Herding flatly in the heat of streets
They rise up
Expecting rights and comfort all around.
But there is none.

Well, as a matter of fact there is some
(Thanks to Matt Cook we can all be more honest now
In poems.  Gear-changing - so much fun)

For instance, take 1 - 4 above.  
It's about groups of people in cafes and bars
In a hot evening city.  I wasn't feeling
Like Joining In.
So,
They were all irritating gits in my eyes
All condemned therefore in writing about it.
Then and afterwards
They were sad desperate zombies, so they were
All looking for a fix of pleasure, distraction, coin
Of their toil exchanging misery for oblivion and so

Doomed
Doomed
Doomed.  

But they weren't really
Of course.

I expect many of them had a truly great time.
Staggering laughter, blow-out fun, exuberance
Of release - and dancing through the
Smoke and din and drink and clashing colours, scents.

Maybe in midst someone of special poise  
Looked felt words across that bar that
Roared and rocked them far apart.  
Then laser quiet unites:
A magic channel switching out the noise.
Later they loved.
It tasted good and lasted.

Years, children, garden, wins,
Losses, and still some Mayhem Friends -
'Remember that night, and the chap
With the crash hat
Who just stood and looked?

I wonder what happened

To him?'

These lines these words are coming home, coming home.  
Playful, light with nothing to forgive
Or do
Really

But this is real.
This is all my world now...
Are they for me are they for you?

Me I guess
But they may reach
You

I still lie. Words are so easy to lie with.

But to truth with words you first have to
Lie with them.
Love them
Have intimate surprising knowledge of them
(because intimacy is always surprising)

Is this what makes intimacy so scary for some?

In touching you
With words or eyes or soft nails between

We might touch off a sudden flash or crack
Of powder dry for years.

That face that curve of neck those eyes
A tilt of feature and a look that does
Not mean to but cannot help but hold
Me helpless staring - almost daft with
Being with you
Distant in the world.

A New Moon seen through winter branches.

It's such a pain when you lose a poem on the motorway.
Near Leicester, as I recall.
(Or not)

And it was such a good opening -

Such a line

Full of simple power - lyric heart and
Earth and you...  
But now not here
Now no more.

Like friend who died with sunken eyes
I could then just see
3 weeks ago:
A curious distance from death.

The day after I could still see him,

And in 5 years time I will again
I know.

But 3 weeks?

The first thing you notice
As the clothed self starts to dissolve
Is the relaxation.
A kind of sinking into the the buoyant world
And surrender
So is in there too
But not capitulation poor and bowed
More a fizzy feel for all the
Overwhelming all
That can be
In the curve of fences
Seen from trains
And blurs of green and soft remembered walks
Of girls.

Mostly.

I have to say.

And moon and planets squirrelled through
The secret words of electrons to
The screen.


Food is all around us but we starve.

I once tried to write a poem
(or was it prose?)
About two so in love
(was it you and me?)
That they couldn't kiss because
Each time
They looked,
They smiled,
Then grinned
At each other and their all,

And just their teeth met
Click.
And they laughed
Just to be.

How did I love thee? Let me count your teeth.

I walk in from the dark and wet  
The glass door sprung to slow me.
Find a chair.
Collapse.

Am I exhausted or
Not?

I don't know.

A friend of long ago and now is dying
The shadow of his place with gulls and shops
I leave on Albert Road.  
Broken arm across his short betraying breaths
With that inevitability grin
I know so well from school and later,
As little bitter fortunes

Unfurled their flags.

I walked in through his easy door
Words floundering till whisky hits
Then:
Of course we will! Sure we will!
- We fill the months and weeks with plans
Travel to the sights he wants for him.
Boats and Locos, Houses, Friends.
The evening slews in amber liquid,
Fades in fervent words.

Morning grey.
For me the stunned drive back to work
And England's ridges higher -  home to home.

Finally Southbank - monied words.
Their voices to the ceiling reach:
A gentle civilised hubub of the saved
Bathed in culture, purpose and the careful light.

And you are back there, purposing a
Fractured night
That counts each clock chime you restored.

Oh now, by all the alleys, faces, roads
And domes of London,

Would it were not so

Not so
Not so
Not so.