Levant

Above puddles of mudded water,
Embers fade to black,
Dust of stone,
and claret,
and bone,
Choke me in what was my home.
No place left to drown my sorrows,
In these ruins I bury my tomorrow.

Smile

This may seem quite juvenile
but oh how I’d love to see you smile
and take every single second in, as
minute hairs flicker on your skin, as
something sets your heart a-beating, as
you breathe in, sweet inhalation
imagining a sweet sensation
corners of lips curl up high
and you just seem so satisfied
letting out a gentle giggle, and
your eyes flicker to and fro, and
they think of things I’ll never know, and
while I wish I could read your mind a while
I’d learn more of your soul if I could see you smile.

Donuts

Lips wet with promises never kept like
Fire turned to ash and sentences not meant
To sound brash but yet into the air they tear
And swear and curse and bark authority
Never contemplated like unintentional patriarchs
(if such a thing could exist)
And apologies not heard and excuses lost while
Scrambling for the right word
And stumbling for something to say
But no thoughts are found on the way
And basic rhymes keep filling the air
Juvenile ideas of couplet poetry ultimately bullshit
Because the only way to describe
Bloody emotions that run thick as tar and drip red
Is rapid-fire free-verse that drags the soul
Down somber and screaming with eyes wide-open
Drowning in oceans of words with no punctuation to grab
And maybe this is too much
Actually this is definitely too much
A complete exaggeration
A pathetic overreaction
But good poetry reveals
Wounds long since scabbed over and exposes them to
The Unyielding Everything
And the eye of the beholder is blinking repeatedly
With Blind Willie’s dead voice drifting
Dark is the night
Cold is the ground
I still am lost
Will I ever be found?

Luce

Mother to three boys, Wife to one man,
and she hunts down Misogynists as much as she can.
So funny and friendly, yet still ready for war,
all of your privilege can't protect you anymore.
Here comes the tongue twister, the ego blister, the Righteous Sister
listen Mister don't even try to diss her.

She's a Tory-bashing, Patriarchy-smashing,
deliverer of many a verbal tongue-lashing.
Equality-fighter, eternal wrong-righter,
the bosses try but they just cannot smite her.
She's Professor X of the homogametic kind.
She's a Hero, a Friend; what an incredible find!

Reverie

Two souls astride a lustrum born,
into their kinship a woven and worn,
tread of the toe, a familiarity,
older than both yet impossible to see.

An eternal bond, at least eternal to me,
for our dissonance leads only to harmony,
as we silently sing this sweet melody,
words are not needed for this reverie.

Plaça de Catalunya

Nocturnal poetry in Barcelona,

dreaming an impossible

lucidity on stone steps

bathed in the neon Gods and

their phosphorous footsoldiers,

lined up to illuminate the word;

so the word can be heard

Above the gentle hum of

steel steeds and the intermittent

rumble of the winds.

Perspectives are changed as

things are put under new sight,

not too bright but dripping

with insight. A gilded night.

A city eternally bathed in Light.

Bass Masters

"Dude they'd be soooo easy to catch from here!"

Surrounded by life, above

and below - dozens of

fish swim freely in the

pier; here life teems

where in other cities

it flounders. They

swim peacefully

amongst themselves,

and all the American

can think is how easy

it would be to kill them.

La Rambla

La Rambla the jugular,

La Rambla the heart,

La Rambla you breath

and tear me apart;

Then put me together,

you're dumb and you're clever;

You hold sway over everything,

except maybe the weather.

You scream Catalunya,

then sell Madrid caps;

You hold the weight of us all,

under strain of collapse;

La Rambla La Rambla,

whatever you do;

Please keep on holding,

and carry us through.

Three Sunsets

I saw the day's dying moments meander over the land leaving

its last remnants of red, amber and gold to the foliage falling about my feet

--

Behold;

A knife is turned

Inward Glances morph stone to ash,

ash to air, engufled in the warm scent

of hopeful despair. Six steps into the slipstream

standing sedentary, sun fading on the horizon, pleasently

mirroring the rising, rallying, revolution against the dark of night.

A half-turn brings all into view; stunned, speechless, surrounded by Light.

--

Twist in the blood, an angry turn of phrase

brewing for years around feet too busy to notice.

Tramped by the slow-moving search for meaning,

hidden in gutters and on walls of plain colour; plain sight

might have obscured life's veracity, drowned it in light,

but Now the search begins in earnest.

Would that I possessed anger, not be possessed by it.

Choking on bile rising with the forgotten force of

hundreds of years of oppression, repression, possession.

An obsession with a righteous cause, stood Fist Raised in

the death of daylight, a hesitant pause breaks the forgotten

beat of the revolutionary drum.

In the darkness, playing dumb has become chic. Not quite

unique but varied enough to appeal to the Culture Vulture

and all its claws, from the hipster school of haughty haircuts

to the barmy army and back again - the problem keeps coming

back again, and so the wheel of woe will turn unabated, turn

unrestricted, turn everything but a corner.

As summer gets warmer, hearts grow colder. Words of

wisdom will wane while a casual response becomes a

full-blown retort. Kid gloves thrown to the ground in this

ideological throw-down. Victory far from guaranteed but

the battle must go down. Raised Fist turned outwards,

relentless rage unleashed on the doubters. Dystopian

fantasy is now a harsh reality. This is it, now is the

time to speak your mind. Let blood run from broken lips

cracked by the harsh air, let eyes swell from tears cooled

by the night fair;

The Night where it was all said and done

and yet nothing was won.

The Night where the same three words

are repeated over and over.

The Night where anger gave birth to an

Idea with the setting of the sun.

The Night where the Idea died - passing

on softly, leaving no mark, nothing to recover.

Nothing to see.

Continued

Submerged my face and opened my eyes,
oxygen bubbles were fast on the rise,
I saw in each one a reflection of you,
then all was black, all was through.

To Be Continued

I feel something inside
you ebb away, some
delicate fragility. Worn
by years of neglect the
fabric frays at the edges,
faded texture,
withered lustre.
But the Magic is not gone,
it remains,
refrains
again and again.
Focused perception unveils
the light. I see it. So bright.
I see it.
Why can't you?

Block

The bell chimed its last,
broken down and fast
removed. A space stood
there, an empty stare
ran down her where
once was a smile.

Here was meant to stand, a stanza linking these two strands. It should have been poetic beauty, but try as I might it won't come to me. I sit mentally writing down half-phrases and shouting out in frustrated rages. My mind's a cage, my mind's a cage - and the key is lost. Search the page, it would help. Hurry! Find it! Lest I beat my fists bloody against the wall in a desperate search for enough emotional intensity to return to me my creative propensity.

I was asked to behold
a tower circled by the
radiant heat of marigold,
but I stand in a panopticon
of the soul, and I am so cold.

I

(6/11/05 – 30/9/06 – 1/10/06 – 29/1/07 – 8/2/07)

For Everyone

I

I tried to write some poetry, but London

got in my way with her flashing lights

and happening scenes. Someone teach

me how to network with the white man.

I fucked a virgin in the ass and

she creamed - I was unsure

but she burned beef incense

and slowly trimmed my pubic hairs.

I read Eliot, Ginsberg, Shakespeare

Dylan, Poe, Plato, Nietzsche

and Wittgenstein - yet still

knew nothing at all about Love.

I sang really badly in my bedroom;

earphones crackling Melodic

Death Metal made in Sweden

by the New Aeterna Deus.

I listened to Zeppelin and The Beatles - a

bunch of white guys ripping off

the Negroes. Monsterous Guitar

Solos then blew my mind, thanks Jimi.

II

Ironic idolator gleaming knee-deep in philosophy and poetry,

smoking the crack-pipe of Consumer Capitalism,

coughing relentless, blissfully drowning in rivers

of free thought and Thinking About It.

A left-lean debate-machine. Capitalism's unruly tenant,

fuck rent. Ironyball in your society's side pocket,

poetic prophet, watching philosophy's sun set.

When will it rise again? Unknown. Your mind's

blown, I'm Christ's clone, and a Social hard-sell

and morality's motherfucking death knell.

III

I sat with Edinburgh, I talked with Edinburgh

and it was like I'd been there all my

life. Then Edinburgh went to be

with the Angels in California.

I called to Glasgow, I went to Glasgow, died in

Glasgow, ressurrected in Glasgow,

got fucked in Glasgow, Glasgow

was kind to me, I <3 Glasgow.

I fell platonically for Kings Sutton, I went

to Kings Sutton - Kings Sutton

spoke to me in three different

dialects, each were exactly the same.

I used to be with Oxford where the red

shone brightly, now all is a faded

burgundy and relocated to Birmingham

for impossible musical inventories.

I listened to Croydon with a bass-slap-pop and

furious political alignments and the

souls of British Ska and Grindcore

kicking down the doors of a Dutch girl.

I spoke to Eindhoven, exchanging thoughts and

emotions and ideas about Ruud Van

Nistelrooy. Soaked in literature, the

tide carried her - an authorial glacier.

I read Cole Harbour on the internet, and

wept, because it looked much like

San Francisco, California, and

spoke so very gently about life.

I conversed with Toronto about everything

something and nothing. And we

misspelt words for fun, slightly

homophobic but never really angry.

I punched Whitby in the face repeatedly

until it became Leicester. Bitter

green clouds of absynthe, laced

with the cunt juices of Rotherham.

I watched Kings Sutton slip into vapidity

and trickery, egoism running rampant

around the attention span of an ADD-

-afflicted gerbil. What A Waster.

I lost time with Reading, which then became

Tokyo. This could have been something

special, but time stands still for no man

and for me it ran twice as fast.

I had conversations with Leicester rocket past;

and realising that Whitby was Hoyland

made me laugh. Do circus mirrors make

me thin and white? The Debate Continues

I saw Chester replace Rotheram with joy, and little

argument. Smooth transitions lubricated

with plenty of sarcasm, alcohol and

strange men asking "where's the party?"

I partied in Leicester and chilled in Hoyland and

we drew up plans of World Domination

via Cinematic Conquest - Untouchable,

we discussed things repeatedly.

I talked to Saint Petersburg; and fangirl moments

for imaginary Jewish playwrights

aside, this was heavy discourse in

orange, swimming in fact and fiction.

I wrote to Malaysia, Malaysia wrote me back

with dirty fragments of genius sparkling

like stolen diamonds in hookah-smoke

from the mouth of an iconoclastic dreamer.

I dreamed about Umina Beach; flickers of depthless

black engulfed my field of vision and my eyes

started bleeding. Untold ecstasies await

in a haze of cigarette smoke and sex.

I masturbated furiously over Kentucky and never

stopped once to think of its impossibility:

Vibrant sapphires. Green popsicles.

Towels. Opeth! Sex! Cum!

IV

My fire rose, fiercly at first, burning faster, then fearfully

pushing for the fences, rebellion! Freedom!

We fight! The fortress will fall! I forsee a

feral and fleeting intertwining. Fixation.

Heartbreak. Fatal. Ash.

V

I finished writing some poetry, London in the

end only enhancing my lucid crack-

-house stoner breed hallucinatory

fantasies in which I and my three

cocks impregnate Monica Bellucci,

Adriana Lima and Angelina Jolie

all at the same time. I then come

around some fifteen hours after

bleeding from my balls, with the

final traces of orgasmic residue

dribbling down Your Chin.

Julie

A tiptoe on the ice beneath the snow,
believe me when I say there's a way
to go, yet. But still don't fret 'coz don't
forget that I have set this up so let your
fears and tears disappear and smile
a bit and try to enjoy it.

And by it I mean this scene serene
of standing on a frozen lake, so
wide awake, watching the mist rise
from our breath. So don't delay, the
time to play, is here today, so won't
you say that you love me?

Spiral

Sunlight glints on frosted branches;
frigid fields hindering life's chances,
callous glances of possible romances,
no more dances, no more watching.
No one's watching, no one's watching.
Dance, dance. Spiral
into chaos, into moonlight,
into harmony.
Life's dramatic irony
stands tall as we all take
comfort in its shadow.
All but those who dare to
burn, dare to learn for what
they yearn, then a return. Spin to
the centre, reach out to the tips,
slender, inviting, return to the hips.
Return, return. Burn.
You're so warm.

Bullray

Infer what you will:
deliberation of
interpolation. The
jury's out; shout,
shout it out. Time
passes and will
be passing in time.
Speak no evil,
certainly not in rhyme.

I don't know, maybe you do.
Science was made up by folks
like me and you.

Childhood amnesia,
no one wants to
believe ya'. About
what I don't know,
I wasn't there, saw
things through a
different lens, this
is the mental bends,
and I can't comprehend
the cataclysmic
kaleidoscope that
smashed and
shattered all
Swiftian Tropes
and left you
feeling like
a joke.

A Song For Kyoko

Twilight creeps across the sky,
a slow-dance intertwining with
you and I. We sit and speak,
flashes illuminate the eye and
show us things we cannot deny.

I can't show you where it hurts,
because I look at you through
emotional blinds, so I see you
only in spurts. Complete pain is
horrid, but are fragments worse?

Though I owe you an attempt
to ease your pain, cathartic
dialogue, dramatise your
condition, all the classics
rethought and written again.

So this is the story, don't
you know, of a lovely
young girl named Kyoko.

She loves like she lives,
with plenty to give
and plenty still stored;
her feeling's ignored.
Stockpiles of emotions, sat
in a barrel, slowly rotting.
Even the sweetest apple
turns black if uneaten.

Her Neccessities: air, food, water
and some contact, just a sliver
of skin brushing against hers.
Something to let her know she's
alive. Something for which she
can strive. Someone to sit
by her side, and talk
and laugh
and cry
and watch as cliche's rain
down from the sky. She can't
remember being so happy
that she felt afraid to die.

It's all I think about as she sits
in a chair, screaming out to
walls of mirrors, getting endless
echoes in return for her thoughts.

Nadine #4

Nadine, Nadine, the Jelly Bean Queen.
The Jelly Bean Queen that needs to
be seen, full pouting lips and dressed
all in green whilst artistically posing
on the big silver screen.

The screen is a metaphor, I wanna
get some more of what the boys
all adore and the girls just ignore.
Their loss. Lip gloss. Dressed to
the nines and blowing away
designs of indifferent minds.

She stands on the cusp, angels
fall to the dust before her mighty
emerald-rod-bookstore-please-
sir-just-one-more mindset. An
international security threat to
the herd of the new scene. All hail
Nadine, Nadine, the Jelly Bean Queen.

Self

Left-lean debate-machine. Capitalism's unruly tenant,
fuck rent. Ironyball in your society's side pocket,
poetic prophet, watching philosophy's sun set.
When will it rise again? Unknown.
Mind's blown, Christ's clone, a Social hard-sell
and morality's motherfucking death knell.

Tatiana #2

russian blues, stylish shoes, poetic verve in social grooves.

girl, unfurl.

regrettable... unforgettable.