Ice and other things like it

A slide downhill

Eris cursing you from above

You pretend to steady yourself

Steady your mind

So as not to appear

Foolish

Or unaware

There is no grip

You just

Allow the icy ground to take you

Logic states there has to be a bottom

An end at some point

You feel that

Breeze on your shoulder

Something passing you at speed

You’re locked in

Locked down

Rabbit in their line of sight

Circling the track

Pulled and pulled

That little box where you started

Has to reappear at some point

Then the level playing field

And mud in your eye

Always moving with the crowd

No traction

Gravity still weighing

Just an extra atmosphere or

Two

And down you go

The sea floor

Head in the diver’s helmet

No peripheral vision

Neck fixed

Locked forward

A little left

A little right and then

Climbing to the surface

Some light has to shine in sometime

Cloud and rain greet you

And colluding remain distant

Subtle

Hiding every star that would

Otherwise

Guide you.

A very grown up thing to do

  

At lunchtime, at certain times of the year

At the job

I walk over to the main building and

Stand by the side doors of the great hall

Stealing minutes of the day like

Stealing silver pennies

Inside there

Sit many young people

Well

Younger than me

Rehearsing orchestral pieces

The cello and viola sing and the

Brass plays and

The baritone

Blasts out some Strauss

Or some such

I peer through the glass

Hidden from them

Observing their herculean efforts

And I recall my college days

Drinking

Smoking

Sleeping

Working my ass off for

Not much reward

These kids here

Now

Have a focus

And a calm way about them

And seem quite grown up

In comparison to those days

   more than 20 years ago now

And

I close my eyes as

The cello and viola sing and the

Brass plays

Delicate and strong 

And the sounds they make

Balance out my world

If only for those few

Minutes.

PRGHHR Show Ep7

Golden Age Syndrome

We would talk about the 60’s

And agreed we’d fit pretty well there

Real bullshit

Hanging with Hendrix and all that

But the other option

Our own rooms

Own homes

Any place

Any time was better than where we were

Floating through the lives of others

Gravel and glass under foot

Always someone scratching at the door

Trying to squirm and claw their way

In

Never an end in sight

And so we adapted

Any way we could

When a person is pushed enough

They go out to extremes

Or become introvert

So we each chose one

And the rift it formed

Created a distance both mental

And physical

And afterwards

We never connected the same way

That time together was gone

Speaking only here and there

Visiting even less

But I stayed the same

And you stayed the same

For better or worse

And eventually I realised

There had never been anywhere safe

For you to be

No corner of the world existed

Where you could hide from what you

Had inside

What they’d tucked away in there

Nor would any past decade welcome you

You didn’t even fit here

Now

With me

You could have stayed and fought

But then

There’s always the other option

So you took it

Made the choice

Leaped without looking

And to hell with the rest of us

But

I can honestly say

That I don’t blame you one bit

They got to you brother

Clawed their way in

And even I couldn’t stop them

And still the world

Is hard

And bright and amoral

And loud

Without mercy

I do not envy you

I have still too much to do here…

But say hello to Jimi for me.

Flood

I can’t wait to get so old

That all this anger just subsides

Washed away like it’s nothing

Wisdom and grace taking over

I can’t wait for the day to come

When I awake and just feel the day I’m in

Taste the coffee in my mouth and

The touch of the people I love

Without this weight on my back

I sense it now and again

Like summer coming

The hairs on your arms stand up

And balance overcomes you

           

There is no poetry in carrying a burden

That never breaks you

It’s like an inside joke

So you channel it

Funnel it into the real poem

Or dam it up

Long enough to see what havoc you can cause

If you let it out all at

Once.

A hundred ways to go fuck yourself

A hundred

Thousand

Million ways

A million gold coins in the bank

Or

Stuffed into their clean-as-shit mattress

Stockpiled riches but hey

They worked hard for it

Up at dawn and a 10 hour

6 day week

hey man

Stop being so bitter

A hundred thousand

Million ways for them to spend it

And where does it all go

Into the walls

The floors

Wardrobes and fixings

A diamond fucking shoe rack for all I know

It’s not my area of expertise

And the Polish builders grind

And crack and saw and bang

And bang

And god

Knows

What else

For months on end

With not a fucking word of hello

From the upper class pirates

Too busy guarding their booty

Though we’ve had glimpses here

And there now

And then

White bread

Plain as balls

Nothing to them at all

A hundred

Thousand

Million ways to live their life…

Sometimes you just look at someone

And think

Man, at least smoke a fucking joint.