There's a beautiful symmetry
sometimes,
In the hours, minutes and seconds of your
texts to me.

I'll never tell you but I record each one
precisely,
And whenever those numbers are aligned
I smile,
And take it (foolishly)
As Proof.

Of what I don't allow myself to ask,
But stick diligently to the task
Of recording.

When I looked at my clock this morning it said
9:11.
Funny how you start to notice things
The significance a memory can bring
To the way you see the world
Around you.

We don't need encouraging
To think the world is full of signs
Put there for
Us to read.

We are greedy
In our inference.
We tease sense out of the jigsaw
Of existence for our minds to turn over
And over
And over.
To play with and
Question
'Is this what this is?'

Why is everything see-through in the city?
Bars, cafes, shops, offices - all bare their naked witness to the contents inside
While wealth once chose to hide
Its faces from the masses
It has now found a more effective method of suppression:
Why disguise what you can make others want?
Show them,
Let them see what they could have,
Flaunt it to their willing eyes
And they will follow
The ringing of that hollow bell of 'want'
To their mass graves.

Don't get me wrong,
I don't think anyone is better off here.
Tell me the city suits floating
Like moths to the burnished flame of their local mall
Pulled into its glittering radiance after a long days'
Deathly work to find some comfort in consumption
At the blow-dry parlour or a watch glittering like a cricket in plastic grass
Aren't suffering like the rest of us.

There is no winning here.

Although it may appear that way to you
Through glistening expanses of blue-green
We're all/drowning/in this/sea of desire/together.


When I emerged from Wren's haven
(Imprint of ashes still traced in my skin)
I didn't know where I was.
I couldn't understand how I had come here from where I had been,
How the two could lie so close
To each other.
In this space.
One seemed so other
But not as I expected.
Raised all my life to believe in the tangible
Suddenly that was what seemed unreal,
Ungraspable in its absurdity
After the close communion of a ritual I could only ape,
And even then in disobedience.

How have we come to this place
Where we live in such
False freedom
Chasing our own tails
Consuming our energies
With mere consumption?

There is so much more




When we rejected that which rang false
We supplanted it with another idol.

Slavery is recognised by its outcomes,
Not its tones, it's overtures, it's address.

Where is our freedom not to live in *******
To money?
(That great power whom nobody controls and none can predict,
Which works in mysterious ways and gives us this day our daily bread.)

Why can't we live without it?
I hate this subservience / servitude it has imposed on us
Where every action word and meaning ends in its
Judgement / Answer

Where every day it's meaning grows
Even as it retreats from us in shadowed figures and
Ethereal locations;
Where each pound note is the holy scripture of our existence.

We live by its rules and none but it
Shall determine if we can enter
The Kingdom of Heaven

(That 5* Palace full of virgins).



I've never been to Las Vegas.
A mountain of money in a desert never held much appeal to me.

It's a thursday/wednesday night
and the air is so thick
and heavy with droplets
you can see them hanging in the air
like old TV grain or
white noise.
Across and above me
the amber orbs of street lights
hang out of saturated cloud
spilling onto the pavements
like a radioactive leak.
It makes the grit shine
like waste packaging
of a chicken takeaway:
yellow, lending a taudry glitter
to greasy surroundings.
But the streets are clean
of people tonight.

We could be
Religious.
We are
Capable
Of Ecstasy.
We have the
Potential to
Feel (the) Divine.

But we have buried ourselves
Underground,
Cut ourselves off from the Mountains
Of Joy and Freedom
To protect us from the
Valleys and Shadows
Of Grief and Poverty.

Has it worked?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil

Lying on the floor of a Monastery
Penetrated by the sounds
Of Chanting Voices.

Why do they play
Classical but not Religious music at stations?
Know your place,
And don't hope for more beyond
This.

Images of grown men falling to the platforms
Weeping on their knees
For Sadness/Grief at their
Own Ignorance
And Joy to
Feel their Eyes
Finally Open.

The Cruelty of a Life lived without
Pain or
Joy.

The prophets are raving on street corners
Foaming at the mouth
At the Brutality of
Mundanity -
Ruler of our existence
Governor of our Thoughts
Feelings
& Actions.

We are so afraid of Pain and
Love and
Danger
That we have locked ourselves in a cage of
Severed nerve endings
To escape it.
It is for our 'Protection'.

*This key is to keep me locked inside. I should guard it close but I give it away.

is back again,
sitting behind my head
and pushing it forward
with eager optimism
towards this new promise
(which hasn't been made
between anyone except my head & Hope,
a suicide pact naively made
in a heady moment of thoughtlessness.)
"Hold on, hold back,"
(I resist)
"Why should this time be any different from the last?"
Hope twists my arm
and digs me in the ribs,
teasing, with a playful grin
that shows me it knows it will always win.
And I want him so much to be right.

"Drinking a tin
and thinking of him,"
hoping to get away
from this maudlin
whim of escapism into
a new era of
beginnings.
Maybe it will, maybe it won’t,
either way I don’t mind gaining a friend,
or discovering my new favourite game,
flirting with men on the train
who can’t look up from their
slim, beautiful, intelligent phones.
Maybe if I changed my (ring)tone I could grab their attention,
but I don’t mention it,
I don’t want to distract him from that top score on temple run.
So I’ll have the conversation in my head
and wonder what we could have said/what he’d be like in bed/where it might have led in ten years time when we’re married with kids
but he probably won’t remember this.
It’s okay though,
I don’t mind,
I understand it’s hard to find the time to talk
to people when you’re surrounded by them
every day.
There’s only so much you have left to say
and you’d rather save it for someone special.
Someone you care about.
Someone close to you.

You’ve taken that soft and serene security
Away from me;

And I hate you a little bit for that.


Because I was so ready,
I was just asking to fall;
But now I’ve faltered and pulled back
From the closest I’ve ever been to the edge of love,

When I most wanted to throw myself
Over.