You show me your open hand flash me your smiling eyes Say ‘come here, talk a while’ then you leave me standing in the rain
You hand me a note stained with kisses gift me a signed photo of you Say ‘have this, share with me’ then you leave me standing in the rain
I am such a fool I am such a fool for you I’ve been standing in this rain for three weeks solid now
You meet me at one of our old haunts loiter in the doorway of our youth Say ‘Thank you, so much, for coming’ then you leave me stranded in the rain
You write me such an honest letter show me even more of depths of all you are Say ‘I’m in need of someone like you’ then you leave me stranded in the rain
I am such a fool I am such a fool for you Either you don’t know enough about me or you know exactly what you do Give me another taste of all I want then pull away and make me wait again
This is torture I could do this to myself I don’t need you, too I am such a fool I am such a fool for you
Why won’t you open up and give yourself to me finally and fully As I stand in the falling rain soaked through I’m soaked through for you…
The house looks like a painting yet, we can’t agree on anything What I want is meaningless to you what you want remains awkwardly obtuse and unreadable
I play my game, aligning the pieces to get me whatever I desire O, the house looks like a painting but I never know what’s right too adept at getting what I think I need
Meeting an old girlfriend who talks of monasteries and monks as I count the freckles on her nose and wonder if she still swallows…
O, the house looks like a painting yet, we cannot agree on anything Is there an urge that we can harness and repair or just our feeble pushes toward opposing goals Two firm lurches toward different shores
It’s corrosive it’s wholly limiting it’s the only way we seem to know to operate
The house looks like painting and still we’re not aligned on anything at all…
Cutting to the heart of all this longing is it the vicious tongue you wag at me or the perpetual mystery hanging from your actions the contradictions of your possible state of mind
I see the hurt, I feel the pain you carry and sense your urge to be desired by men the flirt of all you do rings loudly before you and against my better judgement I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
With every scar you try to inflict or accidentally leave on my skin I drift away for a moment only then find myself battling the waves I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
I know you didn’t ask for this I know you didn’t choose me or this adventure Yet, I brought it to you anyway and you didn’t quite turn me away
And you’re cute, there’s no denying you spill out in all my favourite places and know how to smile with a catastrophic magnitude that tears the hair clean off my scalp
The bile in your belly, the bitch barely-contained I never knew how much I loved that rage your misery is contagious I feel its cells dividing in my bloodstream
I doubt I am the only one you’ve drugged this way I know you’re not planning to leave your man but as long as you keep stoking the engine of longing I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
I dream about you most nights and when I’m on the bus or train, or tube, or walking down the street or when I’m in bed with somebody else I dream it’s your body over which my hands journey
And yet you only reach out a paw for me when you know I cannot be there you only say you might want for me when you know we can’t connect
You’re playing me, humble instrument to your vanity you keep me hanging on for nothing real I know all of this so well and yet I gladly hang myself I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
Sometimes it seems; maybe you feel more for me than I realise an ambiguous choice of words and perhaps it could mean more you say the lovers kissing in the bar, are reminding you of me I say the denim shirt I wore today was reminding me of you
So, who are you anyway and why do I long like this I feel a sudden shortness of breath when I look into your eyes I feel my chest twinge when you catch me looking
There’s something in your history too I know you’ve got some good hidden in you beyond the selfish drive you choose to expose I know there’s something that I could harness
There’s something in the things you’ve seen the pleasure I know you’ve experienced your taste for the beautiful and the sublime perhaps if I could make you choose me, it would mean I’m beautiful too
You laugh at my jokes… no matter how ruthless the punchline the sharper, the more scathing the better I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores
I need to catch myself before I fall much further slam my pick in the ice before the precipice
Cutting to the heart of all this longing I see such complicated shapes emerging and despite all my better instincts I can’t help but come swimming back to your shores…
Below the boards I hear the water rushing a stray dog strolls by and says hello he doesn’t stop for long, keeps moving on across Port Meadow the horses roam
I’ve got this leaving feeling breeding in me…
The sun above sheds its strength with the season trees undressing, will soon stand naked arms held up but not in questioning the bridge at Magdalen wheezing smoke
I’ve got this leaving feeling coiled up in me…
Abandoned nests descending in the gales I’m shedding possessions, lightening the load too many treasures to take with me decorating Cowley with my life’s bright litter
I’ve got this leaving feeling biting down upon me…
After everything that has to be done, is done can I return? Once everything that has to be done, is done will I return here?
Will this feeling ever leave me? Once I leave will this feeling be gone?
Take me to the hidden lake let us wander through the valleys of your heart Let us revel in the splendour of all that rests within Accumulations, it’s what we are everything we’ve felt and seen
Let us swim in the hidden lake in that secret world deep at the core of you Make it rain, bring forth the sun We’ll watch the waters flow across your canvas into the sea, into reality
When the soul flows through and out of you…
How long I’ve wondered where this thing springs from How long I’ve yearned to learn what is the source that feeds your ocean How long I’ve ached to understand where creativity is born
Is it the gifting light of some divinity or weird wiring in the brain A prophet with a prayer to share something deep to celebrate A seer into the fabric of what is with raw sensitivity, purest empathy or a jester writing their own joke book
When the soul flows through and out of you…
The unique way you see things how you intuit and interpret painting the ephemeral The haunting way your voice speaks of the rich duality as it carries the tune of living
Don’t despair, the lake is always there some days, the level low some days, only a trickle flow Some days, the dam spills over some days, the trek into the mountains takes a little longer
We’ll always return with something new there’s nothing more beautiful there’s nothing more true
I lit a fire on the beach you were feeling beaten by the wind no, we can’t hear anything in this weather but the waves and the crackling wood you don’t speak anyway we have nothing we care to say
Our human silences amid nature’s screams fill me with a loss so unforgettable Our human silences amid nature’s screams fill me with a void so inescapable
The sky goes dark and the sea slides away time is huge and our movements tiny I wrote my address on the back of your hand but you reached into the water and it vanished I can’t imagine a life not anchored here as you turn slow to dive from me
The answers come only with soft punches a milked stone, I lie folded and bruised how could we ever know this lost romance your whirlpool eyes cry tears of understanding I dust the sand from my baked face and frown there’s no warning of love’s swift decay
Our human silences amid nature’s screams fill me with an ache so all consuming
Moon reveals the night’s black heart you say you love me, as you leave me you say you care for me, as you go down on him there’s no favour you can grant me anymore there’s no connection to the blood in my heart just open your palms, expose our withered bonds
The rain rages fast and hard across the sand we tussle as broken wings on some sick bird finality comes to me, its decision absolute your hand slips away and swings clear for all time I fall back into the water, exhaling slowly ‘Our home cannot be here…’
These stunted days, these freezing nights compress my thoughts The year’s impending ending forces me into reflecting
Winter lets breed a fear in me fear for the furry little lives fear for the torn out pages And so, for warmth, I write…
These forgettable phrases form These liable little lines laid out These humble homeless honesties These intangible inky inches
The outside world is shrunken and cold all the best times are defined by people and who was there, it reflects exactly how deeply those memories carry
Curtains closing for the final time today fearing the endless chill of white I’ve got all the things I badly needed and trapped indoors, so much to write
All I know to do is to give thanks for all that came my way
These woozy words warmly whispered These spidery sentences slowly spun These drunken dark descriptions detailed These nosy noisy nothings noted
All thoughts are forced into a verse by the impending ending of a year…
It’s easy to blur the picture slip the lead of life A stray dog running wild No duty to reality
In truth, I wander lost fighting to make sense of all I’ve got Can I dive deeper Can I really reach her
Such superficial urges with such urgency swell up in me As if I’m bound always to beauty
She pushes her hand into mine When she licks those lips and presses her tongue so sublime how could I decline
But can I let her throw herself into this shallow sea… Her perfect body into this shallow sea…
I’m staring out restlessly Peering back into me But no, not deep enough Looking out relentlessly back into me And no, not deep enough not deep enough to dive
Can I let her throw herself into this shallow sea… No, no not deep enough not deep enough to dive…
How I long to sleep tonight forget these thoughts and rest Ease my body free of anxiety and worry but the more I try the more I fail I fidget fast, roll in frustration cursing my debt and conversations that won’t end Where are those waves of darkness when will they wash my brain Where is that tide of sleep of empty-headedness of ignorance and bliss…
Six hours now I’ve studied ceiling cracks A new day hangs two hours away when creeping up in me come hunger-pains from hell itchy hair and sweaty palms I drop so close to sleep then jolt back into the room a cushion spared to shield my eyes from that solar-flare that blinking clock And shadows climb in my cold room now the sun, it rises soon so do I not blessed with dreams or ignorance or bliss…
I don’t write them like I used to they’re not carved out of my bone the way they used to be
I don’t bleed over the carpet in some mouldy rented bathroom like I used to
They used to say it was the angst that drove me some mild flair for painting what had pained me but you have to make peace eventually I don’t know what is driving this anymore
At the end of that final line there’s an ellipsis at the end of all I said there’s an ellipsis saying so much more than I
Now, I don’t sweat it out in twisted sheets with cramped heart and cracked beliefs surrendering my barbed emotions like a flag the way I used to
I don’t tap that vein of pure unfocused bile don’t let it gush across the front row of my imagined audience they don’t say much about my unbridled verse these days like they used to
At the end of every poem there’s an ellipsis at the end of all I said there’s an ellipsis dragging on and on
Down the corridor, comes a scream Was it physical pain or the horror of finally learning the way this game is turning They took your clothes gave you a gown there was nothing to do but lay right down Now, the machine breathes for you hung by a thread and leaving soon
Faint flashes behind tired eyelids recalled moments from a busy life; the night before your wedding barefoot kisses by the Seine The tentative first steps of Child Two A shaking hand, a ‘thank you’ card from the family of one you saved Now, the machine breathes for you hung by a thread and leaving soon
The ache, it came and spread like water the fever burned, the cough, it worsened they hooked you up, you knew the drill the butterfly, the slow sure drip and then it seemed to ease a while The bed you took, brought guilt at first your hands no longer helping Then suddenly; your quick decline Now, the machine breathes for you hung by a thread and leaving soon
There’s a feeling in your chest and that sixth-sense you sometimes get the dawn tomorrow, you will not witness Nurses come, their voices hushed gloved hands hold, always too briefly you don’t like the letting go The room is quiet but for the wheeze as the machine breathes for you hung by a thread and leaving soon
In the chair beside you, that loving face waiting at end of every nightshift You know that he will raise them right Ah, but which patient was it which desperate hand you gently held which reassuring words you shared with no fresh mask to wear Now, the machine breathes for you hung by a thread and leaving soon
The family grieves a nation grieves for you gone needlessly soon…
The way I write… I brainstorm twenty titles words or phrases that sound good to me that subconsciously already feel like parts of me then I refine them and refine them pile them up around my feet
And when I’m in the mood to write I’ll either start writing (with aim or aimlessly) until I get stuck then I grab a title work it in the lock release whatever’s hidden (and it feels good)
Or I choose a title poking from the ground reach for my shovel pen and begin the excavating find the poem that’s buried beneath (and it feels good)
Those phrases, those titles feel like friends I haven’t met yet that sense you get when crossing paths with someone and feel you already know them or that there’s a story between the two of you and you just hope that it gets told
The stories we got to tell are ripe for poems and the stories that slipped through our hands can be riper, can be richer sometimes
So, I’ll begin gathering my titles and choose one for you…
There’s no such thing as a secret spot in this college town where strangers are just friends of friends news travels faster than light Even in the dark they’re bound to see as we embrace before we could kiss word would have blossomed across town
These people live for gossip these people live for scandal I don’t want to service them and their rotten needs (by giving in to my own…)
There’s no such thing as privacy in the glare of these glass eyes tacked onto busses, buildings, banks Casually observing every action if you and I would dare to speak we’d be captured, saved and dated before we’d even finished in this mistrusting town
These people live for drama these people bay for criminals I don’t want to fold to them and their rotten needs (by succumbing to my own…)
We cannot touch in this post-code we cannot push the slightest limit there is no shade there is no dark corner we can dwell in there is no blind spot there are no closed eyes in this paranoid town
Perhaps you could meet me on a sea-front somewhere wet and in the torrential rain this country’s eyes will be blinking so furiously, that they don’t see the true, free love that flows in us and we may finally give in and we may finally succumb to our rotten needs
Down the endless garden to a hand-built shed of wonders and little me, sitting with my grandad listening to all the voices pushing through the static
What magic in those wires! The narrow band, the wide The squelch and the gain The whistle and the whine sounds I’ll never forget
The spectrum of a planet chattering Such wisdom in rough fingers so deft upon the dial gently they’d spin the roulette wheel and flip between tunings
I was constantly in awe at this window on the world My ear up against the glass of infinite possibility and my grandad’s gentle teaching explaining everything
We’d eavesdrop on conversations clattering fizzing through the airwaves speaking so quickly in strange new cadences We’d hear calls to prayer that sounded nothing like the tuneless church bells of home
‘Where’s the microphone’ I’d say ‘can we speak back?’ he’d remind me ‘the most important thing, sometimes is just to listen’ O, I was learning…
And when we were done he’d disconnect the aerial and gently warn me how lightning storms could blow up the receiver O, how powerful, how dangerous how exciting!
Click above to hear me read it. Right-click and choose ‘Save As’ to download an MP3.
In the hammering rain of last night I slept the best I have all week I slept deeper, longer than I have done for months
And would you guess who I should meet there on the dream stools at the dream bar ordering her dream gin sliding me a dream beer
Well, you come here often I don’t have to ask I’ve seen you here so many nights before but it has been a while (and I’ve missed you)
Back in real life; you live so freely you’re pure inspiration to me a scholar of your beauty besotted by your confidence, your creativity
And when we went our separate ways (did we ever really agree on one path anyway?) after all those notebooks you drove me to fill after the purest verses I fear I may ever spill
When we went our separate ways you found yourself an artist and now you’re all he paints day drinking, or in the nude the ways I still remember you you… you were born to muse
Sitting on the dream couch in the dream bar your dream knees pushing against dream me
The Lighthouse 