Inception

Some nights
I stay awake and wait
For the bump
The feeling of reality returning
The dream fading fast into the undergrowth
Swallowed by the jungle noise
Of a million eddying lives

Some nights
I lay awake and dream
Of the drop
When the legs fall out from under me
The world rushing past on squeakless shoes
Smoothly like a looming pickup line
A race to the floor

Some nights I think
I'll actually wake up
And remember this
With the forgotten clarity
Of the dream that it isn't.

I told you and told you
But you wouldn't listen
Fickle fickle hands
Catch me if you can

It's funny
Realising you are an idiot
Doesn't actually change anything

When I was a Child I Thought...

How my memory... You are
Everfresh
Growing up like grass-
Stains each time I fall
Knees and warts and all
Angel eyes, angel sighs
That's one way to keep floating.

How you are, the question why
I never cease from asking
Holds my tongue hostage
The rudder in the storm
That sank me in my mind's eye
Where the calm
Stretches
The waves flat, long enough
To catch a breath
To drop a wall
You are ever-fresh
Warts and all.

Questionmark.

Burn you out my blood
Thick as a summer sunset
Seal me under the concrete
Of a thousand blank pages
Till ink flows in black veins
And you and I are safe

Fighting against himself
The enemy never shows
Just who is winning?

Hole in the road
Don't let the tire catch you
Tired and on the sleepy sea
Steering into the distance

I'm a darkened soldier
These streets are paved in blood
But no one ever held it to the gun
It takes time to see what you've done

Hole in the ground
Everybody gathers round
Only keep the beat with your little drum
Skin-tight, tatooed farewell
Into that hole in the road
We drive on and let you go

It must have been love
That sort of thing
Can't be mistaken
For a lesser set of feelings
It has a special hat
And makes you welcome at parties
And hugs you when you are down
And uses warm, soft knives
To cut you into different pieces.
How can something else dress up as that?

Untyped

I’m tired
I’m tired of my heart giving out
Whenever it gives in
That things being the same
Never makes a difference
Of looking forwards to something
That never happened

I’m tired
I’m tired of levering up my lashes
Just to blink
That every breathing space leaves
No more room to think
When I hike that haunted hill
To watch the hole grow deeper

It leaks everywhere
Stain from the puncture marks
Lurking like punctuation
Tripping the feet of consciousness

You renew me like bleach –
Freshly scrubbed, rubbed raw
Tossed forgotten to a creaking cupboard
Till I grow old, and mould. Told
By every cell I trust, the lie
Tomorrow’s just a sleep away
I’m tired of today.

I’m tired.
I’m tired of the way everything
Slinks around with nothing in its hands
Of trying to cut you out, but
Only cutting me in places I can’t see
That remembering the hanging thief
Had only palmed a petty trinket charm

A heart beaten bloody
Tired of the weight
Of holding oxygen
At brain height.

We
The beasts
That cherished the stone
That broke the world

Run from me.
You who take my cherished memory
And sets it alight
The flames shall burn us both no longer

Good.

Numbers have no meaning
Just a way of passing distance
Between two different things
I'm counting up my blessings
But numbers are what you make of them
I can stop just when I want
Or go on till forever
Numbers don't mean a thing.

Does it make you happy
To define the world
As the distance between your ears?

Every single day
Oh the sideline and cliché
Drive-byes and driveways
Goodbyes and and you say
You didn't ever do
What you promised
I hope that I could never need
To hold you like I do
Wash the words away
And you're left staring
Down the sink hole.

Quicker than the end of a sentence.
He left
Cold water and the cool of a stare
He returned
To the sound of the record on repeat.

some days
I just can't seem to say enough nice things about Annelise.

Energy you give me
A waterfall in a heartbeat.
The silence lasts just a moment
Hanging still until
Thump
Religion.

Such a pretty smile
And my fat peasant head
Hanging around the doldrums
Stirred by your passing wake
Is determined to watch
Just to make sure I do not follow.

Float like silver pain on the bullet of the night.
Sting like a cure that hides its punch beneath a skin of sugar.
Run with the wind dangling between your fingertips
Silken streamers slide through the cough of autumn
A slumbery sun clears its throat
Stumbling back to bed with the freezer door left
Ever-so-noticeably ajar.

walking a little each night
Let down your hair
You won't change but that's alright
Don't have to dare
striking the mystery
Send showers to space
You won't get the better of me
It's much too late

Much too late
To wake up and see
What the waves
Carried onto the sand
To carry your mind up to me
From your solid land

Planting your feet so deep
Your toes kiss the earth
You won't get the better of me
You've exhausted your worst.

She was classically beautiful.
She had a nose like an oboe.

Carving through the hills that hang
Brown and pregnant with the frost
A silver spoon with dirt stained hands
Rests easy on the porcelain curves
Not enough mouthfulls to go.

The shadow line fell bumpily
At the rising concrete ridge
Cut in a "Z" squished nearly flat
By the weight of a beating sun
The azure flowers hung just above
Peeking down to watch
As dark meandered slowly sure
To catch it in its hiding place
A nest of colour cut from stone
And shivering in the sun.

Every alien I encounter
Wear's a human face

Where do you go when you've lost the love
When wings and things keep beating up your ears
Loud so loud like the room's not big enough
To hold the sounds it leaks from every pore
The thickness of work being undone and left in the rain.

Where do you turn when the jacket doesn't fit
For you've got limbs you weren't born to bear
The bus is broken down with so many stops to go
The signs are changing up, the juggler appears
To drop everything in a hail of rubber colours.

The sadder self awaken now adrift away from sleep
The sheep are counting down the hours of the dream
You could make me or leave me here unformed
A pile of clay in a dusty window.

Simple as the stroke of midnight

There is some stuff in my brains
Thats not letting itself be wordshaped at the mo
Just murmurings below the surface
A deeper shadow hinting
As a leviathon underneath
With the power to shatter my tiny boat
Or leap into the open sky
Or pass on unnoticed in peace

When the quiet sounds come calling
He is a lamb, a sheep, awandering.
The wolf underneath is stirring
As he drifts pillow silent and free
Unchecked in the sense of direction
He this ways and thats with an ease
The wolf-howl asilences conscience
He is drifter, unacknowledged retreat.
And so the fell gambit is hailed
A breaking of chains that suspend
To tumble down fallings and wailings
And gnashings of teeth cut blade sharp
As they gnaw through the the ends.
And the links pitter patter in hailings
Creep at snail's pace, the thoughts
Climb back beneath his scalp
The mirror, the liar, the candlestick maker
In light he sees true, sees the call of the moon
Sees the wolf in sheep dress
All astir all ablend, just a cloud
In a sheep-tufted land.

Rambleshak musings that I may turn one day into some sort of poem. Deal with it.

sin is the flame that melts our wax
leaves us mishapen
we cling to the warmth of the flame
and it feeds off us
burns us hollow
our beuatiful gold and silver coats
peel and blister
faint and flicker
even as we soak in its warmpth
and as we warm
we distort and flow
and pile up in rivulets until
we reach a low we cannot overcome
and when the flame is gone
we remain calcified in a state
of ruin and shrunken horror
completely incapable of ever
becomeing whole again

till God remakes us in HIs furnace
And puts a new Wick inside us
And remoulds us in HIs image
And promises that one day
When His time is come
We shall recieve a gold and silver coating
The likes of which we've never had before
Which itself will glow like the sun

They came to take away
They carried us off to the play
To be the curtain

She's most herself
When she forgets to be herself
And lets whatever
Bubble to the surface

Physical is beautiful she says
She's digging through the moments
That make up my head
She's understanding things
I forgot to forget
She has angel's wings
She has angel's wings

It's the triumph of the second over the day
I hang out my clothes to clean on the line
The sun takes all our guilt away
It evaporates
It evaporates
Into the moment

I don't think I'll ever understand her hair
The colour of living
Like life leaks out her head
If that is the price for being her
It's like buying a house for a cent
And the back lawn
And the back lawn
Still smells like fresh mowing

She's turning everything into expression
She worries that it's in the wrong direction
There's a certain kind of plughole
She strives to avoid
It blocks the sink
It blocks the sink
And floods through the kitchen

We're talking about big things till they crouch down low
She'd like to take a trip somewhere before she goes
Do something like it matters
Not just to her
She has angel wings
And living hair.

In the future
Everyone has knitted hands
And they watch the past through screens
The present happens to other people
And makes them famous
In the future
Every cake is self-icing
But chocolate is forbidden
Except to those who are
Two sizes too big to fit the laws.

If I was a watermellon
Oh the places I would go
Mostly into people's stomachs
But maybe into snow.

I'd totally go skiing.
What is cooler than a watermellon doing sweet skijumps? I mean seriously.

Smiles are the uppercuts
Of body language
Laughter is the roundhouse kick
And frowns
Are the running away screaming
Like a little girl
With pony-tailed hair.

Laughter
Is the only medicine
That makes you better
When you are already well.

God came
And wiped away
The figurative tears
From my metaphorical plate
At some stage or other

Song for the Tired Man

A shell I wish I had
All bone and teeth and forgiveness
A home to wrap me up
And keep the world at wall’s distance

A place I wish I had
To lick my wounds and silences
And run from the accusations
Hidden on the surface of my eyes

A laugh I wish I had
To be believed by everyone
To prop slip-sliding walls in place
Pulled out at the whim of a moment

A bed I wish I had
A place to outrun tiredness
That stalks these tiger striped halls
A beast amongst the antelopes



I remind me on each new today
Of the path of feet that led me here
Forever devoured by the underbrush

A rock I have
Cut from the forever of forgiveness
A home to catch me up
When my ground loses its way

A trust I have
Given to me more than I can ever return
The promise of every exhausted sigh
Reforged into new laughter

I could wear out these shoes
Before I walk a mile in yours
If I never for a minute thought
Outside this box, outside these walls
Where I hang my decorations to myself.

Tomorrow is today
Today is made of wings
Feathers are for flying
Birds are made to sing

He shines his soul
To hide from the shadows of fright
He gazes through the sleeping hole
And disappears into the night

I'm afraid to write you a poem
Just incase it comes true
And incase it doesn't

Change made me stay and count the stars
Made me make my bed this morning too
Change made me tally up my blessings
At the very top was you.

Were I to describe you in a single word
Like a net to catch the all of you
You'd slip between the holes of string
And sail off to the moon.

I like to think of you
As reaching into my open chest
And easing out the broken glass
With warm hands.

We fell in together
Like peas in a pod
When the week was born
And as it spoke first words
Silence fell on us
Like sardines in a tin
We collected our breaths
And wandered on

You are the continuation
Of the last thought before sleeping

She lives before she changes all the clocks
She makes the words come alive out of books
She takes all the labels off bottles
And patches them on tables

Stress is the flame
That burns you inside out.

I could roll them into paper
Tumble dry, hang on the line
Leave them out with the recycling
But never ever fill them in

These bullet holes
These bullet holes
Just won't leave me be
And I'm pierced through

Watching everything drain slowly
Down the plughole, kitchen sink
Filling up with all my me
Emptied out and tunneled deep

These bullet holes
Just won't leave me be
Cut me into pieces
Ventillate each smile
Break off all the brave teeth

You could set me down like jelly
Refridgerate me down to numb
Pull the shells out, operations
Won't reverse what you have done

These bullet holes
Are no more real
Than the rest of me.

It's funny I should laugh
But maybe it all comes out in the math
Every torn yesterday adds up
To today

Surreal - The Loss of a Job.

It came with no gifts
The door remains unknocked
As time writes out its lists
It barely gets a mention
With arms not offended
Or raised in welcome
It's feet stepped onto carpet
And barely raised a whisper
It changed everything
And left me unchanged.

I wish I didn't twist
And knot up every time
Wrap around stray thoughts
Till breathing is too tight
Spare the trust
Hate the sleep.

You occupy my innards
So massively
That gravity pulls my thoughts
Spiraling always in
And out towards you.

If she wants me to
There's nothing I wouldn't do
If she wants me too.

The Stranger Thing

A strange thing came billowing
Down my dark hallway last night
With hands not quite feet
And stitching so tight
It crawled creepy slip
Down under my sheets
And grabbily gripped at my dreams
A strange thing had eyeballs
But never a blink. Ever one single
Held heartbeat cupped slowly
Beneath the tattered weave of shingle
Skin. Reaching out milkily
With hands not quite feet
A strange thing came billowing
Down into my dreams
Where it spoke stranger language
Then scurried away
Leaving only one single
Held heartbeat cupped softly
Inside my time-chilled chest
Questions fluttered in its passing
Pale seagulls in a rippled wake
I fled from dreams and lay unmoving
Thinking thoughts of twisted snakes
Of lakes whose deeps know deeper things
To wonder what future heartbeat holds
And if she'll come lullaby
Some sweet unexpected day
Or leave one heartbeat held
Till dreams themselves fade and blow away.

Change is the heartbreak of the moment
The farewell kiss of the present
The footprint of time
The dance of the kaleidoscope
The release of a breath
The wiping of a tear
The rupture of laughter

Change is writing life
Down on a crumpled napkin
Doomed to be lost in the wash
But remembered like the ghost of a moment.

The summer stumbled in quickly
As spring rewrote its priorities
And decided to stop cutting the lawn

God Good.

God is so good
You can only say the extra 'O'

Christians choose to be weird
Painting their lives with Blood
Till living is death
The dying of the night
A hesitant dawn, a tremulous cry
A waking up to breathing
Emptying out alien lungs
To drink down an air so sweet
Made pure by the Blood

Trust

God has a place in the black
Where our feet fill the gaps
A constellation where our names
Are written in invisible ink
Where we can shine like suns
With light that never looks back.

Everything
Is so huge
When viewed up close
No wonder it
Makes no sense.

Speak like sunshine
Or like moonlight
Find yourself a pale imitation
Of her.

That strange cocktail
Of the terrifying
And the exhilarating
The human brain was not made
To handle life at full speed
Without the occasional wobble

The lines fall straight and crooked like they always do
And leave us to untangle ourselfs from them
Do the spaghetti dance.

Don't step on her hard
You both share a breath
She was born with her hands held so tight
And that grip it steels
Bares its teeth
Keeps her sane and so distant
Don't step on her hard
She keeps out of reach
To keep in her heart.

Leave me this time
In peace you mean it's mine
I need to find a safer place to shine
Wake up and find
The pieces of yourself in time
You need to go and leave this place behind
Leave a reminder
That the forest hides
Behind that first tree line
It's all going fine
I'll paint another blind
A picture of me leaving you behind
A deeper seat for me to sit and lie.

Zombie Land

To sit and not be reminded
To laugh and never shed a thought
Enraptured, unwrapped, ensourcelled
None of the above
But still

You make it hard on yourself
Pouring that concrete round your boots
And not budging till it sets
Solid as the present
And then you wonder why you can not move
It's no rocket science
Just lead feet.

The open pyrite seas
Has a shore in it's back pocket
Kept safe and dry
For washed up poets
With words adrift at sea.

The drain pipe is trying to say something
But the words slip wetly to the concrete
And are never seen again

Fancy that
A black and white cat
And a brand new hat for tea
Oh won't you please
Get up off your knees
And dance in your sleeves with me.

The wave only sinks the shop
When the ship already leans that way
Or too far the other side

Every time I see your name
Written down on a poster
Where the wall catches my eye
I am reminded of something
A fourth generation immigrant thought
Lost to the language of home.

Watercolour.

These wings are painted on
The feathers catch the morning sun
But not the evening breeze
In the half shadows of almost day
I'll be your angel mistake
A silhouette of promises
That wash away in the rain

Heart not In It

Breathing words to the ignorance of heaven
Mumble promises you'll never keep
Beg forgiveness you'll never feel
And stumble off on disillusioned feet.

Tell them you knew it all along
Keeping it under gladwrap
Sealing the freshness in
Like a good joke
Like a kept secret
Like a filled roll
They still find the elephant in your room
The one you fed every day
While the underwraps went stale.

Calculate the odds
Crunch the numbers
Combine the probabilities
Call up every figure
Yet
Hope stands on the walls
Shaking a defiant fist
Even as the mortar crumbles.

A bunch of flowers
I never gave you
Only words
And they are breath
So they don't tip the scales
Very far

Re-access the imaginary
With the atrophied footsteps
Of an astronaut reacquainting with earth.
To the pain of hibernating muscles
Stretching and shedding their winter coats.

A trial
A change of places
Windows to the wilderness
Two views required
Till all is said and done

The world spinning ever on
Misses not one mortal son
Rumbling deep and strong
As changes paint the walls
And are taken down
All bypass this humble chair
Where eyeballs loose the tracks of time
And derail in the tunnels of sleep.

It all adds up
Till the numbers lose their meaning
Like fullstops.........................................................................................................................................

Sweeping the bad under the carpet
Taking the good out of the closet
And polishing up the plaques
Till they gleam to match your eyes
Or treat it as just another day
Where everything changes
And everyone filters off
To grow up suddenly out of sight.

Change always comes when the day is too late

We quake like stones at sunset
And shake like bones on their last parade
Everyone lifts up their voice
To lay you down below
Clouds of people letting go
Fist-crushed petals
Thoughts drifting to the earth
And memories to cover it up green.

Older chases newer
The past is a blur that shatters mountainsides
The trees lean back in quiet reflection
As light bungiejumps from a flickering torch
And we rehearse the route that will be our return
With feet too foolish for heavy souls
On ground too eager for light

play at carrying signs
that point in wrong directions

Having is the idea of
Nothing is the price of
Never is the sound of
No one.

Break don't want to break
Don't want to take no more
Floor, don't leave this floor
Don't ever reach the door
Shake, just go and shake
Just go and shake it off
Lock, don't open up
Don't open up no more.

Here and There

Here and there
The droplets tumbled down
Here and there
Whispering wetness to the ground
Here and there
Air weighed with promises of green
Here and there
Leaden leaves curtsey and bow
Here and there
Gravity drinks the sky

Here and There

Here is where you crouch and kick
You shatter the shins of cautious thought
As it circles around you at an unsafe distance

Here is where the dust is churned
Turning the air deep butter brown
Painting skin and cloth in clay
But leaving the whites starkly untouched

Here is where you growl to yourself
And so to everyone in that voice of lost thunder
Of when the angry sky twitches and stamps a foot

Here is where your your eyes and head unite
Racing against the confinement of degrees
In that rolling hunted bovine way. Cornered and dangerous.

Here is where words in their crisp uniforms
And pastel blue helmets, jackknife their rifles
Spraying haphazard bullets, to mow an unwanted lawn

Here a betrayal so unlooked for that each
Syllable is its own shock. A fresh needle in the eye
As I mumble my peacekeeping with shifting feet
And pretend not to feel each metal Judas kiss.

we are up to our elbows
and you saunter in
paper deep
you just nod
and smile your smile
while we share our teeth
with all the needy children
breaking their gums
on second hand cans

stranger at the tv screen
stranger on the street
take your photo glances
and leave

I crawl back through your opening doors
And count the days with new numbers.

Sometimes you forget
That you are just the sum of
Steam and dead leaves
Rustling wet warmth
Revelling in the split-second

Change is the aftermath of the avalanche

No more running from your face in dreams
No more hiding in the looking glass
Spring came a long time ago
But...

The stars fell from the sky
To change your mind

It takes at least four verses
To transform thought into sense
Not this two and a half stanza dribble
That ricochettes into stray eyes
But runs out of breath before it's done
These half-strangled meanderings
Unfit for the rudest beggar
Litter pavements and alleyways
Like mumbled promises.

Sorry about the mess
We got a bit carried away
And furniture is replaceable
Right?

To turn and face a new direction
To pick a different pebble off the path
To place bootheels in a different puddle
A change
A not going back