postentious
they were the days when time was in the fog so today was night and yesterday was tomorrow, or. Swirly, and lost and dry in the wet skin, I walked through the city at night, thinking I was a ship, watching the neon and the vomit and furtive. I wished I was already in the sea, walking till the water laps my face. I can see signs and shops shut and slogans of joy. The red neon of brake and the fragmentaion of rain, the way the tar looks hot, not just wet, and I walk through the town, no sky no soil, oh. She sometimes comes to me at times like, these. But she didn;t then she sent me a whisper to say she might, but good night, so it was ok. I was counting the cities of chewinggum on the floor, imagining junk under beds and glare from lack lamp shade and all teh lustre, slee seeping. she said shed. try and just listen not think but i thought she said she's going to keep. the tramp with the tedious issues, the man and the can, I thought of miles and wanted to just go up straight through the clouds to some where I hoped could call me home. It was getting late, and i had plans, blades pills bottles rope in a bag by my bed with some money to get a train to the hill. I think most of my favourite place is a warm beach and a latte night.
26.9
you only lived when I asked about grey
and all the grey things and ticks you
came from yesterday to taunt me of tom
orrorw. I sense you in the wet fog pan
ting nearby ready to redden teeth like
almonds
you, in that private moment after wet
from inside dreams
no halo or
no silence or spoken
no
This is a song. It came into my head at about 6 this morning, and it was better before I wrote it down
Falling
She said she was
happy
That was enough for me
Then I thought of
elevation
and dreamt
of treachery
Oh, so I'm falling.
Falling fast and free.
Oh, so I'm falling
Falling far from thee
After dark comes
mourning
and when its light
I see
Suggestions
of possesion
make a mockery
of free
oh, so now I'm falling.
to see how low I'll go
Oh, so now I'm falling
So I'll learn how much to know
She went to the river
To see the water flow
Underneath the surface
Is where the darkness grows
But in the dark
definition
The highs out reach the lows
Oh, so I am falling.
And falling with elan
Oh, so I am falling
So see where I will land.
What do you
think?
..still happy...
I spent four years in the place I hated with shops and ands and streets with names of trees, and I was sometimes happy, and sometimes, of course, sad, and mostly, still, nothing. And the stars went round and I went up and down and stared out at dreary views from towerblocks, and always tried to sit next to the radiator, and I wonderered. I wondered about God, and identity and change and time. And I had friends and money and time and all I knew was I filled my skin, but I was not one. Maybe my eyes were round the wrong way, and I had to imagine rather than see, and I wondered about perception, time, and trust. After 4 years, I was happy to leave. I put some books in a box, and left anything that didn't fit, and got in the car. Time bends so that sometimes its fast, and sometimes its slow. I must have laid underneath the stars and sang, or thought or dreamt or cried, but I can't remember. I wrote nasty, horrible poems that I didn't know I could.
sometimes things just make sense.
It was night and I could hear the sea. I could see the hedges for the lanes. And I felt like I could see every star in the sky. The moonlight was milky, and sounds of people laughing was floating. I was really happy, even though I knew I had to sleep in the car because I was too lazy to erect my tent; I knew the sun would be up at 5 and wake me. We were walking to the pub, and the smell of the dope we were smoking was beautiful. I could see the red ends flare with the breath of my friends. There was a group of strangers behind us, and they were laughing, and you could here smiles in their voices. Everything was milky black and soft in the night, and the pub was a beacon. I could see the lights and the people and I could hear a fiddle as we got closer. I was really happy.
22/9
god is in all
and all is bliss
and all in all
there is only this
so
why do i go on
pretending
hope of hope
thats neverending?
So seranade the stars again
kiss my life in country
then I hope
all in all
for kind intention
pray for just
me and redemption
and all the things
and all I'll miss
a final kiss
for all the things
i thought were worth
i leave above
on the earth good
remembering...
in the morning, there was some blood. I said it was from her and she said it was from me. I was ill but not too much, and I was happy. her duvet felt soft and vast, and her skin felt soft. I liked the way I could see her blonde hair on the pillow, I liked watching her sleep, for a bit, then I got bored. I wanted to hold her hand. My old clothes looked unfamiliar on her cheap carpet. I loved her, but couldn't tell her. I didn't want her to know she was loved. I thought of an island I wanted to live on. It would be far away and in a deep blue swelling sea. There would be hills and I would live in a cave by the sea. Everyday, the sea would come in cold and a clear blue, and wash me clean. and sometimes, there would be people, and sometimes not. I was waiting for her to wake, and I felt the moment of the moment bloom and wither, and then the moment of the next moment swell. I always try to live in the moment, but it normally makes me ill afterwards.
This was a long time ago. This is about God.
18/9
i make words cross
and his
they all must be his
i hope
they make copies of copies
and thats why everything
blurs
i'm lost in a habit
of cheap transport
and cargo
and here
s to hoping im special
somewhere a sea
and somewhere a proton
black in disgust
from when and then
I was with her and I was making daisy chains. We were in a field of corn which was gold and was dancing in the soft breeze. We were underneath the oak tree in the middle of a field. She had some bread and ham and wine, and I had some wine, some gin and some raspberries which were very red. It was the most idylic moment I've ever had, so far. She had a straw hat on, and I had a sheaf of corn in my mouth. I was wearing dark blue trousers and a pale denim shirt. We had a radio but it was off because the batteries were flat. It was quiet, although we could hear cars speed by sometimes. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, but I didn't because I knew it would ruin everyhting because she didn't love me, although at that time I thought she almost did. I was looking at the daisys and the grass and twigs, and I was looking so hard that I could see the smallest detail.
Anyway, this one's not about her, or anyone else that I know
11/9
she's in the business
of bad tributes
she comes out when no one is looking
and said to no one
I can breathe underwater
echoes spoke of memories
she listens to time
hiding happy
in ruined buildings
Spite on my my mind
Spittle on my tongue
I'm going to go,
without saying goodbye.
I'm bored of lauging at you,
I think I'll make you cry.
You swallow me with thanks
and think it is redemption
I laugh at you inside
postponing my intentions
I'm a bigger liar than you think you know
And once there was this night when we were looking for a party. We were speeding through the night and the lanes, and all we could see on the ground was what we lit up. I had my head out the window and was breathing the night. The light from the headlights lit up the road, and woods and the hedges. I thought about history, the moon, dream, nothing. I loved my friends, then.
She said she was going, and I was hoping she would, while hoping she wouldn't. When we got inside, there was music and smoke and darkness and lights and people and I saw the strobe coming through her hair as she danced. She was wearing DMs, tights, a minishirt and a black top, and I fell into a bright, red pit of love. She had her eyes closed and was nodding her head, and I was scared. I stood there petrified, watching the way the light shone through her hair, and the way you could tell that inside her head she was smiling to herself. And people were jostling me, and I could feel the bass in my legs and I sipped my vodka and didn't feel a thing, and I lit my cigarette, because, honestly, I thought it was cool, and I could feel breathing but no smoke, and she was still there, moving her head, and I looked at her, and looked at her, and there was so much I wanted to express, but so little I wanted to say, so I went to the speaker and put my ear against it so I could hear the music spill into the silence in my head.
A lot of my poems are about drowning. This isn't, I don't think. Its probably about 13 years old now.
Passed the shaven headed fields
We reached the line filled
chrome water
Doors with locks, locked,
vacant mirrors
air with no breeze
quiet clocks
We push till we reach the border,
I look at you in camera,
while water babies drown.
With this one, I can never decide around which way love and life should go. I just prefer it this way today, because its less positive.
These are 2 from about 1993 ish. I like the sky in April when you can see the streaks of cloud and the warmth from the sun is tentative.
Too much love that lies
Under blue eternal skies
Kiss my finger
kiss 10 tiny toes:
where love is planted,
life soon grows
here we go and here we go and here we go.
I love lying in bed in the city at night, and listening to static, really quiet. I think of radio waves bouncing down, hitting my duvet. You can't see the stars in the city any more, everything's dull orange. Sometimes, I like that. I like tea as well. This is a happy one
9/8
when we made time stop
we made time stop
we turned the clock
to the wall,
blind folded
with the photograph
we held hands
and I couldn't help moving
we knew the sun would shine
frozen still like us
we knew the smoke lit
in the light of the window
was paralysed.
I waited for a blow,
and you waited for me
to change my mind again.
this ones obvious.
like a jet plane
like thunder
draw wonder
in one breath
he thinks of pity
while I guess
words he doesn't know
Despite
Despite what dreary men
from dull hull
unread,
despite eager mothers.
Despite only one famous line
mum and dad and fuck...ooh.
well these are two lines he'd remember
so fuck him
and fuck you too.
And despite that man, and slough.
though hadn't he seen the office.
of course he's dead.
And I'm not
(admitedly a sun-lit second, but sun lit nonetheless)
despite pissed paddies,
Flaming Jocks
or famous taffs
throwing paddies
no one ever said this,
I checked it on Google
"drinks give me hunger
make me eat my words
I've got dead poets inside of me
who hanker to be heard"
well. Day 2 and I'm still here. sorry.
THis one I wrote this summer, on the 14/7. Its unsufferably pretentious, but for the past year or so, all the titles of my poems are the dates on which they were written. It was a really hot summer, and from my bed I could see up and up into the blue sky. I was ill from poisoned food, and everything took on a shimmering feeling. The walls of the house were about three feet thick and roughly plastered. I put my face against it and felt the roughness. My face was sweaty. I must have written pages and pages that day. I just lay there and drank gin and felt ill and looked at the sky, and opened the window so that I could see the sea and feel the air creep around the room.
I really like this one, although I worry its a pastiche of something. If you drink gin after you've been sick for hours you can feel it burn away your stomach lining.
The Kracken cackles awake
Is it the mercury.
Or is it the gin,
stirred, with the shakes?
Gleeful it mangles.
Crawls hot on the ice
Lives is the cave of
broken glass,
the aftermath.
Sometimes,
it's those vicious pills
Sometimes,
It's nothing at all.
And that's the worst of it.
I was tired becuase I had been drinking all night. The way the bus had swayed from side to side had comforted me. I had watched red lights and white lights speeding past us in the darkness.
The night was the strange. We'd stopped in the desert because a coach had hit a wagon and gone down into the ditch. The ditch was deep, so it swallowed the coach. I could see plush seats, luggage, broken bodies and blood. Everything was orange from an emergency light, and the red and blue of the police car spun round and around. In the ditch were bodies, I can't remember how many. We tried to get them out, but couldn't do much. So, after a bit, we got on the coach again. I smoked a cheap cigarette in my seat. When I smoked, I loved smoking. After a while, we stopped, and got of the coach again. there'd been another accident with a coach, and I saw a suitcase on the side of the road. It was open, and I wanted to look in it, but I thought that if anyone saw me do that, they'd hit me. I was very drunk, but I think I hid it ok. I can't remember how much of it is real. When I think about it, I think I must have dreamed the whole thing, but I don't think that I did.
In the morning, we stopped for a break. I sat at the edge of a lake. The road was very dusty, and had made the green reads at the side of the water dirty. I sat on my own and I smoked a cigarette and looked at the hill. I dug a hole and flicked the ash into the hole. Then I buried the stub. Its still there, most likely. A few years ago, cigarette maufacuteres started using plastic for butts, as it's cheaper, but it doesn't degrade.
I thought of the light this morning, when I got in and no one else was in and the blinds were down, but you could see grey light sidling through.
It was a morning. I was still drinking at the time. I was on the platform and my ankles were cold because I was wearing a pair of her socks. I couldn't hear the words from the tannoy. A freight train was passing. In the sky, I could see a bird and two planes. One looked like it was coming to land. I thought this up, it took a while to pass the time, but now I think I've rememberd the end wrong. I know it should end "and not you, either" but can't remember what's before that.
she wakes up
she throws up
phrasal verbs
up in the air
She says she tries to live
outside her skin
outside her hair
and you think of drama.
she moves with the dawning
she wears black cos she's in
fashion.
you move akward.
jagged from the glass.
its like a car crash.
She says
she's going out tonight.
And you watch
the smoke
with easy spite.
while you know you know you
belive her.
she doesn't need herself
And you know not you either.
Crivens. Its easy. Right. Shall we start with poem 1? This one must have been from about 1992
She screws shut her eyes
To shut out the scenes
of husbands and lies
and of ignorant dreams
Alone in the garden
with wrists coloured red
the day seemed eternal
although the dreams are dea
uh. are we here. right.
welcome world. I feel kind of embarrased with all this. Its like choosing to feel that feeling you feel when you realise you've left a book of your poems on a bus. Well, hello perversion.
