With bodies made like limericks
Five-step beats make joy of pain
And memory makes life again

With groans that beat like drummer-sticks
On hopes that float like tears
I threw away your fears

But never forget,
The way I told you never
And sewed in lace of dew and heather

We left each other alone
We may find each other one day
But for now you can be lost, my way

Don't fill more books, my wondering cherub
Your dance has settled the night sky
I can't fill more poems with why

I feel the cold now, the numb has gone
And walk alone in a still night
I'm beaten, bruiséd from the fight

An empty shell, moved by wind
I'll see you again some day
But for now you can be lost, my way.

At the end of
Long
Hard
Stays,
I feel little
But the apathy
That sails me past honeyed seas
Through treacherous rocks.

But is there worth
In saying little,
In giggling
As if I never grew up,
As if I had never seen these things?

Would others say
'I have seen it too?'
Would others tell
The faces they find in the night
To chase some other ****** and turner?

Would others say
'We don't care,
But for the things we know in each other,
For the silences we share, while knowing
Little greed?'

I wouldn't know,
I'm too scared to ask
It doesn't feel natural.
Nothing does
Anymore.

The fact remains,
That I can’t imagine faces into the shadows anymore
But I can imagine a life alone
I can’t be afraid of monsters under my bed
But I can fear an empty one

So people cease to be wonders
But instead books, in plain text dark and large
as that horrible nostalgic past of learning to read
Both books and people
Both hope and horror
I don’t want to be alone

And then I see
God and heaven made fiction for me
All poetry and purpose talked into dust
And crippled vines with no more lies to cling to
No more forests for them any more.

Great lives without meaning
All fraught with despair for naught
And so much greater than I, who still cries
Thus making my tears even less crystal
Even more a common thing

Great oceans crossed and frozen
Whims have formed our sails of ships
Never master a trade I say
For learning makes knowing there is less to see
Less to be
And less to feel for
To be alive for
Why should we be anything for nothing?
I don’t know, but we are every day

And I cry, I cry to be that
It tears at me to be so human
To be, not built for self-destruction
And yet so chained to it
I don’t want to be me

I’m so scared of anything tomorrow
I want the dark to take me again
I want to be scared of something else once more
I want to relive and tell myself that it can’t get better
Because it’s already the best it will be

Please, please, God, enjoy yourself
Because I didn’t
And you won’t, so you must now
Before the shadows lose their faces
And your bed becomes something to fear
Hold your life and your illusions dear
Because it won’t get better from here.

Let's leave the shores of uncertainty,
Oops, my boat has holes
And is made of human skin
Water gargled through
Shock-wide mouths

But don't let's fret
Or fret let's don't
For we see what we look at
Through eyes that look through me
Let's inflict ourselves upon reality

I'm so biased, me
I don't know you,
Or do I? Don't tell me for,
What can you know,
Believer?

Let the waves tickle your feet
And laugh at the sensation of their beckoning
Turn it down with a snort of mirth
And breathe easily for once, or twice, or thrice...

We just can't know.

He smiled,
And the lines on his face were dug anew
About his mouth,
To the girl with lines around her eyes.

She shut them tight
And thought of worlds of sun and stars
Where men flew and birds watched in envy
She was watched by the man with lines on his brow

For he frowned
Head of liquid knowledge hung
Heavily over the page
And the lines of his thought marked deeper

A joke, a dream, a book
All this and more to these different ones
Many more with lines from all their lives of spleandour or squalour
I thought of them and the lines wrote themselves

Deep in thoughtful ink.

Sit naked
Like children matting the lives they may never have
Pit patting innocence on the floor
With tiny, ***** feet.

Simplicity in the curve of her bottom
And the writhe her legs give me
Infantly pleased to see me
Heroicly ignoring the bitterness of an espresso

We can sit together, one day
And chime on our shields
She can play me music
And I can draw her worlds

And toggle life from death
Switch from fight to flee
While she makes melodies
That answer to my name
Just my funny name

I can't imagine
Anymore
Crisps think less
Chips have been sectioned
Never knowing,never fearing
As something so unlike myself

'Hold the candletip to my fingertips', she said
Shuddering under the weight of heat
And my incredulous stare.

'Do it'. she ordered, and I did,
Believing a love without identity would last as long,
'Cut off my hair.' she shouted

I did, it stuck up short
Cowlicks on her forehead
'Enough.' I said. She shook her head.

'Squeeze my chest, love, and don't be gentle,
For I shall know in the heave of my breast.'
I did and she cracked within under the hate of how much I wanted.

'Now, take my words-'
'What?'
'Let me finish.' she said

'Take my words and give me yours,
We can share one voice,
My God we can.'

I took my words,
Though it was agony to rip them free
And she received them without thanks.

Her hair short, her words shorter
Her chest flat, her fingers flatter
Before me a mirror stood

I tried to see her face, but only hated mine
And told myself I would never see her again
I realised too late her difference was what made me love her.

There was a man of pilgrim's might
Whose feet would hound with real respite
His head hung low, but thoughts gave flight
To smiles he flashed out through the night

And on he came to seeped well
And burned with petal thirsting smell
He cupped his hand to pool to tell
Of washed brows in walking hell

And then he saw a girl with hair
Of yellowest sunlight's bounty share
And told his heart its meal is there
The meadow grasseed blew nowhere

She cooled his brow with gentle hand
She ushered back the gourd's demand
And though the dirt gave way to land
No borders had her goodness banned

He woke beneath the willow tree
In cradle of arms' ecstasy
And she joined him to join the free
With daffodils afore their glee

Yet still they walk, but tell me this,
What is the road, but wartime bliss?
What is the sea without the hiss
Of beauty's scent and midnight's kiss?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day
Or something less written and more expressed
To something less expressed and more instinct
To what the hopeful oil feels as it burns bright?
What atom makes you? What worker formed you?
What factory sent bone chalk, called it art
Without mentioning it is mere carbon
Tints and inks of filthy purpose, broken shells?
No, I won't compare thee to the words used
To call pomp, genius, hope and meaning
I can't use symbols, smudges have more thought
In what you are, in what nature hopes of you
Only the woven mist can explain clouds
As only the pencil can explain you

Down in the depths
Of the fallen thistles of my
Jewel tree, we
Could not be baubles,

A tradition, set in chemical marble
As we smoke closer together
Blue, red, green
All the colours of a
Real crack

Don't feel for me
I think I have that side covered;
Just know,
Know what I feel for you
And how words are lazy servants.

Fly, dove on stiff wings,
Dive, depths of swirl,
Log on fire hearth and heart
Believe me,
Like I believe you

Don't feel,
Know,
Know I don't care about presents from catalogues anymore
For
You can't wrap what you feel in paper
Just in secrets...

Well no more.

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

I stood on the shore
Feeling the grainy pebbles in my shoes
Watching the Towers of Industry roll in the waves.
Great they were, the waters, not the towers,
For they blocked the sun and it was only seen
Through its glassy body, stabbed with the silhouette
Of those mighty towers.
We walked on together.

I climbed the cliffside
And met the Metal Birds
Crashed on their nests in the rock
Their thin skin dull and
Crumbled away making poor handholds.
Climbing up together, we saw the river.

We watched the sweet scent
Float away in palpable colour,
Leaving my head heavy and yellow
Like the flowers it carried with it.
Upland calls,
Upriver there is more to see.
We walk on together, always.

My dreams are painted clean
Tucked and trimmed by a sewing machine
My mother's face is wrinkle free
And smiling for eternity.

My father's voice is soft and kind
My brother's eyes are sparkling blind
My sister's arm is thick and strong
My family line is clean and long.

My pencil fertile, conscious itself
Collecting brilliance without my help
My headache gone, my nostrils clear
Breathing sea air gushing near.

Inspiration well stocked, character for sale
My clothes well spun like a handmaid's tale
Garden promise behind shut doors
This is what my dreams are for.

I love the way
I make you squeal for me
And I don't even have to feel bad about it.

I love the way
You go red when I approach,
But then you're always bright red.

Your neck is so long and
The lines on it make
You so much more approachable.

Your delicate features
Are functional
And I know how to use them.

I love the way
My hands feel like liquid over you and
You moan at my touch

I love the way
I picked you
And I pick you every day.

We make sweet music together, or
At least,
Some day we might.

For now we can just copy
Other music.
Beautiful.

I leapt from the breach
And found cold the fire
Alive in the creep
Of haunted desire

And there I would see
The pillars of hope
From those who could not try
To relish or cope

Imagine my horror
When, looking on their faces
I saw not their moments,
But dark, empty spaces

Their mouths curled down
In the strangest of sneers
And shivers and aches
And horrors and fears

They told me their name
They showed me their ways
But I won't live longer
Than their empty days

And their mouths turned up
Weak muscles unused
To frowns turning over
And mind laugh bemused

I came home, but I
Found my mirror's deceit
Shown plain to my eyes
The new me to meet.

It's not that I'm new
But maybe you'll see
What I saw out there
Is shown now in me.

Me, on my way to clock out,
He, croaking wooden breaths, a
Splintering throat, crooked as an oar's overbite
Glinting with some
Unbelievably bared promise.

I looked past him, echoed the anxious knots
Of its hollowed brow, scooped and spotted
From overuse, I frowned past him, though he followed.

I spent as long as I could not talking to him,
But forced to deny myself silence
I heard his two part speech
And paid some token focus
To what he had to say

What little I heard, in his hope filled groans
Had nothing of his contented purpose, for
Varnished words are slippery

When we went to the pub he
Leant on the wooden counter and
His roots set, he
Sprouted drunken fruit and
I don't think he's moved since

I thought I was perfect
In a place I wanted to be in
Practiced smiles and eye-flares
Abandoned, left to bathroom mirrors

A funny night, a funny funny
A taste of what's to come
I learn, my mail
Has no chinks, no tinitus stretches thee
I'm different

So it amused,
To still try what seemed like ages
Between liquores and a job that was not mine
Understanding is in vanity, and I am long dead.

I've written long on triumph
And I thought of you today
Rolling out there, between voices and phone calls
Do I think of you?

Let's see, let's know
For your idea is my friend
And I'm wasting away in the hunt
But at least I see something

At least I am God

I lay back on the sofa pack
And heard my heart abeating
Beating
Beating
Beating
Boom Boom Boom

I sat on my legs and finished the dregs
Of the tea that I was drinking
Drinking
Drinking
Drinking
Down Down Down

I breathed in a sigh and ****** my head high
In the silence I was living
Living
Living
Living
On On On

I watched my bones melt as I poured out and felt
The eternity I'm still waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
More More More

Tick Tock Little Clock
Let's make this our pact
You'll take me to the time I want
And I swear to you we'll act.

Let's grow together
You and I, sorry flower
Let's take our time, too

Do you fear the night,
And not the rain?
Do you fear the flesh,
And not the pain?

You're not human,
Clattering like chattering teeth,
It's not you and I,
But I and it
When you're around.

What's the spell
To the faith?
What's the candle
To the wraith?

Don't fear the dark, my dear
For I am near
And you and it
Can't stand my leer.

If I said tomorrow
Would be a farewell, I lied
For today is a worrysome lesson
A grant of freedoms rarely wanted

But I never say goodbye forever
Just be one to remember that
Readily I'm returning
Every day, every night
Some way

I'm going to think a while
Throw what taste I have to other customs
Of my own interest, but don't forget
How I was born to see you
At my hand every day

I'm going away to think about what I want
And feel the brink with my toes
To rekindle my passion and
Rid myself of cliché

In days not yet with us
I'll know what I need
Nearer to what I expect to get
And redetermine my pathly vision
To make good of the promise I made

I held my hand out to the dark
And scooped a black from air
I held it hard, a beating heart
'Tell me all, hostage fair,'

'I slink and sleek,
Cramp and creep,
Hustle hiss
I foe your sleep.'

Rumble, bumble, tumble so,
taken over by hand-held heart,
I crumble when I see it hold me,
It shakes me shakes me till I part.

Let it free, I said to me,
And go it did, fly on scales like music,
Clunking, chunking out the door,
I felt a little mad that day.

There's nothing we could have said
No reason to arm ourselves with
No common purpose to bleed them dry, we
Couldn't call them wrong, for that which
We know by the word has meaning only in sensitive minds.
There was no way to tell them
They hurt us, for they knew and
No way to push them back for
Rage was on their side, fear
Ignorance and the gnawing of doubt a terrible wealth of battle for them and
A cotton shield for us, such knowledge cushioning only the shears
We could not stop them with the knowledge that we were right
With the hope of forgetting what tomorrow seemed certain,
They were poised to defend
What little they saw through red lenses what
Crimes they saw committed in the name of justice
Our thorn bush burnt out and
Our knowledge of fresh kindling in seeds of the morrow
Was no use to us, we
Could not stop them.

Walking 'long a sparkling street
As adverts wave aghast to meet
The poet's eye, the poet's stare
To meet the challenge everywhere.

Men of brash, metal cage mouths
Women of pinched faces of hows
Life lives itself here, with
Or without your give.

But I am flint iron steel spark
I am death life grow fast mark
Don't talk to me, fearsome
I'm a little more than you.

I'm taking earth from your pockets
I'm taking words from your wallets
I'm living smiling drifting lazily
While you rush

For here, I am,
The wind, it knows
that on my peak
The heaven glows.

And totems ease
To be my trees
The shoots prop up
My lowen luck

I don't have to stand
To be taller than Strand
I don't have to tell you when
I'll climb atop Big Ben.

Grimace, ****
I'm made of ash
And your fire can't
Burn me.

Alive or dead,
I win.

Little trickle of delight
Dews morning games
Calligraphic nonsense adorns
My chess-board smile

Hope is made resilient
By proud eyes, puffed out-chests
Full of hot air stoked by flushes
At other people's stares

Knowing what you want is putting a price on peace
A candle out for tomorrow
A loss in the books for someone's father
Grinning tobacco teeth

Hello, hello, it's hard to shout
From a grassy hill on a street corner
Traffic crashing, mouths yawning arguments
Cities bending in to listen

Truthfully engaging means
Rings around ankle joints
Joints around palms
Joints

Furrowed brows may tell me
Brail hips give me hope
But candle-light won't tell me
You'll feel like tomorrow.

She had presence
Left my thoughts each day
With what hints she needed
To suggest her return
And make good of it

She had lips,
And oh, what lips
As if what she had to say
Needed the sweetest cushions
To lie on before leaving

When she had opinions
What she thought sparkled
And left me aghast
At the idea that she might change her mind
And lose herself, but she never did

She had a body
I suppose she did
And others stared at it, for
All the good it did them, I suppose
She was carved by men, but
Carved into a woman

She had a god to worship
A purpose well worth her life
And as such so did I
I had a reason in her
The world had a rhythm
The temples had pillars

I had a seed
It grew into a tulip
And I spent much money to give it to her
A brooch bought for our last smiles together
What a time
What a life she had

What's driving you on?
What leads you to breathe
Every aching second?
What hope can you hold,
Flossed from behind the fangs you bear
Why wear what clothes you find
****** at you from behind a bland tie?
Why follow on? Without a star?
With the skies cushioned by smog?

I ask, because I'm amazed,
It's not as if I could do it
It's not as if I did it myself
Lucky, listened me
Fortunate followed me
Hopeful happy me
So how, how do you do it?
Lost lessons to be taught from behind a plastic counter.
Those I never hope to gain

She told me she's an artist
And it was sad to see
Her mouth make 'Umm's as she thought
Her brush strokes torturing me.

I didn't love her, no indeed
But she was good and so I feared
That one day she would have to find
That pain would oft 'umm' as it neared

One day she made my portrait
It was not good but I suppose
That for one who 'ummed' and erred
It was beauty in dead clothes.

One day she called me seeking feeling
And comfort with soft words
She failed to sell a painting still
But I just ummed and erred.

We did not speak for many months
But she came back one day
At my doorstep children stood
About her by her way

She asked me for forgiveness
And I begged it in return
For few may sell their paintings
But good people never spurn.

What agent of the dark night
Do I seem to you? Baited frenzy?
******* black jacket
Upright with stiff neck

How late
Would you stay up for me
What stars will stutter with me
While I talk to you?
What oil of uneven candle?

Fate me
You verb on lost wings
Lend me a feather, so
I might just flap like you tonight.

I've lost my whimsy
Born my totem, high
I'm me, don't you feel,
Don't you see me standing still?

And to you, the hermit
I give the world
Such is your domain
And your quality

The howl of shells still split my mind
Haunting fear a freezing bind
The paper hope sent down on lease
Enough to change war into peace.

Peace thought myself a braver soldier
But was not foolish, that I told her
Like pig’s meat when I hit the pan
I shrank and squealed, such is a man.

Crying out in **** manner
“You’ll take my breath, but not my valour!”
But they came not for bravery,
They came to waste and waste is me

I fell a million times they say
Each time I sobbed the self-same way
My friends have died, but death’s a mystic
One death is tragedy, more a statistic.

There's going to be a phone call in the night
A well of whispers and worries opened
It'll trill once, twice, cease
For my hand will cool its plastic brow.

I'll cradle that phone call in the night
Cup it to my ear, like shell washed with memoirs,
Anxious to hear an answer as clearly
As the water to which my mind will take me.

Seconds will hold me - no one answers at once;
My chest will heave, rattling those breaths and thoughts impatiently.
I will beckon with a greeting and will despair with a sigh
And hear the trill of the night reply.

'Think. Think. Think.' like a clock tick
That word will alight me, strike me dull blows
And sorrow at...
No, in me.

A thought takes the theatre
A doubt 'dopts the limelight
And I fear not what will
But now what would happen

And like a pool in the dark it takes me.

I would hear what the speaker would say and
Wouldn't be so lucky as to remember, as to understand.
There's going to be a phone call in the night, but
I won't be there.

You're an almond joy
A smooth stone in soft flesh
A blank stone sparrow
In crooked wire mesh

You looked over your shoulder
And ignored their descriptive hairs
Dancing with compliance
Giving never selling wares

What unbroken ****** skin
Around your eyes, thy
Eyebrows never meeting, stretching
Happy faces to the sky

I hoped richer feelings
Might comply to your dream, yet
It was laid on shallow and
Cracked and poorly set

Still despite your fret dancing
Your shakes and swoons so full
Graceful, hopeful, ruby bright
Fell dirtied, scratched by gravity's pull

Despite your new company,
Jackal grins that never start
Hope, not one can rival
The sweetness of a young heart.

I think what we do
Is something like drudgery
It's difficult to define
What takes us to our manners

But I think there is a rhythm,
Even when I know there isn't
And I think thinking makes the thing
Makes our rhythm

I think the world has its beat
And at times I get lost in it
It jumps in at times to change the stage
But even its verse breaks for my chorus

Leaving behind a depression isn't like
Raising the dead
I find it's a lot like
Waking up
To a conductor waving you in

What's a palm
Sweating in panic
Or a stomach
Whining as the whistle of alert
To someone like you?

What's a voice
Too clenched,
Or a word
Misplaced
To you?

What's a sentence
Repeated
Or a song
Sung drunker than a foul man,
To yourself, long-lashes?

Flutter-hair.
Architected smile.
Ancient-Greek eyebrow,
Curved
In a musing love.

You found a little else,
Didn't you, a
Little chick to
Perch with you?

Let's jump and find our wings
Let's take feathers for what they're worth
And leave those flightless birds
To the foxes,
With a taste
For emus.

It's no one's fault really
Just slavery
And I'm free when I know you
Popping like sparks onto my knockout vision.

Forests flicker
Candles take mass and lower
Tones across our attention
People rattle cages
Cages fall away
People miss the bars
People choke on the open air

Humans, a special species,
Learning to hate the jewelry of simply cropped things
Leaning in, our own self-pity, driving the broad nostrils pumping air
To our big brains
What wheels may turn from human wants
What frames shudder onward, hoping
To be what the dew can be, simple, clean
Part of what it is

How foolish,
To want what you lose by wanting
To fear what you feed by fearing
But that's mankind, the special ape,
See I'm so simple I wrote mankind
As if the women weren't the same
Or all those inbetween.

In itself it's broken, this toothy thing we churn on
Gears wearing stories, cogs telling lies
It's all so simply pointless, all pillows to the philosophy
Which we learnt from birth
Mankind's bane,
Mankind's death
Mankind's success
And ever more

If you know me by now
Nothing will feed me, but that
You understand what I live for
And try not to perish with

Lay me down a place to recover
A lyric in gold and green, you'll see
What a gentleman looks for
What a good lady frets of.

The way I need everything
Is in your hands, take
Care of me, I'm haggard
And lost without more adjectives,
So without my defence
Stay with me

I can almost expect
What you're worth to me
The search for something I care about
Leads me to consider some like you

To be honest, you're a bit of a plaything,
Some little dolly I can twist
To make me happy, one
Bird in the light's chorus

So the vanity in me congratulates you, you're in, that which I'm sure about
In my garden of the could've-beens
Where all is shelved and warm and no longer offensive

You can be great there, one of the best
And walk through the grass, the fountains of instinct
And meet the others who came before
As though you cared

There, you can taste the sweetness
Of pollen I scatter, brush past currents on the wind I send to ruffle your hair
*** it should be displayed,
Hear the laughter of girls in the painted summer
And appreciate me

I heard about
A man who saw
Holes in wings
Fluttered raw

He looked and said
"More armour needed
But not on the wings
For they succeeded."

"Protect yourselves,
the skies are grey,
but your wings are ready
for come what may."

"But think of 'stead
those storm-caught lovers
whose wings were strong
but the sky smothers..."

"A place inside
those free to be
armour's needed
where you can't see."

"Make strong your mind
your crystal walls,
it's the unseen holes
for which elation falls."

I thought of him
Of the man who knew
That the unseen daggers
Need deflection too

Survivorship bias
The way to know
Those who were hurt
But didn't show

The happy ones
Who live still, while
Those who don't
Aren't shown in their smile

How many fell
To the unseen holes?
How many fly
While the thunder rolls?