The snow piles up and is then washed away
like the change in an alcoholic's wallet,
appearing too briefly to instate a memory,
whilst the world remains unchanged, come morn.

Last year I smiled with tears in my eyes
as the snow fell and I waited for the bus.
I could feel the onset of a great transition;
but I had to lose my mind, before I found myself.

It has been a long year of beer bottled ash
and months spent catching up on lost sleep.
The pills came to take a weight from me,
until I gained the strength to carry the rest.

Songs have appeared with omniscient timing
to carry my breath through the bulrushes
of the river that never seemed to reach a source.
I am still looking for the ocean blue, the view

that will take me from these seasonal lows,
to a place where I can thaw out and live.

I am still trying my best.
Stretching my legs to the coastline,
lactic shackles of inertia
are cast off.

I remember the ease
of animating these young limbs-
concrete strut, woodland walk;

it is hard to think of you much these days,
even in the confines
of unread books and filter coffee.
I have forgotten you, your blue dress,
your punting on the Thames.

There are harder habits
than caffeine and rich women.
As Ol' Tom Waits says,
“you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops.”

The glass roof of the arcade
offers translucent sunlight,
a high-street retreat from the nature of the sea,
all mankind's institutionalisation,
all these walls and closing times,
bigger names over bigger signs.

I am still a rare sight of youth
amongst the patient, ringed eyes
of those book-shop loyalists;
a choir of silver on their heads,
acquired wisdom of faded routines,
old laughter etched like the Nazca Lines
in their faces, lips eroded and pale;
sexless in the fluorescent lighting.

Breathing spaces where life exists
are always held closest to the fear of death.
I am still finding a clean way of living,
a way to accept my place, my face
in the mirror of my self-hate, anxious words
and half-conscious recollections;
the remnants and scars from asphyxiation – old drownings:

the sorrow that separated myself from others,
the sorrow that separated you and I,
you and I.
Your pursuit of a well-ticked time-sheet,
my love for sentiments that rhyme.

I have learned the patterns of the waves,
the way money is exchanged.

Oh, my dearest depression,
my ache for acceptance.
My endless, endless ocean of blue
can be sad, so sad,
but it can be beautiful too.

The old vacuous building
parasols the weak sun;
nothing enters here.

Nothing but rainwater
sleeping in puddles.
Cigarette ends, wet cardboard,
with only whitewashed walls
showing light,
showing grime.

Grey in the cracks, the mortar,
tainting, turning to off-white,
the pollution of the city
staining the bridal gown.

How far is the bridge,
from my mug of tea?

How far are people talking
above The Grateful Dead?

The old vacuous building
barricades the strong wind;
and I can’t leave here.

I haven’t seen sunlight
in over a month.
Nicotine gum, apathetic tug
in my matter
showing then,
showing now.

Scribbled in notes, I sought her.
Failing, I turn to lost sight,
the pollution of the city
turning the pages down.

How long will it take,
upon bended knee?

How hard is it to balance,
these troubles in my head?

The old vacuous building
parasols the weak sun;
I’m scared I’ll never leave.

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 had a lover in Calgary
who used to paint the mountains.
She was all words
and no ***, and so I was bound
to hurt her eventually.

I had a lover in Monteverde.
We would take the sky walk to the clouds
and lighten heads with wine.
I could never stand out from the beauty
that surrounded us.

I had a lover in Chernobyl
who used to collect children's shoes.
She was all memory
and no life, living in the fallout
of love and love's decay.

I had a lover in Alice Springs.
We would **** and drink in her shanty house
and argue through till morn.
I could never stand the sight of sorrow
and aboriginal rust.

I had a lover in every country.
They kept me from the sports news with gifts
of poets and good music.
For all the kindness they had offered,
I never had a speck to give in return.

I’m tired of these lonesome nights
spent **** in fist and staring at the ceiling.
Exist in thought and again through
ever-changing screens;
it’s been years since I lived through action.

Desiccated white heels in the dust of Savannakhet.
Finding love in the half-dark Bangkok hotel room.
The bar-maid in Malaga, hash from Morocco,
all those nights spent lusting for blood amongst the wine.

Now getting high means finding an anchor
to hold me down when gravity does not feel enough.
When all forces of G-d and Nature combined
Cannot rattle hard enough to force me to speak
in any half-filled room.

Sometimes I’m certain the noise in my chest
can be heard aloud
and everyone knows I am nothing.
I wonder why in all my dreams
Beauty follows in my footsteps.

I wonder why in all my dreams
I’m running away from something.

He chains black coffee and cigarettes,
knocking ash into last night's beer bottles
whilst Tom Waits is yowling from the stereo.
The Sunday morning is bright-white
like the bleached kitchen counters
that spread in uniform fashion
across the neighbourhood.
The window blinds him with the brilliance
of daylight, after staring too long at the screen.
Another chance to make a go at living,
but with the opportunity
of squandering it all the same.

Conscious that he was standing in his boxer shorts
and more so for the inevitable morning *******,
he checked for humanoid shapes in the allotments;
no Peeping Toms or curtain-twitchers,
only carcasses of Sunflowers
charred by November
and forming a Tunguskan fence.
In his incomplete state of a half-grown beard
and lack of full-time employment,
he found it quite impossible to think
that he was the present day culmination
of all humanity's endeavours.

Save for a relentless talent of self-destruction
and a penchant for giving oral ***,
he had long given up on a remarkable life,
instead savouring the aesthetic of smoke
curling by an open window,
or else watching the squirrels renovate their homes
to the patterns of the seasons.
A strain of survivors lead to his existence
but it didn't steel him in the slightest;
the most energetic thing he had done all week
was to kick a dog-chewed tennis ball
across the park in disgust at his life.

He kept a chart of happiness tacked to the wall
but he was always too depressed to fill it in.
Instead, there were books to be stared at
from their shelves, women to be thought of
but never spoken to;
a windowsill to lean against
and feel at one with the Earth.
Despite the cruelty of self-imposed detainment,
he had come to find a solace in stillness;
to slow his days to a glacial pace
with tense, quivering yoga poses,
and a disdain for daytime television.

During this hiatus for living he had finally
stopped biting the skin around his nails
to the point his fingers would bleed.
He was a man with a myriad of bad habits
and an maltreated disease,
but now the world was crashing around him
whilst he stood in the sidelines
as a disinterested spectator.
He has no stake in the outcome
of endless war and lottery tickets;
only the next collection of honest words,
and to where they might lead him.

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.

Finding a living is so hard,
so difficult to sustain
without a reason to sustain it.
Beyond personal dreams
and a need for greed.

An ocean of eyes follow me
through the working day
until I crave isolation.
Only to stumble into
my blank-walled retreat
and realise what isolation really means.

What happened to our potential love?
I cannot read your last letter,
too scared to hear
that you hold a happiness
that bears absolutely
no reliance on me.

You found our distance
lost its charm. You have him,
with his immediacy
and a history to draw upon,
to justify.
I am a teenage folly,
left in the scrap of old photographs
and even older emotion.

A disused, defunct muscle
left to atrophy
as you find your comfort
and your way in life.
But you are a stray, a stray
with the desire
to be led astray;
with the want for a longing.

You know I can fill your days with poetry,
your bed with flame,
your winters with heat.

No wind hums
As I move into the next sunlight.
Spring is at my door
And apparently that’s meant
To mean a thing or two
For happiness.
For the dancing tiptoes,
And being allowed to
Drink in the day;
So long as the sun is in the sky.

This is the British Summer:
The arrival of soft jazz over beer gardens,
With scones and coffee
For the brand new lovers.
They’re too scared to drink,
For fear of saying something true about themselves.

They nod, they nod and agree, agree, agree.
She internalises sexism,
Whilst he tolerates sexlessness;
They’re both clinging to that coastline postcard
That is now lost to pollution,
And to the havoc of streetlights on stars.

She heals cocoa butter into her pores
As he falters on through his Big Mac.
They met in McDonald’s, for fear of suggestion,
Yet he could tell from her nose ring,
The life in her eyes,
That there was something beyond
Their corporate collision.

Oh, this is my life.
Mere fantasies of far-off places,
Of far-off loves and feelings;
Where everything descends from intuition;
From where everything stems
From my childhood heart.

Let me go to war.

Let me go to war against all the odds,

Against all the ends

And everything that treads in between the grooves

And the cracks in the pavement.



Let me go to war for all that was lost in the fire

Or in the stewing **** of the flooded toilet.

Let me go to war against the loaded dice

And the big fella in his baseball cap

Shifting his fat on the stool,

Awaiting that certain hand that will feed his boy

And get head from his double-dealing wife.



Let me go to war against the ivory towers of hypocrisy

That is the church.

The breathless opulence of a rain soaked cathedral

And the poverty of righteousness

Found in every leap from scripture

And every hungry soul.

In every forgotten feminist.

And still the Pope stands in his robes twined with gold,

Claiming to feed the world.



Oh please, let me slit the throats

Of every person who scoffs at the teenager cutting his wrists,

Or at the old couple fading to grey in a world of multi-coloured ****.

Let me begin the culling

Of those who undermine The Beatles

And all other music

By turning it into another cash cow

And for those that stand with their cameras,

So desperate to chronicle this experience,

That they forget to experience.



And finally, let me go to war.

Let me go to war with myself

For being too quick to judge

And assuming I am the arbiter of fairness

And where the ashtray should sit on the table.

Let me go to war with the demons that fester in my brain

And scratch on the walls of my mind when I try to sleep

And rattle their cages every time I step into a new world.

Let me go to war so that on my deathbed,

My last thought isn’t this:



That for all the money I had made,

For all the times I had got laid,

And even the times I had got high

That I didn’t let those opportunities go by

Where I could just sit in the dark of an October dawn

And watch the rise of the morning sun.

It is time for a new speed.

A fresh pair of cotton socks and a handful of cash.

I’m going to take that road I have walked one hundred times

And walk it backwards.



I have slammed enough doors

To know when I’m ready to soften.

I must decide whether to hold my breath

And climb out of ground zero.

Or just lay down in the rubble.



I can see the dregs.

The grit in the tea, the flattened beer.

The paltry tobacco at the bottom of the bag.

Desolate and sparse. The ineffable honesty

Of the etchings around my eyes.



My legs twitch in a lethargic energy.

They kick out and twist in the bedsheets

Tangled in routine.

I’m kicking out against the bars

That constantly hold me in.

A silence of mind
and vinegar wine,
the shopping precinct
a disembowelled mine.

Bombs stain the mountains
to build a hotel,
for tourists to buy
a wish from the well.

A wish for comfort
and one for new love,
in marital bliss
and skyscapes above.

Escape from their God
of tablets and time,
of substitute taste
for tonic and lime.

Escape from their want
of waistlines and faith,
relief from the haunt
of some childhood wraith.

Travel sets its price
to find your own face,
to find there's no cost,
in finding your place.

I remember crying over Chopin.
I was twenty years old
and coming down from alcoholism.
There were words in the
hammers and strings,
but I couldn't understand
a word that they were saying.

Around that time I started meditation.
A room to renovate, I took
a step-ladder to the astral realm
and spilled poetry from my dreams.
I was twenty years old
and in the process of quitting.
It's a slow-burner, even now.

There were doctrines for self-actualisation.
I was moved to understand them
in a smattering of conspiracy theories,
Buddhist mantras, and lazy hikes.
I wore sunglasses and shorts
in Gran Canaria, and strived
to get you out of your dress.

I remember swimming in the cenote
and conjuring breeze from
the warmth of your breath.
I would soak into wine and
stolen cigarettes, as you toyed with
your bikini in the mirror. I remember
the freckles along your inner thigh.

Around that time I worked a living
scanning bar-codes and forcing
hangovers down until lunch.
There was a tiredness gained
that cannot be shaken off,
and a lust for justice
amputated at the tip.

There were road-side sandwiches
and flicks of hair in the wind.
You pinned me to the bed
and showed me what love meant.
Three years on and I'm an old man.
There are friendships contained
in memories, as I think back to when
I was twenty years old.

"Lets go on a walk, Sam."
Let's go on a walk; go on a walk with Sam.

Mummy is driving, not walking.
She's being quiet;
I want to be quiet, too.

A Ford Escort is going past.
It's blue and the people inside
are laughing at each other.

The two girls in the backseats
have pretty brown hair but
they're too busy laughing to notice.

"Where did you get that hat?"
Where did you get that hat, Sam?
He needed it for the walk.

Laughter is weird. I do it
sometimes, but it's not with
other people. I'm okay with that.

When I laugh, people look scared.
Mummy says it's like a sonic boom,
and that's why people pull faces.

"Where did Jess go?"
Jess went on the walk with Sam!

Sometimes I wish I had a Jess.
Mummy got married at nineteen,
so I only have two months

and twenty-seven days
until I find my Jess.
Until someone loves me.

Distant as the far-off maritime state,
undeniable as the endless mismatch
of rock turmoil in the centre of the Earth,
and as vital as the pound of flesh, pulp
and lung, tired bronchiole, wasted lyric,
and cancer's ever-present weight
upon your mind.

Familiar as your lover's intonation,
as she asks of the breadth of your love,
attractive as the modest celebrity,
with legs splayed in bronzed celebration
of this, her life's affirmation.

Bound as the pages of your old journal,
full of misdirected sorrow and old, old love.
Curtailed as the dance floors abandoned
at request of the lights, sugared, spilt drinks
to rot the wooden boarding, now devoted
to misery-cleaners and the bringers
of tomorrow.

Firewalled as the world is to debt.
Cardboard shop-fronts, straw-men hippies
and bent products, cash out at Christmas,
then a haemorrhage in the New Year of
old floods and foreclosures. Covered up
as is the rusted kettle to stifle flame.

Lost as flavour is to ketchup, as winter
is to hope of heat, to desire of spring
and the end of forever-night. Thin as
my wrists, as hands hold the banister,
gaining small balance in life's rare incline,
long stripped of exercise, of enterprise.

Unutterable as the soul-sounds
I feel when I pick up the guitar,
as unattainable in this life,
as is beauty once my knotted fingers
press consciously upon the strings.

A truth legacy found in blood and
distortion, found in intuitive drives,
warped by consumption. Dismissed
theory of Atlantean ties,
of old Babylon
and Reptilian lullabies.

Luring, luring, luring to distraction,
into the night and the plight,
into the absence of Arcturian light!

Keep close to me, please,
oh, feeble recollection,
please take me to truth,
in this, my meditation.

I followed you out of the picture,
our subtle breakdowns, anti-matter,
too drunk to function, too vibrant to sleep.

The tables were numbered when we sat to eat,
uniform plates, revolving staff, doors open
to the public, red wine on tap.

I met you in the bathroom, venetian white,
***** on your sleeve, tears in your eyes,
love on your tongue – an emptied stomach.

I know I can poison you with words,
stop your taste for wine with a kiss.

I followed you to the open grounds,
pollen thick in my lungs, the wind ate sound,
removing all history: you and me, you and me.

The fountain turned copper with generosity,
faded queen, bottle-cap fraud; crowds took us
to alleyways, to your opened front door.

I met you in the kitchen, synthetic white,
heart on your sleeve, *** in your eyes,
tongue upon tongue – truth amongst lies.

I know I can save you from endless distraction,
this need for a fiction; this want for an action.

Narcissus was hunted,
His life abated through reflection
‘Till all that was left was his beauty
Stained on the water’s surface,
And his tale as a flare in the night
For every proud soul.

Thenceforth we shamed ourselves,
For every fleeting glimpse at the face
Which contains the twinned thoughts of our own.
The mirror, now a symbol
Of despicable self-assurance,
Man’s vain invention.

It is the microphone
However; the tool that listens,
Clamours attention to every word
And breaks in vicious soundwaves,
That’s the true measure of vanity,
A catapulted voice.

The mirror, used more so
As a reflection of our self-doubt
And all of the fear people can see.
My self-effacing curses,
My knowledge of singularity,
And total lack of greed.

World of code;

riddle,
and a brand new
language.
I hold you close my
dear, as you stumble on through the dark night.
This knowledge
is hastening to bring my demise.
You sit within my pentameter,
so when did
I lose my peaceful mind?
I'm still struggling in poetry, in finding art
amongst the burdens of the street. You're applying sunscreen
to your back and shoulders, and then
you're basking in the heat of my astral beach.
I'm stranded here
alone now,
sending these postcards
to nowhere at all. I have grown tired
of this mere existence,
of fading in the city sprawl.
Now Mathematics
is the language of the universe,
and will speak for
centuries to come,
gravity making sense
out of chaos, and will talk forever over
the nuclear bomb.
I'm learning
my sums again darling, I'm going back
to a clean state of mind, hoping to discover
an answer, to why I'm

constantly falling
behind. When I find the equation I will
call you, and profess them unto the stars,
a love never lost
in
translation, now witnessing both the sea and the source.

She draws black wings to her eyes
in a green-wash reflection, light
cascading through the shutters
of the ceiling fan, whilst red lips
rehearse a smile for her lover.

He will hold her like a wallet as
they pay their way through town.
It has been months since she felt
human touch, mammalian warmth,
or whispers exchanged across the pillow.

His eyes are on the screen as she
undresses and then falls beneath
his weight on the mattress. An empty
thud, a hollow sound, as his night is
given purpose, and then falls to sleep again.

She lies awake and wonders where
her night went. There was laughter
across the table, drinks stirred with straws,
and UFOs painting pictures in the sky.
The sea roared in the distance like

a passing train, and so there must be
an escape to a far-off land for her
to start again. Start again beyond
waistlines, over coastlines, and all ties
to employment. To start again

with a half-naked lover, who will
watch as the wind kicks up her hair;
as her skin freckles once more
in the sun.

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.

You fenced off your eyes
with a charcoal black,
then stranded in snow
and an endless depression,
you painted your death-mask
in venetian ceruse,
hoping that it would be enough
to appease your critics;
to keep away from the sun,
to slip through the seams of time,
and to a place where
the evenings do not seem so long.

You gave your sanity
to a useless drug
and kept your identity
to the picture
within his wallet.
I hope you know your bravery is noticed.
I hope that for once
you can find peace
amongst this constant state of war.

I guess I'm lonely.
I guess I'm a little arrogant.
I guess my collar turns up to the wind
whilst blocking out the adverts
in my periphery.
I guess I blinkered myself
to keep things moving forward,
detaching from people
to find an honest word,
beyond fear of detection,
beyond hurting others
whilst I shatter into pieces;
making the stage the only place
where I can find a voice
choosing solitude,
as if I had a choice-
you know I never learned
how to drive a car,
I have walked so many miles
but I have never got very far.
I guess I'm lazy.
I guess I'm a little broken.
I guess I'm just a skeleton
of all the words I've left unspoken.

You cannot own my river
but I will let you name the sea,
with its fortressed depth
and alien life,
all out of sight and out of mind;
the poisoned sustenance of brine.

Leave the blame at my feet
and forget me over time,
you can take the roads
leading north,
if you allow me to take the south,
with no chance of a future collide.

We can cut a deal over the reservoir
if I can retain the quarry,
it was never yours
from the start,
but you can play the victim's harp,
whilst I tattoo over my scars.

I will sing for the Star of Bethlehem,
you can fall into the arms of David,
you can make it out and
pay your dues,
shine lights onto your winter blues,
whilst I anaesthetise each painful bruise.

You can paint over the wallpaper
whilst I am replacing all my strings,
we can change the meaning
to our favourite songs,
I will sever the ties to unalterable tunes;
all of those words that lead back to you.

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.

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.

With noon’s grim call, I rise too late.
Condensed sunlight through greys and slate.

Awake with a steadfast hunger for sleep,
to push out these pains that so make me weep.

Each day is rushed to a ****** too soon,
like some alleyway lover, ‘neath the moon.

‘Neath the moon, I give into wine;
vessel over my wholesome Tyne.

It’s all I have, to numb this pain,
pattern my thoughts, order my brain.

And with self-disgust, I discuss the past,
self-talk: The only friendship built to last.

I think on us all, and what we have been,
a filtered film-still, or some beauty queen,

when life weren’t fair, but fortunes true,
when the sky still ran that azure blue,

love no more than a hungry kiss,
some manufactured teenage bliss.

And lo, I’ve no friend to confide my heart,
each pound of muscle to create my art,

each longing of longing for reader’s love,
and my origins with the stars above.

No, reader, my dear, you’re all that is left,
to align my soul, frequently bereft.

So, read not this page as poetry,
but of the union of you and me,

we sit in life so clumsily
and yet with poise, we love so endlessly.

In reclamation of a childhood-mind,
I storm my sobriety with a torrent
of half-assed joints and forgotten poets,
until all that is formed is some vital compound
that links intrinsically, possessively, autonomously,
the motion of sound.

From this I'll crack open that nitrous,
in an attempt to leave eternity bare,
within these primitive paws, sweated clutch
and insufficient air,
that filters oxygen as a reluctant fool,
some corporate machine, or human tool.

It is in reclamation I tend to my childhood-mind,
to storm my sobriety in receipt
of half-assed tragedies and rhyme,

'till all that is left is this fragmented page
of that paradise lost,
on minimum wage.

I found the reason for living,
In the beating of a drum.
Where everything has a purpose,
A place where everything belongs.

And, I’ve been living in the fallout
Of an atomic bomb,
There may be stumbles in my footprints,
But you’ve never steered me wrong.

So don’t you feel embarrassed
By your young suffering,
For what is learned in the morning,
By the evening, becomes instinct.

I’ve been dreaming of a culture,
I’ve been auctioning the sky,
As you draw me a new future;
Oh, it’s so beautiful, I cry.

So now I’m getting on that train,
To put some miles in between,
Who I appear as in the doorway,
And who I really mean to be.

And, I’ve been living in the fallout
Of an atomic bomb,
There may be stumbles in my footprints,
But you’ve never steered me wrong.

I want to dig my nails – no longer ravaged by my teeth
Into my life.
I want to see the zest spray onto my chequered shirt
And hope there is something sweeter inside.

I could go out tonight
And drink until the gag of beer seizes my throat
And causes me to cling sagely to the bathroom tiles.
Until I feel the Earth’s axis shudder
And those plates of rock rumble together in an endless Blitzkrieg
In the centre of the world.

These pseudo suicidal thoughts permeate,
Like an artist painting his meticulous masterpiece
Next to a vat of scarlet paint or lighter fluid.

I could go out tonight
And take a pill until the pound of my heart
Causes my eyes to open
And see past the blackness of my life.
I can dance double-time in an endless ocean of strangers
In the centre of the world.

Oh, I could take a scalpel
To every freckle on my skin,
Before I realise we all burn in the sun.

They run up a flag on the roadside.
It is dusted and covered in tar,
But the message still comes across
And it reads without words.

The women and children went first.
The men were quick and fierce,
And the kind hearted were always the first to die.

Plumes of ash and smoke were pillars in the skyline
And it was truth once the birds stopped flying,
That every living thing had died that day.
The rest was existence.

It was an obvious ending.
Played out by the thousands in their minds,
But only a few through their tongues
And so it was said without words.

The lunatics and charlatans came first.
Most didn’t follow them
And they were right not to.

They tied in the imminent and the absurd
Until it was impossible to separate the two.
They spoke of truths understood entirely
But ridiculed all the same.

By the time sanity caught up it was too late.
The trees had lost their branches in a cancer,
Now just charred cigarette stumps
And they died without words.

The trees and the vegetation came first.
But now they grew only in pockets
And even then still scorched by the sun.

And so now the mother was barren.
Her coastlines bruised and skyline broken,
Twisted metal and scorched Earth,
No longer a parent but a victim.

Only the dead and the shadows are living now.
They are dusted and covered in tar,
Their stomachs have long since ceased yowling,
And they starve without words.

The humans were gone first.
Until all that was left was everything grey
And the minions of Orcus.

They are wrought like humans,
But their eyes are feral and their teeth sharpened.
The taste of blood is in their own,
Animal, Angel or Human regardless.

A fire burns and men sit in circles.
What is left of them at least.
They scrape the flesh off the bone
And they live without words.

The bullets were used first.
Cheap and *****, but it got the job done.
Straight through the eye socket.

No moment for practice,
They honed their knife skills on passers-by
Or on the weak and dying amongst them.
The old men bled like raisins.

Old trucks were gutted motels.
Seats with the padding ripped out
And a nest of hornets in the back
And they slept without words.

The sound of rain on metal came first.
And it took the dead into dreams
Of what they once were, if ever there was.

Sounds of traffic outside windows
And the smell of coffee in the streets.
The familiar jingle on the radio
Reminds them of when money bought food.

They dream of whiskey and women.
They sleep in tight groups, breath muted and docile
And think of primal pleasures.
And they dream without words.

Their memories died first.
Until they could not see faces anymore,
Save for the pictures in their wallets.

It was only in the brief interludes,
A moment alone; ******* on a tree
Or clutching their *****
That they felt entirely human again.

Other than that, they were less than air.
It suited them. Everything grey.
Everything grey or transparent,
And they killed without words.

It was language that died first.
A world of communication but no understanding,
Noise but no substance.

Until now there is nothing left but ‘it’
And whatever there is to get there.
For a knife through skin and empty lungs
Is only ****** if you call it so.

And so they run up a flag on the roadside.
It is a beacon for all that are left.
A sign for the gullible pilgrims
And they roast without words.

It was the end that came first.
In the moment that man descended the trees,
And used it for firewood.

Still in our childhood, we had our chance
But we traded it for what felt good.
Would I have it any other way?
It would make no difference now, what I want.

The shadows will limp to their deaths,
Stubbornly chained to the Earth.
And hell comes not in the struggle
But in the potential of man not realised.

Old friend, we once excited in the crowd
before we were thrown into a romance
of jealous thought, and twisted circumstance.
I struggled for sunlight, head full of cloud;
you lost your voice over music too loud.
We left the revolution up to chance,
lazy in love, with a partner to dance
clear through the morning, with hangover proud.
Now we must strive for a cleaner living;
meditative skies and time for healing.
In separation, we'll untie the knot,
we'll learn to take after all this giving.
Now I must climb to reclaim that feeling
of giddy heights and the youth we forgot.

We’ve got a lot in common,
we share the same disease.
We’re thankful for our belongings,
though we fall down to our knees.

And the Israelites are coming,
they bring their funeral song,
a one thousand petalled lotus
is burned in the Gaza storm.

Oh, I don’t want to hurt you,
but you know that love is pain.
You find yourself in its absence,
just to lose it all again.

And still, I’ll come back for more,
like some ***-starved, pointless slave.
Fixate on you in the darkness,
and forget you in the day.

And I do not need this devotion,
I know not what it is for,
I waded through the ocean,
just to fall down at your door.

I gave myself to religion,
I gave myself to war,
I fought for all of the peace,
that I’d lost on your bedroom floor.

And I do not need this devotion,
'cause I know not what it is for,
I waded through the ocean,
just to fall down at your door.

And the soil swallowed me whole,
whilst I’ve been searching in the skies,
A motion of light in the treetops,
a love before the lies.

I do not need this emotion,
I do not need your pearls,
I’m looking for a brand new woman,
now I’m tired of spoiled little girls.

We’ve got a lot in common,
how we tend to impossible dreams.
The way we stand up for freedom,
the way we fall down to our knees.

The way we fall down to our knees.

I keep playing the high string
on my second-hand guitar.
It sounds off against the rest,
a year older, more sour,
and cynical at best.

It knows the breadth of my sounds,
the cradle of my voice
over words meant for someone else.
Centred over my shaking fingers
and constant questioning of self.

I keep strumming the same old chords
and hoping for a new sound.
Twisting cheap rhymes and wine,
another glass-full, another smoke,
all from the unemployment line.

This writing was an attempt
to make laziness an art.
So that singing through Wednesday
is better than a desk-job,
better than my next far-off lay.

Yet here I am once again friend,
finding a friend in this:
my inter-planetary longing
for some unrealistic bliss.

She arches her back on the yoga mat,
channelling Durdle Door.
In full-length breath
and composed hypertension,
she remains unmoved
as the world about her
suffers to mass
and the moving ocean floor.

Well-versed in the effects of cold air
and rhythmic bombardment,
she has learned a stillness
to rival the effects of pink wine
on her nerves
and her taste for cigarettes.
My sweet Venusian,
despite physical prowess,

cannot sustain her poses
against time and internalised illness.

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.

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.

I stood pretty as a picture
In the full-length mirror.
Eyelines painted black
And traced like a cat
‘Round the pools and pigments
Of my icy blues.

My hair smoulders with gloss of youth.
A fire left untamed
With scorched red wine lips
Oh! Such rare delight,
To embrace my image
And not decorate

It with scorn.

I imagine pupils pouring
Over me. Men turned
Boys upon my wake.
Skirt hitched demurely,
Landing with subtlety
Above my opaqued knees.

I comb the heaving, damp dancefloor.
Search out for Beta-***.
The kind to pin me
With softened kisses.
To love for the night and
Then like fireworks

Perish by day.

The music though, it takes me with
Skill. Oh! It knows the sweat
That clings upon me.
The rhythm takes me
Beyond the tooth and nail,
The attempt and fail

Of every boy to come before.
Sweet ***! How it lifts me
And the mere presence
Of youth is enough.
I go home alone in
Absent knowledge of

The plight of women.

You stop me in the streets. You say
“Where have you been tonight,
Where are you going.”
But - not a question.
For, you dictate answers,
Scurry my body

With your eyes, soon hands.

You tower me, masculine height.
Oh! Such dizzying peaks
For my giddy mind.
I say “I must leave”
You say “Where” once more. I
Wonder, do questions

Ever line your lips? Catcalls and
Footfalls now so long gone.
We are alone and
We both know the case.
Your vast darkened hands clutch
At my belt buckle,

Draw me in.

Reeled, I kick up in death throes,
Mouth open but soundless,
Lungs devoid of air.
Laid out on the block,
I’m your catch of the day,
Your squalor by night.

Regardless how much give out,
How little I fight, we’re
Both in the knowledge
I am your’s tonight.
Your lips, they steal my neck.
Paralyse me, not

With softness
But with fright.

I stand pretty as a picture,
No look in the mirror.
A reflection of
Shame and submission.
Pools and pigments devoid
Of life. Emptied lungs

And icy blues.

The last star, now corporate logo.

You're my spoilt demand of love.

The hitch-hiker is buried at home.

Weight on the mattress, no more.

Conceding to smoke in my lungs.

Beheaded treetops, and a poisoned sky.

The lighthouse blinks - oh blessed recovery!

The last human uploads his consciousness.

The cancer spread to bone marrow.

Thousand lensed eye, yet no identity.

He plays the last ever chord.

Sequel: And she dances to his echoes.

With no land left, only sea.

Third eye opened – to New Eden!

The unbelievable new fathoms of physics.

With wonder, she first saw Earth.

They say James Heron has a daughter now.
He has done for a couple of years. Last time I saw him
we were drunk in the day, and the time before that,
we were eleven.
I spent that last fragment of innocence
sleeping in a thin duvet case,
hoping it would pass as a sleeping bag: it didn't.
Since then I have slept rough in softer places,
and he has been on harder stuff
than I could ever sustain.

They say Faye owns a green grocer's now.
She put green in her hair and became a vegan.
They say she's never bought a McDonald's
and avoids Palm Oil like crowded places.
When she was twelve,
she'd punch me on the arm just to prove
that she could make a mark.
Now, she treads so gently across the ground,
the sprawl of the supermarkets;
imminent in swallowing her whole,
and still she'll go quietly, quietly,
so as not to cause a fuss.

They say Rhys Campbell has a missing father
who left town and changed his gender;
now a mother of two refugee children
and in love for the first time in her life.
Rhys Campbell couldn't get past his tough-man image,
and so his mother lost a son
when regaining her life.
Now ol' Rhys lives in a high-rise
and descends to the pub,
gives into the drug, and batters his wife.
Thought I saw him once
but my eyes were a blur:
I was drinking through my unemployment,
whilst he had given up on work.

They say Amy Thompson lost her wedding ring
and by the time she found it, she had left him.
She fell in love with the idea of the sea,
how it nurtures her
through the breath of a baby.
Now she lives alone and dines out for one,
treating herself after years of divorce
from who she was,
who she had to be,
and the remnants of her teenage self,
hanging limp from a cemetery tree.

They say Jessica Reynolds stays inside,
determined to one day, move things with her mind.
She collects crystals and panflutes,
Tibetan bowls and scented candles;
braiding wallets for the hipster crowds
just to pay her way through art school.
She communes with the dead
as she talked to the flowers, aged eight;
always fairing better in silent conversation,
and those long vigils in the shower,
reciting words she would instantly forget
when shown a human face.

They say Jessica Reynolds is crazy.
They say Jessica Reynolds believes in fairies.
They say Jessica Reynolds is a closet lesbian.

Now I don't know much about anyone,
amongst the faders and my inattention;
my lack of memory for names and accents.
All I can do now is to keep track of the tracks
that I have parted from.
Our common unity;
our communal drum.

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.

Another cup of coffee,
another last cigarette,
waiting to get over that something
I had never managed to hunt
and pin down in a display case.

Chase the thoughts with endless distraction,
habitual reactions to commonplace panic;
the skin on your milk,
the lines in your face-
the colonies in your bedsheets.

A futile blur of words,
ancient shapes and poems,
I scour neurotropic fields of sunflowers:
some organic high,
a steady-state escapism.

Houdini would be proud.
This brave escape from detection,
'till only odour and circumstance
can pick me from the crowd,
this red-eyed happiness,
this stalwart blue.

Chase love down with a box of wine,
old methodologies to find something new;
the drunk-dial confession,
the marks on your arm-
the lies in your back pocket.

Another cup of coffee,
another chemical cloak;
another hourglass intervention.
Meaning slips through hands like sand
when you decorate your life

with obsessive mirrors
and uncontrollable smoke.

Somewhere from this heavy present
Is a lighter mood, is a confident June;
Is a glass of wheat beer on the veranda,
Circling ice giants with my sweet Miranda.

Somewhere from this lacklustre town
Is a foggy new start, a life lived through art;
Is the full potential of human kindness,
As we finally see through this third-eye blindness.

Somewhere from these burying sheets
Lives an autumn love, where death and beauty meet;
Lives an ocean swell of sheer independence,
Where hunger is nourished, with all in attendance.

Following the bloodstains home,
we tread the land with bristled soles,
to cleanse the souls of the wide-eyed youth,
spectacular fireworks to alter the truth,
tar the land, and pepper the streets,
concrete the corner where strangers meet,
the placebo joy of the modern life,
left vacant in the money-man's wake,
a cardboard lot left to decay,
oh, this is my Britain of today.

The newsrooms are clinical,
policies in place to reduce moral outrage,
to reduce it to a hysterical mess,
a cartoon-disaster of life's distress,
so the public in fear, exist but not live,
to fight the recession; you must give, give, give,
give, your life to your freedom
to live without choice,
you can sign a slip,
to mimic a voice
and to ensure the vow of regular pay,
oh, this is my Britain of today.

A history of salvation,
we lend heroes to established truth,
we parade on corners in our concrete joy,
rejoice in the miracle of the new royal boy,
who shall live in fat, and live in health,
sacred tender to the country's wealth,
of empire and power of totalities,
of stone-walled cities,
and Northern breeze,
the Jack tattooed on imperial flags,
oh, this is my Britain of today.

A stream of entertainment,
how it pounds the floor in seamless sound,
how it drizzles the walls in a trophy glitz,
a hypnotic and false, synthetic blitz,
of caffeine veins, and digital sea,
of attention-span in atrophy.
Wait not on thoughts, instead mind-chatter,
you say “don't talk on dark topic,
and keep depth away!”
oh, this is my Britain of today.

Following the apathy home,
I tread the land in heavy-worn soles,
to cleanse my soul of restricted air,
to dream of travel, to fortunes fair,
but in this bliss of a greener grass;
it is for Britain I hold communal mass.
For each Blair, I know, is a Rupert Brooke,
each levelled city, there's Wilfred's book,
or some Dickensian dream of caricatured past,
where only tyranny is built to last,
for each liberty taken, is Huxley's piece,
is Lessing's thoughts and Shelley's release,
and the meander of Avon through grey rain,
adds desperate poetry for the lives still slain,
so we can live in peace, and in sugared tea,
with red wine lips on the periphery;
in those day's hard living,
in those days' worth spent,
with only a book
and blood descent,
the community dances in the advent of May,
oh, this is my Britain of yesterday.

The neighbours are making their rounds.
They tend to their allotments under the allowance
of nature, a certainty in the seasons
as they compensate for the disorder
in their lives: the mislaid decisions
that gave comfort
at the expense of vitality.

James watches them from the bedroom window,
the way everyone walks with a proud hunch.
How the stem of a flower grows into the wind.
Flakes of white paint fall off the windowsill
like sugared almonds: the sweetness
of his anxiety,
the agitation of tobacco.

It is the only patch of green in a mile,
a cell of vegetation behind a locked gate.
A frost threatens and calloused hands
turn to pink cushion, blue extremities
folding tarp: a devoted shelter for
next season's radishes,
whilst the homeless die in the streets.

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.

Steal everything you have ever loved.
Set it to another verse
of borrowed phrases
and humble pie.
Somewhere in the spaces
between the song-writer's ohm
and the poet's demise,
others will form your stolen loot,
your dead-sea scrolls,
into the multitude of inspiration
that constitutes your Self.

The banks are running dry.
All freedom is restrained
to the ticking of a box
and the punching of a clock.
There is no shame in stealing
a resonant thought.
It is the way Revolution happens,
an idea projected, then repeated,
repeated, re-written and spoken
in one thousand tongues.
If your lover leaves you,
it is nothing special.

Yet if a stranger's words steal your breath,
stripped to a naked consciousness,
you have every right to pilfer their mind,
to bridge understanding,
to share in a longing,
to replicate a sentence
in which truth was left unconfined.

I thought the ceasefire had come.
I had survived the press gangs
and carpet bombs
and the drum of war had been
reduced to the constant undying
thud of my heart.
I was hoping to feign retreat.
Three days of deepest winter
before a new year in the sun
hanging like Christ over the Zodiac
and not from the branch
of my father's tree.

The extension cord came loose.
Bread knives are now curious
fascinations
and sit in my stomach like
so much red wine and that writer's pride
in greeting death.
I was hoping to gain a peace.
To place it like a necklace
or badge of honour on my breast
to remind the tourists of the ******
that ravaged the town
I had grown up in.

I have eight years left to die.
After that I will grow fat
and loose in mind
and forget why sadness is
so important in the modern world
of dying art.
I was hoping for vague release.
Something to **** cowardice
and that hesitant breath before
the pull of a blade or jump to the sea
of endless black hole
and icy relief.

I thought the ceasefire had come.
We had stood outside to watch
the confetti
fall to the ground with delay
in a wind we had come to suspect
would destroy us.
I was hoping to gain belief.
I thought the rockets  had stopped
or else been pointed to the sky
in a bottled message from all mankind
to another place,
to another time.