Why don't you stay
Why don't you say you'll look after me
I'll help you deal with what's wrong
We'll make it better before long
Because I'm not going anywhere
While you don't feel right
I can't just go to bed and sleep tight, and
I'm not going to have an easy, restful night
While there's something bothering you slightly

I don't know what
It is but it's not something I can ignore forever
It's not just a pointless endeavour
Of my emotions, on a journey
I want you to long for me; yearn for me
I want you to need to make me feel right
I want you to help me before saying goodbye

But then again,
I gave nothing to you
But a blank, cold stare
Wished you sweet dreams
With the glare of a nightmare
I care and I want to share
But it's not fair because
For too long I've been unhappy
On one side of my face

Schizophrenic,
Unauthentically authentic
I think that I meant it
and I doused it in wit
But what use is intelligence
When it uses idiotic reasoning
What use is a feeling
When it can't even identify itself easily
Cheesily,
hazily,
amazingly poetic

I want a week to myself
Or maybe a month
In a cave, on a hill
Playing chess, or something.
Making a mess, and loving
the time that I have alone.
Cold solitude
warm independence
Hours sat cross-legged
thinking, feeling, breathing
Senses
Calm
Cool
Cave

        Save me

As he paces,
his heart races.
A thousand unknown faces
fill his head and he amazes
himself that he still gets so annoyed;
so sickeningly distraught
at the thought of other boys
using her as their toy.
A one-off meeting,
A nervous smile and fleeting glance
at her red lips.
A brush of the fingertips.
A passionless kiss.
But a story nonetheless
of the girl in the tight dress
who you managed to impress
at that birthday party.
You were both a bit of a mess,
but who even cares?
It's a part of growing up:
Tongue to tongue and have a ****
of his face.
Please enjoy, Lady Ace,
the sentiment and the grace
of the young 'innocence' that still dismays
the one who actually cared.
Who actually stared
into your eyes for something deeper.
Something warmer and true
Someone in love with you,
with a dream for every day
and an endless desire to play
with your hair as well as your *** -
who cares and shares in your sass,
with kisses born from more than a crass
lad with his Hollister shirt on
and a wallet stuffed with hopeful condoms.

It's sad to say but
the sight of your face
reminds me of all the time I have lost.
Faces older than they were.

Shadows of houses grow -
black teeth closing across the road.
Long yellow fingers claw between.
Golden, all the lines I have crossed
without thinking twice.
My general, I conscientiously object.

Here again
The same old table
The same modern, open, space.
Natural light floods through the towering glass windows
And I think,
Why human?
Why couldn't I have been a rock or a tree or a waterfall?
Do trees fall out with one another
Are rocks concerned by the density of other rocks around them, or their plans or relationships or purpose
A rock is a rock
All a waterfall needs is gravity.
I'm human and I have just as much gravity as everyone else and I'm still unhappy
I'll have another cigarette.

A waterfall is water falling
All a human needs is
Something
about people or love or food or the motivation to cook food or the will to eat food even when sober.

Don't forget about money.
That's very important.
Without that, I couldn't buy tobacco.

Are you happy?
Your second-hand smile wears thin like old jeans,
and once-glinting eyes drop to the floor to stare dully at my cigarette ****.
My trainers are filthy and yours are clean, protecting soft feet from the cold that we both feel inside us.
It's the start of November but it's been winter for a while.

How long have you been silent? How long will you be silent?

How do you buy new jeans when all your currency has been spent?

Maybe I could be your personal shopper... I'm really not qualified; I was fired from my last position but I think I'd enjoy working here!

I'm sorry this doesn't make sense.
Some of it is missing and some of it almost definitely isn't me.
That's the trouble with painting your face. You do it every day and you forget how you used to look under all those layers, each mask set upon the last.
But I suppose the Mona Lisa took a few attempts, and so can we.

So alone in a room, with my back against a mirror, I put pencil to paper and start to scratch my itch.

A voice sings.
A bird flies whose wings have previously remained unscretched.
Its song grows stronger with each whistled lullaby.
A burden inside is lifted into the air.
Weightlessness encourages tears.
The heaviness flows from within, and the bird flies alongside its friends.
She weaves in and between them, flying beside and above and below, and always with them.
They care for each other
They love each other.
Flight is not for transportation unless the destination is another world; another realm; another peace of mind.
Pieces of mind, thrown like cards onto the table
Placed like a baby into a cradle.
Silence falls, for she is scared her next note might roll down her cheeks
Roll wetly down her cheeks and shivering down her spine.
Beauty invites a shiver down the spine.
It says "Come in. Be warm. Be touched."
Warm breath flows.
Open hearts invoke terror
If you think she sang beautifully, then tell her.

I have a basil plant
with some lovely, emerald leaves
crowning 3 strong, thick columns
in an off-white, ceramic ***.

Decorated with delicate foliage, hand-painted
in rust and green,
how it glows in the sunshine
on the tiled kitchen window sill.

Being happy isn't having enough money to go out tonight
it isn't slurring your words
or being surrounded by birds
in a bar or on a hillside.
Being happy isn't having your political party in power
or having *** in the shower
or drinking your favourite tea
or getting down on one knee and hearing a shriek of joy.
it's understanding the word "no"
and carrying your grandma's wishes with you wherever you go.
Being happy isn't a fluffy, roasted sweet potato
or a sesame bagel with smashed avocado
it's stooping down low
and saying hello to what grows
at the bottom of the social food chain
and talking and taking away a bit of someone else's pain
it's swapping smiles with a new stranger every day
walking miles through danger not to have your say
but to hear someone else's.
Being happy is always giving a couple of quid to the homeless,
whether you have it or not.
it's keeping smiling when there's a twist in your plot
Being happy, it's, it's cleaning your flatmate's dishes as well as your own
it's having a clear state of mind - where you feel at home.

Your voice
so small, sweet
but low, gentle.
Generous hands
petite feet
I'd be mental
to refuse that dance

I have nothing to write about,
and haven't for a while,
so let's sit and smile,
being together,
happy bodies nestling deep in the fake leather sofa.

True peace is white noise.
Even the right noise,
the perfect music,
drips from my ears and chips my shoulders.

Nothing to say,
something to hear.
Let's be here
until the next day,
and have a snack.

I could lie in bed
through the whole, long morning
but as the gentle, Welsh sun peeks through the crack between my curtains,
I stretch my legs

A candle went out
A little flame on the tabletop dancing in the reflection in the wine glasses
hot and molten and fragrant, nights spent behind lightly-coloured veiled curtains
Mysterious, dancing, floating shadows through the curtain are glimpsed.
Tales of mystery, magic, agelessness hints in the small flame.
Scandals in the dark.
Wax seals on yellow letters
remembered by the candle;
the only light there to see on those nights
In stone castles and in hot bedrooms,
On steel blades of kings to their steely gaze,
to nervous eyes and shining lips
All reflected the burning candle's wick
Whose warmth and flickering glow were taken for granted until
a candle went out.

I was on a train out of Chorley
Happy to be sad to be leaving
Smalltalking strangers with a great accent
Hot and uncomfortable because my super cool leather jacket wasn't breathing.

Lancashire, you've made me think!
Actually, trains make me feel pensive.
Or was it Mrs Barton?
Bumbling and hypersensitive (in a nice way)

"Remain vigilant through your journey"
"Do not leave your heart unattended or it may be destroyed"
We'll get into Cardiff at zero zero six teen
That's technically Friday; there'll be drunks to avoid.

We're past Crewe and I know
Younger me made the right decision.
The path I sometimes hesitate to follow
Is bold, beautiful and scenically inefficient.

It twists and turns, trees stream
Past the train's windows
The sky looks lovely tonight
A candyfloss cloud for each of my woes (only three or four obstruct the sunset and they make it shine all the softer)

Mother of a lover, you said
You thought you'd never see me again
You often think of me, and will "follow me".
Facebook makes it easy to pretend.

Cardiff still sleeping
The light rain kissing the dark pavements
Delicately in the dim, secluded lamplight,
As lovers do,
Willingly oblivious to the odd lonely commuter,
Who frowns at the fresh, wet passion
From behind bleary eyes behind grey spectacles behind the wheel behind the grumbling, soggy rubber on the road.

Cardiff's lover must too
Make their commute,
The slow, grey flight is blown with such intent,
The wind is cupid and knows
Crops must be watered
Rivers filled
Valleys and hills alike await their romantic precipitation.
And the rain loves to please,
Turning yellows green and greens brown
And commuter's smiles upside down
(if they have smiled in the last ten years...

...sometimes I wonder if I have)

So, rain, peck my cheeks and run through my hair gentle fingers,
Speckle my glasses with moisture from your cool, close breath and whisper silence-quenching lyrics on my window with your pitter patter and I will dream and I will wake again to the early dawn rain and I will turn to you, open my mouth and taste your gentle kiss on my lips and tongue and I will smile.

Your legs will not carry you quickly enough.
Your voice will not shout loudly nor whisper quietly enough.
Your heart will not stop beating and let you be still
until it stops beating and you are still.

You will whisper quietly in a voice that booms and echoes:

"Enough."

Although on page two hundred and twenty
it must come to end,
for two hundred and nineteen and a half pages,
I found on this tree-pâté
(I don't know where ink comes from)
a friend.

Patrick for all his lonely sorrows
has taken me, sat me down in a blanket, and hidden me from the real world.
From touchable, grabbable joy
From the cold touch of a dead memory
From the contorted warmth of a lover about to take a journey.
From the satisfaction of a day job
From the numbing repetition of a day job
From anything tangible I hide,
and while away awhile.

Reading.

Page to page different circumstantial photographs,
beautifully, hauntingly captured, some of them,
all in his warm tongue and keen hand.

I wonder if I know these things he speaks of.
I am so close to them
I can see them
I'm in my blanket
My tongue in my mouth
My hands on his pages
My ears greedily lapping up his nutrition (too quickly to taste)
and my mouth is dry.

Not a callous touches my skin.
Not a memory picks up a pencil.
Not a lover contorts my limbs, my neck, ruffles my hair.
I can ruin my own hair.
I can stand up and see through my eyes as well as his
I might feel tangible
And I'll write a poem about it

I'm not quite sure why I feel this way
Why in my bed, my legs feel tired
In my head, my heart feels numb
Why my lips feel dry without gin passing through them.

Chapped and sore, my patience like my lips thirsts
for a numbing draft of spirit to quench.
Spirit is exactly what I need
to instill charm into this hopeless mind.

If only charm poured as easily as gin
from the bottle so green with envy
and malice and wickedness.
Heavy, silver liquid within.

I hope I'm drunk
because if this is what sober is like,
I don't want to be sober -
Better pour myself another glass.
Onto the old slice of lime.

I'll hide away in myself for a while,
and as I try to smile at the good folk
who surround me,
I'll see the concern in their eyes
or the awkward sympathy in the way they don't meet my gaze at all.
Your eyes say it all.
Hello, goodbye, thank you and please,
Excitement, weakness, pleasure and greed
all in the concentric circles between your eyelids.
Globes.
Green, blue, brown, grey
A whole other world at the top of your face.
I could travel the earth in one hour with you.
But I may have to stop hiding away
And dip into my savings account.
There are expenses to pay
If I am to holiday with you.

If you were a blade of grass,
which blade would you be?
How long does a blade of grass last
before dreaming of being a daisy?

Grass is stationary,
it's still and it's lazy.
He needs to stand up
if he wants to be a daisy.

Daisies are fickle
and die for half the year.
Grass is patient and constant and free.
I'm leaving for the fields
to find a blade for me.

Happiness is infectious
and so is unhappiness

I thought evil was only something you saw on the news.
Only something you read in the Bible, sitting in the pews in church
and reading about the hoardes of Jews who hurt
because God had something better waiting for them after the pain.
After the strain
put on the heart of my mum,
there'd better be some handsome sum sitting at the end of the road
and 3 handsome sons walking along the road too.
Walking towards the Holy Land,
hand-in-hand
and standing up to the man who held his hand to our faces and slapped them,
letting his family slip through his filthy fingers like sand.

But sand is better off on the beach than it is in somebody's palm,
and if this infectious unhappiness
is just travel sickness
en route to a sunny beach, lined with palms,
where we can stop reading Exodus
and start singing Psalms,
then I think, and I hope, I can put up with a little more time in this car.
Are we nearly there yet?

How did I end up here?
In the sun and drinking beer
in a world of boats,
smiling in the photos taken by the host,
thinking soft as I gaze across the water
and hear people sing.

The dogs all drink from the bowl.

My goal is not to spend all my cash on drinks
but at home there's more cash and more drinks
and I'll wonder how I ended up there.
I had tasty food and squinted in the water's glare
across at the pretty girl
sitting on the other side of our drinks,
between a glass of pinot grigio and the sun
between me and the sea.
I think she likes me.
I'm sure I feel something
but I'm having too much of a nice time to care.
Stare into my eyes.
Find what you seek and do so soon.
A lot could change in the coming weeks.

Weather closes in
Flags and bunting writhe in the wind
as the water squirms below
I start to get cold
I've lost track of pints
but don't feel drunk
I think you're hot and funny and cool
but don't want to bunk up,
I just want to go home and write words on a page,
sit there alone and chase the silly pathways
down which my mind stumbles.

I am breathless
A tree in the city

I am tired
A desert stream runs dry

I am young
A baby bird can't yet fly

I can see you there
Creeping up on me
A dark shadow amid the trees
that grow old and grey by the road.
Keep walking
your eyes glow dark ahead of me
I approach you quietly
and you approach me.
Dare we speak?
Dare we break the silence,
and utter the inevitable words
that cause inevitable hurt.
We will dare,
when we've lost all passion
when the trees have lost all their leaves
and the road has become flooded.
I can see you dare

I've been here before.
I've breathed this air.
Let it take
as long
as it is going to take
and breathe.

I've tasted it before,
this air,
cinnamon and grass
ale pulled from the cask
old plasters pulled off at last
and broken scabs,
and there is salt and there is sugar
in my tears.

A giant circle,
each head laid on the next shoulder.
We are together.

I forgot to look at the sky,
bright, cold blue with shreds of white hanging
above and beyond the grey city
whose tall, misty pillars of different shapes and sizes stand
full of people who are full of frowns.
Who,
like me,
probably forget to look at the sky.

In the foreground, ***** trees sprawl low and wide and leafless in the winter chill.
Dark roots curled under the wet grass of the hill which holds me and you

I feel lost and perhaps a little homesick.
This isn't my city.
The buildings aren't mine and the trees aren't mine
but a little part of the sky is mine
as I breathe it in
and out
and it refreshes my skin.

I don't realise what I have

Get out of my head.
You weren't invited
Too many are already
on their way, unrequited.

Love has been cruel to
me too, I promise
and to all who ever
suffered my kiss.

I'm sorry, I'm honest
Love is best that way
Ugly, fearful and true
Get out of my head
or I'll be honest to you.

What am I to you?

A friend
A mystery
A gargoyle
History

What are you to me?

A blackbird passing
An indulgent feast
after fasting.
A morsel at least
of something new,
Something good.
Of the many you're the few.
What's for pudding?

I'm on the train again.
Stopped at Manchester Airport
I am presented with an excellent opportunity to check out a flight attendant standing by the doors.
Her uniform is block red.
Of mice and men, it's the boys
Who ogle, cats soon to be fed.
And I did always think there was something sinister about cats
Their sly eyes and how they yawn
How they pretend to sleep long past dawn but have been slinking and thinking and stinking and
Hunting
The blood of mice
and men reward their pet's **** with a stroke of their ego by their ego.
"It's human nature" to hunt for rich, red reward you say
"It's part of being a man"
I'll say human nature can,
No, should, change,
And I avert my gaze with shame.

There's something between my mirror and me.
Something on my lip (maybe)
A signal in my eyes that I can't see.
What could it be?

It could be you,
or that which is becoming more true,
every morning when my mirror looks at me.
I wish it would say what I want it to.

There is no point me being here
or anywhere
I'm a ticking time blank.
No explosives,
only whining, only moaning.
Ticking,
tocking,
mocking myself.
I am no good poet,
and no musician whatsoever.
I draw for fun
and sometimes read.
Hear the music in the street -
car engines and pelican crossings can't hear me,
They have no need for me.
Nothing does.
There's more where I came from.

A mouse is small
and a mouse is brown
but when one appears
big people scream loudly.
I wonder if the small, brown mouse
knows why there's so much noise.
Poor mouse is getting bullied!
Chased by giants!
Giants are slow, though.
Big and loud and slow, you know,
and too preoccupied with other things
to catch every quick little mouse.
I think the mouse will win this one.
But I heard they don't like chilli powder.

A woman
Swathed in mystery
Darkness
In her history
Which she hints at but doesn't tell
While she walks through heaven and hell,
Drinking with the angels and playing poker with the devil
Because her poker face is better than his
But don't show me your poker face
Lay your hand on the table, aces up,
Show me your hand, mysterious woman

There's no blind on the skylight in my bathroom.
When I brush my teeth,
do birds see me?
What do they think?
They have no teeth.
They have no idea what's going on.

No one likes my poems
Maybe you will like this
Because it's about Rubicon
Juicy, loosy goosey Rubicon baby
Oh yeah, uh, uh, rubicon

An elderly gentlemen sits in front of me on the train
In fine, red braces and a tweed hat the colour of marshland after rain.
He is concerned.
He left his coat at Derby station and is going to collect it.

A normal man of average age is more self-assured than this OAP.
A normal man with a boring job and nothing to see
Not even red braces

It's like when people get old,
Right before they're about to die,
They realise they don't know anything. They have nothing to be confident of.
They have lived fascinating, breath-taking, heart-stopping, totally forgettable lives.

We've reached Derby now and red looks back at me,
Mouth slightly open and with a long strand of loose hair poking from under his hat.
I smile.
I'm young. I'm only just beginning to know everything.

He is anxious and I am stupid and ignorant.
I hope he finds his coat.

Some people make me angry
However much they look outwards, they only see themselves
They only see their own face, reflected on the shimmering scales of the fish jumping in the lake by which they sit
The people like watching the fish
But fish and people can't be friends
because people can't see what a fish is thinking, even though the fish are always watching with lidless eyes
The fish; quiet, modest, good swimmers
The reflection of the onlooking person on their scales glimmers
Like a mirror
Some people only see themselves

People are flies today.
They swarm and buzz
and get in my mouth and nose.
They're like cigarettes
or biscuits -
Hard to quit -
inessential -
I have to try it.

People are everywhere.
Get out of my hair.
I retreat to my private lair,
not a care in the world
but loneliness.

People are like a cheese board.
They make me dream,
something else about biscuits
and go well with a few glasses of red wine.

So many cheeses to choose from
and not one of them is mine.

We're all subjects of love
Subjects of fear and longing
living day by day
because -
Smiling at the right people,
vibing the wrong.
Everyone sings their own song
of their own love.

Fear and longing hide
in the inner parts.
I never wanted an ignorant melody
thickly articulated through a cloud of smoke,
tickling a beer glass
confused and stenching
because-
We all learned some manners as children
and knew they were true,
waving our banners of politeness,
mine red, yours blue.
Purple would be a royal colour
if we combined the two.

You're wrong.
I might be right
because-
all heads are "me" when they hit the pillow at night.

I don't want to be a coward.
I want to be strong
but it's hard when I don't know what to say
(everything I can think of feels wrong
and I struggle to picture in my mind a real conversation with you,
because I'm scared.)

I blow air into the balloon in my chest
and look across at you
but as my eyes smile and try their best to be honest
I deflate and it seems I can't get through
the thick, grey doubt
clouding my judgement.

I want to tell you that I care
about you and your smile and the way
it paints a crease on your chin
but sometimes I struggle to say anything
that could even so much as doodle an expression
on those familiar features.

Perhaps you are having thoughts quite similar
when you lie down to sleep.
And when you wake early
to go for a run - while your feet
put distance between us - I wonder
if your thoughts pull me closer.
I don't know.

Honestly, these dramatic words don't feel right to me.
They don't suit you
like I want to suit you.
They don't match the pure, honest truth, which is that
I think you're unique.
You're talented and beautiful and you bring me joy.
You're cute and quiet and strong and bold
and I hope that very soon I'll be able to speak some of this to you properly.
You probably know half of it already, and
it makes me twice the coward, that I haven't been able to speak directly to you what has already been said  in every vague hint and stare and hug and simpering compliment that I've passed your way.
I really want to be strong.

It took a long time to get home tonight
Both of us walking more slowly than normal
in the soft night air under yellow streetlights
Laughing and joking, a couple of times I reached around your slight body
to awkwardly hold your shoulder or your waist
and kept glancing away,
too nervous to look long at your face
Which is beautiful, by the way,

Although I found your eye shadow too much
and your hair too little
and I sometimes wished you'd hush
so I could hear the people be people.
We had a lovely time, eating
cheese and I drank beer and you drank wine
in the sun by the sea,
In a place where I can blissfully, peacefully, quietly be me.

Your teeth are real
They're ugly like mine

Your smile isn't ugly like mine
It's not real either

Scarf thieves beware.
Cold necks belong to snakes and lizards.
Snakes make snug scarves.
I always wanted a really long scarf
I had one
and it's gone now.

My eyes never close
and I never stop tasting
or shedding my skin
I have many many scales,
none of them in equal temperament,
all of them intricately camouflaged
speckled and striped
coiled and waiting to strike at anything that comes within reach.

Lucky you've got a scarf to protect your neck.

Sinking sand,
cool my toes
my ankles, my calves.
tickle my knees, soft and gentle
and caress my inside thighs
Excite me with your wandering touch
****** me much,
acquaint yourself with every angle and crook of my limp body
devour me from leg to waist to fill my belly button and massage my stomach
I have gorged myself enough and now it is your turn
digest me as I digest my last meal,
feel every vertebrae of my lonely spine
know each mole on my torso,
each nasty spot and scar
and rid me of them as you rid them of me
lick my chest and tease my neck
leaving no mark
let each grain of your being make me more supple
learn me and let me lean into you,
my clammy body relaxes upon you, fresh and ready to go
I lower myself down,
I lounge in your eternal sheets and enjoy your breath moulding my neck,
the base of my skull,
my unshaven chin falls down,
mouth open
your kiss becomes my kiss becomes one final lingering kiss,
tongue tastes sand for the last time,
remembers all the food
all the sand it has enjoyed
I will become sand, my energy ready to become something else's
worms and snails and plants are hungry for me
though I have no hunger for myself
and as this thought dwindles so do I
my nose is gone, my eyes close, my ears fill with silence and overflow with silence and darkness and silence become blissful everything
only my beautiful blonde hair remains and suddenly that too is taken by the earth,
cool and wet and hungry
sinking sand
cool me
down

sometimes
some times feel hard
and all the while
the earth orbits the sun

sometimes
some times feel easy
and all the while
the moon pulls the tide

stars and galaxies surround each other
in infinite space, dust and light, rocks and crystals
moons shine and suns burn in their vastness
and our problems are still bigger than everything
our joys are still brighter
our universe full of laughter
sorrows still deeper than the tide
tall orders taller than the sky which stretches above us  

but sometimes
remember
through all your time
there's so much space up there
and only you can decide what you want to fill it with

How many stars are in the sky
I tip the telescope and behind one there are thousands more
They're all bright
Some are closer and some are further away
They're all a mystery to me
As I reach out
Look deep into them
another pulls my gaze
and another

What happened to the love stories
the strings and the piano play
the fish hook in my chest
pulls no more than a tear
I miss something I never had
thank the big screen
for the life in your head that can't exist
what I've seen
is never to be had, always missed.

My sickness is my gravity
too heavy to go up to bed
immobile, face dead
and still the strings
and the piano
play

Sometimes, I take a deep breath,
And my chest crashes like waves
Onto the shore where you bathe,
Your skin speckled with sand like glitter
Or dust on a priceless antique which nobody dares to clean

Evening nears
Another dreary day
Hauls me over its shoulder
I continue to draw breath.

I sit here
in the knowledge
that what I want
will ruin me.

A little canary
lands on my shoulder
and chirps its song:
"My friend, my friend,
wait and wait.
It's not too late to smile again,
Tomorrow has its own tomorrow,
your legs will gain strength
and your heart will follow"

It's not the best sunset I've ever seen,
nor the most pristeen,
but it holds secrets.
It makes me feel something
blue, orange, lilac and grey
Leafless trees stand silhouetted
Pretty, prickly nervous systems
I'm nervous too
I hope God isn't petty
Hidden in the lilac clouds

A flaming horizon
caked with lilac clouds
I ask it questions
but its silence lasts the night

Thank you for the big hug,
it made me cry and smile.
I'm twenty one - I've been invincible for a while
and it's a shock to stop.