I felt his ring around my finger
Before we’d even touched hands.
A meek merchant of charm,
He desisted from cheap sentiments

And instead borrowed a will of silence
From some eastern monastery or other,
Citing his affections through silent smiles
And a shrug of his shoulders which told me:

“I am as baffled by this world as you are, dear.
For far too long I have had to lean on one leg
Whilst standing, to ease my ache, to wait things out.
Come, sit with me.”

And so I did.

Resplendent white, some archaic sentiment
Of false-purity – it bathes me. Washes me of colour,
‘till I’m baked in the reflective glow of sunlight,
Rinsed of history, of time, treasures and identity.

I’m his now.

This full-bodied mirror, she stands so ungainly
In her bridal pose. A slapstick siren, a young deer
On stilts; A stretch of church floor to hesitate over
Upon hatching. She must make it to the sea.

In this reflection, I see neither him nor I,
But a composite of his kindness, my eyes;
Small forget-me-nots of a daisy-chained child
And a waysided academic.

It’s not my fault, nor his. Our dreams were wasted
By fairytales, poisoned by old fortune. No story
Succeeded, no narrative complete, ‘till love is resolved,
Until love is in place.

I felt his ring around my finger
Before we’d even touched hands.
For, why would I ever care to scale such mountains,
In a world he casts so temperate and sure?

So with each year that shall pass,
From now ‘till some curtained collapse,
I shall reduce in my margins,
Fragmented elements and forgotten scope;

I dissolve unto him,
Stagnant upon his solution.

Lest we fashion ourselves
in artificial joy,
we must sing to this world;
the poet’s envoy.

In these days so heavy,
In these days without cure,
we forget the homeless
asleep on the moor.

They’re asleep in our wake,
they’re asleep to the hiss
of advertised pleasure,
manufactured bliss

And forget not the old,
with those faces of fault lines,
so haplessly devoid,
like the old coal mines.

They live in their shadow,
they live within their past,
this world on which they’ve learnt
that nothing’s built to last.

No notebooks in the drawer,
Nor diaries of old,
The story’s in the sale,
Not from what is told.

So, before we get lost
In day-to-day routines,
Let us piece together
What life really means:

The faded word of print,
A sugared ring of wine,
Favourable melody,
Endless stretch of brine.

The winter’s passing rain,
And August’s fatal heat,
The swaying of the tyre swing
Where lovers care to meet.

And we will return to
Our places in the skies,
Where life is lived in centuries
Devoid of all goodbyes.

We’ll weep not in longing,
We’ll weep not in our haste,
For losses felt yesterday,
For all that’s laid to waste.

Upon the explosion
Of all these dying stars,
We’ll rejoice in the so-near’s
So much as the so-far’s.

We will live out our dreams
upon that foreign shore,
and sing out to our lives,
‘till we breathe no more

The policeman strides the concrete,
some poisoned daffodil
in his stage boots of tread and leather
and fear of authority.

Troll-like he emerges over the sound
of the head-dressed busker,
her simple song, her trio of chords
singing under the shops,

who despise her art.

And I, against the tide of footfalls
and ‘aww’s’ at the latest range
of lipsticks and daily distractions,
I stop to watch as her will falls limp.

Her squeezebox is strangled of sound,
and the music dies at the order
of an order, the noise pollution
of the High Street’s mating call.

Chair folded, she evacuates through
the traffic fumes, ‘cross the road,
and with hope, with fingers crossed
and eyes wet, I hope this is a retreat

and not a surrender.

Once more he strides the concrete,
his fluorescent jaundice coat
a warning, a reminder, and I see
his eyes mouth the words:

‘Your license please,’ he says to her,
‘your paper proof of your right to play.
What profit plan do you have in place
and who approved your name?’

‘You can’t call yourself a busker’, he says,
‘much less an artist or work of art,
which talent show do you hope to enter,
to validate your part?’

‘Your part in this wholesome land,’ he says,
‘how you do your bit, your profits large,
because our economy is going asunder,
and so we have no time for art.’

‘So it’s with no due regret,’ he says,
‘that I’ll send you on your way.
And if with you goes the death of music,
well that’s just progress made.’

And so I walked away from this scene of
deflowered and purpled hope,
my stomach wrought with injustice
and no nicotine in tow.

And it is to this table I am sat,
with just one vocation upon my mind;
to reclaim her song, now sung in silence,
and steel her memory in time.

And it is to this table I am sat,
with everything on my mind,
to tell of what I’ve seen,
to indulge another rhyme:

Sing to me your sorrow,
sing unto the skies,
play to me your pleasantries
and please purge me of my lies.

Pay us with your sorry tune,
pay us with your life,
all your forsaken childhood dreams,
your faded hopes and strife.

And please,

bathe me in this sunlight,
and bathe me in time,
scour me with city streets
and allow me what is mine.

TV light glints from pale fingertips.
For how long have I been passed out?
The longest I've been dead is nine whole days.
Stirring in pitch darkness to faraway sounds
delusion of two dark cracked lips upon mine
infect long loved texture with bitter hate.
Now from Heaven a hand rips off the roof
godly divine bound in rags soaked in proof.
"Drink of me, drink me down."
I'm left lone and uncovered under basalt skies.
"Drink now, drink forever."
Here I'm left vulnerable to you and that original knife.
"Drink down, drink down, now."
So swallow, I think, swallow.

Pressure from within building, pushing out
ruptures suddenly leaving a cold head hot.
Twisted highway we ride quakes spewing black
broken fragments through white eyes as glass.
Hungrily ******* for life, skyward again.

TV light glints from pale fingertips.
For how long have I been passed out?
Falling, with unfolded wings.
Dreaming, luciferous dreams.
Burning, brightly nine days straight.

I bring and bid you drink from two leaking lips.

We faded like fragments
White bed sheet tales now
We used to smoke like trains

I think I can, I think I can.

Ashed in each others hearts once or twice
But I didn't mind
With the sunlight on your face

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

I crept across the sheets
Looking at you hungrily
Your eyes danced down my back

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout

We collided without a sound
I watched your lips part
And muffled murmurs were all that escaped

Hush little baby, don't say a word.

But those tales are only tales
And these white sheets are empty now
I don't know why you left me

How I wonder where you are.

But I mourn for you like a dying lover
And while I do,
I long for another, to take your place

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack. All dressed in black, black, black.

Yet no one aside from you,
Has taken the time to look inside
So, slowly, I find myself emptying

Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.

And so I wait. And I remember.