When did we stop wanting to become a firefighter
When did we stop wanting to become a police man
When did we stop wanting to be someone great

When did we stop dreaming
When did we stop fighting
When did we start settling with the easy option
When did we stop ...
When did we stop ...
When did we stop living

Food and sleep to stay alive.
Medications to stay stable.
Friends to stay happy.
Love to start living.

What is living? Is it the opposite of dead?
No, that’s survival. Is it eating, and sleeping?
No, that’s being alive. Living is different.
Living is choosing to do those other things for an ultimate concern.
Living is doing more than those things
to experience your life to the fullest capacity possible.

There is nothing to gain, nothing to lose. Nothing.

As the smell of oil and tar has soaked all realms,
God gave men free will, but they knew he was bluffing.
All men got was a heart as a battlefield for themselves.

All heart’s matters are individual, and therefore can be disputed,
and are private, and them staying that way is vital.

I am walking a marathon to the wall where I will be executed
on the black path of a repeating Radiohead vinyl.

In the naphthalene on your lungs, in your teapot filled with cold water,
in your cupboard behind the cups, in the endless line to your doctor,
in the smell of your favourite flowers and the dust of your favourite venue,
there is a lit candle bleeding wax on the poems I’ve never read you.

Try living in paradise

Still recovering from trauma

Thinking about the ones left behind



Feeling sun on brown skin

While buildings burn down

Today was like any other



Enjoying cool ocean waters

While salt washes festering wounds

Fresh flesh like grapefruit is pink



Looking to the distant stars

Trampling on growing daisies

Only to lay in a field of them



Howling loud at worship

While fearing the whites of saved eyes

Lift every voice and sing



To dance and to be joyful

While quakes lulls sleeping babies

When the dust settles what remains

How will I know
When I'm free to go
If I'm always thinking so
Self belief
Always low
I can't seem to find a flow
Oh no
I can't begin to grow
Was it the accident
All those years ago?
The dripping of melted snow
Blood, blood, blood
A doe
The overflow
The fear rushed through me
A foe
Family put in escrow
A tear drop falls
Whoa whoa whoa
The life I must forgo
An inch of life
I bestow
To the people that I owe
Who's eyes glitter and glow
Without saying a simple hello
I knew that I'd plateau
A love I'd never leave
Although
I'll always stay
Like they said
The loyalty of crow

There is another hole in the old town.

When it rains it will hold water like cold
craters on the moon.Devoid of life now,
each drop will hold the history of years.
Every drop will reflect on scrubbed steps
and drunken Fridays and days off in bed.  

The wind will whistle hit parades over mud.
Grass will pretend it was always here and
cold kids on new bikes never turned out at
Christmas or in new clothes come Whitsun.
Plaques will not record the living or the dead.

There is another hole in the old town.
Shaped like a worn shoe. Hard to fill.


Tony Noon