Fighting

 

Soaking in hot salt water

Trying to rub some

Feeling

Back into my thighs

 

Thumbs digging in

Sliding into lines of old muscle

White steam absorbs the remaining smoke that

Moments before

Hung in front of my face

 

Burn scented wood

Fill room

Remember how to breathe

    Never works

 

This pretence

The mirror out of sight

Useless

I do not need it to know that the face

Looking back is the real me

 

Staring down pitying this figure

Slippery soaking in a tub too shallow

To even drown

 

    I picture myself as a fiction

    like a less fat Orson Welles

    Cigar in mouth

    Brandy to the side

    Only a few years left to go and resigned to

    That

 

Then the steam’s turn to clear

Just enough so the reflection appears

It seems nothing like the fat guy

Nor anything like myself

Traitor

 

All I thought to be real 

Now rinsing off my skin

And draining away

 

Close window

Inhale steam

Remember how to stay alive

    Never works.

 

 

 

Seven minutes of sun

This thing inside

Will not let me just go

At my own pace

Allow me to wait

And consider the days

Or nights

Like a lost pair of socks 

Unexplainable in their absence 

Weighing on me like the ocean 

On a deep sea diver

And as used to this as I am

It will never make sense 

This thing within me

For so long

Continues to push me outside

Too early

In advance of any need

My timings  

My boxes

My rules 

My law

As I find myself early

Again

Always 

Stood waiting for the train

With 7 minutes to kill

And even that

As small a moment as it is

What a waste of time in itself

I stand in the sun to at least

Try and make it somehow

Worthwhile

Draft

 

My subconscious has taken a beating

It lies bleeding on a rainy side street 

 

But it is not the first time

And so I know we’ll catch up again 

Sooner rather than later

 

In the meantime I am left alone 

With these median memories 

Nothing old 

Nothing new

A haunting 

A distraction

Guilt upon guilt 

Bad choices made with such 

Vigour and self belief 

 

My honesty now much greater 

Than when these images were made 

 

These cliche tonal photographs of

Unlined unloved faces 

Creating magic and running toward raging flame

Displayed on every street I pass

 

Choose…

 

Cake for dinner

I am old now

I have outrun my guilt and so

Drink my tea and wait for my subconscious to 

Catch 

Up

 

 

And all of me is left behind

 

With every drop of happiness

Every small moment of contentment

Comes this laughable realisation

That these moments

Fleeting and irrelevant

from years ago

Dictate my current state

 

Without effort or malice

I am me back then

Myself a million years ago

 

And now

 

And still

 

And so are you

 

I wish I could erase all

These false memories

Superposition

It’s both things all the time

Because I am this and that

I am a feather in someone else’s cap

I was never a writer just

Someone falling through various thoughts

 

Some of which caught on

The frayed edges of my being

On my way down

Because it is always spinning

IT

Is always spiralling out

 

The non-definitive centre of yourself

Never stopping

Only the speed varies

And that

Despite popular belief

We can in fact control

 

It’s just that most of the time

It’s more fun not to… 

 

 

 

 

 

End of the world

 

They never have the good olive oil

I’m trying to be healthy and I can’t get the virgin olive oil

I mean

 

I walk to the beaten down tough as shit guy in the company blue shirt stacking whatever the fuck onto dusty shelves

‘hey man, you guys don’t keep the good oil anymore?’ 

 

He jumps up with the energy of someone ready to die or kill

‘Yes Yes! We have!’

And scurries out through the nearby metal swing doors - reappearing 2 minutes later with the bottle of extra Virgin

 

‘We can’t keep it out, people keep stealing it…’

He looks at me, equal parts confusion and embarrassment, 

and hands it over

 

‘Wow, really. End of the fucking world’, I say

He doesn’t even smile. 

 

 

 

Bigger picture

 
A thousand small needles
Over a thousand small days
Each point piercing nothing more
Than the skin’s surface
But still
 
And you feel to disappear
Just disintegrate
But something will not allow it
 
Each point an awakening of sorts
Like a room of grown men
Each in varying degrees of failure
Manifesting in the despair of
A new shirt
Risky haircut
Crazy socks
 
Like a lost old lady
Hardly there but for her cane and
Coloured hair
Asking for help with a 

    crack in her voice
 
This pain is a dark morning
And
Sunlight in your eyes while
At the job
Sirens and car horns
An absence of psychedelic logic
 
A thousand years past
And a thousand more to come
And still
The same voices
Droning and breathless
They skim the surface and dissipate
In the grey mornings mist
But still
 
You feel to disappear
Just disintegrate
But something will not allow it
 
And you wish to forget
To avoid anger
But something will not allow it
 
A thousand years of repetitions
Of the same rules
The same poems
The same hatred
 
The pain is a dark morning
And sunlight in your eyes

 

Dress down Thursday

As bad as it gets 
A flash of light can still
Arrive
And remind me that
At least I avoided having to 

Every day

Go to a job 
That makes me wear a tie 
With my top shirt button 
Done up

Discord

 

Walk uphill

Into wind and rain

Eyes open chin up

Walk in front

Naked if you have to

Take the full force of it all

 

Run upstairs 

Do not walk

So when eventually

Inevitably

You have to run

You will not be left behind

And fed to the wolves

Your body a stepping stone

As the masses walk through their malaise

 

Keep Moving they say

But most days

Doesn’t life just grab you

By the ankles…

Nails digging into skin

A merciless lesson in humility

 

And there is no reason

Nothing you did wrong

To deserve such treatment

It just is

 

Don’t look to me for help

Or retribution

Don’t look to me for counsel

There is no shoulder to cry on

No arms to hold you

 

A sandstorm churns up my insides

I cannot see

Beyond its edges

 

And so I drag you

Sober and drunk and high and

Low

I drag you

Along

With me

 

And demand allegiance

And demand patience

Days and weeks and years go by

And still you remain 

 

My arrow through the wind and rain

An anchor on the open ocean

While I demand the impossible.

 

 

 

One summer day

  

The drug addicts dance off against the alcoholics

As tribal music crosses green fields and

Teenagers smoke their weed while back home

Their parents drink chilled rose and fuck on the kitchen table

Probably

 

Everyone is so young

And vital

And we recall those times when you had no call to

Lie to yourself

And laughter arrived as spontaneity

And today was today

Was today

 

A call came

A trip to the hospital

An emergency

The gods sometimes say fuck you and your wistful memory

And your only choice is to

Say yeah

 

Well

Ok…

 

 

 

 

Just another Tuesday

  

I hurl the piping hot stovetop

Across the balcony at the pigeon

As it tries and fails badly to

Hide underneath the deck chair

 

The thing clangs against the metal chair legs

As the rodent pops straight up

Whacking its stupid little skull against

The base of the seat

 

The hot coffee splashing across wooden slats

Bits of feather and dirt fill the air

And are caught in the 7am sun rays

As the bird slams against the glass over and over

Trying to get away

And I watch on gleefully

 

die you mother

Just take off first

So I don’t have to sully my hands

Picking up your dirty corpse

 

A second bird perched and static

Looks on from across the way

Unflustered by the commotion

I wonder which of us

Looks more insane to him

 

Finally the thing makes its escape

Unharmed

And I am left there

Alone without caffeine

As they disappear together into the morning sky

 

Time to go to work

I guess.

 

 

 

 

Positive Positive

So there you go

Ships passing in darkness

Over and over

Pulled down into each other’s orbit

Gravity increases exponentially

Until one of you destroys the other

 

These are nature’s rules

Not mine

 

 

 

 

Specialisation is for insects

 

the city hides monsters in plain sight

underneath oak trees and behind bus stops

gathered in corners of blown-together trash piles

behind the sound of distant gunshots

and crows stealing jewels

 

this place will eat you alive

so don’t let the smiles fool you

the hippies play guitar from

inside a mushroom haze

and good for them

but they’ll be first to go

 

look behind you

feel the wind change from the slice of the blade

just missing your neck

a glint of steel in blinding sunlight

the red of a wild dog’s eye

looking into you ready to charge

 

this place will tear you apart

given half the chance

for no other reason than

it was just your goddamn turn.

 

 

 

Podcast links

Seeing as the writing is stalling, I have linked all my previous music podcasts for ease, below.

 

These go back to 2013 and are more about the songs than anything I have to say about them. Please do have a listen/share with anyone you feel might dig them.

 

Podcast 1

Podcast 2

Podcast 3

Podcast 4

Podcast 5

Podcast 6

Podcast 7

Podcast 8

Podcast 9

Podcast 10

Podcast 11

Podcast 12