you're my plane-ride pal
i only read about you
ocassioanlly hear from you
but it's not you
not how you are with them

how many years now?
two
but i've only heard you say hello
four times
and im afraid to say it back

it hurts my morale
to know
you could go
any time
and i wont know

a friendship left to my imagination
except you're not a dream
maybe a nightmare
one i've grown to love
and embrace as myself

you enjoy to travel
but find it a chore to see me
warping in and out
of conversation
like a ghost trying not to ghost

you love the anonymity
like a shield
against emotion
i've seen them break before
and when it does, my dear

i'll be around

Down on the green county
I tread the ramblers way

Behind the marked gate
Yes, over there
An overgrown sanctuary
Hidden from the open air

This is where I shall step
Where the sun greets the leaves
And the cows seek away
A certain quiet, found with ease

A bridge sits at either end
No water lurks beneath
Only greenery
Masked by the rotting heath

And on these trodden paths
These proven grounds
I emerge in solitude
Away from the crowds

No one can find me here
Not the farmer, nor the cows
They don't understand
They're not allowed

Often they approach
In their passive strides
Intrigued as to what
But never why

It doesn't last
This glimmer of peace
Interrupted
By foreign feet

Again, I am alone
Engulfed by it all.

The privilege of knowing we
Has fled,
Runaway
To some harsher place,
Fallen -
Gone to bed.
And
Longing now is
Thy breathe, locked,
Waiting
Behind some other
Face, clawing at
Their throat and
Hunting for
A grip so
That
It may escape
And let it
Be said
I
Was too late,
Fallen -
Gone to bed.

Beyond the violet and violence, through the hole in the heap
Dwells men of fierce histories and stone conditionings, there
They sit in circle and misery, holding guilt close
To their ears and parting with their own ditch-dipped words.
Collections of tragedies and schools of morose mentalities
Dance in the middle of the room, speaking down on eachother;
Most likely an attempt to impress Mother and to scold Father.
They don’t get very far, these talks, rather
They end further down the ladder than when they commenced -
Two rungs down and the heavy tattooed butcher man
Sinks two quarter-full whiskies to help him find his bed.
Five rungs down and the spanner wielding skinny man
Calls up a number to haunt unpaid listeners with what he said.
Nine rungs down and the privileged uni boy
Smokes batons of magic leaf until his eyes are painted red.
This is where the stories end,
Those Who fell past rung nine
Are no longer falling and alive.
One rung up and the naive boat keeping man
Tells his wife he’s feeling better but out of luck.
One rung down and the naive boat keeping man
Tells his wife he’s feeling worse but rather proud.
The ladder stands tall and overarching
At the ‘dried out men’ meetings,
It’s the only one that keeps its posture
And never falls under -  
Perhaps one day it will falter
And the men will see
That they are more than just
A rusting rung on a ladder.

and there it is,
her serene hum
so powerful, so beautiful
it commands the world
and he roars back,

and now it's gone,
a mechanical screech
so trivial, so precise
it silences her
and she whimpers away.

Twin doves endure the naked rookeries
Of Whitechapel, a breached stronghold
Tangled in the roots of blurred obituaries,

These birds are forerunners of old
Heartbreak. And the frosty window panes
Conceal the words that have been rolled

Into spears that pierce our seeping pains.
Oh do not speak of her: the solemn widow
Who perches drenched, staring at drains  

Wishing to ride the golden echo
Of a love she forgot to let go.

and i said to her,
"will you tell me please?"

and she said to me,
"you are someone fine
                                 and
                                     free"

i didn't care, anyway.

Grass grows occasionally in
These stone-ladened
City streets, crawling
Out of the laboured pavements, and
Residing for a mere
Moment before we point our gluttonous claws, and
Take on
The role of accuser; shaming nature
For their abstinence.
We no longer want their verdant wealth, now
We favour more precious things; an array of
False saviours, endless labour and
Self-diagnosed health.
When the natural order of things
Crept away, we were mistaken.
Alas, the world
Was ready to forgive.
Persistent
To grow, and live.
But we failed the world, when
We blamed the world. When
We blamed the world. When
We blamed the world.
(The world has turned rough)

A grey existence with an
Absent landscape, removed
Of the abstract and joy that once
Mothered life and love.

Lately i’ve been enjoying the eastside
Of the beach, to the left of the pier,
A mile or two down
Where the people are sparse and
The stones seem plentier, it’s
All so much prettier there.

Dotted about
The seagulls are at rest, cooped up
Into a nest of equilibrium
Between earth and sea, I
Have found myself mimicking
These coastal fiends, as I too perch
Onto the world and wait
But unlike these natives I do not
Know what I wait for.

The sound of authenticity
Hurries along the downtime,
Of late Lennon has found
Himself in my ear
But I do not think he knows
Why he arrived here, and
I do not think I have the
Means to tell him.

This place where I sit, this
Man-made beast wedged
Between two crowds
Of pebbles and weeds, this
Place is where i’ve found
Resonance with time
And all her happenings,
Where I go to watch the
World function as she should.

Middle aged men find
Themselves stripped down and
Engrossed in the cold waters, I
Am in awe of the freedom
They exhibit and
I wonder if they know
Their limits ? There
Is beauty in their playfulness,
For a brief moment
They revert to innocence,
I do not think they came
To impress me but alas
They make me laugh,
Something even the waves
Have failed in recently.

And in these waves,
Waves on the brink of winter
That foam the edges
Of my shoes and spit
Salt and purity at my face,
These waves carry
The sound of a girl
Who cried wolf, I fear
This is only my reflection,
Fragmented between
The ripples, alas
The sea does not stop
For me to ask questions.

Time dances along, maybe it
Is her I see in the ebb and flow
Of the emerging tide ? Or maybe
She lingers in the man
Who owns the red kayak, he’s
Only a few metres from where I sit
But his mind is far off, I wonder
Where he wishes he could be, I
Do not think it is France, for that
Place is much too far, and
I do not wish him to stay in his
Kayak for much longer, but
That does not seem to be
An option.

And the girl will cry wolf, perhaps
This fact of life is why
I find myself glued to
The beach on the eastside and
Not with the free minds
To the right of the pier, perhaps
This is why I grow older
With each visit and why
The middle aged men
Have found their
Youth again.

Summer spent her last breath today,
A breath that still lingers on across the hills,
Filling spaces in between the bushes
That run parallel to the rambler’s routes,
She paints a shallow layer of verdant, kissing
Her mark upon the cheeks of the land,
An annual goodbye before she disembarks.

Autumn speaks, his spit fires off and pushes out
The thin remnants of Summer’s song, the colour
Turns flat, greens become murky, and
The shimmering glare that filtered the leaves
Now turns dull, paving the way
For yellow and rust, and joyless lungs.

Winter drowns all in glitter and white flame,
Burning the remnants of Autumn’s change,
She brings comforting dreams
To the sleeping fauna and staples
The grey flora into the tundra-like soil,
She shrinks the trees, the hills
And the grass
But alas she never lasts.

Spring comes quietly, a drastic change
But she is never boastful of the life
She brings, the blessed births
And the reformed prisoners, she
Breaks the chains of Winter, defrosting
The world and allowing colour
To return; the world is now emerald
And shall remain this way
For ninety days or so.

Gone are the merciful gallows, and gone
Are the deep cuts of wayward shadows
That accompanied the aftermath
Of a day’s work,
Now all the crass fellows
Are in the dirt, perhaps hollow
And departed from their history, but before
There were those who waited, mourning
Their blind innocence in the stalls
Where men of misery would whisper
Through the scabs on their lips
Calling out to one another, “you ****** fools!”.

Here, they spoke of the ‘thirteen steps’
And the ‘one life’ that regressed, told so
To humble each and everyone
Of their grossly enamoured necks,

Such precision could never be ******.
No, “it is justice” says the man
Who smugly wields the golden hammer
And those rodents
Who demonstrate the title; ‘lucky-lurker’,

And when the rope is snipped
The mortality of men shall drip, like
An untethered shower head
Perpetually tugging with the clean hand
And the only farewells that shall be said;
“Mother Justice, he is dead”.

When I breached the gates of Eden,
The gardens did not sing; and
The crows were naught
But labouring -

A thousand charcoal teeth
Chewing at the rot, until
All appeared cold
As the Kings of Camelot,

When I breached the gates of Eden,
The fountain had run dry
And the men were on fire
Laid down by its side, and

A great wave of white lilies
Had devoured the landscape
Leaving naught but the words
Of unguarded graves,

When I breached the gates of Eden,
The mothers pleaded for a song;
“Will you sing, will you sing”,
They begged for me, all night long,

But I do not know how to silence
The howling of the bereaved
For the gates of Eden
Had been deplorably besieged.

Behold! The agony of love,
Relished through receipts
Hidden
In the leather folds of
Pocketed wallets, and
Phantom habits exposed
In ordinary scenes,
Perhaps
On the beachside street
Where
The wind took control
And all witnessed
Blossoms in Spring.

Behold! The agony of love,
Laying dormant
At
The edge of every smile, and
In the gaps
Between stationery fingers
Where others
Once lay, or perhaps
In the words
That come knocking
When we fail to see the door
Ourselves.  

Behold! The agony of love,
Leaving you at a ponder,
Do I waver?
Do I waver?
In the face of love. Or
Shall I trudge ever on
With my naive heart, and
Veteran grasp?

And so I waver, and so
I waver; but the
Face is anew, and we
Trudge on.

Behold! The agony of love,
Hidden through receipts
In the leather folds of
Pocketed wallets, and
Phantom habits exposed
In ordinary scenes,
Perhaps
On the beachside street
Where
The wind took lead
And all bare witness
To blossoms in Spring.

Do I let the praying man wither?
His eyes so eager in
A holy begging manner.
Strapped
To the streets, afraid
To dare ask the pretend
Upper class for
A passing favour. On and on
He gives his lecture: ‘Behold!
The agony of woe, hold
Her from toe to toe, and
Let her know. Let her
Know’. A lesson
As hollow as his cheeks for
He knows not love, but
Alas he tells truth
Of life perhaps.

Behold! The agony of life,
Begging me to ponder:
‘Do I waver?’
and ‘Do I waver?’
In the face of love.
Do I seek equity
From up above? Or
Shall I trudge ever on
With my naive heart, and
Veteran laugh? Oh,
Shall I linger?

No! For
Life and love
Lay dormant
At
The edge of every smile
And in the canyons
Between stale fingers
Where lovers
Once rest, or perhaps
In the words
That come knocking
When we fail to see the door
Momentarily ahead.  

A door hidden on every street,
Packed away beside
The royal garden gate, guarding
The statue of Victoria Royal.
(That statue. That statue.)
She gathers gazing looks,
And men stumble upon her
Shouting profanities, and
Lurking behind her
Great shadow.
To us, she is a mere
Conversation
On our walk home from
The old Gladstone, where
You plead me
To think, and
On I sink,
And on I sink.

(And on, and on.)

And on I waver, and on
I waver; but the
Face is anew, and we
Trudge forward -
Ever braver.

Behold! The agony of love,
Hidden through receipts
In the leather folds of
Pocketed wallets, and
Phantom habits exposed
In ordinary scenes,
Perhaps
On the beachside street
Where
The wind took lead
And all bare witness
To blossoms in Spring.

Behold! The agony of life,
Begging me to ponder:
Do I waver?
and do I waver?
In the face of love.
Do I seek equity
From up above? Or
Shall I trudge ever on
With my naive heart, and
Veteran laugh? Oh,
Shall I linger?

No -
Life and love
Lay dormant
At
The edge of every smile
And in the canyons
Between stale fingers
Where lovers
Once rest, or perhaps
In the words
That come knocking
When we fail to see the door
Momentarily ahead.  

And on I waver, and on
I waver; but the
Face is anew, and we
Trudge forward -
Ever braver.

The rain stopped at the window, staining the glass
With a pattern of chaos and dance.
Time decides to pass,
And my eyes decide to mask
My tried and tired mind.
This room that we occupy, the first room on the left
As we come rushing through the street entrance, this room
Holds a preliminary summer haze
Where each day starts hot and heavy but ends
In summer’s hug, a warm comfort of clasping and love.
I was the lucky one.
The one to strum life’s great strings,
I will master this instrument, the moments it brings
And the joy it sings.
Yes, perhaps tomorrow.

Mornings offer distraction
Where i’d often witness perfection,
Laying there unannounced and present
Like the moon painted in the river’s reflection.
I still can’t believe I was ever allowed to hold it -  
The birds, they already knew this
As they would often sing, reminding me
I was the lucky one.
I was the loved one.

The window was left ajar and the rain slipped in
Like a snake slithering or a coin finding
Its way into an impossible space.
This rain ends the summery haze
And brings nothing but wintery days.
Water builds up in this room, drenching the comfort
And drowning out the bird’s song,
A faint sound bubbles in the drowned room;
“You! Bed thief, smile maker
And tea taker! Why do you laugh
At luck? Why do you laugh at all?
You were the lucky one, and now
You are all but undone.”

Grief and gloom have filled my lungs,
Leaving me few words to answer
The birds’ water-logged song;
“All hail existence,
Uncover your ears and listen!
Come and learn to be resistant
To life’s twisting condition,
Sign a petition! Or take down
The ruling system! Its all
A part of existing, this vicious
Persistent brilliance so say yes
To existing! All hail existence.”

Moonlight covers the pebbles gathered,
Soaking the shore in shade and fog, walk along
This beachfront, in sandals and white socks.
Take your toes and your feet, and embark
In the shallows of the sea, splash
And splash at the sand’s edge, until ***** and fish
Swim towards your disturbing intent,
Forgo their cares, send fish and crab skipping,
And splish and splish at the water’s end.

The mermaids are in wake, grieving their friends,
And pouring tears into the waves, they cry in song
Wallowing out loud the ocean’s fables, and
Stirring the great waters with their lurking tails,
Bubbles form where their tears have dwelled,
Carrying their grief to the surface, and popping
Once they touch where night is held, releasing
The weight from their sullen faces, and
Now the mermaids may smile again,
Their songs shift from misery to mirth, and
The moon smiles back, kissing new light
Upon the cheeks of the emerald earth.

The chain is brought back to you,
You distrbued the *****, and you disturbed
The fish, you distubured the waters.
The mermaids, they never bothered
To gaze upon your crimes, they never even
Bothered to give you their time, they sang
Not to you, but they sang for your sins, healing
What you could not, and sending
Your demons back, back to the rot and rock.

Resume your normal day, walk your dog
Along the paved waterway, and sing
Your songs of joy and hope, and hope
To settle near pebble and boat. Most things
Now make you smile, crack a smirk
To the ramblers on their Sunday travels,
Teach the postman and teach the milkman
What the mermaids have taught, show
Them the meaning of the mermaids’ song.

Beyond the marble cliffs
Sits a stone-weaved shore
Where seals often gathered
For noonday naps, drenched  
In the throbbing spirit
of the Sun,

Now the days are done
In much shorter fragments
And the tides hug the beaches
With firmer grips, passerbys
Fail to capture a glimpse
Of the great burning effigy
That rides the sky, rather
They must settle for
It’s lunar reflection: the
Divine orchestrator of our
Island’s waters -  

The unsettled Moon
Is sulking again, I keep
Telling the Morris Men
That it’s unkind to
Only dance for the Sun
But they do not listen;

They smack their sticks
And paint their faces
Shouting songs of
Erased archaic motives,

Whilst I am left
All alone to console
The burly ball
Of gleaming rock, and
The more tears I wipe
The quicker I realise
What an impossible task
It all really is.

The downpour will retire soon
and I will be able to cross
  the rivers again
and gallop along
  the muddy sheets of grass, where
did I leave the picnic blanket ? (is this even
  the same land ?)

the owls seem different;
less intuitive
and  more mechanical.

And the elderly man (who raked in  
the hay)
has been sacked, I
hope his daughters
  will cope .


The hills are more frigid,  they
all end with jagged points
and the badger nests
have been raided .

Where did
it all go?  the mirth
before the  rainfall.

She dances in the dark spots
Between the street lights, like
A patient drunkenly twitching
Before an operation,  

There is but a lick of anxiety
In her performance, deprived
Is she by her cruel audience, but
To their defence
They are merely the empty foliage
That sit on each side of the city lane,
Like shadowed guards
Who gleefully imprison her in chains,

Where will she go
After the moon retires and
The trees offer her the key ?

Perhaps, she will follow the stray cat
Down the dimly painted alley, will
She give in to the ***** feline, who  
Beckons her with a fickle whine
And who stares obtusely
With such precise baby-doll eyes,

Or will she simply sink
Into the leaf smothered ground,
Face anchored and stitched
To the pavement, her beauty
Famished and her heart envious
Of the four-pawed beast
Who now dances on her corpse.

Oh Ikelos, thief of my dreams
Steal from me not the night
For I hope of loving schemes
And an all so beauteous sight,

Long have you napped
Under the blanket of the moon,
Until the curtains cracked
Reprising the mournful noon,

So forfeit this draining rise:
An all avenging burden
Upon your somber eyes
That linger amoung the curtain,

Oh, sink into the muse
Of Nyx’s design
So that your waking blues
May surrender, and resign.

And now come the other men,
The figurines, the foragers
And those who marched
Onward
By the failed evergreen. They
Speak of war grown days,
And times before the land
Was tore. Their voices
Shrouded
By one anothers’ patience, and
Each man carried his scars,
Cradled,
In their shadowed
Limblike arms, they bore
Tear marks
Printed
On their gormless
Salty cheeks, and
Under their heavy
Sullen eyes
Paraded gashes
And stains
Of crimson and bleak.

And now come the other men,
Out of the ovens, rushing
For some safer housing.
It’s all a conundrum, this
Waiting and wavering, an
Uncertainty
Mounted across a ditch
Of slightly burnt
Flesh, men mashed
Into one.

And now come the other men,
An identity shared
Between friends, who bask
In the untimely forgery
Of their postured
end.

Down on the green county
I tread the ramblers’ way

Behind the marked gate
Yes, over there
An overgrown sanctuary

This is where I will tread
Where the sun seeps through the leaves
And where the cows hide away
Where I will go to be quiet

A bridge sits at either end
No water lurks beneath
Only greenery
Masked by the rotting wood

And on these travels
I find solitude  
Away from it all

No one can find me here
Not even the farmer
The cows don’t understand
They can’t

Often they approach
Intrigued as to what
Never why
But it doesn’t last

I am alone again
Engulfed by it all

I have yet to face the mirror
And ask to grow old
So, how should I begin?

Begin wilting into a vintage skin:
Gaunt, creased and thin
Like the last sinking snow
Of a hushed winter.

And what of my hair?
Whiskers that once
Gathered as a forest:
Wild, viscous
And well-nourished
But now snipped
To the skin,

So, should I now begin?

Shall I face the staring mirror
And sing in a whisper;

“Can I yet grow old? Oh,
Let me shrink into the earth
As I exhaust and go bald,
And let me age into a smile
That no longer holds mirth.”,

So, should I offer
My permission?

And throw my voice
Into the reflection
And patiently listen.

When did the music
Become so bleak and dreary,
I do not recall letting chaos
Play the night’s chords,
And I do not think
My ears have grown weary, so
Why then
Has the music taken
The form of tired melody, why
Then has it terraformed
Into a tilted maze
Where notes carry
Shame
And it all beckons the
Same, can it no longer
Cure me ? Can
It no longer translate
My murky puddle of
Thoughts ? Oh, whatever
Happened to the music
That Dante sought, did
It forget what
Brought joy
And what bred love ? I
Now only hear struggle
In the siren’s voice, did
It lose sight of the coast -
Is it left, now, with
Nowhere pleasant to go ? Or
Perhaps it is me
That struggles to see
The genius. Alas, I
Do not hear the Sun in
This song of yours,
And I confess I am
Afraid of the sound
That shares my bed,
I do not think I shall
Sleep tonight, I do
Not think I shall
Sleep at all.

Heather mounts the whispering hillsides where, since
Time’s genesis, hopeful men have retired and gone to die
And where their murmurs now permanently reside.
Where there is a home for the settling magpies, between
The bushes of bleached purples and murky greys. This place,
This stretched out place, sits under the teary drowned out sky,
And beyond the sight of the youthful starry eyes -
This place, this dreary place is coined the Sunken Side.

Gormless men limp out onto those hills, parading
Their depleting health and bragging to the clouds
Of their dampened wealth; all without the grandeur
Of uniformed marching limbs. Rather, they are more akin
To a slow drunken tide coming in at day’s end. Alas, this
Is how the Sunken Side has been penned, a place for buried men
And sullen men to withhold remorse, and play dead.  

Strangers strapped to strangers, glued to one another’s side,
Like mere passerbys queued in crowds of outsiders and snides .
This is no Holy place, and neither is it a Royal place;
Kingly deemed men are not catered here, rather only
A peasantry mess is ever vindicated, and spaces are reserved
For those sulking on islands, or those looking for new faces.

These same men bathe in buttercup fields, and seemingly
Fall in love with the briskly buttered on luck. But,

Do they dare take the Sunken test? Go out onto the Sunken Side,
Take in the hollow sinking breath and abide
Now only to the heather hills and the stranger men whose eyes
Are sewed to stars where each pupil latches
On to a flicker in the heavens, and men turn bizarre. Sparking
An obsession, and initiating constant digression with their
Sunken life. No, they rather regress to soaking in time.

Their need for kingdom
And want for graded inclusion outlives their mortality
And perpetuates their morality. Kingdoms always die.  
But the thirst for kingdom will never dry.
Alas! on this Sunken Side, amoungst the heather and
Whispering hills, men surrender their wills
And gladly give their final farewells.

Departing from one mechanised coastline
Only to be summoned to my own, I left before
The others had even thought of breakfast, and

On the train, cumulonimbus clouds wedged
Their way into my skull, and
A fickle layer of arthritis glassed over my skin,

For two hours I was an old man, wrapped
In a red jacket that didn’t belong to me, perhaps
It was a gift from a platonic friend,

It loosely sat, half-worn upon my shoulders
Until my body reclaimed its youth, and
My pride decided to cover up the rest,  

That's when I felt it; a slight jab,
A tiny nudge, a brief discomfort, a weight
On my existence, an entity in my jacket pocket,

A tourist squats inside my clothes, clothes
Which I myself hadn’t yet explored, was
I just as unknown to this all - despite

All this, despite the uneasy riddle
Spewing from my chest, I was half-ready
To confront this temptress in my pocket,

Which hand would volunteer, the right
Or the left - or perhaps
I shall attack the outer fabric with a hearty press,

The latter is what I shall do, a tiny
Nudge back should do the trick, oh
What is it, what is it that lies in my pocket,

A hardened form of ambiguity, tucked
Away into the corner of the fabric, like
A faceless beast retreating into its den,

What is it, what is it that hides
In my pocket - a shell, a quaint cream shell
No bigger than my thumb,

What a fool I was, stunned
By a fragment of seaside propaganda, and
Yet I am not ashamed, maybe

I was justified to fear this shell, should
I crush it - maybe my worries will drift away,
Like the tide temporarily retiring,

Will my hands suffice - should I use
My left or my right - which
One can break the skin - my left

Hand answers, and small splinters
Of seashell scatter in my palm, it
Is only a chip, alas it is only a chip,

Now that I have struck, it feels
Unbreakable, and I am certain it shall
Now permanently reside in my pocket,

Stubborn and unchanged, haunting
The inner lining of my clothes, dampening
The fragility of what lies beneath, when

Will the sunshine return, the warmth
I felt when I first put on this jacket - it’s
All frozen now, starting with the sea.

Departing from one mechanised coastline
Only to be summoned to my own, I left before
The others had even thought of breakfast, and

On the train, cumulonimbus clouds wedged
Their way into my cranium, and
A fleeting wave of sloth drenched my appetite,

For two hours I was an old man, wrapped
In a red jacket that didn’t belong to me, was
It a gift from a platonic friend -

Loosely it sat, half-worn upon my shoulder
Until my body reclaimed its youth, and
Pride took sovereign, covering up the rest,

That's when I felt it; a slight jab,
A tiny nudge, a brief discomfort, an anchor
Upon my existence, an entity in my jacket pocket,

A tourist squats inside my clothes, clothes
Which I myself hadn’t yet explored, was
I just as unknown to this all - despite

All this, despite the uneasy riddle
Spewing from my chest, I was all too eager
To confront the temptress in my pocket,

Which hand will volunteer, the right
Or the left - a modest nudge should do the trick,
Oh what is it, what is it that lies in my pocket,

A hardened form of ambiguity, tucked
Away into the corner of the fabric, like
A faceless beast retreating into its den,

What is it, what is it that hides away
In my pocket - a shell, a quaint cream shell
No bigger than my thumb,

What a fool I was, stunned
By a fragment of seaside propaganda, and
Yet I do not concede shame, perhaps

I was justified to fear this shell, should
I crush it - maybe then my worries will drift off,
Like an ebb and flow temporarily retiring,

Will my hands suffice - should I use
My left or my right - which
One can break the skin - my left

Hand answers, and small splinters
Of serrated seashell scatter in my palm, it
Is only a chip, alas, it is only a chip,

Now that I have struck, it has become
Unbreakable, and I am certain
It shall never untether from my home,

Stubborn and unchanged, haunting
The inner lining of my clothes, dampening
The fragility of what lies beneath, when

Will the sunshine revisit, the warmth
I felt when I first put on this jacket - it’s
All frozen now, starting with the sea.

Nowadays I find myself
In a landscape dominated
By farmer’s fields, they
Stretch from the country lanes
To the looming walls of oak
Where candidly they sit side-by-side,
All neatly laid out;

Eager for my foreign feet
To parade about, and
To dent the ground
In heavy, deep bruises
That one day
Will be overflowed by rainfall
Or, perhaps, dug further
By another stranger’s affection.

I am anchored to these fields
Of farmers who all look the same
And perhaps they are the same, all
Pushing for bigger harvests
And meatier offsprings, they
All follow the seasons
Like a blind man with his hand
Strapped to a gear stick, they
Are slaves to nature, and yet
I have not seen them comfort a tree
Or kiss their fields in which
They hope to nurture and reap.

But they are not to blame, no
They are not to blame,  

It is my unmoored conscious
That pollutes the soil
And whispers to the birds
And the unmoved snails,

“Go home now
And burrow away, please
Discard all your love
At the hollowed out trunk
On your way out”,

It’s not my fault
They only have
Fallen branches
Mixed with
Dried out leaves
To conceal all this
Unwanted tenderness
And grief, it’s
Not my fault they
Aren’t loved by
The farmers anymore,

So, why do I let them
Ruin my country walk ?

Why do I find myself
Chatting to the berries
That smother my shoes
When I show them
No remorse ?

I should really ask
The farmers what they
Think of all the ******, but
I do not think they shall
Let me walk on their
Fields again, I shall be
Barred from the
Country lanes and
From the homes
Of all my friends, my
Footprints shall be
Covered over
In sheets of ****** grass
And newly-budded flowers
So that my crimes
Are forgotten and masked.

The noise of the cavalry was muffled by the rhythm of the crows
Cawing, they bellowed their demands, until silence
Betray the gathered armies, and the men began towing
The foreign rocks, heavy they were, scrapping the last of the lavender
From the earth. Those in protest formed a crust
That lined the crown of the castle walls, there will be no violence

Today, nor tomorrow or the next for the wives have had enough of violence
And the birdsongs have never sounded so bitter, these crows
That perch in the woven branches of the castle woods eat nothing but the crust
From shattered honeypots. Often they screech out in pain, but it is all silence
Lately for they have been soothed by the refugees of lavender
That squat in their nests. But it won’t last, for the men have started towing

Again; great metal ladders in hopes to infect their havens, men towing
Their aggression like a mere pebble in their pockets. They are cemented in violence
Like the calf to the ******, and the wife who lathers the scent of lavender
Into her hair. But not all things are so natural and sweet. The crows
Have had their heritage destroyed, they no longer follow the universe, silence
Has become permanence, just like how their rookeries have formed the crust

Upon their enemy’s world. So damp and hollow their homes have become like a crust
Of saliva upon the bathroom sink, alas there is no time to repair, for the men are towing
Again; rocks, ladders and now fallen oaks - dragging earth up as they trudge. There is silence
Before the breach, a moment of purgatory before the deafening violence
Ensues. There are no caws from the guarded rookeries, the crows
Have decided to sleep through revolution, huddled among their lavender

That will soon be found in the knotted hair of widows, the stench of lavender
Shall waft through the winds of grief, as the priest gives counsel to the fresh crust
Of tears found under the eyes of thousands. It is over now and the crows
Have come to pay their respects, they caw at the men who are towing
The tombstones of lives that never blossomed, each one reads: “there will be no more violence
Today, nor tomorrow or the next.”. And life shall proceed only with silence.

For awhile it may all persist, silence
Is king and the woods that hug the castle walls are growing lavender
Again. The treaty is kept and the cloak of violence
Is hung up neatly next to the crown, waiting for the crust
Of peace to be vanquished. It is the wives now who spend their days towing
The labour of the land; weaving seeds and chatting to the crows.

Alas, it does not take long for violence to mature, and for the silence
To pitter off. The crows have buried themselves, taking all the lavender
With them. The men are towing again and all that is left is a broken crust.

The end of the street seemed so far away,
Perhaps it was the faulty light, flickering
And highlighting the absence of tourists,
No one walked this way, not since the baker
Moved two streets over, but the smell-
The smell of bagels drowning in honey,
The smell of butter
Cuddling up to warm bread,
These smells had not yet
Escaped the concrete slabs
And brick walls,
And maybe that was enough
To still linger,
A faint whiff of pleasantry
To persuade the day to go on
Ever quicker.

What have you become in this hollow space,
You were once somebody,
Once something
But now,
Your words are nothing,
And your face yields nobody.
A sunken man, a man so grated
He has abandoned the joys
Of
Wandering, and
Instead taken sweeter to whining; “why me”
And “why me”.
But these concerns
Never slip from his flakey slim lips, rather
They tumble and tumble
In his heavy limbered skull,
Rattling into one another
Like cheap cream chinos upon a white apron,
Resting and soaked
At the street corner laundrette. Never to dry.
Never to dry.
Emptier
than his pockets. And
Looser than the screws clasped to his spectacle frames.
The lenses are slipping. Vision is ending.
Words are nothing.
And so, passion ceases
As
The walls
Squeeze the last wonder from his
Breath; “why me” and “why us” - “Why do the stars
Dare to shine”.
Alas,
The universe lays gormless, and
Relishes in its own undisputed silence.

Join your limbs, curl your toes,
Muffle the children, and knead the dough.
Pour the milk, and drink it straight
Scold  the postman  for being late.

Greet your lover and whisk the butter,
Gently frown, and skip away in laughter.
Speak in tongues, and kiss the door
Raise a glass and tighten the cord.

Stack the books and climb on top,
Stumble a little before jumping off.
Hang like the cherries upon the cherry tree,
Blossoms now falling, you are now free.

It’s bin day tomorrow,
And the Sunday weather is meant to arrive.

                   Perhaps we can skip  
                          the morning complications and    

Lay intertwined.
So apropos, that would be just fine.

Wait for me there,
By the crescent tree
Oh, nature’s stair, built
From bark and root,
Grown from fallen fruit.

Wait for me there,
Where the ivy clothes
Swirl into white skin
And where the fawns
Go to moot and sing.

Wait for me there,
By the shallow pond,
Lie down at the bank,
Tangle in the lilies, and
Wait for the thirsty fillies.

Wait for me there,
Down by the thin ridge,
Where rabbits sit
And chew the earth,
Bit by bit.

Wait for me there,
Between the rock
And chiseled stump
Where moss never grows,
And dirt begins to lump.  

Wait for me there,
Where the promise is kept
And my time is unspent,
Wait for me there, darling
Show me how you care.

I was young,
I was young
And now I do not remember
The fear that was sung;
Anthems of war
And anthems of youth,

Whispers of the guns
And laughter in the shells;
The duty of the young
Pierces our lungs
And sovereignty leaks out.

Oh, what is youth?
What come before the worm
When all that surrounds
Is a castle of dirt
And the stench of empire,

Empire dying
Not in the flame
But in its own dense mould,

And what of pain?
The instant clench of the stomach
As foreign clouds
Pollute our frowning muzzles.

What then of youth?
What then of youth?

It is as fragile
As the blue blooded truth.

It’s easy to spiral these days
Trapped
In your mind-made maze

Whether error
Or something worse
It won't get better

Oh,

It’s easy to spiral these days
No one to blame
For your current decay.

a man, so precious
and violent
caught in between, the
fragile and beautiful,
coerced to sit, waiting,
wings clipped
like the crow, cooped
in a branchless tree,
vulnerable and
dazed, he hopes for
the world to coo,
again.

stop living your life through others
the journeys of those you create
those are fantasy fodders
and your stories await.

he's back again
the ego's parasite
and yet
happily we meet him

he's precise
with his poison
as he prescribes
my numbed mind

"you are never gonna be profound,
you will never find that sound,
your voice will never be heard,
that, you have not earned."

darling that's alright
you lack grief
and i hope
you never find it

no reason to write
when you only think in blue
it's not enough
to paint the truth

capture a word alone
and all it brings
is stale thoughts
and halted desires

strings of letters
try to emulate emotion
only to be rubbed out
forgotten at the nib

and so he wins today
but he never celebrates
back to silence
waiting for the confident man

The cobbled roads
Are bestowed with toppled leaves,
A verdant dressing upon the lanes
Of old Warfield,

Perhaps a warning
To you and me, not
To follow the estranged lanes
Like the lone tractor
Teasing the outskirts
Of the wooden curtain,

Devil woods that drape  
Over her buried majesty;
The venerable body
Of old Warfield, and

Are you one who rambles?
One who marches
In the bitter spit
Of frozen streams, and
One who claws at the hedges
For famished berries
That wither into dreams,

And are you the one
That I shall take with me?

One who seeks
The bustling labour
Of vanishing bees, and
One who gawps at the larks
Who dive from
The roving rookeries,

No, you are the liberal feather
Flailing in the breeze, and
The one who
Tethers to the curves
Of falling seeds, oh

I should have been woeful Prufrock
Confessing on the fiendish walk
Until I am anchored by the knees.

The cobbled roads
Are bestowed with toppled leaves,
A verdant dressing that lathers the lanes
Of old Warfield, a warning
To you and me, that these
Estranged lanes are fragments
Of a greater majesty;
The venerable body
Of old Warfield, and

Are you one who rambles?
One who marches
In the bitter spit
Of frozen streams, and
One who claws at the hedges
For famished berries
That wither into dreams,

And are you the one
That I shall take with me?

Oh, are you what
He so eloquently spoke of?  
(The song that Eliot sought)

No, you are the liberal feather
Flailing in the breeze, and
The one who
Tethers to the seeds, oh

I should have been woeful Prufrock
Confessing on the fiendish walk
Of old Warfield’s lanes.

Tomorrow I shall go to the beach
And begin to throw each stone,
Pebble and rock back
Into the sea,

But I shall deprive the lonely conch
And the bundles of seaweed,
They shall stay on this
Stoneless coast,

And I shall sweep the snow
Back into the clouds and
Cut the mountains
Down into the ground,

I shall unsow the forests and
Consume the leftover seeds
And perhaps if you let me, I
Will persuade the bees
To disperse,

I shall do all this,
All this ******, out
Of fear
Of the universe.

Am I heard ?
Am I heard ?

they employ:
twisted terminology
& hijacked ideology
    a glue
   for
false comradery
    oh, what a recipe
   for
  a modern Odyssey

(and) the answer?

our only commodity
an endless atrocity
   with
       an
empty apology
   oh, what a comedy
such a self-aware
  philosophy.

The pavements creek down London Road,
Slabs of stone lay uneven, waiting
For a misstep or perhaps a purposeful tumble
So that the day may begin.
A young lad, no older than twenty,
Takes the day’s virginity, and yet
He gains nothing from the exchange,
Left to curl into the floor, strapped
To an overturned slab.

And on this fragile surface, this new
Home of his, he separates the loose
Fragments of pavement into shapes
And size, hoping he might find
Some pattern and rhyme.

But the floor is unforgiving
And misleading, offering
No rhythm and no reason.

All this perpetual solidarity, all
This miserable conformity and lack
Of understanding takes a toll
On his youthful hands as the shards
Pierce his skin and convince blood
To pour out onto the streets.

He is tough but his skin has retired,
His exterior is withered and begins
To smell of a gloomy musk, and yet
His skeleton still dances eagerly on
Behind all the frowning rot.

Passerbys readily move on, dodging
His numb and hopeful soul
As they know it will soon become
A sunken and nameless corpse.
But, until then,
Our street bound friend
Seeks desire and fortune, but luck
Seeks privilege and passion, leaving
Only the welcoming dusk
To bring kindness to the streets.

He is not the only one, the sun rise
Washes dead men ashore, dry
And unloved bodies find themselves
Motionless and dull, glued intimately
To the jagged street floor.

But these bodies once lived!
Their fingers thrived on tobacco dust
And half burnt poorly rolled papers.

Their mouths fed on second hand
Crumbs, leaving a foul aftertaste
Perhaps guilt or malicious tongues.  

Their voices garnered an audience,
Proving uneducated souls could please
Others through word and love.  

Their eyes witnessed
The intricacies of the changing seasons,
They saw autumn wilt and winter born.

Their hearts pumped pure, drugs
And blood rushed through streams
In their arms and powered
Their merry croaking lungs.

And they were once loved.
Indeed, they were loved.

Perhaps not by their mums, or
Unborn sons but by existence.
Life’s brilliance dwells
In the dead men on our streets,
A reminder that merely existing
Is a burden, but also
The greatest responsibility.

Marble, sweat and rivers jolting away
This is the veil in which we play.
A city distracted from other’s gaze and
Far astray from the turtles’ graze. Torchlight
And illuminating words, spark a phantom turn
Ditching the foreign birds and when justice
Is spoken, it is unheard. Unearth
And unearth the doubting worm, feed it
The thieves of the land, allow
Them to punish the thieving man. Speak
Bitter and more wittier than most, tell the
Impotent and spectral ghosts that they, like us,
And like today are not entitled
To a rise in pay. Like the potato men
Who would weigh and weigh
And wade and wade for as
Little pay as
Fourty pence and a kind
Delay on their crippling rent.

Over and over the marble hedge, and
Across the pools of delirious sweat sleeps
Bountifuls of brush and deer, soaking up
The tears of lesser fellas, queer men
Back from deserts,
Tightening their belts and
Clasping at their mother’s gifted quilts.
Cactus sounds follow them home, prickly
Towns await in their ready made tombs, and dirt
Dirt, dirt filled cracks block comfort
And solace in their tracks.

Remembering when thunder struck, and how
‘Tough love falling out of love’ is a thought
Keeping the boys away from graves. Keeping
The boys safe and tucked behind
The garden maze, the green paths and walls
Of Europe's lavish sites keep the boys
Safe and tucked,
And in and out of love like a parrot
Stuck barking the same
Unpleasant rhymes.

Kingdom come, come marching towards
The heavy crimson sun and speak
Easy towards fun and fun. Men have not
Seen fun for some time, it was barred
From the camps on the riverside.
“Pick up a gun and have some fun” the corporal said,
“Pick up a gun and have some fun” the witness said,
And “Pick up a gun and have some fun” the grieving
Brother and
Tired mother cried.  

Fun has thieved the land, taking
Man and man away from the rivers and the lakes. Sinking
Man into water, and engulfing water in man.
Fun has taken life after life and
Watered down the meaning of strife, men
No longer tighten their belts
Or grieve on their mother’s quilts
But rather sip at straws and pause
The heroes on the screens, wishing and hoping
For more meaningful means, perhaps
As numbing and forthcoming
As their midday dreams.