I am thinking of moving,
from this country,
from this house,
from this couch,
At least,
At very least, I am a clichéd empty coffee cup,
A lesion on the bone of my own life,
Stopping under Ferris wheel lights,
As it all falls into the Mersey,
And resurfaces, maybe, elsewhere

I think of moving,
In yellow patches of sun,
In marked skin,
In between atomic level emptiness,
At peace,
At ephemeral peace, I am the clichéd busted wheel,
A tyre mark or pock mark on the surface,
Slicing the move East in two,
Drowning in meltwater
Bobbing up through a hole in the ice,
And resurfacing, maybe, elsewhere

I am moving,
through time (or it through me)
through faded dayglo
through a burnt filament,
At last,
At dreaded “and dear last”, I am roots and canopy, clichéd,
A fluttering of fingers in thorns and air,
Stuttering sentences on an empty stage,
Skirting the edge of newly lost continents,
While licking salt from faces and cliff faces,
Moving another ghost somewhere west,
To resurface, elsewhere

maybe

They’re putting bread on string
Out of reach of anything
Chandeliers in a Salt mine
Turning wine into whine into figments of what was mine

What was ours in the bastions of love
Which left us behind in the pushes and the shoves
Oblivion to oblivion in Lunar zodiac years
Turning tears to tears in barrels full of fear

Precious be thy emptiness in lost & broken trust
But our broken alloy hearts will likely never rust
Held to account in dingy basement dwellings
Turning your cells into cells when it’s more than salts you’re smelling

Hearts become holograms, there’s  interference in the tube amps
Our bodies become vehicles and this locus is the on-ramp
Desire lines in darkness punctuate the screaming night
Turning wander to wonder far from halcyon light

I breathe and I tire,
Whilst all mouths and memories begin to conspire,
I see Odin weep outside the window,
I wander backstage where the humans can’t go,
One-eyed Wednesdays install beats in my heart and cracks in my teeth,
Show me a heartland with an ocean beneath,
Let me sleep, let me sleep, let me sleep.

Nights
when hot evening in lemonade and canal water gives way to cold breeze dusk through white cotton shirts seeking jackets,
As last light leaves the party behind nameless hills and the pollution masks the stars,
Slow moons creep to the edge of eyes in monochrome film-light, distant rain, and drunken big-bands play

through speakers in dead venues, layers of dust, and layers of dust,
And from radios, lost on the dial,
In American cars, front seats the size of living rooms,
But no comfort to journeys of ammonia and neck pain,
Lost nights of Earth
Accepting warm drizzle through hats and shoes, and occasional ceilings,
Sirens paint and dapple scenes streets away from latest whiskey or whisky melodramas,
Before returning to curtains, decades of regret in floral patterns, chipped cups, and solar flares at the strained dawn,
Piercing blinds and migraines
In a successive run of
Mornings

There was a noise downstairs

Heard it creep into what we read
Whilst in my ears it starts to shout
A sound that slowly sows its seeds
Then in the knees it wins the bout

I hear it growing closer
To the threshold of doors long shut
Before clawing into the room
Through our bodies
And the windows too

Hear it repeatedly speaking of
Mother’s sons born blue
All polluted in utero
Cold water and yellow fog
While others hawked their morals above

Hear holy words said to us
Proverbs two one two three
Do not move our mouths too much
But never mention
That more than holy spirits touch

Hear that change comes
When the North Atlantic
Nears our lungs
But sadness when we only get
To remember him while he was young

Hear it ring out between
What all the emptied pens believe
That parts of us have contravened
When our hearts fester from scene to scene
Betwixt the Romans and the Pharisees

Hear it in words of grace
In the void where your spine should place
When stood between tectonic plates
nor time nor stasis emancipates
The silence of our delegates

Then hear it in atomic air
The souvenirs of yesteryear
That spill and mix into our despair
The thoughts our hammers won’t repair

There is still a noise downstairs

He had a cacophony of seabirds,
In the attic of his mind,
In the loft of his skull,
Telling him:
What not to do,
What not to do,
What not to do.