caught

Hold my heart in your teeth.
I wake up shaking.
The heat of your name.
The weight of it the same.
The world has laid down sticks,
and leaves, to make me fall again.
again, again.
The wind up as I catch my breath,
and call you back.
Attack, defend, attack.
The breadth of it has cordoned me.
A hiding hold.
To bury me.
Another vampire.
Deep down.
At the bottom of the sea.
Sustained by magic.
Contained and tragic.
Sailing by attrition.
No more drawn breath.
No turning back.
I held my hands.
My knuckles cracked.
I cried for all the love I lack.

necks

separate,
a severance,

the severity,
has elegance,

I dare not look,
at the thing that hangs,

with its neck,
it bled below,

and above,
are row after row,

so on the cycle goes,
the hanging of the guinea fowl
the limp and lifeless doe.

never

trying to list my memories in order of preference,
knowing sad heaps of them are lost,
I have written your name on the backs of countless receipts,
waded through the misdirection of your words,
sat alone behind a screen, remembering, remembering,
you weigh so heavy, more and more lately,
given credence by the distances of time,
holding up my elements, aside from myself,
a half read novel, the contents of my pockets,
fuse failed rockets to the moon.

mess

i bit my tongue before it could reel in sympathy,
proclaiming grand tragedy, lame lamb sighs,
crying into your cable knit sweater,
lying spread eagle on your floor,
propping it shut, head jamming the door,
we are subjective recluses,
on our exclusive grand tour,
I'll block out the others,
I'll tell you much more,
more than the sadness I told you before,
I'll bleed out your sympathy from my bed on the floor.

http://inc-zine.blogspot.com/

I recently read at the launch for issue 4 of inc. magazine. A wonderful Poetry and Illustration zine I was lucky enough to be published in. Below is a poem of mine that was featured I advise you buy a copy so you can see all of the other poems and illustrations, for only £4 with p&p its really a lovely thing.

Towed here in the milk light of grey morning,
something between us ebbing out,
trying to clutch up the wet sand as it sweeps to nothing,
becoming some uncertain solution,
life it seems, is a dilution,
a drafted letter to a love thought lost,
a bottle of unassigned ink,
cast blindly,
the hand set to poisoning the wild sea,
as old ideas are cast free.

I see the great divide,
between our past and your future,
and my pen bleeding out,
into an abyss of burnt out conversations,
the hold I had,
no longer there,
though I hold your hand,
it is like wet sand.

winter worn

winter worn, deep in your head behind the tears in your eyes,
a holding gate, casting shadows on the dead,
 the sheets, the walls, our eyelids, are lined like paper,
guiding hands, landing strips, leading questions,
the sorrow of bland sanity has struck me to my bed,
remedy oh remedy, send sweet pilgrims to my soul,
please I need the charms of love to realign my head,
the time at least to understand the things you've said,
the last words, the first, all the lists of good and bad,
live wires now dead.

there

there is a perfect person pawing at your heart,
there is a starting pistol shooting you into a padded cell,
there is heat, and soft wet darkness, ready to wrap up the night in foil,
there is a bitter inflection, abating my whole hearted flinging of my whole hot heart,
there is a fleck of blood on your lower lip,
there are three whole sentences from our conversation I can not recollect,
there is a point at which we are no longer reconcilable,
there is a person I remember whom I love with three quarters of my heart,
there is a house somewhere in my home town where I live happily with that person,
there are countless mediocre dimensions,
there is one where I am there for you,
there is one where everything I say shakes you,
there is one where everthing I do hurts you,
there is one where I am pawing at your heart, trying to wake you,
there is one where I am breaking you out of a padded cell,
there, there are people cheering our names.

...

I can’t remember the gold glint that caught us here, 

I hollowed myself, to be here,

leapt at the chance to carry on,

heaped on spoon after spoon,

the night of the night, darker,

richer depth, colder heart,

sewn together forever,

irrevocable, intangibly,

ever begetting

tide

Well good riddance, good night,
good luck, lucky one, held on to my pockets,
as the wood creaked, we were too much burden,
so uncertain, brains divided like curtains,
drawing rings with pebbles,
perfect circles scattered at random,
cutting up our reflection,
choking up in front of the mirror,
floating further, down a river,
charms tied with thin string,
you are a moon,
I am a boat,
you say the word,
you tell me where to float.

Recital

brightly breathing, lungs of astronauts, swimmers, princes and thieves,

plucked hairs from golden geese, hen pecking mothers, fighting, 

the air is crisp with lightning, lockets that depict our once fair ancestors, 

hanging nonchalant, bragging genetics, like hen pecking mothers,

fighting to be at the front, sitting tall and proud, worshipping,

some sprat or another, each mum as gleeful as the other,

with their glasses emptied after supper, thin silver chains,

cold against collarbones, then out into the rain, 

to tear up at the sight of something simple once again. 

held together

I stumbled right into your pretty face, 

crumpled up, but held in place, 

a barking dog, a cold drink to taste,

bad water running upstream, 

bad collateral, indebted and penniless, 

hatching schemes from double yolk eggs, 

running miles on club feet and broke legs, 

you held up shards of shell, 

you put pins in my joints, 

like moth wings behind glass, 

secured along a fixed path, 

now I’m trained, now I’m happy, 

I can see through the opening in my cone, 

I can’t eat the stitches on my legs, 

I could, I can’t, but my god I’m in love. 

everywhere

pitter patter goes my heart, cracks like an egg,
 yolk everywhere everywhere everywhere, 

heard chatter in the dark, you circling like a shark,
 skirting around everything everything, 

tomorrow you will be straight forward,
 hate notes sent remotely, you are everywhere,

sweet hot nothing breaks like a wave,
 there is a certain finality, like a dead end, 

streets leading nowhere, nothing isn't a place worth knowing,
I'm full to the brim and 

overflowing,
literally pooling around you,
tearful, teetering, punch drunk and stuttering, 

remember it please, was it a different face,
 was it a different serious of accidents, 

we've led each other here,
 to the back of some cave,
all tucked up, all folded in.

etching

Bring back the bargaining,
the bitter pleas for attention,
the gravel in my lungs,
the disheartening,
the bitter lips,
 sympathetic clucking tones,
burnt out horizons far ahead of us,
 etched in,
a permanent plate in my head.

d. d. d. d. d

there are lives unfolding under our breath,
 burnt out wicks from candles, stubbed impulses,
crumbs spilling out onto jumpers, hearts penned up in idioms,
brains wracked for synonyms, madness clasping our hands,
 tender hands, calm, gently suggestive, innuendo sustained,
much longer than any thought could be trained,
 heat seeking missiles wrapped up on themselves,
tail chasers and cross faders.

authority

the low grasp clipped,
 vowels and subtlety howls
 through edgeless pages
 infinite stages
raspy tell tales
 and tall men
with dipped heads,
lead boots
and silver tongues
 massaging themselves
through tight spaces
and up elevator shafts,
into swank apartments,
 into private compartments,
into silences
so weighted
that they grasp all of the lightness of your lungs,
 in a handshake.

futures

the minute ticks over and there are a whole new set of birthdays,
a wave of newborn babies, north facing, brave hearts racing,
tables set up in dust bowls, ready to be weather worn,
balsa wood and running wet rust.

banquet

in love with ideas, with love, with crying,
 with tears and tears
and baskets down river, up stream, full of futures,
corruptible fallacies,
 lying next to cold bodies,
crafting hollow shells out of oak cabinets,
 in love with the sight of a mud slide
that i'm in the direct path of,
 sumptuous banquets at my wake,
 sweetly made promises of an end
promises made to myself
in the cold arms of the night,
sweet promises of ghost written novels
 and sell out shows.
as this all slips and comes to blows.

Hero

I coughed an insult into my hand and,
all of the shivers came running out of their hides,
a water birth in a bath with no curtain,
the privacy, the person, the mercy mislaid,
some continent is calling for new blood,
and the motherland is bleeding out red.

sweat

All of the old parables are bleeding out of my nose,

and i'm pulling up my britches but i'm standing on my toes,

while we've cleaned out our old sofa, we set fire to the throw.

Flaking like chocolate frozen and supreme, its raining forked lightening

and I'm swimming upstream,

I've been sold old ideas, i've been told to go,

i'm lithe and i'm wily but i'm tired and i'm slow.

lady

standing on tip toes, atop dry ice glaciers that dip,

sinking almost half below, the rigmarole,

teetering,

like the parable of Marilyn Monroe,

pirouetting neatly, lost completely.

chest

I could fill you up with empty promises, hot air to flush faces,
bright sparks from broken matches, burnt out, stubbed out cigarettes,
hung heads, broken hearts and course, spat regrets, no I regret nothing,
I fret nothing, back and forth, pacing rooms and reaching into letter boxes,
desperate reclamation of misspelt, unintended intentions,
fretting up and down in patterns, unguided raw invention,
I dreamt I saw you, cried because you weren't there and did nothing,
it kills me.

there are hoards of burning furies 

in the back of our minds,

 tides abated by hung juries,

 wasting time, 

like a fly kept from beer 

by a stuffed wedge of lime.

laces

we pay gratuity to each other,

for our failings, baffled and falling all about each other,

falling into each other, loping about like bunnies,

tying ourselves through ourselves, like laces, 

offering ourselves up for rat races,

struggling to interpret sad faces, 

falling off like flies, 

flitting about the sky like martyred souls,

careless now the route has reached the cause, 

we pay gratuity on our own mistakes, 

lose the stubs of won bets, 

run around in circles, 

like caged chipmunks,

crazed eyes, white lies, 

the bed cries to me, 

roast chickens burn bright through brick walls, 

we pay for it later, 

when we’re lost, ten miles on, 

dead legs,

running on the dregs,

as all of our ill intentioned meanderings,

add up, 

and we pay for it. 

wits end

all flexed up like an alley cat,

 hot head, dead dreams 

an eye glinting gold and a head turning black, 

 flipped a coin ran two blocks and turned back. 

 no opening up of thoughts, 

a head full of collapsed chairs with broken latches.

a fish in a bowl, a fly in a jar, a sprinter running laps.

Rinse lather repeat, good clean living and all that.  

mardy

At times I overlook myself, and when it all catches up,

it crisps up in the back of my eyes, it clicks into view,

the misdirection of so many encounters, the built up frustrations,

of so many misunderstood conversations, so many misheard mumblings,

as though i’ve been tumbling, and it catches up to me,

and I catch my self, I overhear grumblings, to some unknowing stranger,

some unguarded transparency, waves that crest, threaten to break,

peaks that amount to nothing, and I catch myself blushing.

ceremony

backing down from some memory of children crowned,

the grinning carnival of Christ the king.

piercing orange flesh, making excuses,

running in circles maniacally,

crisp drum beats, lunch time bells,

clapping joylessly, singing melody,

nostrils flared to breath in synonyms for God.

fossil fuels

you cannot just skim the cream,

off into some separate dream,

collect the run off of my outbursts,

in tea cups, catching the drops.

there is nothing to reanimate,

recycle, reassign. there is ruin,

there is rot, and i'd thought I'd better tell you,

as it seemed like you'd forgot.

long

so damn long since I swirled in the palm,

with complements that pirouette and trip over each other,

cut the lights in my head like a trip switch,

so i'm left in the dark, downstairs, none the wiser.

lost

There is something sapping at the seems,
blinking blindly behind the scenes, groping for the greens,
fistfuls of dollars and lint, all smoked up after unknowable dreams,
platitudinous looks of longing, out into confused futures,
out over acres and acres and acres of nothingy farm land,
where they see themselves wrongly standing
and wringing the necks of chickens for hope, and for dignity,
with ironically soft hands,
 from no work,
and some of them with hard hands
 from work sites
and meeting over the table of hopelessness,
stabbing the gaps between their fingers,
 dignity smoking itself under the table,
trying to forget something,
forgetting it,
wracking brains to remember.

caught up in forgetting

There will come a time when we are relieved of duty,

allowed to see that we have been caught up blind in a rainbow,

we will collect all of these moments, fill our basements with ghosts,

we are gorged on them, they will clog our sinks with thick chunks,

the colours have blended to the point that we can't remember,

if green came before red or whatever, where did all this light come from,

where am I, and why? we forget that we're forgetting, our vision tightened to a spot.

cut

feels good to be free of all that gummed up paper,

amazing how the lava sets, suddenly all that rushing red is rough,

all that new wrought iron, is waste, is rust...

but then I cut some old cord,

some minor albatross,

and

I feel light, I feel limber,

like heavy timber floating down stream,

all of that gravity melted,

as I float like a bohemian...

shit happens, but when it happens,

there are ways, there are means.

moving house

little bits of the wall paper come off in my hand,

little fragments, rivets, screws, tumbling towers of dice,

vacuum up the crumbs because thats how ya get mice,

my god this world is sea and sand, sifting the pieces of it

through my hand, tumbling towers of dice.

I'm walking through decades at a time, blinking away whole days,

my god, what a way to live, sitting pretty.

life gets better, you get a new toaster, I get some more space,

a jumble sale, a car boot sale, a little rain, a little hail,

in July? but mneh March was like really hot,

be thankful for the silver lining, you can't unget what you got,

the atrophy is coming, so just try and stop the rot.

on a spit

life is a breathtaking blow,

extinguishing wishes on a cake,

heart stopping lowing croaks,

twisting to the beat pointlessly,

sitting here sweating teeth, glancing down.

because love is like rain on fish scales.

THIEF!

This was a conscientious theft,

chalk blown on lasers,

a clear path to swag,

you walked along the wall,

clear around my peripheral,

lifted a heart clear above your head,

and walked out.

oh me!?

crest fallen as a cracked chest,

deflated, lonely and left,

under duress, over reached,

stretched,

..I got caught out....

flooding the mountain tops

sparkling pillars of free flowing nothing,

tumbling out of all the words you swore to me,

you swore to me? what a battle.

I'm on the range and rattled,

refusing my saddle,

but can't you see?

you could flood this whole town,

I saw it in a grainy film,

where all the world was broken down,

where mice and mops and wizards almost drown.

flat

the dull din as it sinks in,

there is nowhere left to delve,

no more memories to shelve,

readied for the next time,

when quiet recollection,

floods back, old revelations,

new light on old situations.

no, there is nothing more to know,

we are burnt out and broken,

what a blow.

cloy teeth in the morning,

a night of receipts drowned to mulch.

boarding glued fast under foot,

a rat gnawing its ankles.

the half seeing eye,

of my chain mail memory,

covering my thoughts like a veil,

i'm protected by careful selection.

work

In the morning,

all of the flooding thoughts

that beat down on me

and sweat out of my pours,

will be as distant as some

blearily viewed love, across a table.

Like light flickered out, drowned

at sunrise. A desk lamp left on, becomes obsolete,

and the thoughts that were wearily

conceived, in its gaze are forgotten,

and the broken up nights, are resented,

in the bleary middle of hard heartless day.

just bits

Chopped up, l ike p linths, broken, d is interested, bone idyl, nothings ,

... .bt no thing, matters, to matter, matter of fact, is that.

punching out

You punch heart shapes into rose petals,

one after the other, breaking waves through the centre,

thudding your poignancy, your love an out pouring,

raining down symptoms like rain on an awning,

the love sighing through you, you're resolute, but yawning,

so overt, so damn hurt, man the hurt is just dawning.

prune

you've deserted me here,

wallowing in,

standing out,

waiting for the rain, a sad sack,

lying on a lay low,

floating on the chlorine field,

of some pool,

sustained throughout drought,

to keep tourism,

intact,

and, in fact,

because here, we lie,

beneath clear skies,

empty headed,

apathetic,

in fact,

we've earned this,

this land, that time,

and progress,

forgot.

once.

Once you read it back to me, and I saw the claw marks in my own working, the obscurity of my inner impulse, I saw that I was over egged and too gun ho.

I felt inferior, stinted, muddied.

Once you took it back for me and I saw my self incapable, you were unflinching, modest, tangible, against the white background of my pallid complacency.

I felt grateful, useless and spent.

Once you broke off a piece for me,

chewed it and spat it into my mouth, I nodded politely.

I bowed out...

I swan dived and broke my swan neck, sending shock waves to the tips of my toes through my long dancers legs, the queen of the lake dethroned, for lack of poise, after sliding out of her palace on the mud crust crest of a mud slide, flowing like all consuming lava, suffocating the dreams, the thoughts, the soul.

Once you flicked water on my back because the sun had burnt me, and I writhed like a de-limbed spider, but a flicker, deep inside, felt some semblance of peace. Because once, and again, and again, and again, until the end.

fireflies ain't so hot.

All together in a paper cup, burning faster than dandelions.

Sparking spurs kicking up to new inventions, kicking up a fuss about it,

pointing out a wrong then drawling out a diagram of what they'll do about it,

unable to see that they are no longer flitting pretty around the garden. Beacons of nothing,

burning on and off like lighthouses, safely warding nothing well away from nowhere, they are...

trapped, in a cup, and I put them there, and although i've given them air, holes, grass...

they are burnt out whispers.

Is it possible

Is it possible, that all of this, momentum, all of this progress,

rising steadily towards indefinite peaks, like cultured experiments,

in petri dishes, shown warmth, given light...

all of this society,

for which we should award due praise, for graduating us,

sending us sadly forth,

onwards, always upwards,

bolder and burning more brightly,

with the carefully planned passing of each day,

is it possible, that...

cream

your caught back, in the very back of some net

that begot all you were too willing to forget,

too many squandered moments of divinity,

were you to have had the key to all religions

resting, nonchalantly in the palm of some bowl,

you would have stubbed it like a cigarette.

There is no truth greater than the truth

that we don't know, there is no rage that

pours out like a thick gas rolling from a beaker.

on top

why do you feign to need guiding by some well meaning hand,

so sad and misleading,

for your heart I thought bleeding,

turned out a misreading,

of a mind that pulls glass from the sand.

boxed

Blend it all into circular nothing, grey

paste to plaster cracks and coat a stone face.

Build up the tower block with a patch of green

solitude, wrung up in its core,

like the pulp left to dry out from a deftly peeled

orange, clinical cuts, jutted out jaws,

and not easily satisfied paws, tearing

at the pours of poor malleable little street toughs.

As you like it.

AS hollow as my life, running from a tracking shot,

caught up in a sinuous mesh, a maze; a no frills mausoleum,

where the coffins are made of wafer and only the privileged few are embalmed,

where you stuff candy into socks and under the bed before some all seeing eye,

count tight your blessings, hold close your dreams, before the second coming.

AS subjected to your wailings, wailing upon my piteous soul;

your pious irreverence, passing through my cynicism with incandescence,

catching me off guard with some glancing blow of sincerity ,

caught up like a mad man, that once found the answers,

but chased them through the spirals of the wind onto unreachable rooftops,

like a ticket stub in a hurricane.

AS you left me, sedate, all wrongs rectified,

unbiasedly, unabashedly in love, with some overwrought emotion,

emboldened by false promises, fearless, proud, and blessed...

Fastidiously unbuttoning a dress, religious, pious, and yet... yes;

all of this cocktail, is savored, by no saviour, no hangman, no. less.

love, bitterly, it must be admitted, is the passion, of adam regressed.

awaken

the reprimanding blow that reminds you,

you are pressed up against a glass pane.

features blurring into a peach canvas,

with your old papers crumpling,

as your new ideas break like waves,

new fruition bending bows.

As the reaper, breaks in half,

and the orchids burst to bloom and laugh,

the fire is crackling, like beetles snapped in half.

pill

your gone, and yet you dart in and out of my head...

like a fish disappearing into a shoal,

like a silver fish, darting into rice,

so that i choke back the vomit in my mouth

yet inevitably i'll forget,

forget, this glint,

this shining sadness,

recoil at the occasional flicker

a haunting that lasts all of a moment,

that full sigh, as a part feigns to die.

you will become no more than table scraps,

or the white mold that grows on a glass,

left beside a chair and forgotten.

or maybe you'll be a phoenix.

and, rupture... shatter... across my path,

dashing bright blood across everything,

passion and impulse and joy,

a dissolving bitter pill,

that fizzes up and drowns,

through the fissure of my skull,

sticks me...

like a fish hook through the eye.

wreck

discord spreads through the avenues, that run around all this fag ash,

a template 4 inches in circumference is blasting out a little white picket fence,

a dog, a cat, and friends at that, all the pipe dream of some sentimental, some mislaid miscreant.

cajoling his friends into cinemas to watch films about reasonable adultery and personable pedophiles, lack luster bluster a blunderbuss aimed at a priest with the convictions of a cardinal,

so ready and willing to sin.

on poesy...

with all of the letters spewing out of me in the wrong order,

and with all of this broken up sentiment gathering like sediment in the bottom of a glass,

there is fire in the fractions but its still just broken glass,

there is nothing that is remembered fully enough to be defined,

there is everything and nothing but it needs to be refined.

i hope

I hope i'm not really grinding to a halt,

running aground on some new shore,

only to find that province is really run down and bleak.

I hope i'm not grounded, rooted, fixed,

by some unspeakable shame,

or all washed up in an oil slick.

I hope that these feelings aren't misguided,

when I tell myself i'm at the brink,

of some brave new salvation.

I hope that i'm finally cleansed,

of all of this tar thats covering my feathers,

that is filling my lungs.

I hope that the days will not grow shorter,

to the point that there is further rationing,

and I hope the end is not in sight.

I hope, beyond hope, before hope and during it,

that at the point that I am no longer my past,

that I realise I've done almost everything right.

little hill

a place of biblical beauty,

diced up

and surrounded by free flowing motor ways,

to catch all the run off

and hide all that beauty away.

what is the faculty of carving out a landslide,

what victory is so sweet that it is worth this great encroachment.

Octopuses Garden

As if to lodge a toothpick in my brain,

as if to climb up and grapple with the feelings that refrain,

that restrain me, such a well trained me, so ill explained me,

a crumbling block of cookie dough, sweet unnecessary nothing,

tumbling from the kitchen slate to be swept and taken out,

by any old clown with a broom, who wants to clear the room,

who wanted you first, who wanted you well early, but not too soon.

I'm here all cut up and in pieces, it just kills me to think of you,

getting all doe eyed over some ignorant nothing, with a smart shirt,

all buttoned to the collar, filled up with the smell of himself,

so organized and confident, yet bitterly bitterly mundane.

sorry

I thought it was pouring out of my eyes,

like led that sets where it falls,

thought it was bleeding from my pours,

as certain as day bleeds into night,

I only sang your praises, I only wished you blessed.

a melody so certain, that it sang straight from my chest.

But the rigmarole, the draining droll,

the production line and the cynical smile,

these things bleed from me too,

I am caught between flood lights,

one of love, one of boredom,

but equally bright, too bright to forget.

Endings.

I saw my life laid out in segments,

a caterpillar dissected,

drawn up into its elements,

a noble experiment.

Each of my worries,

becoming obsolete,

like the blood of dear dead,

being washed and covered,

by sleet.

and as,

they fell all about each other

their heat radiated.

Until they were

neither hot,

nor cold,

just wild snakes,

in the mountains,

together made bold.

let me be.

Let me rest and do nothing,

let me contemplate hunger,

let me bask, let me languish,

let me loose, free to subside,

let my every derivation be propelled,

flood forth to new worlds,

and as I ride out each whim,

let me laugh, let me grin,

let me sleep and let me sin,

let me do nothing but nothing,

let me be.

dear your ankles are frozen,

from that junk you've been smoking,

and i'm full up with music, i just can't transpose of,

it looks like i'll freeze here with you.

and while your cold words were sleeting,

my brow took a beating,

i forgot all i thought, that i knew,

i'm excited now, now nothings true.

Marry me.

Let us start a partnership, to which I add nothing,

i'll try to light the way with paraffin, but i'll burn up our supplies,

i'll be an anchor, most loyal deadweight by your side,

i'm tied to you, indebted, as you help me tie my tie,

a monolithic obelisk, that marks the day you died.

Sweet Nothings

Suddenly there is heaven glittering in my brain,

a limelight casts its senselessness and i'm jubilant again,

for a second I am God and I am burning in the rain,

inextinguishable anguish, glorifying pain.

Subject to change

I stand before you a man changing,

gathering sustenance,

from within my egg shell,

ready to tap out,

be set loose, set sail,

with my back to hell,

hoping the tides avail,

as the circling world around me,

grows shorter in days,

I feel strangled in a way,

stepping out into a multitude,

paths out into the multiverse,

all of my tomorrows,

are born in just a day.

well then

this cold breath that sinks out of me,

as i'm defeated, deflated, crumbling like rust,

as all my effort is for naught.

an unwelcoming draft,

pushes me from the warmth of new homes,

what more is there to do?

what more was there to say?

collect what you can,

pack up and walk away.

5 year plans

How about them,

they are pouring in,

one by one,

how about them,

they do things,

just for fun,

This place is flooding,

a wave of bodies,

one mile high,

this place is flooding,

noise mutilates,

the silent sight.

We writhe and struggle,

while the cement sets,

pinned down by regrets,

we writhe and struggle,

but they've glued our nest,

one taut mass of stiff unrest.

How about them,

building bridges,

to our solitude,

how about them,

building bridges,

mocking our ineptitude,

burning our effigies,

chopping sacred tree's,

pissing and fucking,

making something,

out of everything,

making something,

where once,

there was sweet nothing.

so long cubicle

Come on baby,

lets grow mullets,

wear only tank tops,

drink out of brown paper bags,

right outside the liquor store,

this straight jackets a bore,

so sick of picking lapel pins,

sorting trash into separate bins,

from this day I'm never going to shave again,

i'll shower in the sink at the service station,

i'll hitch hike with truckers,

nothing to offer them but a good story,

wanting nothing from the world,

except for a good story.

toy soldier

The silk fist that punches you in for your first kiss,

as you enlist and are scanned in like a crimson barcode,

too drunk to notice the elixir of youth erupting from your veins.

The rage red lips that pepper you with sweet spit,

as you subdue yourself, ready yourself, submit and recline,

too dumb to notice you have nothing of yourself left but time.

The tissue paper skin that rips in the hot din,

as you pay the greatest price of false freedom,

too dismal to notice that divine is no kingdom,

there is no heaven and no glory.

Methylphenidate

My eyes burn, and I itch,

no small concern, but,

as long as my head,

is filled with thousands,

of luminescent explosions,

forced through the eye of a needle,

I can cope with the risk,

I can hope it isn't one.

My motions once frantic,

now measured, choice cuts,

100% high grade skunk,

burning like the aftermath,

I am the light in the oven,

showing you the food,

Showing you when to open up.

Everything is visceral,

I have not shut myself down,

I've grabbed hold of own destiny,

and I relish its manifestation.

Penguins

We all flood our veins with cocaine, caffeine and vanilla,

plough with purpose through acres of filler.

Stuff our mouths and hearts with empty promises,

purposeful penguins huddled together against sublime nothing.

Cracks appear in the ice burg we're floating on,

crumbling like rocks to sand, ice turns to shards,

we drift off, tiny unique snowflakes in a starry sky,

a shout out to infinity, we at least must try...

Rubble

Tropical fish flit about like light through stained glass,

flickering like a fire, desperate and insane.

Like the ramblings of a drunk, circling the drain,

there is poetry in sadness in the crumbling refrain,

a flash of perfection and then nothing again.

prepare

Ready yourself for the night is long,

the righteous path is arduous

and they know your favourite song.

rethink

All these misgivings, once muted, now flooding to the surface,

clambering at the back on my throat, readied at the tip of my tongue.

all these sharp judgements and rash resolutions, so infirmly imbedded,

racking my brain for reasons to feel how I have...

commended myself for feeling.

I wear diadem of half baked irreverence,

you are a war that i've read half an article about,

that I am so ready, so willing, so able, to condemn.

Hurting

I've been burning out for certain,

With words I knew that I could lure them,

And I cut you out behind the curtain,

Right before, you dragged me up the river.

I bit my tongue to stop from blurting,

Corralled my friends when they were flirting,

I'd really hate to have to hurt them,

But thats before, my spine felt a shiver.

I've been dogged for days by you,

With no idea of what to do,

You promised you'd come through,

But here I am washed up by the river.

what's the matter

Grab hold of my hand,

we'll wait out the wind,

we'll drown lest we swim.

break bread with the enemy,

cross swords with a friend,

decisions, good or bad,

have uncertain ends.

rip

Take off the bandage,

watch as the mixed blessings flood forth.

you're covered in old blood,

drowned out the new dawn, with old love

so much stronger than a head held high,

so much stronger than your good sense.

Bittersweet Therapy

You, the last person I spoke to before I went to sleep,

the first thing I thought about when I woke up.

You, the person I wanted to share all of my news with,

my shelter, my consoler my trusted council.

But, You, tore pieces from me, and left, and I remained...

a tattered mess, a sightless sight of unrest.

a pile of cotton, a mangled toy, you left...

but you insisted you hadn't.

and in the end I suppose I left,

I suppose I ripped out my own useless appendix,

shredded it for bedding and span my wheel.

The truth is, I think you know the truth,

that an omission is a lie,

so you said goodbye.

over and over

All wrapped up in warm colours,

grinning from ear to ear and yet...

there is a taint, a shiver to delay,

a passing thought, some small regret.

Something wants to wring the neck,

of every syllable that expresses love,

my heart is unduly haunted by the wreck,

I sail, headfirst into joy, a rocky cove.

Outstretched arms and nervous hands,

so much hope, love, confusion,

I look at you, but all I see,

an echo, a refrain.

Tonight it ends

So long to the hungry and the wretched,

so long to the long and listless nights,

so long to the edifice of happiness,

so carefully conveyed,

such bittersweet inanity purveyed.

For too long I have been

at fault for my own sadness,

languishing, affecting carelessness.

Tonight it ends,

so long to the hungry and the wretched,

so quick to call himself a martyr.

Balloon

Tie balloons around my neck,

I want to hang high above this,

laughing at the insignificance of all my land lying problems,

all these home spun inadequacies, defunct by the last gasp of weightlessness,

this would be a good death.

I want to melt the wax rind that is suffocating me,

winter melting away in brilliant sunlight,

free fall like Icarus, landing in a field or an ocean,

sublime pain, my body will fracture

as I am lost in true rapture.

awake

The smell of wood, the taste of coffee,

the wrench out of my bed in the morning

still ringing in my ears.

In floods the new day

through the gap around a door,

too small for its frame,

hello brain, hello head ache, hello morning.

Out are the dreams

of a world so perfect, yet unintelligible,

slowly as the blur comes into focus

and I wipe the sleep from my eyes,

there is day, there is work,

there is a new piece

to the same puzzle

that has puzzled me for years.

death renews

the ringing of bells in the hallowed tube

from the top of your haunch you yell,

a tribute of ripping fury punching from your lungs.

This is all for glory, this is all for good.

It's not until it reaches the last tile,

that a pawn becomes omnipotent.

The organ chimes a eulogy,

for the broken and dejected,

this is no attempt to sooth,

you will be saved from yourself,

and taken from your hell.

A cacophony of confusion,

battering the brave.

I am awash with apathy,

it warms me by your grave,

I mourned you once already,

but I don't believe in being saved.

Count your blessings

Life lying in cotton tatters,

strewn ribbons, remnants of dead blessings,

far too thin and too fragile to make anything of.

I am in the larder of my mind, crying out for sustenance,

there is nothing but an overwhelming silence,

I can feel my saliva dissolving my tongue,

I can feel my fingertips crumbling like spent matches,

ash tumbling into obscurity,

There is too much, and so there is nothing.

One morning

Dew lays heavy on mottled wool,

So much mist that morning,

I felt it before I saw you.

I was sick before I was scared,

and scared before I was sorry.

My head filled with white noise,

choking down old fears,

my shoes packed down the snow

and my eyes held back tears.

Dew lays heavy on mottled wool,

So much mist that morning,

I felt you before I saw you.

I tripped on your arm,

I was sick before I was scared,

and scared before I was sorry.

dreams becoming less cryptic

I am being chased by an enemy that I am afraid to face.

If I were to paint my life as a tryptic,

the paintings would be entitled;

arrogance, apathy and disgrace.

I have a parachute I seem unable to deploy,

and so I free fall through empty space.

How do I follow you?

You are a fraction,

you dip in and out,

erupt and diminish,

dust collects on my eyelids

as you race to the finish.

You are a float tipped wave,

wanting only to crash,

a bitter end as you flood the rocks.

In each tiny death, you are renewed,

rising phoenix like and magnificent.

You are a flickering light,

too beautiful to survive,

but your light lets me learn nothing.

How do I follow you?

You are a fraction,

you dip in and out,

erupt and diminish,

dust collects on my eyelids

as you race to the finish.

Frozen, unable to speak, broken, unable to sleep, staring, with disbelief, as the door opens to what you never wanted to see...

it returns

prayer

Everything we built up, aspired to, dreamt of, is rotting,

Dropping and plunging into deep waters,

Dreams that have become painful memories

Which we take care to forget.

I feel my eyes caving in, I can't hear you through the din,

As the rock walls of the city crumble and collapse about the place

each for their own and do try to save face.

There has been an outbreak of late,

or somebody has poisoned my eyes,

an epidemic with the momentum of a freight train,

We are all so lost in a present,

which we never even dreamt of.

princess

you just jumped up and down like a seal that wanted feeding,

you just whined and complained and stomped your shiny shoes,

you just wouldn't give up, you just couldn't, there was something in you,

something so fucking valuable, you swore it was there, you swore on your own precious life,

it was there, even if no one else could see it.

rejected

cast out and dejected, piling up my plate with misery,

just dry logs to fuel poetry that no one will read,

writing my will in the form of a free verse tragedy,

shooting up in the hall, veins flood with love,

and again i'm high above a cloud

pretending i'm weightless...

untouchable.

and again i'm thrown back down,

vomited up, stale and staggering,

heart burn, and tooth ache,

and a talentless void in my gut.

shut your trap

these cruel inventions, pitfalls worked up to trip you.

toying at nothing, clambering up the slick walls.

you are a boisterous disaster, a capful of burning mint.

you cleaned out my bank and hung me from the collar of my shirt

you are a low groan that threatens to sweetly rise to fighting pitch.

but it was me that tricked you! I promise it was,

I feigned, I faltered, I forced you to fall.

Snake skin peels off like a plaster,

Lying here fresh from disaster,

Cantankerous rancid and broken,

God damn it all lightning and smoking

But for all of this I have nothing,

On a neck on a spit spat up with the briny nothing

just some froth that washed up,

dead on arrival, punished past reprisal and that is the fucking crux of it

there's nothing, and nothing and that is it.

for what

Coming down into a brand new daze, reek of the singe from a blasting thing.

Buzzed off the back of bus riding, all the night as a kite and and a head ringing.

Cool wind bringing in this news, and this is all I can take, sewed up at the chest.

A heart that freezes itself, a citizens arrest, and a lie at the heart of it.

There is nothing outside of this that means anything, there is nothing inside or aside,

nothing outside that nobody could possibly exude, allude or deride.

moments before sleep

Here bedded down in my downy laurels,

safe in the knowledge that i can type up a storm,

but only minutes before the hell swells at dawn.

Heavy head hits the pillow,

I'm corralled by my fluffy white dreams.

There is so much watermelon in heaven!

bitter snow flakes that burn,

with the warmth of a wood floors bathed in summer sun,

such high chairs to mount up on,

tact up on to the rubber walls,

pictures, and tickets and memories of fun.

alas i lack just lately dreams on which to run,

the cogs are clicking through the motion,

trundling along, fumbling for the starting gun,

skating on a chalk board, bathed in summer sun,

remorseful of my memories knowing what they become.

everything is your fault

typing with my eyes closed, begging you to end it all with a single nail to the head.

lying in a cyclone, a night terror raging round my bed.

you're eclipsing my greatest profundity, you are aggravating my eczema.

dismiss it as absurdity but it comes back all the same,

this hate speech, what a blame game

yelling from the back vault in my head.

North Star

You've been doused with the colours,

you're dripping with gray's.

we bleached all of our cynics,

now they're bright white as midday.

I've got a mouthful of chalky nothing

I can spit it out, I can talk up a storm.

Cut me loose from this daze;

I want to spin off into perfect clarity,

to buzz here in blurred nothing is insanity

it takes more strength than i have to settle my stomach,

and i can't keep borrowing yours

you're bright white as midday,

a beacon at the tip of some mountain,

I'll follow you from the window of my train,

although I'll have to keep going where it wills

ugh again?

Holy fuck, there is so much sodden paper and so much muck

Can't you see that we two are stuck,

we turned left then right,

we jumped then had to duck

we ran in a circle, but just for good luck.

We three kings are kind of in a rut,

we used to have swagger my god could we strut,

now we just sit here and smoke to the butt.

we might as well start pissing on the carpet.

My fingertips are torn,

blood is collecting in the nails,

gritted like teeth.

A mouth full of glass

and blood

so much blood

I wish I hadn't said anything.

gasp

I can see you out of the corner of my eye,

hanging around the apex, nothing but bunged up light

out there hanging from the tip of a grecian isle

I tilt my head and you undulate duly,

i'm yours and you are mine truly,

ships sink straight up to high heaven

and all the while you laugh

a shade knows nothing

feels nothing but the pull of its puppet strings

but I swear I saw you move.

crumpled paper

There isn't a damn thing,

here in the atmosphere stale and painfully clear,

if I stay sitting here, nothing will appear.

If I leave i'll be cold why must the wind chill be so damn severe.

Why won't these days that unfold like old receipts,

a cocoon that awakes to become some inane memory,

such innocuous discovery as to inoculate me against deep thought.

Grave new Hope

This grave new hope, is eating away at me,

shivering at the base of my spine,

Before I'd thought the world was through with me,

an apathy so dull but fine.

I'd brave to venture to the end of my tether

to find something better, and yet

at the point of furthest reach

I am recollected and reproached.

There is no change and no grand conclusion,

and yet I see such grand delusions, mere mirage illusions,

sincere excuses for the grave mistakes that gave me this,

This grave new hope, that is burning in the heart of me,

an ending and a start to me.

and then right after

This new soil is just dirt but dirt is just tea stains ground into a football shirt.

Damned clarity obscured broken and beside itself. One last wrapper laid on a bin,

You by me smiling, doe eyed and crest fallen, enough to make me vomit stale beer.

I had a feeling you'd be hurt, but i was standing there behind myself bleeding from my ears,

Screaming, close to tears, tearing at puppet strings that weren't there

feeling broken, near beaten, then begging to gloat.

Only in dreams

You were burning like a sunrise fading in an old mans eyes.

Heads turning but too slowly to be in surprise.

Each time the big hand hit a number it fell to the floor,

when it comes to nothing o' clock I guess thats the end.

You're running your self backwards into a late conception.

One day you can be president of the world,

and pick the chewing gum off all of the worlds tables.

One day you can buy the most powerful gun in the world,

so powerful it can shoot the life into cadavers.

One day you can have a heart and courage and a brain.

One day you can be home with a dog and a wife

and a closet full of mink coats and skeletons.

languishing

I am waiting for this to all fit, wanting wisdom to come to me as I click on my desk lamp.

Illuminate my manuscript and show me the divine path, trick me into belief.

As for right now I'm following shadows, chasing my own tail, unravelling inwardly, laughing through a mouthful of blood, scrambling in the mud at the side of providence.