I was playing in the jungle
I was taking lots of risks
I was saying this won't happen to me
I've seen it happening to strangers
But strangers don't exist
I said "I'm too smart, yeah I'm too quick y'see"

I spent more time out in that jungle,
Going once or twice a week,
I was making up excuses to go back,
That snake he was a-watching,
He sensed that I was weak,
he coiled up, preparing to attack...

I made some bad decisions
don't expect you to care
but I'm deep down in the belly of a snake
My friends try to help me,
find my way out of there
But the stomach of that serpent is opaque

his jaws closed around my ankle,
But still I soldiered on,
I can kick him off any time I please,
Before I knew what happened, he had my other leg,
And his scaly maw was up around my knees


People asked about the serpent they said "boy are you ok?"
I didn't have the heart to tell them "no"
Feel digestive juices working,
Yes I'm withering away,
But I tell myself I've some way left to go,

Now that I'm trapped inside,
he takes me everywhere he goes,
As he eats me up he tells me he's my friend
And when I'm inside that serpent,
I don't feel no pain,
And I'm thinking that he was right in the end

Sometimes I get a burst of strength,
and crawl towards the light,
I try to prize those mighty jaws apart
But the outside is so cold and scary,
maybe not tonight;
That I let myself slip down into the dark

Quaint crumbling yellow tower blocks. Heaps of trash and traffic choked streets.
Geckos smiling sweetly on the wall. Cockroaches and rats in the background. Two children. One mischievous toddler and one innocent baby. My wife in the distance looking away. A middle aged Asian man drinking, scolded by is wife and mother in law.
My wife in the distance looking away. A middle aged Asian man drinking, scolded by is wife and mother in law.
School aged children laughing and crying.
A laptop in a lonely dark room. Piles and piles of prescription drugs: tramadol , codeine, ******, ritalin. Tubes of corticosteroid and moisturizer creams.


Jolly fat men in their 30s drinking bia hoi, smoking endless cigs. A rock band plays to an inebriated crowd.


Sunlit mountains. Limestone karsts. Emerald rice fields on straight flat roads heading on forever with a fat sunset overseeing the lazy water buffalo wallowing.
The faces of old friends growing hazy.

A gaggle of women, enraged or sobbing.
School aged children laughing and crying.

A heavy lidded eye dropping a tear into a panic stricken and bloodshot one

Aeroplanes heading over the vast sea. My late middle aged parents smiling stupidly.
Various friends smile
A girl looks on with pity, flanked by a hard faced man in a polo shirt.

Why am i waiting
To feel something
Like when I was young
Thoughts and memories
Accumulate inside my head
But still my heart is numb

I feel anguish
And sometimes I might feel some pride
But it's only surface deep
I watch my actions
As though I'm watching someone else
Making mistakes on repeat

Every day I'm
going through the motions
It's all work and it's no play
And when I find the time
To catch up with my old friends
I've got nothing to say.

Neural pathways
Digging grooves inside my brain
Habits getting more entrenched.
Mounting addictions.
I must resist this limbic friction
but I just don't have the strength.

When did my horizons
become so narrow?
Ambitions have slipped out of sight
The future is empty
Just body clinging onto soul
Going gentle into night.

When the newscaster, he preaches for a war abroad with drones,
And why battle-hardened soldiers must shoot children armed with stones,
They say "Genocide? apartheid? No!
These are strategic goals."
Remember that their wrong.

When you've waited four more years and now finally you can vote,
And you've leafed through manifestos that your favourite party wrote,
They're now in power, but you're just as powerless and broke.
It isn't you who's wrong.

The seas they are a-rising and the temperature's so high,
That the forests are a-blazing and we know precisely why,
Billionaires build bunkers, leave the rest of us to die.
Remember that they're wrong.

In distant mines and sweatshops our nation reaps rewards,
The wheels of commerce greased by blood of poor people abroad,
If you'd rather see their boats capsize than make it to our shores.
Remember that you're wrong.

In misery you've toiled and with anger you have burned,
For security and comfort and some meaning, you have yearned;
If all this has made you hopeless, then forget all you have learned!
The union makes us strong.

By now you are a skeptic of the ideology,
That says serfdom and consumption's all there is for you and me,
The hope that felt like weakness, now's a stark necessity
'Cos the union makes us strong.

Divorce


this time
was
its your side im gonna take
dont you worry mat
Im here for you unconditionally
i know you loved her
right until the bitter end
]right until your dignity was stretched out
over hot coals
over diamand like a fool
like an utter ****
you interoreted all of those negative sigals
all thise silent nigths in
avoivind the future
avoidung anythign
anythignthat might comr too close to the truth
the crippling trouch
that this time
in all the hundreds of milions of times
that this **** goes doewn
with romance]
and excitedment
and everything that for a bruief moment justifies alll yhr fuckign ****
that neurosis
the moments of utter indifference
when th difference betweeen crossing th road safely
and intentuionally hurling yourslef between the wheen of an oncoming lorry
grinding up the bones
tintoa insensate human patty
the reason you syou do the right thing
the sane thing
is fleeting moments like these were for a momnt at a time
we can acsend beyond the ordinary constrainsts ot every fuckign thing
and once that was you. Yuo were the thing that gave meaning to the shallow dochotoy between work and friend
. everyone wants something from you
sobut you stood apart from the din
the unholly din
of the forces pulling in operate directions

The next room
I want to Take you into the next Room
Share cynical laughs at their expense
And make a toast to we, the privileged few
And share backhanded compliments

****** your shoes upon somebody elses bed
knock all their possessions on the floor
throw caution to the wind and live the youth you never dared
kiss me till my lips are sore

The bands you loved before the world caught up
they never did improve upon their first
now fading from collective consciousness
cos every album just gets worse

Give me something sweeter than oxygen
from a time when this was all brand new
I'm just trying to feel without thinking
this is too good to be true

Give me something that can satisfy
Give me joy that won't disappear before my eyes
give me something I can taste that isn't ashes on my tongue
instant gratification never took so long

We sigh in mock despair now without hope
Having watched Everything We Love's demise,
And the sacred cows all twitch with BSE now
From the culture they cannibalised

Keep It Light, Keep it light
Keep it light for ****'s sake,
for ****'s sake keep it light

Keep it light, just keep talking about the weather
Don't look directly at the objects weighing on your mind
Identify the myriad peripheral minutiae
And save this sombre revelation for another place and time.

Keep it bright, cos I'm in need of some comic relief
No need to need to state the fact that things are really ******
So keep those stinking bandages wound up nice and tight
Everybody can see but they're just trying not to look

If You're lonely?
Well We're all lonely.
and if you're You're tired
Well so am I.
You wish you had more time to waste
In ways more fitting to your taste
You wish you didn't mind it.
Living life as you find it.

Don't think your the only one who sees the yawning void
Beneath this hideousness and decay
and whilst you cook up artful ways to try and make us see it
All we're tryna do is look away
All we want to do it look away

Keep it light, just keep that unthinking tongue moving
You and I both know there's nothing much to say
Keep doubling those negatives, don't stop your glottle.
Just enjoy the act in of itself, and the keep silences at bay

Don't invite, comparison's between each petty grievance.
Make sacred the fail-safe that disconnects them all.
Tell yourself there's more to this than sum of it's parts.
Keep on counting up the bricks but disregard the wall.

Keep it in, don't think you insights make you special
The self-aware will all still share the bullet-headed's fate?
Vibrate the air with sickly cares if you want to.
none of your pretty words will ever hold any weight.

This moment, this juddering dread.
Its purely circumstantial
and it will pass
One explosive act, drunk on adrenaline I chose to be strong
for once
and Now I look where it has got me
“you did the honorable thing” they will say.
And they will be right
“for the first time in living memory”
They will add.

Scooping up the layers of ugly truths that coat this place
these walls, today, this life
like so much finely powdered snow
like so much asbestos...
easy to ignore. But never forgetten.

I wash them out out of my eyes each morning
And start my day.
Dismissing them as mere dirt.
I empty my pockets and find them there,
They are under my fingernails.
A taste in my mouth.
The parts per million build up inexorably .
I will sicken and die.
You are kind. You try to help.

But you are wrong.
Soon you are contaminated. Sickened.
This failure to do what's right
provides the background white noise to waking life
The scratching and chittering of the conscience
Like rattling pipes, Like rats in the walls
disturb sleep
you see the powdered snow
Innocently.
Trying to clear it up
hands cracked
Thinner, weary
Uncomprehending and trance-like. You have felt the sunlight dim.
You have gazed into the abyss to long…

“It's time to talk about this” you say
I resist, deny all knowledge, stare out with detatched wonder
at the swirling blizzard
of toxic flakes
That blows in through the open window.
You begin to talk about this

I cough out a weak joke,
splutter some excuses. Polluting the air with benign untruths.
Which settle in heaps about the place like finely powdered snow.
Your face it streaked with tears.
I scoop up the snow, now discolored by age and filth,
Compress it, hard like a diamond
Your face is streaked with tears
Your eyes, your ears, your pores are open,
At least you are brave enough to feel something.
You face is streaked with tears.
Your eyes bright with the still-hot fire of life, are desperate to meet mine.

Downcast, I shrink from them
Merely distracted, not happy, not sad
Solemnly kneading the crystals of poison snow in my palms...
Bent Double, wrenched inwards  in an agony of unfeeling calculation.
The task is beyond my Jellied spine.
You are pleading for me.
The man, the ******* man
To make the decision.

Somewhere beneath the layers of carcinogens an old voice, rendered unfamiliar by time is crying out.
I listen.

Unsteady. Drunk on adrenaline. I take aim.
Doubled up. Wincing. God only knows what how you felt when it hit.
When the full weight of these months of accumulated deliberation
and guilt
and truth
made contact, with the face I have kissed a thousands times before.
And now here a quiver, judder
a lame and broken invalid
I first time I made a decision.
“You did the right thing” they will say.
I pray that it's the last time.

I made mistakes
I gave some people venereal disease
I acted with ****** impropriety
I ****** the girlfriend of my best friend
Multiple times
And I didn't even do a good job of it
I wasted my time here on Earth
I played video games
Past the point where I enjoyed them
I smoked ****
Past the point where it offered any insight
I took drugs and partied
Past the point where I thought I was cool
I made friendships
Which I allowed to fall by the wayside
I procrastinated
Instead of doing the things that I needed to do
I drank alcohol
As a matter or course
I worked jobs
Where I hated every second I was there
And I was too cowardly quit
I sacrificed my life and my health
For those rotten *******
I smoked cigarette after cigarette
Whilst encouraging my friends to quit
I moved to a country
Where I could better exploit the white privilege
That I was too inept to exploit in my home country
I masturbated
Over bizarre things that made me feel ashamed and full of self loathing
I loathed myself
I betrayed the trust of lovers
In order to gratify an abstract ego
I made racist jokes
Knowingly upholding principles
Which I'd often rationally rejectect
To get a few cheap laughs
I sat on my bed
And looked at internet memes until my eyes dried up

It's nights like these
With nothing prepared
Just a few close friends,
And some time to spare.

Talk some ****
We've talked before
The same old stories
But I don't get bored

Theres been a week of work
You faced four separate tests
Small talk with strangers
Gotta get it off your chest

it's just like grooming
It's just Like we're of apes
Connections found in the mundane
Analysing mistakes

We'll play a bit of music
Start trying to impress
Have you heard this cool new ****?
But Ego is all that's expressed

Found comfort in the familiar
Dropping the facade
Luxuriating in nostalgia
When memories were still made

Open up a seventh beer
Only one working day remains
Work is gonna hurt tomorrow
But so does bearing all the stain

Of a life of repition

We're gonna build that ******* wall,
We're gonna build that ******* wall,
Cos over here, yeah
We've got feelings
And over there they feel nothing at all.

We keep suffering out of sight
We keep misery out of mind,
We didn't get where we are by seeing ****,
And we're stronger when we're blind.

Well it ain't my job to care,
And I ain't paid to give a ****,
You see my grandaddy came and stole this land,
If it was yours, then you're **** out of luck.

They want a doctor when they're sick,
They want a house were they can live,
They want my air and my food and my water,
Well I ain't got a **** to give.
Yeah I ain't got a **** to give

they coming for your church,
And they're coming for your beer,
They're gonna make your wives wear the veil
They wanna make your kids grow up queer.

They tell me that the world is round
They tell me that we came from apes
They're tryna vaccinate my children
And there ain't no way to escape.

You see I love this ******* land,
I ******* love this blood and soil,
I love the colour of the people that I see in my town
And I don't wanna see it spoiled.

Don't you know that they'll take away your job,
And They'll take away your gun,
And now "free speech" has been outlawed, yeah,
They wanna take away your fun.

Well it ain't my job to care,
And I ain't paid to give a ****,
You see my grandaddy came and stole this land,
If it was yours, then you're **** out of luck.

They want a doctor when they're sick,
They want a house were they can live,
They want my air and my food and my water,
Well I ain't got a **** to give.
Yeah I ain't got a **** to give.

Put away you libcuck virtue signals
Cos civilization don't need your grief,
If the boot was on the other foot now
I know they'd kick out my ******* teeth.

So your motorbike gets you from A to B
With no hiccups or fuckups or stops in between,

No ponderous walking just to **** time
Or impromptu chats with a friendly old guy,

An excuse just ramble and gather your thoughts
Explore a some places or visit old haunts

If you find something new in an old part of town,
You find that there's worse things than sometimes breakingdown.

I admit it's frustrating to get to work late,
Or have your dinner plans foiled whilst out on a date.

But When friends say "just get a bike that works'
I reply "one that doesn't sometimes has its perks."

Sadness
it's strong stuff...
I've had so much I can't walk
without falling
I can't talk
without stalling
And slurring
Can't think
without blurring the lines
between problems
and mere actualities.
Lacking the faculties
to sort factual reality
from the masochistic fantasies
that lurk at the back of me;
Passively, I watch them attacking me
ransacking stacks of ****
that once brought me happiness
laughing mirthlessly, cursing the birth of me,
tormenting, caressing,
augmenting the worst of me,
Cementing self pity, bitterly nursing the urge
to revel in misery. Rolling in muck
and mire of recent history,
desiring nothing.
In anger I pander to these base demands,
Mistaking mere sickness
For something more grand
Avowing the charge of my own propaganda,
Allowing this world that I loved
to be slandered
Cowed
My friends are pulled down to an
unflattering angle. From here they appear
(no matter how dear)
to be traitors and thieves,
with knives up their sleeves.
I'll believe every lie my sick mind can conceive.

Don't give me the keys
'cos I'll drive off a cliff
Don't give me a pen
Cos I'll only write this
There's nothing unique in the words that I speak,
and this piece is nothing but
cliches,
mixed metaphors you've met before
similes sing of sick malaise.
Tongue out of cheek,
Dazed.
I'm released from policing
my verse,
Sad soul knows no quality Control,
As the heart beats crazily, I proofread lazily
sentimentally, hazily.
Without a **** to give
I chuck away the voice that says
“Don't write if it ain't great.”.

Days achieving nothing
but self inflicted *******
Gouging self-inflicted chasms
between loved ones and I,
apoplectic rage in spasms,
fits of fleeting normality
Bridge defeat, despair and insanity.
Weaponised hatred for all of humanity.
A small inconvenience
becomes a calamity.
Then revert to intertia perverted by vanity.

Next, corner a companion and
complain away the pain and drain your glass again and again without restraint

Explain the ways that your to blame, oh the shame the shame,
Dissect regrets, reflect until you've bored yourself to death,
(let alone the poor sod who kindly nods and slyly checks their watch, before they stammer out excuses,
Hints which I'm too hammered and useless to hear,
Too wrecked to check myself. They've done their duty as a mate, but remember,
steer clear of the fate,
Of getting ****** down into the vortex, of depression and regrets.
We've all got our problems. He's out of cigarettes.)
Whilst here I  reading aloud
still sore texts, to detect traces of affection.

Sad ****, sad drunk, alone again,
Get my coat, forget my phone. The inconvenience provides some light relief,
From the background grief.
Now tomorrow's replete with distraction s and tasks to complete.
The horizons' brightened with the prospect of splashing some some cash, and so much to choose!
Afternoons busy spent perusing reviews,
Megapixels, memory, which brand do I trust?
But I know I'm just
buying time,
Before the consumption high subsides
and I'm back with this background mosquito pitch whine saying "maybe I'm better off dead".
Bite you lip, hold on, its temporary. and whilst it feels scary, remember
Your not sick, you're not dying, your just heartbroken,
trying to move on, and maybe occasionally crying.
And that's healthy.
The weeping ain't that bad,
It's the cold light of day. It's the misguided logic. That's says "you had the best time of your life, now you've lost it,
All that was worth having,
Is behind you, and may I remind you,
You ain't getting younger, it's starting to show,
And times flowing towards the end, the time you spent on earth was wasted, getting wasted, not facing life head on and you'll never change. It's not strange that she's found someone better"
etc etc

You've been here before and each time it gets better. If you could write a letter to your younger self you could share a wealth of knowledge about Dealing with horrors from within.
Emotions invade us, but we can repel them. But you have to embrace them before you expel them.
So whilst it's not fine yet
And whilst I still pine, yeah, I'm resigned for the time being,
seeing the bigger picture.
And we're designed to recover then remove the stitches. No plans go without hitches. At last, whilst they might not go as fast as we like,
In the night take respite cos
Like the drunken high, and this ******* Hangover
This too shall pass
And one day you'll wake up sober.

Your life is threadbare
and it's cosy

Uncomfortable
but safe

Poor
yet secure

It's not killing you
but then neither are you living.

The head is above water,
Struggling against the tide.

Grinding along on a hamster wheel
that badly needs oiling

I mean

You now earn less than you did at your first job.
It was **** all then

and that was 5 years ago.

The years have not been kind. The hairline has crept upward
Roughly in line with inflation.

A job's a job's a job's a job's a job.

There's a damp roof over your head.

Are you ready to trade all this in for a taste of adventure?

A main course of personal growth
washed down with a side order of

Drudgery

loneliness

and Japanese Encephalitis.

Will they find you out?
Will you be pulled into an office

while a polite local
explains how her English is better than yours?

That could all happen, says the head

but the frightened, quivering heart longs to change.

To jump into the fire and emerge reborn
strong, dynamic, brave. All the things you aren't now.


Just don't hope for too much.

The jealous poet
Is careful to write more than he reads,
Worried that each reading leaves
A stone
Upon a rocky mound
That time cannot age or wear,
For as stones lift it from the ground
It makes his own cairn seem more bare.

I wish that you would not admit
So easily and freely

That since we are legitimate
My presence makes you queasy.

As we dug our sinful crater
Out of burnt and broken hearts,

You felt like we were greater
Than the sum of both our parts.

With a look over the shoulder
Those kisses felt pyretic,

But when coals ceased to smoulder
Said kisses felt emetic.

What if you aren't the one you thought
And can't live life but can distort
its shape to make in mouths a taste
to which mouths can't help but relate?

Stood at the edge of the fray
No body, but a mouth to say,
In life unlived, emit a call
of truth that can be heard by all.

A restless heart defeats the weary feet that wish to lay in uneasy asleep

Repeated every mundane day, work, eat, excrete sleep. Watching your only life deplete;
One night at a time with cheeks welded to your seat
But its easy; distractions are replete;
Satisfaction - that's a little harder to achieve.
Bereaved, knowing your living someone else's scheme. And your life's an reflection of someone else's greed
Yet you can still feed yourself
and you only need to see the TV to see people whose most basic need aren't met.
So why fret?
If your so lucky in the scheme of things
Then why dream of things
The free time to pursue  your interests
When your sitting behind that desk
With a tie round your neck
And an invisible ball and chain round your leg.

But tonight you seek a little transference, a defiant display of independence from Facebook and HBO, you leave the door without knowing really where to go.
You just ride on your bike
Leave the rest to your psyche

When his mother was dying we each said goodbye
I was moved to tears.

The funeral came and though I tried to remain stoic, English, I cried.
Then he died, pulled under by umbilical cords, tied by my bloodied hands.

When the service came I cried then too.
My parents told me not to cry, as though it was an admission of guilt.
Still I wept through the service, as though their sternly worded advice meant nothing.
I sat and felt several tides of sorrow wash over me.
I tried to clench my bowels when it came. Through the first I stayed strong, forcing the emotion down.

The second wave made my eyes water; and whilst a stray tear dribbled off my chin I remained strong, forcing the emotion back down my swollen throat to maintain composure.

The third wave came, and though I kicked and struggled to keep my head above the guilty waves I sank below
My weeping, scabbed face betrayed the guilt of a murderer and finally I let go
Allowing the full horror of what had transpired to engulf me.
I drowned, my face covered by my ***** jacket.
The priest offered for us to share a final moment with the victim before he was burnt to ashes
And I, like the guilty party sat stock still, paralysed by the truth; that I, at that young age, had killed
And whilst I swore that I would never **** again
I collapsed adrift on a bitter sea of tears,
Howling at the injustice that I had wrought.

Later, when composure had been regained I felt a stirring in those clenched bowels.
I sat down on the porcelain throne and proceeded to **** out a large and meaty ****
I strained, my eyes watered, and my **** tipped to the edge of prolapse.

Comforted, I wiped and then felt nothing.

With humility I knew, that I was not noble Simon Daedalus but lowly Leopold Bloom.

The same avenues corporeal brinkmanship that led me to that sad place
Had led me to safety.

It was at first a sad realisation
But I’m happier now.

Stand up. Give me your full ******* attention.

Don't pretend you can effortlessly, carelessly produce a "real work", seated, with one eye on self-awareness, a tongue wedged in a cheek with one foot in the grave of perceive- opinion, not yet received, with a cool smirk on a proud chin sat atop a cool fist on a hard wrist on an indifferent arm held up by numb tendons leading down to a self-deprecatory elbow, the joints forming a fierce coalition of empty strength, that separates you from the hellish fire of embarrassment, the horrifying depths on mediocrity, that tempers the hot heart with a cool head.

Cast asunder the filthy cancer stick who pours its stinking grey ash upon the clacking, laughing keys. Throw that glass of water (for tomorrow) on the floor, step on its shards and dance, embracing them in soft padded flesh. Castrate the ***** of the feet and bleed out the last vestiges of your projected third person that stalks you like a shadow.

Ignore the clock that tocks and ticks towards tomorrow, towards a real life of bills and rent, distill your repent and drink deep brother. Sense the too-familiar scent of childhood fear borne out of decades of internalised guilt and tell me that it isn't sweet tonight, if this isn’t worth staying up for then I dare you to present me with a life worth going to bed for.

So strip yourself in front of this mirror, off each layer of potential, pretension, self-satisfied introspection, flawed, self-assured contentment that whispers that if only you applied yourself once in a while the confused mess of thoughts, regrets murmered under-breath, and little deaths that never escape the abstract place might one day add up to something of concrete beauty. Shatter the sardonic prism through which you view each new offering from those whose cardinal-sin was actually trying -that affords your cackling Medusa that the caustic chorus of “I could do better if I wanted to”.

Well don't you?

Tear down the veil between you and what you can't put off any longer; inspect the flabby mess of sores, leaving the limp **** to shrivel against the chill. Let the goose-bumps cluster like tumours. Like it or not this is you. Better live in bitter disappointment than forever bear the dead weight of mendacious expectation.

Cast poisonous complacency aside and hurl yourself against smirking canvas. You cannot win. You will die in a fluid florid flourish of movement; you will look this creeping inertia in the eye and just hope.

Give me black despair any day over this living death.

Give me the truth, without distractions.

Hey young man, nervously idling away the fresh blood the creator sent you,
Cowering, afraid of bounteous opportunity while blood turns stale and the keen head turns to mush,
Stop lying to yourself and to your love, desist in piling worries upon her tender frame!

Whilst the blood congeals in the veins
The eyes can grow dull and sickness can mollify the restless spirit.
Open the cells to mineral impregnation,
Calcifying the legs, then the waist, then the chest…

No need for anything dramatic.
No need to open up the veins in hot bath,
And bitterly expire beside the 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner
As unsuspecting house-mate knocks patiently on the bathroom door:
“(KNOCK, KNOCK KNOCK) are you going to be long in there?  I need a poo.”
Why ruin a good door-frame by forcing said house mate into shouldering door from hinge
Only to stumble across sprawled carcass bobbing softly in reddened lukewarm water
Wearing swimming trunks for modesty’s sake.

Why face the posthumous embarrassment
Of having your rambling, hastily scrawled farewell note;
Marred with emo clichés and syntactical errors,
Poured over and scrutinised by judgemental mourners.

Nah.
Just lock that bathroom door deep within your soul
And let the childlike ambitions and desires that defined you
Sink beneath the lapping waters.
Soldier on, mourning the demise of the inner self, for now
Where the excision took place is tender and red
But it will heal.
And you will be free from the burden of self-reflective expectation,
You can dine with the servants; **** up to the inept boss,
Discard the heavy crown of ambition
And walk with a light and merry step into the silence of the grave.

And whilst this resignation is all very well
for a piece of self-pitying prose
Maybe you owe it to that guileless infant
(who art the father of the man writing this)
To do better by him than drown him,
Letting him Go Gentle into That Good Night
Simply because
In the face of unwavering actuality
He has become an inconvenience.

How do I impress you?

By insisting that my love is absolute and unconditional?
By finding new and ever more elaborate ways to demonstrate my hopeless devotion?

By opening up my heart to you fully for your indifferent inspection?

Should I peel off
The mask of casual bravado to for you to see unfettered the festering mass of insecurity, obsession and shameful secret from which I am wrought?

By declaring unreservedly my utter devotion; and that I am utterly unable to imagine a life without you? To make it clear that your desertion would render my tender frame wholly murdered?

By rudely expelling from your head
whatever now is left
Of that work of fiction which you have created;
And confessed to love on that moonlit night three years ago?

Not likely.

It’s Friday and the world is saturated with possibility. As I tread the familiar funeral-march to work and wage, as inevitable as death, gladness lightens my steps and sunshine paints the decaying leaves like confetti.

It’s Friday. The mise en scene fizzes with delight. The week’s weary cynicism is banished forever and cheery simplicity reigns. The laughing crowd of actors cloaked in Sunday-best suites outside the temple feel it too, and in this light all religions are true.

A glorious Friday. The graveyard dances with life. Mammal and bird pay scant regard to the festering bones. This is no time for the dead. With the hubris of youth I scamper between, leapfrog over the stones; smirking at the ugly archaic names, which in this light seem more absurd than usual.

I know that its not right to force it because its not natural or pure, the soil is poor, there’s a flaw, no flow, no place for it to go, led down a Cul-de-sac, off the beaten track to a sterile wilderness where there’s only the mundane, eating *******, talking, working, walking, friends faces, names, places and facts.
    Dry dusty facts, set in their mould, old facts, cold facts, aging hard, ready to crack and dissolve, slipping and draining away to the darker recesses that you've forgotten how to reach, or try only to find the minds too numb and bruised, too weary, abused and overused. Like the endless capillaries have gradually retreated from being mistreated, you know that they won’t re-grow and its accepted and its just another fact setting slowly in the mould until

SNAP!

You remember the name, the aim of the game, the shadows and stains the voices you retain in the dark recesses of the brain and its re-shelved in a safer place nearer the surface, grinding other facts into dust, now a few inches high, thick enough to stand on top of it, loose so that snaps of conversation and chilling grains that catch in your throat and make you choke and cold all over and weak at the knees are carried on the erratic breeze that whistles between the plural mes,
    Sometimes linear, progressing down a straight path, so direct that from A, Z can be seen and processed leaving the remaining 24 letters unnecessary circumlocution, sometimes ignored or stored to be thought again when bored, recycled, implying a mind of finite possibilities…yes, It is futile to exist, reminisce, kiss or think or resist the bland uniformity of experience: to stand out, shout, or doubt, think or drink or stagger, swagger or to conjure grand statements that somehow draw ultimate and above all illusionary conclusions about everything that are eyes aren’t designed to find; cos our bodies, too small for our minds are only built for the daily grind.

Round bricks that don’t fit our square shaped holes, objects too weighty for our inky fingers to lift and label and store away with the other facts, to rot until eventually freed, returning to a primary state of non-existence. Add Rhyme :lime, time, Thyme, mime, I’m, Grime, Chime, Chyme, then Simon Says add some clever mechanical clockwork metrical structures whilst speaking insightfully about abstract concepts in a witty and above all IMPRESSIVE manner. On your marks…

Inner monologue gets louder, pulse begins to quicken
A growing sense of desperation vies for recognition.
The tone gets more insistent and a thousand voices ask
which clump of molecules is in charge behind the mask?

Inches from the mirror I study my disguise,
hoping I can see the me that lies behind the eyes.
I'll process the objective, trying not to see.
The fractal patterns that divide into infinity.

Trapped inside a universe behind my eyelids closed
I glimpse the logarithmic hell from which I am composed,
If you take away your senses, all that you'll feel is alive
Like stripping paint from canvas to find from which part art is derived.

If maths is what I'm made of, then I don't want to know
for once I fear the truth is hear it's never gonna wanna go.
We're all made of nature, and if nature's all the same
how can a soul be grown up in a dish but still it isn't tame?

Today is the day. As in customary, we shall start with the weather: The morning is clear and cool, the sunshine weak but well-meaning, the wind sweet but sharp and the trees green and chatty.

This day has been a long time coming. This day has. For too long it has skulking amongst the future pages of some misplaced internal diary. It's long shadow has been edged with fear, dreaded like an exam. Said fear melts away like yesterday's clouds, replaced by sunny optimism, for this date is now set in stone, frozen hard over night it now stares me down with oblique neutrality.

I'm not going anywhere, it whispers softly. You're fears are misplaced. Your fear of me is a your fear of death. Useful up to a point - but essentially irrational. Whatever will be will be and it will today.

The morning gather pace and after momentary brief salutations and briefer negotiations the train is boarded. The destination: no one knows. We know the names but they seem oddly sterile now, the sound cold hard lumps in our mouths, currency worn smooth: Edale, the pennines, the peaks, Absorbic. Citric. Folic, Formic Carbonic. Sulphuric. Deoxyribonucleic, Lysergic. Acid.

The absurd signposts of anonymous hamlets lazily swing by with increasing rapidity, blurring into one like the blades of a helicopter.

Post-industrial scabs and sores instantly give way to merry bucolic splendor as itchy, thick balaclava of the city in torn away. Laugh about nothing as we are hurled headlong into some postcard image of an England long lost between 'then' and 'now' where trees sing, walls are dry-stone and happy cows and sheep await noble, happy deaths; all wrapped in honey-coloured sunshine.

Rolling mounds of soft green matter undulate gently to a halt, and we emerge intrepid coloniser of a galaxy far far away. Locals eye us warily, the hot sun looks down angrily now. The baking mud coughs dust in our eyes and yellow spears of dead grass stab our tender shins. The warm fuzzy nostalgia that we are draped in gives way to...something else. Illogical patterns snake across verdant valleys, breathing and twitching. Harsh blue sky melts into hazy horizon, like oil on water. Panic sets in.

Pleading looks are exchanged and whilst reassurance is sought, none is found. Each gaunt face is scoured for hints of strength. Leaderless we wade through a sea of shimmering heat, collecting beads of sweat, losing hope of succour. We seek solace in plastic pound-shop distractions, only to find we are rendered too numbskulled to operate children's toys. Terror turns to horror. The yawning maw of madness, death is now so close we are caressed by it's putrid breath...

Release! Baking savannah morphs to cool,  mottled-green grotto and everything has already changed. All is bathed in verdant peace and ears can feel the cool lapping of a friendly stream.

You walk a lonely path old man but now and then you show us
you're alive
And maybe when you've had a few you'll shed a sorry tear or two.
That's fine.

But if you really must insist on dredging up this ****
Each and every time.
As each new fact's learned don't mistake horror for concern.
Cos it's a lie.

I'm happy. My eyes are dry.
I can't feel pity looking in your killer's eyes.
So chin up son, don't you cry.
The things you did were unforgivable and I'll never sympathise.

Lying just beneath the skin there hides a multitude of sins
That wait
For a ear that doesn't sneer or recoil sickened
Cos they can't relate.

Seize any opportunity; for you've so many agonies
to share,
To unload your woes but that cross you built
is yours alone to bear.

Each sacred tet-a-tet where you might vocalise regrets
makes you renewed,
But don't forget that as they peer at you it's one-way glass
their peering through.

You look through misty eyes - your little heart is opened wide,
but their's are shut.
They can't return your gaze of hopelessness and shame,
They've heard enough.

If I thought there was an afterlife
I'd be concerned for what's coming your way
And whilst I don't believe in evil
You and him came pretty close I'd say

You can repent until your spent or
Flagellate your sorry self to death.
But if your just trying ro tell the world your sorry
Well, you can save your breath.

Leave flowers on his grave and promise that you'll never
misbehave again
Curse the wicked heart god gave you -
If you had the chance you do it all the same.

Mount another charm offensive
Show them all the side they think you lack
But know that no amount of
Humility will ever bring him back.

Geometric Considerations and Nomenclature for Reflectance, U. A march section in B flat minor follows.
Cordelia is nervous about her father's tax position but does not tell the others. Japan's Olympic judo team.
Rehberg married his high school sweetheart, Jan, a water attorney who represents farmers and ranchers. In four games, he had been sacked 23 times and had a pass intercepted 12 times.
Eastern Europe, and conspired to spread communism throughout the world. There are 55 schools in Kortrijk, on 72 different locations throughout the city, with an estimated 21,000 students. Go through all tools, materials, and so forth in the plant and work area.

Venus eye trap please
Accept my humblest apologies
for allowing these normally perfectly well behaved pupils
To rove carelessly across this shuddering carriage
And interlock with your own
For just a fraction
Of a moment
Too long.

From two rows ahead
On the 42 bus.

Through no fault of my own I was caught off guard by a sudden and unexpected spike in interest,
That caused my eyes, hypnotized
To run their boorish and misogynistic fingers over the gleaming contours of your beautiful
Ivory toothed smile.

Stolen goods. Simply intercepted.
Not delivered to this godforsaken countenance
But to the infinitely more charming
Disembodied voice at the end of the line
Invisible, omnipotent
He's just shared with you what must be the best joke ever told by man.

Yes! I greedily consumed the ill-gotten merchandise and shamefully enjoyed it.
Quivering with benign, desperate exhilaration like the man whose jaw is slowly locking around the cold and tasteless barrel of a gun.

Press no charge. It won't happen again.

A grim vision on prescription pills
A future you hope there's still time to avoid.
Because beneath all the cheery waving
And bubbling surface-level conversation
Lurks the same bad wound that won't heal if it's covered.

That itches

Just turns to stagnant mush
Sticking to the crusted pillow.
Yearning for fresh air
Aching for exposure, the sun and wind and rain and stars.
Desperate to impress, to repulse
To spread beyond the derelict tomb
To which this episode of history has been condemned to rot.

So become not the pitiful ****
Upon whom your judging eye scornfully rests,
And instead burst forth in a tidal wave
Of hot bile and vitriol
Dripping from the bloodied fingernails.

It will not be pretty
But then neither are you.

Sorry it ended up like this.

Me out here, still wrapped up warm in my vestigial garment of flesh.

You in there, naked amongst your primitive ancestors like the youngest adult at a wedding, mingling awkwardly, embarrassed.

I wonder how you died. Your ribs look like they have been fixed back together after some kind of trauma.
A car crash maybe?

Maybe you struggled with long term illness, rotting before you ripened like a sickly bud in a wet spring.

However it happened your bronze plaque states it was untimely and therefore probably tragic. '(A young woman)' I read, not so much discovering but confirming what I already knew to be true when I first laid eyes first met yours across the crowded room.

You stand about as tall as me, your shining off white cheeks delicate as fine china. Staring out of you glass cabinet, you seem to beg not to be judged alongside your distant relatives, your slumping neighbors.

Fragile and sweet, you radiate a quiet dignity. It isn't hard to imagine the thin layer of blood, skin and fibrous tissue that it would take to make you beautiful again.

I plunge my hand through that glass portal, soft folds of meat transposed to brittle bone and back again, unifying you world with the mortal

It was obvious that you were beautiful, and involuntarily I envy the one who held you and kissed you last.

I wonder if anyone ever wrote a poem for you when you were alive.

It's time again for your inspection,
Time to make some minor corrections;
Squeezing out each new infection
Eliminating imperfections.

It's not cathartic -it's not bold
To just sit back and lose your hold
and let this lunacy unfold
unendorsed but uncontrolled

And YES! You really had a go;
the flakes of flesh did fall like snow,
ten jagged daggers, dripping, soak
In a red and ragged afterglow.

And then just when you think you know
it's over and you've stemmed the flow
a tiny tumour starts to grow
and it's time again to face your foe.

So the bell tolls and the round begins,
this time it's not about who wins
the wide mouthed open sore still grins
forgiving you for all your sins.

And when you stopped your childish games
the mirror did burst into flames
and burned, and now that remains
are tatters, ashes and bloodstains.