The last one

 

I see you fade away

One by one

Incrementally over time

 

Both out of the blue

And as predictable as rain on a

June Sunday morning

 

I keep looking for order

Patterns

Some underlying logic to hold onto it

While you all let it slip from contented fingers

Or lying hands

Or blind eyes

 

I don’t know

Maybe there’s a truth there

Perhaps you can now sleep through the night

And wake in the morning full of love

And wonder

 

So why do I not believe that

 

Jealousy

Confusion

But I’m the smart one

            (so you say)

 

The failure remains

Of circling around to the start

Looking for tomorrow’s answers

Rather than process the day

I am actually

In

 

The failure of easy escape

Of the release

And reset

And repeat

The familiar becomes like iron

Weighted and dull

An unseen crowd laughing in the darkness

 

Waiting to die cannot be the goal

Or perhaps too much truth is just uncomfortable

For most people

 

So I remain the last of the fools

Holding onto fire and grinning through the pain

Through the fact I know

The imbalance is the one thing keeping my legs under me

 

Keeping the wheels spinning

The brain firing

The foolish heart breaking

 

Every

Single

Day

 

It is a disappointment

A mockery

A bad joke

To be the last one standing

I thought they were all smarter than that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something is better than nothing

 

Past the half century

Holding home-made coffee and sandwiches for lunch

There was supposed to be more to life than this
And I suppose there is

Hiding in the cracks and dark corners
But my flashlight is out of batteries

My senses acknowledge the change in air pressure
Again

Again

Again

The coming season

Earlier and earlier each year
We shall reach a perpetual autumn in no time

The sun hanging there harmless
With no memory of the good it once did

And I am of late, no support
Vicious and uncertain
A stray dog trembling in the rain

I am no human being
Not today
Nor yesterday

And the smallest elements of ourselves
Lay in wait for one eye to close even momentarily
Before clawing their way to the surface

When the knife edge is old news
And the third eye remains closed
You burn your hand and

Slam your bones down onto cement
No regrets
Maybe
Maybe not

I am not predictable
Trustworthy
Or blessed with foresight

Maybe it’s time to stop all this
False honesty

Hold my breath
Learn how to ride a horse
Or become an assassin
Or play guitar

Something that actually
Matters.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

Bright out there/dark in here

 

You a fighter?

He barely heard her voice over the music coming from across the bar

A small and ancient box spewing out tinny pop radio

God am I in the wrong place

He thought for the 3^rd time that afternoon

 

No, why

He finally asked the woman

She had been sat there when he walked in and

Likely still would be after he left

If he actually got out of there alive

 

You have that look. I’ve seen it a lot. I know

She slid her hands over her cigarettes and lighter

Dragging them along with the heavy bottom glass of bourbon

And shifted from her seat onto the stool right next to his

 

What do you know? I ain’t a fighter. Not big enough.

Had maybe three my entire life.

Outside the sun had begun its descent, on the hottest day of that summer

A black McGraw Electric fan was just about making it around

The blades ticking along in unison as her red lips moved

A shitty breeze was better than none at all

As she continued to dig in

 

So what, you a runner? Nah you’re no runner.

Your eyes are tired. Black. That’s because you fight. All the time.

That why you’re in here – all day, alone?

 

He took a last sip and stood up to get out, the clicks inside his back

Betraying both his age and his purpose.

 

Your jacket, she gestured. It had fallen under the bar stool and

Was lying in what he could only hope was old, dried booze.

 

That’s piss.

She said, laughing

Yeah

 

Yeah

I know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dreams of the Atlantic

 

 

How many uninformed

Uneducated and desperate

How many willing but

Unable are

Waiting on the red letter

 

How many starving or

Almost starving await

The hard KNOCK on the door

 

How many on the outskirts

Outsider yet artist

Introvert yet intelligent

Swatting flies with a year old

Copy of the New Yorker

Or

Glancing as an aside

Towards the black & white brains

Within the pages of the Atlantic

 

Wishing

Hoping

Dreading to be included

Be part of the club

Lauded, envied

Pretending to understand

Every single page of comment

And culture

The world above so

Unlike below

 

We curl up in bed and type this shit

Watching coffins drop

Seeing pixelated blood over pixelated body

Not hearing gun shots only

Because we had the windows closed that night

 

No art here

Sorry

No academic retreat or book festival

To exclaim aloud our perspective on

Every single

underlying injustice

    sorry

 

Rather

Just one more

Outsider

Introvert

Swatting flies

Glancing

Towards black & white brains

Wishing

Hoping

Dreading to be included

Be part of the club

Lauded

Envied and

Pretending to understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stalled

 

I have not written in months

Because the world has become a joke

When the world fails

Poetry fails

All great art fails

Becoming only a knee jerk reaction

To some ironic sorrow

 

As the sky now remains an undecided yellow

Not winter nor yet spring

Just keeping you guessing

A ubiquitous distraction

 

And so it is best to fall back and

Pause within a moment

To recall and retain an old anger

Or sadness or what

Little humour there is left inside you

And to bottle them

Cork them tightly and wait

 

Fall back to old routine

War films

Coffee

Wasting days and nights with nothing

Wasting your life as you lie over and over

That there is so much life to spare

 

Refrain from meaningful human engagement

Yes and no and thank you

Now and then and

Only enough to ensure you are

Not looked upon to be a fool or insane

 

Eventually the masses will settle

Real life becoming sunflower soon after

Poking its bright yellow head from cracks in cement

Then you may start up once again

To reflect and inform and express real life

On the page or on the canvas or in dusty black

Vinyl grooves

 

But you must wait

Relax

Drink bad liquor

Watch bad tv

Sing

Take long baths

But do not write or paint

Or even think about any of them

Out there  

Until the rest of the world is ready

to catch up.

 

 

 

 

 

Fine. I’m fine

  

I didn’t know how I’d ended up on the floor

But there I was

The only one finding any amusement in the goings on

 

I felt my head

All ok

‘ambulance?ambulance?’ she repeated at me

 

I struggled to speak – I couldn’t tell if my brain wouldn’t instruct my mouth

Or vice-versa

But it wasn’t happening

 

‘nnnnnno. No.’

I got there after a few tries

Why was I on the floor?

 

The explanation came – I won’t go into it here

Suffice to say it was a new one to me

Old man maybe. The world is catching up to you, old man

 

Well, shit

I drank some water

Looked into the eyes of the few people around

 

To these strangers I was clearly both a liar and a fool

To her, I was lucky and a fool

In my head I split the difference

I kept repeating – because it was the truth

‘I’m fine.’

But No one believes an old fool

 

There is no moral to this story.

It’s just a story.

Though

At some point you find yourself on the cold-ass concrete

And it can take a while

To figure out how you got there.

 

 

 

 

Windows closed

  

It seems nowadays

That all one need do

In order to make a name for yourself

Is the same thing over and over

 

To buy the same bread from

The same market stall

Over and over

 

Commit the same crime

In the same signature style

Over and over

 

Write the same poems

About the same thing

Over and over

 

Until eventually you

Run out of steam

The market closes

The rain stops falling

Blood runs cold

Dogs sleep

The cars run out of gas

Dust devils making the horizon

Disappear

 

And then what

How do you define your remaining time

Here

 

A season changes

And the windows are closed

For the first time in a while

I do not care for the accepted rule

My writing remains centre-less

Orbiting as planets around my brain as dying star

 

The coffee pot is dry

A policeman is shot on the TV

Someone downstairs bangs and bangs and

Bangs

 

And in my head I make jokes

That I will never tell anyone

Because they’re just

Too

Goddamn

Funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Always straight ahead

  

More rain had fallen in the hour just past

Than on every day in the last month

And it fell on me

 

On the other side of the windscreen

Was a curtain of water

Car lights faded and the road met the sky

In a blur unseen at 60 miles per hour

 

Everything disappeared then

The road had no end

No symbolism

No metaphor

No soul or forgiveness

 

I looked for a break

For a time out

A sliver of blue or

Glint of light

A chance to just open the door and

Get out

 

Respite was not on the cards

The day remained a single lane

No hard shoulder

Stuck in a hell of inbetween places

Not really present and not really past

 

And though I knew what was there

At the end of the journey

Still my foot was held to the floor

Speeding blindly back to it.

 

 

 

Untitled

 

A meditation on monoxide

The siren’s singing bowl

Ear drum burst and a voice lost to concrete dust

 

The roads are littered with writers

Dead from the onset of spring

Poems half-written lay crumpled beside curb stone

Blown along by the final winter breeze

Pushing them down drains on its way out of town

 

And as magnets repel one another

Heat pushes instinct away

Blue sky raising dead spirits

Somewhere to lay heavy head supported now

By broken neck

 

How happy a world

A distinct lack of madness as interest dissipates

Interest in anything out there in the gleam

All so clean and naked

Truthful and honest and painfully dull

As

The summer threatens without storm

 

Just more yellow

More tomorrow

When

Really

Hearts seek out the nourishment of bones packed in ice

Sinew as lichen for the carnivore poets

who wander the landscape seeking darkness and thunder.

 

The roads are littered with writers

Dead from the onset of spring

And there I lay alongside

Them.

 

 

 

 

 

Come and get your steak

 

It was one of those days like one of those nights when

The storm blew into your face

Whichever way you stood

The world forcing its way down your throat

No escaping the shift of seasons

Unsubtle and sharp

 

The old lady tried to walk against it up the hill

The dog

Half dead

Followed on 3 legs

The 4^th limping as an afterthought

 

They were both fat and close to death

I bet myself which would be the first to go

And whether it would happen before they reached the

Top

 

I heard the mutt cough and gasp

            ‘come get your steak’ she garbled to it

 

I wasn’t sure if that was a bribe to keep moving

Or a reward for already crawling that far along the street

She dropped her 5 carrier bags and began to rummage around

I kept walking

 

A steak sounded good

But I needed to get out of this goddamn hurricane

That was cutting at me

Forcing me to stay still and

Keeping me from reaching summer in one piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re-Side magazine

Happy to have work included in this issue of Re-Side mag

 

Steak

 

Bloody

All caps

No apologies

Cut to death

Chewing fat

Grinding sweet marrow

Animal at the trough

Nails scraping

Knuckles down

Whisky bottle empty

Tears rolling

Teeth broken

 

But still half the world whines

Spinning round like a fairground ride fallen out of all favour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My god, what happened

Were you not once great

Boastful and scarred with hubris

Did the world not revolve around

Your gold hearted presence

And women would sing

And drinks flowed

Cars crashed and

Nights fell

And inside there was a soul

Underneath the sounding fireworks

And hormonal chatter

A soul aiming straight and true

Were you not once waiting

And given up

And sodden with autumn rain

Orange leaves a portent of

Your secret shallows

But a little curse

Of an ordinary life

Has now killed all that

One

Two

There are no mistakes in life

Some people say.