felt I could fly when I finally met you.
Heard the callousness, the human history of suffering,
when the chains overwhelmed,
when I fell back to the ground.

You were my fortune in the wishing well,
but now our tongues are rearranged,
all passions now platitudes,
another name or witness to wish me well.
Ground zero again. The foundations exposed
on what might have been love.

Monoliths of steel and scorched earth.
Broken vessels sail by in the night, influence of wine;
words are tempered but the intent remains.
You remain. Extinguished shadow in the skyline,
phantom limb of loving arms. I cannot find the stars.
I cannot reach out to anyone in the space you left behind.

Well the dogs begin to bark, disembodied
on the cemetery hill. Gravestones are silhouettes,
furniture in the night. From here you can see the housing estate,
constellations of halogen bulbs and bicycle reflectors.
All is still but my mind and the sound of the dogs in the distance.

A lofted branch, a hanging thread:
when did the rope-swing become a noose?
We came down from the trees
to burn them to the ground.
A thousand signals pass overhead. Unintelligible.
Unseen. The homeless leave ****-bottles of cheap cider
and backwater in the flower bins

but no one has seen them do it.
A chapel reflects the distant street-lights, unmoving,
so that only the trees share my discourse with living.
The dogs have shut up. The signals continue.
I lost my way again on the cemetery hill.
Scars have become medals.
My heart refuses to still.

Walked away from the world, save for luscious green
and cigarette smoke, I wonder what makes her ***;
what makes him stare mockingly over his glass
when I tell him that the system is broke.

Walked away from the world with an acoustic guitar
and notes like foundation, pressed to the corners of the walls;
the inside of my skull.

I cannot find my way out.

Walked away from the world, save for stubborn breath
and stubborn weeds poking out of the concrete in the streets;
what makes them break out for the sunlight,
what makes me crave for retreat?

Walked away from the world without a direction,
notebooks of freedom, seasonal depression;
the fork in my tongue.

I cannot find my way out.

Now the working day got me blue again
and the taxman takes all profit from my sanity,
lining the pockets of the rich in this top-heavy system.
I fell to the delusion that the left is always right
in this fight for centralised power,
but now the working day got me blue again,
and I'm tired of watching the news at ten.
I'm tired of seeing the human race **** each other,
so I turn off the television, and I try to live again.

Try to live past that working day,
past the need to keep artifacts from yesterdays
that can never effect the here and now.
Try to live past the event horizon,
the Great Electron in the sky;
the awful weight of uncertain futures-
but the working day got me blue again,
and those twelve hour shifts **** my strength
before I can punch through the wall that separates
you and I, from the happiness we earned,
the tears we cried.

The working day got me blue again,
and I've been quitting smoking for five years now,
But bad habits accumulate when you have no time
to file all the information that passes your way-
like dust across a construction site, when they promised
things would change. Though I've been breathing since birth,
I still turn to cigarettes as if they were the only thing that will calm me
in this sea of high expectations, sugar and caffeine; an isolated reality.
The working day got me blue again
and only music seems to talk above timesheets
and all those titles given to fools that you must obey.

I try to live past this humdrum panic,
this commonplace, day-to-day emergency.
I have been waiting for the paramedics,
for a team of experts or an expert lover
to frame all my fears into words, into diagnoses,
into myths and fallacies that tell me everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay, despite the finger on the button,
despite the chaos in my brain.
The working day got me blue again,

the working day got me blue,
and so all I can think of to do is to
fall into the grooves, into the static sheet of familiar melodies
on midnight walks, only my headphones and a cloud of smoke
to keep me company. The constuction site is always under new management,
the disabled are always ****** over by the government,
and its a surprise the fire service can still afford the price of running water-
double the price of Coca-Cola, and all the sheeps left to the slaughter.

I try to live past the bitterness that kills invisibly
like Carbon Monoxide; a fog, a cataract, that occludes the vision
so steadily, so incrementally,
that you cannot see the Scrooge in you,
until you find yourself alone in your room,
when only yesterdays remain, tattoo on your skin
in a series of callouses, of scars; photographs of guilt or all those better lives
lived by better men. Better women: better blades of grass and ameoba.
We stare into our phones in some punch-drunk hypnosis,
glowering at the world that distracts us from distraction.

The working day got me blue again,
and so I fall into a retreat. Into a fox-hole of self-delusion,
of puppetry in the world through my ugly words
and solemn verse; as if being clever with my tongue,
as if being cursive at the microphone is enough to save the world-
or at least, to save myself. You see, I've been a beacon of poor mental health,
I've been a victim of my own crimes for too long,
but the working day got me blue again, and before I find that strength
to punch that wall, or to make a change,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me blue again.

I try to live past the elevator jazz, as I stand on hold
for a company that would just as quickly drop me,
despite the smiles on their logos, despite their slogans of delight.
The lights went out a while ago,
and so I'll work another weekend,
I'll fix up my future pay, I'll sing sadly into my guitar
after a twelve hour shift, my ode, my unrequited love,
my poetry for Saturday.
You see, the working day got me blue again
and though I've spent my time saving up,
putting in the hours to fill my cup,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me down.

You taught me that mindfulness is staring at the moon
and watching the clouds turn colours like the Caño Cristales;
last year's poetry, last year's demise,
swept to the ocean salt through the river of time.

You taught me the out-breath was the signature of consciousness,
that temples change hands and empires will fall,
but you can forever be in the moment
once you hear waves in the traffic caterwaul.

You taught me that happiness is a working goal
and not the resting-place after a lifetime of grief.
You taught me the in-breath can cut through the static
and give meaning to a life so stretched and so brief.

Am I the one you think about
when the skies open
and you expect a storm to take you?
Am I the one you think about
when sheets turn angry
in the sleepless heat of the night?

This partial solidity,
this gulf of an ocean;
words recited by heavy eyes,
the palm reader's devotion.

Am I the one you think about
when elephants drown in the salt-marsh fields
and tears sting your eyes?
Am I the one you think about
when you apply your eyeliner
and mourn your reflection?

This endless question,
this echo of no movement;
lipstick on your glass will bloom,
my sickly, time-lapse delusion.

Am I the one you think about
when the tanks move in
and you go to war with yourself?
Am I the one you think about
when the skies open
to miles of dust and distance?

They said Keith couldn't *** without a finger up his ***,
they said Ruth was a **** for not sleeping with her man.
They said George was a woman because he couldn't grow a beard,
they said Molly was autistic, because she was a little bit weird.

They said Mr. Winchester was a ******* because he wore an overcoat,
they said Ms. Wheeler as a witch, and once sacrificed a goat.
They said Mr. Winter was so fat, he was more or less bulletproof,
they said Ms. Walker was not attractive, but if it came to it:
she'd have to do.

They said Lucinda was thin because she chose not to eat,
sitting by the bathroom doors in the lunchtime canteen.
They said Leonard was a ****** with his long, blonde hair,
they said Luke was a downy because of his vacant stare.

They said Mr. Fresco was a drinker who beat his wife at home,
they said Ms. Finkel was a *******, seen standing out in the cold.
They said an awful lot of things that decayed away over time,
but it takes a strength to train the mind

to not trod the tracks of a lifetime past,
to keep yourself to who you are,
not those ancient words,
nor those faded scars.

On A Diet

The country is on a diet,
drinking coke with no sugar,
eating burgers with no bun,
running on the treadmill;
it's powdered protein for lunch.
It's straight tequila in the evening,
a light head and guilty fries at night.

The country is on a diet,
doing yoga over yoghurt pots,
training their minds with sudoku and solitaire,
rubbing salt and condition into their hair.
It's 6 a.m. gym sessions,
it's squats on the living room floor,
the country is on a diet, my friends,
and so we have no time for truth, or war.

The country is on a diet,
avocado in the breadcrumb,
aspirin in the salt-shaker,
food numb on the tongue
and those slim-shakes always failed to deliver.
Thigh gaps and mind-the-gaps,
all these signposts for a cleaner living,
no dust on the shelf,
no bags 'neath your eyes to hide
the lack of sleep
and your ailing mental health.

The country is on a diet,
drinking tea with no milk,
eating carrot sticks with best-value dip,
running on the treadmill,
we never get too far.
It's straight tequila in the evening,
it's "anything goes" in the dark.

Rugby, Warwickshire
16/10/2015

Unholy streets of G-d, liquid tobacco,
gentle froth and steam
from the coffee estuary, split beneath the clock tower
on the idle hour; more pigeons than people,
more buildigs than choices
on this small-town, charity shop parade.

The women are still beautiful, still unattainable,
still on the brink of a breakdown
in the most confident dress.
Street-pastors carry the drunks home,
the street-cleaners appear by the afterparty,
clear out the old bottles
before the commuter picks up cigarettes
from the newsagents that never rests.

Tattoo parlours, barber shops,
Christmas on the radio come Hallowe'en-
this is the town that crazy built:
war-time poetry, jet propulsion,
chief inventor of sport,
of mild alcohol addiciton.

There's hundreds of places to get drunk in this town,
hundreds of places to hide away;
a foreign face in a sea of family and friends.
Landlocked, gridlocked,
centrally located but left out on a limb;
this town clings to the tracks,
it's avenues of escape
the only margin to keep the residents
out of mind and in their place.

But this is where I grew up,
always more car-park than parkland,
my first steps on Campbell Street,
on Armstrong Close,
first time I broke the law on Bridget Street,
on Selborne Road.
I'd push my bike all around this town,
no stopping off for a smoke,
for to get my fix-
I'd push on and on past graveyards and open bars
without a second gance.

Now, it's all shooters and soul-singers
and happenstance;
chicken wings on a late-night binge,
a box of wine, a night of sin,
wake up in shame,
life's a guessing game
and guess what, you'll never win.

Chewing gum, patches,
vapour that scratches the back of my throat,
nicotine in my blood,
you know, I'm trying my best to get clean.
Blister packs of vitamins, bowls of fruit,
buying coconut water over the counter-
green tea by the rising moon,
incense sticks and vegetables in the garden,
yet by the time night rolls on by
the locus of my eyes, they darken;
I'll be back on the beer,
I'll be smoking a carton.

This is the town that crazy built,
even the flowers by the roadside wilt,
cement factory, hum-drum poverty,
post-code belonging to Coventry,
kept out of the war
by a matter of minutes,
kept from the future
by corporate interest.

Hospital lights, supermarket glow,
I can't remember the last time
I wasn't loaded with chemicals
every time I get home,
every time I sign out
and put my head on the pillow,
I see familiar streets, familiar signs,
the job centre, the floodlights,
the 12% lager, the twist of lime.
I struggle with rhyme,
I struggle most days to get out of the house,
but at night, I know, that sea of doubt
is a river of light, to ruin my liver,
to spike my fever, to calm me down.

There's hundreds of places to get drunk in this town,
and this world it don't spin,
it just throws me around.

all the songs i lost on lovers

no longer mine

*****-inducing

barbiturate of old guilt

and even older happiness

all the songs i lose on lovers

all the lovers i lost to verse

May you never find a garden ugly,
a day when music has no life,
may you always slave at your soul,
your perfect reflection;
a kiss in the festival night.

May you never meet a door unopened
in the corridors of love,
may you always pick at your plate,
your humble inflictions;
the death of the stars above.

May you never find an empty space,
a day when beauty has no sight,
may you always search the skies,
your ****** wisdom;
a kiss in the festival night.

Sensory awareness;
fold of translucent light through thin blue sheets.
Faint scent of tobacco smoke -
morning reveals the desolation of yesterday.
Coping mechanisms galore!
Scene of poetry without a purpose,
scene of black holes in red carpet,
scene of high moons by the windowsill
and always feeling low, half-****** on Zopiclone,
how I once slept full, breathed from the diaphragm,
dreamed with ease - but that was so long ago.

Slept-in sheets, weeks of cold sweats
and takeaway pizza eaten in bed.
12 hour days on minimum wage,
I feel like a gardener on his last legs-
a garden to be tended to,
a garden that grows all around me.
The incense tray is full, synthetic Jasmine,
putrid Lemon-grass bought from the Pound Saver
solely to talk to the attractive Hungarian woman
behind the counter.
It's a working day and my mind is in disarray;
the sheets are too heavy, I'm a little hungover
and I've been going insane.

Half-an-hour to be showered, bowels emptied;
eyeballs removed - or whatever it is people do
to get themselves ready for the day.
It's a scene of kicking out in dead-water,
it's a scene of black holes and being human,
it's a scene of fear for the present day,
so much so you cannot build for a future.
Half-an-hour to be showered and out of the door,
half-an-hour to be someone I'm not-
well... I've had to fake it all before.

The Empire is built on the soil of a million dead soldiers.
Drug of war, crater covered up by miles of dust and distance;
cameras cut to graves of the fallen 'brave'
as if bravery can only exist in death.
Meanwhile, cameras forgot
to catch the fall of the still-living into poverty-
a life of psychological warfare-
how can you fund for a disaster
when you have no proof that it is there?

New To Town

There's clinking glass and wine on tap,
I'm new to town and I'm drinking alone.
This bar is full of beautiful women-
over half of them attached to some man
and the rest; laughably unattainable.

I've been playing with the jukebox in the corner,
picking at the cold fries surrrounding
a carcass of chicken; all the food in here
is the exact same shade of beige;
only ketchup and a smooth black stout bringing
real colour to the proceedings.

I've been spending half my time outside
in the half-lit beer garden,
standing beneath the thong-shaped tarpaulin
that hangs as an excuse for a shelter.

My eyes are a little red, but that's nothing new-
nothing a few sleepless work nights
won't do to you;
I smoke wearily in the rain
but I know I will sleep well, and full, tonight.
You see, the air feels clear here,
the people are good here;
I can wak to the coastline
to remind myself it isn't all concrete
and violence in the street;
I know that I am drunk tonight
but I feel that here, eventually,
I won't have to take to a chemical retreat
to find peace, to find sleep, to espace war on the screen;
to remind myself that I don't have to stand small
beneath the bigger names and bigger signs;
to remind myself that I cannot save the world
if I am so ******* in knots
that I can never unwind.

The tables are numbered, long, and communal here.
Men smile with all of their teeth
and clothes always hang better over confident frames;
I feel drunk on their confidence, an ocean spray
that salts my skin and thickens my hair-
a solution made in the depths of fluid and air.

Despite being on my fourth stout,
my leg is still jigging uncontrollably
beaneath the table
and so I roll another cigarette;
fix my eyes shortly to the screen
to watch the sports news roll by.

As I smoke once more
and listen to the rain hit the tarp
and a train roll in the distance,
I remember how far I've come,
how far I threw the dice
and gambled on this, a  better life.
A life by the sea in full bars
of beauitful people;
on the outside and looking in
on a scene full of pretension,
but shelves of whiskey and gin.

Earlier in the night, I walked down from my new place
and talked to the strangers in their workplace positions;
I stopped and asked for directions
as if I was someone who stopped people
and asked them for directions...

Now it's night,
I'm caught in the headlights;
in the traffic light shooters;
rainbow cocktails, more sweetener than *****;
but it all feels new,
too new
and I'm left with a tongue too big for my mouth,
I'm left with a head-full of doubt
and a gut-full of stout.

Still, the air is clear here,
the people are good here
and I can walk to the coastline
to remind myself that it isn't all about
going out for fresh air
and smoking cigarettes;
that it isn't about finding a state of happiness,
like Atlas; holding up the sky
in the fear it will fall upon us.
I can remind myself
that there is no race to be run,
there is no prize to be won;
I stopped being competitive
once I realised how pointless it was
to separate yourself from others.

There's clinking glass and wine on tap.
I'm new to town and, at least for tonight,
I'm drinking alone.
But there's a difference between
solitude and isolation
and in the company of these brand new streets,
I think I finally feel at home.

I have constantly rearranged myself,
eaten away at my own stomach
and then come to wonder
why it is I cannot eat.

I have always found a reason
to smoke instead of drawing a breath;
as if breathing cannot save me,
as if breathing has not been the only thing
that has always been there, since birth;
in spite of myself in grey days-
in spite of genocide
and weeks spent inside,
emptied bottles of wine
and tracks that disappear
before the end of the line.

I have constantly been reappearing
in social circles,
long enough to hold a thought
across the beer garden table,
long enough to make promises
that I could never hope to keep.
I have been haunted
in places filled with light,
I have plundered all my longings
at the mercy of the night.

if you are expecting a poem
after a night like that
then you will be disappointed.
there are not enough words.
there is not enough time.

I was born for Nebraska
I was born for the Massif Central
I was born for the mountain top shrine
with nothing but the music of nature
to distract me
I was born for the weekly news
on some sleepy island in the Pacific
I was born for Covent Garden
The Pangea of Culture
New Orleans trumpets;
the flamenco player
twisting lime into his drink
I was born for the cotton fields
I was born for the salt marsh
for the tug-boat all out of fresh water
I was born for the Ganges
I was born in the shadow of the Hajj
I was born for the G-dless land
of Death Valley
the streets of Harlem
I was born into the spirit
of old Afghanistan
I was born on the false strings
of liberated women-

I was born on a stage of puppets
a backdrop of Glaswegian tenements
or of fjords unvisited
beside Scandinavian seas
I was born for Rugby Cement
I was born to be fixed in place
This wandering mind
These restless legs
I was born with a travelling soul
in a town where I can barely walk

The bonfire left ash in your drink.
The sea was rolling blindly
outside our sphere of light on the beach.
I kissed you drunk on the lips.
I kissed you high on your thighs.
The world toiled in its movements
as we fell beneath the aching moon,
finally hurting, finally pleasing;
finally ending all of the question marks
with the solution of our *** in the sand.
I kissed you drunk on the lips
and told you that I loved you.
The bonfire left ash in your drink.
The night let life in your heart.

I cannot stop drinking tonight
I cannot stop smoking
I've had my fill
but the hunger resides
There is always something more
that I should be doing
There is always an impossible deadline
a misfortune in the breeze
I cannot stop thinking tonight
I cannot stop thinking

You were a trophy
before I met you.
Thought that making it with you
would be enough for my happiness.
Then, I met your sadness.

How you cannot see
how wonderful you are:
the waterfall that falls too fast
to ever account for its own beauty.

You were a trophy
before I found that you held no value
in yourself; no capacity
in your cup, even when full of wine.

You were a trophy
before I met you.
Now, I do not wish
to hold you aloft
to the crowds;

instead, to hold you in the sheets-
far, so far, from here.

You do not love him.
For ****'s sake: you do not love him.
You are scared of being alone-
we all are. You are scared of being alone
despite your claims of freedom and independence;
all those hours you spend alone
in the comfort of the screen,
or else in the haunts of all the tracks
he has trod or stumbled over before
in the meadow of your memories.
You do not love him.
You love the happiness that has passed between you,
like teenage *****; like childhood sugar;
you outgrow everything
that was not built for your needs.
You know that I am.
You know that I am.

Show me how you cry.
Show me how you drink red wine
and pass the time.
Show me how you freak out,
how you clasp your palms
through moments of doubt,
careful to let nothing slip out;
let nothing recede the paint on your face-
I know that your careful eyeliner
is the borderline to help you find your place.
Show me how you sleep.
Show me how you
fall into routine;
show me how you have learned to stumble through life
and look as if you have not missed a stride.
Show me the freckle
on your inner thigh,
show me how you drink red wine,
show me how sometimes, you want to die.
Show me how you cry.

I am not the man for you.
I know that I am not.
You are looking for that bright potential,
that sword-in-the-stone appraisal;
the Chosen One on steroids,
the hero on the screen.

I am not the man for you.
I know that I am not.
You are looking for an easy weekend,
smart dinners at the comedy show;
ribbons and bows of devotion-
those grand gestures
I could never bestow.

I am not the man for you.
I am not for anyone.
You see,
there’s a fatal, fatal flaw in me,
that I will only love
once the love has gone.

Take one a day and mind the gap,
the rich and the poor, the beer on tap,
stand in line, date and sign,
the Red Bull jitters, the box of wine,
give way to the left, give way to the right,
the artificial winter, the bringer of night.

When did I start drinking to **** the day
instead of to start up the night?
When did her smile
start to mean more to me than my own?
When did I start to listen to music
by hearing the spaces between the sound?
When did her smile revive my senses
and manage to lift me from the ground?

Blister packs  and Auld Lang Syne,
the rain-dance in the rain-forests
where no one keeps time;
the maypole, the bar stool,
the sunstroke pilgrimage;
the Superbowl commercial,
the secret raiding of the fridge-
all conforming to some routine
of half-comfortable bliss;
we stumble blindly through
our blueprint futures-
we borrow our happiness.

The truth is out there
if you look within:
the circadian rhythm,
the central nervous system;
the clamour of your mind
in the face of chronic stress.
The Lenders are out
in the crowds now,
with their placards of high-interest
amongst the indifference
of the street-meat vendors,
the numbered tables at the bar;
we spoil ourselves in the reach
of the so near's;
that we forsake all of the so far's.

The teenagers smile through their misery
as they learn to love the taste of beer.
I learned from then on that no actions of ease
are ever sincere; that we all struggle to keep pace
with all that is expected - a grade-mark percentage,
an overtime enthusiast; a steady-state consumer
who is always bright, bright, bright and on time;
who is never bleak and twisted, or overcast and out of mind.

I see the couple's silent feud
as they hold hands across the road;
I see the womanizer pop a zit in a wing mirror
on his way to the latest *******.

The sales assistant yawns through the breathing spaces
of professional enthusiasm, scouring the pages
of the company magazine, whilst the radio sweats
in the corner of the room. Last night's words
are on her mind as she signs the papers
with today's date; today's place in time
amongst all of the others that dominate her life,
whilst leaving scars and no memories,
punching the clock and throwing the fight.

I see the hang-man wince in empathy
after his dog had died last week;
I see the expert in the hotel mirror,
feeling sorry about his ****.

The Beautiful People are walking the ugly track
back home, amongst the rubble of Snapchats
and bad scratch-cards; the cardiac nurse
meditates in the restaurant corridor
before going to meet a woman.
I learned from my lofted position
on top of all the walls I have built,
that no matter how vivid the flower in sunlight,
in the darkness, it will always come to wilt.

They link arms and walk in solidarity
for those that have died for our freedom.
They sell arms to the lunatics,
to the future, blind assassins,
and the terrorists they will come to condemn.

They cross words with each other
in a room of hot air and bucked teeth,
then pull together if they feel
any shift of power
like a rug beneath their feet;

experienced tongues
are well versed in deceit-
call it reptilian,
call it good diction,
call it a swig of fiction
to chase down
the spirit of Fact;
we live in a pack of lives,
ruled by a pack of wolves
in a sheep's disguise;
we herd ourselves
with sensory distraction;
in fear of dissolution,
in want of a real kind of reaction-
But the charity shops are piling off
and we're all too broke to give,
so we live in guilt as the flowers wilt
on the roadside; another number
for the headlines,
another ****** on the land.

How long must we be ruled
by those who cannot understand
what it takes to be a woman,
what it takes to be a man.

Sometimes I fear
I will run out of things to write about.
Often I fear,
I already have.

I put you to the back of my mind,
not because I don't care,
but as the grieving mother-of-two
places her own mother's
garments into the attic:
none of you
has left me,
I promise.
It's just that I do not fit.

It would be too painful
to throw you away.

So now you stand
as a measure to dust and distance;
as a measure for every woman
who calls me by my name.
We walked together
on lonely mid-night crawls,
the pillow-talk in my empty sheets;
you were the stalwart companion
in all of miy dreams.

The miracle in the chicken shop,
the sanctum on the screen.

I put you to the back of mind
so that I could focus on
what is in front of me.
None of you
has left me,
I promise.
My hands blister
from holding onto you,

but it would be too painful
to throw you away.