aaaargh

I don't know what's going to happen. And I'm really fucking scared. And I don't want to feel like this at this stage in my life. Things have gone horribly fucking wrong and I don't think I can fix them.

The Boy who was a Wolf

Once there was a boy. An ordinary boy. Like you, perhaps, if you are one. Or like that one you know. That strange one, who keeps to himself.

This boy lived like all normal boys in the day. He went to school, he read books, he drew pictures and went for walks in the woods and across the hills.

But every night he climbed out of his window and he became a wolf.

Wolves are different from the wolves in fairytales. He never ate anyone’s grandma. He never ate little pigs, either, nor did he try to blow their houses down.

What this wolf liked most was to run across the grassy hills with the stars above his head.

He would run until he didn’t know where he was anymore and just keep running until he found himself back in bed, a boy again, at the start of another day.

One night the boy climbed out of his window but he didn’t become a wolf. Instead the wolf he usually became was standing next to him.

He wasn’t very afraid. He knew this wolf very well. After all, he was this wolf half the time. “Hello”, he said.

This was a little silly, because wolves don’t understand words. But the wolf cocked its head slightly, which sort of meant the same thing as saying “hello” back.

The wolf began to trot off a little distance, and stopped and looked back at the boy as if to say “are you coming?”.

The boy looked up at his open window, down at his pyjamas, and decided to follow.

Rather than go out onto the hills, the wolf led the boy a different way, because this night was different from the others. He took him into a dark wood.

A little afraid, the boy followed, trying to tread exactly where the wolf tread. The wolf turned back every once in a while, to make sure he did not get too far ahead.

Eventually they came out into a clearing. Here the wolf sat down and waited for the boy to catch up.

The moon was high above them, and the sky was full of stars – more than the boy had ever seen, except with his wolf eyes.

He looked down at the wolf, and the wolf looked sad. It’s a little hard to say how it looked sad, but the boy could see in its eyes that it was.

“Don’t be sad, wolf” he said, gently stroking its muzzle. But the wolf couldn’t help it.

“Just look at all those stars” said the boy, pointing out all the hundreds his eyes had never seen before.

But when the boy looked down again, he was alone in the woods. The wolf was gone.

The boy was scared. “Wolf!” he called out, quietly. But the wolf did not return.

Taking a few deep breaths, the boy decided to make his own way home. The wolf could find its way here, and he was the wolf, so he could find his way home. It would be easy.

He turned around and set out into the woods. He couldn’t find a path, but he made his way through the trees. Every now and then a twig scratched his face, or his arms, but he kept going.

Eventually he came out onto the hills where he had run as a wolf, but he was exhausted, and he could not run tonight.

He turned towards home, and walked with his head down all the way back.

Eventually he climbed back into his own window, into his own room and lay down in his own bed. “I did it”, he thought to himself. “I hope the wolf is alright”.

The next night he was too tired to climb out of his window, still exhausted from his long night in the woods.

The night after that he felt angry at the wolf for leaving him there alone in the woods, and decided not to climb out of his window to teach the wolf a lesson.

But the night after that he remembered that the wolf had looked sad before it left him. The boy realised the wolf had not wanted to go.

He climbed out of his window and went to look for the wolf. He went to the dark woods first, although they frightened him a little, but he could not find the wolf there.

Next he went out onto the grassy hills where he knew the wolf loved to run. But he could not see the wolf in the bright moonlight.

“Where can he have gone?” thought the boy. Just then he heard a strange sound come across the hills, a faint echoing cry.

It was the wolf. He heard the wolf howl, and the howl was the saddest sound he had ever heard.

He felt sorry for his wolf, but he realised that the wolf could not come back. “Goodbye Wolf” he shouted, and the sound echoed across the hills into silence.

And, sadly, he made his way home.

Over the next months he forgot the wolf, and carried on with his life as boys tend to.

But the wolf never forgot the boy.

THE END.

Lucidity

It’s that moment – that jarring, fatal moment when you realise you’ve slipped, that the noises you’re hearing outside your room aren’t really part of life, part of your everyday experience. When the strange messages flashing up on your computer say things they couldn’t possibly say. When the sun comes up alongside the moon, but it stays dark outside. The moments when you begin to realise you’ve slipped into a dream.

Sometimes it’s swift, and you’ll simply realise that you’re seeing impossible things. Other times it’s slow and laborious, as you waste years, lives, millennia of dream time to fear and doubt. You act like an idiot, when instead of soaring through the nearest cloud you sit and debate the implications of misjudging your flight plan. YOU ARE DREAMING, you think, BUT THAT’S NO REASON NOT TO BE CAREFUL! It is. Be carefree for a few moments in your night.

I am working on prolonging my dreams for weeks at the moment. At first I was content just to fly, or to make love to a different woman each night in my dream, or simply to observe, not allowing myself to become involved as my subconscious mind wheeled around me. The feeling of power is immense. In your own mind, you are God. You are the only God which has ever wielded power there.

Four

I’ll put this here
Because I know you’ll never read it
You wouldn’t care
It wouldn’t form a picture in your head
Four broken walls
Four stairs leading upwards to bed
Four empty holes
Four dreams I had were swept out to sea.

I’ll write it down
Just so I can record it this time
It’s not fine
It’s just something I said to relent
Four parts
Four facets of myself I present
Four blinding lights
Four more towers on the skyline.

I’ll sing a song
A word into your ear to forget
You don’t hear
The empty notes will fall down the steps
Four steps
Four inches out a means to express
Four years
Four instances I live to regret.

Ghost City

The city docks are underwater
A light burns from the lake
High up on the hillside
Old buildings lie in wait

Sun used to come out sometimes
Now all the clouds are grey
Ghost city, once pretty
Now has passed away

Ghost city, so pretty
No pity, just shame

I used to meet you
Now I don’t know where you are
I could believe you
But now you're gone I can’t see far

You don’t believe me
I’m stranded here again
Ghost city, once pretty
Burnt out like so many days

Ghost city, so pretty
No pity, just shame

I don’t remember the name of this street
If I ever knew it at all
I don’t remember who showed it to me
Ghost city, once pretty
Now rubble, water and snowfall.

My Sweet Love

My sweet love
Lending her light to the moon
When the night opens
She unfolds into full bloom

Some people say
Nothing comes in time
They don’t know what I’ve seen
Some people say
Anything
Another translucent dream

My sweet love
Lending her light to the stars
Heaven into her eyes
Survival possession and heart

Some people say
You can’t move in time
You can only respond to the world
Some people say
Anytime
Is never time, that’s ok tonight

My sweet love
Lending her light to the sun
Come to me alight
Burn this body and let me become

Desolation

He walks in, she’s awake
Eyes are closed, head is grey
Thick as dust, numb as bone
Skull exposed, overthrown

Forever cast to freedom
Forever hidden fate
Soul hardened until morning
No wisdom to negate

We return, the sister home
Too much feeling, in our head
Nothing dreamt, nothing shown
Someone lost, another bred

Fortune

Breath of fortune, black lake
Creep the bones back into the bodies
Sun down, sun up, breathe life
By chance or by conviction

She made a sail
Of hair and bone and the smaller shells
The dross that washes up
Onto pale sands

Down they crashed, up and over
Into the sun and back to earth
Sway and blister, rod and thunder,
Bruise and promise

The tide that swells
And fades out into nothing
Begins as a pulse
Murmurs to a whisper

Considered, ponderous, she breathes out
And out and out it goes
Fruit and warmth, sunlight
Into the ocean

And fade to nothing
Beneath the pale sand
Beneath the water
Into the other.

Try

We sit, dreaming dreams
Singers of the songs that you forget
Witnesses to what you now regret
Trying to remember how it seemed

Another life, another death
Waiting outside, listening, dim
Don’t fall back, you’re falling in
Trying to extrapolate what’s left

Mistakes, I’ve found my legacy
Remember things, forget time and place
Southern coasts, each one desolate
Between the ships and the endless sea

Recover all you’ve never come to prove
Watch old suns fall and brittle mountains move

Don’t look back, look in upon yourself
Summer drowned in winter’s fatal stealth.

Summer Sun

The sun shines in, without the void of fear
Spinning close to life, in death so very clear
A chance to hope, a force to bring renewal
In summer’s arms, the flight of faith is fuel

The summer’s here, in winter’s evening bloom
Rhythmic, melodic, repentant and consumed
Grasp out at wisdom, pacify the walls
That autumn stained, moss and earth, symbols

Circumnavigate the dusty globe
Bring my lonely sister safely home
Feel her breath against your naked skin
The crime of regret polished slowly in

At night, the sun shines out and distance calls
Revenge, revenge upon this shaking all
A cataclysm pulls my legs from under
And all that once was close is rent asunder

The spring is new, it pulls upon your heart
It tugs you near, then decimates those arts
Of sanctity, sterility and cold;
Return the simple light into your soul

The sun shone in, enclosed the void of fear
Span round with it a while, and slowly cleared
Above the sun, a gleaming message found
‘Renew your hope, and fear no darkness now’

Trapped 2

I’ve been trapped here now
And though I’ve struggled to get out
I’ll remain within for weeks,
Trying hard to speak
But simple words will not come out,
I long them to shout;
The emotion is good,
It’s just there’s no force left that could.

I can hear them outside (pacing around)
As if they think I’ve died (sniff the ground)
And the airway run stale (how did it fail?)
And to think, you would fall for nothing at all
A ghost, a shower, a shipwreck, a hull
That’s hollow and cracked; yet still
Mountains move overhead,
And beneath I push with all the strength left.

Outside I hear them pacing around
And pawing the ground.

Mother

Yellow eyes nestle low;
Close pressed, these tiny blue eyes
Gazing towards light

Thick paws on thick snow;
The world is muted, softened
As she starts to dig

Leaves that have fallen;
Summer slowly slips away
Winter sheds her skin

Full days of hunting;
She fills herself with warmth now
Chases light for miles

Pressed together still;
She felt herself slip away
Light-footed angel

A new haze brought growth;
Standing shoulder to shoulder
As she stretches herself

Not quite a cub still;
The wild wind came running past
Out towards the woods.

(I think that last haiku might be my favourite thing I've ever written)

Carrying the Dawn

Going out to meet morning half-way,
All those quiet things seem loud again;
I feel each stone beneath my feet
(Wild rivers of light gushing between)
The sun is blindness in my eyes

Another night lived to see it rise
When the birds sing in the morning
You’ll find me carrying the dawn.

These Heaped Possessions

Not a stranger by birth,
Something which I must’ve learnt
Not forgiven, unrepented,
I’ve picked up habits and resentment
Arrogance and numb aggression
Lying beneath these heaped possessions
Still an animal with beating heart
Beneath as I will always be.

A Tragic Love Story

She moved left and right, arms up higher, higher, spreading herself out wider under the green sheets, feeling light flooding and flowing over her through their thin gauze. Summer was in the air, the sun blew open the curtains and spread the flowers out in the garden. Voices drifted past, laughter and smiles wafting through the room. Time froze and melted intermittently, building and smashing the days as a smile fell across her face. Great tides of colour washed into the room and left.

Hear me out, he thought, just let me try and explain. It’s not the way it seems, I’m not the person you think. I’ve tried to find things about myself I can show to you, I’ve tried to be reasonable. I’ve tried everything but speaking, and I can’t do that, you know I can’t do that. I am weak and you are so stalwart in everything. I bend like reeds in the wind; you are a brick wall to dash myself against. He opened his eyes, stretched out under the green sheets. The window was closed, but winter crept in, bent the edges of the glass and rattled the fixtures, blue and white pressing inwards, gripping the bed and lifting the sheets, penetrating and shrieking through the cocoon he fastened around himself still tighter, tighter. Silence moved these thoughts, goaded them on, and behind silence lay death, unquestioning, fervent.

Long days of nothing, tall grass and short sleeves, moments in memory splashed together, flowing thick scents, heady, vivid fires drifting strange smokes to the north. The summer fell away; leaves fell charred, unopened, into autumn. The world ablaze, struck new moths pursued by older birds. The wind gripped the trees, pushed them this way then that, clenching them in a fist and twisting them into new shapes, bitter, splintered forms. Birds left, called away perhaps, or shooed outwards across the barren sea. People moved through the garden, and the weeds thickened beneath the hedgerows, strangling, choking the new growth across the pale, freezing sun.

He came as she went, and the same room knew them both; it saw the change in them both. Perhaps it moved them to it, sending one on as another arrived, setting one in the other’s wake, but at the end of it they both made choices there, for better or worse.

Knit together like the air and the fallen leaves, pulled tighter as her lips in the cold air, she moved closer to him. All the time he grew, a looming figure, only ever behind her, fleeing as she turned yet on her heels if she looked ahead, moving closer and penetrating the canopy she took shelter beneath. And for him, she grew before him, a light to be chased, a dancer, a world to explore, to conquer. In his solitude she grew to her full size, and in her company he built walls to look down on her from, a child, a ship which sailed to distant shores. Remembered letters and her forgotten notes, fascinations, he picked them up and read each one. He edited and shook her feelings, crossing out words and replacing them with cold, stark images, leaving her naked and unprotected. And with every leaf that fell, she became less of herself, more of him, and so more of nothing. She fell apart a little each day, as the winter came into her body and pushed past the defences she thought she could hold.

Look at this picture: a photograph, newer than that which it portrayed, shouting words that it could not speak clearly, transparently, though coherent and lucid. One dim figure in the background, looking sideways across at another, behind which flows a sea of lights, moving, pulsating almost with the days and weeks. She moves back, and he steps a little closer to the camera, larger, filling his side of the picture and spilling over into hers (a little won’t change much, each day a little doesn’t amount to so much), drifting out of focus, breathing into her, moving his hands through the fibres of her dead body, making her real, fleshing her out into something he can touch. Each day she buries herself further, burrowing backwards into time, pushing past the abandoned barricades of memory, slipping between cracks in long-forgotten pavements and climbing down into abandoned cellars, stripping back layers of wallpaper and waiting by streams, sifting through the debris it washes down to her, desperate to separate the illusions of him from her own disembodied memories. Her head and his heart a little fuller or a little emptier, until neither could tell which way they were moving.

Never meeting, their hands never touched, but their infection was subtle, fickle, a little dulled by the years. At the end of it he felt: in his mind he felt her clearly for the first time, and in a leap he abandoned hope. He had moved for good, with his good intentions. Progress, change for the better, becoming something more than oneself: He aspired, and for what? What did she have which he could not have made in her? And she fell, frail, crushed, but not by his supercilious hands. He still hadn’t seen the reasons, indeed he had glanced straight past her motives. He built himself into her oppressor, her fantasy, her lover, and she never knew him. She never thought of him, not once, and she turned and pressed on herself, gripping with his hands, climbing with his body, but without reflection, without self.

And as they both slowly turned away from the world, each towards the other a little more, they lost what made them human. They fell, young, but years apart, they knew nothing of one another. They should have known and perhaps they should have felt it; and they never could.

Hope

She came into being
A second light from a further star
And she waited, waited
Just beyond the edge of sight.

Wisdom, I had wisdom
And I threw it away, unchanging
But grows, develops, increases
And gradually returns.

She found me out, she knew
And turned and shaped me
Until I could encircle empathy again
Until I had grown.

I have to stop these quiet evenings alone
Because you come around,
And when I find you next to me
I know hope again.

Proximity

The night drifted across a frozen landscape of motion. Stark, burning lights icily glazed the world into lines, and dusty clouds breathed past the moon in thick, pallid gusts. Beneath, a city found itself barren. Few now remembered it’s more pleasant days, and fewer still its pleasant nights. Safety and caution replaced cooperation and companionship, security and providence replaced labour and enjoyment. The sensuous had long since blown away, leaving only dull, thick sounds, soulless music of machines and the spiritless rattle of old, abandoned schools.

Clutching a small pile of books, he wove his way through the intermittent traffic to the pavement. Scolding himself about walking through side streets to make shortcuts at night, and then about it being no time to stop and think, he moved on hurriedly past a low pile of fabric blown against the steps leading up to his front door. Fumbling around in his pockets, his head blown open by fears and anxieties, full of his day, the following week, next year. Key, lock, push inside, lock, bolt. Feeling around in the dark he traced the wall to a light switch and flicked it on.

Outside cars and motorbikes shot past, bleating their deep, ungainly clatter against the walls of the house. She stirred, breathing in the waking air from the other side of her dreams. Looking about her, she began to focus herself back into the moment. Slowly she moved herself forward, lurching slightly to the left as she felt the wrench in her abdomen that had buried itself their days before. There were a few spots of rain in the air, and she fought her way out of her blanket. Her fingers were white, slender bones against stiff and coarse cloth.

Somewhere on the horizon, a city breathed out suddenly, and it rained. The streets became oil, slick and deadly, the windows danced with yellow light. The newly painted walls dripped and ran, red and blue. In the parks leaves shook the trees, and the paper river tore itself open towards the sea. The traffic was hushed in a din of thumping water, falling in sheets upon the concrete and meeting the stagnant pools and ponds it had blown across earlier.

The chatter of a television gushed downstairs on him as he pulled frozen plastic slabs from his freezer. No time, no time, I though I’d saved… never mind. No time, no time… he muttered low curses to himself, to his colleagues, his family and his friends. Ah, there it is. He pushed the long black tray into a microwave, set the timer and slumped into a chair, still and quiet for four minutes. Slowly, slowly, his head dropped slightly, more, a little lower… a metallic beep shook him upright with a start. He pulled the door open, and poured the contents of the tray onto a plate, snatched up a fork and carried it up to his bedroom and the cold glow of the television.

She pulled the sheets over her head, searching left and right for a spot of shelter. Only blank-faced buildings all around, nothing overhanging but pylons and street lights. She rushed across the road, past traffic which now roared across her path even more urgently. Almost losing her footing, she gained the opposite pavement and dashed down a side-street. As she looked behind, the street became more and more vague, obscured by the brown cloud of rain. She came to a doorway, slightly set back against the rest of the street, and curling herself up tightly she pulled herself into the thin space, clasping her soaked blanket about herself, and waited for morning as her breathing slowed down.

The sun rose, at first a subtle glow on the edge of a cloud, until it became a full ball of light, burning through the mist of rain, scattering and thinning the last remnants of the night’s storm. The streets flooded with people, vibrant colours and bare skin in the hot morning.

He felt better this morning, as usual, as he set off for another day’s work. Picking up his books, he stepped outside and locked his door. The air smelt odd today, like copper or magnesium… in the broad white reflection on the street he could feel the heat of the sun. Walking up the road to a crossing, he waited with a few others for the lights to change. It must’ve really come down last night! He listened to their conversation, but couldn’t really follow it. Looking left and right, he saw an opening in the traffic and dashed across to the other side. He turned back on himself, and down the little side-street he sometimes took to work. Half-way along it he noticed the same sodden rag which had been at the foot of his steps the night before. Someone should really clean this city up, he thought, and his mood gradually turned as he continued to work.

Full Shield

Winter, you can move through me
Only when you want to

She regained her intimacy
With nature, she had lost it
I’m very pleased to meet you again

Something went wrong, she says
Someone has gone, he’s dead
I don’t find him here anymore
Where did you pack away those smiles?

Some things I don’t want to know
Sometimes I think so
I don’t have to learn anything

Autumn, you can move through me
Only when you want to

She misplaced her trust, used to be
Something easily given
Now something very rare

Someone is me, she says
Something somebody said
He’s become the driving force
Of my bent and brittle emotions

Some things I don’t want to know
Sometimes I think so
I don’t have to love anything

Summer, you can move through me
Only when you want to.

Gia

“I didn’t mean for it to be like this”, said Gia. “Sometimes these things just fall from me like leaves in autumn, they spill and gush until the overflow and crash around my feet...”

“Sometimes,” said Gia, “sometimes the world looks different to me. Sometimes I don’t see the things I know are there, the things I look at every day. Sometimes the world is larger, it engulfs me in its darkness. At night I wander, and the streetlamps raise their orange glow into the mist. Sometimes I look up at the houses on the hills, and they are on fire, the lights burning a thick, acrid smoke that rises to join the ridge of cloud so far above me. And above still further, the moon looks down, cool; I feel his voice in the wind on my face. Above everything, the eye of God, looking down mournfully.”

“Sometimes,” said Gia, “Sometimes I forget who I am. Sometimes I am huge, I arch over the places I know, a towering oak above pathways and houses, looking down chimneys and watching the people move. I look on and I feel happy, the unfolding drama of life scattered around me. And I come to realise I am too tall, my roots run too deep, to ever be inside. If I were smaller, I would still grow, tearing through the roof, scattering tiles and timber and letting in the rain.”

“Sometimes,” whispered Gia, “sometimes I’m afraid to be alone, but I don’t understand other people. They don’t understand me. Even when I come close to them, my words fall on deaf ears. I move, and they cannot follow me. I set a trail, but before they reach the end I am gone. Sometimes the wind blows through the leaves and I think I catch a glimpse of someone following me, looking down with these same eyes. But the wind moves on, I move on and they are gone at a blink.”

“Sometimes,” and Gia glanced around, leaning in closer, “sometimes I go to places I should never go. I see the faces of people who have been forgotten, and I hear harsh words and strong, thick phrases which shock to the heart of me. They still shock me, no matter how much I hear them. I go down to the base of things; I see the cracked and splintered shapes that lie there, curled in the wake of this place. I hear them, I know what they do and I know what they see. I know what they are. And the terrifying thing is, they ignore me. They just watch me pass. I almost wish they would follow me home, destroy me as they destroyed themselves... but they know we are different. They look at me, and there is a vague spark of recognition, but they move on. They look at me like they look at the fractured scenery they build up around themselves, perhaps interesting for a moment, but ultimately of no use. They have their art, they have their songs, and whilst I mouth along I shall never know the tune.”

“Sometimes,” said Gia, “I have seen angels, racing above me, above the clouds, darting into the rivers and stretching out for the sea. Sometimes they drop without a sound, and hover for a moment, regarding me, turning this way and that. They gesture to me, the whisper so softly... but I cannot hear them, I do not know what they want. They hang their heads, and they are gone from sight, and I am left, terrified, cold and alone by the water’s edge, freezing cold and dripping wet. I creep home in the dark, every noise a knife in my heart. I crawl into bed alone.”

“Sometimes,” and Gia looked down at her toes, moving them a little and then letting them hang again, “sometimes I have lost things I can’t get back. I have broken things that cannot be mended. I have shown people things which have changed them forever, and said and done things which I lived to regret. Sometimes I regret almost everything, and when people see me walking around with my head in the clouds they don’t know, they don’t see what’s going on inside of me. I wish I could get it all out. I wish I could tell it to you now. But I won’t. I know that one day it will choke me, and I will go on, head in clouds, from the outside I will look exactly the same. No one will even notice that I’ve gone, but it’s coming for me. It waits in dark corners, squat, terrifying. Its face is my face, and so shall it replace me. Soon I know it shall swallow me whole.”

“Sometimes,” murmured Gia, turning away, “you just have to accept your fate.”

Shaded

When I fall asleep I shall dream only of you, without anything else to think of.
The time between sleeping and waking is where you live now.
There is no peace of mind, only shadows, shadows, shadows.

In the past you were close to me but you have moved further away as time has passed.
Now you are almost alien to me, moving beyond the curtain of this world.
I see you skirting clouds and edges, just missing cracks and moving through objects.
When did we lose touch?

When did our fingers part?

Have we grown so old so fast?
Can it really be that all that is left is this strange, unpleasant silence between us?

The science of leaving you.
The inequality of life.
Sometimes I am young and small, and I can move, but other times I am old and stiff and fragile.
I watched them get married yesterday.
So much and so little, all wrapped up together.
Perhaps it is indefinite,
Perhaps it is subtle.
Perhaps it is nothing, but perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...
It is time.

Out Of Touch

Everyone else, consult your routines
Fixed lens in the world, life as it goes
No cross-referenced thoughts, same mistakes as machines
Unable to take control

Forgiven, forgotten, but not understood
You accept and expect but you still come to harm
And I can’ understand how they thought that you could
Movement without a soul

I have lived my whole life as I live it now, live it now
People have never meant much, never meant much
I look forward to nothing, nothing is all
Drifting out of touch

My body not working, I can’t make it move
There’s a man who tells me I’m killing my heart
But it keeps beating so I’ll just disregard
Better than having to change

Down in the alleys the world is still dark
On every street they wait for me
And what’s left for me now looks fragile, stark
Grown into a world that won’t hear me

I have lived my whole life as I live it now, live it now
People have never meant much, never meant much
I look forward to nothing, nothing is all
Drifting out of touch.

As The Crow Flies

It’s not too far from here
As the crow flies
When the light fades
And the sun dies

Where the wolves run
And the birds sleep
I’ll take you there
But tread lightly

Every footfall crashes
And our eyes are like sparks
Softly, so clumsily
We move through the dark

Can you see it there?
Hear it in the freezing sky?
It’s not too far from here
As the crow flies.

Church Cove

Round the headland
Where the swallows nest
Sweep up the coast to the next bay
Out into the sea
Where tomorrow and horizon are made

The little pools
Each round, deep, and clear
Pressed down, definite
Over the rocks and under the starlight
Up to the arms of the church

And in the little graveyard
Old bones still sit, still stirred
By the march of the land into the sea
Stretched out across the sand
Ancient holes and the modern man

Back up into the trees
Put some distance behind me
At the edge of what I know to look for
Is the edge of what I can find.

Song To One Who is Gone

When I become older than you
You will still look this way, won’t you?
When they make me live on and you still lie
I shall remember you the way you died

Not so old, although you seemed
As tall as houses, and as strong as stone
And I know you live on, you lies somewhere in us
But when we’re gone what is left?

I don’t know my ancestors
I don’t know your father’s name
One day I will, perhaps, but what difference will it make?
Life seems so important

But there is not so much at stake
What difference can we ever make?
The future may or may not be set, so much to regret
When even the strongest man must break.

Stand Alone

The day is so long, at the end
There’s nothing left but fire
I’m a city girl, it’s in my soul
Ready to exist
Just don’t move the goalposts
Changing my life again
Dependant upon a corrupt structure
One day I’ll stand alone

Don’t forget so fast
And confuse your dreams with the past

It’s all war, debt, attack, defence
Reality is changed
I’m glad to have never seen darkness
In the deadlights’ and streetlamps’ glow I am safe
When the sun shines
I’m convinced it’s not as bright as it was
When I was a girl
The world was so much bigger

Don’t forget so fast
And confuse your dreams with the past
Don’t forget so fast
And confuse someone else’s dream with the past.

Just Get By

I heard the other day
That I haven’t got a soul
So self-assured,
We need nothing more

I’m not sure I agree
Without a soul what am I?
I’m convinced that I feel
Guilt and sadness to think of you

It’s easy just to get by
But so hard to control myself

Another day, another morning at least
Seems like another chance
Sounds on the radio
The lump in my throat

I can feel my pulse in my ears
And although it changes as you come near
I’m not convinced that that’s enough
When there’s nothing else it doesn’t seem like much

It’s easy just to get by
But so hard to control myself
And sometimes I don’t
I just become someone else.

Light

Still, without weight you drift
Exception of light, perfect form
A star amidst silver leaves, burning
White, cold and distant to touch

And if a rain should fall
You’ll burn it off and leave me dry
Face upturned, I have found shelter

Soft, you move out into the night
Moving shadows of still light
I move with you, forgetting the rain
Out of the woods and into the world

And if you should drift away
I don’t think I could stomach the pain
Face turned down beneath the barren sky

Slow, you start to dim and fade
And suddenly the torrent hits me
Tearing through paper shoulders
My weak body, you have left me thus

And if I should feel you near again
I wouldn’t know what to do
Caught between love and the agony of you.

Burden

The wind laps and crashes against your walls
Let me in, let me in he cries
Echoes of the past, sing on to the future
When a thousand ghosts make each breath
When you are still weak from hearing them

The sun beats down on us here, we are getting old
And are we getting anywhere?
There is still the same flicker on the horizon, still the same burden
Still the load upon our backs

When the rain falls, dust flies
To a mist in the still air. So much change
So much gone forever, so much still to come
Just take me home.

Pinned Down

She moves in silence
Without hope anymore
I have her trapped, immobile
Pinned down
Waiting for the killing jar

She beats her wings
Tears her fragile limbs
I have made her into this
Pinned down
Waiting for the killing jar

She stains the glass
Colour bleeds onto the walls
I have turned her ebon black
Pinned down
Waiting for the killing jar

She died so long ago
Colour faded from her eyes
But it is I who kept her here
Half way between
I have not grown, still I am become a god
Pinned down
Waiting for the killing jar.

Sounding You Out

When you came to me it was easy to see
I would never be without you
And as days carried on it got hard to pretend
That I could live without you

But we’ve had our ups and downs
After all this time I’m still sounding you out
Sounding you out…

The summer came and we lay down on the grass
And the autumn passed, and even winter passed
And then I did things that I’d rather forget
But I’ll sing this song to you with my regrets

You know that we’ve had our ups and downs
After all this time I’m still sounding you out

Sounding you out, sounding you out
I know so much about you
But there’s still so many doubts
Sounding you out, sounding you out
Just when I think I know you
You shock me somehow

I never meant to bring you pain
But you’ve just healed and I hurt you again

I know we’ve had our ups and our downs
After all this time I’m still sounding you out…

Sounding you out, sounding you out
I know so much about you
But there’s still so many doubts
Sounding you out, sounding you out
Just when I think I know you
You shock me somehow.

Waiting

When the sun comes out
I can see right to the corners
When the sky is clear
I can see so far

The music of trees disjointed
Broken up by machines
And I am happier here
In a place I don’t understand

But within my own world
The sky remains close
Thick and overcast, dense
Without form or motive

Their wisdom in my ears
The familiarity of history
Of…
Waiting for the sun to come out.

Songs I wrote last night

Last night I wrote some songs.. I just scribbled down a few titles and then wrote a song for each of them. Please let me know what you think of their lyrics. I'm not very pleased with some of them but have been told to put them all up to see what people think.. So here goes.

Peace

As you close your eyes tonight
I am there with you
Between ghost sheets, blank pillows
Find me inside of you

Don't let yourself be touched by fear
Doubt shall not enter your heart
That's the way we are
I am the peace inside your heart

Find me iside of you, tonight
Though we lie far apart
Written and sung but not to you
Remember all that we are

Every night I feel so afraid
There is so much hurt in the world
But there is one thing which gives me strength
You are the peace inside my heart.


Look At Me

Look at me, the shadows I cast
And the future I project
Look at me, held together promises
Actions, emotions and pain

Remember who I am
When you look at me I am him again

Look at me, forget all the lies
Return to the past inside
Look at me, forget the man you see
Remember the boy I was born

Remember who I am
When you look at me I am him again

Look at me, both the safe and the dangerous
Bring out the best and the worst
Look at me, where are you?
Know only the truth you bring

Remember who I am
When you look at me I am him again.


Forget Today

When I find the strength within
To make a promise to you
I'll take back the things we've said
Take these lies and make them true
And I know why
But this is real life

Sometime I'll look over at you
And turn from your returning look
When I think about the future
This moment is the place it broke
And I know why
But this is real life

If I could start again I would forget today
If I could change myself I would forget today
Take my hand, we will forget today
The good times we've had seem so far away

All I want is to forget, instead all I've got is regret

If I could start again I would forget today
If I could change myself I would forget today
Take my hand, we will forget today
The good times we've had seem so far away.


Between You and I

In a world of billions of people
I've only met a few, only known a few
In my life I've not always done right
But between you and I, I know I've tried

The past is impossible to track
Have we made it back? Will we make it back?
Without the past I'd be a better man
But between you and I, I know I am

In the future we will change again
And we'll never know, I'll never know
Until it's far too late to try again
But between you and I, I won't pretend

Within myself I hope we can win
Be what we've always been and never been
Forget the past, the future and the lies
And reclaim what lies between you and I.


Take Me Home

White walls and quiet hearts
Empty roads and silent cars
Gentle souls, forgotten paths
Trapped within unreal thoughts
Time sliced up and sold and bought
All my hesitance has brought

Take me home, on the quiet roads
Where the night is still black, take me back

Outside space to breathe
Amongst the stalks and leaves
The wind weaving through your hair
And in time I'll grow to forget
The new world of regret
I still grow - I shall not be set

Take me home, on the quiet roads
Where the night is still black, take me back

Turn off the headlights, keep driving
Life as a dream, with no excuses
Afraid to close the door, I'm striving
To become less assuming

Take me home, on the quiet roads
Where the night is still black, take me back.


Elements of this Place

Colours without meaning, without significance
Shapes without feeling, without sentiment
Words without emotions, without a heart
Life without you, waiting for the future to start.


Fixated

When you were born, were you strong?
Would you have looked down on me then?
When you were a child, were you wise?
Our lives are already spent.

When you look at me do you see a man?
A shadow in the space I leave open?
When you look at yourself are you the same?
Our spirits are already broken.

When you die will you still care?
Will you wish you'd never waited?
When you think of me will I raise a smile?
Our consciousness fixated.


Everything Will Pass

In a distant photograph, I see it in you eyes
It's no surprise, the world has turned
And I have leart that everything will pass

In another stranger's face, catch a familiar look
Everything you took, you left me so hurt
And I have learnt that everything will pass

In the words of someone else's song, you live on unspoken
The walls lie crumbled and broken, robbed me of the life I thought I'd earnt
And I have learnt that everything will pass

In the sky tonight alone, a single star exposed
And the feeling in me grows, touched by fire forever burnt
And I have learnt that everything will pass

And the feeling in me grows, touched by fire forever burnt
And I have learnt that everything will pass.


Waiting for the Spring

This morning I walked out into the cold
It took my breath, now what have I got left?

The sun was up, the wind blew from the clouds
I don't know how, I never know how

This evening all I can see is stars
And the space inbetween, like a forming dream

Tonight I know the meaning of life
But now there's no time, there's never time

I am only afraid of the unknown..

Waiting for the spring, I'm waiting for the spring
I see the winter in everything..

I am only afraid of who I am..

Waiting for the spring, I'm waiting for the spring
Waiting for the spring, I'm waiting for the spring
Waiting for the spring, I'm waiting for the spring
I see the winter in everything..

Some Dreams Tonight

If I came to you tonight and tapped at your window
Whilst you were sleeping
Would you let me in?
Would you see the fear in my eyes, the desperation?
Could we make it?
Would you come with me
Down to the water where the skin is flush with life
And swim with me?
Out into the vast blackness
Where no birds call and no lights shine, down, down

And where we come to rest is ours, my love, yours and mine alone
Nothing shall disturb us
Set as crosses to the sky
Within the thinning air and beneath ourselves only sleep
Sighing the waves,
Sighing the waves you cannot catch.

Extracting the Self

I say "I'm only human" as if it's an excuse
In fact it is the truth
And as soon as I can realise that being human is enough
I can allow myself to live
When the sun comes up in the feilds, I still
Know what it is to feel
And when the birds fly back to the treetops at night
I am the light

I dream of being somebody else sometimes
It's just my mind
When I try to contain myself within myself
There is nothing else
When the world spins round the days still tick on by
I can only try
So if there is room enough to open my soul
Take it whole.

What I Was

I was a fool, a quiet fool
Sitting alone, thinking foolish things
Meaningless thought filling my space in the world
Scribbles through the lines of my life
Whisperings in my silent moments
I was a fool.

I was a drunk, a hidden drunk
Drinking to control myself with chaos
To allow the emptiness to flood out into action
Losing my self esteem, self control
Breaking through morality
I was a drunk.

I was weak, feigning strength
Preaching strenth to the weak
Attempting to create myself a strength
Within the arms of another's life
Inside another's wisdom, my own
I was weak.

I am myself, only myself
Take me as I am.

Surrounded

Turn your back on me, my friend
I won't look at you again
Can't return to where we were born
I just need to find my way home

It's symptomatic of the state of play
In the world which forgets us so easily

And I looked into your soul and saw corruption
I say your face turn from action
To despair, through denials
Returning gentle promises with silence.

I've Been Told

I've been told it's only human
To be honest it seems to be in everything
Every thought, every perception I have
And had, all wrapped in this feeling

Remove me from the quiet life
Throw me into city streets
Show me how bad it can get
Empty my pockets, my heart

Wandering around the world
Trying to find solitude outside
When all I can have is inside
Reversals of fate

I've been told that it comes easy
To some people, some lucky people
Who can reach outside themselves
Arms outstretched sunwards

I've forgiven everyone
And I still regret everything I've done
I can't take them back
So if I can't win I'll just keep pushing.

Parachuting

When we dropped it was like seretonin being pumped through me
Cut up into little bits
Thrown into the void

Hurtling downwards, a dizzying descent so full of fear
And exhilaration
Total confrontation

And you pull the cord, snap me back to the world
Bring me back to reality, push downwards
On each of my bones, locked into themselves
Reminding me of who I am

And we landed
Full frontal impact
Time blowing out the world around us, filling our eyes with horizons

Down here there's nothing
The rush has come to nought
Filling my lungs with air and breathing out, breathing out.

Trying Again

When the world is tied around us
Folded within fabric
Senitmental to a fault
Oh, there were good days
And happy times, many a happy afternoon
Rocks in the sea, once
Pebbles in streams flowing slowly out.

The day is drawing in
Sun shines off the tips of the branches
Now barren
Thick with mulch on the wet earth
And moving in silence, birds returning
Nesting for daybreak tomorrow.

The world is almost empty, almost still
At once becoming old and new.

Difference

Desolate, the horizon is void
Removed from the world up here
Casting white about
Scattered with a line of trees
Diminish into the distance
Thick with frost
Dulled by the night before
Shaking at the roots
Pulled from the earth
Every sinew pulses
Every nerve atwinge

Formed in formlessness
Informed by ignorance
I listen for the words
Pushed into the world
Silence in the clouds
Turn the lights off to drive
I can see the trees on fire
Burnt the scrub to embers
Died down as the thick snow falls
Lost into the void of memory.

Lost

Either I meant to come here or I just forgot
The rot of ages set into the corners
Numb from cold, silent from fear

Turning, around and torn from bacteria
Breath in my lungs, fast and cold
Simple movements through a dense cloud

In the landscape, lights up above
The array casts long trails, jagged about me
A thick line of scrub and the sound of voices

not voices but cars surround me
pulled back from the edge again
and nobody will know.

Home

Just take it all back up
Suck back the time, these years from my face
And push back the growth, crushed deep down inside

Fundamental, who I am and what I'm doing here
Where did this come from?
Take it away, blind these eyes, stuff up the ears
Forget the memories, break the bones
Crush the ego, emotions, let out my soul

Please, somebody, anybody, I want to go home.

All Around Me

The sound of marching feet
Through the walls into sleep
Where you lie within your dreams
Another world comes up tomorrow
Another place to bring you home
Forgotten voices under trees.

The noose of time that slips
The piece of us that sticks
The eyes the world can't lift
Like the sound of blowing wind
Like the life that's crashing in
Forgotten sounds in humanity.

I've made something of you
I've made something to stick to
It's the history of what I see.

The Right Idea

Keep pushing, through the heartbeats
Don't allow them to turn you around
Turn back now and you'll be lost
We were never going to win
It's not the same as you thought it was

So when I think it's coming true
Inside the cold land you brought us through
Another night to sleep from home
The deafening sound of being alone.

Another factor in our reality
Slipping up through the cracks in the disused pavements
Curling around the towerblocks
Like threads of pure light

Witness to a sorrow
Born only to follow
Hearts built weak
Not to speak.

Breath

Eyes closed and soul descends
Through my skin into the earth
My consciousness extends, extends
Into the world of ancestors

And if the sun does take me up
I move between the worlds I touch

Within my days I've seen the hills
Grow strong and tall, rise up renewed
From where I stand within the still
And silent trees, within the yew

I watch you move between the worlds
Between the roots you're softly curled

Another life and morning's breath
Upon my face a fresh sunrise
I whisper words, though you have left
Entrust them to your dwindling guide

Asleep you know nothing of pain
Until a child is born again

And turning in the falling leaves
The scent of burning branches weaves.

Return

You came back to me
Like the tide to the shore
So many times
I don't know if there will be any more

Sometimes you lied
It didn't make sense
I looked on your face
And you made me human again

Sleep, sleeping down through the years
To the dreams I sometimes have, escaping fear

You looked at me
I could see kindness there
Within the smile
A truth that got lost somewhere

And you turned on me
Became someone else
I wish I could be enough for you
But I'm still stuck inside myself

Sleep, sleeping down through the years
To the dreams I sometimes have, escaping fear
Sometime you'll come to me and let me go
I know I'm far too weak to stand alone.

Liquid

Winding down, wound around the cord
Trickles down into the blackness
Soundless, movements without consciousness
Thoughts without feeling, sentiment
Descend into nothingness, resentment
Existence vicarious drawn plain through you
Cast a shadow of light through the darkness
Blinding unopened eyes, futility
Continuous motion, inevitability
Come to where organic came to rest
Come to find yourself in a place of absolution
Absolved of sin
You are unstoppable.

Elderly Gentleman

When I was young I used to want to be
But now ambition seems so vacant
When I first heard the voice in me
It was extolling the virtues of patience

Sliding across from the left to the right
He sits with a book in his hands
He is the one who has cracked up my life
I know I interrupted his plans

I am falling to pieces in the afternoons
When the sunlight shines in through the window
I’ve given up on hopes of returning soon
I have picked up this fate, now I can’t let go

Every time I try and move upwards
I only feel myself sliding back
Faceless, futile, he brings a taste to my mouth.


Perhaps, Perhaps
Abstracted from the reality I knew
Made separate and now long forgotten
Perhaps if they’d though of me, perhaps then, perhaps
I could move in time lapse, not trapped, trapped
Scratching my way up from the bottom
Able to prove my words as true

The wind lashes through the rain
It brings my clothes as tatters upwards
Rising from my back, where perhaps, perhaps
Unable to cling onto my sole way back
Used to be in space and time, now only hurt
I am trapped inside this plane.

Orchestra

Strings for my bed
And another story to get straight
Tapping out the melody
Trying to transcribe the voices in my head

Every day the white blade of sheer terror
Ripping through the muscles of my back

I can hear, everyone is crying
Never knew their names
I guess in the end it hasn’t mattered so much
I used to be human

Every day blackened hammers falling
And my life is cast high over hell.

Control 2

Exceptional circumstances lead me to the edge of the platform
Out across the metal lines drawn around the edge
Screams of lights brought about my head
Confusion and panic as eternity touches me
Stretches the tips of my fingers
I move through the dark notes into the sky

My mind wanders and I stray through the railings
Oblique in descent, hit the ground and keep falling
Through and through my body like solar wind
Every word thought a little more hope of reaching hope
Brushes past my reverting skin
I have removed the only things standing in my path

The flesh is something I could never replace
Made bolts of energy through the consciousness of another
My actions change the nature of myself, here lying
Beneath the sea where I drowned I am made new
Skin removed and memory bent
A new shard of light behind the eyes of another young hopeful.

Meeting Here

Into the dark you formed around me
Abrupt, disjointed, profane
Touching things so holy
Scraping down my soul

I was a cracked pane
And you pushed, you pushed, you pushed
And eventually your fist smashed through
A shower of blood and broken glass.

Trapped

Remembering the past is nothing more to us now
I let go of your hand in the running water
You drift into the distance.

Across the broken boats beneath the surface
Into the waiting arms of angels
Open arms and kept behind locks.

The air can’t carry the smell
I remember it so well, trapped here
Amongst the fading flowers.

I have so many regrets,
I’ve never done the right thing in my life
But I know that I’ve tried.

Control

Forgotten flower
No scent of perfume
Nothing but the dust now

Building pace, steaming up
For disintegration comes
I won’t be held responsible

Look into a mirror
Don’t recognise myself
Trying to remember who I am

Father, voices inside my body,
They are not my own

If only I was strong
I would take control,
But the fact is I am weak.

Fallen Friend

Peace, asleep and dreaming
Don’t forget who I am to you
It’s so hard to spend so long apart
Adrift and in another world

Believe and you will become me
Don’t go out into the street
It’s so dark out there, you’re sure to get lost
I can’t face losing you again

Forget me not my fallen friend
You’re behind the fear and sleeping sighs

Time is long, long, long
And you can’t trace me through
I’m never coming home, look into my eyes
The crowds of children outside

Forget me not my fallen friend
You’re behind the fear and sleeping sighs.

I could feel the fire within your soul
As it consumed you at the last.

Renewal

Looking me in the eye
I don’t know what I’ve become
But do not get so close
I can’t predict myself
Within expressed too easily
Without my new identity

I can pick you from the crowd
Each one still in a sea of noise
Each will watch me turn
I renew my emotions
Into shadow, moving light
Leaving every thought behind

When the future moves in me
A new reality to the world
A new morality, a justice
Never felt before
And I will end as you’d begun
And soon the dark engulfs the sun

I move across to the other side
A barren place I cannot judge
I made a mistake in coming here
Every cell split
There is no chance of turning back
Whilst my soul remains intact.

Returning To Sanctuary

The warring world is shocking me
Convulsive beats within my head
Destroying, reconstructing me
Ressurecting futures I thought long-dead

I will surrender my only means
Of rendering control
And so will find some peace again
A place to hear my soul.

Continents, Countries

Every world is a division
Every division is an end
There are wars fought for our countries goverment

There is nothing to exempt us
No revolution shall descend
Within these continents and countries is our end

I can't see these things so clearly
I am nearly put to death
I have taken out a petition on myself

I won't propogate a system
Which symbolises death
I can't condone the actions I accept

So make yourself a liar
Make yourself a hypocrite
Go and fight a foreign government

There are worlds outside this landscape
Divisions to resent
In our continents, countries and our end.

Opposition

It's only you against me now
I should have known you'd come to doubt
The fact that I can live my life
Never expected you to lie
To cover up the facts you changed
So you could keep me in my place

The time is short for you to move
I'm coming up and coming through
I won't be pressed on things I know
It's a shame I never told you so
Before, but now our time has gone
You stand alone and I have won

Forget me now and hear my voice
This never truly was your choice
But if you'd been a different man
I could have made you understand
My reasoning for breaking free
I don't expect you'll ever see.

Cathedral

Overarching fingers,
I never thought I'd reach them
In all my days
Tall beyond measure
And in the end so small
I reach out in pain

Suffered to undertake me
Such impossible journies
Old stone worn thin
Remember something beautiful
A day, an hour, a moment
Forever outstretched

I will remember glowing embers
In a burnt out cathedral
And as nightime descended
A rough kiss goodnight
Sweet dreams in strange chambers
Full faith and conviction

Up in the spire above the town
On the top of the hill
Alone, and proud
You look down at the land
Further than I can see
Lost in the pale blue distance.

Leaves on the Line

When I got out of the house today
I walked down
To the bottom of the town again

It was cold in my shoes
I could tell
I'd lost so much in you

When the days keep on changing around
And I can't keep a memory in my head
When the future's come back and turned us down
There's only some things left to be said

Leaves on the line
Another time
A life left behind
I'll be right here

I looked up where I was going
Saw the sky
And nothing more to remind me

I looked down at the pavement
Saw my feet
And nothing else I remembered

When the future's turned inside out
When the past is nothing but pain
When the present is all you have left in yourself
But all you can feel is pain

Leaves on the line
Another time
A life left behind
I'll be right here

When there's nothing in the world
That could change the pace of the wind
I held onto myself
But I could feel my heart caving in

Leaves on the line
Another time
A life left behind
I'll be right here

Leaves on the line
Green leaves will fall in time
When there's nothing left behind
I'll be right here.

Leaves

Why did you think I was trying to leave?
Did you think you didn't mean a thing?
Why fracture my life just to put you aside?
Why did you have to leave without a thing?

I am torn before you on this rack that you built
I can't win either way that I go
So please give an option and give me a light
I don't know how to live without hope.

I am young in my heart but you've aged me
I was older than you but it changed
We can't live our lives like the same thing
You can't leave me alone all the same.

You're a friend to me now and you've left me outside
And I've suffered more than I was due
In truth you never saw the pain that you caused
For my part, I never showed it to you.

I am slipping away from you now, please don't try
To stop me from getting out of this place
I've had more than enough, I can't do anymore
And if it means that this won't be my life anymore
If the only thing to do is to walk out the door
I'll take one final look at your face.

Feathers

Fallen from your body, they were
Feathers from your throat.
I had never known the power
In these arms until I broke

Into the rage I shall not flee from
In a night that wouldn't end
For one of us at least was guilty
And would never speak again.

Something vigilant within me
Rose and fell into the dark
In the places you will never reach
Deep within a sunken heart.

You had never seen that side of me
Or ever seen my face
I am consumed by something black as pitch,
Tarnished by my fate.

Spirit

The ghosts still walk the land
Searching for loved ones
Head in hands
And cries in throat.

You dare not walk upon
The beach, or sleep
At night. Light
Candles only for the children,

And comfort them
From voices in
The trees. I was
There once, but did not leave.

Somewhere above you I'm asleep
I'll leave no trace
Only in dreams
I'll speak the names

And you'll never live to
Forget me, or
All the death
You'd never seen.

Now washed down by
The tide I hide
And slip through
Nights, with only screams.

Overseer

The songs I dream of writing
Spill out onto the paper but they're wrong.
The words are there
But somehow every time it's gone.
I cannot choose to hear
The words which made me flood with tears.
All that remains are scrawled
And broken lines upon the wall.

I wish he'd stop playing this game
And put some thoughts in me again.

Wishing Fountain

A brazen coin tucked deep between
Failing fingers, steep inclines of youth
And pushed back plastic hoods, elastic edged
Around my eyes.

A stumbling block towards another
Footprints in grass (or turf at least)
Up stretched along a wall knee-high
And in to water.

Splashed back boots to parent heart
And home. I get to wish another
But it isn't true, in all honesty
Come to nothing.

Desperate

It didn't make sense, those things I saw
And seeing knew I'd lost track.
The world I chose. My own inhabitant
You remind me of something desperate
Some grey-lined silved canyon
Over streams running pale water, down faces
Of rock and bare stone in moonlight.

Pick up your feet child, running now
Down hillsides too fast to stop
Where we cannot see the bottom
Looming still submerged
Sucked in cheeks insignificant.

Weatherstones in my pocket, weatherstones
Happy charm to me in the morning
But before I gave morning a chance
You gave me away.

Pick your feet up child
Dawdling behind forever lax
And lapsed inward, without support,
Bent and useless and falling in on
Everything. Pick your feet up child,
Running silent today
It is cold, cold, cold today
It is cold, cold, cold.

Beachy Head

Bent trees without leaves
Growing out of the wind
Muscular prongs pointing to
The dismal outcrop.
Thick with chalky pebbles
Devoid of thick grass here
The waves are crashing on the rocks,
And the lighthouse looks down.

Round the corner, see the sign
That confirms your fears.
Parking tickets blown away by the wind,
We stop for lunch at Beachy Head.

The wrappings of old flowers blown
Against the warning sign.

Apple Blossom

Fall, white snow, at my feet
So prone, prostrated and so very passive
Sentimental, silent and cold

Whisper words as you fall
Apple blossom, surrounding me
Enclose me in your circle

Protected and enclosed
You will fall like silken curtains
I sink, still at last.

Stolen Car

This isn’t light. Half-light, glowing
From the horizon, muddying
The road around the lights.

Sick to the stomach, careering across
Into the far lane.

The left light smashed in,
A patch of amber glass marks the spot
Left on the roadside when morning arrives
And people want to leave.

The frenzied pace of pain.

Coral

Beneath the waves, the waves you watched me
You watched for days, for days you watched me
You slid the sand, the sand around me
You drew your hand, your hand around me
We went too far, too far to come back
We left too far, too far to come back
You are the peace, the peace within me
Coral I am shell and you're here within me.

Origin

It spirals down, and around, and down, and around
And I watch it flow for about an hour
Down, around it goes, drip, drip, drip
It's a lovely sound I think, to hear
Your own life dripping away.

The water's warm here, as warm as blood
And I feel I can relax. Down, around, I am entombed
In water. Enwombed in silence.
Drip, drip, drip. The sound of yesterday
Spilling from me, the sound of tomorrow
Leaving.

It spirals down, and around, and down, and around
All day. Until it slows, I'll keep on
Sitting here, just watching it
As it clouds the water. Taking me
From here to another place, from here
To an opportunity of something else.

Walking Past

Keep on walking, go on
Just keep on walking, don't slow
To pick me up or look into my eyes
There is something there. You're surprised
But it's always been there. you just
Never looked before. All I want from you
Is the reason that you don't do more
And don't look down
When you lie to my face as you walk through my town
(And it is mine you see
I can sleep when I like
And I stay up all night. I'm the theif in your house
And I don't want to end
This particular spree until
You know a little of what it's like to be me).

I was once a rich man with a family and
I had friends, once, too, I remember them now
And my life took a turn for the worst? Don't believe
What they tell you about me. I'm made for the street
I won't keep on my feet
Keep on walking around like
Every other idiot in town. I don't talk on the phone
And I eat what I like
All you've forgotten about being alive
Is presented in me, yet I sit on the street
And to you that's enough
I am not nice to enough
To inhabit your world. It's OK, I don't need
To rely to exist.
Independence is bliss.

Keep on walking, go on
Just keep on walking, don't slow
To pick me up or look into my eyes
There is something there.

Sunshine on Trees

The sun is out again, though the leaves
Have fallen down. A pity
They waited for it so long
All summer, and now the winter's here
And it's shining.

The clouds that move in
The sky, still moving though
The world is walking by, so beautiful
I can't begin to understand
How people don't look up sometimes.

The weather's a body clock, the planet
Telling me when to stop, but today
I'll go.

Forgotten

We have forgotten the things that we used to do
We have forgotten the names that we used to call one another
The things I won't recover

We have forgotten the words that we used to say
We have forgotten the the games that we used to play together
My heart was yours forever

We have forgotten the people we used to be
We have forgotten the lives we were going to lead with each other
The things I won't recover,
This I won't recover.

Winterways

I was walking up and down the gravel outside the park
I was thinking of the last I time I was there
I imagined I remembered all we said
I whispered splintered words
I knelt down and took a stone
I walked back to my house alone again
The first I've done that this year, you know
I was walking up and down the gravel outside the park
I thought I heard something behind me
I was confused and a little scared
Because now I don't expect it.
Now when someone's there
It could be anyone at all
Except you.

Tracks

When I furst unfurled my eyes
When I let in the looming world
I saw the sky.
I looked into the water mirrored there
And felt the skin upon my bones twist and stretch.

When I first opened my mouth
I made no noise.
I was content to open and close
Feel the breath in my throat
And the sun on my hands.

When I first began to listen
I didn't know what I heard
Which was good.
It felt good to be free
And I knew I would never go home.

When I first tasted anything
It was the inside of my mouth
And the milk of my mother
Fed from hope.
I never knew fear or pain.

When I reached out with my hands
I felt the body of a child
That I did not know was mine.
I was innocent of every knowledge
And alone.

Advice on writing poetry

Never edit. Never draft. Never care.

Poetry is something internal made external. It doesn't need to explain itself. It is everything you are in a moment, everything you feel in your day and every experience you've ever had in your lifetime.

The moment you write it down it doesn't belong to you anymore.

Just sit down and write.

For You

I will fly upon your shoulders
Lift myself up to the clouds
God I can feel the wind in my throat
And I don't want to stop. I'll run
To the edge of the world
And throw myself off to keep this feeling
Fall forever into blackness
For you.

I will push myself to the furthest extremes
Of endurance. I am everything
I am any human act tonight.
I am genoicde and christening combined.

Let me feel this way, just for a little
Every day so filled with the oblivious
When I need something extraordinary.

You are the language my soul is learning to speak.

Ships Sailing on a Pure White Sea

Ships sailing on a pure white sea
Drifting away from the edge
What can I be that you'll take up with me
And we'll sail home instead?

Ships sailing on a pure white sea
Out into the pale dawn
I can hear the waves unbroken as you pass
Parting like strangers, as one

Ships sailing on a pure white sea
I sleep to regain your trust
I am empty of everything but wanting to leave
There is nothing here left for us

Ships sailing on a pure white sea
I have only one gift to resist
I know that it would be easy to stay
It would be all that I would not miss

Ships sailing on a pure white sea
Let me stand upon the bough
Of the tree by the harbour and watch you drift out
And please return to me, somehow.

Fragment

“Father father where are you going?
O do not walk so fast
Speak, father to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost”

William Blake, ‘The Little Boy Lost’.

The Other Side

I spend my days alone, these days
You never know who's watching you walk
I am awake in the night and I'm looking around
I can hear all my housemates talk

They are plotting to take a revenge for the callous
Way that I cut them adrift from my life
I didn't intend an offence to anyone
I didn't intend to be disliked

But I sleep so late in the mornings, or wake up
In the deepest depths of the night
I succumb to the yearning desires within me
Or I shut them all up, keep them out of sight

"When I die, think only this of me;
That in some corner of some foreign field
That is forever England" as Brooke once told me
I have seen it. The other side is revealed.

Distant Post

There is a sound across the mist
It's gliding through the streaming skies
It's falling like the rain on us
It's cold as friends and I don't know why

Confusion, it has peirced confusion
Left it charred and blackened out
The sound has shot through the ears of the animals
It has left this world and we're drifting out

I looked up and around to find the singer
Singer of this distant song
Where the light shines down from up on the hillside
I knew the voice would not wait long

I ran and I ran til my lungs were burning
I stumbled and clawed my way through the dark
To the distant post where the light's still shining
I could taste the beating of my heart

When I got to the top I found there was nothing
Just a drop away to the distant sea
And I knew in the moment the voice was lost there
Drifting and sinking below the beach

And I ran to the water's edge and I screamed out
Screamed as loud as my lungs could sustain
And I felt the spray on my lips in the night time
And I looked up into the coming rain

Pulled off clothes and I sank into wet sand
Splashed out from the safety of shore
Pulled myself through funereal tridents
Sinking with the rise and fall

And I swam until my arms were aching
I felt the cold in my body's shock
I lashed to keep my head above water
But something still was guiding me on

And in another few minutes I knew I was drowning
I turned back to the distant coast
I looked around and I heard that calling
Calling me like another ghost.

Witchcraft

The year is almost over, dear friend
The sun is low in the sky
The trees have no leaves to rustle
And the seasons are starting to die

You came to me with a gift you had made
With three candles, some stillness and calm
The love that you gave was whispered away
Into white spells, castings and charms

You took the power that grew through the grass
That sank roots deep into the ground
And you drew it into the words that you wrote
The signs that you drew all around

And the night grew silent, the night that you chose
I suppose I didn’t know what to expect
The light grew and grew and it filled the whole room
I was waiting and holding my breath

When my eyes would reopen to the glow of the sky
When I wasn’t too dazzled to see
I searched and I travelled for weeks in your wake
I was weakened and you had left me

But I carry the gift in my hands and my head
I committed words to memory
My mind was inside of my body, my life
And your wisdom allowed me to see

The year comes around, almost another one gone
The sun begins its descent
The trees let go of their last few leaves
We await the new seasons you sent.

20p

It peels back
The spine is broken, it is creased
Discarded
How many times before?

Sold at the library
Spent, they decided these words were empty now
Another useless, pointless thing
Enough

The cover is faded
The dates are glued over
Yellow paper
The sweat of a thousand hands

You gave six months to write it
Read for twenty years
But wait two months
And you’re gone.

Never Caged

You are perched above me, looking around
And your voice… your voice
It is a song more ancient than these walls
It is something pure and beautiful

I built a box and nailed it up for you
So I could watch your children grow
I saw one fall and never get up
And I saw you turn away

The sun is out, and you dip and turn the wind
You bathe and you rest, perched once more
Once I was sure your voice was hoarse
But I waited and you sang true again

And next year, will you return?

I would hate to find you next to the road
If I did, I would pick you up gently, so as not to bend a feather
I would place you in an open box in case you were stunned
And leave you somewhere high and safe

But if you were not to fly again
And never to sing
I would lift you in my memory forever
Crudely I would whistle your song, over and over again

Not that it would matter to you.

Three Months

The car radio is singing to me
And nobody else will hear it
And the road beneath my body is travelling at speed
A speed that never remits
The glass of the window, my view of the world
Parting the waves of the rain
I’m running, I’m coming back to the start
I’m coming home again

The summer, the autumn, the month of September
The night and the afternoon
I will sleep and I eat and I know them once more
The people I cast at the dunes
My skin is turning white again
The air is growing pure
And I will return to the forest of buildings
These woods, again, shall be yours

I am turning, I’m crying and thinking of good things
Thinking of sitting alone
I shall never fully grow apart from this place
I shall miss so many crisp morning’s snow
The leaves are now falling and blowing down roads
Roads I am moving again
I push the lines around with my eyes
My resistance has grown so thin.

Children Sleeping

The candle-lit town was poised below, fully expecting the oncoming slaughter. Fathers held mothers, mothers watched sleeping children have the pleasant dreams the adults had lost many months before. The sun grew dim in the sky these days – even light was reticent on those who were so obviously damned.

The night was thick about the hills. The damp caress of these lofty allies offered no warning to the quiet ones lying in their shadow. The fires of the approaching armies would not be seen until their very town was lit.

The very walls were holding their breath for the end.

Everyone old enough to realise knew that the time was approaching. More armies had been seen, more than every before, on the plains and even the foot of the hills. Collecting crops became more and more dangerous as the season wore on.

The clock in the centre of town had stopped. It had worked since the bombs, but even time had gone. First it had become transparent, then intermittent, and finally silent.

The Bed

I am waiting
Hiding
Beneath bed sheets crumpled and heavy

I listen
Quiet
And I try and shake loose

Their grip
Tightened
Trapped beneath a drift thick, hot and airless

Sprung from
Into
The deepest thoughts of the day

Alarm calls
Shrieking
I let it talk itself back down

I’m broken
Disjointed
I am trapped inside this bed.

Keltoi

The winds picked up
I felt the breeze across my face
Pulled in the sails
I wanted to drift

We came ashore
Left the tent and the food on the boat
And we took a look around
Our new country

And in the distance
Nothing
Nothing but thick trees
And a river

And down at the river
We gave praise
Laid a shell
And cast the circle and cross

We spoke a word of thanks
To Danu
And the sun burnt the sky
With all the light of Lugh.

Little Moth

Little moth
The size of my little toenail
You spiral down form the ceiling

A cloud of sawdust
Tight, held together
By an invisible force.

The light goes off
And you are still

But with the TV on
You are reckless.

Fly towards the light that blinds you
Fly all night until you reach the sky
Fly to the moon until your wings are broken
Fly until there is no air for tiny lungs to breathe.

Every night a new challenge.

Widow's Wall

There’s a place in our town where the children won’t play
At Widow’s Wall.

The car lights don’t show you what’s there in the night
They don’t allow you to steal a glimpse.

The only way to see it’s to wander around all night
Until you’re accustomed to the dark
Waiting until the sun is about to rise
Until the land is locked in sleep

Make the long walk
Up the high street, past the peeling billboards, the closed shops, the empty schools, the quiet houses, the still cars, the sleeping dogs and cats, and the silent birds

And look for the tiny silver crack
Press your ear up close, on tiptoes, breath held until you hear your heart beating in your chest

Listen long enough, and the second before dawn
You will hear her gently sobbing for the husband that she lost.

Time and Again

They grap me with their tiny hands
Time and again

We will be locked in this battle forever, faithful friend

There is never time anymore
Time and again

We have lost the thing that led us here

The way I've looked at you
Time and again

We were never prepared for such a thing

The afternoon sun hits your bare shoulder
Time and again.

Witching Hour

The night is long without you by my side
The leaves of unopened mail left in piles
The ticking of the clock we never wound
I'll never hear a nicer sound

The light has faded from the television
And I remember how you used to listen
To music with your headphones on
With the TV blaring trash into the room

It makes me sad to remember happy times
I know now where they went and where they lie
In the witching hour I'm dreaming of you still
There is no truth, there is only another spell.

Wolves

Heavenly father, where is your voice?
When I was born I still had a choice
And I chose the path less trod again
It made no difference anyway
Because I let the wolves inside
When I was still a little child

For my time I was too slow
Too quiet in speech and weak of bone
I am much too small to feel
Everything inside this wheel
I have let the wolves inside
The world changed me and I am wild

The sun beats down when I am asleep
And night time is too cold for me
When I feel the blood in my veins
I feel like the pouring rain
Because when I let the wolves inside
My body became the earth and the sky

Heavenly father, which way do I turn
From here, where your directions have burned
A scar into my broken back
And I have come too far to track
The directions I have turned, the miles
Since I let the wolves inside

It’s not in my nature to inflict all this harm
But I can’t seem to hold it with these strong arms
I cannot contain all the things that I think
I have drunk on rage so deep that I’m sick
Once I wanted these wolves inside
Now I won’t sleep until they have died

Real life is a trick of the light
Because the reality is a brutal flight
Against those things that would lead me to pain
I shall not tread that path again
When the night comes and the lights have died
I shall let the wolves inside

I need strength and courage, and somewhere to hide
So I shall let the wolves inside.

Coma #2748

Walking home one night. Any night. This night. I am walking home. The moon is big. Very big. Bigger than I’ve ever seen. It’s half the size of the sky. I can make out every crater, every dip and every peak. The town is dark. Very dark. There isn’t a light in the street. The moon is so big I can see exactly where I’m going. The walls and the pavement are blue in the silver light. They are shiny, it’s been raining tonight and they’re wet. The air tastes of rain. It’s so dark, except for the shining surfaces. Each one moves as I walk past. I turn down a familiar street. Any street. The glints on the walls are all moving with me. A thousand tiny lights, all moving smoothly with me. Each one changing as I change. It’s beautiful, and I feel part of something amazing.

But one is moving differently. No, that’s not right. They’re all moving with me. Wait… it was there again. Two of the glints moving against all the others, parallel and quick. Little glints. A pair of them, Eyes. Eyes? Yes… a pair of eyes in the shadow. Keep walking. There’s no need to worry. Air moving quickly around my body, blood pumping in my veins. Just get home. Try and restore that feeling, the feeling of all the glints moving with me. It’s coming back. They all move. I want to keep going. Just get home. What’s wrong with that? Home is where I’m going. Stop – eyes again, I’m sure of it. They don’t go this time… they’ve stopped with me. Maybe they were like the other glints? I move my head, and they move too. Relief… why so much relief? It was never going to be anything serious. Where did they go? The glints had gone. Keep walking.

Turn a corner and up the street. Not a sound. Deathly quiet. Key out of pocket.. dropped keys… damn… slowly bend down and pick them up, using the opportunity to check around. Nothing. A thousand glinting bricks, a hundred glinting windows. Get inside. Key in door, the funny little twist that makes me feel safe when I leave home – no-one could work this lock even if they had a key - and into the hall. Shut door, and lock it. Safe. Turn on the light – I hadn’t even realised they weren’t on. Then through to the living room. Chuck keys on table. Over to window to shut curtains – STOP.

Outside a thousand eyes shine at me. All the cats have followed me home.

My Hometown

In my hometown
The blood in your veins pumps loud
In the streets where we walked
The strange faces turned upside down
In my hometown

And in my hometown
The words on the walls scream
And your love doesn’t mean anything
Every start you make is false
In my hometown

Good days, my hometown
Is just another uneasy silence
And everyone you meet is new
And afraid as you
In my hometown

Bad days, my hometown
The blood you heard is spilt at dice
By people who never knew you at all
As sad and alone as you now
In my hometown

In my hometown
Never look both ways at roads
Never trust to the sanctified ground
Never think above your place
In my hometown.

Black Eyes

When I'm coming home I'm being watched
A thousand tiny glass lines wind the road
Through a phantom hole in the city night
Black eyes watching me

Follow me, follow me
Then we'll see, then we'll see

When the pale face of the barren moon
Turns to burn the inverted day
I can't feel it in the same way as
Black eyes watching me

Why shouldn't we why should we?
Why don't we why don't we?

When I'm exhausted from the burden
I struggle to accept my birth
I'll curse the sky and curse the earth
Black eyes watching me

Take it in, take it in
They'll begin, they'll dig in

When I'm down to my last stand
And I've finally given all I can
When defeat is all I have
When I know they've driven me mad
I'll turn my head and look up high
Turn my black eyes to the sky
However pale, every time
Black eyes watching me.

River

The evening has come
And where are you to be found?
In an island of trees
Set black against blue plains
Through branches and back through leaves
Into earth and under stone
Through every creeping crack
Under your door and into your home

There is a river here

Dawn drapes pale curtains
Rolled across opening lands
Oh god, what have I have done
I did it through your hands
Through mists and back through bracken
Under piles of leaves and stones
Through the shallow into still waters
Your body lies alone

As if you were never here
There is a river here.

Someone, Somewhere

Some things could not be changed
So we just let it all pass on down the line
The track bends but never strays
We all have to be someone, somewhere

There’s nothing to change now, nothing to do
But nothing can sink the rocks we’ve built on
No waves are high enough, we can outrun
We’ll always have someone, somewhere.

The Water

The water was already at his ankles. By the dim red light form the warning indicator on the dashboard he could see that his shirt was stained. It felt warm. His heart was in his mouth as he stretched his limbs around the twisted metal that was blocking his view. He followed it round, his fingers crawling along his shirt to the spot he… wait… he couldn’t go further. The metal… the metal had hit him. It must’ve been pressed pretty tight against his skin, which is funny, because he hadn’t felt it punch him. And it must’ve been some punch! Look at the state of his car! His fingers slid up and down the edge of the bent metal as he contemplated insurance claims, time off work… water was at his knees… where was he? He was the right way up, he was sure of that. Something had been lying in the road, something he hadn’t seen, obviously. Why hadn’t he seen it?! He was a good driver. His fingers were warm. Odd that he should be warn on a cold night like this. He brought them painfully back round to his face. They looked dark, but then oil and all sorts must be leaking. He wondered when another car would come… water round waist… and phone the police. The police? Why would he need the police?! Ambulance more like… he was convinced he had broken something. Most of his lack of movement would be from shock, obviously, but he would need to be careful. Maybe even the fire department, to cut him out. The metal was certainly holding him tight, and as he struggled he winced air out through his nose in an odd way. He tried to look down again, forcing his chin into his neck as much as he could (it aches, it aches!)… water reaching the metal – it stings! I must be pretty sore! He could hardly tell where the metal ended and he began! It almost looked like it had gone right through his shirt, right into him! Ha ha! He’d have some good bruises to show from that one! His other arm was trapped behind him, and he wriggled the fingers a bit. They had pins and needles, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant. Man, his chest did sting. The water was there, it must be irritating the skin. That must be it. Unless… no. That’s stupid. He wasn’t going that fast. I mean, it could have gone in… but his back stung too, why did his back sting like his front? He tried to lean back, but the chair wasn’t there… he winced again... that wasn’t nice. He looked around, and felt dazed. He was giddy, and there where huge white spots covering his vision. His eyes closed. This wasn’t too good, he thought. He would wait for the ambulance. He would wait here, not moving anymore. It would be better if he just lay still. Water at his neck… so tired, they would come for him. Water at his chin… water at his mouth… water at his nose… his eyes… the top of his head… the headlights lit his way as he sank to the depths, making dim circles in the water before they flickered and dimmed.