Words and Pictures.

If it brings you home:

2010-12-14T20:48:00.000Z

Let's whisper less each hour
and see where we get to,
our lobes are blue from all our efforts:
there are only strangers on this boat.

Let's allocate a name to something
performing a job we never asked it to,
something we never asked to be a part of:
and it's only going to get lonely from here.

Let's try to stand and watch the water eat up the horizon,
don't get your legs stuck between the bars.
I've been here a while now, without complaint:
it's alright, it's only one of us this time.

Let's stand, my arm on your spine,
and feel each others sorrow:

I find nothing but the energy
within you that sparks out
in showers of all the colours
I have ever seen.

Me: You.

2010-12-13T20:48:00.002Z

The tablet in my chest thuds like the last punter's fist on this bar, dribbling shit over witty beer mats, stripping wood with his breath. His lips split as he marshals clumsy imperatives into the empty glasses holding the dregs of his evening, a puddle. You handle your every self with a sigh that drowns out the juke box, it speaks to me more than Bowie ever has, ever will. I catch my breath as my eyes roll, following a body as it falls to the floor, I try to catch a hold on yours. I start to shout in sentences pegged to the line escaping this mouth of mine:

(Me,

I have never crossed fingers in your presence, no I have hardly bitten my nails, this top button is always done up, these laces tied. I have read every book you have ever written, dressed myself up in your ink, I make myself vulnerable, there is no pirouette you perform I have not seen. I have mapped your muscle movements, yes you will find your blue prints by my bed.

You,)

look past my eyes, through to the door, as if you never heard a sound. You pull your hair behind your ears and fold your arms across your chest . You lick your lips and prepare me for the three words you say, every night:

"We're closing now"

Think I may follow you around.

2010-12-02T15:27:00.000Z

Tiptoe through me, it's respectable you know. Take the time to not figure out everything at once. Be half-awake, make no sense and take your time. Let the trombones tell us all we need to know. Drink your coffee, no I don't know how you take it, so please stand still so I can figure it all out, make some notes. I'm still getting tired and I don't know how you still stand this winter, since its the second one I've not known. Can't stand the smell of anyone these days, it isn't perfume, it's just a phase I've been dragging from the end of my coat for months now. It's covered in your fingerprints and its the space that I surround now. I may end up needing you more than I think I should, or could, and so I decide to let go. I have to see you now, like a dictionary needs to be found. Bring a drink and we'll call it love and I'll bring to the table all that's stuffed in these pockets. You thought that I'd forgot it? My darling, that is more than I could ever pretend when I'm trying not to pay attention to the sound. This is a show for you.

I missed you for twenty-nine years.

2010-12-02T15:22:00.000Z

It's nice of you to understand, I'm afraid of just about everyone these days. I like them all too much to show these sides, when the drugs go missing from their duties and I'm a little weak on the defence. I dress myself up in second hands that have handed down all they can't bare to hold any more. The fabric makes my skin sore. You are the voice I'm too used to hearing, your face is still far too unknown. I don't want to show you mine: I've got the flu, I'm washing my hair, my headphones won't leave my ears alone, I've got too much left to share. I want anybody else? Why not, for more than a month - please - inside the heart that does, without the pushes and the shoves. This recording's poor, the sounds confused, my apologies are not enough to remove the feeling that I lost today.

Keep it upstairs.

2010-12-02T15:17:00.002Z

Let's make a little lemonade, be a little awake but not enough to keep our eyes wide, and not too tired to say goodbye. Don't make it hard for me to squeeze out the hello I'm about to give to you today, ease it in with a little brass and Vaseline, or Vicadin, which and the whatever makes this nice, going. I can't be gentle, I'm not yet a mother, but I'll promise to carry your drink and to come disarmed, darling. You won't wait until winter leaves and I can't see you taking your arms from around the stereo any time soon, so I'll sleep with my clothes on and wait for a day just like this one - when someone finds us the chance. Let's stay inside to keep our looks, make up all the stories we'd like to find in books. I'm a slow starter, a little stupid, more unprepared; you want to start over and hurry home. Who can we run all this to? I will push you up against every wall and better ourselves until it can no longer bare to stand. You will crack me up with a move only ourselves can understand, as if the hands never fell to the sides and we didn't live in dreamlands.

Let's kiss like we used to:

2010-11-13T21:09:00.000Z

So I wrapped everything in our colour, and yes I've been thinking over the soundtrack for a while now. It needs reason, a change in the memories. But please, leave again with someone I don't know; be too drunk to notice I'm looking right at you; start something and pretend it's all new and better than the dream; take that someone home and pretend it means, something, anything at all; let me know when we're alone and no longer helpless.

You act

2010-11-04T11:06:00.001Z

like it was never really there at all.

the stairway is rotten wood

2010-10-10T22:33:00.002+01:00

I tried the facts and figures,
But they read cold,
As everything did when I was told
They’d stepped foot on the moon.
I know too many brave faces,
People with too many names
For the same thing, people quiet
As they only know how.
I learn with each day that silence
Ruins the chances for that hint of a spark,
No pyrotechnic glory,
Just a possibility.
And so I will talk and talk and talk
Until I am no longer brave
And yes, it will all be cold,
But don’t know the stars sir,
They waste your time for the sake
Of a moments shooting,
Keep away from the moon sir,
It is just too far, and we are too old
For fairytales.
Rub against every surface
And keep the light bright,

Keep away the dark:
There is no such thing as night.

Lewis

2010-10-07T22:26:00.001+01:00

I

Have you been here long? Measuring the speed of your thumbs,
Asking questions to the ladies all dumb
Since all they do is listen and listen and listen to every syllable
But refuse to say a single word. They could be your keeper?
Keep calm, keep carrying on, this trip will be your making,
Or simply a peculiar series of events without clothes
And without any stop and start on our motors, just a cog
A little loose on the strings. Oh silly me, this was not quite the right way
To unravel the ribbons and let you place them between your fingers,
Pulling their smooth against your skin. This could be your keeper?
Have you been here long? Keeping out of sight the strings along your arms
Playing along to a song no one is able to hear, no sound to the alarm.
All we do is listen and listen and listen to every syllable
But refuse to see the every word. I should have been your keeper.
This is the world you’ve come to know and it’s a blame, I made it.
Forgive me, I am only making sense of the silences and I’m trying to see
The life in this.

II

Creature, creature follow the lights that are no longer bright
For they need those arms of yours.
Keep calm, keep getting on until your old. Don’t be tender.
Don’t let them keep you. Make a picture and never be damned.
Find the need and forget the carrying on: it is about the song you play now,
The first chords, the last minor notes, accept them and keep playing
And keep it inside the air, fill our ears Sir. Stuff and don’t care for the mess.
But let me be your keeper. I will hold the curtains close.
I’m not here to watch the speed of your rivers,
Nor the actions you can no longer keep steady,
I am here to keep you Sir, keep you owning every field,
Keep you writing every sky, keep your back from turning,
keep your brows full, keep your hands held.
I am here to keep the life in this.

a place where we:

2010-09-28T23:52:00.002+01:00

Last Year

I cut my hair and put a hole in my nose.
I learnt about summer, goodness, the need to paint a picture.

This Year

We tried our best to find the balance between getting enough light in
without catching a cold.

Verb.

2010-06-25T00:15:00.000+01:00

I'm giving,

diving hands into pockets

to find the scraps of paper

and chewed pen lids

to show you where I've come from.

I'm learning,

reading into words so new

it takes minutes to say them,

but its worth the look on your face

when I get them the right way.

I'm finding,

and my hands are full

with all the todays in reach

to grab hold of and keep here

inside the space between us.

I'm a different verb

every day now,

I can hardly bare to be still.

Thank you.

Many windows.

2010-06-20T17:29:00.000+01:00

There is a house in my memory with many windows, big and small, I can never seem to count them, though they hardly move at all, what with all the earthquakes and the rain that beats with fists, no the glass just holds onto the frames without the fits and twists, the ones we've learnt all too well to react with, the shakes that come with the pressure of it all, no the windows are static, as still as the ocean when the ocean is too tired to move any more, like the time we sat on the pebbles and threw them at the waves, our arms were no match for the wind but the faces we made where worth the pain, it was only our souls we were trying to save, still, the water, it lay flat as sheets of A4, but my crayons were at home in a bag by my door, and your fingers were too cold to draw a single thing upon the canvas so we made holes with stones to try and shape a space in the all the unknown.

True facts:

2010-06-20T17:12:00.001+01:00

I wanna love you til the cows come home.

Sudden.

2010-06-16T10:18:00.002+01:00

he's a handshake and a heart break,

he ain't nothin but he sure is something to me.

His knees.

2010-06-15T13:50:00.002+01:00

I thought last night
in the shadow hours
of the unexpected clouds
at home here.

I ache for sugar,
a hug from my mother,
a few explanations,
next-doors music.

Difficult, this communication,
this translation of what's 'in'
and what's 'out'.
I worry what colour he sees.

Marry first.

2010-06-14T13:51:00.000+01:00

Dreamt about you last night.
You wouldn't leave,
as if you had something important to say.
We never speak,
far too awake
for the best feeling I've ever had the pleasure.

My tea's probably cold
from battling through this handwriting,
fag won't stay alight
and I'm not so sure I'll ever be able
to make something useful.

I don't know a lot,
but I do know my hand
aches around the opposite side
of my thumb.
Useless with names, the dream said,
forget even now.

But there were keys,
and I got my spelling right.

Must I paint you a picture?

2010-06-11T14:01:00.000+01:00

Make this the only version they ever know.

Good luck.

2010-06-02T21:51:00.000+01:00

barely a distance
from the pints of sunshine,
teenage kisses.
knees aren't strong enough
to keep upright after another
afternoon like this one.
your chest's a mess.
But it's easy, this,
like spotting the brightest star
in the city sky.

fuck good luck.
accidents happen.

A part that's new.

2010-05-27T19:58:00.000+01:00

she's got a new one.
it makes sounds when touched,
it's smitten, keeps her bitten,
i've seen the teeth on her neck.
it looks good with her scarf
the one with the orange
oh and the blue.

yeah she's got a new one.
and it's making her a scene
of all the things she's ever seen.
it washes up, it's bellybutton's clean.
it's got good timing,
looks good in the rain.

she's got a new one.
it leaves lips on her lids,
collects her stones in its shoes.
oh and it's true to say
it loves her in ways that I knew
I never could do.

Crafts

2010-05-27T19:43:00.000+01:00

I'm getting my Crayolas aligned,

yes I want to make the weather.

Barely still, rolling over the edges,

I offer promises for their patience.

But their labels have been picked

and shared between fingers,

still it's together and with courage

that we'll get this sky right.

I need to get the shapes

to match the colours, the ones

you'll never see as I intended

but it's the only thought

that ever mattered

after I rubbed out the others

to find this one left, in a shade

only you will ever need to know.

a token

2010-05-26T23:00:00.000+01:00

i wrote some words in chalk across the slate by your door
it wasn't much
but it was just a thought.

i left you letters and i died the paper with tea leaves.
they weren't much,
but they were just a thought.

i said some things in voices that weren't mine.
they didn't say much.
but it was just a thought.

a token of some appreciation.

Choke

2010-05-16T09:49:00.002+01:00

This is not the way to make angels in the snow.

I want to know:

2010-05-16T09:44:00.000+01:00

- Jenny Holzer

Inflammatory Essays

2010-05-15T20:44:00.002+01:00

- Jenny Holzer

a soul to save

2010-05-15T20:29:00.000+01:00

A matter of nothing to lose, my friend, you are far too young to assume such a state of life and it is no longer my place to set these things right. Fragile: that’s all you’ll ever be. I made some choices and I rectified the stains you left on my sleeve, and this has been my new chapter. A chance for some looking after. A soul to save from all the years you trod on its toes. There are no parts left to be played.

Upon a star:

2010-05-15T16:13:00.000+01:00

how energy stays alive.

2010-05-15T09:28:00.002+01:00

'Never the same since I lost you'

- Carvel, John Frusciante

Jimi

2010-05-14T20:30:00.000+01:00

His body held a husky
Smell of stale cigarettes
And green, the kind of smell

I’m sure Hendrix’s body
Is stuffed with, a taxidermy,
Where he lies in a glitter
Of purple haze.
Do they curl his eyelashes
And tie his shoelaces,
Do they think no one
Will ever know his temple
Houses habits, good
And bad, like a cassette tape.
I would sniff his skin
And lick his fingers
Like sugar, sherbert,
Live off the high for weeks
Reach places even he never reached,
Where the starling only know,
And finger the clouds
Until they burst all over heavens
Stair, and think about meeting
Him up there.

I ain't got no horizon

2010-05-13T10:38:00.000+01:00

We once astonished one another.

Jenny Holzer

2010-05-12T20:47:00.000+01:00

shirk the duties

2010-05-12T12:32:00.000+01:00

I pay your rent,
it’s a cost. I’m willing.
Cheques bounce off walls
keep steady as I sign our names.

You lent, you’re spent.
I’m completely indifferent,
With trousers around your ankles,
you won’t be going anywhere soon.

You weld a trade
I’ve kept in my pocket for years now.
I kept the keys, it’s my duty,
forget compramise. I’m standing.

You witnessed one of the most beauty.
You stood stunned with dry elbows.
You drank from your Evian.
You fell in love,

I fell down the stairs.

Collarbone

2010-05-11T20:35:00.001+01:00

I have never heard you speak of tomorrow, next year,
Or the twists of croissants lined up by the kettle every morning,
Awaiting your eyes to put in some effort, be part of today.
I have never heard you say a word of the lines beside my eyes
And how they’re taking over my temples at a speed that jolts
My reflection to the point of arrest. I have never heard you talk
About the home you had, nor the one you want: you stare at the walls,
The faces askew stare at you, wondering, asking: do you
Remember the texture of the bricks that keep this upright?

Our garden has become a sea of burnt pepper skins, No darling,
we haven’t seen the cat in weeks. The doorbell, now stubborn,
shuts its mouth, like all of us, allowing the letterbox
To sound the arrival of the people you hardly know anymore,
The smiles who greet us with sympathy, yes, they know you have
Forgotten their names. Our children, now nocturnal, thumb video games
Pretending you are every soldier, you are every zombie,
You are every storm trooper in their target practise, stuck
In rooms where you know nothing of what is inside.

These are things you never speak of, no you hardly say word,
You just lose yourself in the expectation that this would be just as good
As you thought it would be: it would be all we spoke of that summer
In the middle of the road, by the cornfield, where we took that photo
Of your hand, so big, it hid the sky and all that was left were beams
Shooting through your fingers as if you created all that was yellow.
You see, Darling, beneath the dirt by the back door you will find the key
From that house I walked to every day that summer, blistered soles
Couldn’t stop me: the house where every minute we ruptured
from hips, lips, shouting, screams, aches: unbuttoned, that’s how we spent.

Now you stare at my collar bone and question its angles:
Is it the same one you kissed when you were sixteen years old?
Darling, if you look hard enough you can see that it is nothing
Like it was. And no, I am no longer scared of it breaking.

Dress rehearsal.

2010-05-10T18:56:00.001+01:00

These are the roles we play
When it has been years, my dear.
Our faces, no colour the same
In this anxiety or this fear

That thickens the air
Now you’ve stung and struck.
The riot came from everywhere
And I nearly forgot to duck

From all the fists in twos,
Without the touch of darts
I didn’t let it bruise.
But it was still as fucking sharp.

A chance for a soul to save.
No parts left to be played.

All That’s Left.

2010-05-10T11:33:00.002+01:00

When we were alone he turned out his pockets until each mouth was inside out, the tongues unravelled all the things I thought he had forgotten. All the toothbrushes I had ever used, bristles frayed as if used to clean the joints of the tin man from my favourite film; every greased chip fork; every stale tea bag (string and all); every tram ticket with every detail crisp, crystal: every journey I ever made he has carried around in his corduroys. You see, I’ve been too busy fighting wars between my head and heart, in a way even Jane Austen would have admired: I had overlooked the simplest part. I’d tried my hand at fashioning a new face - masking tape in case of errors - hiding inside shadows after what I’d done. I’ve always been a coward, yes I have always surrendered to the society which teaches us to throw out our brand new shoes for the newest style, swiping our MasterCard for something ‘priceless’ - but at what fucking price? When it comes down to it there is nothing between the pound signs and digits - I was, I am, just trying to fill in the gaps. My chip’s worn and my pin is engraved in the back of my bible, next to his number, his email, his national insurance number.

He takes a Polaroid of all that was lying limp on the lino of my kitchen and hands me the conclusion: the exposures too bright, everything has melted into a sheet of white light.

Words and Music

2010-05-09T20:39:00.000+01:00

It seems when it comes to write about music, in any sense, one must use every word and its antonym. With every adjective or image you use to describe the music, any part of it at all, you must create a paradox. If you describe it as being dense, you must also describe it as being spatial, if you describe its silences, you must describe its louds. Its nowhere and its everywhere. Its upside and its downside. Its bleakness and its clarity. Its opaqueness and its transparency. For every silence there is a sound. By using these paradoxes we create a space between them where the true creativity and answers lie. By covering all edges of this sphere we get as close as we are ever going to get to describing exactly what the music is and what it is doing. Of describing its soul, essence, answer.

Musicians, and artists in general, are often described as travelling beyond reality into other worlds. Worlds that only they know and only they will ever know. Worlds where they travel to and from, back and forth between the here-and-now and the metaphysical. Through music, or any form of creativity, they try to re-capture the place they have been where no one else can go. Its weather, its temperature, its pollution, its rush hour traffic, its beggars, its thieves, its townies, its addicts, its highs, its lows, its everywhere and nowhere. We, the audience, can and will never enter this world. All we have is this picture painted for us with hues of rhythm and shades of sound that give us a glimpse at the landscape their soul has travelled to and what it has brought back to us.

This space to which they travel, to me, seems to be the centre of the paradox. The ’off-centre of centralness’ as Paul Morley ascribes to Joy Division. To be in the centre they had to be in the off centre. I think this applies to everything creativity blesses people with. These artists don’t ask to go to these worlds, to take part in these travels, creativity sweeps them off on its zephyr and cradles them through the current into a space we can only attempt at imagining through words. For the artist it is an act of translation. An act of representation. For it is as much their world and it is ours. We are simply not able to experience exactly what they experienced when they were there, nor would we want to most of the time.

To try and get close to this space using words to describe the artists translation, we must consider every angle this space could be. One can never simply say a piece of music is simply tender, affectionate, that is too redundant and constricting. By saying it is both tender whilst being completely rough and hostile our eyes are allowed to see its every side. But this is only possible if one can explain just how this music is tender, and how it is rough. It is not simply the case of assigned a paradox to a piece and letting it rest as gospel.

For Moreley, writing about music was not just about facts and figures. It wasn’t about force feeding the public with an opinion on an album that didn’t allow the space for them to make their own minds make it up for themselves. Writing about music was about trying to show, through language, just what and how the music makes him feel how he feels, by using semantics to create the hows of music - not just the who and what and wheres. In doing so, we the reader, are allowed into another translation of the musics journey. From one world to us, through one persons perspective onto another, to then be printed on ourselves as another point of view. For nobody sees in the same way, a question Ellen asked me not long ago (give or take four hours ago)…do I believe this? I like to think yes I do. Given a glass of wine as an example, do I think I see it the same way as she does? No I don’t think I do but I like to think we see its how’s in the same way, I guess what is different is the way it makes us feel. Our subjectivity gives us the freedom to dive into the spaces musicians create for us, the cavities from all the pick’n’mix of youth and carbonated drinks. Expect the unexpected, sir.

We plunge in and take each postcard given from each stop of the journey and make up our own mind. The creativity gives us the colours, the shading, the image, the canvas - the musician shapes these into the image creativity blessed him with - the music writer looks at the hows of each brush stroke and the spaces between them - then we, the reader, the listener, the fan, the addict, jump into each hole left for us to fill, or simply get lost inside, and establish for ourselves exactly what it means to witness this art.

If I were a musician in any vague sense of the term, this, I think, would be what I want from my work. To use creativities vessel to create an art that speaks and yet is silent, that touches and yet is numb, that is all over the walls and yet it is nowhere to be seen, an art that music writers will take and write with such paradoxes as these, to show that I - not intentionally, for it is ridiculous to assume that every artist creates with a paradox in mind - created my art out of an anxiety to show what I had seen. And If I were a music writer, in any vague sense of the term, this I think, would be what I want from my work. To use the musicians shapes and sizes to illuminate every corner and yet hide them, to turn the light on, and yet keep everything in darkness, for the reader must shine their own torch onto the walls of this room, the edges of this canvas, use their own light to follow the strings of the guitar down the fret towards the fingers strumming a language that is simply impossible to translate into words. Something ineffably intimate, privately personal. It would be this ineffability that would keep me, as a listener, a reader, a fan, an addict, still addicted, still listening, still reading, still fanning over. If I were to know the exact secrets and answers that lurk inside the sphere these musicians have travelled to, and beyond, then I would know everything I would need to know about that piece of music. That art. It would be emptied. Even if there was nothing to find in the end. Which is more than likely. The paradoxical relationship that words and music have together keeps me, the reader/listener, anxious about the music. This anxiety keeps me listening, keeps me hooked-drugged-addict. Without this the music will simply pass me by, swept out the back door with all the biscuit crumbs and cigarette butts.

Despite the shatteringly disappointing realisation that I will never reach this world and I will never know the answers, my writing will always come short of exactly what I want to express about exactly what it felt - all the hows - when I first listened to Unknown Pleasures, or Solid Air, or Exodus - I will never be able to craft my way through onto the vessel that transported Curtis, Martyn or Marley to the worlds that led to these masterpieces being created…despite this knowledge that I will never obtain such knowledge…despite this, I keep listening, I keep writing, I keep appreciating the silences between tracks and think about all the words said and unsaid between artist and producer (probably the closest anyone will ever get to really knowing this other world) about how to keep the canvas taunt, keep the brush moist and yet dry, keep the paint oily and yet water-full/fall. If I stopped any of these things I would simply be giving up on creativity itself. It has blessed these lucky few with a gift of experience no other can experience and to share that, even when it has shed six or seven, maybe eight layers of tracing paper skin, is better than experiencing nothing at all. It is the closest and the furthest I will ever get to knowing the unknowable.

Stop laughing.

2010-05-08T13:39:00.002+01:00

"Even if we never talk again after tonight,

please remember that I am forever changed by who you are

and what you meant to me"

Once a year:

2010-05-03T21:37:00.002+01:00

Questions.

2010-04-30T21:43:00.001+01:00

Which way? How to we get there? Exactly how many stairs - should we count them - have you counted? Are they strong are they stable? Are there enough chairs around the table for us all to meet? - remember to make it brief.

That Vinyl You Gave Me

2010-04-29T09:21:00.001+01:00

I swear these aren’t the waves we made;
you were wrong, they can’t always be.
But it’s alright, I don’t mind, as long as you can swear
on the words you left on that note
inside the sleeve of that vinyl you gave me
of the song we never managed to live up to.
If you can promise, despite the fact you stopped,
then that’s enough. Yes, that’s enough.

That Vinyl I Gave You

2010-04-29T09:20:00.000+01:00

Here’s to you.
I’m no longer sparing these thoughts; instead they will waste their time
trying to picture the girl your eyes are currently trying to out-stare.
She was a gift - that year when all became austere and unfolded
as our bodies did when we became the first.
The girl was just a thought, a passing,
a token of some appreciation I can no longer seem to find
since you rendered ours as rotten (regardless of ripeness,
ours was never a pod - that is far too fertile, far too alive
for something attached to anything we ever lived in)

Here’s to you.
Oh and to her, for there was always something about the green of her eyes
that stole a shade from mine every time we met.
She stood rainbow against the black of your walls, amongst the faces
who inspired, the arbiter’s of our movements, the harshest
for they saw what the outside could never have –
Them: pirate. For now they are nowhere near, further than you’ll ever be,
and with that tea in your hand do you realise what has happened?
Do you realise exactly what I lost the day I gave?

Door, ajar.

2010-04-28T09:22:00.003+01:00

Please, hold your frame a little longer,
that stance is not just good for your posture
but I am beginning to feel the benefits myself,
from living bent double, tongued ankles
and far too familiar with my Achilles,
making a change by looking at the horizon
without the world spinning, but with eyes straight
ahead and always up. So, please, keep this up
because in the long run, it’s better for the both of us.

Won't you?

2010-04-27T19:00:00.001+01:00

Cynical.

2010-04-26T22:37:00.000+01:00

'Summertime has come and gone, all used up with wishful thinking.

In this world there are no second chances...

If you want lies, I can tell them, if you want lies, I got them:

all the pennies in the Thames will not make it how it was...

I will tear myself apart if you promise to paint me as a work of art, as a work of art...

YOU'RE MY WORK OF ART'

- Bloc Party, Always New Depths.

I swear to god:

2010-04-26T21:53:00.001+01:00

Rosa Canina

2010-04-26T12:02:00.000+01:00

You’ve been good to me:

a dusty pink -

the colour I found

when you unfolded

into a scentless shape,

so sharp at your corners

I could hardly bear

to have you in my hands

Yes, you have been good:

a matte flush -

no, more effervescent,

a sour blush on your cheeks,

so stung by what I left

in your side, no ousting

just a plumpness

to your smile.

You have been good:

a pliant red,

loving with the fruits

bending you backwards

into a milk-less time

between sheets, worn

into a purple

we lived in.

Our little world.

2010-04-26T12:00:00.000+01:00

Wasted.

2010-04-25T22:34:00.004+01:00

you see

now that

you've walked

away, i

can't see

the mark

you left.

there's no

longer

any evidence

that

you were

ever here

at all.

That was a lie.

2010-04-25T17:43:00.003+01:00

I recognise that girl, I think I knew her once.
Her shoulders never seemed to grow into themselves,
yet they aligned perfectly with the hips that bashed
into door frames when the clumsiness came, in waves,
from the balances finding level ground inside her body.
Her eye were hesitant and yet the kind of green you never see twice,
but they never quite met mine, not once - just to see them, I walked a mile.
She lacked the conviction, and made up for it with fear,
I can’t remember the last time I saw her, sometime last year,
still it was clear that she was hiding something under her blouse
so I took it from her and stared at the swollen flesh wondering why
I ever decided to take this story from her.
So I wrote her a love letter, last week, it’s still here, beside my bed
underneath the pictures of the world I move sideways through
now, now my body is familiar with someone else’s skin,
but of course I want to know that girl better, these messages
are no substitute for the way her body stood there, by the stairs,
with her breaths sinking into the depths of everything I was,
and the tapestry of her hair shinning copper streaks in the morning sun.
I recognise that girl, though it’s been years since I saw her face,
but it is that girl I see in those words she patches together
in a way that makes me see myself better than a mirror could ever show,
and I begin to find the answers to everything I’ve ever wanted to know.

Do you have a story for me?

2010-04-24T08:42:00.003+01:00

You may feel lost, but have you ever been found?

Tunnels.

2010-04-23T22:08:00.000+01:00

Yeah, it was dark, and you know that light we used? It wasn’t mine to borrow, not that it matters now, but I thought you may need to know. After time, I guess it’s the honesty that’s all that’s left. Neil Young is playing the organ and I’m strumming along to your air guitar, the one you named Apache after that song we loved, not too long ago, on a bus bursting with sunshine, a pair of aviators hiding your eyes from mine: the gateway to your soul just like a flies, a hollowness behind that held no thing.

Yeah, it was dark, and I never liked the colour of it all. Or lack of? Whatever. Everything in half light is never quite fulfilled. It’s all just too unsettled. You know very well it’s true. Still, I am reading the words you stole to try and show the colours we made were real. The canvas, you stretched it too far, the acrylics bled into one another and forgot themselves. A dark syrup remains as the only evidence that it was ever really there at all.

So, yeah, it was dark. And it wasn’t love. Just a careless mixture of everything we worried about.

You inspired.

2010-04-22T22:51:00.004+01:00

The birds don’t stir, no they barely say a word
as this sound I am making screams through the streets
of this city. This is the love letter I’ve been writing
to evade the static from the surfaces of my home,

To shut out the hissing and the stinging;
always suddenly a bruise. I stop to watch the moon climb
above this twisted grey maze, but it’s the silence
that rings true as if it has always lived inside my chest;

And yes, it was there from the very start.
This sound, I’m making it because I can’t stay on the road
striking veins and shining blue, I’m too old. The urgency to stop,
Lie flat, head down, ear to the ground, comes in blows:

So I absorb my dreams, the ones where I escape,
Hold onto their silence, drown in their haze.

*A translation, or adaptation, of a friends words.

We had everything, from time to time.

2010-04-22T22:18:00.001+01:00

I just need something to get me through the thick of it.

Like treasure.

2010-04-21T14:07:00.001+01:00

Truth.

2010-04-21T00:30:00.001+01:00

I think I need to get this out. Get it out side. What was near? This distance makes me afraid of things, things that could waste away if we’re not too careful. We’re both brave, I’m aware of this, but I think we’re both dreamers and being a fatalist it should be easy to simply say, whatever will be, will be. But the anxiety is eating, eating, it’s no longer sleeping and you’re far - further than anyone has ever been. I’ve made these promises, you see, to keep you there - right inside my heart. No one, has been this close inside before, no one at all. And I’m terrified it will break, and fall, and collapse under the pressure of my chest - I put a lot more pressure than most, than the rest. It should be easy, and yes, when it is close - we are close - then yes, the easiness is nothing of a problem, it is a matter I am unaware of, but when you are living in a place I hardly know, being a person I have only just begun to really be a part of, then I get scared. Scared for my life. Scared for our life. No pressure. But I think I may just marry you, sir.

'If I live until I grow old and can no longer climb my stairs, I just don't think I'll ever get over you. Face that dances and it haunts me, laughter still ringing in my ears, I still find pieces of the present here...after all these years...if I live until I was 102, I just don't think I'll ever get over you.'

you're not always right

2010-04-21T00:21:00.001+01:00

You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there."

-Bob Marley

We're all scared of the future.

2010-04-21T00:18:00.001+01:00

There is an urgency in this that is no longer just a sense.

There is no time to fuck around.

Something to someone.

2010-04-20T16:40:00.002+01:00

We were stuck

2010-04-20T16:11:00.002+01:00

The seasons have changed.

2010-04-19T14:59:00.002+01:00

A delicate balance.

All apologies:

2010-04-19T00:25:00.000+01:00

Excuse my ramblings.

I am making a mess in order to give me a chance to put it all back together again.

These posts conflict and contradict each other to the marrow, so please, bare with me.

One day, I swear, I'll know.

Too late, it will most definitely be, but I will know and then we can see where we go from here.

So for now, excuse me. Excuse every single thing.

Talking bird.

2010-04-19T00:20:00.001+01:00

'And I don’t know where to look, my words just break and melt’

Darling, come with me, that world I was telling you about all those months ago, when this was new and fresh on the pores, well it’s here and I’m keeping it in focus. But know that I’m battling with these dangerous maybes playing a game across my chest and it is only their nerves that I feel, none of the winning or the losing; it is all the same in the end. There are decisions that I’ve been making in my head, from all the time I’ve had to myself, the days I’ve spent in my bed thinking about how there are so many things that are so hard to forget. ‘The longer you think, the less you know what to do.’ It’s true. There has been too much time and yet not enough to make enough space for us to find ourselves. I got out. And since I left, my body can’t stop itself drawing back inside. But you’re nowhere. And still you are in every single thing.

But darling, you never fought. No you never said a word. ’A hundred thousand words could not quite explain’ how badly I wish you wanted to talk it out in the rain with me, leave nothing unsaid. We all need to feel needed sometimes, that’s what they sing…or so I’m told…and your silence spoke louder than anything you’ve ever given before.

I washed your windows.

‘And here I rest where disappointment and regret collide’, here in the room where I opened my heart to everything you are, here on the bed where I closed it all again. I needed something more than what you were willing to give, no it has nothing to do with apathy for I’m certain you put your all into this, but you never said a fucking word. You never said a word.

‘Let’s rearrange, I wish you were a stranger I could disengage’. Oh the bliss of erasing the past nine months, but who am I to draw a line through something that was bigger than the both of us? Maybe I was just in over my head, but I was all in. And I’m all in without you right now. Yes, you’re on my mind. Every second of every second it’s all about you - and if you could take a few moments, please think about the fact you let me make this part of the past. ‘I won’t let this go down until we torch it ourselves’ - where were those words? You walk away, I walk away - is that the way we play?

Oh if you could only see the knot inside of me, the mess, the bruise all over the centre of everything I see. You are beautiful. You were the greatest thing I have ever known. But you never felt like home. And I don’t know how to change something so fundamental. I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, ‘there’d be no distance that could hold us back’ but it’s putting a fucking full stop on something that needed space and time and everything the miles could never give it.

You swept my floors.

No, it didn’t need a bold kneel, a grand gesture, nothing like the movies. You are better than that. You have given me something I have never known before and I don’t know if I’m okay with letting that lie. But I made a choice and I spoke the words but it seemed as though there was no way out of this mess we’re in. And that’s what it is, it is a mess and ‘it’s too important to stay the way it’s been’. You know ‘it’s like love is a lesson that I can’t learn. I make the same mistakes at each familiar turn’. But on the outside of this:

Darling, ‘I’m lying awake at night’ desperate not to let this fade, as if it was never here at all. But there is something fractured in our foundations. And now there is no chance to figure out the difference between maintenance and structural damage.

So I’m sorry. For everything. For not knowing better. For not knowing.

These words collide, but this time I just can’t handle. And I don’t know where to make sense of it all.

Scraps.

2010-04-18T23:15:00.001+01:00

All my dreams keep coming back to me, at moments - all undisguised and unashamed of themselves, as if what they've made me see is alright, it's all okay - that I would wake up and forget it happened either way. But I didn't and I can't. My mind is working its way right back to the start - of what? I'm unsure. Still, it's telling me what has happened is important, be it good or bad. So I'm sifting through the rubbish that time has carried with it all along the journey we have taken together.

All of these moments are just rehearsals for the greatest romance,

the greatest one of all.

Illusions

2010-04-18T17:41:00.003+01:00

And I will keep on saying this until something else begins to make sense to me:

There is nothing, no nothing better shared than with you.

Staying alive.

2010-04-16T23:15:00.002+01:00

'or if your wish be to close me, I and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly'

- Suddenly a Hand, Fernando Pessoa

Promises are fragile.

2010-04-15T16:23:00.002+01:00

Not built for this (I am small)

2010-04-08T22:39:00.001+01:00

Our fortress is crumbling,
not in the way old cement dusts off walls when kicked,
or climbed, and not in way cliffs end up on the shore line
after heavy weather or the weight of us all,
not in the way stock cubes collapse and fall between fingers
because theirs is a destination, an action, a consequence.

Our fortress is crumbling,
in a way my hands can’t help but sit in my pockets and hide
with no desire to jump out and busy themselves with building,
or re-

Our fortress is crumbling
and it is only my eyes that react to any of this at all,
by closing with fear of the falling debris,

Our fortress is crumbling
in the way I always knew it would.

Other Half

2010-04-07T22:39:00.002+01:00

These are my greatest thoughts,
I guess it was time you knew, as they say –
How can you be close if these things can’t be shared?
So I’ll start, but be aware I’m finding it hard
to separate these thoughts from my fears, they get confused
but as an alloy, the feelings between are completely mutual:

I feel I know this soul saw itself split.
I’m certain it never curdled or rejected
half, but separated with compliance, fell into line
-not against but still apart from the other –
no closing between chests with tearful departure
all was let go, even the little things, in those seconds
of whispers between the parts, as they hold the scars
stitched straight down their middles.
Now I have one half, its sides aren’t smooth.
It knows too much for me to ever say a word
and I’m worried that if I don’t I’ll never know
if I’ve already met the other,
or if the reunion is still to come.

So this is my greatest. I understand if you find no words,
for these thoughts change the shape of our space.
but just know, that despite all this, I am open to the idea
no divide can ever return as whole.

Reverie

2010-04-04T21:34:00.002+01:00

I can’t remember the last time I took notice of the moon,
Or thought about the weight of its secrets, its covenants.
How long it has been since I last saw you?
Or took the time to treasure what others let pass;
the way the sky never stays the same colour, day in and out,
or how clouds are always afraid of commitment
so we never let on that we needed them last summer
when we were blindsided to the green of it all.

I can’t remember the last time I saw the stars
Or thought about their dedication to the stone fortress of the night,
each with an individual clarity both in their poise and their shooting.
How long has it been since I last saw you?
Or let myself tell the stories I’ve forgotten how to tell;
the nights we would wait for the fallen, never feeling so small
believing that was what our life was for, because to see one
would give us that one wish, one chance to change how
we never really knew each other at all.

Before everything else.

2010-04-03T21:35:00.001+01:00

We don’t know the beauty in this industrial grey
And it is only a matter of getting away
And no longer saving, letting the taste of railings
Slip and slide down into the forgotten parts of us.
It’s about me and you, this city, this concrete,
And no, I no longer read your mind,
But I hope one day someone will see how it can never be too late
To fall apart and how you will always be just on time.
This is a perfect little place, somewhere outside of all the running
And the hiding and the picking, and the picking, and the picking
At the cracks in the cement, the falters in the lines that keep them there,
The grit that crumbles means we can never be calm,
No state to sit still and count the rhythms of the beats
Against the walls, we can only listen to the acceleration
Of the words they can’t help but shouting through.
This was something we had to do, before everything else,

Because I was like you;

my ears no longer hear as they used to.

I've been everywhere with you

2010-04-01T23:01:00.002+01:00

I have been a thousand thieves
And I have taken out the time from this,
I stole the hands and destroyed the numbers
The tick-tocking was easily broken,
More fragile than I thought
But still it took every inch of me to stop myself
From being close to tears.

the non-colour of snow

2010-04-01T22:58:00.003+01:00

I’ve made the world around my shoulders
A patchwork of the winter that covered us for those years,
When you were a friend of mine and we believed in fear,
We sat up straight but it was an ever that couldn’t be kept.
I never loved you more when you wrote
Your name beside mine on the front page
Of the book I wrote when I couldn’t work out exactly
What it is that made me this shade of blue.
But since then your nose and mine
Are no longer familiar and it is now peculiar to know
The smell of your shoulders when it’s been months
Since your body met mine in a place not far from here.
I keep you now, stitched into a shape,
The non-colour of snow, which my right arm
Slots into to hide from the weather-less
State of the world that is all around here, without the sun
And its poets there is no light ahead, nor is it in-between
Every step I am making. Despite a destination
Unclear, it was all, this is all, for you, my dear.

Seven years ago.

2010-03-31T16:29:00.002+01:00

A good one will never leave, never.

2010-03-30T22:58:00.001+01:00

He pocketed me in the fall, when the world left the ground
a mess of burnt amber leaves. It didn’t last.
It all changed too quickly for him to keep up as we walked
along the avenues, sucking the grey into our cheeks;
no longer a colour in anything at all.

He worked at my heart. And could never be told I didn’t love,
that I still felt the first. So I left smiles by his bed,
cracked under the pressure. I took myself out of the pockets in jeans,
wallets, album sleeves. I was smart as winter arrived:
I took shelter and time to be scared about the look he gave,

I learnt to treasure no thoughts, and to forget the need.
When it turned, every snowflake fell as if terrified of living,
the hopeless air drew out the smallness of our hearts.

Believe in Ever.

2010-03-29T23:01:00.000+01:00

There are no islands, the tide is useless
and every seagull's a bully. Barely a change in temperature,
in time, in the temperament: to be honest and just foolish
would be simply divine right now. It may hurt,
but at least I’d be tender and this boat could harbour.

I have left every morning. There is no time to sleep.
I’ve forgotten what it feels to be soft, what it feels to be hard.
It was easier then, all that running over mountains,
that relationship between ground and feet;
the certainty of a grounded horizon.

Everything was subtle when I started out.
I let myself take time to count oceans as they swept under and over,
into shapes and colours I had never seen.
Still, there was always too much water for puddles,
and the rain only flourished the surface.

But now, all I can think of are back-gardens and wet tarmac,
the world: ‘mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.’

Me without you.

2010-03-28T16:35:00.002+01:00

I need a new day.

2010-03-27T23:14:00.001Z

There aren't many words. I'm unable to find them, if they're really there at all. Perhaps they're hiding, in the trees? Please, for goodness sake can it all just float along, just slowly enough for me to keep up. There is only the orange of the light, glazing the window with a glow that makes me see nothing, only old finger prints and stale rain drops. I am stuck in an ocean, somewhere I didn't intend to make my grave, there are no islands, and the tide is useless, seagulls bully me. A weatherless state of mind, of nature. I can't get out. There has to be some change in temperature, of time, of temperament. To be honest and just foolish would be simply divine right now, but I can't do it. These are plans that can't sit , neat, in my hands. They're telling me that love is tough, and yes, for once, I think I can agree whole heartedly. I need some kind of bible, nothing too definite, nothing too instrumental, nothing orchestrated, just a guideline, some spots on the horizon that I could join in some vague attempt to make a map out of this mess. This mess, is all we're in. I want to love every inch of his soul, his soles, they are worn from walking after me, trying to catch me before I fall flat, but something stops at the boiling point. Just like the kettle in our kitchen - the red light always flickers, always fails. I am sick to the stomach I've been trying too hard to keep calm, keep calm and fucking carry on? I wish, I pray...I need some god damn hands to keep my arms from taking the tickets in my bag and running out of this house. The scents of the past are all that keep me sleeping. It isn't him. I never noticed, but it all crept up into my pores when I was dreaming. The pictures changed and stuffed themselves into shapes, too small for their colours to define themselves from one another, just a blur, a smudge of everything I left in words on a chalk board. White, with no heart. No pulse shared. It was easier, then. It hurt but it was tender, and I let the boat harbour. But now I can't stop sailing. I leave every morning. There is no time to sleep. Too many oceans. Would you take some time with me? Run over a few mountains, I have forgotten what it feels like to have the ground beneath my feet. I want to know the difference between softness and hardness, once more. It's all a yoghurt. A mousse. Oh to be as Cummings sees it all, to be 'mud-luscious' and 'puddle-wonderful'. But there is too much water to make puddles, only oceans, only lakes, and there is no earth to make mud - be it luscious or be it mediocre. Mud-less and puddle-less. What is even there? Directions are just man made, they're there to make sure we don't step outside the yellow lines. But this colour does nothing for my skin. A jaundice of my former self. Too profound, but without the clarity of a great writer. All there seems to be is this resting place that never comes, but the desire, the need, the urge, the breath, the power to escape, to get there and get out of here is too much for my head to handle and my heart can't take much more of beating itself out of these ribs. My pulse is weak from all the efforts. My beliefs are shards amongst the pages of all the things I've been trying to say. My family are too far. Thomas is meant to be something I can let all these things sit with, be safe with. He is meant to be all the words I've ever said, will ever say. But I need them, I can't seem to put them on his pages without taking them back after every attempt. STOP. This is enough.

the shape of our space.

2010-03-20T16:46:00.000Z

You are all I've ever known.

Growing up here.

2009-11-03T23:23:00.002Z

Dancing around synonyms

and semi-colons,

their semantics fold

like star fish legs

to the touch,

an antennae, afraid

of my fingers, it was just a thought;

No, that is far too orchestrated.

The words unravelled,

from the tip of my tongue,

sunk into the stream

and back to the aorta.

I was just about to open

the scallop shell

below my nose,

let the words fall onto your palms

as an unseived mess

of clauses and declaratives that would align

like magnets

on your skin,

spelling out the chaos

you have started on my insides.

Electricity.

2009-09-28T13:16:00.001+01:00

Looking through the leaves to find the answers, a fruitless endevour but it’s contagious once you start. You said you left the key there, next to the old batteries of your alarm. The one we threw out the window that morning when it was too early to wake. Too raw to face each others faces and acknowledge that this is actually happening. We left statues of ourselves on the castle walls to watch every scene again, again, replaying in front of their noses all we could ever hope to see again. The basement of your house leaks the words we wrote on the walls that night when we were too shy to open our mouths and let it sing under muted breath. The silence we slept in was too harsh to keep fresh. When we woke it was stale, like the ash in the glass by your bed.

Pumpkin.

2009-09-24T13:02:00.002+01:00

We stole the pumpkin from next doors garden,

mid-season. Its faceless body

sat in our kitchen for weeks, nobody

bothered with carving the mush

inside its shell that would loiter on fingers

like brine. A flesh of colour singed cheeks

with our twitching performance

through the vegetable patch,

finding the fruitless lump as well as our luck.

Mother never said a word

about the orange creature in our kitchen,

nor did she fulfill its fate with soups,

roasting. Three weeks passed, the pumpkin

in the kitchen, our memories vacant

to its existence. Until one morning,

before school, we opened the kitchen

door to a room of rotten. We found

the pumpkin, sunken skinned,

brown, soft, a once featureless face

now drooped into a woeful smile.

Please:

2009-09-22T13:13:00.000+01:00

Be prepared to make a mess.

Lunar.

2009-09-18T20:56:00.003+01:00

light filters through tracing paper,

pencilling out the skeleton

rocking chair bobbing

to a Bakelite disc,

gritty circles.

twelve moths,

feet tacky to the artex,

beat bubbles behind

the molars, holding anxiety

into gums to stop nausea.

There is an ocean in my garden:

2009-09-16T16:12:00.000+01:00

the waves are cruel

to the gooseberries

and the apple tree we planted

when we agreed to every forever,

the salted air holds no favours

for the soil we spent weeks removing

from our nails,

the grit that stuck in our molars,

the shells cares not

for the roses, nor the violets,

forcing them to warp

into shapes we cannot name

the sand loves nothing

inside our hedged space

spending its time wearing

every inch of it away:

there is an ocean in my garden

and I have forgotten

what the back gate looks like,

Oh, and the horizon

And it starts.

2009-09-16T10:33:00.001+01:00

Hello goodbye blues,

No, I don't like your shoes.

From you.

2009-09-12T23:46:00.003+01:00

Nobody watches us

as we crept through the cracks

in the pavement

by the oak tree

outside my house,

that threw itself towards my window

in the storms that grew

when we did.

I held on to the banister of my bed

and wishes you every inch

of all the thread I ever

sent you through the air,

i threw in hope of your catch,

to keep you safe, keep you making,

keep your hands warm,

'and I built a home for you, for me.'

one step inside doesn't mean I'm yours.

2009-09-12T08:11:00.001+01:00

Words drip through my fingers like cod liver oil,

a tarmac of sentences, just to be heard.

Thomas' Garden.

2009-09-12T08:00:00.003+01:00

summers' wrists

crunch with every turn

of the wheel,

drawing night

Crayola black,

a thousand sparrow eyes

dotted together.

she paints quickly these days:

clean slates which scratch

against summers' skin,

impatiently content

with this just being once a year.

The rescue.

2009-09-11T08:01:00.000+01:00

we've just noticed the tear to the left

of this notebook,

strange the things you miss at first glance,

the way a flowers silence sings only in summer;

a gravelled footstepped chorus,

squelched between toes - hugging the sole - the soul,

fanning their wings to shout, 'you are not alone'.

when the rip in the page worsens in the wind,

the parchment soars to the jeers of the roses.

The folds.

2009-09-10T08:05:00.000+01:00

If gravity were a man

he'd wear his brow low,

his moustache high,

he'd whistle unlike a wolf

to women and busk

to make ends meet,

a cardboard nest

keeps dry his feet,

UV kisses on his cheek

from a careless youth,

the smell of his soul

found from his back molar,

black with sugar,

he'd want to be no other

man but he, gravity,

but every man would

wish to trade their place

to fit his shoes.

To live in a vacuum

with both feet off the ground

renders everything glimpsed,

missed,

and not quite held:

In Deep.

2009-09-09T08:09:00.000+01:00

There is a space beneath the ribs I haven't seen,

and if the Fantastic Voyage were possible,

would I dare to be brave and take a peek

at what I've only ever been able to feel?

It thuds in your throat, I felt it,

trying to jump ship, pusling like wet sand,

without the squelch between my toes.

Can we share it without blood on our hands?

it may hurt and I'm useless at promises.

Rasta in a carpark.

2009-09-08T10:36:00.001+01:00

With Zion as the destination set on your sat nav,

you hide in parked cars at the back of supermarkets,

hot boxing with the herb of Jah

You tell me wipes Babylon’s confusion

clean out of your mind:

a slate fresh for the truth to settle.

Tonight is a Reasoning, you say,

I hold back from saying it’s just like every other night

of your life. Still I’m allowed to light

the Ischence and pray to green ears, passing clockwise

for there is no war right now.

It’s fresh and my eyes roll into my head

and I see no paradise, just a fog of sleep.

You speak of this Lion man,

how he never really died, it was all a hoax,

for there is no death? Just everliving life.

You say the cancer never destroyed Marley’s body.

He is still living everyday as a Binghi,

dancing and stuffing his body

with Jah’s ganja.

I and I are one and the same

Selassie told you, forget the isms

the schisms, the prejudice of Babylon.

I look at your skin and your Tesco’s uniform,

the hair thick with your abstinence

from scissors and razors;

the marks on your nails

from the dairy free lifestyle

you have kept up for two months now.

I guess I should be proud

you feel this Irie of yours will keep you

forever alive. One love, one peace?

Nah, just one more toke on this green.

The colour of this from a distance.

2009-09-07T17:52:00.001+01:00

We swam until we could no longer hold our breath,

it hurt, our lungs, elbows creaked and screamed;

mine were purple, yours were blue.

Keep stretching, keep kicking, keep eyes open at all times.

It hurt our lungs, elbows creaked and screamed;

get used to the bubbles in our nostrils.

Keep stretching, keep kicking, keep eyes open at all times.

The seasons washed over and bathed our hair in salt,

get used to the bubbles in our nostrils,

forget what it was to be eighteen years old.

The seasons washed over and bathed our hair in salt,

feeling more like eighty: brittle and completely enveloped.

Forget what it was to be eighteen years old;

mine were purple, yours were blue,

feeling more like eighty: brittle and completely enveloped,

we swam until we could no longer hold our breath.

Thomas.

2009-09-06T23:03:00.002+01:00

'Illuminate me.'

Hiding my face in my hands.

2009-09-05T23:05:00.000+01:00

if this shell broke

in two, split

on purpose

like the egg

in your hands,

do we mask

it together

with saliva

and rizlas

or do we sweep

amongst ash

into dregs

of beer bottles

by your bed,

forget it was ever

really whole,

dissolve the memory

into an aspirin

of the forgotten

parts of us,

pretend nothing

smelt like oceans

nothing left sand

in pockets

that had never

seen the sea,

decide it was just

like every other shell

I found on Whitby bay:

Crossed legs were numb

from the command of burrowing hands,

razor shells slit hangnails,

glass polished

by no mans hand,

hours were there, buried in the sea,

the waves came to kiss my feet

you were there,

wings spread, eyeing the shell

I cradled all the way home,

careful for blackbirds.

Pending title.

2009-09-02T18:25:00.003+01:00

The pebble in my hand

feels nothing

like it did, more akin

to a mottled penny

in my mothers drive,

it's no where perfect

and smells nothing

of oceans.

I should know

its hows and beens,

but it's folded

as dead wasps

are on my sisters

bay window,

its knows are voiceless

for all it has witnessed:

the purple of my father,

and the dissolution

of the sparks between us.

The shape

remains unrust,

under weathered,

from a glance all familiar,

but at touch

preconceptions plode,

be it in or out:

a myriad of wishful thinking.

Froth. Take Two.

2009-09-01T18:29:00.000+01:00

'Take a hip flask', he told me,

So I drove until I could see the sea. 'Take a hip flask'

he told me. The grass was a patchwork of all the green I had ever seen.

'Take a hip flask', so I drove until I could see the sea,

the cliff now sleeps on the sand. 'Take a hip flask'

So I drove until I could see the sea, the water hungrily eats up my toes.

He told me. The grass was a patchwork of all the green I had ever seen.

He told me, 'Josie, your voice is just too loud'.

The grass was a patchwork of all the green I had ever seen; as I stare at horizon I realise it was never as straight at I thought it was.

The cliff now sleeps on the sand, the water hungrily eats up my toes,

'Josie, your voice is just too loud', as I stare at the horizon realising it was never as straight as I thought.

Pantoum attempt.

2009-08-30T08:53:00.002+01:00

Our duvet burst

with a carnival of humming birds,

wings beating like lashes,

I felt goosebumps on your elbow.

With a carnival of humming birds,

cat-eyed, whistling

I felt goosebumps on your elbow,

so I joined the dots.

Cat-eyed, whistling

they filled our skin with a buzz,

so I joined the dots

to map our great escape.

They filled our skin with a buzz,

wings beating like lashes.

To map our great escape

our duvet had to burst.

Without a fight.

2009-08-29T09:01:00.000+01:00

Perhaps I'll just play hide and seek, just give you black on white,

I guess anywhere else is better than in the knot that is my torso, still perhaps I'll just play hide and seek,

Just give you black on white, capture those days where we lost everything on the outside and made magic.

Perhaps I'll just play hide and seek, I guess anywhere else is better than inside the knot that is my torso,

I don't want to stop-and-start and make a mess, perhaps I'll just play hide and seek.

I guess anywhere else is better than inside the knot that is my torso, and we've never been good at tying loose ends and make sure one of us holds the rope.

Just give you black on white, capture those days where we lost everything outside and made magic.

I am putting in the house to make you see this is the butter on your toast, just give you black on white,

capture those days where we lost everything outside and made magic, there is all time in this.

I don't want to stop-and-start and make a mess, and we've never been good at tying loose ends and making sure one of us holds the rope.

I am putting in the house to make you see this is the butter on your toast: there is all time in this.

First love. Last love.

2009-08-29T08:56:00.000+01:00

But I am forgetting that I'm losing weight,

so torn in knots,

my stomach's in a constant ache,

from every bite of fate

that leaves my knuckles raw with clots

still I'm forgetting that I'm losing weight,

and how at night my teeth escape,

now my mouths a cave of empty slots,

and my stomach's in a constant ache,

yet there's still this purple pill to waste

inside a body so far forgot

I'm forgetting that I'm losing weight,

these bones now bend and will soon break

if I don't lost the ghost inside my gut -

my stomach's in a constant ache,

so I let my limbs prostrate

and throw up next to your toothbrush,

yes I'm forgetting that I'm losing weight

but this stomach's caught in a constant ache.

Cinquain, first attempt

2009-08-28T20:32:00.000+01:00

‘Yunno

bend like this twig

at the knuckle’ she folds

like origami, I fold like

the snow.