I'm fond of thinking of
Little towns I never knew more of
Than a name, a blooming of meaning
For someone else

Wandsworth, for example
Where is that?
What root colour does its name bring up
Through ink and rising yeast of
Mucky history, what
Legends roam there, who tells the stories in
Such a place?

My questions lie in courtesy
For I expect no wonders from a place such as Wandsworth
Nor would I expect my own beginnings
To tingle much whiskers
But I know

Every corner and straight of my hometown
Every cranny and nook of where I'm from
Every thought of deflated or ardent home grown hope which springs
From every river I know my place
And someone knows Wandsworth

Some lover is leaving there now
Some legend is lacking a purpose there
Some houses are filled with public displays
Of memories made, of remembrances paid

Who calls that place home?
I know they're out there,
Thinking of something
And looking up hoping
Perhaps writing of me
As I ponder what life read to them

And had me read back
Curious love for knowing of others
And the sleep which follows
To forgetting such things
Forever

How to start a conversation?
That's the question, isn't it?
Don't you dare try to tell me I forgot
What niceties bear the *****  of tightness
I'm here, aren't I?

So how are you? insipid
So where were you? cutthroat
So what can I call you murderer
Since you left?

I heard once
You broke formation, and told the wave of indifference you'd call me...
Where was that, that
Stuttering star sign
Supposed to make you divine for me?

The truth is I'm lonely,
But not worn, like
So many rocks in the ocean,
I think I prefer the company of schools of fish
And dark things from the sea
Than... Well
You know

But how to end a conversation?
You're the best at ending things.
Lonely? What's to be alone?
Better, you said it yourself,
Better than being apart.

Only a clenched burden can bear my face today,
I mellow with billowing sinews, flexing
As a dove who learnt to fly in muck
Grin

But the week brings the strong
The forceful losers who taste a candied concept
Of decency, directed to strange tests
Fight

As defended hopes take faces snarling at the blistered skin
Turned raw to the winds my indignant child blows
I can't help but feel forgotten a little
Puff

But it matters not - as sweat from malice brings out the best in me
I'll strive and forget the reluctance
I felt while crawling here
Success

Let's just hope, when mirages whisper the past to me
I **** an ear and still know
My voice among the desert breezes
Forgive

A sense of purple, royal inadequacy
Siezes me as I gloss truthly spirits
And invent what they tell me to feel,
Pretty woman, pretty thing
Primitive lonely, primitive thing
Don't look into my skull, for
I'm thinking what they pay me for

But lovely is the feeling
That saviours walk on educated steps
Frowns draw well wrought lines of ponder
Ditches of leprosy dug by the brain,

Pariah, well maybe, well just to myself
What it is I'd forgotten what wishes I work with
I'm leaving a nutshell and entering an essay
Donning a thinking cap woven in led

So there, I wrote something, and it came out coherent
Though I've no idea what it said,
My ramblings lost purpose and for that their quest,
But they buy me a future, and for that
I'm happy
Or perhaps I'm easily *lead

I cringe like coiled springs
Taste ways of knowing only fogs let me see
I binge on water
And find it turns my stomach

Sitting at a table,
I write, I draw, I scratch ink into my patience
Scratch, scratch
I hear the radio, like voices biting on my earlobes
Laugh, laugh
Oh must make them stop

My frustration buckles in my fist,
Holds tight, hot coals I clutch and wrestle
My burnt palm lets them free
Tumbling to the floor and scorching my senses.

Work comes back, lashing forked tongues like leather
My skin, they invade my skin
And sink into pores like second homes,
I can't ignore them.

People can't know what it's like
To have someone ask you a question and walk away with your ears
To hug you and walk away with your attention
TO SLIDE INTO YOUR BRAIN LIKE A SHIP BREAKING ICE
And leave you falling apart.

What I ask
Is a world simply softly
Is a world organised to what I need
Simply.
What I need
Is to stop feeling tomorrow
Will be better
When I get so angry I want to scream
But can't find the words
Because I've been told I lost them.

It's a struggle, reading really.

I knew a woman
Trinket to little pieces
Puzzles making frowns and faces
She lay, lay down blankets and tablespoons
For a man who looked at her
With a quivering, ivory eye

She grew to him,
Shockingly a bud meeting rain
Thirsty for him
Leaving what she thought she was
Behind for a man like him
And she told me
She had no idea what he was
Behind closed garage doors

He bled a little every day, she said
Till there was nothing left
He burned away his wick
And hung, string-like from a beam
Swaying in a wind she never knew she blew
She left herself in his arms

Now she doesn't smile the same
I know, though I met her
Long after
Now she doesn't sleep, but sedates
Now she walks on blades of glass
But so kind
So good
She never fell like he did

I never think I knew her
Like she was
As what she was just cries
But what she built
Talks to me
Lets me know there are people who keep going
Through her smile
She lets me know