Jokes aside, what we're waiting for,
Is a penny promise, so cheap to take
And for you to stop ignoring us,

All jigs downstairs, falling
From my stilness
Ah, I remember
What you told me

Pounds of likeness, oozing from your
Oaths
I just remembered
We have somewhere else to be

Paradise

I stuck on the label
My shirt capped with snow
I smiled as I was able
My voice my words could show

All who came to me
Read quickly and ran more
My label was not picky
Of who should fear my tooth and claw

I looked down unto its face
And it looked back into mine.
Not one who found themself in place
Could speak quite like my label's whine.

'Not you, not me, not anyone
Is free to be themself
While I am here you're already gone
For words make rich those ones with wealth.'

I clung to him and ripped him forth,
But horror thudded and with it, tied
My heart stuck to the paper and its morph
Was into a label as I died.

And die I did, but still the words
Stayed until I faded free,
Though I sleep the men in herds
Will speak the mind they have of me.

What's the point of the stars if they only fly to mock us
To tell of a world beyond that thick blanket of night
A moon victory above them all tells of coliseums of the cosmos
A giant in a game we were never asked to play

The sun burns itself to nothing
And we catch the ashes, plant fields with its offcuts
Never tasting banquet, never knowing super nova
Alone in the dirt beneath life

Currents blow overhead, pushing ice and rock
As balloons let adrift, finding freedom in emptiness
While our feet only know tracks and fields, grass and mud
Life with food and sleep, not soul or poetry.

Crooked grow our limbs and we think ourselves mighty
Gangly forms dancing tiny
While great domes of landscapes given face
Smile at each other and speak

Venus, Apollo, Mercury, Hades
All principles in the sky, too graceful to be understood
And not wanting our foul tentacles of knowledge
To grip them, happy to keep away from

Us oily things.
No, I don't like being human
I don't like being
greasy

And thus she went
Leaving behind her the many kind words
And lingering hopes that make all good things seamless,
But which fade like her perfume in places she slept.

When I saw her face disappear
Behind mirroring train reflections
I saw those who stared when we waved
Caught in the crossfire of our connection.

They should know, as all should, how
Our iron-clad love is feather armour
Marking a true knight of the cloth
The world's spasms worn about our backs with many gold brooches.

Such it is to be anointed, to filter all out
With your inestimable standards
Held high for those to see
How much she loves me.

The pulp
Sinks to the bottom
The memories
Float to the top
And the growth
Of the regret
Fills the pile
Of the pulp
The pulp of times forgotten.

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.

On a painting
I know
No white will be as pure
As the page left untouched
And no smudge as dark
As that scribbled in too heavy-handedly
For a need of perfection

I had a lighter given to me,
A face engraved on its metal case.
And its inner heat
And flame hidden
Terrify me.

It whispers to me,
To that blistered skin in my lungs
Where I breathed too deeply of the flame
And the burning hearts about me.
I crack it open.

Its metal is bright
And the wick stands tall
Upright and seeking my breath.
I hold it fast and hard
And it whispers.

'Where is she now?'

I close it up
And hide it away
Because sometimes
Hidden flames
Should be just that.

When I write words
On a dead page
I come alive
More than we ever could.
Quality stuff
Only appears to me
While I gargle
Something worse than spite.

Fear
Loneliness
Solitude
Misunderstanding
And the me
That makes all else
That.

What am I?
I'm a man who writes stuff down.
I'm a boy
When I look in your eyes.
Don't make me feel sane;
How can you?
I am poor for
Understanding.

So I will sit next to you
And pass poems under the table
To see if you

wretch,
Like the muse of the sea
Wailing wind while
The tide takes all love away.

These lips have lost their purpose
Have shed their puckered sheen
And the time spent without her
Has left them bare and clean

These lips have had their moment
Their dew has up and left
And cracked the red the evening has
To leave the smile bereft

And though her flower perfume
Still clouds about this cheek
I don't know what lips can be
Without her name to speak

For all is lost without her
Mere smoke from flames within
My lips have lost their meaning
And now are cold and thin.

In the city of hatred
Love is currency
In the town of the belated
Not all the eyes can see

Smile on the tramway
And watch the eyes adance
Glare at the luckless
The ones without your chance

Chuff down the street
Coffee your coal and steam
But don't ever try to meet
Those with less esteem

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

The campfire crackled,
Shocking, burn
And all my breaths were frosty
I took my mind behind to learn
Whatever the campfire told me

I stoked the flames
I poked the flames
The logs, they spoke, and 'lo
They told their ember and their names
And asked me what I'd like to know.

'I may teach you solitude.'
'I may teach you spite.'
'With me you shall never be alone.'
I saw but one give out pale light
And so I knelt before spark shown

'I may teach you learning
I may teach you teaching
With me you shall never be alone,
For when we are together reaching
Knowing, living love is thrown'

And there we sat and he took me
Dancing among the stars of hope
Our waltz, our gay jig, what it was
A golden cord, a golden rope
Wrapped 'round the stars of hope

They pulled together, planets born
Words written, bodies struck
No, not me, not I, please
I was too ready, took my luck
And spent it for my knowly ease

I left the fire, heady, heavy
Not so happy, not so ready
For I knew all, and I knew many
Telling me what life showed steady
Never taking pearl nor penny.

Wiser now and wiser still
My head hanged lower than the deep
And all my days were spent so cheap
For all I knew was weighted sleep
Knowledge should not fly, but creep.

Once boyish hair lost its flight
In toussling winds
One cricket leg after another
Found its way to an armchair
To hide in cigar smoke.

Brown eyes seem dull in an oak room
No shine on the chandalier, no
Varnish left to scrub
For you are a curious one who
Found more than your fingers could stand up to,
Trembler.

Move with the beckon of the sunlight
Dancing the dance that keeps you free from shadow
But hold your head with anvils
Not as heavy as memory
Or as straw hats, poorly fitting.

I find it hard to know you,
Land owning pity
But it's something like noble
To try.

It's a funny thing;
The essence of survival,
Breathe a last breath
Others gave you and feel,
Try to feel
Stretch your arms out
And feel the open air.

I met a man,
And grew with him
He went were I went
And looked like me, like lines of me
His silhouette was my shadow
And I grew to fit him, like worn shoes

Somebody asked me, that day
What I'm passionate about
Survival, I suppose
But I lied, like always,
Truth found me long ago,
But when I find a little more
Like gold buried in montains of green
Of bedrock and mystery, thick-headed and sorry
My hands get weaker
My fingers slip,

Say goodbye to me, every day
It's appropriate
I'm learning something new each time I see you
And I'm becoming nebulous, cloudish
As if whispers don't fit me anymore
Nothing much does,
I'm something dark now
Beckoning
To a younger me.

You who crawl
Who can still feel fascination of the world
The hard taste of wood and cotton wool
Your mouth smiling for the first time
You're so young, so young

You who gains a thought
And thinks it alone
The candyfloss politics you understand
Your hands clenching into first fists
You're still young, still young

You who heaves
Who can still feel burning passion
That incense of obsession
Taking your mind seeing new things
You're young, you're young

You who lost at last
Who can still feel the pain of betrayal
The rot of blind hopelessnes
Letting your brain seep in chemicals
You're not old, you're not old

You who crackles in the fire
Splits lines like old wood
You who gazes out the window more than when you were young
When your eyes film over and lose talk
You've just grown, only just grown

You who looks at pictures
Who never finds nothing new
Who splits hairs as much as infinitives
Sighing at what hope you used to be
You're no longer young, no longer young

A feeling is gone, A theory remains
And what is to come is less still
What happened before was in hope for the life
That came but lost youth's hazy thrill
Lost

You're like spiderwebs,
Like thick wind entangling,
Every single **** one of you I ever met
Is wrapping around my memory as I struggle.
    I obsessively map out
      Every time I made you smile
         With a twitch of my leg,
I needlessly outline
   The dances we did with
        Every tug of my wrists against the silk.
As I twist deeper into your clutches
     I remember when we were happy
        And spinning in soulkissed sinews.
Without you I'd be free
But you're worth the OCD.

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.

Sweat beads on well ploughed thoughts
Locked hair sighs gentle as a sopping crown
And we,
We lie together.

Tell truths, tell stories
Of beggars like millionaires
And you and I concurr
With the slapping of skin.

Whilst inky pools of prowling giants
Tread canyons in the world around
And worries scuttle
Along the dust and wooden floorboards, cool to the touch

Whilst fever hands us telescopes
To see the only cooling hand is you
I sweat and turn
To stamp your cheek with my smile.

Breath to breath
Our winds, our mixing
I don't know if I'll handle
This hurricane.

But don't let me tell you
It's immoral,
We both know
That holds no water.

Skin to skin,
Ashes to ashes
The earth comes up
To meet our confusion.

Smoke, oh god, smoke.
My mind's become kindling
I burn for you
Fire is an evening well spent.

Don't let anyone tell you
You're a Machiavellian lover
For
Severity is its own reward

And I can be yours.

It's hard to be left behind when
They've all gone to fish for their futures
Although it's the smart thing to do
Waiting seems like dying
Heartbeats become faint when steady

And while they study
I'm here learning
They are taught concepts
And how to enjoy borrowed time
Me, I'm here fighting the truth

I am my own black knight
Alone against the dragon
His fire is a magic pinprick
And they are studying
But do they still study what they left behind

Me?

In the midnight blue
Night air pinches corners in
Soft sounds seem louder

Dark claiming the day
Shadows new faces grow long
The non-time's soft hum

Rooms close small spaces
Dust fills the room, holding time
Dawn will not break soon

I may have a nose
Succumbed to the stress of suction
But I can still smell a rat

I may have a mind
Fogged by the forest of forgetfulness,
But I can still remember to be forceful

I may have ears
Ringing with the rigour of revenge
But I can still hear your repentance

Illness is in the body
My mind is unaffected
Let's talk
And tell only truths.

'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.

I can't stop drawing her
Though the ink stutters from my pen
Are no form of the lines of her face
She humbly takes them anyway.

She has no place in my eyes
But for the gentle push of her petal hands
On my page, while I sit and
Let my mind take the toll.

The still morning is pulled in
Or the night claiming the light
But I am still here
Drawing her,

Her poise
Her smile
Her attentive eyes
And the knowing, the truth

It's with her every time.

Someone to hold
And keep us alright
******* a thumb and
Holding blankets

She'll tell you you're special,
Though she knows you are not
To anyone, but her
Special, little boy.

And when you grow up
Someone to listen
When the whole world
Is jumping on top of you

And really
You're still that child
And she's still that perfect face
Bouncing you on her lap.

Want to know true loneliness?
Lose your mother,
But then,
Who would ever want that, really?

The night is dark against your fair fur feathers
And your wingspan holds true against the glass.
Legs splayed against the pane, hard and fast pressed against the portal to my world.
You'll do anything to touch the light.

I cannot blame you, I have been there,
Outside in the cold warming yourself with the thought of a light bulb
Feeling the phosphorus of that explosion with your eyes and ears
Longing to be a part of what is good.

No, I cannot let you in, for
I am ready to selfishly bathe in this illumination
The moonlight will do for you
So I suppose I'm just as bad as the others were when

They kept me out.

Window panes and light refrains
From being yours, but mine.
All you shall do is hang there and wish
You had a light switch of your own

Ready to make your own world bright
Ready to lift you from the darkness
Ready to help you spread your wings
And fly in the day like all the other successes.
With just a flick.

Poor moth, it must be
Cold out there.

I suppose I forget what you give me
I suppose I forget what you gave
While the sorrow of lost things is with me
I'll carry your gifts to the grave.

I'm sorry I listen to one word
And suddenly forget the rest,
But believe me, 'I love you.' has been heard,
Believe me, I think you're the best.

Nobody believed me like you did
Even when you made out that you don't
I knew that in you were rapids,
I knew that within you was hope.

So I am myself and your presents
The box 'neath your carrying role
I'll try not to forget that your crescents,
Are just a small part of your whole.

I walk to the radio
Turning it on
Music's playing, I know
A very good song.

It starts off so quiet
But gets louder so
That before I can fight it
I'm lying down low

The notes all rise free
Shooting stars through the beat
The rhythm's the sea
And on the sea floor I greet

The singer speaks out
From a clam shell castle
The guitar wails and shouts
While it's part and parcel

To the harmony choir
Of light and of sound
I float in the fire
While the sky becomes ground.

And the last thing I remember
From the music I hear
Is the warmest December
The summer in my ear.

My cup of tea is clean
My cup of tea is hot
Frothing and boiling, apt,
My tea and I are much alike.

I have my tea green because
I like to feel like the forest is close
It's sometimes the best way to keep
The hills in my mind.

My cup of tea is tasteful
And always at my side
But it cools too quickly
Luckily, my cup of tea never changes

Even when it's as cold as I feel
It's still just as sweet.

I am switching myself off, power down
My head hurts and my bowels spit me out
Pale and shiver, my head is folded, frown
To think is to lie, to smile is to doubt

I watched a film and then watching his life
He told me to rip a little and see
What I find, a tear, my dream is a knife
The danger of looking too close at me

Sit, give, grow, learn, forget all that you want
I don’t think anyone will give to you
You’ve lost all that spilt from your tap, your font,
So run, crying child, run till you spill too

Your life is over, it’s sad and it’s good
You’ve cracked all the smiles that life said you would

I see myself through the mirrors of others
I paint myself with the hairs from your thought
And though the colours run, they
May not as fast as me.

I skate, with lack of traction
Ago on hoops of skin
Let me be, let me be,
To dance a little less today.

Well together,
Ill apart
You are my disease
For refusing to be with me.

Could you hear me
If I shouted?
Would you look up, even a little,
If I cried out for you in the night?

I don't think so, dear
I don't think, anymore.

I feel all kinds of guilty
When I think of those who never got to cry
Those children who weren't so
And know my envy

For in all things I see
Nothing hurts more than
Feeling the child in my mind's womb
Kicking against me

I'm not fond of jealousy
But I think it would be better to know
That you never got to be safe
And you can't miss what you couldn't be

Fear would lose its plea
For it is your mother
And you know it better than pleasure
Each smile is a new land to see

Grow. Chest, grow.
Swallow more hearts
I’ve pumped enough syrup
Sick and sweet
Swallow all the hearts

Show a little show
Fold your walls like wings
Chambers are as chambers bare
Taste of tale
Fold your walls to wings.

She never spoke of sanity
Normal never lost her lips
She thought not much of clarity
Preferring to speak with hips.

She never thought to tell me
How memory was in her hair
It curled and fell like weeping willows
But never felt so fair.

She never wanted to explain
How her footprints left the ground
How she walked the clouds and drank the rain
Why she still looked at me when the sun was with her.

Though she left quietly I still recall
She told me why in her hands
She held me like she was about to fall
And fall she did to lower lands.

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.

I'm busy waiting for the day
When locking cages of red metal
Will feel natural
When a spring shoot
Will be a daffodil between us,
Yellow,
My favourite colour.

In bed
Casting glances likes hooks across me
Pulling at skin, my
Ill fitting armour
What is this mess, this brutal growth
Of you and I, this and that?
Who knew, but something natural
That it is not.

I can speak of jaunty
All I like, I
Won't find that taste within
What are friends?

Given little stories to firelight books
I mould myself to fit the grip
I never knew you...
What are family?

Gardens don't tend to shears
Flowers don't grow for late bloomer
Moons, who are you?
What are permanent?

I never left you
You can't be free of me.
For I consider you all the time
And grade all jaunty songs to your gait.

What are we?
Humans don't stay together.
Does that answer your question?
I just don't care.