The rose red dresses flutter and float
Over beautiful girls with smooth legs cartwheeling
Dancin' like swinging jitterbug springs
Going round in a bebop rhythm
Through the saxophone blasting soul
And the jazz drums which clash and simmer

The yellow lights and red smoke floods
Singing and a' ringin' in circles
Filling the air with childish smiles and laughter
Freedom reigns on the crowded dance-floor
Synchronisation in the joyful movers
Who dance and drink into the night

Flicking through photos online
Of nights out I wish I were invited to
The cameras flash and all turn and look

Putting on their best smile
All dressed up for this social competition
Faces under make-up almost beyond recognition

I am jealous
Oh look, there is my best friend
Who never seems to talk to me
Who never sleeps alone

Who feeds me advice
From websites he thinks
I haven't already read

Yes I know what Dr. Whatshisface said
Yes I know it will pass
Yes I know that it's all in my ******* head

And I may be bitter and lonely and angry
I may be often inclined to whine and to moan
But what sane person enjoying their own time
Needs so many ******* pictures to prove it?

Oh look there is everyone I ever loved
Oh look there is everyone who never cared
Far away on the other side of the country
Not wanting to know me

Their smiles taunt
The arm around the shoulder
The fake friendly satisfaction (I hope)
The vainly sought interaction

I am jealous
And I realise
How tedious are their ordeals

Their false social conventions
I hate every single one of these
Disgusting self satisfied short sighted

Pretentious people
But I will always long insatiably
For their attention

SPARE SOME CHANGE
COLD, NEED FOOD
The desperation was clear in the man's writing
On the crumpled trashcan cardboard
You saw him laying there on the cold concrete
In the frosty graffiti street
Against the worn down door
His unshaven face looked up
His wide eyes pleaded
And you looked away

Look away, look away
The stone angels cannot follow
The concrete terror
Can be forgotten
Others will take the stage
You never had the courage
To make a change

*So look away

If I only spoke to you
You would think of me as a genius
You'd have no idea
Where my terrible thoughts originate

Or if I spoke in riddles
That you could mold in your head
Transforming them into new feelings
Things you already know

Maybe that is what I do
When I cheat your mind
I use you like a psychic
Preying on vulnerability

A medium for the subconscious
Twisting vague words
Which only work
If you believe them

The night sky's
One great eye
Followed every step
I placed
Along paths
Rain displaced
Along streets
We traced
Reflected on puddles
With one jump came crashing
You looked up expecting
An explosion
In the sky
Fragments of the eye
Mother's broken plate
Father's hand across
Your face
You waited with a sigh
And a disappointing taste
Filled your mouth
What a waste
You thought is life
Without strife
And
Without love
As the moon shone
Staring down from above
And we continued on our way
Tempted to live
Another day

You awoke before the rest
Their sighs and breaths
Disappeared in the dark morning

If only they would wake
And leave you unalone

I saw one of my doubles in his circle. The confident centre of attention. Laughing, laughing, his blue eyes met mine, his grin grew wide and I hid my shame beneath my hair.

I got a haircut
I didn't want to
My nerves
Shot through
My veins on the day
Like white acid and the shaking
My knees made holes in the table
I almost ran away

No one noticed

I wonder if anyone would care
If I didn't show up today
What good am I to the world?

I wish I could be like you
Like a worthwhile person
Who captures stares and crowds and makes you wonder why you're so pathetic in every single ******* way
(I always say
The wrong thing)
I want to smash my face against the wall and drown in the joy of those who forgot me because I did not entertain

I meet a new double every day
I have too many

My doubles, the difference is you can talk to people without feeling a gun pointed to your head
Like you are going to die if you move as much as a muscle
Or say something that doesn't make them laugh
And I don't know where to put my hands

I am tired of hiding
In the corner hating everything

You may be right
But we all have our own fences don't we,  Cherie?

Cherie: a sweet name
A dear name
For a dearer mind

But,  angel
There is honor in the flight, you know
It is better to have flown
Than to be forever grounded

It is more noble to have know
Than to be eternally  lost
In ignorance

My battered heart
I hope you may mend
Dear Cherie

But you must tread carefully
On this fragile soil
Dear friend

.... My own name
..... Is Niklas

don't write a poem
for me
it would be pointless,
it would be
a paradox
to try
to give beauty
to something
so ugly

You in the darkness with the old grey church
Weeping down its stone walls, and the rain
Singing softly to the sounds of a dancing sky

You: the illusion, ever so inviting
The lonesome cloud gliding over the horizon
Glowing alone in perfect silence

You: a moment lost in space,
Not even asleep, not even
Awake, not even

You sigh a frozen breath
And leave with a song

That echoes through the night
Where you are now gone

It tells us so much
When. A. Small. Dot. Makes. Us. Stop
We hold the power

your eyes paint the clouds black


i feel the wet grass that glows the colour of dusk,
i sense the light reaching out into every night

the shadows swim between headstones
and up to the pines
as angels fly past us
fading out

the ghost of a lone swan

resting on my arm
you see her, so still and so beautiful
and before day comes we're gone

by the pier
alone with the endless rain

stained gold by the flowering light
drowning out in orange glow

i see the waves
as they breathe cold darkness into the streetlights
see the reeds in the wind,
hear the roar in our ears

the falling slopes we climb
lost in a million sounds of the rain
floating without senses
lost between the stars

The white Moon makes raindrops into dark crystals
Snaking down the cold windows

Have you ever noticed the whiteness of the rain
As it bounces in passing headlights off the asphalt

As the heavy clouds cover the stars
Blinding us from where we are

Like we could be anywhere
Like a rainy night looking up as droplets slide down the tent's skin

Pattering
Shivering
Thinking

We're nowhere
Huddled under covers
Losing time in the darkness
Lost in an endless dream
As we drift back into sleep

(Your words stand on my soul
Like a paperweight

There's no need to shout when
You can bore us in-
to a zombie-like state)

Is it sadder I have to
Listen
To you speak

Or

That you have to teach
This *******
To me?

[ I ]
The window framed the quiet scene
My still mind had painted there
Pastel shades of grey and white
That sailed across an ocean sky
To travel right and disappear

I felt her personality
In choice of subject, her use of colours
So vibrant and true
Though I knew

That all great art
Is channeled, not thought
A piece taken from the heart
To be planted anew

[ II ]
At night the lights were dotted lines
Along the shore,
Glittering
Orange and incandescent

As the crescent moon sent her light reflected
To shimmer fragmented and grey
On endless waves
I ran along

The sea wall
Drunk on love and beer
Singing "Hallelujah" with hair trailing
Feeling perfect as a rose in the rain

Taste the black and white keys
Caked with the blood of passion
Sweep the streets of keyless doors
Find the lock that fits under the trees
Ration the waves of this nation
And the lonely desert breeze

I have seen the golden sheen
In the alchemy of ages gone
I have worn the berserker's skin
And sung the piper's song
I have heard the sound of earth
And I have learned the beating of the land
I have learned that God can not be captured
By any mortal man

The tower will always fall
But flight will forever be ambition
The human soul is impregnable
The revolution never asks permission
To place that first brick down
Take more than it's been given
To see God within the clouds
And pull him down to be forgiven

I have lived many years
As a mouse
Many years I have lived

In this house of umber
I have kept
Asleep I have slept
Gazing
Watching

Clouds floating
The vibrant trees
Their descendants

Through my many windowed
Walls of slatted wood
In Summer breeze
I have gazed

For your eyes
I have slaved
For your feathered face

Excuse me
I don't have to
Love you
Or anybody

Maybe they told you
But you don't deserve
My forgiveness
You *******
I'm sorry

I owe you nothing
My love that you shrugged
Is no longer in stock

But my hate
That's another story
Endless
But never enough
To heal
My broken heart

Sighted lost
A splintering boat
Upon a storm
The rain ran
Relentlessly
On black waves
As meteor stars flashed above
This vessel
Struggled

The Sun's light
Pours
Over squinting eyes
Like honey
Shining crows caw
With the tree's leaves chuckling
At something unfunny

I decay inside
With my honesty in my head
I have become rotten

A spectre of nothing seen fleeting
Running like the mist
Beyond the light
Followed vainly
In a dream
Like midnight
In the darkness
Not alive

Stagnant
In the fields
And it starts
The patter
-ing
The drone of the swarm
Lovely warm insects
Above my head

The first thunder
In years it seems
As though the lightning
Strikes down through
My soul
To reach
Ground

And the rain beats down
On our roof
Like a hurricane
The sky full of
Explosions
Quite
Alive

Through godsend
At my window
I gaze into
The abyss
And the
Dark clouds flashing
Leave me
Mesmerised
Once again

A fire was burning on the horizon
A bright yellow flame that faded upwards
Into an infinite many orange shades
And tinted the wistful clouds
A clear rosy kind of pink
As the earth turned slowly away from the sun
I walked back through the door
To see it run through my pen
At my desk in my dark room
The flames faded out in my mind
While they burned so brightly outside

In my shining spotlight the rabbit scampers
Across the fields, its bright white eyes, and stops
Crouching in the dewy grass of a foggy night
In the pale-faced cold wind of winter

In the light of the supermoon
In the light rain fog of November
And what is fog?
In the darkness
Something that I remember

The glowing leaves pile up in my pockets
Yellow ones burn like lemon flames, green like pears
They all find their way someday between the pages
Of my stained petal books

And I always find my way
Into the Moon's light,
Where blue sea laps softly on smooth stones
Of the shore
Of the skin
And the silence
Of the night

I wondered why the birds sang so late
On this gloomy Summer's evening
It was like a dream
A lesson I had not yet learned
Were they calling out
For the Sun's sweet return?
Do they not know their efforts were in vain
That the passage of time is as inevitable
As the falling of the rain

On the thin film of my umbrella
The pattering continued
In an irregular beat
Droplets formed like a masterpiece
Dripping down around me
I felt as though I were in a dome
A cosy bubble to call my own
I walked on

And finally reached the old church
And though I am not the religious type
I could see its worth
And it's ethereal beauty tonight
Sitting beside the cold stone wall
Sheening with the light that reflected
The rain was illuminated beside me
On this solemn dedicated bench

I looked out to the bay where the land
Molded around the sea
And I saw a lone swan soaring across the rippled water
Gliding gracefully stoic like a banshee
Through the misty downpour
My ill omen
I saw determination in her steady course
And a pensive sorrow in her solitude

I sat there for a long time

The sky had darkened
And angels on long shifts
Flew past on the roads below
I gazed again and she was lost
In the shadows, now perhaps snug in her nest
Her job she had done well enough
For today
Another soul she had saved
As the moon guided the waves
She would rest
And I would be on my way

Are you
In pain
Or in the ground?

Would you prefer
Silence
Or no sound?

Are you
Homeless
Or in debt?

Would you prefer
Disappointment
Or regret?


Are you
Deceased
Or confused?

Unmarried
Or abused?

Are you
Single
Or alone?

Alone
Or on your own?


When the long nights come
In a world that's all wrong

Where there are two wrong sides
To every bed
Where every sword
Has a double edge

Will you rebel
Or make a change?
Will you walk through hell
Or stay the same?

Will you use your anger
Or succumb to rage?
Will you play the part
Or take the stage?

Tea stained table oak
Writhing in vines
Newspapers and coffee
Coffee shop chatter
Voices raised in laughter

The cry of sacred life
The high pitched giggle
Which brings us right
Reminds us of Spring
Reminds us we're alive
Young unintelligent design
Destined to die

I see God
In the faces of children
In their innocent play
In their minds not yet
Twisted
By the world

A God more beautiful
Than any religion
Can give us
Can tempt us with
Any temporary fix

Beauty fills my brain
But I can't finish this
Across the table
You look like bliss
And I long to live
Forever
Just like this

Each shephard sat around his feet
And as he pause they wonder
What secret would he say
But his solemn mouth speaks only
Of a sage of the holy way
High atop an ice breezed peak
The sage can be found to speak
To sing songs of the great Jomski

Who did command ten thousand men
On frigid Icelandic sea
Soaring 'neath open sky
In longships landed these men ashore
To plunder and pillage all in sight
And settle and rest did each man then
And drunk on their worship soon begin
To sing songs of the great Jomski

And when one day the great Jomski lieth
On damp soil wounded by the fateful spear
A solemn dove could be seen flying
Towards those mourning friends of home
With dreaded message of his dying
And as such crowds flood his sombre wake
All who cometh doth partake
To sing songs of the great Jomski

The latch lifts with a heavy clunk
And like a rusted playground memory
The metal door creaks open slowly
Releasing no light from the dark
And the cold and the infinite parallel worlds
Of nothing

Stitched together lightly, shifting
Silent and brushing past like pedestrians
Or barges on a deep dark canal
Never touching and nearly feeling
The warmth emanating from the cold black and white
Bodies

Flicking through old photos
Since forever stashed under my bed
Mum points at one of me
Little, laughing
And my brothers
In colourful winter hats,
Climbing white trees,
A one of a kind cold day
The brown leaves sing
"Weren't you so cute?"
To think Christmas is wasted on me now
And I lie lamenting the happiness of someone long past
My throat hurts at the effort of not just bursting out
Crying
Like a baby as I lose control
In front of my own mother
That wasn't me on that fence
The little face swinging upside-down
That was someone pure
Locked inside me
That was light on a piece of card
I don't feel
Like a person
Anymore
I'm a mish-mash
Of random
Things
I am a split second
That's almost gone
I am traits, emotions, chemicals, hormones, electricity, fear, love, friendships
Fading into a maelstrom of humanness
Mounds of recycled carbon
Made-up meaning
Lost in fog
Where I begin and end fades
Into everything and nothing
I'm the dirt in the ground
The stars in the sky
Something words can't describe

I sat with my hands
On this awkward holly leaf
Forcing its yellow-green spikes to pierce flesh

Passing my fingers
Over the points so pretend real
Peeling off each limb one by one to make it ordinary

Reading the tombstones
All lined up in morgue fashion
Imagining those souls who were one day transformed

Into stone-carved letters
Names and dates and flowers
Slowly lessening visits from moved-on people

Who try not to think
Of their own temporary selves
As ticking timebombs testing every limit until one day

I walk diagonal
Accross the road to the redness
That catches my eye filling my head with metaphors

Those church wine petals
Scent as sweet as the Eucharist
Having been inside for so long I am drunk on the sight

I am born again
Brushing against plants for contact
Suddenly noticing the life energy contained within them

The shining black  
Florescent streetlamps  
In the rain

My hair is heavy
And long and it grows over
My eyes

Look, the stream is smooth
And a mirror like the tears
That hang from the brown

Green leaves floating
And the grey perched on the wall
I'm at the edge where the river flows

Under like a fish
There's
A salmon

Hopping
On the river
Amongst a million ripples

The unanswered pleas
A fog condensed
Into crystals

They drip
To rest on her lips
And between her shining scales

Someone pushed me
Someone
I'm falling

I'm freezing
In here someone is under
The surface

It pulls
And I need
To help

Someone
A mirror
My reflection

My body at the bed
My mouth agape
I'm not awake
Anymore

Creation is in our breath
our silk noise is frozen cold
as sound fills the capped peaks
as a red bike sticks out of the snow
that covers each dead root
it cushions each robin's  fall

it hangs from branches
like blank tears, long sheets
of white paper
a fox mother guards her silver cubs
she wears a white coat when she comes
the snow is what she knows

i have not seen these hills
since she came to me
offering her eyes
that see through the clear silence
she stared, and crushed my sound
till she scampered away

the black ravens fluttered empty
the leaves echo from the skeleton
the sound echoing like a shot
our boots sinking into deep holes
his feet leave tracks on the snow
where mine have left

when I turn he is not there
i can hear the raven's wings
and our tracks lie asleep in the snow
where mine have left

when I turn he is not there
i can hear the raven's wings
and our tracks lie asleep in the snow

The waterlilies
Float above graceful Koi fish
White and cherry red
Amongst ripples cast through ponds
Of alternate dimensions

Whilst white sakura
Flow like the wind through long hair
Outside car windows
During the sunniest days
Of an endless rain season

Clouds glide across sky
Like those wet waterlilies
In search of lost time
Yearning for life in the warm
Recesses of all-being

Trust me there is no solace within these walls

Oh, angel,  if I could only tear open my heart

And find you inside

Oh angel, if I could ride on this acidic wind

Over the concrete bars and skeleton trees

High up with their planes

Back to sweet home

Back to my old life

Oh if I could turn back time...

To find my family there...

The vena cava explosion
Liquid sadness fills the emptiness
Left by the betrayal

I feel like less
Than a worthwhile person
As I hammer this final nail

Lowering my voice
As if there is some lesson
Which would render life bearable

Some snake oil remedy
Temporarily for sale
Somewhere else

I wonder
Is there is anyone able
To feel the way I do

May I somehow transfer knowledge
To you
What am I saying

Sorry
Who the **** even are you anyway
I am sorry but
Who am I talking to

*The line is dead

Loneliness is always there inside me
Black puddles on a starlit road
I stare into and see myself

My tears leave ripples in the cold water
He has his arms wrapped around her
I'm so completely worthless

Loneliness
I can't tell the difference
Between myself
And the endless nothing of the universe

To write real poetry
You have to feel something
So I'm sorry

The night air is warm as it brushes past me
Like curtains lit by lightning floating in an open window

The lost moth wanders between suns
From sun to flowering sun
Searching for home in the night

The world looks so different
From down here
Watching birds glide like grey kites
As clouds float together yet lonely
As faces in a crowd

There are gusts sometimes
When my hair is swept
From my eyes and I just feel

The cool wind pull my feet along
The sandy gravel of the path

Lamplight leaving shadows of each  tiny stone
And the branches swaying calmly
Like the blue ribbon on my notebook

A black cat prowls out of an opening
Then stops when she hears me there

And I stand like an actress as she stares
With my hair swaying like reeds
On a grey shore

My shelves stack full of books half read
Half poems I could not ring
Limp as a starfish upon this bed
As the bird's sweet chirpings sing

Through the echoing skull I've said
"Beware" for there be no mortal thing
Could tame the waters and lands of dread
Where my madness reigns as King

My heart does sink, a lump of lead
My chains to river cling
On spring's soft pillow I rest my head
To dream of other things

There's a halo in the clouds,
A rainbow that glides
With the crescent moon

The day is spent, the moments gone
I come up for air at every one
And forget the last

The moments pass
They come from where?
Someplace close but far from here
Like a song I can't quite recall

As my face rests on the fogged-up glass
Eyelids flash. A drop of rain falls
Onto my tongue, and I fall asleep
In the backseat of the car

Like an elevator I will let everybody down
I will lift you up and watch as you leave me
Cold as echoing metal,
Empty

The dark room is a matchbox
And she's a perfect match
That's why it chose her
The bodies were replaced when no one saw
Pressing against the rusted grid
Spattered with blood, The wrong hand
And through it the man came
His boots like cannons
He tore that painting in two and chewed on its soul
Losing himself in the colours


My eyelids dropped like weights
Down, down, down a hundred fathoms
And blue rushed in through the cracks
This far down the birds begin to chirp
Time stops when you watch it, a shy thing it is
But the day flies by before it even starts
Sitting up in my bed I could hear the footsteps
Felt but not seen
I cried out for him
Huddled under the covers