I have not bought a train ticket.
I just wanted a cigarette.
A bird is a bird,
Lure me out again.
I thought you were purifying,
But sweetheart, oh how my hands ache.
Go get your car keys and drive me
Straight down to the sea.
I can wait for waves.
You and I can lie on the sand.
It’s an open invitation;
A gathering of broken shells,
Abandoned buildings.
(Bring your own backbone)
I think that I’m watching instead
Of waking up with a notebook,
Holes written into the affair.
Decades of dawn reign.
Ask an empty house
And the walls shall creak in reply.
Preparing for what we can’t see,
She wants God after eighteen years.
Kindness never was a comfort zone I could escape to,
It always felt so alien, and left me numb and bored.
Cold kept me awake; I prayed you understood my meaning,
I always knew poetry was much more than staying warm.
I held that line inside my hand, your voice kept in my head,
Waited for the day that my tongue would get to know its taste,
But thieves and liars got there first and burned the flavour out
So palms held to the sky, I sighed “So much for keeping safe.”
Now when the wind blows over me I do not feel a thing
And long for days gone by when we had marvelled at its strength.
If I had taught you anything, I hope that it rings true.
I believe in lessons, I don’t believe in an end.
I’ve been watching you from this window pane
For so long you grew into my bones.
You taught me the lessons I needed to
Understand that I sat behind glass.
Not altogether there
The remnants of a broken mirror
Are scattered round my feet,
And they give me a picture of
My face, albeit fragmented,
And lips curling into shapes
That match the sound brought
Into life in synchronisation.
Light was thrown across rooms,
My eyes were shown a thousand
Times and places were confused
Through the uniform cream walls.
Out in the hall one would see
A hundred faces deconstructed
And in a thousand ways recreated
So I could be anywhere, you could
Never pick me out from this
Disfigured crowd, home in a
Thousand new places now stretching
as far as the next reflection.
I’ll be singing on the other side of town for you.
I’m not sure to whom my mouth belongs;
An accidental slip of the tongue
Has got me into trouble more times
Than I have fingers, whine and wine
Collaborate and conspire, creating the
Target, sitting duck next to the superior.
So I’ll stop taking the tablets
And the friendly advice, dusted
With sugar, stop going for walks
Not by myself, stop the nights
Out in hope and resign to coping
With a bottle by myself, quit
Pining for a hand, an ear, give
Up the charitable disposition
And take down the self-defence.
Clawed hands have always been the ones to hold mine,
Ancient, rusted tight shut across my soft cold fingers.
Pulled away from the roadside, the cars, headlights shining,
And I’m pulled in line with the wrought iron fencing.
There’s sugar on the floor and I’d no time to put socks on
So each small pain underfoot is both sharp and sickly-sweet
And as it tears its way steadily into my bloodstream
There’s some soft melody to each and every weary scream.
