the metro is a dream machine,
lights pulse through dark windows;
colours stretch, tangle,
till they break, phase, fade out.
those high pitched squeals,
squeaks of wheels, wind tunnel
rush and hum of pushing against time.

gliding underground, electric eel,
growls like a metal dragon,
tail bending around corners,
weaving the bends,
hisses like a snake.
jumping out in the half second
before it exhales to a stop.

listening out for the catch, through the ordered lines
then running into familiar counter-melodies
that hit the gut like surprise meetings with old friends

pushing against the current
you write the soul’s ebb and flow of discovering
break and breakaway, meet again

figuring it out along the way, slipping back,
humble, soft vulnerability of emitting,
rolling out in music and codes interior landscapes

An emergency macaroon
on a boulevard, in March,

Because my sugar levels dropping,
mind foggy, dopamine high crashing;
because legs aching; I can’t unknot
the multi-coloured tangles this evening;
because yesterday; because I said yes; because.
Because you never said in so many words.

You say there is cloud cover
with chance of rain, but you know there
will be rain because you have a headache.
You can tell but you can’t say.

We drove past it every Thursday;
blank, bleach white walls.
Clean, block rectangular.

There was a garage
and sometimes a black car
in the driveway.

It stood out crowded by cluttered
town houses smothered in ivy,
with long grass, red brick or pebble-dashed.

Glass on the street and supermarket
bags on the path, traffic,
conventionality, routine, and teletext.

But his house stood out.
The closest vision of showbiz style
I could see with all I knew being

he grew up near here,
like me, and that must be it,
the very house where

he would live if still in this city.
Creating a myth to myself
that he was allusive but he was inside.

I’d wind down the car window
listening out for the sound of
his songs in the air,

or watch to see if anybody
opened the door, lights of cameras
in the seconds we pass the junction.

Of course, never saw him
on the Thursdays our car passed by
but knew he was very busy.

Here by the Beat Hotel near
the St Michel in a cafe with wine
I feel the hum turn to sizzle and
sparkle and overfill into my eyes
too much till they are brimming with
hope that could spill onto the table
and my heart is swelling with a
optimism and I feel it spilling
over I worry I will laugh crazy
for no reason but to release
all the glowing light inside which
is feeling far too obvious for everyone
they will think I am drunk but I have only had a sip but this
conversation is several glasses of something of energy of
fermented anger and worries
and anxieties about the world

turned into wine and we
sip the sentences we sip the
sentences and eyes clink glances
in holistic belief and hope it
is so much but you
say we are free we
are freer than this ramekin
which once held peanuts which
we nibbled between drink
and thought and you say you
can’t believe you are talking of
Sartre here and it is cliché
but the words
ripple like a song we know we
forget but when it plays
we forget we forgot and always
know we need to hear it again
we wish we could record the
feeling the sights the words the
way you say the words so
that we are filled with childlike
possibility when life weighs us
to stare at our feet.

symbol of contemporary life
packaged, preserved,
instructions on the side.

simplicity of modern day,
pop stamped symmetrical;
hunter gatherer.

collect them into rows
italian chopped tomatoes
best before date, barcode.

tin can still bites,
like bramble thorns,
to repel against harvest.

boxed up comfortable living
adding edge to expectancy
countering convenience.

breathing the turquoise like lavender,
and sipping the blue summer.
bitter cold clouds glide and morph lava lather,
floating whispers cut by sweet pineapple sunshine.

soon, a moment, now
rhythms ripple the sky like skipping stones
we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.

cobalt bass rumbles the earth hungry,
pumps the air with springing spirals
pushing and pulling the senses,
reverberating through cells.

heavy mud humming, stomping
echoes through our atoms dizzy;
balancing tuned body to innate electricity
the fizz of circulating lemonade energy.

we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.

strawberry melodies spilling ribbons,
dolphin leaps of the spaces inbetween beats,
lines of colours overlapping,
colliding, mixing, merging, blending
in with the forest.

washing over souls the life fire sparkles
like a clear water cleansing harmonies,
sound waves crashing against inertia.
phosphorescent glow of re-charged love
for the world, for being, animation

flowing through burnt smoky ashes
of sapphire charcoal skies;
dimmed radiation of chlorophyll emerald days.
the smell of salt, dry bark, fluffy carbon mists,
trembling lights softening the eyes'
grip on outlines, loosening lies.

watching the cycles of patterns
tumbling colours through a mill rotating,
and the silence of listening
when the music comes to an end.