Happiness- in poetry, in heart-
Are both so radical?
Must dark words lodge themselves
Forever, painfully so- or-
Does my mind trip me up?
Is joy light as a feather?
Or careless dreaming
Of a fairyland that we claim?
This is a plea.
We can fill vast meadows with flowers
Or alone drink black coffee &
Talk serious & write "loneliness"-
Is this- this- happiness?

I dreamt everything turned the colour of yellow dying trees.

smiling though the lamps fade fast
smiling with white teeth against the night
to and fro they are dancing and
the dance is not wasted on us
white and silver marking your silhouette

touching though hands are pale
hums in rhythm to sad musicals or
distorted lullabies for grown ups
the necklace in your mouth is weeping
bleeding like my heart is now

dancing though the night's gone
the stars rock us away
he's rocking with his shirt undone
he's rocking quips and ego oh
it's a long way home from here

drag my body through the traffic
to the cathedral to meet st. jude.
count my wounds in the tear drops on your shirt.
i cry glitter now,
chasing dreams like a sleep walker.

I waited for An Epiphany until it got dark,
fixing my gaze on the back-lights of cars
blinking against the depressed black sky
I waited for you, you went and got high.

I met a boy once with eyes wilder than mine
who wrote poetry about me for quite some time,
after I broke his heart when we were fifteen,
from that summer, I was nobody’s prom queen.

I died a hundred deaths when I was sixteen, sweet
dancing with darkness out on the street.
I had pretty clothes so pretty I clothes I wore,
Hidden beneath were secrets, nightmares, flaws.

When I was seventeen I started to smoke,
scared of broken dreams and squandering hope.
My mother said I have an old soul,
underwater I feel ninety years old.

You tell me twice I feel everything too much,
Eighteen years-young, kiss to kiss, touch to touch.
I drove you out to the Peaks one night so you’d understand,
picked you up later, took hold of your hand.

Now nineteen and still half grown,
tiptoeing around myself when I’m alone.
Hold me close, follow me through my head,
to my dark thoughts, be golden thread.

Fragile the white poppy and frail are
The words we spoke, help we gave
Souls that scream in anguish
Swept by death's wave.

Pale and broken- yet strength
Is not a distant thought
For gentle eyes and gentle hearts
Never need be taught.

Sunset is an escape from this,
everything I consider love,
making me look like a fake poet,
standing in a raincoat,
tear drops as glitter- how can they understand
my psychedelic dreams-
"Look up at the I love you bridge,
It's lit up underneath the stars,
and see that man by the road, waving poetry never going into print."
Novels written in water drift downstream,
under the green shade of park daylight.

Dawn breaks with ethereal light streaming
Through rigid trees and palest cloud
The naked lake, is tranquil, gleaming
Leaves assemble, rustling crowd.

An illumination is the Sun
Trees hum their soul song of the morn
One fleeting moment is the one
With fluttering leaves on crumbling fawn.

When delicate birds sing their song too
The trees rest for a while
To listen to the young ones’ tune
Weaved from freedom and from guile

The trees know though they are ancient,
That youth is the idyllic state
So they hear the tiny birds in patience
Whilst the trees cast the laws of fate

The birds will sigh and end their lives
All eventually
The leaves pass with fluttering cries
No one hears them but the trees.

Hand me the city, hand me
the breathing steel humming
I hear when I close my eyes.
Hand me everything I need.
Did you speak to me or slit my throat?
The time is now to jump from the window.
I look to the sky, daydream of floating.
The club closed early and the rain,
the rain melted the buildings,
so we lay on your bed and waited
for the lights to change but it was still
dark when our smoke climbed up and up.
Sleeping through the slate grey morning,
What's your game? Hey poet,
you **** out our eyes and spear our hearts.

What thoughts have you tonight Allen Ginsberg? For I walk down the main street
Under the streetlights with a sinking self-consciousness, looking at the blank building site.
In my quest for new experience, and shopping for clarity,
I went into the neon night dreaming of your visions!
What soul and what joy! Lovers at night! Circles sweeping the floor!
Girls shimmering and boys shaking down! Shadows shine lunar reflections!
And us- my Peter Orlovsky- What were we doing down in the corridor?

Give me your thoughts, Allen Ginsberg, dancing, new dreamlike words,
Sprawling among the leaves of my mind and speaking to the night.
I was asking questions: Can we go to the bar? What can I do? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of bright lights and vibrations, followed by you and following
Brilliant waves of imagination.
We were down in the open corridor together, in our solitary harmony, tasting your lips,
Which possessed ecstasy, and watching passersby. They all say we’ve got it.

Where am I going, Allen Ginsberg? The doors closed at daybreak. Would your writer’s
Hand have pointed us towards the black taxi tonight?  
(I think of my dreams and jumpy visions of you at the Moor and feel foolish.)
But held in your arms, asleep, a lighter direction. The trees are coloured
In green, the pale blue sky heavy, streets solitary.
I wake with you, dreaming of this love, whispers under the covers, forgotten whimsies.
Ah, poor Beat poet, bearded, lonely now forever, scattered in my brain like stars.
What poetry is this? Smoke curling upwards towards the construction site staring back.

I

That idol, with black eyes and pixie-cut, with
aristocrats nobler than artists, holier than New York City
hipsters; his selfishness running through her veins,
purple and blue like blood, or tarnished by amphetamines
in waves of ferocious sadness and yearning.

At the border of her life- young hope twinkles, fades
and dulls out- the girl with chandelier earrings, deer
legs, dancing in silver reflections of tears gushing
from the aftermath of shattered dreams dressed up
as vivid illusions.

Ladies who stroll outside of society, girls
plucked from art school, with trust funds, superb luxury
wardrobes, jewels on show but riches hidden in the
ground of trusting valleys in burnt gardens- young and
broken with eyes full of flashing lights, sullen, princess
of costume and keeping hidden. Gently ignored and
choked, unhappy.

What boredom, without your "genius."

It is she, the little girl, dead before innocence-
The young artist, alive, does not stoop- his life
creeks but for a second. His inspiration empty
and studio up for sale. Her shutters pulled down
and the key to superstardom in the lock forever
because the soul is empty.

The city's silver fountains drowned and cried for her
fabulous elegance.

II

I am the life who mourns like blue summertime.

I am the academic who waves manuscripts on
elusive "culture" and "style."

I am the pedestrian who looks up to the sky then turns
to the ground. Smoggy greyness and dead black
concrete pleads me to keep searching.

I might well be the same child; lost and unhappy
and hungry. Dreaming of touching stars but miles
from Heaven.

I am the artist. Manipulative creator and selfishness
embedded into the sinews of my heart.

The lamp shines brightly on these happy photographs. I
keep falling for these stupid books. Edie, oh, Edie.
You have gone and the world is ending!

If the stars came undone from the sky,
And caressed the earth so lightly,
Like golden flowers in the night
Your eyes would shine more brightly.

Brush past my lips, and into my mind,
We dance in sequin shadows,
Find each other, sinking into
Clouds, soft as sun-dipped meadows.

Into each other's arms, a feeling,
Floating, eyes closed yet I still see you
Reflecting dreams into the night;
Your loves *****, my vision in blue.

As soon as the ship had left the harbour,
A bird stopped in the sky and blurring clouds
And said a prayer to the sea
Applauded by sunlight; flashing, blinding.

Couples drank in the small bars
In the colossal house, still soaking,
Girls gazing dreamily
At the far and wide sea.

Oh! the glimmering fish that swam so deep
And hid underneath rocks that did not move.
Cabin beds were unmade
And the sea howled its song,
Low pitched as a moan.

A door banged closed; in lower cabins
The girl waved her arms,
Understood by the sea,
And nature on land everywhere,
No chains, no bounds; everywhere, freedom.

Blood flowed in the water,
A salted abattoir, in the sea
Where windows gazed deep and dark
Blood and life merged. Currents flowed.

Mrs Smythe played jazz piano in the bar,
Whispered flirtations spread
Like the ship moving across the sea.
Romances set out. Palaces were built
In the chaos of storms of the oceanic night.

Every star wrapped up
Across the ocean wide
Shielding themselves from the bright
And the young--- glittering trance
Of burgeoning beautiful love stories.

Every morning after—it’s winter, they spoke---
Foam rolling along the decks
Lightning like cymbals, drumming thunder
Rise and fall, rise and fall
Oh! precious creatures of nautical nights!
Yet secrets hum through warmed hands
Sharing enlightenment they will know forever
But which eludes us now.

I wanted you in winter
But we never passed October rain
That splintered the icy fingers
That dared to cause you pain.
Open up my heart and see
The crack I cannot find
But stabs and shatters all my thoughts
I know I've been unkind.
Under Midas' touch
Even a snake turns to gold.
Glittering visions are different
When a story's retold.

I walked out into the garden
starry night and found an emptiness
and green firework flailing up there.
I tried not to cry but heard
myself repeating hollow syllables.
"Happy new year!" he said, and looked
away. "Hmm" I mused. My thoughts tangled, growing and had a novel
of beauty in them, and an empty bed:
sad songs, poetry, tears, dreams;
only words and suffocation.
My mutterings were never truly understood.
I took more night cold beer,
I noticed, while I was drinking it,
it also included sharp ice dead stars.

More drifted into their boats to oblivion
including you. He seemed distant
and I felt bad. More truths
breathed in and out in starry dark black hopefulness.

yellow light from the coach station
against marble houses-that we wish
we could buy- reminds me of the silver
moon we watch when we’re high.
now I’m crying into the duvet
and feeling far away from whispered
happy compliments I don’t know how
to describe you but you’re mine but
it’s time for a forest fire to still the fire
in my heart. I start to want to hold you
forever though my forever is over
my love, my never again. feeling your body
pulse with each sleeping breath reminding
me of death and I don’t want you to go.
I like being bad when I’m with you, sad
though it might seem when we dream
and you ask me to speak french when I’m
smoking cigarettes, trying to forget the plans
we made. we plan to go to europe because all
our dreams sparkle under the weekend skies,
you sigh, I can’t get back from here, my dear,
I fear I don’t know what’s real anymore,
what to feel anymore. your broad shoulders,
we’re getting older, they wrap around me &
your eye lids flutter, reminding me of a kind of
innocence we have yet to discover, my lover.
now the sun is beating down on london parks
where we sit and talk and dream, it seems
you are so beautiful reading kerouac,
what a cliché but we’ll get away, by megabus,
counting our change, courting our lust,
on 5 hour bus journeys from city to city
ambitions to home, joy to pity.
cuddling to britpop, we keep popping
pills and thrills and whatever is going.
don’t go, I know I’m a romantic
(you have no idea) your passions kills
and your mind excites, I might have to die
tonight, I might. I want you in the kitchen-
I can never untie my shoelaces- living on shoestrings,
tightropes and other things, I think that drinking
in cinemas could be a new favourite pastime,
are you still mine? drowning in wine, I know
I cry too much, but touch me. that night we went
out in your car to the docks, no stars, but you still
shone for me. buckingham palace is against a grey
sky tonight, against us but we still try- england is mine,
england is mine. we don’t usually kiss in public.
I used to spend a lot of time in the cathedral,
scribbling poems in the crypt, hoping something
would stick, but we drift towards a moment now,
my muse. you use me. red flowers in the buckingham
palace breeze, I breathe in daydreams of paris and patti smith
I keep rehearsing my life, it seems.

She took the pills in the upstairs bedroom
By the light of the winter sun
That shone above the Oak tree
From her tidy, square garden.

Beside her a lonesome photograph
Rested apathetic and unstirred,
But she began to feel nauseous
And could not choke a word.

Her daughter rang the doorbell,
Then, searching for her keys;
Panic stabbed her in her soul,
The Oak tree howled in the breeze.

She left the door ajar,
She let her feet rush upstairs,
She entered the bedroom,
She gasped; then tears.

Later her son was sitting in class
Tapping a rhythm against the desk,
Daydreaming of the one he loved,
Free of grim thought of what he’d hear next.

Did you know the depths of her sadness?
Had you read it in a book?
Many a dull afternoon wasted away
But in her eyes did you ever look?

The grandson looked on silently,
As the sky greyed, his face dull,
At the edge of the car park
Drifting thoughts on hold.

They gathered round her bed
Away from the cruel, bleak outside;
And tiptoed round the real questions,
The old woman began to cry.

On the pavement I sat alone, in my mind;
The feelings never leave but fade
Like the sky blending when the day dies,
Though stung hearts have poignant permanence.
Mulling over the One, year- happily so?
Anticipated tears repressed by friendship;
Firm, mechanical devoted fields barren of romance-
But I offered to fill yours with red roses
And you fell deep into the arms of another,
Light-drenched art galleries left me in the dark
And the sky turned black, your back on me,
Blanket of rejection, blank faces to my suicide.
You kept feeding me my private poison
Until immunity rattled my bones and spiked my blood.
Who am I? Who are you? Who is he?
I love that the answers smudge like damp eyes;
Bland memory fails and words stop there.

It is the sky that’s complexion deceives.
It is the sun that heals and burns.
It’s the City that appears in daydreams, I run
Wild and free, without my shoes,
My invisible dance-
It is called loving you.

I saw you with tangled locks, who looks wide-eyed
Rheumy, back through the glass at nightfall, move
Your devil eyes towards the day
Which rejoices with its approach, shrink away!

The voices spit together, and the stabbing
Feelings listen; all senses turned
Inwards to the bleak emptiness; come forth
The gothic butterflies of my soul!

Come over the sea, and let my heart
Meet your mind, and kiss it softly,
Quickly, until the evening breathes
Its rough, sharp breath down my icy neck

O be closer! Night ends in death; leaves
Its ghostly silhouettes haunting the day
The thorny crown of death tearing my mind,
Screaming like an infinite ghoul

Moonlight, plastered in my mind and
Stamped onto my heart, wherever
The darkness lurks it follows never ending
The starry cycle, choking, haunting.

I never lost anything but twice-
Friendship then innocence
Twice standing barefoot
Searching for love.

Angels- with firey eyes
This time they give back
Butcher or Poet?- Muse!
I am rich again.