Spring-loaded,
Nervous energy;

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

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

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

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

Managed the cap and gown
With a professional smile.

Found my audience
When I gave it up.

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

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

The warp of time,
a memory so refined
and pigmented
that it sits naked

and parboiled;
cradled in your mind.
My baby, you cry
‘oh, what is this division

that has cast us so apart?’
Time. Time and tremors
and the absence of lusture
in our lives.

I kiss the scars of our past.

The heady punch of whiskey,
and the overspill
from your father’s ice machine.
I remember it well.

And, my friend;
the cigarettes in the park,
the first time we split
and cut school together.

I remember it well.

Sat cross-legged
in the supermarket aisles
or else
mistaken for lovers

by the strangers on the streets.
Half-right and half-witted
we fell into the role
with a bumbling

grace. Bless yourself
with the compliments
you know I have for you.
Remember them well

whilst I kiss the scars of our past.

Scars

Oh! Undulating mood.
Harrowed thoughts and a sparse
Nest of recollections for
Fair fortunes on which I brood.

Skin, torn and contorted.
Fingertips a sign of
A future bleak and a past
Doctored and left distorted.

Oh! Talentless wretch! I
Suffer for my art and
My art, it suffers for me.
I, some malproportioned sketch.

Skin, lined with old fault lines.
A freeze-thaw depression,
The past of sewing scissors,
My ****** Nazca Lines.

Oh! My littered landscapes!
Thin plastics kicked up in
The wind. ***** my longings,
The map to plot my escapes.

She bore her second child
in a room of white powder,
cylinders of blood, and grey
masks. There was pain but
none to remember. A slab
of live meat burned in her
arms, leaving marks over
wrists and blooms of red
between her bruised legs.
It wouldn't stop crying.

The thing had a *****.
It was an off-white thought
that permeated her sweat
and that smug look of concern
on her husband's face.
She was a calf born into a
slaughterhouse. Stirring to eat,
to milk; to forget, spawn,
and then lay down whatever was
left beyond bone and tongue.

It was time for balloons and grapes.
Re-printed greetings cards
from Aunt Elaine: 'congratulations
on your human function,
and here is some money
for your new kitchen sink.'
The doctors were talking over
the Tupperware cradle. They must
be able to see the symptoms
of dispensable modes of thought.

They ask if she wants to hold him
again. When she told them that
she was tired and would rather
sleep the whole thing off,
a clean-shaven man-child gave
a dark look and wrote something
down on a clipboard. He made her
nervous. She could hear his
new shoes squeak, and could count
the blisters forming over

his earnest young feet.
She could not remember getting
home weeks later. Or how her
hair was combed into shape
every morning. Mother was round
most days, sitting in the garden,
making tea with too much sugar,
and giving lectures on the
importance of breast milk. The boy
would have to get used to unreal food.

The third time she went to hospital
she returned with no children at all.
Her mother still came to see her,
bringing stories of the brothers.
It was better this way, of course it was.
It is easier to listen to the falling
of bombs behind a newsbeat vibration.
A far-off land where worry can only reach
you in off-hand bulletins, bright white
pills, and a needle to send you to sleep.

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 dragons of Eden
Are forking their tongues
Along the silver edge of acetone rain,
Foreclosing yesterday’s shop-fronts
In favour of a clean white page.

They smoke in tailored suits,
Blackening their lungs
And toasting freedom with afternoon champagne.
They took man to the moon, they say,
And gave light to the modern age.

They tweak offshore accounts
With battery farms
Of the hardly living, and hardly human.
Forfeiting progress for profit,
They scandalise the streets in debt.

The dragons of Eden
Are flexing their arms,
They’re setting their minds from union, to fusion.
They’re alighting our memories,
But it is our choice to forget.

You taught me of the poetry in science,
the chorus within a sea of new stars;
the Pleiades: a nursery of infants,
and the fossil of old oceans, is Mars.

You talked to me just like a human,
through the decades of languor that passed;
you taught me that a stupid question
is better than one never asked.

In your ship I was cast to the Cosmos,
into the faintest ripple of space-time;
to peel back the illusion of politics,
and to see it as but organised crime.

You filled my mind with clear knowledge,
that'll stay through my short lifespan;
more than facts, you gave me a shining example,
of the burgeoning qualities of man.

Belgian cider after a British nature walk.
This is my unemployment,
this is my fall
from grace.

In the mid-June breath of consciousness,
I can signal the daylight,
faded to white,
through the window lace.

If you take a stroll in the heat of summer,
you shall lose your ghosts,
you shall find
your place.

I have been living on a diet
of cigarettes and digestive biscuits.
My bowels empty into the System
and my hunger concedes
to the supermarket glow;
bigger names
under surgical lights.

The operation was not successful.
You can see it in the grey faces,
upturned collars;
that manic headphone stare.
The lone smoker skulks a bus-stop
like angry eczema
on a bride's upper lip.

I see it for myself now.
How crowds congregate by light,
stamens of fat and sachets of salt,
then separate as sadness
cuts through the delusion;
working poverty and panic attacks
on the hard kitchen floor.

The ache of anxiety
caught up with you again.
Self-imposed catastrophes pile up
as you find yourself walking against
the grain of lunatics passing your way.
The pupae gather and slaver
at their freedom;

you broke through The Promise.
I followed the path of your recovery.

Strung up by new beginnings,
I am well known for being nowhere at all,
disappearing through drunken intervals,
no taste on her tongue,
but she memorises
my self-indulgent drawl.
I have found a knack for solitude,
craving fame in the eye-line of no one.
I am well known for my melancholic air,
my toxic love; fettered philosophies
and the snare of my postures-
my fatherless past.

I am well known for beating myself
to the rhythm of the Blues;
old country songs sung for the new,
love found in the words
of a loveless life-
the first cut of the summer,
the last drink of the night.
Strung up by old affections,
I am well known for falling apart;
disappearing into a haze of silence,
then falling victim once more
to stolen words and bad art.

After crawling, they finally stood up.

Silver bullet, black skin, red blood.

The Police barricaded roads to justice.

The candle died when cancer arrived.

He swung by his father's grave.

And then Palestine became an idea.

The power went out. About time.

She poured her last ever drink.

He counted to six, then stopped.

Quite by accident, they had ***.

The canned laughter turned to screams.

She wasn't ill; just needed sleep.

New shoots grow in old Chernobyl.

The circus was back in fashion.

They watched their own ***** film.

God created man: three star review.

This is not the young child in the garden,
nor the adolescent dream turned to man,
I have forsaken sunlight for wages,
now a wreck of my optimistic plan.

No longer a hero of my struggles,
instead the wine-corrupted loss of will,
I'm fading by degrees in this sorrow;
the erosion of an archaic mill.

I am not the pilgrim of devotion,
of revolution and eternal rite,
instead but the crux of sorry failure
and future life lived in calcified plight.

This is not the adventure advertised,
it lives in brief moments like peace and snow;
as fleeting as the shy British summer,
passing like suffering felt long ago.

Oh, this is not the young babe held in autumn,
nor the cooing eyes of all adults blessed,
this is the braying and sharp reminder
of a life with all innocence undressed.

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.

It is time to remember in this sinking sadness,
Of the conjuring mind, and the fickle passing of winter.
In the presence of death, there is opportunity for living;
If I only grasp and pull through each turgid torrent of time.

Rome fell and so too, will this empire.
This ivory tower of profiteering,
And dodging answers on the screen.
Love will out, if you give it time and patience;
As continents collide and create new land
On which to dwell.

Friends pass through life, as I hold them like sand,
As memories modify, romanticise and alter.
I cannot keep tending to the past to make a future,
Nor can I make new friends over suicide hotlines.

With pills to take me from these trembling hands,
I burst into rhyme, and embark upon new lands.
All I ever knew shall untangle within photographs;
Into affection that no words can understand.

Please stay with me, reader, as I grow up;
As these new bones falter to a start.
I am waking up to find the youth that
I thought I’d lost in the fullness of my heart.

The library is more like a hospital.
Bleached lights cause migraines,
the words too clinical and exposed
like eczema scars on my wrists.
It is too bright to fall in a thicket
of cognitive thought  and blind imagery.

The secret of beauty is good lighting.
I could never fall in love with a word
under such a surgical glow,
all intimacy on show in a place meant for
German Dictionaries and free wi-fi.
A place for the missing to sleep,
and not a place to daydream.

There is no smell of coffee,
only the occasional whiff and crackle
of a surreptitious sandwich interrupting
the stale breath of printer ink and ointment.
I am all for public places
until I find myself within one.

Exposed under these artificial stars,
I come here for a chance of no distraction.
Each time, however, I find myself languid.
Eyes set to some indefatigable point
whilst I catch the taste of shared air,
the sirens in the distance,
the location of nowhere.

I felt his ring around my finger
Before we’d even touched hands.
A meek merchant of charm,
He desisted from cheap sentiments

And instead borrowed a will of silence
From some eastern monastery or other,
Citing his affections through silent smiles
And a shrug of his shoulders which told me:

“I am as baffled by this world as you are, dear.
For far too long I have had to lean on one leg
Whilst standing, to ease my ache, to wait things out.
Come, sit with me.”

And so I did.

Resplendent white, some archaic sentiment
Of false-purity – it bathes me. Washes me of colour,
‘till I’m baked in the reflective glow of sunlight,
Rinsed of history, of time, treasures and identity.

I’m his now.

This full-bodied mirror, she stands so ungainly
In her bridal pose. A slapstick siren, a young deer
On stilts; A stretch of church floor to hesitate over
Upon hatching. She must make it to the sea.

In this reflection, I see neither him nor I,
But a composite of his kindness, my eyes;
Small forget-me-nots of a daisy-chained child
And a waysided academic.

It’s not my fault, nor his. Our dreams were wasted
By fairytales, poisoned by old fortune. No story
Succeeded, no narrative complete, ‘till love is resolved,
Until love is in place.

I felt his ring around my finger
Before we’d even touched hands.
For, why would I ever care to scale such mountains,
In a world he casts so temperate and sure?

So with each year that shall pass,
From now ‘till some curtained collapse,
I shall reduce in my margins,
Fragmented elements and forgotten scope;

I dissolve unto him,
Stagnant upon his solution.

When will the paramedics come?
I lost my finger in a midnight rave,
****** to the bone and drunk as hell.

I think the doctor is trying to **** me.
She dispenses pills like a Pez-Head,
to send me to sleep,
to miss out on poetry,
but at least I'll catch the bus to work.

Cap and gown dreams keep visiting me.
I don't know what it means when she
lifts her blouse to reveal old scars,
when she delivers my life
in a steel-framed certificate.

When will the politicians come?
I lost my faith in freedom, when I was
clothed to the bone in distraction.

An employment scheme
in a lucid dream,
you work
yourself
to sleep;
hold close to the fortunes
you keep.

And all you can think
is to have a drink,
to solve
the patterns
of the day,
and to feel a little
less afraid.

And the busker pleads
upon bended knee,
to validate
his melody;
coursing from the source
to the sea.

Without a band to fill
out his sound,
he wastes
in the frame
of the doorway;
before the pills come to
take him away.

There's a better you
and an ocean view,
if you live with the intention
to love.
If you great me like a friend,
well then you'll never
have to pretend.

There's a better you
and an ocean view,
if you take exception to your
stolen life.
If you greet it like a friend,
well then you'll never
have to pretend.

My darling,
Go back to sleep.
Leave the hurry and the rush of the world to me
And just sleep.

Let the waves of slumber
Fall into you in a warm rush
Of blankets and breath.

My girl, my woman,
Lie back down and stop worrying,
Calm those lungs and slow your heart,
I will give you all the time in the world
If you will just slow down.

My bags aren’t packed
And there is no seat on a train
With my name on it.

Your career will come
And you will make a splash.
If not we will live on a diet of bread and noodles
And scramble the rent together each month,
Feeding scraps to the dog.

And don’t you fear.
Don’t you ever fear
About the stumble in your step,
Or the snort in your laugh.
The freckles on your back
Or the troubles in your head.

Your imperfections are what makes you beautiful to me,
My dear,
In this world of change – please don’t.

I thought of you this evening
heart tethered to the ceiling
fingers teasing the hem of your dress
our stolen names
our clumsy address

Thought of you on Parliament Square
holding a clipboard
and shouting in the rain
tied a ribbon to your hair
with a silver paper crane

Thought of you with innocence
thought of you with ***
all the miserable spaces in between
the collisions we forget

I thought of you this evening
by the milky blindness moon
argued on the cause of death
agreed it came too son

Thought of you this afternoon
thought of leaving too
this artless life
I lie beside
in the wake of you

Thought of you and all the thieves
that chanced upon my way
I never counted you among them
I still love you to this day

I thought of you this evening
eyes tethered to the ceiling
numb and dense with pills and regret
you taught me the art of forgiving
even when I could not forget

My love is now a swamp
in the Poem Factory.
See, I've been keeping mean
on lack of sleep and ****,
******* at yesterdays;
an old dog's tricks,
an old man's routine.

The lung of water is thick
with chemicals; still-water bleach.
I've been trying to clean up my act,
you see;
bend my back into a yoga pose
and question what it means to be free.

I haven't found the answer yet,
but it comes in the moments
I don't question it.

It comes in the wake
of a happenstance lyric;
some eloquence through anxiety.

My love is angry heat,
a mirage across the street.
See, desperation leaves a scent
and an aura of hopelessness;
my dreams of ***
lift up from my tea,
steam buffeting from me.

The pipeline swallowed air
in the Poem Factory,
solitude, the hopeful dream;
isolation, the reality.

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.

You remind me of a simple time,
You remind me of a lullaby,
The way you sing in blessed rhyme
And the many times I’ve made you cry.

You remind me of vintage shops,
You remind me of the word of God,
The way I wake and still taste the hops,
In this: my hangover firing squad.

You remind me of sugared wine,
You remind me of a tired sigh,
The way we sped up along the line,
And the many times I’ve made you high.

You remind me of the Happy Prince,
You remind me of a garden fence,
The way our sparks kick off the flints,
And I think of you in future tense.

You remind me of a former life,
You remind me of tomorrow’s war,
The way that in you, I saw a wife,
The way that you so swiftly
Shut the door.

I am sorry sir,
we don't think there has been enough improvement.
It has been weeks since you wrote anything of note
and our ears on the ground tell us you are drinking again.

I wish you would try harder.
What? You don't want to hear about Lincoln again?
He ran a country through it all. You can't even make
your own bed. Why is that?

Your parents?
No. Come on now. You will have to do better than that.
Yes, you have told us about your cat. And your school.
There must be something more. Do you believe in G-d?

You're not sure?
That might be the problem. You are never sure of anything.
Neither North or South, East or West, a roof over your head
but an old mobile phone. I think you just need a title.

I have one lying around here somewhere.
But I don't think you will like it.

I hold onto love
Like sand
It scatters easily
In my hands
And I will attack it
Probe it
Interrogate
Intimidate
Isolate myself
Until nothing remains

All this
To prove
To those who love me
That I am unlovable

This is not a poem,
it’s a loss of hope.

Art only the escape
from what was,
what is
and what will always be
until all that’s left is

what?

I scatter my childhood,
leave it among the plains,
forget the trail of grazed knees,
praying hands and broken hearts

until all that’s left is

what?

I feel the teeth in my carcass;
always ‘I’;
never the pains of others,
never the loss of tide,
still I wonder why I don’t understand.

This is not a poem,
it’s a loss of answer.

School only the escape
from what is,
what isn’t
and what will never be
until all that’s left is

what?

I listen to you,
and it breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart in places
my words cannot scale.

Just your heartbreak;
over and over, rinse-and-repeat
sorrow in my ears
as I walk through my days.

This is not a poem,
it’s a loss of form.

Temporary I know,
but the world often disarms me,
when I am in most need of
my bow.

You gave your love to the government.
Your liver to the greyhounds
and the squalor you live in.

The Asian district disappoints you
with its inaccessible women
to whom you are flaccid and unlovable.

The pub is full of students,
air humid with *** and youth-
all those impossible frames of reference.

You, proud emblem, are confused by it all.
The drawl of the six o'clock news:
“there is a war at your own front door.”

The Golden Age was taken for granted,
a party spoiled by strangers,
strange music, strange clothes;

the symbols you cannot understand.
Tradition fades to dementia, greyscale,
redundant colour, and jaded patriotism;

you raise the mourning flag alone.
A country died in your lifetime,
your romanticised vision of home.

The carpet is thick here.
Fuggy and like pastelled peaches.
In the fibres is us; flesh flakes dead and brittle,
Our nail, hair and bone,
Liquor in hand to toast our time’s acquittal.
It is a night in the present, our past’s indulgence
Upon all that we held too dear.

The chime of bottled beer.
I surrender to your faces.
A sea of young fortune; it favours acute flesh,
Our ***, bare and tone,
Her nails painted black, bruised legs folded in mesh.
For once, I cling not to my ungodly obsession
And think not of time’s grisly sneer.

You live within my tears.
Each moment aside from this room.
In grey matter is us; memories flayed and malformed,
Our kiss, touch and moan
Bought several times since, efficiently performed.
Don’t lie to me, the meaning of your transitioned lives,
Nor that my face does not still endear.

The air is too thick here,
Now that I have left this shelter.
I shall meet you in waves; upon battered beaches,
Our age, wage and loan
To lace our tongues in most defeated speeches.
In this life it is us; now so rehearsed in our kindness,
But still shrapnel and fallout
In all that we fear.

I have been trying for that mountain top tranquillity
whilst eating salted dinners and flicking the channels.
The rain stains the plastic patio, looking out onto the
garden fence, the concrete perimeter; the brick wall.
All indoor furniture orientates towards the television,
my family now but fellow spectators, instead of blood.
The fruit bowl holds post-its and tangled earphones
instead of pomegranates, clementines, and apples.
A writer's worst enemy is not her depressive vanity,
more the ivy creep of boredom and lack of taste in life.
We are running out of reality with each passing hedgerow,
through soap operas, wallpaper, and that halogen glow.

The weeping willow offered a branch
for me to hang myself.
I tied a knot in boy scout memory,
always prepared and never without
The Lord. I smoked my last cigarette
and watched the town lights
swallow up the stars.

There is a receipt for a soft drink
in my pocket.
I don't know how long it has been there,
but father fell asleep so long ago
and I have had enough caffeine
to last me a life-time.
I watch the frogspawn ooze

in a brook full of ****-water and mayflies.
The moonlight bounces off the headstones
like a snooker room in the old men's club.
Life can find a way along every ill attraction,
through alcohol to poverty; to the way you
are never noticed, until you are already gone.

When I told the tree I couldn't do it,
the street-lights dimmed
and eyes stung from the brine in the sea.
I stole a chip from the Weeping Willow's
shoulder, hung the bark from my neck
as a necklace: a collarbone sign for peace
in a landlocked town full of drunks

and absent-minded teachers.
The Weeping Willow told me to get some sleep,
before handing me a self-help book
that promised change and new wisdom.
I read the first couple of pages
and realised that I was lacking in self.
Ever since I just use the willow
to **** my pain again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never dreamed I would fear
The best thing for me
Forsake longing
In the daily pursuit
Of escapism
And ugly living

Lack of meaning
Beneath the tongue
To almost anything
And anyone

What do you expect from me

When you stand there
Bold in the beauty of life
Full of struggle without a scar
Fingers delicate in prayer

I am ravaged by the storm
All movement without lustre
All shelter torn
All sails at half mast

Years spent searching
For dry land
After years spent learning
Nothing is built to last

If you lend me dreams of your future
I will confess to each demon of my past

The greatest writers in the world

Use the language of simplicity.

I strive to be a beautiful writer

And to pepper the page

With every colour on my pallet.



However like a photograph in grey scale

The most beautiful writings

Come in the most simplistic of forms.



Only once you get through the spew and bravado

Do you begin to find the reasons people turn to words;

For solace.

For companionship.

For honesty.

For memories

And for the confessions of another maladjusted soul.



I still hide sheepishly behind my words

And twist them into a maze

In which I can hide my true intentions

And the reasons why I ***** these blank pages

Every time I find myself alone.

it’s windy I think
at least the windows are rattling

the men in hard hats
yellow motes in the distance
and their jackets the colour
of poison

they scale the façade
of the contralateral building

they’re speaking, yelling,
probably catcalling, singing
their ugly songs on cherry pickers
like some crowned nest
of wagtails

it’s early I think
though the lights are always on

they’re fluorescent, staining
unflattering colouration – rinse
your skin to poverty
to jaundice

I’m here because of pills
I’m here because school is out
I’m here because I’m tired
and I’m tired because of you

flowers sit at the side
already dry upon purchase

gifted awkwardly:
“can we give flowers to a man?”
“a foolish drunk”
“a boy in sheets”
“here’s a helium balloon
to lift your spirits”
“don’t look when it sags to the floor”
“you know that he will”

it’s lonely I think
though it’s filled with people

wristcutter, lupus, chemo,
we’re what’s left post-production
“buy me for half price
or at least half an hour of company”

nurses scan with motherly eyes
radiator warmth - at twelve to three
she washes me, asks me to lift my *****
to get at the two-day grime
of indolence

it’s sad here I think
at least the television is boring

daytime ghosts and broken families
make my bed-sheets gain weight
until nothing is mine

sleep comes in fits
and starts in blindness

it ends with my questioning
of where the dream began
and where reality failed

you haven’t come
I knew that you wouldn’t

it’s hard to blame you
what with my post-use pining
long after you’d given up
the way I act familiar
after treating you like a stranger

I long to leave here
so much that the windows are rattling

I’m here because I am
I’m here because of my job
I’m here because I’m tired
and I’m tired because of you

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.

“You and I”
he says,
“we're meant for better things than this.”

When I ask him what he means
he says,
“we've been holding this factory up
for the last seven years-
look at you:
you look like ****.
You're ******* twenty-six
and you look like you've
gone at least two years
without regular ***;
always staying in to catch up on lost sleep,
but you forget about all the hours
you've lost in between.
When was the last time you made love
to anything other than yourself?
When was the last time you drank a beer
to start up the evening,
rather than to **** the night?”

When I told him
that it's not like I'm a boring ****,
he agreed and
he says,
“no, no, and that's the issue,
that's why, you and I,”
he says,
“you and I,
need to get out of this place.
Haven't you ever just thought
about walking out?
Like the money ain't enough
to keep you tethered to what you do?”

I answered yes, of course,
and that it's like the common cold;
it's a load of horseshit,
but it won't **** you too often.
To that he says,
“we gave seven years to make money for someone else,
and we got ourselves what we wanted...”

He was right,
as we drove up to our old spot
in our company 4 X 4.
He lit up the joint
as we looked over the old railway bridge and
he says,
“we used to come here all the time when we were kids.
Spit down to the bottom,
watch it splash into the floodwater
around New Year's.
We had our first cigarette,
and then our next and then our next...”

he zoned out and we fell to silence,
smoking by the old haunt
and not for the first time it occurred to me
how much I can live like a ghost at times.
Even now I was passive
as someone echoed my daydreams
with psalms of escape;
even now, at this featherbed point,
I slip into a conservative's tongue
and express my comfort in the working day
and feeling over-the-hill,
despite all the conversations similar to this
that I have rehearsed so passionately
inside my head.
After a while
he says,
“you and I,
we're better than this.
Better than this drug
or this routine bliss;
better than a monthly slip
that disappears on rent,
or popular thoughtstreams
that make no sense.

“You and I,
we're different than most.
We hold onto happiness
like sand in our palms,
dispersing it everywhere we go
without ever having enough for ourselves,
or concentrating it on anyone important;
we just spend it like we spend our money-
on all of the escapism to forget
that our lives are a lie-
a pie-in-the-sky theory
that says we have to work hard
to live happy...”

He stopped,
gave a watery smile
and he says to me,
“You and I
are similar,
but you are younger
and kinder than me.
Get out of here
and find that slower life,
before you begin to see what happens
when you grow into your apathy...”

With that he turned
and walked off the edge
of the bridge as if he was
slipping out for a ****.
He slipped out of life
without another word.
Maybe he thought he was a bird,
that he would find some wings
at the bottom of a tragic fall;
either way he is gone
and only his words remain,
in the lazy imagination
of a young stoner's brain.

Tonight it is just me, Chopin,
and the fireworks flirting with
the treetops of my neighbour's garden.
Sounds of gunfire and torn wind
parade by the close-curtained window
as I give a college try for inner peace,
for outer space, or just about anywhere
besides these constant dreams of ***
and human touch.

I am setting up advertising space
for somebody to fill up my days,
to pollute my poems with contentment,
and all the other tedious adornments
that come through recounting happiness
to others. I have been at war with myself
for too long. The supplies are emptied,
the asylum; full. A trade must be made
from the written word, to a spoken voice

across the pillow, where 'goodnight'
can be heard.

Let's feel alive after the first cut;
the bloom on your wrist,
the white line on the mirror
separating where you have been,
and where you want to go.

You laid down in a blanket of snow
and rocked yourself like a river boat,
turning sleep in fits and waves,
to wake as a fraction of yourself.

Let's feel alive at the steep passing;
the sheer drop below,
the winter that thawed in your mind,
that first hit of love-
first taste of smoke and sugared ***.

I became vacant at the shop-fronts
and pinned myself to sleep
with **** and binaural beats;
the sea-wall to my mental health.

Let's feel alive in our life's passing;
the intersecting plot-lines,
the echoes of old suffering
that will dissipate as we make our way
to where we want to go.

Follow the echo of dissimilar climbs,
wavering landscapes, silhouettes;
undulating skies of cloud and shadow.
Old peaks left to weather,
as pills carve the plateaued mind,
all ribbon and bows,
all the flowers left by the roadside.

There is a blanket of darkness
and yet always a small box of light.
It illuminates the path, allows for a splurge
of words, of honesty - after all the lies,
after all the pills that gave sleep;
a soft defeat, the irregular streets
and the memories left by the roadside.

Follow me through my choices of word,
shifting coastlines, marionettes;
a body moving in a slow disease,
mental health ailing; the red, red wine.
Those pills came and yet still I remain,
stubborn as a **** on a concrete street,
perfecting the Bojangles walk,
the drunken fool,
the wanderer left by the roadside.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

that sense only comes
long after The Moment has gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is a flash of light and metal,
The chop of a guillotine
Exploding through the lens of a camera.

Severed arteries spray blood through the gutters,
Broken limbs and powdered bone
A pain that reverberates through television screens
And is felt across the globe.

The clamour of film crews in the aftermath,
The twisted steel and burnt lungs
Caught by shaking hands
Soon carted off on a stretcher.

It is a time for Americans they say,
The white boy in the oxygen mask,
The chaos and the broken glass
And a woman laid out on her back.

The flags will ascend and the band will play,
Tears will be shed and the choir will pray.
But with every minority that shall be blamed,
It is a time for humanity, I say.

So I sit in the corner of the room
And I will myself to conjure something
An aura
A pulse
A telepathic beacon
Anything.

I can almost feel my bone marrow
Shudder and weep
Against this powder keg of neurosis.

I just want that eye contact from a stranger,
That speaks a language
Beyond that of the most effacious of tongues,
And stretches beyond time and space
To comfort me.

“I see you
And I understand
And I know you and I love you
Even though we have never met.
You are beautiful
And you shouldn’t worry so much.”

More than this;
I wish I had the power to do this for someone else.

Each moment to myself,
I find that I am writing.
I am writing nonsense,
a stream of consciousness
to make my squalor appear
as a palace. To enforce beauty
out of a blind state of mind,
as those purple curtains
block out approaching daylight,
but retain the glean of the disco ball.

I talk to makeshift friends over
and over again in my head,
as I walk past the field of irises,
feeling them watch me
under the jittery yellow street-lights.
There are far too many poems
to be thrown out to strangers,
like lonely sambuca kisses
placed beneath the dripping raindrops,
falling from the alleyway stairs.

I know that poetry must be controlled,
to flourish only the best to others.
It is hard to leave words undisclosed,
when you can go weeks without a friend.
This is not a *******,
nor a target for pity in privation.
I have a degree in human minds,
I have a ***** and white skin
to get me through interviews,
and a tone of voice to escape all arguments.

Fix me with a stare
and I'll fix you up a drink,
no questions asked. We could be
ice bucket lovers, turning the tide
with pens and straws to mix the cola.
You'll reach out and kiss me on the cheek
to afford me lipstick sensation,
as I stumble without any cause
through this temporal employment;
this hiatus of youth.

One day I shall grow up.
One day, there will be no more poems,
and what is left will be the ghosts
to lay alongside old lighters and photographs.
I will forsake these pointless notebooks,
this obsession with laying experience
into metre, rhyme, and verse.
Soon, I will exchange my pen
for the television remote.
I will flick the channels,
I will smile at my life.

What is left to discover
beneath these primitive pages,
this idealistic sprawl
of half-rhymes and phrases?

We have scaled the mountains
and cast superstition asunder,
we have walked on the moon
and we have learned from our blunder.

For, what can I do
to be the first ****** eyes,
upon an uncharted land,
under Jovian skies?

We have fathomed existence
to the nearest iota,
we have established society
and a deep bass of culture.

All that is left is to wait for a saviour.
A new unbelievable mind
to help us in knowing,
to give us back to the stars,
which are forever a-glowing.

All that is left is to understand,
that where we are living
is just borrowed land.

Come talk to me over the chattering mouths
Of customers and acquaintances.
We can drink coffee in the beer garden,
Agitating the tobacco leaves far too often
And using friendship as therapy.

You’ll sit with your sunglasses framed in your hair.
An old scar is a teardrop, as we claim compensation
For the damage done in our years apart.
Come walk with me through old graveyards,
As the living take to existence.

Teenagers catcall and chase each other in the park,
They shelve their hair in the wind
And religiously practice apathy.
We link arms past the tree hollow full of syringes,
Knowing there is nothing left to surprise us.

These streets are turning into a gamble;
Bookmakers, cash converters and hairdressers
Train feet towards the old clock tower.
Only the sprawl of supermarket isles
Keeps ignorance well-fed in this town.

Come listen to these old songs with me.
The poet is dead, but the melody lives,
And it is still wonderful to be alive.
Come with me past the crooked spire;
The devil left long ago.

I feel like taking a tab of acid
and disappearing
to town in my worn suit.

Buskers bathe in the eternal winter,
clamouring sounds at passers-by
until Jericho falls in on itself,
money spilling out of its sides
like a fast food waiter
on his cigarette break.

Trawling through the record shops,
I feel as if I've travelled through time;
each bootleg, a manuscript,
each seven-inch, a sonnet.
Pulling fingers through Venetian sounds,
I have found my place
in the library of New Alexandria.

The pigeons are swollen at the ankles.
Like humans, they are losing height
at the promise of another meal,
at another chance to rifle through the crumb.

School kids are waiting for the bus
as I go walking past.
They're unaware of the ease of tread
they have over land,
unaware of how quickly it can fall
and the scathing jealousy
I feel for each of them.

In eyes wet and wide, I turn to go home,
I walk in the rain, before settling for the bus
and returning to that familiar, lofted view
of the world passing by through a maniac's eyes.

It is only then that the world shifts in focus
and lotus flowers crop up through the carpet,
the world outside has grown far too unreal,
to the point hallucinating makes sense of it all.

Is he patient with your moods?
Does he understand the difference
between weather and climate;
a weekend of sunshine
does not mean that it is summer.
Does he know how it feels
to be stuck in January for years?
Does he open the curtains
and expect your skin to tan?
Does he kiss between your legs
to pay off his passionless debts,
and does he bring you flowers
for all the times he forgets?
The tulips are vibrant in the vase.
Does anything else you know
contain that much colour and life?

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.