It’s difficult to look outside of my my-
-croscopic lens; it just feels like a job

to never have to consider who is
an actual person that should matter to

me. It’s an almost impossible trick,
that only me and most other adults

can forget how we felt growing into
a new body, how we forget ever knowing

We're just like everyone else who also thinks they
aren’t like everyone else because they didn’t have
someone to hold their heavy lovelorn child-hearts.

There was a thought,
but it is lost.
It had been pure in the
impurest of ways.
It sought to defile the innocence,
prolong the sin that is writing.

It is too late.
The thought that wants,
that needs,
but will not.
It will vanish and leave nothing
but
pure
thought.

It is there
without words to describe it;
without the moment it lives in;
without a slivering snakes sssslush
        sac full of venom.
Venom, that it is.
Injecting itself
without the mind knowing.
Killing, callous,
couth - as one might imagine.

It exists
but not in context,
separately from its source.
Detached,
despondent,
erratic despite it's sharpness,
it's potency.

A thought that if thought about
you cannot elaborate enough.
It is sophisticated,
in the ways that writing is.
It will come and it will go
but it will always fester.
Decaying the process of thought.

We read our books and pretend to
not make glances at each other.
We smile as if the pages in the book had tickled at our sides.
We write love stories in our heads and forget about the ones on the page.
An uncomfortable warmth surrounds us as we pretend not to pose ourselves in our chairs.
As if we are offering ourselves to the sun to immortalise this youthful love.
Our hands quiver as we turn each page.
Like these stories will ours come to a brief
end?
And though you and I are nothing,
destined for
deletion,
taunted by
extinction.
We pray that these feelings are more than that.
But when I see the stars in your eyes my worries float away,
for I know this love is cosmic.

Honesty can be the wrong policy sometimes
Honesty can get you killed if you're not careful
Doing the'right' thing can sometimes be the 'wrong' thing to do
Being the 'good little boy' doesn't always get you home safely
When we were in our teens we lived close to a large holiday camp
And we'd get summer jobs there
My brother had a job as a swimming pool attendant cleaning swimming pools,
He got me a job working alongside him,
There was another guy too, but he kept going missing and it wasn't long before he got the sack
So that just left the two of us.

There were two pools, an indoor and an outdoor
With the indoor, a vacuum with ropes attached would be lowered onto the bottom of the pool
One Pool attendant would stand on one side of the pool
While the other would stand on the other
And between them they'd pull it back and forth across the bottom of the pool
Going slowly up the pool in increments till the whole pool had been covered/ cleaned.
For the outdoor pool we had a machine, it was a heavy thing with wheels
You'd attach these big poles to it then lower it into the pool
And then push it out with the pole
And then bring it back in with the pole
You'd do this the whole way along.
My brother told me he once lost the machine in the pool
And he said it was a hell of a job retrieving it
And the boss had run him over the coals over it and warned him not to let it happen again.

Anyway I'd only been in the job 2 or 3 weeks when my brother, he decided to take a day off
He left me no instructions what to do
So I found myself all alone there this evening
(We did an evening shift)
When the pool closed I got out my bucket and mop and cleaned all the decks, all the tiled floors surrounding the pool
After that I said to myself, I'm the Pool Attendant, it's my job to clean the Pools
I'll get the machine out just like my brother
(I'd only seen my brother use it once)
So there I am wheeling this big machine out
And I'm proud of myself, it's like Look at me, I'm the Pool Attendant
And then suddenly there's this big flight of stairs going down to the ground floor where the outdoor pool is
And I'm thinking, 'I wonder how do you get this thing down the stairs'
There's no one around to help
I think 'I'll just put it out a bit over the stairs then I'll lift it up and lead it down on its wheels, just like leading a dog"
So I push the wheels out over the edge a bit then I raise the machine
The moment I do this though, the whole machine takes off down the stairs with me holding onto it
Bump, bump, bump the whole way down a very large flight of stairs
Lucky there was no one coming up the stairs or it would have been like a bowling alley.
So I end up at the bottom of the stairs in a heap all bruised and battered
Suddenly this girl runs in and she's all over me
"Are you alright, are you alright!!! You're after falling down the stairs. I seen it, it was awful. Do you need a doctor!"
Of course, I'm embarrassed more than anything else, I thank her for her concern
But assure her I'm alright
I stand up and brush myself off
Then I think, "Well at least I got it down the stairs"
The girl, she persists, Are you sure you're alright, are you sure you don't need a doctor
I thank the girl again for her concern
Then I straighten myself and think "I'm the Pool Attendant. Gotta clean the Pool, I gotta do my job".
So I wheel the machine out into where the outdoor pool is
I plug it in and it starts making this whirring noise
Then I attach one of the poles to it
And then I put it sitting up on the edge of the pool ready to lower it in
Across from me there's a lot of windows looking down upon the Pool
I think to myself there's probably some people watching me... the pressure is on
Suddenly I get nervous, I think the last time I put this machine over the edge of something
It took off and took me with it
I could get drowned here if I'm not careful
And I can't swim
Then I think about what my brother had told me
That he'd once lost the machine in the Pool
And how it caused a lot of trouble,
And y'know the sad thing was it was this that seemed to scare me more
The thought of losing their precious machine in the pool
Than the possibility of me drowning
Finally I decided I couldn't do it, or shouldn't do it
I took the machine down and unplugged it, and removed the pole
I wheeled it back, I got the guy who cleaned the toilets
To give me a hand carrying it up the stairs,
I put the machine to bed.
Looking back I was glad I had the courage to say "No! I wasn't sure I could do this"
In those days there was no such thing as... well, as self worth
People had no worth at all it seemed
The only important thing was to hold onto your job and probably not make a fool of yourself I suppose.

As I sat there, the indoor Pool was very ghostly looking in the dark... in the shadows
With the lights from the street below reflected in the waters (the Pool had see through glass windows).  I found the scene very quietening...magical almost.

Long time ago, I thought about staying in
An era lost,
Dead and gone,
Despite all the saving and baptisms.

They offered me the chance to lead them, to teach them,
to… to be king.
But my place was here.
So I drank some juice,
Said some words and here I am.

Didn’t seem like it was over though.
I was hitchhiking down a long and lonesome road.
Suddenly,
The skies filled with brimstone and irony,
The ground grew silent and still,
Clocks ticking wound satirically,
The sea drained into nothingness
like some gaping mouth was drinking it,
Dead gods awoke,
and there shined a shiny demon,
In the middle of the road.

He said to me,
“Welcome Moon-and-Star,
Come to me through fire and war.
Come, Legion,
Come and look upon the heart.
Lay down your weapons
And pick up your pen,
It is not too late for my mercy.

Now write the best poem in the world,
or I'll swallow your soul...”

Well, my many faces,
We looked at each other,
And we all said,

Okay.

And we wrote the first thing that came to our heads,
Just so happened to be
The best poem in the world,
It was the best poem in the world.

It went a little like this:

In the beginning, there was one source of light.
It would die and come back every night,
As a woman showing off her thighs
Just a little bit at a time.

In the beginning,
everyone bowed their heads towards the light.
They would dance and eat their friends alive.
We were not happy then,
these were simpler times.

Now we are played,
we’re the moth we’re the flame.
We were aware of the danger,
we could not look away;
my eyes are open.

I forget though
that people are not good to each other,
One on one.
Marx be ******,
The sin is not the totality of certain systems.
Theology be ******,
The sin is not the killing of a god.
People are just not good to each other.

We are afraid
and
We think that hatred means strength.

And so what we need is less brilliance,
what we need is less instruction,
what we need are less poets,
what we need is more beer,
a typist,
more finches.

And now I’m hoping for a poem
That will come to me when I’m asleep.
Because I can’t lie
And so I can’t write.

Our eyes pierce you, demon,
And it occurred to me that we have spent
our whole life
Starting over.

Caught pining for the things that we could’ve been:
We could have been gold diggers
we could have been gunslingers
we could have been a little bigger
we could have been our own ringers
we could have been good writers
we could have been good writers
we could have been good writers

But what we are,
is the silence.
Share with me all your pain.

I won't
Share your love.
I need all your love
Or it’s all for not.

Look what I have found, look what I have found!

Look what I have found, look what I have found!
An artificial light, we come and gather around.
This is why we have lovers and why we have fighters.

This is why the arms race and particle colliders.
Mine is a humble flame, just a little white lighter
And it belongs to me.

And yet
There is a loneliness in this world so great
That you can see it in the slow movements
Of the hands of a clock.
There are people so tired,
So strafed,
So mutilated by love or
No love,
That buying a bargain can of tuna
In a supermarket
Is their greatest victory.

So save me, I can't be saved,
I won't be saved.
I'm a citizen's son,
I don't need no soul.
All the soldiers say,
"It'll be alright,
We may make it through the war
If we make it through the night."
All the people, they say,
"What a lovely day, yeah, we won the war.
May have lost a million men, but we've got a million more."
All the people, they think
That no recall or intervention can work in this place,
That There is no escape.

Look into my eyes and it's easy to see
one and one makes two, two and one makes three,
it was destiny.
Once every hundred thousand years or so
when the sun doth shine
and the moon doth glow and the grass doth grow.

We dance in the thunder
Of collapsing walls and twisting cages.
The great black bellowing,
“I'm a god.
How can you **** a god?
What a grand and intoxicating innocence.
I'm a god.
How can you **** a god?
Shame on you, sweet Legion.”

We screech into the obsidian sheets
that blanket the way-out,
“When the giants of heaven forsake the earth
I shall destroy you for all that you’re worth.
With the bolt of Zeus and our golden throats
I will destroy you and send you afloat.
Whether you pillage the earth or sea
I will destroy you this I guarantee!”

Needless to say,
The beast was stunned.
Whip-crack went his whippy tail,
And the beast was done.
He asked us,
Be you angels?
And we said nay,

We are but men,

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal voice went snicker-snack!
we left Hymn dead, and with His read-head
we went hiking on ahead.

And the peculiar thing is this, my friends:
The poem we wrote on that fateful night,
It didn't actually read anything like this poem!

And the past followed me anyway.
so sure, I could’ve stayed there,
Could’ve been king.
But in my own way,
I am king.

somewhere there's a party
you're not invited to
but the little red dress
will gate-crash the venue
desperately trying to cover
more than it reveals
it will have a better time
than ever you can imagine
until disappointment reveals
it clothes a mere mortal
not some Hellenic goddess
a mirage of alcohol
a signal of distress
somewhere there's a party
you shouldn't be invited to
full of danger, anguish
and an end to innocence

when did you come in,
to my life?
funny how
i do not recall ,
a life without you.

the shape of your name,
has a strange kind of beauty

the sound of your voice,
makes my heart skip-
-skip a beat.

when did you start,
to love me?
i pray that you never stop.

i forgot,
the beauty of new love.
the innocence of,
discovery.

when did you become,
my best friend?
my brother?
my lover?

funny how,
the answer
does not even matter.