29 Aug 2017

8 to 5




I am not drunk enough
There is wine but
It is a school night
And a hot bath just took me for all I have
Listening to Joni Mitchell and drifting

I even had the beginnings of a story
About a man newly homeless
Surviving on the free things of life
But that too has drifted away

It is a stranger’s bath
Better than ours
It swallows you and the taps are a classic
Brass with china handles
None of this is important
To anyone but me

I am not drunk at all
It is Monday night and I am ready to sleep
Already at barely 9.30
What in god’s name happened to us all?
I lay blame at the job
The money that buys things and
Loses me time

But I need my red meat
My steak and good bottle of red
Or sweet oak of a dark bourbon
I need the car and the books and music
So
How to reconcile and balance the scales
There is no conceivable way

No poet will survive this
Barbaric age.


12 Aug 2017

Shirt and tie



There is nothing better than a good fight
To keep your heart beating
Blood flowing and eyes alive

A love song blasting out the window
Neighbours calling for the end
A scream in some bastards face

A fight over a single point
One principle
The vein in your neck up
Forehead pounding as you spit and talk and
Stand your ground

Because they
He
She
They cannot and
Will not see the fucking light

No matter how small you are
How small your ideas
They matter
If no one ever sees you
No one ever listened
They matter

There is nothing better than a good hard
In the dirt fight
To remind you to keep on
Going.


2 Aug 2017

Eyes to the sky



  
I thought he was looking right at me
Then thought well
That’s impossible
He’s at least 80 and I’m going 30mph
As I got closer I saw
That he wasn’t looking anywhere
Barely walking his eyes were up and left
Fixed there on nothing
He could’ve been dead were he not standing bolt upright
Old carrier bag scrunched up in hand

It was 8.30am
And all I could think is
How alive are you
Are you locked in?
Eyes to the sky like that
And if you’re disconnected from the rest of
Us
What’s so important to be out
At the crack of dawn?
Because
If it was me
Stuck like that
I’d sleep ‘til midday

I never get to do that anymore…