Dream up to the bell

She wakes up at 4am

6am

Makes a god awful racket

Though trying not to

Flushes and gets back in

Feet cold after only a few minutes

Out

It always wakes me in that half dream

Kind of way

Where you’re there but also not

Your toes still off the ground

Then back into it I go

Other nights I dream right up to the bell

It goes off and you open your eyes

In a micro second turning the sharp corner

From some rainbow/dead friend/Atlantic ocean

Storyline

To a white sheet and blond hair in your face

And wondering why the sun

Hates you so goddamn much

Coming up as it does

Burning away out there uncaring and

Unaware of you

But pushing you forward towards

Your small day with its bits and pieces

Screws and fixings and dust and clutter

And all the needful things

Too

A push and pull of digging in your heels

Rolling up your sleeves and

Hoist the black flag, as the man said

But then also

To see an end

A beautiful end and remain powerful enough

To climb toward that too

A cycle of wanting and the waking world chasing that

Want from you

And there is no secret to any of this

Other than to fight against the days

Follow the sun

Rest in shadow

Keep dreaming right up to the bell.

the chz podcast episode 11

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.

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.

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…

Vacancy

There is a neon sign

Always lit

V A C A N C Y

The joined up letters flicker

At the far end of a dark alleyway

Tucked aside from main street

But always there

Like a scratch in the back of your throat

And a quiet buzzing

It is a room

A space

A hole in the ground that will never be filled

You used to live there

From time to time

You would come and go and go again

And now though I seem to rarely think of you

Even in sleep

It will stay lit always

Just

In

Case.