Milky Way

Buzzing and calling streets and tirades
Of that little matter, the baby's hand
Caught in the mires of a tangent universe,
And the tinkering of toddlers in
Arun's yard. Che foresaw what you did,
Endless streams of it, and my demise,
The metal connection.
The satellite dish gyrated nearer to you.
String quartet, persuade us:
Direct us all, blue, red, and white
Paint the pavements,
Ribbons let go and swim, slide.

Hard milk and hard water, the denizens
Of my little fridge, on ice. Go,
Flagship student, always at Westminster,
The cry of brass persists in us.
To save the lot. And end the clanging.
The insipid evenings,
Super long break downs
That only god could ever have brought
To rest, then
The last ones shot, left to the blue spiral.

For the tiniest white finger, I reclaimed
The sellotape and cardboard of primary
Planets, to hang from the edge. Endless bleeps
Have become a test, you watch. Wait, and
Apprehend. We, under the oak tree, as the
Politicos die, clinging to the wind.
Our chance, and the wonderful ways
They played it, narrowing down
The list.

Vulcan

The storm in the snow globe,
Or the way you look away
Vulnerable fleetingly,
His voice.
Parading down the aisles,
A blitz behind me,
The times of neo-catholicism
To bear for us a cross.
That one time.
I looked, I saw nothing,
He was the best, the bombay freaks,
The girls, the way I don't see you,
We sift.
Flyers pirouette,
A hail of dragon scales, and roofs,
Like the chinese new year was upon us.
Strong days, hoofs, on,
And they never really stop.

My dankest cellar,
Eaten by mice, the soft ones,
Unlocked, then and still your box,
That, your arrogance,
And the way I always heard it,
Eyes yellow for midnight runners and
The depths of the widening alley.
Yellow, ochre,
Yonder skies
I painted. Coloured in aeons
The way I like it, don't watch canaries
Of the island fly, evermore.

What I Think of the Life You Want for Me

There are certain walks that I would like to take in the future.

They involve a seaside, a cottage, and

A few dozen meat hooks suspended from the ceiling,

And a cup of tea, and with a hell of a lot of milk,

And a hell of a lot of blood.

Congealing, on the ceiling.

Note: wrote this after tories won election.

Birds

We cling to each other,

We’re mad dogs with

Blinkered eyes, with

One destination.

The tunnel down which

We fall – as black

As the valleys that form

Crushed velvet.

We met in our teens,

Again in our twenties.

There was no connection.

Just a bit too much to drink,

At first.

Time is the great, great

Throw-together-er.

Trust reached a level,

Stabilised,

Established itself.

And then,

We thought we understood each other.

But we both kept our heads.

So perhaps we did

Understand.

Spinning hawks

Eyeing one another,

Laughing,

Angry.

Are we different to them?

Were you happy?

Are we birds of a snapping bill?

Soft snake of spring,

Pink grass. Quickly,

I’ll fall over running,

I’ll throw up and love it.

I think you dislike me.

I am convenient.

As you are.

My reflection in you:

The luxury of ignorance

In its every

Regrettable

Form.

Love loves company.

We wasted so much time

At home,

All we wanted to do was give.

I do not love you for you,

I know.

You know.

I am the patient receptacle

Of every outpouring

That your blood made bad

Before it was let.

I never ask for you,

But I give myself to you,

And you deal me

The ecstasy of enslavement,

That my young girl heart

Has ceased to deny

Before the protracted chatter of

Educated minds.

Savage. I

Would rip you apart

In the blink of an

Eye.

We’re poised.

Like billy-o, so happy, we’re sad.

But we are in love.

One discovers soon enough

That something’s got to give,

But whilst they may wait alone,

We wait together.

We birds of a feather.

New Poemmmmmm

I monitor the white horizon as it leaves me behind

Constantly. Nauseating the slats of the blind.

The mucus over my sight clears and I stir fast to the memory

Of dull but kindly needles, bigger on the inside.

There is a sign by the curb, I would’ve liked

To read it. It is all just behind the window. Perhaps it is

Only because there is glass, between the expanse of concrete,

And I, that I can exist. Outside is total.

A flatline, it deafens. Inversed, I am open, an infant planet.

A shallow breath scatters constellations. Gormless.

Now, I could go into the heart of a poppy. Wet grass, that itch,

And four reclosing velvet walls – but the blameful scarlet.

I observe myself from above. Tender, boring. Early.

Clothes drip off me like wet paint.

There is static rolling past my eyes, end credits.

But something palpitates. I struggle to speak.

It is a bitter winter, this one. I face the door.

Note: poem written relatively recently, as of yet untitled.

I can't contain this bitch, it has to come out, I'm sorry fans of 2011 reading lineup. WTF! It's pretty much my idea of shit. Not saying the bands are shit, but all the ones I like I've seen before many times. I was kind of hoping to see some acts I'd never seen before for £200. Plus I just spent an extra fucking £19 on an early bird ticket tonight because all my friends have one and I don't want to go up on my own. ARRR! I've seen two of the headliners, one of them three times. Apparantly the National are good but I'd never heard of them before today. 'The National', their bands names even worse than bloody 'Mumford & Sons'. Mega hyped for: the offspring, thirty seconds to mars, deftones, architects, jimmy eat world and cage the elephant. And that is IT. Praying the lineup gets more appealing. I mean I'm looking forward to a loooad of other bands too: panic, mcr, strokes, taking back sunday, blackout, bmth, enter shikari. But it's not proper hype because I've seen them before, and I personally think re-seeing bands is not worth that price, however much you love them. Well at least, there's only very few bands which are an exception to that rule. Who the fuck are: 2manydjs, seasick steve, ofwgkta? NO.

A Few Decades Ago

A few decades ago, the synthetic suppleness of this Kleenex tissue

Would not have been possible. (I am working, and fidgeting absent-mindedly

When I realize that it could be my silk kimono, sifting between my fingers)

 A few centuries ago…I wonder what nose wiping consisted of. Nose wiping consisted

Of the back of a blistered hand fleeting, planed like a slap over an upper lip, healthy

Baby strands of bacteria fused, colonising, hewn fresh on a hemp sleeve. Not

A hygiene precaution. Not oriental silk. Not an opportunity to smell the begonias.

Then I think, regretfully, that girls’ hair was probably softer a few decades ago,

Before the conquest of the smoothing irons, before this long, dry summer

Crept up, crusted over the frizz and rewired it into split myriad ends.

Colour Protect Technology, though, is now affordably salon-quality. Which is one

Of those little luxuries. I don’t really want a tissue; I don’t even have a cold.

But I do appreciate that velvety smoothness. Or maybe Anne Boleyn did have it all.

(Interesting, the rise and fall.)

Note: last thing I wrote. Read this at Kid, I Wrote Back. A sonnet of sorts, tell me what you think.

Summer IS Coming

Today was supposed to be productive, but all I've done is internet shop, facebook chat, and call people who didn't pick up. Story of your life, eh. Have finally recieved all my replies from universities - two rejections (Oxford and Edinburgh), three offers (Nottingham, Leeds, Queen Mary). I now have to decide which one to choose, mugh. And have endless school work to catch up on. But study leave looms, we break up on the 13th May. However, dangerously, I've already begun the mental process of 'breaking up', and am starting to look on school work as a bit of a joke...trouble is, I need an A in English A Level or I'm not going to university at all. Booked tickets for the Cherry Orchard at the national with Zoe Wannamaker, highly excited about that. Have still to see the British Art Show, perhaps I'll do it on Monday when I'll be in central London anyway. Plans, plans, I have all these delicious plans building up in my calendar...sadly I'm starting to lose hope that Sonisphere festival will become one of those plans. They might not release day tickets this year. However, on Monday, I discover the reading lineup and what exactly I have paid £200 for. Hopefully that will make up for it. Ttfn.

The Train Station

I have a strange fixation with Potters Bar train station. That's a small suburb at the edge of London, for those of you that don't know. Every time I'm there, there's a small part of me that feels I could quite happily stay there forever. Essentially, it's a part of me wanting to be caught in a meaningless moment forever, being in a state of constant transit rather than ever being at a destination. Easy way out and all that...

There's no point in time easier to endure than the five or so minutes between entering the gates at a train station and boarding the train. You're devoid of any responsibility, it's all on the train driver. No power over the situation means no guilt whatsoever, any lateness is for the next few minutes, not your fault. And it's not as if there's much room for changing the world on a train journey. It's not really the time or place to be taking care of any other duties like work or important phone calls - desperate times excluded.  Just five minutes to sit down, and get your bearings, and wait. There are times when waiting is all I want to do. The fabulous irony is that the rest of the time I'm ridiculously impatient.

Potters Bar station is also a common factor in many of my best memories. Obviously it's a miniscule part of those memories but...when there's one building, or one person, or one jacket that has been unfailingly present throughout the best times of your life, you become attached to it. And PB Station is there in the background of every memory, like the children's TV show you don't realize you still love. But I think this common factor gets even more specific - I'm only really interested in one half of the station, the half facing London, I love facing London. And of course it would be that way, I feel at home there. Especially, it's that sign, with the arrow pointing down the tracks...and the way the wires are entwined with the branches...

Living in Potters Bar, my local train station is naturally the one I'm at the most, so I suppose I've developed an affinity for it. I like the seats at train stations - cold, hard, flat. None of this soft, cushiony crap for me taaa... I don't think we realize how much we appreciate a good seat until we're sitting on one, and we think 'Why aren't all the seats I have to sit on every day like this?' Granted, I reckon most people's idea of a good seat differs from mine. Usually, when I arrive at the train station, I've spent the last 20 minutes running - to the train station. So the feel of metal against your skin is quite welcome. Please don't surmise from that that I walk/run around with a bare arse. I just wear short skirts.

On the flipped side of the 'Potters Bar is nowhere' coin, Potters Bar station is peaceful and elderly, so there's never these nike-clad yobs eyeing you up and requesting your 'digits'. Oh, Finsbury Park, Finsbury Park...Of course, I'd take London and all its drawbacks over fucking Hertfordshire any day, it's just another one of those little things you come to appreciate. There's never many people there, there's always the option of solitude. No forced intimacy with smelly/spotty strangers. Or anyone at all for that matter. Air! Solitude! Hard seats! You must really be starting to see why I like this station. And thinking that I'm definately not a grumpy old man with a very uneventful life.

Kid, I Wrote Back

Apologies for the lengthy delay in my posting anything on this thing, have been tres, tres busy. Performed for the first time ever at a spoken word night on Monday (14th march). It's called Kid, I Wrote Back and is based in Bar Kick, Shoreditch. I performed a few poems I wrote recently, apart from one which is from quite a while back. These poems along with others I go on to perform will be posted here for your casual perusal. This is that old poem, which I rediscovered the other day...

Beneath the green tree

In the garden of the stars,
You were mine and I was yours,
And it was both each others, ours,
Beneath the green tree.

In the garden summer flew,
You killed me and I killed you,
And as we died I married you,
Beneath the green tree.

Saw us the golden lion tame,

And I hold not ourselves to blame,

But my time came and your time came,

Beneath the green tree.

The garden wilted, the earth was cracked,
You struck me and I struck you back,
And we saw red and we saw black,
Beneath the green tree.

Beneath the stars, beneath the sky,
As we fought I caught your eye,
And you were dying and so was I,
Beneath the green tree.

As the garden felt spring’s touch,

We weren’t yet done but saw too much,

Of green beyond our empty clutch,

Beneath the green tree.

When the wind smelt sweet again,

We let our wait delay to end,

And my time bent and your time bent,

Beneath the green tree.