words are hollow
empty vessels sailing
a heartless sea

sun is
merciless
never stops
radiating

when the
words
run out
will we
understand

no more code
no more guise
shapeless truth
cold harsh beauty
hidden in salt

I'll show you terror in a handful of dust.
The harder you grasp the faster it flows.
I cannot contain the violence of my lust.
My mind's last spasm in death throes.

we are back here again,
offering up prayers to the patron saint of lost things.

we are haunted by eidolons of past states,
snapshots of perfect moments,
lingering phantom pain.

the monument is
swept away by an ocean
of time and desire,

lost to the seabed
and laid to rest.

Every piece of prose or poetry
is an act of autopsy,
a surgeon's knife
exploring the heart of all things.

I'm a compulsive liar.
It started as a defense mechanism,
a shield to defend against social stigma,
but now I just do it for sport.
It's an act of aggression.
It gives me false potency.

Sometimes
I begin to lose track
of the truths and the fictions.

The god,
She runs her tongue across my neck,
Traces a hand along my imperfections.
We build together
In this shivering heat.

I give her my blood
and she builds a city.

My flesh becomes the world.
My bones caves and rivers,
My heart the capital of some meat nation,
My soul the fire of progress.

I spill out. I spill out.

The beat takes me
and takes me
and takes me.

The crowd throbs
in rhythm,
Ensconced in bass,

Repatriated to dance.

Staggering singularity,
The centre cannot hold.

I am a ghost in a mechanism,
a gun with a soul,
a memory that dreamt to be human.

The dead canaries
are still screeching
as the wolves claw at the door.

They told me that dead
birds mean new
beginnings but all I see
are shattered
hopes.

I looked the corpse
in the eye and
I swore that
I could see the shape
of tomorrow in smoke
and razor teeth
reflected in glassy beads.

I paid the hag
in gold coin,
and then the witch
took the rotted
thing away,
still shouting.

The dead canaries
are forever screaming
as the wolves break down the door.

i. 403 Forbidden

lostin _thisdigital_scream.mp3
it’s over
shutdown.
restart.
pick up the pieces.
you know who this is
you know where this is
fresh eyes to see the world
strings of code
binary - 1 or 0
y/n
n.
back into the
cave we go

ii. 401 Unauthorised

you split yourself open.
rewiring
it is time to make a change
your code writ in red and
love and trauma
plug you in
(plug into me)
corrupted files
delete, delete
a cut job (ctrl x)
you do not have access.

iii. 404 Not Found

who are you
where are you
what colour is the sky
what colour is the sea
why can you feel the pull of the moon
does the earth call to you
why
why does she have rainbow eyes

ah.
there you are
(were)
empty automata
take to change.
flee from me.
find safety.
firewall.
sleep,
electric sheep dreams.

defragmentation
debugging
recalibration
everything not saved will be lost

iv. 410 Gone

you wake.
(FALSE)
the world is new
to you again
or you are
new to it.
i won’t find you in this place
because you’re gone
(again)
new version
ctrlaltdel.
empty.
a reconfiguration
ship of theseus
whole again
without them

coda. Metadata

you run out into the dark
the burdened and choked night sky
you see nothing
you see everything
this world is yours to reshape
and you to be reshaped with it
cause and effect
no more binary. no more
i am waiting for you.

world wrought to ruin
i can feel the creeping dark
dancing between my fingers
the foreign, strange, eerie
uncanny arcane

colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
a small mercy has your skin crawling.
wondrous awe is not all that great.
an idea rains heavily.

I float in fervent freefall.
Do you know the flavour of not being good enough?
It's a taste that grows on you.

Did you know that there are many avenues to pain:
Not just physical but emotional, which is the hardest to avoid, ain't it the truth (now baby)?
We all sometimes stroll down envy and jealousy and fear and anxiety,
but I've been known to sleep there,
lie down on hell's concrete.

I'm still mining for a heart of gold
but I fear I'm growing old.

Love is a thief.
I never asked for my
focus to be stolen.
You never meant to
take it from me, I'm sure,
but its gone now.
I've always said love should be a synergy of
two whole people. Despite this claim, I find myself
newly unwhole. I lust for wholeness.
You cliched me.

Love is a humaniser.
All my life I've been
an alien, grey specimen
trapped and bound in pale white skin.
I've never felt comfortable in this form.
I want to be light, energy, flowing out of here
and through the world
and the stars and all.
Only, you
make me now feel human.
Breath comes easy.
I still yearn for outer space,
but maybe we could go together.
If you wanted.

Love is a would-be assassinator.
It possesses your mind and your fists,
a dark green spirit. It targets wandering
eyes, and it loathes
replacers.

Love is a fear of inevitable "see you later"s.

Love is an all-conquering now.
The past is dead and
the future isn't real
but we believe in those illusions
until we come together.

Love is half-burnt coffee on a dark November morning, as mist haunts the air outside of the old kitchen we inhabit.

The blast woke that great and terrible monster,
Godzilla, from his slumber
at the bottom
of those darkest depths,
titanic nuclear thing unfurling
at the heart of the abyss.

Reptillian eyes glimmered in the murk.
Stretching out his arms and legs,
beating his tail against the ocean floor,
Godzilla began to swim towards the city.

Godzilla stopped sleeping. The whole world
seemed rife with opportunity,
profits to be had.
And, in the darkness of night,
Godzilla stomped his way towards the city.

Godzilla got a new motorbike.
The engine’s roar soothed him,
for a time.
And, in the darkness of night,
Godzilla stomped his way towards the city.

Godzilla found another woman to use,
his reptilian desire overcoming
whatever remained of his humanity.
And, in the darkness of night,
Godzilla towered over the border of the city.

And, in the darkness of night,
Godzilla’s throat began to glow.
Sizzling blue fire crackled in his mouth,
and then the city was dust and shadows,
a Hiroshima ghost.

You don't have to die
to haunt someone.

All you have to do is
walk away,
say goodbye,
mean it.

Your laugh will remain,
spectral and pervasive.

A door opening forever.
A shout that never dies.

Trip the light fantastic before sunrise.
Sprint barefoot through endless forest.
Love dust and other small things.
Feel the pulse of the world,
of the city, of the river.
Follow the breath.
Find the place the light cannot reach.

Do anything.
Live.
Live.

take me to the hinterland
undress me in the violet dusk
in desolate beautiful country

show me the way forward,
or ask me what it means
to be here now

feel the wind on your skin,
the earth between your toes,
and taste the scents in the air

It comes
crashing back.
It comes
bearing down.
It comes
simmering up.
It comes,
it comes,
it comes.

The end of history
has ended.
Deep gasping breaths,
lungs guzzling the
cold moonlit air
for the first time. Breathe,
we're all here.
Sit in the night with us.

We gather here.
Seething. Boiling.
Our tribe not bound
by distance or creed.
This lightspeed collective.

What is the best way
to find a voice again?

Is it to sit,
build tented cities,
block motorways,
stamp and shout and scream,
but never break a window?

Never to burn a plantation
and strike down those who held your chains?

Never to throw yourself
in front of the King's horse?

History, snarling,
gives us the answer:
You cannot change this
with two open palms.

Last night I dreamt of rats.

Beady-eyed dark as night horror infesting my sleep,

no reprieve.

Big teeth, coarse grey fur crawling with fleas.

And, as they begin to tear at me, I remember their names.

Doubt nibbles at my fingers,

Envy scrabbling towards my eyes,

Shame devouring me whole.

Hello, old friends.

If only things were different,

if only things could change.



If only time ran slower,

if only I wasn't strange.



If only I could have guessed,

if only I knew.



If only my heart was stone,

if only the world would end with you.

I feel the steady beat of my pulse in my head,

and imagine I can feel yours as my fingers briefly dance across the back of your hand.

A bitter-sweet inbetwixt:



I blink back sour tears,

crimson trickle eased out of palms by clenched fist-and-nail.



My mind runs wild with thoughts of you,

a long-forgotten smile stretching from ear to ear.



Your taste fills my mouth and her acridity is gone,

a moment that will always last forever.



I am dismissed and distressed,

and as I hear her close the door behind her for the last time I loose a low growl,

the start of a tri-month darkness and a half-year struggle.



I feel a resonance that I once sought to abandon,

the strumming of strings in my heart.

Eyes lock and soundlessly whisper the passionate trinity:



"I loved you."

*"I love you."

you grip the dove too tightly.
it comes apart in your hands,
white, pink, glistening, slippery.

we awake
in the burning midnight,
dionysian noise filling
the moonless sky.

she takes my hand
as we become one,
fill each other,
more than whole,
a pleasure synergised
through friction,

then
absence.

we awake
by an ocean of blood,
a crimson sky with no stars.

it has been thought
that luna longs for terra,
trapped in unconditional distance,
drifting further and further,
soon to be lost in the endless dark.

endless peace? love eternal?
or an obsolescent dream?
could a dove still fly without wings?

Are you lonely too?
Are you any good in bed?
Are you ready for me soon?
Do you want to be my new friend?

You've been chosen.

Do you like me?
Do you want to meet me?
What are you waiting for?
Try it now for free.

Congratulations, you've been chosen.

Have you seen how blue the sky is?
Do you want to fall in love again?
You won't believe these prices.
When I ride you, I will go crazy.

You have been chosen.

I swim through a shimmering sea of sapphires,

Salt filling my nose and mouth, taste exploding on my tongue,

My legs and arms pumping and sliding through the coldest of winter lakes,

Body erupting in beautiful gooseflesh.



Then I am suddenly not there and then, but here, now, away from my lucid memories.

I am hollow
I am rage
I am mortal man in cage.

I am peak
I am chasm
I am grotesque ******.

I am hot
I am cold
I am broken, all told.

The concrete is cracked,
the bodies are burning,
and the skies are screaming with rocket fire,
our bullets.

It might be I don't understand the politics or the religion,
but these are the things we use to aim with precision.

Humanity is a fragile thing,
our world is bleeding,
and if this bloodshed is to globalise,
then we all need to mobilise.

I am nothing but a pack of cards.
No, not even.
Perhaps I am the Jack of Spades.
I'm missing the hearts.

I worry about the future,
where I ought to go,
who I ought to be.
It doesn't much matter which way I walk
so long as I get somewhere.
Any road can take me there.

We can't go back to yesterday because we were different people then.

I am the sword that splits the world in twain.
I am the shield upon which pain breaks.
I am the storm that rages in your heart.
I am the rain that patters softly across your cheeks.
I am the cheerful madman waltzing down your street.

a heartbeat in the dark
you purr against my chest
we melt together
blissful synthesis

we rise and fall
convergent plate tectonics
our boundaries crash
the earth heaves and shifts
with us

i wake to the dawn chorus
and to her breath tickling my neck
the world at peace, anew

They said that heartbreak is only emotional pain,
but I saw the symptoms of shock in the mirror,
lips so pale as to blend in with my skin colour.

I felt dizzy, nauseous, could feel both the thunder of my heart and it's slowness.
Yes, heartbreak is real, as real as the strength of one's heart.

Or do I mean soul?

But what is broken may always be mended,
and I'm feeling a lot better now,
and I hope you are too.

you saw the body on the side of the road
dead fox splayed out, eyes closed
like sleep but forever

you think of the chain
cause and effect
you wonder where this death started
you wonder where it ends

under the weight of screaming metal and rubber tire
that’s where it ended
although the fox seems pristine, at peace
you know that can’t be true. a trick of the light,

the fire in the sky that builds the world
gives it momentum
(the only thing that matters,
but the fox is now still)

illusory: your monopoly on trauma
the fox reminds
you don’t own this world’s pain
you are component, module, product

one less fox for the hounds
your mind travels to empire
lines drawn on maps and in sand
torn apart in the jaws of dogs

what would it take to change the world?
one less dead thing?

My spirit soars in the squall,
tempestuous wind howling my body away,
a frenetic ire known only to me, all-consuming.

Then comes peace, bluster departing.
I spin silently through troposphere,
feeling the sudden gravity as I plunge.

Apeiron.*

Tohu wa-bohu.




When I was young,
No more than eight,
I saw the moon quiver.
It shook like a gong.
I wanted to know why.

A couple of years later,
I saw a fireball
spiral through blackness,
Little twin circles in the
Night.  

Fifty years later,
I know now why
The Earth orbits the Sun
Orbits that great dust spiral
(well, hopefully),
But the moon is still
Too distant
And fire is
Gone from the
sky.

Oh twisted stimulus,
****** of the soul,
you flood me with colour.

I spill out across the world,
being everywhere,
existing nowhere.

Once I've emptied,
I am void.
Incorporeal and numb.

Like mist in gale,
I am rushed,
into endless sky.

Notorious chemical,
beautiful chemist,
I am lost in your constellation.