I
Always remember things.
That way, you know: It’s moments.

II
Ness Boy walked back through that forest,
with the walk of someone who was lost,
and shared glances with the ghosts of him,
walking the other way.

They were crowned with browning leaves,
from when winter turned to summer.
Like the trees outside my window,
they went and changed their colour.

So Ness Boy had remembered that little pond,
where storm had left him all alone.
He remembered that path through trees, where we
went when we din’t want to go home.

And that bench, that view of the mountains,
and how beautiful it is to climb,
From that bench, that view of the mountains,
he remembered all that wasted time.

And as he walked back through his years,
he felt just a little bit sad.
But there was a part of him which felt like smiling,
because now he understood.

III
At the edge of the forest,
my father’s car is waiting to take me home:

Home, where I’m no longer tired,
and the world is swept away,
your little garden getting brighter,
my life it’s brighter too.
Home where I can’t stop writing,
and the writer in me’s a spy.
Home where I need to revise,
but revising ain’t on my mind.
Home where mum ain’t here,
but that’s how it’s s’pose to be.
Home where she never were,
but that’s how it would always be.
Home where I got the best education.
Home where I came back late.
Home where I introduced you to my father.
Home where we played in the bath.
Home where I learned how to iron.
Home where you made the fire.
Home where you always were.
Home where you aren’t anymore.
Home where I swore I’d never leave,
when I laid in bed that night.
Home where you swore you’d never leave,
then you switched off your fairylights.
Home was where I ran from,
because I didn’t know who I was s’pose to be.
But home is where I am now,
because this exactly who I’m s’pose to be.

But now there’s water on the sunroof,
and the trees are rippling.

IV
I used to dream and cry a bit,
wishing all these things,
wishing I could hear from you just one more time,
wishing I didn’t just walk away when you invited me in.

And now it’s time to sleep,
and your skin’n breath ain’t there no more.
Those Dollhouse Mountains are smaller now.
I’m talking to myself again.

But even when the bad things happened,
and we fought our way around each-other,
and you were frightened of conflict,
and I broke our door, and almost my glasses,
when we ordered Chinese food and I never finished it,
and we wasted money in London and Liverpool,
and never ****** in that hotel in Blackpool,
even though now we’re just memories to each-other,
and that night may have really been the last time we ever gonna see each-other,
even though soon I’m leaving this city behind,
and even though our world is now just an old view,
there were stars.

Please move the moon, this man is lost,
drunk with the sight of towering mountains.
With mute desire, ten years ago,
each bough of promise built an ailing tree.
But now that tree, it’s older now,
and stands on sinking sand, alone.
Old thoughts, why did you hang around?
Old thoughts, you’ll grow older without me now.

Who am I? You took me with you.
Next day my eyes didn’t open ‘til two.
Next time I’ll try to think things through.
Who was I? I thought it was me and you.

Two generations of mistakes
with lovers; those years wishing on a star.
I was satisfied with sadness,
but you wanted someone more.
Someone to hold your hand at night,
whom you actually wanted to feel there.
Someone who could stop you crying,
whom you actually wanted to be there.

Who am I? You took me with you.
Next day my eyes didn’t open ‘til two.
Next time I’ll try to think things through.
Who was I? Was it ever me and you?

Hey, Pretty Girl, what’s both’rin you?
I heard your phone-call by the fire exit.
Trust me, I’ve seen those Dollhouse Mountains,
so won’t you spend some time with me?
I’ll tell you loads of stories of
the days I only write about,
so smell the incense in the air,
and fall asleep under my arm.

Who am I? You took me with you.
Next day my eyes didn’t open ‘til two.
Next time I’ll try to think things through.
Who was I? It was always me or you.

Back home, closed off from this adventure,
his father sat still awake past midnight,
remembering his clever son,
remembering that time was gone.
Alone in yellow house, Ness Boy,
turned away from morning window light,
those words they stayed there in his head,
what the man on the little island said:

‘It’s not every day you wake up to a view like that;
doesn’t matter the weather, you’d never get tired of it.’

By early evening I’d stumbled onto
shores of lost adulthood,
where wooden lodge overlooks the mountain,
and kissed the moon goodnight.
And through poor-lit doorway, soft-lit behind,
an old friend waved to me,
singing songs of love, singing songs I’d love,
armchair turned towards the sea.

It’s dark, but there’s coffee in
the kitchen; there’s bluebells under
the windowsill.

There was a tenderness beneath his eyes,
there was no more poetry.
There was a dining table set that night,
he’d cooked a Sunday-dinner.
I doubt anyone would believe me if
I said he looked happy.
But did you know I was three months off
asking you to marry me?

He’s sat by the window and
the sun is setting; but I might
see you again.

Trying to balance, ******, home by myself,
in alien cities,
was how I spent the next four weeks, while you
fell into another.
Time to go home, but I ain’t got no home,
good friend’s don’t even know,
that car’ying shrapnel’s pretty nice, when you
got to walk home alone.

It’s hard now to remember,
but last time I saw you, I was
in love with you.

The little island in the half-sunk beach
was where I stayed that night,
was where I loned, got drunk in it, then
each day got drunk some more.
Wild, the memories we had, but we had enough,
for you I knew,
she’s long-gone now,
this forest has come undone.

Ness Boy sat by the window,
thinking about those years, watching
the end of them.

Dim clouds were slow-dancing across the sky,
Shades of blue and yellow crying through.
There were water droplets on his glasses,
There are colours when I think of you.

went down path, little holes
in the ground,
an entire world of small animals.

Trees exploding on faraway hills
Like dust clouds, like lightning, but still.
Wind’s touch behind glasses, wind’s soft-star song,
I’m glad that this time there’s you.

river falling down rocks,
headlong foam,
over mountain range.

There’s a thin river, an old kissing gate,
A winding path down a tidy view,
But those Dollhouse Mountains, they looked so tall,
But there’s a song, and this time it’s for you.

mountains which looked so tall,
by the stars,
then were maybe half the size at your feet.

The moon rose behind
the mountains, like
a runway.

The stars up ahead
looked pretty, from
far away.



With little vision in my eyes,
and face half-under messy water,
those lonely shores now rippled with life,
moonlight flash on pier.

Scratched ghosts of headland through seafoam,
bruise-coloured & careful, and I alone,
seeing faces in old raindrop night-time
moonscape storm had come.

All with black language of love and luck,
started war with that woman, since we changed.
Despite remem’bring tattoos and smiles at dusk,
in my dreams you fade.

Island ferry siren naked,
waves of black and brown, pulling it inward,
vibrating great shadows of formless bay,
and consuming it.

Through the spiral of shiv’ring moonlight
magic, cheap birds lost their names in the moonlight,
reworking old songs they half-memorised,
breathing us goodnight.

But have you heard their songs lately?
Are they kissing, working on new poetry?
What will they remember in three-month’s time?
And who will be there when it all falls down?

Well does that matter anymore?
This poet’s a fool, he thought he changed; It’s
just new kind’s of ****, new moonlight on pier,
hold me, anyway.

The rust-red banks of old love soon
crashed under cigarettes of rippling tide,
as horror covered whole stretch of sky,
midnight scene, & I.

There were severed shades on the waterfront,
the shore cradling that sombre sea;
wind moving shine across waterfront,
creating spaces with rolling beats.

And as I lay by the side of the beach,
resting beneath that warmth of sun,
with fingertips laced through bluebell flowers,
I’m at your hill; missing your ****.



It was a beautiful day.
The sun set at nine, and it’s different in the evening.
The rain fell with a faint sheet of blue-grey, far without end, and with stars filling ten times the space that measure city’s sky, Ness Boy followed that leaf litter path; and as daylight closed its curtains, he could see there was a circle of stars above that mountain.

The colour of the mountain’s sinking
& moving across its landscape, leading
the eye to the heart of its mood:
Whisp’ring geometries, complex with hues.

The Dollhouse Mountains are almost fluid,
the mountains, with noise on your mind,
with navel sea and your constellations,
like a figure in rest, reclined.

Round hill-flow *******, your bones made the landscape,
your hips wave the mountains, my love.
Curled honeycomb heather trembles in cold,
cross-legged softness, your thigh becomes.

Your blissful breath, lightning ****** ‘cross brush
golden grass, your stomach it dances.
Low warmth beneath your flow’ring underwear,
lift my brook to your deep canvas.

And at the headland peak, I’ll reach that view,
wrap my poems around your throat.
At the headland peak, I’ll kiss your cheek, and
push in softly inside your throat.

This forest is a secret happy place, filled with so much light,
and from where Ness Boy sat, at the seat of that forest,
he could see everything.

In the distance, a train coughed its fumes over the trees.
Wind turbines, and further along pylons too,
reached through the heavy mist.

There was the sound of cars,
and birdsong, like rolling scurried sounds,
and a cold breeze, which kind of runs its fingers over your body,

and Ness Boy found himself counting the birds in the trees.

But above the quiet things, were The Dollhouse Mountains,
where reds, yellows, & greens, were pressed into the fields,
and, wrapping around those patchwork hills,
which rolled in on themselves far away,
and got a little bit lighter, the farther away they were,
were the clouds, with a half-away slumber,
swallowing it up.

And there was something about those mountains that felt really good.
All Ness Boy wanted to do was climb.