I was young, I was clay I was given to looking out and there upon the train seat a gift from the universe A barely filled notebook no name, no number no way to find the owner it piqued my curiosity…
With pencil then, I tried to fill it with all my words, my wonderings my secret truths but it went nowhere just collected dust upon my shelf
A few months gone by still young, my paint still wet still at my most malleable Lying on the pavement there another present from the universe a gleaming fountain pen lid on, no engraving, no passer by no way to return it instinctively, I picked it up put it to the waiting paper
The flick of that scalpel nib the infinite potential, the promise… For the first time in my life I could speak without interruption get my thoughts straight, talk it over A friendship formed there that has never faded
Since that strange coincidence or you may call it providence I’ve always had a keen eye on the world for its quiet subtle gifts and moments Look up, look down, look out It’s all around, every day I am humbled by the wonder of nature and the ever generous beauty of existence…
Acquainting myself with the moon trapped behind glass we’re exchanging glances And on my back a thousand heart-attacks roll past My fingers cross and uncross as she sleeps, so black back in the real world paid-up entirely on her subscription to actual reality
Might you return with a souvenir for me from the envious depths of endless peace perhaps a child or a patient nurse or some control with a button for reverse My fingers press that longed-for switch watch deeds recoil back into the body where I don’t turn that key don’t cross that threshold slipping backwards, contentedly from actual reality
Moonshine lights the shore as I drag the boat of all my swimming thoughts along a silver stretch of sand where all the land behind no longer matters a bowl of sea, insignificantly the only thing between the horizon and me but crossing is possible with the coins that you earn waking night after night and each mile is a measurement you take from actual reality
This father feeling takes over My child in a superposition only alive inside its mother between the hours of two and six AM a phantom haunting, stalking poised with talons drawn to fly this solipsistic me and drop him heavily back in the sticky city streets of actual reality…
Holidaying as a teenager back when time moved slower and thoughts were many I’d cruise the gift shops reviewing tacky souvenirs This used to be a fishing village now it’s a tourist trap
And picking up a handmade bear with wonky mouth and vacant stare big button eyes and blood red lips I’d wonder of its maker, its creator someone dreamed this bear into the world someone thought this expression made it look cute
Was it modeled on a relative was it ripped-off from some other toy was its designer trying to give a child some joy or only focused on the ringing of cash registers and paying the bills Did they live locally or somewhere overseas?
Looking at the toy I’d be overtaken with a sadness that someone tried and someone cared if only for a moment in their short lives
I’d set it back and wonder ‘will this still be here on the same shelf next year?’
Friend, we drink together talking at a wedding lit blue and gold familiar faces dance around us
Friend, secretly, I wonder if you were to open up your essence lift a pen to kiss the paper to vent your heart aloud
Friend, I long to know what your poetry would be if you chose to write
Which desires peskily linger at the edges of your furrowed mind which old flames still burn a fire which hidden wounds you’d dare parade what is the meter and the rhythm of those unspoken secrets
What ribbon would you choose to decorate the mundane Which words would you feverishly grasp towards what profound truths do your fingertips quietly trace which wisdoms guide you along your way what strength of light shines inside of you and what damage might you do to leave us reeling
And I don’t say it but every time we meet, I think it Write! right out loud for me for you splash your heart across the page in every shade lend me your light if but for a moment
Spill your soul for all to see Friend, I love you, and will always wonder what your poetry would be if you’d set it free…
Every new day brings fresh lethargy renewed deceit, increased malaise The tipping-point arrives the call goes out but there is nothing and no one comes; these ‘friends’ have failed
Every new year brings fresh poetry a handful of old photographs and the game of remembering names Those pretty kids stand so still smiling on a beach somewhere Where are they now in these heavy adult years
Every new life brings fresh expectation new-born hope, budding dreams a player joins the game takes their part in the play and we share our cheats and scripts in some duty-bound illusion
But today; there is no heat in the air the streets awash with tears this Northern sky cries every day for the future, for the past for the sadness it has seen it misses us, mourns our departure and dresses itself in black for our recurring nightly funeral
Where did we lose our way? When did we wish ourselves away? The darling sky begs for answers they’re sprayed on crumbling walls they’re compass-point scratches on school desks and etched with hearts on lonely trees they’re everywhere but we don’t always see They’re everywhere but we’re just too busy They’re everywhere and the rain magnifies them for me…
There turned out to be so many different keys to the different depths of me It was truly hard to know what it was possible for me to show Different friends reach different doors Different strangers peering through different windows
A glimpse… almost in focus a sweet taste here, a sour mouthful there the faintest sound of joyous laughter then the cool stream of tears rolling down as the image slowly blurs again
Even I found it hard, even I took years to add up every fraction to calculate if I was whole and I was worried there for a good long while
I never meant to be this way never meant to give so little away never meant to set that combination quite so randomly I could never really see who I was destined to be…
Always, I want to see their place of work I sit and wonder of the artist’s desk what trinkets, what tools they choose
Always, I picture in my mind the artist’s desk and what pin-tacked postcards what scribbled notes of inspiration may surround it
Is it by a bright window or in the bowels of a basement Do they toil below a craning lamp or by dim candle flicker do they have a desk at all or just a strong knee
Always, filled with nosiness I love to imagine the artist’s desk the magic place where they give birth to what always was…
Too seriously I tend in my journey too easy to focus on the duty the facts of what’s in hand the doing of a thing
So precious to see the nonsense appreciate the humour the madness in everything you’re tasked with
So freeing to have a sense of silliness draw a cock and balls on your mortgage application scribble a cape and tights across the undertaker’s pamphlet
Life can feel like tumbling through grinding grey machinery without a wry eye on the daftness smirking at whatever crazed fool conceived this and those who choose to ride it all so earnestly
Your satire, your playfulness your dark sense of what’s appropriate to joke about perfectly timed skilfully placed to punctuate the blandness hacking at the horrors laughing through the banality of the day to day
Without humour we are robots in some automaton tableau zipping from thing to thing from job to job ones and zeros bobbing up and down
Every plant in our house has its own voice its own personality they have conversations with our animals all channelled through your hilarious sense of things you turn dull mornings into bright theatre just never call it ‘quirkiness’
You remind me to see the funny side keep pulling at that silly string you puncture my pomposity with a most gentle needling You’re the best medicine you’re my prescription and, among so many other reasons I love you for this…
Tom is dead. His party’s over. Stark and sarcastic he’s just a memory, now…
So numb, I watch me crack again in horrific black and white projection about to jump, in someone else’s bed so restlessly, I turn away can’t face up to my adultery the tempted, cheating, loveless; me
So dutifully, I cover my eyes again headphones on, I watch me walking blinded, soulless, vacuum filled so magnified, I still look small swallowing my pride, all passion dies the pointless, aching, hollow; me
Devoid of colour, of life or joy the putrid skin just falls away a mess that stains the carpet One last thing to write about a death so rough and meaningless the broken, elemental, rotting; me
(And at the sight of all of this the spectator me can only laugh and from my passive lips, a joke a joke…)
They burn on in the night dripping candles of my fat for what I couldn’t give in life comes from functionality in death So openly, I tear out my beating heart the sinning, lost and wasted; me
So obviously, I watch me try to stand pushing the lens in deep between my eyes the blue flushed out and burnt away So covertly, I’m zooming in I can’t get enough of seeing this the forsaken, faithless, empty; me
So naturally, it came to me at first time took my hands so tightly pushed me into the holes again stripped my words down to the bone so pathetically, I put up a meek fight the tortured, pained, artistic; me
A joke stark and sarcastic me A joke stark and sarcastic me
[2003]
Thanks for reading this very old poem.
Note: I’m going to post some older poems which I’ve never shared before over the next week or so. They’re all quite early in my writing and are flawed in all sorts of ways (aren’t we all) but I thought they might be of interest to people to see where I started. T.A. 18th June 2021.
In the shining eyes of the girl below me lit by the dim glow of a Paris night I see the distance growing that I’ve been running from for so long
And there, I gasped lay by her side, and said “What have I become? Do I mean anything to you?”
Inhaling on a cigarette she looked at me, sideways and said “You have lost so much most of which you gave away drunkenly, or deliberately Trying to be something else but to yourself you’ll always stay a stranger in this wasteland”
And that’s me a stranger in this wasteland Yes, that’s me…
[2004]
Thanks for reading this old poem.
Note: I’m going to post some older poems which I’ve never shared before over the next week or so. They’re all quite early in my writing and are flawed in all sorts of ways (aren’t we all) but I thought they might be of interest to people to see where I started. T.A. 18th June 2021.
O, I have loved you for such a long time I have held you closer than anyone and yet still we wait for something more…
O, I have been insatiable for your voice and body I have fought to keep you harder than anyone before and yet still we wait for something more…
O, you have touched me deeper, in so many ways I have worshiped you more than any god and yet still we wait for something more…
We know not if there is the possibility of some better way We’re both unsure if there could be some truer love and yet we choose to wait for something more…
[2006]
Thanks for reading this old poem.
Note: I’m going to post some older poems which I’ve never shared before over the next week or so. They’re all quite early in my writing and are flawed in all sorts of ways (aren’t we all) but I thought they might be of interest to people to see where I started. T.A. 18th June 2021.
Tonight, I dream of a patient love Some statue of understanding who can be quiet, reserved unveiling themselves slowly releasing what they have to offer over time building such incredibly tough bonds A love so strong it lasts forever
Tonight, I lie awake and wish for some patient love who comes to me with creativity empathy and a deeper understanding than I have felt before something more in tune with it is I long for
I only think of what is coming holding my breath for that patient love I crave an intelligence and a maturity I have not known before…
[2006]
Thanks for reading this old poem.
Note: I’m going to post some older poems which I’ve never shared before over the next week or so. They’re all quite early in my writing and are flawed in all sorts of ways (aren’t we all) but I thought they might be of interest to people to see where I started. T.A. 18th June 2021.
All I want to do is leave but I don’t know how I don’t know the words I don’t know what to say In every word that she purrs in every smile that she shines all I see are other lives are other ways for me but I don’t know how I don’t know how…
All I want to do is say ‘goodbye’ but I don’t know if I can I don’t know when it’s right I don’t know if I am In every kiss that she steals in every lie she extracts all I feel is a damming shame and how I want to get out but I don’t know how I just don’t know how…
And this can’t go on anymore I have to stop it now but I’m not even certain if this is really me and the only one I can trust is the one I want to leave There is no one else left there is nowhere to turn
So, I have to decide I have to be strong but it’s so hard to admit it’s too tough to address I don’t want to regret this but I don’t want to just settle I have to be sure I have to be right but there is no real ‘wrong’ and there is no clear ‘right’
I’m not scared to be alone I’m not afraid of the night but I’m petrified of regret and know I will miss her so much and more than anything else I don’t want to hurt her but if I do this then all I will do is hurt her more than I am hurting now more than I am hurting now
I have to be sure I have to be right but there is no real ‘wrong’ and there is no clear ‘right’…
[2005]
Thanks for reading this old poem.
Note: I’m going to post some older poems which I’ve never shared before over the next week or so. They’re all quite early in my writing and are flawed in all sorts of ways (aren’t we all) but I thought they might be of interest to people to see where I started. T.A. 18th June 2021.
I lie, I tell myself, but it’s true some things are best left unsaid The future opened up and took you so, now I’m ironing my best fabrications hoping to convince someone else I’m free but your flawless face is still here printed a thousand times behind my eyes Now, who am I to kiss these foreign lips what right have I to dance on your grave
We’re all predisposed to failure us, the kids with hearts on sleeves We open our doors to destruction the moment we utter those three words but I’ve become so obsessed with doom that I don’t always see the stars when I stare into this night sky My eyes are tainted by the knowledge that everything will surely end
I smile, I tell myself, but I don’t some realities will never be acknowledged The sky opened up and drowned me so now, I’m digging out my umbrella to shade me from the sun that’s coming My mantra used to be ‘alone, but not lonely’ now, it’s more like ‘save me from myself’ but that’s just the way I am these days so eager, to just fold and indulge the tears
So, there’s no guessing where tonight will end when midnight comes to shake my hand will I be lying on a couch in the kitchen or lost somewhere in these foggy streets strangled by a scarf and her sweet perfume choking on the beauty of such porcelain skin reciting my favourite phrases between kisses knowing that the ending is just hours away and that everything I want is on a timer…
[2005]
Thanks for reading this very old poem.
Note: I’m going to post some older poems which I’ve never shared before over the next week or so. They’re all quite early in my writing and are flawed in all sorts of ways (aren’t we all) but I thought they might be of interest to people to see where I started. T.A. 18th June 2021.
There are some nights like clockwork I find myself ticking up the stone steps of the lighthouse
There are some nights cloaked in melancholy staring out, wide-eyed across the freezing seas of time
There are these nights I sit, quietly, by the lens wondering of all the other nights I have sat quietly wondering…
A thread of light stretches backwards through all my life sewing together these contemplative moments connecting me with my younger selves
We all sit there on different steps looking out to sea with our lifetime of bad haircuts and our silver fountain pens each more expensive than the one before
We all wonder in an echo we all wonder ‘Am I right? Is my aim true? do I have any aim at all?
Where am I going?’
I long to reach out a hand somehow send out a boat to them I worry for those lost souls adrift on wild seas rocking in churning waters without a lot of hope
Through the thick blanket of night I sense the face of a future me he looks healthier, happier richer somehow looking back across the freezing seas of time fondly and encouragingly he’s smiling back at me…
Through my life I’ve collected voices maybe twice a decade a new singer comes to me and I can’t let it pass by without holding tight
Through the years certain songs seem magnetic, somehow whole albums written in a style I know too well for it to be coincidence and I have to hold it close
When Joni sings of ‘skating away’ something jumped out of the speakers and Leonard says a ‘highway curls up like smoke’ those lines leap out of my headphones
Georgie’s story and the way Rod tells it grabs me by the lapels Don’s road trip to the levy those lines are etched beneath my skin
My mother, my mother played these songs to me before I even took a breath my mother, my mother played me these songs before I ever took a breath
Songs from the womb songs from before come back and find me again…
