I woke up from a nightmare
I could not stand to keep
to myself

you were stretched across the couch
coffee going cold on the table
a half finished cigarette
still burning

you wrapped me up
in kind words that
I could not bare
to hear

whispered into my ear
"one day we will go wandering
and this tiny house will overspill
with dreams'

you are not your memories, darling
you are not the bad things
that have been done to you
you are a fierce flame
that warms my heart

forget them, my love
they are nothing
and you, and you
are everything

--To C. M.


Fountains that frisk and sprinkle
The moss they overspill;
Pools that the breezes crinkle;
The wheel beside the mill,
With its wet, weedy frill;
Wind-shadows in the wheat;
A water-cart in the street;
The fringe of foam that girds
An islet's ferneries;
A green sky's minor thirds--
To live, I think of these!

Of ice and glass the ******,
Pellucid, silver-shrill;
Peaches without a wrinkle;
Cherries and snow at will,
From china bowls that fill
The senses with a sweet
Incuriousness of heat;
A melon's dripping sherds;
Cream-clotted strawberries;
Dusk dairies set with curds--
To live, I think of these!

Vale-lily and periwinkle;
Wet stone-crop on the sill;
The look of leaves a-twinkle
With windlets clear and still;
The feel of a forest rill
That wimples fresh and fleet
About one's naked feet;
The muzzles of drinking herds;
Lush flags and bulrushes;
The chirp of rain-bound birds--
To live, I think of these!

Envoy

Dark aisles, new packs of cards,
Mermaidens' tails, cool swards,
Dawn dews and starlit seas,
White marbles, whiter words--
To live, I think of these!

A thin white dust of snow littered the concrete path like an overspill of Styrofoam *****. Summer had her hands buried deep into the lining of her coat pockets and her chin pressed tightly within her pashmina scarf. It was the first bite of wind she’d felt in a while. She had been holed up with her friends for several days and the concept of loneliness was already foreign to her, much in the same way as privacy. She could feel the cheap red wine rust in her veins as her body told her “too much” and in truth she was ready for the crackle of vinyl and the promise of fresh sheets and a shower. The week had been fun, she guessed, she’d certainly felt closer to her friends than ever before, even though they all went back for as far as it was worth remembering.  ‘She guessed’. She’d been guessing for a while now, living in absences with everything held at an emotionless distance – whether or not this was deliberate she could not decide.
It wasn’t a particularly long walk back to her house, enough to take the bus - but she guessed she wanted the walk. The cold air made her eyes glassy and occasionally she had to blink furiously to catch the water forming along her lids. The din of distant inner city traffic consumed the airwaves around her but the path that lay ahead of her was surrounded by parkland, and within eyeshot there was a lazy brook where children would often be seen playing, though they’d be at school at this time of day. She guessed. She wasn’t quite sure of the time, but she knew it was the 15th of February. She couldn’t always be sure of what year it was though, her head was often stuck back in the 1960’s, before she was even born.
Summer could feel the claustrophobia of youthfulness shedding from her every angle and with every insipid step she took, the world took on a more familiar feeling and she took her first real breath of air for days. From out of nowhere she felt overwhelmed at the breathless ease of the faint snowfall and the slate grey of the sky. The clench in her stomach – Summer often found herself weeping for no real reason, and she could never quite work out whether she would be weeping for beauty, or for sorrow…she guessed that there was some compromise between the two. All she knew is that she was very sorry when she reached her front door that her walk was over and that she must again disappear into the walls.
The heating had been off for almost an entire week now and Summer could hear the house groan into action as the radiators cracked back into life, and she felt much the same. The kettle jittered on the spot as the water steamed and bubbled welcomingly and soon the kitchen was greeted with the smell of tea. Summer retreated to her room upstairs. A wide room with white walls meant that it was often brighter than the world outside and it often appeared to unadjusted eyes to have a ghostly glow about it. Summer thumbed through her proud collection of second-hand LP records until she settled on listening through Pink Moon for what was now an uncountable time. “Saw it written and I saw it say, pink moon is on its way”. She let out an exhausted but contented smile and fell onto her bed. The sheets were cold from privation of use but the coolness on her cheek was welcome and she closed her eyes and imagined she was still outside on an effortless walk, with the sounds of Nick Drake overpowering that of the exhausts of one thousand cars.
After several moments of another world, she reluctantly sat back up and began to take off her clothes to get a little bit more comfortable. It felt good to get out of her clothes, she’d only meant to stay for one night so she had not been able to change her clothes for days and she’d appreciated the idea of clean underwear in a way she never considered worth noticing before. She unclasped her bra and felt it fall clumsily to the floor and just sat there for a moment, bare-breasted in the pearl white of the chilly room. She couldn’t help but feel like an illustration, of pastels or watercolours. Her mind was still a convoluted collage of the past few day’s events – the haze of alcohol and **** still occupied a small corner of her being, despite the cleansing walk and the wonderful clunk of a familiar guitar bouncing across her walls. Her ******* were hard from the cold so she threw on an extra large male t-shirt that fell to just below her upper thigh.
She slid off her skirt and underwear, which fell limp at her pale thin ankles. Looking at her thighs, she could still make out the small thumb-sized bruises scattered across them from the distant and removed *** she’d had at some point last week. At least she guessed, it could have happened back in the 60’s for all she knew. It felt as if the past week was not real, a familiar feeling. She was almost certain that man who had shared her bed did not really exist and her bruises contested her own existence. At least that’s how it felt.
She turned over the vinyl and remembering her tea, slid between the covers and warmed her hands against the steaming ceramic. The tea was perhaps the most wonderful and delicious thing she had ever tasted and she felt it nourish her metaphysically. In a way beyond words, she felt herself heal with the rush of warm past her lips and the sweetness on her tongue. The room was slowly warming as she skimmed her legs back and forth against the mattress in complete comfort. Once the last of her tea had been drunk, she let the empty mug rest on the bedside counter and almost immediately fell into a dreamless sleep.

Unwanted words
keep spilling from my mouth
and I can't escape them.
They cling to my surface,
twisting and seething
every time I reach
my pathetic hands
towards you.
Why did I even bother?
I knew from the start
that I was destined
to fail,
that there was nothing
worth dwelling upon
in my cold blue eyes
and numb, emotionless
smile. You
were my youth,
my everything,
but you were gone before I had you.
You're a wingless bird
flying further,
further away from me,
the beginning of summer
in the middle of a blizzard.

Choose your satirical weapon of choice,
Draw a three-dimensional box and conceal the hidden within a two-dimensional sphere,
Needle-point holes squeeze tightly, a misty spray like that of a busted soda-pop can,
The knowledge leaks consistently into the universe, morphing tear droplets into The Great Lakes,
These ten toes hover and glance over the edge, zoning prints like words in a descending motion,
A touch of the shoulder from a folded palm gently comforting and confirming life above this Earth,
A speedy squeeze of all five joints, now on my knees, the gravel latches onto my scabs, pushing and pounding through the pain,
Molars grind, tongue-dried, salty saliva salvaged, yet sitting silently on a secretive cold-sore,
The knowledge is flooding the dam gates, burying ankles in piercing hot grains of sand, diving into a castle's moat, a rush like traffic on a Friday evening,
The world seeps into the depths of my transparent drain,
The seepage creeps slowly downwards into a mental shaft constructed purposely for psychological phenomenon,
I worry there may be excessive overspill of rescued reality,
An unopened present, the anticipation and expectation as a child dreams,
As the gaps and cracks expand, I am able to touch base with memories as they pour outwards like a dog's busted territorial marker, a firefighter's ammunition,
Extinguish the forrest fire,
Paint the canvas gently with a spin of the color wheel,
Play the part of a lonely plumber,
Plug every hole.

just look at her,
she wears the love she receives
it's overflowing, and she has no idea
where it should go
the overspill of others generosity
onto her, the air around her
charged and
here i sit,
here i sit,
should i dare say
that i find myself comparing?
the love you wear,
and the love i hold
are not two in the same
you walk around this town
like you have nowhere to go,
if i told you i could tell,
would you turn your head
in denial?
and if you lost it,
would you do anything...
anything at all,
to get it back into
your undeserving hands?

Sometimes, tides behind teeth get stuck
as if the moon, distracted,
looses its inexorable pull

then all the weight of water
sits stagnant
while each pescatarian thought
from the zipping, inconsequential minnow
to the ponderous whale bulk
sulks, sick and stuck

If you see these green gills,
or the overspill in the eyes of those
you know
maybe sit awhile, harbour side
and cast a line or two

The warp of time,
a memory so refined
and pigmented
that it sits naked

and parboiled;
cradled in your mind.
My baby, you cry
‘oh, what is this division

that has cast us so apart?’
Time. Time and tremors
and the absence of lusture
in our lives.

I kiss the scars of our past.

The heady punch of whiskey,
and the overspill
from your father’s ice machine.
I remember it well.

And, my friend;
the cigarettes in the park,
the first time we split
and cut school together.

I remember it well.

Sat cross-legged
in the supermarket aisles
or else
mistaken for lovers

by the strangers on the streets.
Half-right and half-witted
we fell into the role
with a bumbling

grace. Bless yourself
with the compliments
you know I have for you.
Remember them well

whilst I kiss the scars of our past.

As dawn faded to dusk
I watched shadows
Slide under the walls
Leaving me completely alone
And the moon forlornly
Gazed down                    
To where its golden light
Failed to shine
So I found solace in the rain
That raced down to greet me
Drowning out
The noise of my thumping heart
That pumped faster
In spite of the pain
Threatening to overspill
Or maybe it did
That's why the moon
Became blood red
And despite being full
It too
Was empty
Hollow like a burning lantern
Just like me •

When I was a child,
I only slept once in awhile.
I would always be too scared
that the monsters would be there.
Now I lay awake at night in bed,
but the scary monsters don't live in the closet anymore,
they live inside my head instead
and they're not just folklore.
All the monsters became voices
that fill and overspill in my mind
telling me I made the wrong choices,
and then sleep, I rarely find.

The shadows don't make me scream,
they don't have faces like they used to.
It's different now, even when I dream,
I'm not afraid of the things I used to,
so instead of boogeyman and sandman,
I have nightmares about being alone,
about death, about memories that can
start the tears, and turn me to stone.

Paralyzed in fear still; much the same,
but there is no mommy to run to when you're 25,
and these monsters play a stronger game,
because 24/7, they are alive
and they know me, inside out,
leeching onto every insecurity,
keeping me awake with voices about
how I'll never be free from me.

It's so much more terrifying now.

Yesterday I wrote my thoughts
with the overspill of red wine, and,
bandaids that fell from my cracked finger tips.
I wrote the words I hated saying,
I wrote the words I said too often,
I wrote what you said when your lips bled.

Your lips bled eight times that night;
your lips bleed when you lie.
I watched you scrape tobacco from
under your nails.
I watched you melt away like a candle wick.

Yesterday I wrote my thoughts.
I cut my hair with razor blades, and,
painted my lips that color you hate.
I burned my favorite photo of you,
I burned the tips of my fingers on the candle,
I burned the dinner I had on the stove.

Yesterday I spilled wine on the couch,
I wrapped my fingers in band-aids,
and I wrote.
I wrote about how your lips bled,
and bled.
But I won't write about that tomorrow.

The softness of you
Easing my worries
Caressing through me, to me

belonging to you
Heart and soul
Journeys different but destinations one

Letting go
But hopeful still
Momentous memories come to mind and overspill

The All knowing God guiding us to our truth
Belonging to ourselves
soulful journeys our only truth

Gone but never forgotten
Connected always
That's the ultimate truth

Through this old city to fly
to look down and weep from
on high
at the poverty stricken who kick at the doors of cathedrals and food banks
at those who just want to get by,

at those who give thanks to an imaginary creator
at the makers of myths.

On the magazine racks girls on their backs, men with no briefs on, how long does this go on and who really cares?

and it's the pharmaceutical industry that made this machinery and we are being ordered to take two pills of lethargy
four times a day.

Intifada?
it's
harder to break chains than make them.

Filling up land with the landfill and the overspill's dumped far out to sea,

bring it on home to me that we as society are solely to blame.

'I came
I saw...'
swear I'll never
go there again

cross my heart and hope to die
which I probably will
at the end.

here i am,
once again,
knocking at the door
of adventure,
curious to know
what kind of love
awaits for me,
just to have it
collapse and
shatter all over
my heart, my mind,
my thoughts,
so my words
overspill
and my trust in
myself becomes extinct.

Morrow, morrow, city of dreams
Turpentine, slowly sifting
Invades here in sashes of silk
Sounds through bone, bone
Fluid, lures the brain:
It follows coy, curious
Shuffling its thoughts, like one
With fingers, like you
with seasons— blue, and then bold—

The crows shift on the wall
Linseed a moment, and then acetone
I can only overhang and see
The stretches of the city
Forever overspill, overkill— overt
And covert— sounding through
Its buz-busses and snorts; crickets,
Cats, night, white, night
An ox-y-mo-ron, you
Are an orchestra, a tryst

Sweet mo-no-to-ny, a
Platform in a plaza
A plaque on a platform in a plaza
I ransack the dictionary in search of you
The road to lead to the relic of you—
Feed the retrospect’s imagery away
Then the crows look at me
Like I killed their maa
Lit up a June solstice in the beautiful light
Pollution and sound pollution, you
Are homecoming, I say
I say, nothing blinds like home, I say
And I cough the air out like a slang
Your city is ****, a skullduggery
To last the brazen evening
And sag by the night, you are slant
Static, ruthless to the stone come for moss
A slap on the face
Of my sentimentality
How I love to draw you: this way,
This, however I like, since you
Are sightless like a TV, hive of bee
You jig like rain, like sun, woe to me
Like sen-su-a-lity
A satin city, itty bitty pretty
Silly, let me study!

Say Amen, preacher man say, you gonna know,
some day, amen,
I said, amen,

O yeah, doncha know, what would you do, were you,
actual Eve, in all probability, would you
have any clue,
no-of course not, not in this course of human events.
why you… no, we know, we
all know, the feeling, when we, as a we, learn
the universe is not just about
us, it seems to work, within and to the edges
with out us, right,
- no matter whatcha call it,
- fruitless, in dire need of upgrade,
- yet the first fear, below the fifth rib- coded node
- he sees us he just does not know
- what he is hung from…
upto now, we conceive this global fabulous realm,
make believe,
magi-techne writhing giant serpents behind
a Dancing Queen
who shot Fernando, for his escapade with the milkmaid.

On the way home,
from Waterloo.

Waterloo,
Victor Hugo's version, where the Cavalry, top the hill

to find the road cut through the mound from ever before/
Horrible sight, in its proper context,
we may imagine never seeing
something living in words

alone, and waiting, eh, idea ideal virus services moral support ee
as many ees as you need, m, too.
we in the realm of words, mere
at the base, bottom level of all,

profound down-ness, black hole in the middle
per haps, we agree, sixteen wpm passes,
may haps, future brings a present tense,

word processing system, global, via Star Link,
wow, we coulda been rich, had we known,

John Hine, knew, yeh, the collector of cowboy art,
eccentric in the extreme, right, I know, kind
sees value in futures others doubt, to death,
1998
u-turns, rewinds, living in my time, I am what one
of my kind is in a we this big, more than one,
- audience amen, that was when
you did it, tipping point, the overspill,
natural, as if the jungle all functions, with no code.

We know better, remember,
that kid with the fringes, and ringlets, no racism, no
this is not that, this is recording the event
in case there was prayer involved,
a pivotal event may corroborate a corobberrie or
something, Mauri peruperu, ya, same idea,

war for whatsoever reason each of us agrees,
this is the pledge,
to the republic, we send word, stand fast,
polis-policean wannacracker, good luck,

peace has never made war last longer.
Smoke'em if you got 'em

- real tired of things just ending

He became a reason of many.
A reason to laugh,
A reason to love,
A reason to be.
With every doubt I ever had,
It was like a cold wash of rain,
Wiping away any negativity that creeped upon me.
There was a wholeness about him,
The calm in the word safety,
A steadiness in the way he talks,
It became an overspill of excitement,
Much like the tide on a sunny day.
He reminded me of cold drives with all of the windows down,
The sound of an acoustic guitar when being plucked,
Drunken laughs and soft whispers of delicate words shared between breathless kisses,
Quiet hums in the still of an empty house.
He became my reason,
He became my home.

When trust and friendship have been betrayed,
And harsh words spill from an unkind face,
I'll find you, no matter where you have strayed
And guide you to a happier place

Don't despair should darkness surround you,
I'll venture forth, searching day and night,
Though deep are the shadows all around you,
I'll find you and bring you to the light

Should tempting arms offer their embrace,
But the love you find there prove untrue,
I'll find you and kiss away every trace
Of your pain ..... then we can start anew

When you're drifting on an endless sea
Like a wave that cannot find the shore,
I'll find you and restore the harmony
That you found in my arms once before

Go where you must and do what you will,
Leave my love and blessings behind you;
But when your heart cries and tears overspill,
You know I'll not rest 'til I find you

We like to share but some times too much,
On where we went,
What we spent,
Or a flat to live with slightly cheaper rent,
But sharing is caring you say so lets just carry on...

We love your guile, your championing and thrills,
But sometimes its just overspill,
I believe the actual word is overkill,
So please just finish up and pay the ******* bill.

Yes its funny that you dressed as a dinosaur to complete some race,
And the next you dressed as a man with a tache on your face,
Is there nothing you won't do or lovingly embrace?
Except tell the whole wide world and give it a daily break.

But you don't hear a tune that is a never ending song,
So please just stop as it goes on too long,
We love what you do as of which there is nothing wrong...

Some think that it is pleasure and slightly sadistic,
And tomorrows post will be similar as we all predicted,
Because you are what you are,
a new phase of need gulping that new food of feed,
You are whats now known as,

Socially Addicted.

JJB

jobs to potter about the garden
at ones own pace
and natures rewards overspill
all we ever knew
reconnecting the child to wonders lost
and now found.

There's a tent city bent on springing up,
(who remembers the one at Waterloo?)
and
it'll fill with folk because
joke or not
this housing policy is what we've got,

the overspill, and that's a term to conjure with
won't go away, won't give up and so
they stay where they can,
( some with dreams in a can)
(some with dreams in a syringe)
some of you cringe
and?

most try to do what is best
while they wait
for a place on the waiting list
for the council estate.