Brexit and Trump
mass shootings
and bombs in
schools
mosques
churches
streets

These are things that happen
when people forget
how to
talk
to
each
other.

I took the easy way out
Over and over
Again

Looking out past the window,
looking out to the past,
there are smokers in the meadow,
there are citadels in the grass.
You see,

I am blind under the small-talk lighting,
I am blind to managing debts,
half a person delivered in writing,
half a person pressed to your chest.
You see,

I have fallen in love with the poet,
I have fallen out with the sun,
for turning words into sweat,
for staying inside too long.
You see,

looking back at swollen passions,
looking back at future dread,
I have given up on asking questions,
I have grown used to an empty bed.

We came as a strand of life from the source.

The estuary signalled creation, and finally; the residents spoke back.

There she was on the veranda; a Costa Rican sunset.

He sank pills with beer, and then he promptly disappeared.

And when they burned down the library, all humanity died.

The pixels flared upon the screen: now she is dead.

I surfed meteorites and time, just to see you again.

She planted the seed, then laid down in the soil.

She’s married now I think; I care not to check.

A woman took over God’s role: The results improved dramatically.
E. J., Coles-Jordan. (2014). An Equal Society: A Necessity for Cultural Revolution. Journal of Made-Up Thoughts and Wisdom, 1, 1-9999.

Leonard swam amongst the basalt rock.
A music box of echo and tide,
***** pipes of molten Earth
petrified in place. He stood within

the natural cathedral and cleansed himself
of suitcases, old postcards, and
sweethearts, whilst the White Stranger
looked out for his sweet Iona.

Amy bathed her feet in the Sea of Stars.
She left her clothes on Conrad's
carpet and held plankton in her palms.
Freckles of light formed in a hand-held

pool. They bent and assembled into order.
She was the forgotten daughter
of fine wine and bold name tags,
until she left them for the salt and the sand.

Ryan sat in the sun with his shades on,
stabbing ice whilst making a call
to the office. He stretched out on his
day-drunk fortune, collecting souvenirs

and belly fat, double chins and photographs;
his wallet purging in the tourist trap
of old Van Dieman's land. He thought
that he'd escaped her prison, a long time ago.

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.

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.

This is a time when good words will falter,
my subtle decline and rank disclosure
of all the things that I once claimed to love,
I'm chained from the sky; I'm chained to the Earth.

I'm killing the cancer, I'm kissing you,
I'm within my own mind, I'm missing you,

you're wilting in sunlight, you're leaving me,
you're hitting your targets, forgetting me.

I am a man of a tiresome load,
a grave concealed under the morning snow,
of gracious poetry, of failed adult,
of weeping willow tree, of heart grown cold.

This is a time to prepare the slaughter,
lay down our arms, put old selves asunder!
This is the time for all words into thought,
of Earth's spinning dance, a whisper of God.

I'm tired of longing, I finally see,
I need this belonging, I'm finally free.

You're posting your letters, you're doing fine,
you don't need me here, for the sun to shine.

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.

Be still, wailing child.
Your eyes patted down,
Spirit tender and mild.
Pressed to a surgical gown.

Iris bleached with light,
Be still in my sight.
****** mouth on my breast,
Unquellable appetite.

Be still, untouched page,
Do not strain to cry.
Cast to light on this stage,
Born and now stirring to die.

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.

He's clutching his cash
in the torrent of the market,
she's dreaming of friends
just to keep them in her sight.

She's getting to work
when the sun is non-existent,
he's thrashing in his sleep
the whole time before that.

He's talking to her
with one eye upon the cradle,
she's ordering wine
just to keep him in her sight.

She's dreaming of Paris
and the sighing violinists,
he's watering down
all the drinks at his bar.

He's a drinker most nights
when work is non-existent,
she's smoking all day
just to tolerate this life.

She's opening her legs
to the thud of empty guidance,
he's kissing her neck
to dominate the land.

He's looking at ****
and jerking off in bathrooms,
she's painting her nails
a deeper shade of lime.

She's fouling all her make-up
to cover tender eyes,
he's nervous in the aftermath,
he's playing out his time.

He's playing with her hair
as she's cradled on the couch,
she's covering her *******
from authoritative eyes.

She's hiding from her father
in the cellar of the house,
he's looking for his own creation
that has somehow gotten out.

She's shaking in the hallway
as he holds her by the throat,
he's laughing at the daughter
he claimed to love the most.

She left her glasses on the table
when she stormed out the house.
Alone in a café, her eyes blurred over
the menu, but she could smell
bacon frying. She treated herself
for the first time in years.

The world was still turning somehow,
as she tried to plot her escape.
She was alone with her thoughts
of country roads and strange men
that would make her forget his voice.
He'll be sleeping by now.

There was enough money in her purse
to take her out of the country.
From there she could waitress
by some sea-side resort, reading
books through siestas, and sleeping
with the mosquitoes.

Walking to the station, she ripped up
old bus tickets she used to save
to remind her of the everyday places
both of them had been.
Even now she was missing him,
as he laid out and stared at the ceiling.

She was stopped before she made it
to the airport. She was bundled in
the car, eyes swelling and lights flashing
as she was driven back to the city.
She was stripped, searched and
thrown into a locked room.

Her husband still lay there.
His eyes were shelled out
and trodden on by her heels.
There was a river of blood
in the ant's nest, and he would never
look at another woman again.

Teacher, you are right - it is just like me,
in wrath, I know only to curse the sea,

for all that is looking but never found,
for all the persons I shall never be.

So I turn back to my foolhardy pen
in the hope that I should breathe once again

the air we had shared in memories drowned,
now left to spoil amongst capricious men.

Our budding memoir is wrought in white gold,
yet at your ghost’s feet, I buckle and fold.

It is within these sheets that I am bound,
Oh, How it severs hearts to be so bold!

I shall live as a fragment of a hive,
lost autonomy; no longer alive.

But one day I’ll mine the old lion’s mound,
upon the tremor of my childhood’s sound,
I’ll yell from the cornfields; wait to be found,
‘neath the canopies where the leaves have browned.

And teacher, you’re right - it is just like me,
to dismiss my blessings, I’m blind, you see,
to all that’s thawed in this frozen beauty
and the way that we kiss so absently.

I remember the Canary Islands,
I remember them well.

The patchwork of rock on the roadside,
And the glasses of wine on the balcony.

How I remember the fruit we would carry
Up the mountains and down to the pool.

I remember the permanence of the coastline,
And the fake opulence of the hotels.

They stood arrogantly from the cliffs,
Bleach white and scented with sunscreen.

I remember the movement of your body,
So ******* shadowed from the sun,

As we walked those many miles
To find ourselves a bit of fun.

We dined out by the seaside,
And we watched the tourists meet.

They lay sprawled out on their blankets,
Sunburn on their feet.

I find myself speaking in rhyme,
When I think of the simplicity

Of you and I in the sun,
Away from the din of the city.

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.

They cut the cake and gave a smile
that would last longer than the marriage.
He held her hand whilst she closed her eyes
and thought of tumours and the Orient Express.

The DJ crooned his cat-calls to the
bridesmaids. The grandmothers wept and
bid farewell to their function now lived out.
Children played in the revolving rainbow lights

and chased their shirt-tails in circles,
grazing their knees over the varnished floor.
The bride and groom danced in their sweat
as two-hundred eyes opened their jewellery box

of devotion, causing them to revolve
forever, together, in the same old direction.
For a moment they caught eyes and told each
other without a word, that this was a mistake.

She taught me to find truth
in myth, and to steer away from
progress. She claimed change
to be an assumption
of God's redemption,
and to be in ignorance
of human history.

In ancient lace, she covered
all mirrors, to clear her vision from
vanity. There were songs she'd written,
but could never sing,
for fear of showing real emotion.
She would line her eyes
by sense of touch.

She loved me once but then
took it back, never returning from
absence. She claimed that change
was beyond her power,
and that reason was a retort
only used by the absurd,
and the hopeless romantics.

We're all looking for that bigger high,
we're all looking for a match,
a retreat into a field of wine,
with a roof made out of thatch.

The gulls cry out across the quay,
a prayer naught but an angry mob;
they are searching for eternity,
they are doing it all for G-d.

The solider cries into his ballast sleep
in the analogue plains of war,
no poppy to **** the pain so steep,
no desire to ****, no more.

We're all looking for that higher love,
we're all looking for that 'it',
a life beyond land-mine and slaughter,
beyond false outrage and solemn submit.

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 billionaires tend to their garden
at the expense of the forest,
whilst landlocked towns
invest in pine trees and surfboards
to sell a notion of escape
against the cell of a poorer tomorrow.

Religion lost its claim to G-d
once the churches locked their doors.
The homeless started a choir
on the park bench by the chapel
once they grew tired of food;
fame now the nutrition of the masses.

The baby boomers are a dying breed
set for containment and greed
and rapacious war;
the dreadful threat of a next door neighbour-
their extinction amongst
a millennial wantonness.

Heiresses brush their hair in vanity,
as does the poet to his white-noise
crowd of lunatics and alcoholics.
He crushes diazepam into his whiskey sour,
then lifts a shaking hand

to find the power he is preaching against.

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.

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.

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.

I'm as stubborn as a **** on a concrete street,
I'm as stubborn as the rainfall over London.
And as you walk away, you'll turn to me and say:
“I'm starting to feel that depression.”

I tried to go without drinking for the day,
but soon I was in another queue.
Beer in my hands, cigarettes on the shelf;
oh, I don't know where I am going,
no, I don't know where I am going.

I rehearse all the things that I want to say to you,
in the perfect production within my mind.
It takes a dozen takes, just to get that feeling right;
but now I know just what I am saying,
oh, now I know just what I am saying.

But the words, they will die,
if I feel all right,
so I'm holding onto this depression,
I'm holding onto this depression.

I'm as stubborn as a **** on a concrete street,
I'm as stubborn as the snowfall on the mountain.
I dream of a cottage, down in the south of France;
you and me can get drunk off each other,
yeah you and me will get drunk off each other.

But soon, I will pack
and leave you behind;
I'm taking just what I need
to survive,

I'm taking just what I need
to survive.

Now, I scribble all these words on a page,
and I hope to God someone picks them up,
then turns them into a doctrine for their life;
I just want to be someone's saviour,
oh, I just want to be someone's saviour.

But the words they fall away,
when I feel okay;
so I'm holding onto this depression,
oh, I'm holding onto this depression,
all I've got is my depression,

oh, I'm living for my depression.

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.

Hang the folk-singer in a straight-jacket.
Let him out to entertain the pained,
and to allow him his vanity
of seeing one thousand t-shirted candles
echo back to him, his own face.

Let him board the train to nowhere-town.
Give him time to walk a recovery,
to indulge in a sorrow
that was too often left ignored.
He'll come back with a black eye,
cradle and all.

Kiss your divorce on the mouth, as you
filter his coffee. You're coming out of
your shell, and out of the house,
you're meeting for coffee again,
in the sun-glass shade
of the afternoon.

Hang your clothes out to dry by the river.
Let yourself have a hayfever bout
in the grass. Allow your new freedoms
from the tyrant, that had long kept you
anchored in the past.

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.

Broke out of town and left everyone
To spend a year and a half
Outside myself and in the sun
But now I hide in the wake
Of closed walls
And only think of home when it rains
(It rains all the time but it does not last long)

The armor of discovery lost its weight
Like love lost its chains
So there was nothing to keep my kite-string heart
From buffeting in the ionospheric storm.
Now there is no light
It is all shadows, uncomfortable heat
And night as black and harrowing
As a scorpion in fear

Now I am always careful where I tread
I have learned to make a room full of fast friends
And enablers without any words being said

Quit the drug so I could finally
Fill those endless spaces
Took it up again once
I had squandered all meaning
And sunsets were no longer enough
Could only watch the lotus pools bleed
On the wrong side of dawn
Red-eyed and watching pilgrims
Reach absolution on the screen

Used to envelop myself in poetry and art
But now all words spoil
By page or by mouth
And no scream is enough to reach
This distance I feel
All emotion recorded long after
The feeling has gone
Everything I knew
Only realized after the fact

A familiar transition
Broken embankments
Where old scars bleed ancient terror
Into everyday humdrum moments
Crawl from the pit
Cowered in a squat
Bones jutting out amongst
The first smoke of the morning
The impending disaster woven
Into the tapestry of routine

Always had a strong will and bloodied wrists
I’ve washed my hands a thousand times
But they never emerge clean
Thought an omnipresent sun
Would remove the painful seasons
That decimate my progress every winter
But the sun only gives energy
If you are rooted to this world

Now everyone is pregnant
Or promoted
Confident or at least competent
Sharing easy conversation
Whilst I sit and struggle to breathe
Part of me got on the plane
In the hope someone
Would tell me not to leave
Now time has moved so fast
I’m 6000 miles from home
Yet it is I who cannot move on

It is I who trades sleep for chemicals
Fleeting feelings of calm
Passed through anything I can
Sniff, snort and swallow
Another half-cut legion
Chained to the mast
My endless depression
My humdrum delusion
My panic attack

The club fills with fumes;
Energy drinks and elixirs
To banish thought
And the subversion of your ****.

You keep it in check.
Fear only comes from women
When you care for the means
As well as the ends.

And so,
Objectified and vilified,
You chase your ******.
You pursue them in numbers,
You hunt in packs.

You wolf whistle and grab,
You expect them to pay back.

For each drink you bought
To soften their tongues
And then another,
Another,
Another to soften their will.

Oh, and you pass. You’ll pass
Stories around.
You’ll compete for the
Anecdotes over hangovers,
Your conquests of the night.

Each woman a tally,
A tick on a board,
Each kiss an insurance
That you’re self-assured.

But each morning you wake,
And there’s that something
That’s missing.

It’s no wonder when you
Look in the mirror,
You see just flesh,
An empty holding cell,
Of a manly veneer.

I felt the pull of poetry
in your elaborate handwriting.
Those delicately numbered pages
of concern and understanding;
well-tamed and thoroughly Christian.
You tended to your garden,
before spreading aid to the forest,
Joseph is doing well,
and there is happiness at last.

I will wait here.

I will wait precisely in this cabinet,
Until you prise it open
In that delicate curiosity
That is lost in ‘today’.

My words are more patient than myself.
I know that now,
I think I always did.
It is why I love and

Why I love so patiently.

I will wait so gladly in my place,
Until poetry is fashion once more.
It is a sure case
In a sorry state.

Hearts that beat too fast
And breaths that are too frequently
Forsaken for a foolish enterprise
Of some invested individual

Sat watching behind a blast screen.

I will wait here and think back.
To remember the fuzzy nothing
Of my childhood mind. I recall little
But the polarities. The spaces of life

That intercede mere existence.
I bask in these doctored images of a past
That I never quite had. A fatherless summer
Forgotten instantly in garage top vigils,

Kicked footballs and years that were endless.

I wonder if my words will last longer
Than the etchings of your gravestone.
I wonder more so whether you would
Approve of them and how much I would

Have cared if you did not. A father is lost
And is abstract for me. Like God,
An ever-present utterance of nothing at all
Or perhaps everything that I am

Or could possibly ever be.

I wonder whether my love of words
Is nothing but a longing for permanence
In a world that has forever shown me
Futility. I have read of it in your name

Again and again through till now,
And thenceforth years to come. Your name,
How it needs to mean something,
Your voice, your ‘I’ through the ages,

For it envelops me within it - we are the same Mr.

It is within your void that I search for a father.
An ancestor to tell me who I am
And from where I have come. The plight of the
Ape-men that have been, their legacies

Wrought in blood-stained gold
But also in each yellowing poem
And from the hand prints on cave walls.
These are the will of my fathers,

The trinkets on my mantelpiece.

It is within you all that my words
Remain patient. It is within you all
That my will remains clear. For I know now
(Or perhaps I always did)
That there is a voice amongst us.

It may sleep through the noise of today,
All-talk and no communication. It may sleep
Right on through until we awake. Our eyes
Will burn for staring at the screens,

But our hearts will sing for their reprieve.

Do you take the path of least resistance to get through the day?
Do all those leaflets make zero sense to you, too?
So you take a beeline route to avoid
anyone that is trying to sell you something;
the missionaries by the charity shop,
old lovers in the beer garden-
do you take worn paths only to lament
the lack of changing scenery?

Do you get ****** up just to calm down?
Do the seasons creep up on you, too?
In one moment, are you walking through the autumn leaves,
only to find yourself buried in snow?
Buried in the hue of the darkest blue,
where only melodies can reach you beneath the soil,
a tone-deaf beat that gives cause
for you to wait out the winter,
until something starts to give,
until something comes to change,
until the old warehouse of memories
is finally rearranged.

Do you miss the moments that matter
only after they do not matter anymore?
Do you always hope for friends
only after you have locked every single door?

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.

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

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

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

I do not remember when I got so bad.

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

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

I can hardly remember your face,
left here in a chair,
room aglow with the muted television,
drunk as hell.
A man becomes a pigsty without a woman.
***** stains on the sports sock,
a battleaxe hangover,
bills piled by the toaster
and **** over the kitchen sink.

The bailiffs came.
I cried like a child through the burglary,
drank the Ganges in stout when it was over.

I have been drinking ever since
the Christmas lights turned on,
the town bathed in absinthe, teenage smokers,
Lithuanian women;
no chance of collision with you.
Eternal ashtray, brick upon brick,
cylindrical beams - an empire of ash
and odour. I can't smell you anymore.
How senses die, yet you remain,

stubborn as a **** on a concrete street,
stubborn in your deceit,
my old crutch, my faded ***** in heat.

I am a mess of old exchanges
whilst ****-stars **** on screen.
Fantasy is dead
as my first dog, defunct,
birthing colonies beneath the ground,
frozen over in winter.
I feel nothing. No thing.
Urges clamour for attention to keep me alive,
vague hunger, the need to bleed.

The paramedics came.
I cried like a child through the gift-wrapping,
drank from a plastic cup as they covered your face.

I can hardly form a sentence
in this fast world
of slow days and long aches in silence:
this is hell.
A man becomes a pigsty without a woman.
I see you in my ridiculous moments,
the insanity that stands in your place,
fractured light in the doorway-
my obsessive state, your forgotten face.

For Blythe*

My friend, where did you go in such a hurry?
I was stood at the bar, reciting my order
as a preparatory mantra for an interaction
that was always difficult for the both of us.

Everyone is dropping like mayflies here.
A silent dive out of the hologram
and towards more indelible climbs.

I know you lived with an abusive secret;
poorly kept, yet rarely addressed in
your tectonic silences. Irretrievable fractures
that birthed the fault lines in your face.

Fate was donated into your hands.
Another kind soul torturing itself
for merely being human.

My friend, please tell me where to go.
Tell me, how soon will I follow?
Tears have collected in oceans for you.
As you knew that they would.

But even that could not stop you
once love had lost its flavour.

After the rain,
there be flood of joy,
there be pianist fingers
shaping the keys, tending
sounds to solace.
There be stray dogs
falling in love
over railway tracks,
there be dinners of taste
and wine unending,
after the rain.

After the rain,
there be confident stride,
there be sun rays milked
over cloud as I see daylight.
After the rain,
there be confetti in the sky,
there be cleaner blood,
crisp wind and salt in the air.
There be long walks
through the old park,
cardboard lots of treasure
and a peaceful guitar,
after the rain.

After the rain,
there be faded scars,
there be off-white reminders
of the passing of winter,
the tide of Spring, as tears
come over in the promise of day.
Beauty thawed out
and turned to ice-water,
dulling the drink of Aquarius;
he pours it out to the needy valleys
and all the humans
with their acquired tastes.
After the rain,
we drink together,
we drink as one
and we drink in one,
the diluted drink of the Gods,
after the rain.

After the rain,
I write with force,
I write with foresight
and a wit to say sorry.
After the rain,
there be no more anger,
there be no blame
for severed friends
and teenage excess of love
and turmoil.
After the rain,
there be no more waste,
there be no plastic existence
under the guise of these walls,
there be no flag-waving,
there be no election,
there be no shepherding
of sentient light,
no tendon to chew
and no blood to pour,
after the rain.

After the rain,
life will finally happen.
After the rain,
there be no more cloud.

Do not say to me
that in life, is offered freedom.

Do not lie to me
and tell me everything is okay.

I am finished with the sacrament of stories,
I am done with lying through my words,
this world is falling apart in maladaptive chaos,
through the will of man, of companies and debt.

Do not sing to me
our prostituted freedoms.

Do not give to me
the ******* you've been fed.

I am past the need for fair and approved judgement,
I am beyond words for the injustice displayed,
from the cruelty of man to all species,
to the decimation of a low-income estate.

Do not offend me with
the policies for tomorrow.

Do not pin your bias
to the colour of your tie.

I am tired of fighting through this longing,
I am exhausted in the mere light of day,
because each day in your power is bereft of all hope,
each day in your power, we're enslaved.

A rose.
A rose for you, dear reader
Who has stumbled upon my words.

I’d give you another my sweetheart,
But my expectations weren’t too high
You see,
And so I bought just the one
And kept the change for me.

A hug,
A hug for my dear reader,
They all come for free,
An embrace of my gratitude
For your praise at my mediocrity.

I’d hold you for longer, my robin,
I’d keep myself warm at your breast
But you see,
But my shyness outweighs my love,
And most definitely my generosity.

What’s left?
What’s left for my dear reader?
Who has stumbled upon my words,

My voice can not scale the chorus,
So let me write you a verse.

Here is a toast for a future life
of foreign seas and captivating wife.
I'll write in the day whilst she is away,
we'll get drunk on good wine,
with no debts left to pay.

A ***** film fixes itself onto a loop behind my eyelids.
The particulars fall apart all around me
And Plato’s cave becomes more of a cell.

How hard it is to swallow
The pill of panic that sticks and forms
Into that lump
In your throat.
The one that resides from the first steps into school
And onward the rest of your life.

And I write,
I write to stay sane
To calm my breath
To organise those thoughts
And to reduce that shriek of depression
Into a bray of indifference.

Hey Porter,
What price for the forgotten vinyl in the corner,
And the dog-eared books
Donated by the whiskered old woman?
Hey Porter,
What price for that fish,
To save me the thud of scales on wood
And to see of its return to water?

And I write,
I write to stay calm
Revision: to become calm.
To attempt calm.

And I play,
I strum to the sound of my heartbeat
Until the buzz of strings slows enough
For me to lay down
And crash into my pillow.

How exhausting it is,
To care about every gnat’s demise in the
Twilight of an Indian summer
And every flicker of doubt
You see in the strangers you pass by.

I stood on the cliffs of Cabo Girao,
I watched the village slip away,
into to the mouth of mother nature;
into the sea of salt and spray.

And in my baseball cap, I leant out,
and threw my t-shirt to the sea,
I was done with missing sunlight;
I was done with autumn leaves.

I headed out to warmer climates,
and I was cradled in the sun.
I experienced new beginnings,
in the roots of Babylon.

They whispered through ayahusaca,
as I force-fed myself the tea;
as I malfunctioned into sanity,
as new voices came to be.

We laughed on through the Amazon,
and in the emptied streets of Rome.
Earth fell upon the weight of change;
now all of the land was home.

Old pick-up trucks are left to rust,
as all memories are altered.
A cigarette will tempt our death,
in a breath so rushed and faltered.

The voices left me in the high-rise,
in the car-park that we once looked out;
we saw the limit that is the horizon,
we saw a future full of doubt.

I have travelled through the aftermath,
and found no one left at all.
At least there's peace in my delusion,
away from the ancient city sprawl.

Yet, still with all these questions,
of what was caused, under which name;
you still send them to expire,
as I linger on your gaze.

I've not seen you in a while now,
you could be dead or worse: happy.
All I want is to find Eden,
and have you descend down from the trees.

I don't want to spin out a rhyme
each time I feel happy,
I want to laugh and drink beer
in a cooling shed,
with the bleak disruptions
of cue ***** and pockets.
I don't want to
search for the future,
I don't want to
pester in squalor,
I want misbehaviour
and my head in a bucket.
To rise again,
with the faint smell of liquor,
inhaling the youth
that never came to deliver,
bring me back to the hope of a soul's holiday,
to the hope this struggle will allude
to days without discord,
that play to my tune.

Alexandria, former lover,
though I knew you well.
Halls lined with books,
we memorised the details-
it was the meaning we forgot.
The river ran dry so long ago,
burned your books to the ground
and became the resting place
for men bearing gifts.
Learned the trade:
love in the modern age.
You took your fill,
left before you were dismissed.

Alexandria, you learned to open your legs,
blot out your heart,
endless doodles on a wet afternoon;
ear to the phone
in an empty room.
Need someone there to fill your time,
the day so long – crop so dry.
Wine in the evening,
your life-long amnesty.
We took to drink together
but you drank for yourself.
All those years of lost prudence,
all knowledge turned to ash.

Alexandria, your former glory,
the peace that will depart.
Entropy over your bed-side desk-
your habits always coloured your interests.
What happened to your monuments,
Your brick-by-brick
malaise
into being? Lost it to superstition,
found a religion and stuck to it-
the alibi of the thief.
You always fell beneath the sheets
at the first sign of winter,
every time you heard love
on someone’s tongue.

Alexandria, wordless chorus,
poetry in your movements.
Used to watch smoke
crawl into the fibres of your cardigan,
all studious and high in the garden.
Weeds came through the concrete.
The sun always seemed to be coming down.
Foxes looted the back-streets.
Took the same walk each day
in an attempt to bring down the walls.
All that is left of you is not mine.
You only ever belonged to yourself.
Alexandria, you sat in silence

whilst inducing men to sing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no more room for satellites
spinning sitcoms from the sky.
A lecture wrought in nervous talk,
of terrorist plot and government god;
we saw the flock abandon the steeple,
before settling for luxury,
and reverting back to sheeple.

We spend nights home from work
locking ourselves in.
These twisted thoughts and store-baked goods,
they platter my mind with salted ambition;
they terminate the desire at the source,
the river now runs dry,
it has come to run its course.

There are thirty-three reasons why I came here,
and innumerable thoughts in between.
I have fallen ill of the sunlight's tilt,
of breezy summers and breathless winters;
you were the ease of conversation,
you clothed my children,
you fed my nation.

There is no more room for pointing blame,
for counting figures of possession and points.
We have got to live, grow bitter or forgive,
work for our bread, dodging rains of lead;
avoiding heart-ache at every terminal breath,
you are the only exception,
you are all I have left.

You *******.
How dare you lie awake
And feel short-changed.

There are children in Africa-
No listen,
There are children in Africa
Did you know,
Eating dirt and drinking ****.

And yet you lie there,
You *******,
And lament the broken socket in the wall;
All those sorry women you didn’t lay.

What now?
A tantrum again, you *******?
Your friends wont hit the town tonight,
And your woman wont let that depression bite,
So now your book will never get written
You ******* you ******* you *******.

Your mother loved you
But it was the wrong kind of love.
And your father,
Your father left after you were born:
A peaceful death but a tasteless funeral.
He left before you could recall
A slamming of the door.
He left no trace for you to search
The corners of the Earth for his return.

There is a privation within you but you cannot create something out of nothing.
No, you needed a slam of a door,
And the ache of tension in your gut.
You needed the punch on your heartstrings,
To create the music and the art
That would finally validate your lack of colour.

Oh, you poor *******.
Too unstable to hold down a job
And get a house in the burbs.
Too contented to set fire to the lot.

But I know you I do,
And you will pick up that guitar in a week or so
When I have set myself all tranquil-like
In the corner.
And you will try again,
Fruitlessly, may I add…
To concoct another potion of chords
To save another anonymous soul
That never needed saving.

And you hold out your hand
For just another ******* like yourself.

But I see you’re running late,
You must get to work.
You have small talk to be getting on with,
Yes, that dryness in your throat,
That heavy tongue
And those sentences you play out
In your head on your way into the office,
You know they will fall apart
Into useless, uninteresting stutters.
And the sweat under your armpits
Will cling to your ironed shirt
In your day-to-day panic attack
Of routine.

Yes, I’ll let you get on now,
And I will be waiting for you again
The next time you walk past a car window,
Or wash your hands in front of a mirror.
See you soon,
You *******.

I started sipping on nettle tea
after I figured I should warm myself
now I cannot afford the heating bill
I could not quit the cigarettes
nor the obsessive clipping of the skin
around my fingernails
it is the kind of night to call you
it is the kind of night
not to be alone
I am getting good at it now though
They have started a new reality show
on the nature of consciousness
but mostly they just **** and fight
it is fantastic to watch
I think we are being prepared
to begin surveillance on each other
in this broken down state
I hope you will catch me stealing
I hope you will look out for me
it is all that I do

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.