Wipe your shoes first before coming in
And keep them in the hall

So if leaving, there won't be footprints
No mess left behind at all

So if you leave, no trace left on my skin
No drama for us to recall.

If I could,
I would call upon you
and tell you that the reasons why you are beautiful

As yellow meets black, turns night
                  We gaze in wonder at the city beneath the heath

As amber leaves branches, fall ever near
                  We crunch and repeat with our feet to the beat

As cracked hands cup coffee in shelter
                  We nod flick leftover shrapnel to them.

As wisened minds, ask us for guidance
                  We bravely seek to give the help they crave.

I would remind you that this is why life’s worth living.

I will conquer the world for you, my dear.

I am worth that laughter, that comes from within,
The kind of *** that’s bruised lips, and tender skin,
I maybe the bottom of an empty glass,
But I am not the bottom of anything.

I will not always be kind, I will be the bark that bites.
Sometimes I'm shy, I ask you to have patience to realise
May I find the strength to let it pass
Never having to apologise.

No-one knows how fragile you are until you dance in the rain.

I remember when
We kissed goodbye to dutch courage.
After we tasted salt of your ocean blue
In the cracks of our tears.
Before I snatched visions of our future
From the hand you refused to let go.

There is always warmth in the house I call home.

If you look close enough, there are children running around, wide-eyed, and free.
If you look close enough, there’s a glimpse of a boy idolizing his family, sitting in a tree.

Someday, I’ll create my own warmth and call it home…

This year I learned that beaches and oceans will always make you smile,
                                                     No matter the pains of being pure at heart

Normal is just a setting on the dryer.

There’s only so close to the edge you can stand until you fall off.
There’s only so much you can conceal with a smoke, a shrug, and a cough.

But if there's a god, he sure loves a trier.

The chimneys sighed;
A silent suicide

Nearby cemetery - familiar
To villagers
Enslaved to the wage
Engraved to the plague

Green, green grass of home
Rolling Downs goes on and on
Behind the place, I call home.

Home knows nothing
Rotting 4th July bunting
Is so grostesque
A papermill not that picturesque

Distant ships
Dockyard mist
Churchyard steeples
Choir of the working people
Amongst tenements, needles
Clocking their hours
Drinking their giro

A class of our own
A class we were born

For a future by the clocktower.

I used to watch the silver rain fall
On Sundays whilst listening to The National.
My breath would form fogged circles,
On cold windows, arching over a suburban view.

I watch your eyes move
Make plans behind ice irises
And beautiful though the April sun is
It scratches in dry heat

My tentative plans forming
Concrete ambition
My dreams melt into one
Mind ticking rapidly
In midday sun

So I don't really know where I'll be
                                       This time next year...

Do not go gently into the night,
Do not tell me what I can’t,
For I’m like fire.

I will rise again...

I know what it's like watching the city burn
Laugh in tears when you’re simply hurt
You do not have the strength to get out of bed
It's ok as you can set the world alight instead

But darling trust me
The world is full of cowards
You have survived the worst
You just don’t even know it yet

Watch the city burn to the ground
Ashes to ashes, it all falls down
I’ll sit beside you whilst you howl

I just want to be on the cliff at Tintagel
Looking to the castle, & Merlin's cave.
Or Bigbury beach, on the sea tractor.
Or hanging off a rock at Peak District
Or hanging off a tree in Holborough

Maybe further afield than England,
Coffee with her at Montmartre
Or hiking in the regions of Inca
And bathing in coves of Costa Rica
Or climbing pyramids of Cancun

A list of things to do once lockdown ends

I don’t dwell on the whiskey burn 
Or on lager-foamed lips
Rouge lipstick mark hints

Of a bruise to form and swell
You say you remember it well

Of me doe-eyed, above the glass
That captured a moment passed

Sleuth youths with young lungs

Huff up Villier’s smoke - so cool
Smirking, as we watch the girls
In vintage skirts, they coyly twirl
With kindling eyes and Gordon’s wine
In shy reply.

Echoes of the night before
Slowly fade in violet hours.
What’s so inviting under Arches
Now clatters back to the Strand,
Away from Embankment
And stolen midnight kisses.

So to remove a part of me

Is to remove a world of Pride.
A journey not yet run its course,
A journey not at its hearse
;
For if it is not alright
,
Then it is not yet the end.

Without due care I flick the end
Towards the river well
.
It roars and sighs,
By the ‘friar,

Past the Tower,
And Shadwell,
All through Rotherhithe.

It’s not the end, it’s not the end
.
For we go on and on
Just like the Thames.