My country is in chaos.
Seats of power are exchanged,
Unelected come-down
And steep fog of uncertainty.
The poor are painting their signs,
Others lock their doors.
Tear gas spills in streets
Far from suburbia,
On the shoulder of Europe.

I struggle to sleep.
Not for tragedy
But missed calls
And lack of shelter.
For you and your
Darkened corner,
Bleak winters-
The last time
I saw you in the sun.

Petroleum fills
The lung of the sea.
Swarms gather in luscious greed,
Footfalls over concrete:
The peace sign
White poppies
And paper cranes,
Stubborn **** in the rock,
The busker with fingerless gloves;
The nightclub spilling over
Into violence.

I strain my eyes,
Not in tears
But in chemicals
And lack of vitality.
For you and your
Elusive path through life,
Over-complicated strides.
Simple, temporary medicine

That is the comfort
And not the cure.

The stars blot out,
One by one.
Each neon skylight
Fractures the night
In pink clouds.
Flowers die over the railings
Where they could not
Save his life.

I contain my breath,
Not in calm
But poisoned blood
And lack of air.
I can barely breathe
Without you here.

My country is in chaos.
Earth spins in a slow disease.
Still all I can think of is you-
Whether you are thinking of me.

You were the bowl of oranges.
Lilac skin and a blue heart
On your sleeve.
The lights and colours that erupt
In stars behind closed eyes:
I saw you even when I drank myself blind.

You were the solution of words
Once all the chemicals lost their kick.
The Truth was out there,
We stayed inside sheltered routines
Which blacked out the skies,
Cast a ceiling on our dreams.

You were the Earthly phenomena
That kept me from drifting to the stars.
The coastline in my breath,
On my tongue - to everyone.
You were the name my friends
Were tired of hearing;
The name I cannot forget.

You were red wine;
On my lips and on your dress.
You were... Late-night farewells,
You were the sun salutation,
The birth of a nation
That could blossom into colour in my mind.

You were beautiful in the cloud forests,
Astral depths: we never had to speak.
What age did we reach
Before that daydream started to ache?

You were the faded fantasy
That I held like sand in my hands.
When we kissed I would tremble,
I would lose a little more of you.

You were sad singers.
Old souls that tread the line of their sanity
In fine-point precision;
You were the art that coursed my veins
When surrounded by grey food, grey rooms, grey walls.

You were the messenger with an olive leaf, a blue feather;
A signpost for dry land. You were the panic button
That would take me to the safe place in my mind.
You were the way I said ‘I love you’
In a voice that was finally mine.
You were my lighthouse in the distance
And all the words I cannot find.

Show me how you cry.
Show me how you drink red wine
and pass the time.
Show me how you freak out,
how you clasp your palms
through moments of doubt,
careful to let nothing slip out;
let nothing recede the paint on your face-
I know that your careful eyeliner
is the borderline to help you find your place.
Show me how you sleep.
Show me how you
fall into routine;
show me how you have learned to stumble through life
and look as if you have not missed a stride.
Show me the freckle
on your inner thigh,
show me how you drink red wine,
show me how sometimes, you want to die.
Show me how you cry.

Once I held you in my arms,
I loved you in my sleep,
above the traffic
and the circumstance,
above the slaughter of the sheep.

You made me sing at my guitar,
a grown man falling to defeat.
Now I cannot find The Answer
in the company I keep.

The game is rigged, we know it is,
in a hustler's *******,
the bank cartels
and corn-fed chicken
descend upon the weak.

I held you in my arms
on a precipice brave and steep,
above the breadlines
and the cannibals,
above the slaughter of the sheep.

You have me writing poetry
about landscapes left unseen,
you kissed the addict on the mouth
and now he's looking to get clean.

But the day is long, you know it is,
forgive me for sounding bleak,
a sucker for
those sad, sad songs,
and that chemical retreat.

I am not working on perfection
in a lifetime stretched and brief,
but I am working on a promise
that for once,
I intend to keep.

See, I've got a knack for giving up,
for feigning inner peace,
I've had my fill of oil spills
and the slaughter of the sheep.

You've felt it too, that burdened love,
the dead-end of familiar streets,
you lay down with him,
habitual ease;
lilac skin now a slab of meat.

The dignitaries come,
the friends you have to meet,
a compromise of ancient ties,
amongst the ******
and the thief.

Words are falling fast for you,
though I lack the skill to piece
all the fragments you paint for me
in this temple of disease.

The race is run, you know it is,
a pace we couldn't keep,
our lungs are full
of cigarettes,
our tongues of old deceit.

The Lie is out amongst the crowds,
but I have no time for war and peace;
I am slipping into
my lover's robe,
into your twisted sheets.

Once I held you in my arms,
I loved you in my sleep,
this wolf's disguise,
those bells that chime
at the slaughter of the sheep.

The old man paints seashells
for all of the women he has loved.
He takes his husky for walks
along the beach, returning with
a bag of **** and a collection
of spirals and fans, still pregnant
with the whispers of the ocean.

By the window, he licks his brush
and steadies his nervous hands.
He will share a steak with the dog,
and wonder when the best company
became inanimate or at most; unspeaking.
He had long turned his back on Dylan
and Cohen, in favour of empty sound

and the rain hitting the tarp
in the garden. He recalls Diane
and the green of life in her poetry.
Louise, the blue of her moods and the sea.
Each woman had coloured his life
in hopeful hues, oh, and what a mess
he was in their absence.
(even the dog wouldn't sleep beside him)

The old man drew his last breath
when the silence became deafening.
When he realised he could not reclaim
memories through art, or through
the patient analysis of nature.
There was no shape or colour
that had not been created before.

I stood on the cliffs of Cabo Girao,
I watched the village slip away,
into to the mouth of mother nature;
into the sea of salt and spray.

And in my baseball cap, I leant out,
and threw my t-shirt to the sea,
I was done with missing sunlight;
I was done with autumn leaves.

I headed out to warmer climates,
and I was cradled in the sun.
I experienced new beginnings,
in the roots of Babylon.

They whispered through ayahusaca,
as I force-fed myself the tea;
as I malfunctioned into sanity,
as new voices came to be.

We laughed on through the Amazon,
and in the emptied streets of Rome.
Earth fell upon the weight of change;
now all of the land was home.

Old pick-up trucks are left to rust,
as all memories are altered.
A cigarette will tempt our death,
in a breath so rushed and faltered.

The voices left me in the high-rise,
in the car-park that we once looked out;
we saw the limit that is the horizon,
we saw a future full of doubt.

I have travelled through the aftermath,
and found no one left at all.
At least there's peace in my delusion,
away from the ancient city sprawl.

Yet, still with all these questions,
of what was caused, under which name;
you still send them to expire,
as I linger on your gaze.

I've not seen you in a while now,
you could be dead or worse: happy.
All I want is to find Eden,
and have you descend down from the trees.

I remember the walks we took,
Smoking cigarettes and cursing the modern day.

I remember the Canary sands,
And how we fell into each other,
Our bodies still warm from the Sun.

I remember how your body tensed,
Each time you were caught in vulnerability.

I remember those ancient postcards you’d send:
“I miss you, I miss you, I miss you”
As the hours strained in your luxury.

I remember seeing your beauty from afar,
But curtailing my interest through circumstance.

I remember how you’d say to me
That all love was bunk,
Until you finally tasted what kindness could be.

I remember our intimacies;
Grown children planning world *******
Under the torch-lit covers.

I remember every story you ever told me,
And how all of your words have birthed mine.

I remember how the train took us away.
You stretched out on your empty bedsheets,
Whilst I tarried in the past.

Let's set our minds to a consequential meeting,
a first-hand account of a new lovers' greeting.
In a time span new, fast, and fleeting,
it is to you I gape, with my heart still bleating.

I miss the kiss of 'hi, who are you?'
of a question mark over the ocean view.
My arrow will fall so straight and so true,
once you release me from the binds
that I have long since outgrew.

Will you take me from the taste of beer?
From sensations false, and to paradise near.
I want to greet the daylight without a fear,
to kiss your footprints, to keep you here.

Please reach for the hand inside this glove,
this car park wreckage, this artefact of love.
Will you be the branch beckoning my dove?
Will you separate the seas
from the skies above?

I'm waiting for you beneath the smoke,
mixing whiskey and vanilla coke.
I'm half-drunk and half-missing
in my masterstroke,
of vanishing entirely
within evening's cloak.

Let's set our minds to white wine in the sun,
to tracing the playgrounds where we used to run.
You'll signal to me when you're feeling done,
then I'll wilt in my twilight,
and let breath come undone.

I am listening to old jazz classics
whilst drawing up our next dystopia.
This malformed thinking,
this habitual drinking,
is a life ill-spent,
talking to mirrors
when in lieu of a friend.

There's peppermint tea freshly poured
and sat steaming amidst ***** glasses,
old bracelets, and hand creams to soothe
all cracks that form. Nina knows how I feel.

There's dance songs on the radio.
They're playing for the drunk entourage,
and for the shower-capped bedlam
of those with nowhere to go.

I am waiting for the ash to settle like snow,
to tell us all that death is just a season.
A season for returning,
like forest fires burning,
from aftermath comes afterlife;
it is light in the shadows,
it is the safety of night.

There's unsent letters in my mind,
exchanging function for memories and wine.
***** luck, old habits, and Nancy. She descends
the stairs, and shoots me down again.

There's folk songs for the runaways,
for the hill-climbing peace-seeker, who
takes photographs of landscapes,
so that he can remember in spite of tears.

I am striving to find that beauty,
to hold it close, and thaw out in the sun.
My brain is mending,
now that letters are sending,
now that I can reclaim motion
and park-bench conversations;

taking back the 'I miss you's',
in a race we finally won.

I found the reason for living,
In the beating of a drum.
Where everything has a purpose,
A place where everything belongs.

And, I’ve been living in the fallout
Of an atomic bomb,
There may be stumbles in my footprints,
But you’ve never steered me wrong.

So don’t you feel embarrassed
By your young suffering,
For what is learned in the morning,
By the evening, becomes instinct.

I’ve been dreaming of a culture,
I’ve been auctioning the sky,
As you draw me a new future;
Oh, it’s so beautiful, I cry.

So now I’m getting on that train,
To put some miles in between,
Who I appear as in the doorway,
And who I really mean to be.

And, I’ve been living in the fallout
Of an atomic bomb,
There may be stumbles in my footprints,
But you’ve never steered me wrong.

A mood is lifting,
As we tilt our chins up to face the rain.
This bitter detox has been hard to swallow,
A new range of old stone tablets,
Decreeing buy and sell, buy and sell,
And that everything can be owned.

We have defined ourselves
By the patterns of the weather.
Capricious friend, my book companion;
Steer with me now, across the bend
And into insanity. We can embroider
Limbs over our Sunday mattress,
And salute the new week
In ****** and teenage songs.

I’ll take you through the bridleway.
These approved paths of nature,
Contrived and confined by beaten mud
And memories of the 585 bus departing.
I will hold your hand
But not hold you to anything,
Freeing up the paths you made
Before ours intersected.

Yes, and take me to that barren farmland
Where you learned to drive.
The mud-splatter and swearing
Contained within it the only happy memory
Your father ever gave you.
This mood is lifting as we indulge each other,
As we laze into love;
As we warm by the flame.