A cider and a minder
Passing time as a reminder
Pink glow and songs flow
A waxy time erodes the mow

Renegades and perspiration responds
Swimming in winded seas of  Jordan
Heated in space, evicted in their pace
Libido fails as the liquor dilutes in taste

Catch an esse as the moonlight smite
Hold another to fake a romantic right
Filter to the cards of ace as the one winks
Emotive intruders farm in fields of pastures

Imbued with alcoholic waterfalls
Molehills of termites condense lose soil
A lack of connection a taunt that apes
Future anthems triumph in hungered strums

Amused by the music erupting volcanoes
A morrow blows as the candle slows
To tow the tall grassed disused straw
A spring to summer that promises sun rays

A resolve to moderation to preserve modesty
A kiss stored forever peeping the awing stars
To guard a heart and hatch uniformity
Trembles justly forgotten in termed premises

read consistently,
learn diligently,
and write profusely

so that beyond lifetimes
of persistent practice
produced from painful,
arthritis-stricken fingers
may you birth a humble book

in its eternal years,
as many mute manuscripts,
it shall collect continents of dust
until it finally bares relevance
due by your unfortunate
final, unheard breaths.

but near such justly demise,
you will rage and reach forth,
to hope an innocent youth
may learn the many mistakes
collected and condensed
from one life to years to weeks,
summarized by your trembling hands.

yet I fear, as you may too,
that as we fade from existence,
our voice echoes lost;
our words unread forever,
to exist untouched
as a decorative piece
on a pretentious bookshelf.

Some days you surface into,
and there's no distracting yourself from
that irrefutable inevitability that
- ultimately -
entropy will win.
No quantity of
authentic artisan coffee or online memes
or juicing can
pull you out of the
black hole gravity
of that one truth.
The evidence is everywhere:
the spiteful confusion of electrical cables
your sleep-stupid fingers
fumble and fail to untangle;
the mold on the bread you
swore would keep a few more days;
the putrid, burst-open remains of
a pink armchair, left to rot in a
stranger's front garden;
the scavenging army of crows that loiters,
waiting for you to die and, in the
meantime, walks ****** little footprints
around your eyes;
the oxidation of
so many dreams.

It's inescapable.
Might as well root for the winner.
Embrace the decay.
Take photographs of
rust, smashed glass, peeling paint, dead flowers.
Learn to love faded colours and the feel
of broken things.
Catalogue your most
interesting scars and mutilations.
And, while you can,
write poetry.

Just look at me now.
All gift wrapped, and such
Do you like what you see?
Cause I don’t, very much.

                    As the lying won’t cease
                    And my truth is horrific,
                    You don't want to ask me
                    To be more specific. . .

So I’ll say goodbye
And tell you to go;
Don’t look for a truth
You won’t want to know.

Why do I have to be tense
when the easily offended
are the ones who commit the offense
emit attitude with their pretense
moral to a biblical degree
With no true human decency
Publicly they frighten me
privately they sicken me
declaring hateful victory
over love and humanity
Or is it just me?

It's been a dark and ***** start to the year, and altogether
too many of my heroes are dead.
Too many of the old
villains too; those familiar monsters
are gone, replaced
by new and more appalling terrors,
as fear is rebranded for a freshly emergent demographic.
All the girls are much too young for me. Everyone
is too young for me.
When they speak, I hear
only static, like
the ghosts of extinct, pre-digital
TV screens haunting the
empty beauty of their
dead channel mouths.
In the supermarket, they've taken to
playing songs I like on their
in-store radio, wedged between
corporate jingles and adverts for
two-for-one offers on
hot dogs in jars, and I'm
so irrelevant I could cry.
I'm struggling with the world and my
own inability to find somewhere
I can be in it. I can't relax, can't
stop fighting against inertia, contentment
and any hope of peace. Maybe drugs
are the answer, but I think they'd just
make me forget the question.
I feel the cold, and I
want to sleep too much. I miss
my bad habits, but not enough
to relapse. I'm not
young enough or cute enough
to get away with
this much ******* angst.