Platform 9

I waved you goodbye
For the final time
Like a scene
From an old film

I kissed you goodbye
On the platform 9
You were covered in snow
As was I

We drifted apart
In more ways than ten
And you could never give me
What I needed
or what I want

The pursuits of my mind
Has been such a waste of time
You kept me hanging on
Like something clinging to you

I needed it

Direction Of A Spiral

Each time something new starts
It's like a whole new battle
We keep things to yourself
Yet give what we want to give

The direction of a spiral can turn
Inwards or outwards
It's never easy to tell
Where you're concerned

Lines are divided and crossed
Intermittently
And shapes turn bright
Then dark again

I close my eyes
Your's is the first face I saw
I'm glad I didn't die
Before we met

I imagine lying naked with you
Stroking your hair
And kissing your cheek
But that's just a dream

Infinity and Never Again

We were infinite
For a moment
Looking into your eyes
The smiths on in the background

You knew every word
And that impressed me
Most of all
You were looking at me

You were twisting and turning
Out of my reach
You were full on astounding
Beyond reproach

I can't be excessive enough
Where you are concerned

COUNTING THE DAYS

The mangled flower is draped over me, like plasters
Like the masters on tv
The union jack is your best friend
like me all torn
and twisted
the heartless swines

They droop on the way down, all kept secrets
Never promised
drainpipe jeans and your old holborn pipe
sucking it
for your dear life
like the masters on tv

it kindles, reminds you of all the children
they sang and sang
of times and places
you will never visit
I am void and null
Empty and dull
like the masters on tv

That reminds me, to get to Friday
to watch you slip and fall
in your shawl
like an empty ocean
all derided and desired
like a piece of toast you look old
and crippled
in your armchair
falling under the medicine

Prescribed to your mothers, mother
so tired and old
so bold
like a nibble of ink
like a arial template
written on your aunties nighty
I see your face
our human race
is knackerd
like the machine that runs it

LITTLE MYSTERIES

All those little mysteries
We found, behind the back of the couch

All those that I found
Behind the backs of your eyes

I don't know what happiness means
But I look in your eyes and it isn't there

I don't believe in magic anymore
As my face tells my age

The cupboards bare, where we made love
On the frosty windowsill

I'm still cleaning the place
This well worn grave

MY HEART IS A TRAIN WRECK

I wore my favourite shirt today to meet you
But you never showed

Nursing a hangover,
Although you still manage to sound as beautiful as ever

Music is my first love but you might be my second
And I wish I was your 3rd or 4th.

I don't care that you smoke cigarettes
I'm only jealous because they get to touch your lips

You have a worrying obsession for my cooking
But I would cook for you forever, if you would only let me (lemon chicken anyone)

I don't know you, yet I really know you
An oxymoron of the most heartfelt kind
I know every inch of your body like the back of my hand

My mind is on repeat of all the things we did and said
And promises we promised to keep

As I sit here
scrawling and staring
climbing the fucking walls
undressing you in my mind

My heart is a train wreck
Waiting for you to untangle me.

I want you, only you

I'm in, are you?

Your I-Phone

There is nothing to believe in
All words are void
Phrases thrown about
Willy nilly

What does anything mean?
You love your i-phone
And I can't relate to you
WIth your meaningless conversations

I see you update your status daily
What an age we live in
What happened to old fashioned letters
And pecks on the cheek?

What happened to my long lost love?
Did I just grow up?
Or did you become stupid
And de-sensitised to anything approaching romance or culture

Your world is as black as sin
You actually know nothing
It is a crying shame

Your mind is sinking into a black hole
Dirty colours spoil your sea
X-Factor, Corrie
and the BBC

If I could only show you the works of my favourite poets
and music which has meaning
Maybe you could be saved
Would you want to be saved?

A Room Of Unfolding Treasures

You stretch out on my bed, why my bed?
Singing to Felt
And it is without doubt
The most beautiful thing I have ever seen

Salty kisses in which we partake
Are making my heart ache
With fear and happiness
Rolled into one like a pot yoghurt

I am an array of flavours
Delicate to touch
I am a room of unfolding treasures
My love on the run

Sat there smoking,
blowing ringlets
You say 'imagine being Lou Reed'

I can't imagine, I'm fixed on you
I'm hooked
I'm faithful to your beauty and wit

Only three more days
and we'll be in Milan
Only one more kiss
and I promise I'll leave

Why don't you leave?
Pretending isn't your speciality
Here we are in a loving tenement
Listening to radio 4 and snorting drugs

It's never the same two things
And someone will get hurt;

In one way or an another

That's why I have to go
Leave you with my copy of Verlaine
And say farewell
Just this one last time

The Void

My love for you was inevitable
Like the sea grappling the sand
Powerless

Beacons are alive
Glistening on the horizon
But not for you my love

The morning is stretched out
Quivering, yet devout
Lamposts are blinking
Yet my heart is sinking

The void in your eyes
Is what's left behind
The abyss
In which I've abandoned

DRENCH

You are the scum of the earth
Lost in a blanket of the night sky

I am the twelve digits
That you will never unlock

I can't fight no more, I am drowning in the sea of mediocrity
You don't realise what you've done to me

I wish I could live in a Dali painting
Where clocks have collapsed

Just live in the moment
Just stop the rot

Drenched 'neath the lies
Three more words to utterly despise

I am not coming back
I am not coming back

You Captured Me

Now you've blinded me,
Enclosed me
Pulled me in tight

No daylight
No Sun
My skin is as pale as chalk

You captured me
Like petals on your skin
Like a butterfly net

I'm lost
What way is up?
And how do I find down?

I don't know what it is
I don't know you
And I don't choose to

Lesser men fall at your feet
One fantastical sight of your eyes
But I will never be one of them

Curtain Fall

You were caught between two lifes
One of remorse, one of regret
They're essentially the same things.
But not in your eyes

You were caught between the pillar and the sky
Running head long
Eyes closed
Into the night

You were caught out
Sleight of hand
No one cushioned your fall
You have nowhere to land

Now you're nowhere
Lost between worlds
The battle of words and screams
You lost out as it seems

You had no self regard
No pleasantries escaped you
Or await you
The curtain has fell and that was never the plan

My Lime Light

I am the saddest I have ever been
More lonely than I can explain
The ground is miles above my head.

I want to run from my life and invade your body
Steal your friends
Steal your clothes
To be you

Tear me apart
Smash my world
I don't care
This life is not for me

Days are fragile and are held together by anxiety
Life is a never ending panic attack
It's completely relentless

Why won't you let me breathe?
I want to live
I want to be me
But I'm trapped by myself

Only you can truly save me
You already know that
I don't have to tell you

All this space over our heads
Can't we just go out in your car?

The Real Thing

Give your heart to a real thing do not succumb to anything.
You're the best thing.
Words get shifted up to a new level when you talk and winds are no more.

You fascinate me but you annoy me and you are me. Who am I?

All these questions disbanded for tonight you lost your way and I lost mine.

The kitchen's bare
You lied there

And my faith in magic was restored

Those Little Red Shoes

I held your hand in mine
You said 'now we'll be fine'
But the rainy day
Said more to me than you ever could

You held on to me
In so many ways
And I bogged you down
With my peculiar ways

Do you remember Prague in the rain?
Your little red shoes
Coffee and cream
The various cakes

We visited the Dali exhibition
With our tired eyes
Your big beautiful brown eyes
Which I can hardly forget

Do you remember the guided tour
In the Jewish quarter
With Sergei
Repeating 'always nice to save some monies'

I dragged you to the Kafka museum
And you were bored
But I love you more
Was the argument of the day

We were happy but we returned
I wish we never did
The Leeds drizzle hugged us
And I suppose it summed us up

I Suffered There In Your Arms

Oh little by little
I got used to this space
Time by time
I've accepted my fate
From the bottom of my heart
I shall answer yes
From the tip of my tongue
I shall confess
All those words I said were true
Everything I do, I think about you
Oh the colour of the sky turned red
The same colour as your dress
Writing in this empty room
With no one to talk to
I withdrew more deeply into myself
I couldn't stand what I'd become
Reader is understood
I kept no place in my heart
How can you find me guilty?
I've done nothing wrong!
How can you write an ending and then just carry on?
You were better than this
Living your life in lists
You are more malicios now
You are more malicious than I
I suffered there in your arms
I suffered there in your arms
I'll use this rhetorical divide
To give you a clearer goodbye
And my solitude is forced upon me
My solitude is forced upon me
I could have indulged in every debauchery
I had a simple elegance
My discovery was made slowly
And the cruel shame eats away within me
Reader understands what I mean
Reader understand what I mean
I kept no place in my heart
I kept no place for your name
I kept no place in my heart
I kept no place for your face

You're Failing Me

Oh the two of you can go gallivanting
Because we're going out together
Oh, you proved yourself again
You shot yourself in the toe

And it's all to kill
In hoodlum glory
But there's not enough glamour for you
And everyday was so true

Oh you stopped
Stopped cutting your hair
You said 'I'll be arrested by morning light'
All I've got is pair of trousers
A jacket and some torn shirts

Oh you're lacking in decorum
You're failing me
Oh you're lacking in decorum
You're laughing at me

You said one day you'd write down your dreams
You said 'tomorrow may not be what it seems'
I burst out laughing
It's called irony

If you go on preaching
You'll end up like a priest
There's only one reason worth living
You'll find it on old films

Oh you're lacking in decorum
You're failing me
Oh you're lacking in decorum
You're laughing at me
Oh you're lacking in decorum
I'm admitting defeat

What Mortality

Forever, Lovers and thinkers love equally in their own season
Powerful yet gentle, each hand directing the way
Each word coming out reminiscent of a steam train piping up
Just like me, they feel the coldness

Friends of Science and Religion
Seek the solitude of shadows
Watching their own funeral processions
Which may serve to incline their pride

Dreaming of nothing in particular
We take on certain gestures with remorseless guilt
Great plains stretched out like depths of emptiness
Seeming to nod off

To a dream that never ends
A life of magic sparks
Creep up on us like our mortality
The realisation in our mystic pupils

A Promise

I sat immersed in thought, eyes fixated on the ground not saying a word.
The ache of my smothered tears wept from all my walls.
Heavy sorrow draped all over my shoulders
A burden unsurpassed

Everything seemed strange
Unrecognisable
My blinds were down all the way

I wanted to run to the coat
Embrace it
A sleeve hung from the shoulder
Full and round,
The end of the sleeve was empty but I swear I can still see her in it

The circles around my eyes
Hung there like ripples in a pond
and the weeping intensified

I wanted more than anything to look into your blue eyes
Just one more time
To see the identical shadow between your lower lip and chin

But the melancholy lingered in the room
as though the pains were here to stay for eternity

I promise, I'll wait for you.

If only I could tell you

Time tells us one thing
What we should have done
What we should have said
If only I could tell you

If only I could tell you
All the words I couldn’t say
Oh, the graffiti
Of all the words I should have said

There is nothing but this
And time laughs at us
Saying – I told you so
But I love you more than I can say

The rain must come from somewhere
Days must have reason
If I could tell you
I would let you know

Perhaps the trees don’t really want to grow
Maybe I do really want to go
It was a kind of loving
Of this, I’m sure

All the books we used to read
Oh, you poor cow
I loved you
Oh, you poor cow

Time keeps repeating the same rhetoric
Over and over
Whispers through the wind
Of ‘I told you so’

Blue

Blue is the colour of her eyes
Blue is the mood I'm in

Blue used to be the colour of her well worn jeans
Blue is the mood I'm in

Blue is the feeling encompassing me
The state I'm in

Blue is the languid sea
Blue is now the colour of me

I Don't Feel Well

I’m being sick. Everything comes out in violent, convulsive spurts. It’s all coming out and splattering onto the grey gravel of the roadside. I can feel the burning peer pressure digging away at the back of my skull with drunk sunken eyes on me with comments like ‘you’ll be ok now mate’. I don’t think I will somehow but I soldier on. They all pass my hunched form. I’m back on it, this stage show, this performance of me trying to be a man by guzzling down whatever is available. Some of the calls were right. I did feel much better after losing half my body weight spluttered all over the wall and my trouser leg. I had a sense of relief somehow and now I was able to continue.

Now I’m trying to convince myself that it was just water coming out and not this virus, this torrent of substance abuse or alcohol poisoning my entire soul. It was just meant to be. I tried to shrug the feeling off but my stomach was the dictator orchestrating this sickly performance. If I concentrate solely on the road I’ll be ok I thought. However, I couldn’t ignore the flashing lights and dancing numbers all around me enticing me and raising my senses to cinders with all their merry shapes and flashes. I can see white lines in the corner of my eyes that seem to be in me and inescapable like a dog chasing its own tail. But the moment my eyes flick to something else, my whole body sags, the strong winds easily knock me off balance spinning into parked cars and limp over the bonnet of a Mercedes. I dread entirely what may happen next.

Finally it came into view, I wondered if it ever would seen as though my progress is slow. My stomach is cramping and the prangs will not give up despite my best efforts to coax it into accepting anything less than 45% volume. I make a turn with a wide arc not wanting to subject it to any more torment. The wind is becoming more obvious and sapping. I must endure but I know this is going to hurt.

More sick, water and bile is all I have left but it’s all coming out now. Now there really is nothing left of me. Behind me a St John’s ambulance pulls up just as I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my already damp cardigan. A nice looking blonde lady marches around the ambulance and comes bounding towards me with each step more purposeful than the one preceding it. Her face is one of pity and sadness. ‘Why don’t you come and sit in the ambulance?’. We then have a argument with me professing to feel better and that I want to join my friends wherever they might be by this time. She insists it will only take five minutes and I stubbornly agree. Eventually, after a matter of seconds her expression changes to worry and very real concern.

I take a sip of water from a kind looking gentleman with greying features who looks like he belongs in a suit and not here with me at 5am on a Tuesday night. After lying on the bed and professing how amazing I feel I’m subjected to a barrage of questions. They take my pulse, blood pressure and continue to ask me ‘what have I taken?’, ‘how much did I drink?’. Bloody hell, leave me alone, I don’t know I’m fine, in my mind I fly through space in-between tiny spacecrafts as though locked in some animated game. I got mad and wanted to escape this cage of a vehicle. ‘I’m going now’, I demanded. The man asked if I was ok to continue my journey into the morning to which I replied ‘continue? I still want to win, I want to be remembered for this night’. If you ever plead and it gets you nowhere always try sarcasm, it invariably works a treat.

Ticking Time

A man with a square jaw and small glasses
On his slim line face
It weaves an orchestral pattern
line by line, revealing his life
Ticking time
In a waiting lounge of heaven
The land
Sprawled out like me in my dressing gown
Tended to Minute by Minute

Like a woven pattern
Weaved by the woman
With cropped hair
And 'lesbian' sprawled on her forehead
Somewhat arranged
Like a piece of classical music,
Meter by meter
All notes arranged

All the rhyming is done
A harmonious production
This vast land
The lakes, the car parks
The takeaways,
A small puppy
Playing in the sunlight

They say it's God's gift
Preserved like a
Piece of ribbon
Stranded in the night sky

The Room of Lucidity

The room is locked,
I enter willingly
Fully aware of the slumber

DREAM
Derisive, Retention, Endless, Automatic, Mangled

The mind’s eye
Glares all around
So many things are contemplated in 7 hours

DREAM
Dangerous, Real, Enigmatic, Associative, Machiavellian

Food for thought,
Nightmares of Lynchian magnitudes
Hell is right before me

I sleep, I dream

Wondering about random things..

Daring
Rapid
Empty
Akin to nothing
Morbid

Roll A Dice

I roll a dice
I want a five
But I only get two

I want to try
I want to smile
I want to be you

I roll a dice
I want a three
But I only get two

I want to live
I want to breath
I'll do anything with you

I roll a dice
I want a two
Typically, I get one

I want to give
I want to help
But I don't want you

I throw away the dice
I've lost my smile
I'll resign myself to fate

I don't want to live
I don't want to love
Please leave me alone

Knocked For Six

I squirted shower gel onto a sponge
As though I was applying ketchup to an American hotdog

I watched an old man fold up a piece of paper in Weatherspoons
As though it would be the last words he would ever read

I only ever loved one girl but she never knew me
She couldn't 'get to know me' apparently
I was 'too arty' - whatever that means?

I thought I lost you in the rain
Those huge puddles you could never avoid
An avalanche of tears from the sky

I should have never read that book
The one that can save you
Unfortunatley for me there were pages missing
Typically

I never remembered your favourite actress
I couldn't care less
With a syringe hanging from my arm for good measure

I always kissed you the first thing in the morning
Your morning breath always tasted like fizzy lemons

I am lost for words - you knocked me for six.

Oh, Joy

Oh, what a Wednesday this is
Repeated processes
Repeated defeat
Time and time again

Oh the joy, of another cigarette break
Stood in the rain,
Trying to read Tolstoy
Whilst others read Heat

Oh the wonder
Of all these nationalities in one small town
Some paid equally
Some not

Oh, how my artistic talents
Go to waste
With my brain clogged up to the hill
With worries about where my next meal is coming from

Oh, I am glad to have no friends
Most people are dumb
Most people are imbeciles
With one eye on the next celebrity

Oh, do I regret anything?
No.

Should I let it bother me?
No.

I have my music, poetry, films and books
It's all you ever really need.

To My Best Friend

the time we spent
hell ridden
bent over the sides of boats
in lake Como

twiddling thorns and roses
between our bruised hands
it always pricked
but never hurt me

drinking wine with no sophistication
pasta shells on a plate
spelled out
'it's too late'

And on that plane journey back
to the mundane of this country
to the countless pages
of a really crap novel

you held my hand
and I knew
that no matter what
we would always be best friends

Waves Of Failure

The waves of failure wash over me
Beating me
Floods all around me,
I can't walk never mind run

My orr's have snapped
All I have is fate
or my hands
or a 'G'od that I hope exists

My demons circle me
Closing in
Closer minute by minute
Nowhere to escape

At last I have to face them
Head on
a collision of all my fears
like a knife in my face

I cannot react
There is no time
all I can do is drown
and pray
or pray and be killed

Either way,

There is no god to save me

and he doesn't deserve a capital G.

1 step forward, 8 steps back

grey days and upturned jeans
without looking
nothing in-between
me or you
you or me

the light never sees me
this corner of the room will do
for now
will it ever?

so much mess in one lifetime
so much clutter
tie it all up in bin bags
you don't need any of it
it does not need you

you say you love something
but abandon it
as usual
one step forward
eight steps back

this hour is my dream
I try not to
wipe my slate
let's all start again
but what would you change?

Regrets like demons
torment your psyche
and you will never sleep again
you will never sleep again
you can never dream again

Things Fall Apart

Instances of sentences torn apart by words,
images of love lost through torments of the mind
my love, waiting for me
my love, rejecting me

eventually things fall apart
and nothing can be done
you must accept the yearning
the screaming
of past lovers

They haunt me
in my dreams
I can't lie
or pretend
or say I'm not hurt
and I break like plasticine

That was yesterday
Today is bright and yellow
Fresh and clean
Everything can be seen
For miles
All my trials & tribulations

Somehow a familiar pattern emerges
Clocks reset
My heart reacts
To someone or other
and you know for a fact
that the 'one' is just a distant dream

Original Sin

Original sin in my own skin
with developed immunity
from all the teachings
of the orthodox church

Garbage man!
throw it away
stop the cars
tell them everything you know

I was led by a deep melancholy
hands tied
to the centre
the cult of this city
then everything became ostensible

What am I doing in Antwerp?
walking among the flower stalls
admiring the coffins
covered in tulips

All the soldiers who were dancing amongst themselves
I watched the way they waltzed
I was relieved,
Destroyed

Sometimes we stole
and with each robbery I felt more free
Thus, I gave my seat to old people
Standing aside to let them pass

But no one ever understood my loathing

Keep Me

Talk, Talk
Scream, Scream
But don't shout anything you mean

Lie, Lie
Lie through your teeth
Never tell the truth

Break me, break me
But keep me in your soil
Tonight

Shelter, shelter
She'll tell her
Shelter, Shelter
She'll tell her
Keep me

After everything
The wallsign reads
'keep out'
'keep out'
'keep out'

And the bare lightbulb seemed to suggest everything I was trying to say

As Light Becomes Day

The only phone for miles rings
I answer,
It's her trying to explain the wonder,
the blunder,
and the folly of my actions
the incessant buzz of flies
will not leave me alone
'If I could just explain please?'
I interrupt
If only I could I thought
If I could
I'd be a master of this writing lark!
I could not
My voice was like fog
There but not quite there
lungs battered
I'd been having a tidy up
the darling even made the bed!
Dear Oh Dear
Anyway the folly,
spoke in romantic tongues
she kept saying ' what, what, what, what?'
and things like
'stop having a pop at me, you love me really'
Do I?
You've played me well
like a second hand violin
So, you can see my predicament
As light becomes day, the darker it all gets