She reads Neil Gaimen
by the light through the window,
a facing forward seat on the only train in Greater Anglia
without any heat,
yet still she peruses the pages with
a flick and a ****** and her eyes begin to wander
in marvellous repeating horizontal lines.
She is blonde and reading Neil Gaimen.

Another blonde another book,
this time Mr King under her palm,
spread like her great legs, wide
and easy to read, yet not easily led;
telephone-line straight eyes
on a north country face,
buttoned up below her is a white blouse,
lace-trimming hiding last night’s pudding-
cake baked by a daughter, I heard her conversation earlier:
there was laughter.
She is blonde and reading Stephen King.

Left bank beards
in Beat hotel rooms,
a boulangerie breakfast
down the street and to the left,
and for lunch fresh baked bread and brie.
Letters sent home to fathers and mothers
singing sweet serenades of Paris
dressed up in autumn shades,
cheques for the royalties that'll
get them to Belize to write and swoon,
chat up ladies in the early afternoon;
where hotel fees that are treble those in the 5th,
bookshop stalls that'll never be found
another closing-down-establishment myth.

They were climbing with oxygen
long before we came along,
base camp poems written under
floor lamplight right before
the eyes of others.
Jett powered prose and wine in the light
sleight-of-hand punctuation and uptight
editors looking for finer narration.

your thoughts are being passed along
at mail train speeds,
no pauses or restraints
no clauses or complaints,
all with a face that would make tear gas cry.
This is a present to you,
it's everything I want to say:

*stop wanting every moment to be music video magic
because it’s something you'll never achieve,
what you say isn’t MTV,
so go head-
disagree.

your feet are falling apart again,
let me grab a new sole
for you, old soul,
sooth you down into your new low;
let me miss you and kiss you
in my head
because that’s what the books have led us to believe,
pity the painter who has to grieve.

you painted Death from the palette in your palm
as you looked up from your hospital bed calm
and delighted, but you’ve lost this fight tonight
darling.

And we showered in prison sized cells,
white tiled and PVC clad,
the B&Q; recommends it!-
hells.

And we died in those showers
that were prison sized cells,
white tiled and PVC clad,
doors-are-broken-again-
hells.

And we were saved by the
eat again yellow doors,
peering through blind black windows
into the clear streets at dawn.

And they yelled with a siren mouth
***** blue profanity and
you left your mark with a ****** white tee,
wet with the water that
hurtled down from the
shower head, unclean and *****.

carrying Kalashnikovs on their backs,
the rebel mules have panic in their eyes
and resting at the back?
fear filled pupils that dilate
with every corpse seen vacating itself
of tissue and blood,
smell the perfume of gun barrels
and those lonely enough to be culled,
picked off by a trained eye
and a government lie and
a man laid down in an apartment block out of sight up high.

civilian fathers laying spread on the back of a flatbed,
cinderblock walls that offer no protection but that of protecting the dead,
sharpen another knife for another internet viral video of another guy without a head
and finally, cat walk model rebels wearing beaded shrapnel necklaces, gorgeous and chrome red.

and they’ll try give them away around,
a daily sound of the everyday
so they can have a price that they can pay
for the ordinary,
for the sane,
for America’s definition of the lame.

Catch her before she lies,
twist her back over and tell her not to lie,
face her and plead with her not to lie,
forget what they said and listen to her lie,
hear her odes peppered with lies,
hear the static between her lies,
hear those terminal marks stop that lie.

Run for the terminal, wait to fly.