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

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

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

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

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

There is no genius here,
only mental illness conveyed
in an eloquent turn of phrase.
A Christmas Nativity in August
begins, with a topical birth
of a commonplace bride,
told that purity is
some form of ribbon
that is to be cast aside
upon the briefest love for a man.

We feel a tiredness beyond memory.
Memory of when it set in,
or how long it can be slept off
before sleep becomes the problem itself.

The choir sings in broken melody.
Fat faces that glow in spotlight,
dreaming for a future in film,
in a town built for passing things by.

There is no coastline here,
no way to look beyond road strips
and broken-down shop-fronts.
All we can do is keep on waking each day,
stirring the tea leaves
and keep looking for the next high.
A way to see out over
all of this separation,
that repeats in echoes and falls
from the early evening news.