The plan never changed it was quietly revealed suddenly, this cell was just mine
Can I still grow? can I still change? I don’t want to be my father I don’t want to live alone
Another evening in another night, pushing everyone away All I need is a little space room enough to think a while write some lines a drink or two me; all too myself
But the more I take the more I die of this this poisonous time
And even on the odd occasion I go out and sit with other people there is nothing I can say to make them want me to stay I’ve focused every sense within this cell is me
There should be jokes, there should be smiles here! I used to be so good at this There should be humour, there should be such love! I used to be so good at this
But the more I take the more I die of this this poisonous time
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.
More and more my thoughts turn to you So aware I’m now the age that you were when the pair of you parted and you got that rented house on the edge of town
We’d stay at weekends watching winter’s tide sweep in stand in the falling snow garden and fields disappearing said ‘throw another log on the fire’ said ‘dad, your house is cold’
At fifteen, I was nothing lost in my own sea of nonsense I didn’t ask you anything I didn’t think to say a word Where was my empathy you let nothing show
Every other Saturday we’d gather at your house on the edge of town it all felt new to me felt so exciting a fresh world of fields to explore of walks to take and fires to light with or without you
So immature and lost in my own mythology I never really realised you could be hurting I didn’t stop to think When maybe your son could have been there for you
Living raw, living alone twelve days at a time the snow piling up around your house on the edge of town
While we still have some time let’s talk openly let’s talk now…
Sometimes, we sing the wail song Sometimes, it never seems to end Get well soon and mend all things Some times never wants to end
I was kneeling in the garden, shuffling the leaves trying to keep nature in boxes Wind blows and wind knows I can never win my shoulders sink, I know I can never win
Sometimes, we sing the wail song Sometimes, there is nothing we can do tuck your head below the sheets and wait Sometimes, there is no sign at all
Sometimes, we sing the wail song Sometimes, we can’t avoid it Just push your hopes into a poem sometimes, it seems, there is no one who will listen
The waves rise over the railings, soaking me the shock, the cold of the sea’s like magic in that blast of reality, I achieve some clarity I’m not afloat, I’m driving this life’s direction
Sometimes, we sing the wail song sometimes, we get so blinded reach out and find a sure hand, it will come sometimes, we have to make more effort
It just takes time… you have to try take some time, do what you have to shed the song right off your body it just takes time, you have to try…
All the faith carried in your soul and all the morphine lightening the load they play a strange sad game spinning lies in devilish ways
I listened to your doctor speaking as you read from some ancient tome yes, you know your body well but pain isn’t the cause
This belief takes its small toll the colour and the hope draining away defeatedly, you feel you’re failing
But you’re not fading you’re not going anywhere I take your hand to emphasize you’re not slipping from this life you’re falling into morphine warm and wide with those tired eyes
You say to me ‘Son, He is waiting will you pray for me? I feel Him come for me’ but even faithlessly I know he’d not be ready it’s just the morphine murmuring as you try to start our last goodbye I smile, say ‘it’s alright
And you’re not fading you’re not going anywhere’ I look deep into your eyes say ‘you’re not slipping from this life you’re falling into morphine warm and wide just sleep tonight’
In this windowless room you’ll see no blinding light come for you in the night
You look at me and say you’re ‘sure’ think I’m angry because I ‘can’t bare to hear’ I’m just frustrated by those velvet hands rummaging in your brain and your absent God
And all that morphine wet and warm you’re wading through tonight
There can be no knowing there can be no honest understanding until you are standing there empty-handed, broken-hearted Suddenly, all too aware of all the things we’ve lost
You can try to estimate the feeling you can approximate a sense of things The hollowness this ‘now’ rings in your bones swallowing any beat of happy thought right up every moment speaks only in shrieks of all the things we’ve lost
Attempting a prediction will always miss for the things that cut are too small to see You never think to gauge the imperceptible absences; the smell of her hair, a contented sigh This silent lack of fragrance screams of all the things we’ve lost
Sitting there talking of this happening neither of us could have comprehended the way this withered world seems to laugh at us the endless bleakness of glacial lonely nights All the saddest songs we can find to play, singing of all the things we’ve lost
You must expect the end to hurt you much accept no one is spared yet, there is simply no preparing for this moment as things you’d never noticed capsize all around squealing out the saddest sound of all the things we’ve lost
The truest happiness we’d ever swum in the deepest friendship we’ve ever known the warmest love we’d ever felt the greatest thing we’ve lost…