The bikers
rolled in through
the fog
and smoke
of the cold midwinter
morning,
the revving of
the engines roared
like monsters hiding
in the darkness
of a momentary
nightmare.

One biker flicked
his *** into a
puddle licked by
frost, a quick death
to the fire
that once burned
so **** bright.
A metaphorical
device for life,
perhaps?
I think I’m too
drunk right now
to bother
with words.

One looked at
me with a sneer as
he rode past,
and I stuck my middle
finger up through
my beard and
licked the tip,
and I winked at him.
He growled a *******
as on he rode
and I laughed at my
joke, but no one laughed
with me.

They passed and all
that remained was
the silence and the smell
of burned metal
and the sweet
odour of petrichor
as the rain died a little,
but I was soaked
and alone, wondering
where the **** my
life went, where
all the friends I had
had gone to.

But I suppose
that’s just the way
it goes sometimes,
once you were on
top of the world,
king of the kings of
Kintore, and the next,
you’re lying in the gutter
staring up at the
stars with the back
of your head in
a puddle as a
*** end floats past.

let me taste your skin,
i want to eat your sin,
give me your ivory bones,
your eyeballs like moonstones.
                                 let me taste your skin,
                                 i want to eat your sin,
                                 give me your ivory bones,
                                 your eyeballs like moonstones.
                                                         let me taste your skin,
                                                         i want to eat your sin,
                                                         give me your ivory bones,
                                                         your eyeballs like moonstones.

i am a kolossus
i am your superfluous
are you my star?
je ne sais pas

the grass is brown
the chirrips have stopped
a lonely
cricket
    l              
                 e
                                       a
                                                           p
                                                               ­        s

                                                              ­              a
                                                 ­                           n
                                    ­                                        d
                       ­                                                    s
                                                               ­          l
                                                               ­     o
                                                          ­    w
                                                           ­  l
                                                        y


   ­                                              d
                                               r
                                         o
                                   p
                                 s

                d
           o
     w
   n

d
e
a
d

how your
body looks
so beauti-
ful absent
of all
colour

play me a
springtime
melody one
last time
for me

There’s oil pooling on the streets,
and I’m on my way to some dive bar
surrounded by the glittering lights
only success and fame can afford.
Neon signs threatening epileptic seizures
hang like 21st-Century gargoyles
above the heads of my brothers in harm.

There’s girls in neon everything,
halter top, hot pants, fishnet tights.
They’re calling out for a good time,
but they haven’t been seen here in years,
the nights are too long to appreciate
the memories in the short days.
They never give up hope, though,
that’s why they’re so beautifully broken.

There’s a kid on the street covered up
with an old jacket left behind
by another societal failure who died
last winter in a doorway lined in snow.
Next to him, a musician plays a guitar
that plays no old blues notes,
no idea it’s playing by a grave.

I find a quiet little street, no life,
no blinking lights offering salvation
from a life of complete boredom.
I’ll take the boring and the quiet,
I’ll take screaming into the air,
lost syllables and juxtapositions
flung up into the dead air
of a dark and silent LA night.

We don’t deserve to be lonely,
but being alone all the time is fine,
it’s perfectly healthy to keep
your own company but not healthy
to not enjoy the time to yourself.
Extrapolating meanings from last night’s dreams,
finding comfort in fractured scenes,
looking for answers to our selves
in the morning smog of repression.

But I still beat these same paths,
still see the same sorry faces
illuminated by those awful neon signs,
garish intrusions into the neighbourhood,
fake happiness and promised sorrow.
The homeless kid is gone, stabbed for dimes,
but traffic keeps moving, drinkers keep
gambling away their little pay checks,
and the cold dark of these LA nights
keeps holding on to my echoes.

Once more, the world spins again in this dark night,
my eyes battling to find some spark of light,
but dreams of you slowly coalesce in my tired head
and suddenly this night doesn’t make me feel quite so dead.

The smell of the lavender guides me along this path
and though they and I both know little of any possible aftermath,
I will travel across the globe to see your face finally,
to watch your smile curve up your cheeks beautifully.

Until that day comes, I stare up at my dark little sky,
the weight bearing down as I now ask how instead of why.
Is this the night I finally bow down to the stars,
pray in the light that has travelled through so much dark?

Want to know what I really think?
Are you sure?

You are the hat on the bed.
You are the bird in the living room.
You are Wednesday’s child.
You are the goodbye on a bridge.
You are the broom leaning on the bed.
You are the black cat walking away.
You are the broken clock chiming.
You are the six crows.
You are the itchy left ear.
You are the twitching left eye.
You are the flag touching the ground.
You are the milk boiling over.
You are the broken mirror.
You are the white moth in my home.
You are the owl in the sunlight.
You are the middle of a photograph of three.
You are the raven killer.
You are the three gulls flying overhead.
You are the seventh son of a seventh son.
You are the shoes on the table.
You are the sneeze on a Sunday.
You are the dropped umbrella.
You are the red sky at morning.
You are the spilled wine.

And you are so much more to me, darling.

Did I ever tell you about the time I nearly died? I was young, at that age where all my memories blend into one entity, never knowing where one memory ends and another begins. I was in the living room watching cartoons, eating Maltesers. I inhaled one by accident and it stuck in my throat. A perfect time-pausing fear overcame me and I sat frozen in place. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I just sat there, terrified to move. I don’t know how long I sat there for before running into the hallway, thirty seconds maybe, up to a minute, but it felt like a lifetime.

My mum was in the kitchen with her back to me. I couldn’t scream so I just stood there, waving my arms. She never turned around. So I stamped my feet, jumped up and down, then she turned, assuming I was messing about and trying to annoy her. I think she was about to shout at me but she saw the blue of my lips and ran over, turned me around and started trying to dislodge the sweet.

Then the fear left me, replaced instead by this creeping darkness coming in from the corners of my vision. To this day I still can’t quite describe it adequately, but I will try. The darkness had a form, not like a shadow, but 3-dimensionality. It came from behind my then started to cover the carpet beneath my feet then creep up the walls and down the hallway. I was not afraid of it. It was so warm, so inviting, like silk wrapped around your shoulders, the velvety hug of a soulmate after you’ve suffered a devastating loss. The darkness drew me in when I had no fight left in me. I was ready.

The Malteser flew out of my mouth and bounced down the hallway. The darkness fled immediately, the fear rushing back in and I ran to the toilet and threw up, crying like I’d lost everything. I’ve heard people say that depression feels like you’ve lost someone, then realising it is yourself. That feels about right, I think. I still think of that darkness now and again, when the nights are cold and I’m by myself. I think of all the people terrified of dying, but they don’t know. You are embraced by the universe, as if time itself will mourn your passing. It feels good.

I built a wall so high, no one could see in,
the loneliness protected others
from the man I am.
I fail to love because love fails me,
good **** doesn’t happen
to those I care for the most.
I am a machine who feels rejected,
cast away from the light.
I push people away
because I can’t stand who I am,
what I have done with my life,
the people I have hurt.
I refused to let anyone in,
but then you hold my hand
and in you came, too late.
At least I can say
this is what it feels like.

I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street,
a hurricane pounded hard against my heavy chest.
You found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

It came so fast, so soon but somehow so discreet,
my eyes widened, hands clenched, cardiac arrest.
I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street.

My legs began to shake at the intensity of the heat,
thought lost in a city whose name I never knew, lest
you found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

If I had thought you someone else, I would have made a retreat,
but I grew calm and my world slowed down at your request.
I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street.

My memories of a former love grew more incomplete,
the feelings I had for her were always unexpressed.
You found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

Yet my time there in the deep South was so bittersweet,
as you faded away in the crowd, your image had regressed.
I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street;
you found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

As she lay on the beach gathering sunburn,
I wondered if the Earth still turns,
because in that moment I truly knew
time stands still when I’m with you.

Constellations gather in her eyes,
and from her sweet lips comes the faintest of sighs.
I don’t know what goes on in that head of hers
but I bet it is just the most beautiful verse.

Billions of years crumble in an instant,
the speed of light suddenly not constant.
The laws of physics vanish from my view,
I can’t believe the universe produced a beauty such as you.

Angels in the filaments,
cracks in the ornaments,
flies in the liniments,
gossamer in the parchments,
devils in the parliaments,
and love on the rocks with no ice.

Someday, this beautiful world of ours will be no more,
love is a drug I want to overdose on.

Did you know the heart glyph ♥
is meant to show two hearts together?
It may have once felt like myth,
but now it glows like summer weather.

I need a love that burns like fire,
turning me to ashes like a funeral pyre.
I need a love that kills me so slow,
feeling the heat from the firelight’s glow.

This is my song, this is my plight,
I need your warm touch on this cold autumn night.
This is my soul, this is my voice,
I need to serenade you and hear you rejoice.

By the light of glowing stars
I will traverse this path I’ve taken.
Though wicked brambles may snag my sleeves
and felled trunks may block my course,
even as twigs and sticks trip my ankles,
I will traverse this path I’ve taken.

As the path rises, it shall surely fall,
you can only travel uphill so far
before the landscape takes pity
and guides you down into a valley.
Even as the sun ends another day,
I will traverse this path I’ve taken.

The beautiful night hides nothing from me,
I will traverse this path I’ve taken.
Midnight dark, the sky full of stars,
they offer me luminance and courage
when others see dots in the darkness.
By the light of glowing stars
I will traverse this path I’ve taken.

I’m running with the wolves
tonight.
Standing on the rock and howling at the
moonlight.
Wish I had more than
hindsight.
It’s cold and my claws have
frostbite.

I’m chasing after a dream
today.
Might not meet you there but we can meet
halfway.
I saw your silhouette in the
archway.
Smoke still rising from the
ashtray.

I might find time for you
tomorrow.
Today I’m busy chasing after a colourless
rainbow.
A dream offered itself but it was a
no-show.
Finding solace in the sadness of a
willow.

She spreads her legs for any **** with a fat wallet
then ***** with their heads when she’s done.
She sits on her pedestal and feigns character
when she is just a vapid sack of empty atoms.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She phones you to let you know how she’s doing
and laughs at all your problems and lack of luck.
She flashes her **** and wears skintight trousers
but the ***** in her won’t come out for you.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She spits venom with the devils in their dresses
then acts all nice when you’re around.
She feigns being a princess who just wants love
but throws your affection back in your face.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She will wrap you around her littlest finger
then flick you off without hesitation.
She will use your skills to her advantage
then abandon you when they’re not needed.
She’s a ******* ***** through-and-through
and deserves **** all out of life.

I saw you from across the room,
perfect strangers, eye-contact,
palpitations and trembling knees.
You saw me shake and smiled,
a reassuring one, not judging,
not mocking my silly reaction.

Your eyes glow with new universes.
Your hair burns with a million candles.
Your skin shines like full moons.
Your heart beats to a lost symphony.
Your soul radiates tranquillity.

You became my sweetheart, my darling,
my soulmate, meine liebchen.
Your eyes close with the coming night
and I lay you gently on the bed.
I sing a lullaby as you begin to dream,
nos da cariad, sleep tight.

“I walk hand-in-hand with darkness,” he began,
the man with no eyes.
“You have no idea of the horrors I have seen,
of the fears that have touched my soul,
the hurt of a love lost in a dark night.”
The children sat still.

“Death is the only guarantee in your lives;
she is the only thing to bet on and win every time.
I have seen her carry away so many lives now
I become convinced I will be visited personally next.”
The children fidgeted, uncomfortable and unsure.

“If you want happiness, **** yourselves whilst you are still children,
when you are naïve to the ways of the real world.”
A parent attempted an interjection.
The children stared, confused.

“The meaning of life is obscured by sorrow.
You are learning in the kindergarten of woe.
Insecurities run your engine.
Prejudice snuffs your fire.
By peering into the gaping maw of that tarry, endless black,
you appreciate how easy it is to
Just
Let
Go.”
A child began to sob,
more at the tone of the eyeless man’s voice
than the syllables and interpretations of those sounds.
Parents gathered around an imaginary fire,
faces facing faces facing faces
and shadows hid a smile on one.
A devil always hides in a band of angels,
“…blood-stained angels…”

The knives cut and sliced and soon
the next-generation abattoir housed but two.
A storyteller and his demons
laughing at the wolf moon,
young bones breaking under foot.
Wine glasses full of young blood
and shards of everlasting death.
The man with no eyes embraces his demons
and slips silently into the paralysing void,
his laugh spilling into the still of the night.

I don’t deserve a friend like you,
but there you are, always listening,
always looking out for me.
You give me shelter during the storm,
a safe port to anchor my leaking hull,
a big oak tree to protect me from the rain.

I look up at the stars sometimes
and hate them for being
so beautiful and far away.
Then you walk by like a supernova
and suddenly the stars don’t seem so far away.

You lie in the sun radiating grace,
and I am mesmerised by how
your eyes collect the sunlight like they were miracles.
You calm me with your words,
and I throw them back at you
because I don’t learn, but I will.

I don’t deserve a friend like you,
but I appreciate that you are.
Despite all I say and do to the contrary,
I will always be your friend,
never far away, wishing you all the luck in the world.

The neighbour’s a borderline neurotic
and he waves a gun out his window
claiming it’s the end of days,
but no one pays attention to these people anymore.
There’s a very famous book
full of people like my neighbour
and they were all taken seriously.
I don’t know what’s happened in the intervening years
but there’s no crowd in the street
writing down everything this crackpot says,
no **** of mystics and doomsayers
claiming the judgment is at hand.
No, there’s just an empty street
because it’s 2am and he’s drunk
and I’m trying to get to sleep.

Her face I see in darkest night,
rising slowly in evening’s silky twilight.
Shining low through high-flying clouds,
burning away love’s labour’s doubts,
and I see you somewhere far away,
this night is mine, yours is day.
This is the same moon lighting my way,
the same breeze caressing my face,
my cheeks red with the chilly night air,
the remnants of a broken nightmare
crunch underfoot and return to the earth.
Tonight’s value is less than its worth.

Sunrise here,
sunset there,
and the distance
seems to shrink
each day.

Here comes the
morning light,
breaking through
my curtains,
waking me up
with colour.

The birds sing
your name to
the dawn, each
more beautiful
than the last.

We all have our own paths in life,
and most of us think we should be on other ones,
better ones that are bathed in sunlight.
But, just like people, the most beautiful landscapes
are composed of mountains and valleys,
and our paths will lead us by both.
These are our paths, the ones we need to travel,
because they will always lead to greater things.
Sometimes, you will find yourself on the mountain peak,
looking down at the world feeling elated.
Other times, the path will lead you into the valley,
and although it might seem to stretch on forever,
the path never-ending winding through the shadows,
it will always pass the mountains and can walk
in that beautiful sunlight you crave so much.

The bombers buzz overhead,
angry bees ready to destroy the rival hive.
We run for cover, through the mud and filth,
into our shelters and wait for the silence,
wait for the bombers to leave,
wait for the bombs to stop,
wait for the distant screaming to die,
wait for the thoughts of the mountains of home.

The land here is flat
but I reckon in the future the craters will live on,
the landscape pockmarked with disease.
There used to be a forest here,
but all the trees are long gone,
the timber lining our trenches
keeping them from collapsing.
Through the noise, a daydream appears,
the forests at the feet of the mountains of home.

The wait is over,
I climb the ladder and peer over the edge.
A bullet whistles past my ear,
ricochets off my helmet and I lose my balance.
I land in the mud and filth,
a thin rat scurrying into a hole.
Someone shouts an order
and I have the strange sensation I’m floating.
As I’m carried back into the shelter,
I dream I’m flying over the mountains of home.

Unfortunately, I live,
ready to die for my country all over again,
fighting for something called freedom.
I wonder if the enemy fight for the same thing,
if they know its meaning more than I do.
I do not stand alongside those who sent me here,
I am here with my brothers,
singing songs long into the night,
elegies and soliloquies to the mountains of home.

My mind is my universe and through it
I see all that there has ever been
and all that has yet to come.
There is hope and fear and tragedy
still waiting their turn to knock on my door,
and I will receive each one graciously,
the perfect host and the haunted victim.
The body on the floor is mine,
and I am one of the suspects
and one of the investigators.
I know who caused my body to lie there,
dead and cold, lifeless and formless,
but I also don’t know who did it,
only one part of me witnessed it
and that part of me is forever silent.
There is no communication between my other selves.

Have I fallen to my own hand
or has another stepped in to make me bleed?
There is no weapon, no apparent motive,
just a body and a lot of head scratching.
I know it was my heart that died last,
we could all hear it thud against the floorboards
long after the thump of my body hit.
Could it possibly be that it just happened,
a natural end to an unnatural life?
No, it doesn’t feel right, I can feel the magic
in the universe and it is drawing us elsewhere,
so we split up and look for clues.

Sometimes, mysteries appear and everyone tries
their hardest to find a solution to it,
much like watching a magician perform the perfect trick
and you just have to know how it was achieved.
Of course, he will never tell his secret, it ruins the fun,
and maybe this is another example,
a cosmic joke, the explanation of which ruining the performance.
There are no clues to be found anywhere,
so we all shrug and leave, never to complete the puzzle,
but we all love mysteries, we can’t leave things unsolved,
it just doesn’t feel quite right, you know?
Something awful took place this dark night.
Something terrible happened to fate this night.

We’re dancing beneath ancient stars.
You and I, we’re just a heartbeat in their lifetimes,
how insignificant a few decades is
to something that lives thousands of them.
Do they know we’re here?
Do they know we wish upon them?

Whenever I stand alone beneath the dark sky,
without your voice to tell me stories,
to come up with your own mythologies,
I feel the weight of silence on my shoulders,
but you don’t hear the apologies.
Do you know I’m here?
Is this the cost of my mind?

{I wished upon a star; I wished upon you; my Ariadne but I cut the thread myself, watched helplessly as it was pulled back into the dark before disappearing and I was lost, not even the dim glow of uninterested stars offered as a guide, so instead of looking for a way out, I’m standing still, hoping you send a search party to find me, right where I lost you, clinging on to the horrible hope that, if you do find me and we can’t find you way back to the day, we can at least be lost together, sharing the nightmares, sharing the fear, dancing beneath ancient stars that grant no wishes.}

My heart is filled with sadness again tonight,
I saw her face and again I fell in love once more.
How long must I wait to feel love’s light?

It caught me by surprise in how it felt so right,
in how I spoke to her each night whilst sitting on my floor.
My heart is filled with sadness again tonight.

It cannot come to this, but with all my might
I can’t fly over and knock gently upon her door.
How long must I wait to feel love’s light?

I see her face still, what a beautiful sight,
I always feel the heat of love burning in my core.
My heart is filled with sadness again tonight.

I feel the need to hear her voice again despite
the finality in her decision to let go. Mon amour,
how long must I wait to feel love’s light?

I felt so tall with her, now I’m searching for height
in all our stories, our mythologies and lore.
My heart is filled with sadness again tonight;
how long must I wait to feel love’s light?

Lost in a forest of dead and dying trees,
listening to words of death carried by the breeze.
When I will be home I cannot say for certain,
but I will not yet allow life to close the curtain.
Separated by the distance of half a broken world,
but I will never give up on the love of my Idaho girl.

The grass used to be green but now is yellow and sick,
the magic in the universe is running out of tricks.
But one more came my way and my heart wanted more,
and you responded by knocking gently on my door.
It doesn’t feel so far now as half a broken world,
I’ve seen the mind and beauty of my Idaho girl.

A broken-down car in the middle of a desert
is not something I considered.
I know I passed a gas station not long ago,
no more than a mile or so.
So, I must walk along a quiet highway
in an early afternoon Nevada desert
with just myself for company
and no water to drink.

Ten minutes in, I spot a vulture
perched atop a telegraph pole.
He stares at me, his head slowly moving
to follow me as I pass.
I stop and his head stops,
I move again, so does his head.
Standing still again, I stare him down
but he doesn’t flinch,
I don’t think he even blinks.

I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here,
but I cannot stop staring at the vulture.
It’s like he’s controlling me,
or is it the company that makes me stay?
I can feel the thirst creeping in
like a slow poison from a wasp sting,
but I can’t tell my legs to move,
staring at this vulture staring back at me.
Then the vulture shrieks, and I shriek,
and he just falls to the ground, dead.

I run the last half mile to the gas station,
buy some fuel in a can
and a large bottle of water,
and run back to the car,
not even glancing at the vulture as I go past.
I don’t know why it freaked me out,
maybe whatever killed it could **** me,
or just seeing how quickly life can end.
Maybe I felt the companionship break
and I realised how alone I was out here.
Who knows, maybe it was the death ray
from the spaceship that flew above our heads
that I didn’t notice because I was too busy
trying to stare down a ******* bird.

As I fill my car, I notice I have two shadows,
one stationary, the other shimmering
like a mirage of water on a hot road.
It’s a lot brighter out here now, too
Fear grips me and I dare not look up
as I feel my feet lift up off the ground.

You pulled the last straw from my palm
and now there is nothing left to hold.
I hope you never come to any harm
and that you’re graceful when you’re old.

I wrote a goodbye song for you
but only my failing memories could hear me sing.
In the distant future, whatever you do,
I hope you grow like saplings in the Spring.

there are no more words left. the dictionary spills its ink like wine. try to lap it up but it tastes like poison. i write your name in the air with my finger but i misspell it and the magic is lost. you drift away like flotsam from a capsized ship and you left me clinging to cardboard. you made me drown. you made the world go dark. you made me believe that there were more to dreams than mere fantasy. you made me believe they had substance, they were messages from the future, they were attainable, they were not just dreams but visions. you made me see what wasnt there. there are no more words left.

The water was so *****, I couldn’t see the stones sink to the bottom,
but I knew they did, stones always sank, like hearts but more often.
By this river I know so well, I watch as the water flows to the sea
like so many lives that have come and gone without leaving a mark.
Lives don’t leave valleys like rivers do, they stay until something bigger
comes rushing in, landscapes almost always unchanging and true,
just every now and again a life comes flooding into your own
and you can’t help but marvel at how much that life changed your valley,
now there’s so much more room for you to grow and cultivate,
even long after that life that carved your home has left and died.

By that great river with the castle overlooking my domain,
I wonder who made my valley bigger, which nameless face
that has graced my life allowed me such room to grow.
The valley exists, so that means she has already passed by,
maybe I have missed her, not realising who she was
and how much of an impact she would have on my landscape,
now gone, leaving behind a shadow of a scent,
a vague sense of awareness of having been watched but now no longer.
Come back to me so I can at least give you thanks,
come back to me so at least I can see the face of you.

I see you running through a forest,
every tree you pass withers and dies.
I know you’re being chased by something
but gone are the days where I actually cared.
Even though those trees are right before my eyes,
nothing’s quite as dead to me as you.

Even though you seem to be a dream within a dream,
an apparition of a ghost hunting my sanity,
I cannot seem to go a night without dreaming of your heart.
The days are getting colder and the birds all turn to rust,
all we can muster to say is that everything returns to dust,
yet through all this rain and fog and misery something remains true,
nothing’s quite as dead to me as you.

When all the world is quiet
and everyone’s fast asleep,
my heart still sings
a little lullaby for you.
*******.
*******.
*******.

Are you up there, Marian?
I don’t believe in heaven or hell
but I believe you’re in a parallel
universe that knows nothing of the conceit of death,
and in that universe, I got to know you
in the way that a grandson and grandmother should know each other.
All I have are the cigarettes, the agoraphobia, and your books,
ghosts and fantasies, the latter allowing you
to leave the little flat you lived in
the last time I saw you.

I see everyone talking about Thanksgiving,
how family is so important this time of year.
All coming together and talking into the night.
My mum said if you were alive today,
you’d be so proud of me, so proud of my writing,
and that you’d read every word I wrote
and you’d soak them up and feel every letter,
close your eyes at the cadence of the words,
the rhythms and the harmonics.
No one has ever said they were proud of me;
you’re the closest I have and you’re a dead stranger,
done away by the cigarettes
(ten years ago today)
that I now smoke in your honour.

I hope you find a way to read these words, Marian,
whether you can see this **** little poem of mine
from your everlasting parallel universe,
or if I’m wrong and you are here,
sitting on the edge of the bed beside me,
watching as my fingers conjure words on the screen like magic.

I love you, my beautiful stranger.
I miss you, grandmother gone.

The storm came quick, the first sign of it
being no more than an hour before it made landfall,
the three lighthouse keepers scrambled
to reach the west landing to secure everything down,
but as Thomas and James headed out,
leaving Donald inside the lighthouse to check for passing ships,
the wind picked up, a tempest of biblical scale,
and the two were soon forced back inside.

The storm made landfall, whipping up the sea,
huge waves as tall as the tallest buildings ever built
hurtled towards the island and battered the cliffs,
washed away the sand and shingle from the beaches,
and quickly the seawater rose, hunting down the lighthouse.
Inside, the three men stood by the light,
keeping their eyes on any distant ships,
but all they could see was seaspray and darkness.
A wave rushed into a geo and at reaching the end,
shot up like a geyser into the cold, dark sky.

Fear and panic found themselves a home in these three hearts,
and death was waiting nearby, suspending in the clouds
as the howling wind continued unabated
to pound and destroy this otherwise uninhabited island.
They told stories of the mainland to pass the time,
talk about loved ones back home, like soldiers do.
Sharing photographs with each other, love letters,
the names of their children they feared they’d never see grow up.

James was the first to spot them, as he checked on the light.
It had gone out whilst they were chatting in the communal room.
James called on the others, and as they came up the steps,
he looked outside and saw the unmistakeable shimmering
of the distant lights of a ship through the spray and the gloom.
Those were not the only lights James spotted, though.
Another light, green and filmy, shone on the path
that wound its way down to the rising waters
crashing against the west landing as if it had to be destroyed.

James ran down the steps as the other two quickly followed,
calling out his name but James was transfixed on the light.
How it shimmered, how it danced, no reaction to the storm.
A will o’ the wisp he was sure of it, and follow it he must,
no man could ever resist the call of her beautiful light.
He made it out the door just beyond the grasp of Donald,
the storm, a hurricane for sure, nearly ripping the door from its hinges.
Donald and Thomas threw themselves outside
and nearly straight into the back of James, standing stationary,
leaning into the wind, as the wind slammed the door shut behind them.

There it floated, the light of lights, beautiful emerald, viscous,
the wind flowing straight through its etheric body.
Three pairs of eyes, transfixed, mesmerised, at this floating orb,
and it slowly started backing its way down the path
and the three men followed, their minds dreaming of nothing
but what beautiful sights the light had waiting for them.
Down the path they stumbled, oblivious to the wind now,
the storm something that happened in a former life.
A wave, the biggest so far to hit the island,
came down upon the three men and dashed their bodies on the ground,
and as the wave receded, it took their bodies too,
to a place no one since can summon up the courage to imagine.

If I could get you out of my head I surely would.
These sleepless nights are worrisome;
those dark walls cave in, relentless,
jagged spires and grotesques
and stained glass malignancies
crumble upon me;
I am not calm.

I see your face in grey clouds and windowpanes.
Somewhere, sometime, I think of you;
do you think of me? I think
not. Not
now not
never ever ever. You are not the first.

But you've taken a seat, made yourself at home,
and I smell you on the air;
I taste you in the food,
fresh and young and lively.
You make me dream
and I hate you for it.

I have no time for dreaming when my heart flutters so.
They are false prophecies;
I do not dream at Delphi
and I have no intention to do so.
Do you dream there?

I imagine you would respond with a particular kind of silence,
the one where the words are there
but do not need to be heard.
Your eyes would speak.
They would look at me with a peculiar pity;
and I would know in that fatal glance
that I would never have a chance
to gaze into them again.

I would rather you were a friend than nothing at all,
a tired acquaintance,
a deadlock of emotions;
I do not want to checkmate them,
just let them know they have another move,
towards me, foretells that particular prophesy.
Ha
Ha

I see your face in grey clouds and windowpanes.
I would rather you were a friend than nothing at all.
I imagine you would respond with a particular kind of silence.
I have no time for dreaming when my heart flutters so.
If I could get you out of my head I surely would.
But you've taken a seat, made yourself at home.

He looked around the trail, trees stretching into darkness on all sides.
He was bored of it all, hiking endlessly, going nowhere,
people vacant like he was on another planet,
ruled by things that were alive but did nothing worth looking at.
At least the sacrifice was over,
she’s been left for dead, covered in goats’ blood,
pentagram carved with precision into her chest.
A thousand years ago, he would have needed a ******
but nowadays they’re as rare as blue moons,
so what did it matter if she was one further away from virginity?

Blame it on the devil’s lies
Blame it on the word of God
Tell me what the difference is, babe
I’ll crucify myself in your stead.

He heard rushing feet, snapping branches, panicked breath.
Out of the trees fifty yards in front of him
she came bounding out into the middle of the path,
covered in something else’s blood.
Their eyes met.
He stood still.
She stood still.
He began to slowly walk towards her
but she was frozen in place,
a monument to slavery.
He stopped when his toes touched hers,
their noses almost touching at the tips.

Blame it on the devil’s lies
Blame it on the word of God
Tell me what the difference is, babe
I’ll crucify myself in your stead

Oregon had always been quiet this time of year,
midwinter with the chilly mountain air
breathing down towards the sea,
the frost dragon waking from her summer hibernation.
He had always heard voices commanding him to do evil,
stretching back thousands of years,
every wicked sin granting him another decade of life.
He has accumulated quite a few decades,
he’s a slave to his job but he’s very good at it.
In a diner a week later, the local news came on;
three hikers find the mutilated body of a woman,
ankles bound by rope, hanging upside down from a tree limb,
wrists bound my rope to two tree trunks either side of the trail,
inverted crucifixion.
The man who hears voices laughs at a joke no one else heard.

Blame it on the devil’s lies
Blame it on the word of God
Tell me what the difference is, babe
I’ll crucify myself in your stead

We lay on the roof of my car under the sun,
the heat was intense but we were
too much in love to feel anything else.
Two hours we lay there, didn’t say a word,
just watched that blue ocean above us
crystallise into a twilit canopy.
Clouds shapeshifted into deep memories
neither of us could quite recall,
the lingering sense of familiarity
clouded by all that had happened since.
We both spotted one like Oregon
and she squealed when she saw it,
remembering her home once more,
her first performance of Shanghaied in Astoria,
her parents so proud of her,
she so **** proud of herself.
Always the actress, playing a part
that someone else needed for a while,
then the next job would come along
and she would fill a new role.

I lie on the roof of my car under the sun,
the heat is intense and I climb back down.
I look for Oregon in the sky but craning my neck
makes it hurt, so I look down at the ground,
at the dust and the stones
and the stars that slowly lose their twinkle.
I jump in my car, the passenger seat empty,
and find a new world to discover.