Pain

The pain of unreciprocated love
Is something that everyone knows once and
Fits this deep wounded soul just like a glove,
Holding the pierced heart in the bleeding hand.
In the end we all have to choose to die
Or find someone else we can crucify,
Forget your gender and render the sky
A new colour in your burgeoning eye --
You can live, just remember how to try,
Shrug off death and don't ever eat the lie:
We must try to free the pigs from the sty,
Seek out and capture, and shoot down the spy.
We want to stop your pain but not to pry,
We try to understand but you ask, why?

Over The Disease

He swears to himself tat he will
Not let the curse of a cancerous growth
Consume the power of a sacred oath:
Determination will defeat the hill,
Overcome the tumour that seeks to kill
Faculties, mental and physical, both,
His shortened span never allows for sloth
And he struggles on still though he is ill --
Certain others would throw him in the bin
All because if this ripening disease,
But does it free him from having to try
By blaming it on a carcinogen?
Or, just, when he fails it saves their unease,
They can't help it as they watcha friend die.

14 Lines

Every single set of fourteen lines
In an eloquent form of verse enshrines
The message I'd wanted to put across:
That is why I truly love the sonnet --
I'd place the weight of my love upon it;
A structured form, the words, can truly emboss.
A successful sonnet defines
Its themes while following traditonal signs.
I write these lines for Shakespeare's great ear,
Though he's passed on from this sublunar sphere,
Held to the glowing breast of yesteryear --
His excellence is something all should steer
Towards if it is at all possible;
The attainment isn't impossible.

A House Of Lies

Throw away your mind
And stow your head,
Forget the so-called truths you find --
Truth is already dead!

This is a house of lies,
Myriad eyes.
Falsehood
Stains the wood,
Lies brood
In the food --
There is no trace
Of your face
Left in your portrait,
That is a rendition of hate
And this is your fate.

All the skeletons wait
In closets shut,
You sense it in your gut,
But drawn to your demise
You see with blinkered eyes.

You turn in laboured motion
As you're drowned in the commotion,
Hands outstretched for help from the stranger
You learn the truth and see the danger.

All the conspiracy's men
Have taken positions again
To push you into dire situations,
They conspire to bring their creations
To life and light,
Moving limbs in the shadows of night.
Plans fructified
And scenarios eyed --
All of them lied.

Responsibility Claimed

The triggered revelation of death
Opened their eyes,
Tongues of shrapnel burnt with truth --
Knives through butter spreading realisation.
The peeled physiques of vulnerability
Screaming injustice,
Innocent eyes melted in sockets.
Instantaneous initiation into the most
Inexclusive club around:
The dead.

The car flickered with a yolk of flame,
Its shell cracked,
The body inside lifeless --
He'd been told to drive or his family died,
His smeared cheeks and bleared eyes
Followed the road until he
Stopped dead...
The clocks hands came together
And the clap called for no encore --
This was the final act.
The curtains of flame sprang up
And out;
Conflict's flower bloomed in the street.

The prone bodies of horses,
Riderless,
Littered the streets:
Foam flecked lips pulled back over teeth.
The incendiary device was owned by the --
Who claimed responsibility,
Regretted innocent deaths
And left a family mourning
With a husband and father
Already cremated for his funeral.

Sharing Words

They do not speak his language --
He rolls out his speech
For his ideas to recline on
But the repose is uncomfortable:
A picket fence walks to the horizon
Dividing him and their perception --
He has inherited the legacy of Babel.

It no longer towers,
Sunk in the foundations of misunderstanding,
Only a home of ignorance is built.

Conflict cooks on the fire,
The hungry military mouths wait --
The aggressive minds are moths to moonlight,
Offensives are built up out of the map.

All the roads are blocked
And barricades erected,
And purposes set in the concrete of belief,
Spirits are steeled for war,
The magazines are loaded and clipped,
The fuses cut and the bombs placed:
This universal language has no barriers,
It crumbles them --
This is deconstruction of difference:
The similarity of death,
They speak this language.

The thunder of words invades heads,
Bodies are laid out
And bags for the bodies to recline in,
The repose is not uncomfortable
For they are past comfort --
So are the flowing eyes
Reading the telegram,
Sharing words in the tongue of mourning.

Another Person In My Job

i wish that i could open my gob
and talk to the man about my job
and why he gave it away to someone else
but i get angry and am beside myself
watching myself stay quiet
surely i should start a riot
and call this man out for being a liar
but part of me tends to instantly retire
from a fight even if i'm in the right
because what is the use in spite?
what use in holding onto hate?
karma will balance in his reckoned fate
but i get a reputation as a doormat
and expectation willeventually make me that
ah, well, this chance has gone by the by
next time i will have to try
and be more ruthless
reprimand these men whose lives are truthless

how easy

how easy to be lazy amidst lack of care
how easy to lie to the wilfully unaware
how hard to make a mark today
how hard not to lose you way

some people reach this age
and have never earned a wage
and have never cared about it
i'm hard worker -- hear me shout it

indolence makes no sense
laziness built no fence
i was born with an inner fire
and i shall never ever retire

special

Never close to death and further from life
Looking over the shoulder to copy answers
Orbiting dance floors like an irregular comet
The spit at the bottom of a beer glass
A collector of dead men drinking dregs
The photograph you burn was borrowed
The romance you had was second hand
Puking up Shakespeare because it was too rich to stomach
Fencing with chopsticks to pick up Basho
Who you choke on between mouthfuls of the always chosen special
How special is special when you always have the special?
You have a pulse – in your salad

replaced

Does it hurt to be replaced with a seven-inch piece of rubber?
Does it hurt to replace someone with a seven-inch piece of rubber?
The slow abstraction of the absent other into pornographic fragments
Shattered into tits and a cunt your face struck out
It’s all motor reflexes and junk information
Both coming to a point
He thinks he’s the zenith and she the nadir
Closer to death in a heavy breath laced with fear
Does it hurt to be collaged out of a magazine?
Does it hurt to be rewound on a silver screen?

an understanding

God coming through in the correlations
Jesus in the timetables naming the stations
A ration of wine watered down spilt on a tablecloth
This is my station I better get off
Faith is a journey doctrine’s a branch line
The slow emerging bruise of cynicism
Goes from tooth rot black to urine yellow
And I hate it all much less as I mellow
The poetry of Solomon seduces
And I don’t have to be torn in half by secular and religious

a petrarchaan sonnet

after settling down and you've gone to bed
brave conversations take place we'd avoid
because with you there our sentiments cloyed
around the idea of what you had said
accusations plagued us once we were wed
by false promises our union buoyed
by the seeming rose's thorn were we bled
and after all that effort i'm annoyed

can we do nothing to stem the new tears?
did our hard work mean nothing in the end?
everyone feels hopeless and empty
cancer has spread through us all through the years
did we build nothing on which to depend?
each must wonder did satan pre-empt me?

A Shakespearean Sonnet

all the people in movies never piss
bugs the hell out of me and should do you
it's not that they have camel humps like this
kid's comic book read before i met you
couldn't do it now read that awful shit
doesn't interest me reading of freaks
contains less than an ounce of basic wit
these geek boy fans talk about them for weeks
easy to forget that you were that young
pretend that you always had this much cool
leave your past exploits forever unsung
forget acne-hued days you were a fool
it was a bad joke and you move along
give your dues but you sing another song

A Spenserian Sonnet

arseholes, bastards, the fucking cunts and pricks
blockhead's sung of you once upon a time
assembled against apathy each sticks
clever men with an oscar wilde type rhyme
against capitalism sunk in lime
can we free the world from the passing buck?
their big budgets can buy a lot of time
cash sets you free you just don't give a fuck
can faith and perserverance bring good luck?
power distribution shows injustice
chance may never find the right string to pluck
divining now only where the rust is
every scheister shall then be unmasked
they will roast in the oil in which they basked

Happy Little Bunny

He popped his head out of the burrow, thought Christ, there must be something wrong with me -- I have all the carrots to eat I could want and I have sex on tap, so why aren't I happy? Perhaps it is just that it's March and I'm suffering some of the madness the hare seems blighted by. I'll go out for a run, that usually makes me feel a bit better.The grass was green and the sky, though not a hot blue, was pleasant enough. He ran and he ran and he ran. Ah, he thought, I feel a lot better now. Let's go exploring.He ran through new fields he'd never seen before. He thought poetry into the clouds. He was happy. Yes, he was happy.He didn't see or hear the car until it knocked him sideways. Ah, he thought, lying by the side of the road, that's what was wrong with me -- a sense of impending doom.

Wolves

They had travelled as shadows for an age now, arriving in the form of wolves after a brief dream that birthed a pack mentality in them. The prey had at first been a teacher that they were after. The teacher, a fellow shadow, a jackdaw if Black Dog remembered correctly, that had rolled in the snow of amnesia and turned magpie: he had stolen their key and fled. What use was the key to a bird? He asked that of Umbral, his companion, but got no answer. And now they had learned their lesson: he was no jackdaw, but a man in disguise. The man had happened across a white hart as he slept and had stolen the dream from his flickering eye -- wearing that reflection he had appeared to the two brothers and seduced them with his tales. They should have known that it was not promise but lies that flickered in his eyes. Stood here under this burning sky, their ragged charcoal forms the shape they would be cursed to wear ever after, they watched as that wily bird-turned-man lifted into the sky in his hot air balloon. If they had the key in their possession they would have been able to shrug wings up from their shoulders. But they just had to stand and watch.

Man Sitting 2

Propped up by shadow, a source of primary colour, wearing shades to adjust the brightness of the whole scene. Earth met sky and water and collaborated on an idea which he shared in. It was Sunday and, having left the God Complex behind with the rest of the big smoke, he had come here to rest and survey the scene. He'd dreamt this place into being a while back and had forgotten about it. he coughed out the last vestiges of the car fumes his hours were wreathed in. Pulled the deep stabbing splinters of the subway from his mind where they lay coiled like vipers. He began to purge himself. The air tasted great out here. The sweet aroma of the grass. The sharp cut glass scent of fresh water (really fresh, not that recycled city imitation). He let the air blow through his head and scatter the gridlocked thoughts which clogged there. Let the cool water sooth his eyes and heal the sting neon had inflicted. Let the ground's solidity root him to something he could never kneel down and touch in a place covered by concrete. A hammer to the convex mirror of crippled urban retina. Align the chakras. Touch the Dragon Lines. Pluck the leylines. Dream the dreaming and sing the songlines. Spirit singing in tune with the quiet. There's an unknown frequency here. Ah, becoming attuned. Awakening.

Man Sitting 1

It was ironic that he had been planning a fishing trip for ages and here he was without any fishing gear at all. One blink and he was hundreds of miles away from that desk where he had been falling asleep while trying to type. He was a typist, not a writer: that's what capote would have said of him. And here he was at the perfect fishing spot without anything to fish with. Perhaps he could reach into the water with his hand aiming just in front of the reflection of the fish as he had seen them do on a documentary once, but then he thought that the water looked too cold. Those fish did look smug though, sat there staring back at him. Should he take up the challenge? No, he'd appreciate the landscape and forget about the fishing. His wife said to him that fishing did to a stretch of water what golf did to a good walk -- it spoiled it. What did she know though? He thought if he caught her now he'd throw her back in the water. He blinked again in rapid succession and sky, grass, water -- all peeled away, and he was back at his desk.

Watch Out

She glanced over her shoulder, shivering as she felt the past night's events freeze into place. She wouldn't be able to look backwards anymore because her gaze, piercing as it had become, would shatter that delicate icy reflection of the present moment. She cradled the gun, unsure of the object in a way she had not been before she had fired it: then it had had a function; now, what was it for? It's usefulness, like the bullet buried in Connor's chest, had been discharged. Could she pass it off as a crime of passion? unlikely, for most people who knew her would never use that word to describe her. The car would take her away from here and she wished some of its hue would flow into the sky and dispel the accusing red that gathered like blood in the clouds. The world knew what she had done and was turning away from her. She knew what her story would be -- a femme fatale who had engineered the whole sordid mess when she got greedy for the money her man was keeping from her. Yes, she had thought he was stiffing her ... and yes, she had intended to have it out with him. But he pulled a gun first. Self defence wouldn't fly though, so she would have to. Swiftly away she would go, but migrating for colder climes instead, where the heat would not be on her.

The Corridor

A life spent in corridors hadn't prepared her for the sensation she got when she came across the mural. It froze her in her tracks, feeling momentarily like Alice faced with a looking glass that was a bit behind with its presentation of reflections. Who was the owner of the image? This painting, located between the two galleries that the main exhibition was situated in, had touched her more than any of the post-modern posturing she had witnessed. There was a lyrical simplicity in its framing -- it was anchored to the real world: it had a presence in her world. And for a moment ... just for a moment, she wondered whether she might leave this place and walk into some mirror reality where life was artful and not mundane like hers seemed to be at the moment. But no, she had to return to the gallery - that cul-de-sac of thought where no one created, but only found their art. So she would leave the corridor - truly, she thought, her habitat - and she would leave behind this transitional place and go to a place of terminus, where process ended. She would leave behind that figure fossilised in paint who whispered truths to her that the people in the gallery would forever be deaf to.

Minimalist Heart

He'd removed himself from the room because he knew that he upset the balance that existed therein. When he had asked the architect to design it he had not thought about what effect his presence would have upon the harmony of the design. It was so perfect that he wept, and he knew that his weeping was ugly and, like him, did not fit with the furniture and the tasteful pictures. So he excised himself. He only ever watched the room now: observed its sealed-unit habitat through the intrusive presence of the hidden cameras. He was like a spy in the Forbidden City and he felt ashamed every time he let his temptaion rule him. The clean lines and elegant use of space needed no messy thing like him there. No, he watched, but did not enter. He tried not to breathe to much. Dust settled over him as he remained still.

A Certain Kind Of Man

I'm learning myself - it's an important lesson; and this mirror is a damned good teacher. I've been creating myself for a long time - a slow accrual of items like bytes building up to make a whole mouthful of data. They will look at me like I am looking at me and, if they see me framed by the mirror, wise eye that it is, they will understand ... for there is always a truth in reflection denied to those suffering themselvs ever to the caging iinfluence of a first glance.

Photographic Memory

Caught in an act of balance as I always seemed to be in photographs - balanced between what I was and what I was becoming, between how I felt and how I knew I'd look. It's not as if I ever forged a smile though -- more like the person taking the photo was drawing it out of me like I see myself here drawing the water. I was so young and, though I thought getting water up was difficult back then, it's so much harder now -- like drawing forth memory from a dried up head. Good thing I've got these photographs. Good job the album remembers - I remember the quality of that act but this crystallises it for me; gives me an anchor ... makes it real. I can taste that water again.

Night Mare Ride

She was head-deep in the paint, pearly globs of cadmium white cloying at the back of her mouth and clogging her already full throat with information. The horse she'd dragged up out of the metaphor tide this visual gateway had offered was hard to handle - a fiesty mare, nightmare. This was the only way to travel though. Paint dripping off her body, through her head, and bang -- she was out travelling through the universal medium of thought towards an idea - the painting left behind. the painting was a fossilised moment, a map of event, her skin shed so the world would know where she had gone and where she had been.

Inspire Me

I chose to keep a poetic diary
when they chose to fire me
these things inspire me
and each time they hire me
i wait for that talk
where they tell me to walk
and try to make me pity them
i'm phlegmatic or i have phlegm
sometimes they're mutually exclusive
depends if i'm feeling abusive
i don't go and get drunk
but man, i am an angry punk
and you can guarantee behind this smile
is more than a half a pint of bile
to go and tell you what to do
with you and your useless world view

some kind of sense

eating hard boiled eggs
reading good poetry too
makes some kind of sense

I eye

I eye you he said
sat smiling strangely at me
i poked his eye out

prophylactic

prophylactic sense
stretch it over your head now
guards against ideas

haiku like you

it is very short
you say you're not a midget
i am not convinced

the fall haiku

the fall's mark e smith
he spouts scathing invective
scattershot mind-bomb

the jam haiku

weller and foxton
dig the new breed, setting sons
shoot eton rifles

jesus and the marychain haiku

darklands to munki
the jesus and mary chain boil
it into darkness

jane's addiction haiku

jane's addiciton rule
been caught stealing, classic girl
what more can i say?

public image ltd haiku

public image proved
lydon was the genius
mclaren's all talk

throbbing gristle haiku

throbbing gristle pulse
20 jazz funk greats simmers
strips your mind down stark

ramones haiku

hey ho lets go sing
joey johnny dee dee mark
and tommy fastloud

acdc haiku

bon scott's highway scream
angus young in schoolboy gear
brian johnson two's up

hunter s thompson haiku

fear and loathing spits
fury and devours young minds
read between the lines

abortion

it was easy for her
she hated children so much
it was her sister cried.

paint it black

he hates black people
doesn't know a single one
ignorant, stupid

brown nose

you damn sycophant
kissing the management's arse
we know you're a grass

heroine

she came to me with drugs
we share a needle and spoon
now i have got AIDS

911

two towers explode
we have never forgotten
repurcusssions still

the war on terrorism

find bin laden
try saddam hussein for crimes
destabilise all

no racist

anti nazi league
enlightened and enquiring
has an open mind

pogues haiku

shane macgowan and
kirsty maccoll sang on the
best christmas song made

PJ Harvey Haiku

i like rid of me
is this desire is cool too
PJ Harvey rocks

Kristin Hersh Haiku

she's throwing muses
catching a fifty foot wave
the house tornado

the clash haiku

guns of brixton fire
the white city rockers clash
strummer and jones spar

sex pistols haiku

malcolm mclaren
ever feel you've been cheated?
johnny rotten rules

Farewell Or Good Riddance

Goodbye old job I won't miss you at all --
Do I need to hear "You're a good person, Paul"?
From someone who has treated me like shit
And made me feel terrible all the time I worked there?
I've been an idiot and not shown an ounce of wit
To take it all and not send up a warning flare.

Let them walk over you
And let them talk over you
And your worth deteriorates;
Your the thing he hates --
University educated,
Though you never stated
It to him,
Has made him hate you on a whim.

Oh well, it's all over now -- move on;
Once you get your P45 all thought of it will be gone.

Lie In

Some people never buy in
To the idea of a lie in --
They consider it a sign of laziness;
The height of craziness.

But after a week of six O'clock starts
The enthusiasm departs
For seeing the clock with those numbers on it;
My comfortable bed I slumbers upon it.

I always have a late night before,
So getting up is always a chore:
Caffeine is the god I adore,
If I start to flag I can always drink more.

Set And Rise

Fiery sunset,
Source of earth bound life descends --
Sunk boat horizon.

eyewash

Messages, left dead,
Knew the real but distant truth
That cleanses the eyes.

Isis Orb

To point direction
Night rests in its milky sphere,
Smiling under cloak.

Genesis

Origin lies in
A cell's dream of division
That shall multiply.

Dance In Day

We dance in day now:
Take us presently into
Its warm matrix grip.

No. 9

Behind the eyes
Bottle in profusion drift,
We enter life blind.

Of

Of day's blood sunset,
Of childish nursery rhymes,
Of golden raindrops.

No. 8

They who sang to us
In machine gun utterings
End to now begin.

Stigmata

The Messiah bleeds,
We consume his truth in awe --
the scar does not heal.

Instinct

And instinct takes hold --
Migration licks the raw air,
A bird flies due South.

No. 5

We step through dyings
Into the blessed after,
Weighted by the truths.

Life Buoy

We who said there were
Comforts in the lie called life
Now sing au secour.

Tarot Fate

I .
The hung man rotates:
A wild spinning joker's card
Laughing tarot fate.

II .
Tarot knives of dream
Pierce the fleshy future
Bleeding it for facts.

La Deluge Au Coeur

We rain in new storms:
Thunder pulsing in fresh hearts,
La deluge au coeur.

No. 1

Dreams quickly turn as
Midnight's eye opens slowly
To digest morning.

A Life In My Uni-Verse

Today I start
To work my art
And draw you in
With words in rhyme
To tell of my time
In society's bin.

It's all to do with timing
And rhyming.
This shall be no post-modern exercise
Of free verse to astound your eyes
With smart structural acrobatics;
And here shall be truth with just a few dramatics.

Is it an interesting life or a boring one?
Like yours it's full of dull moments and fun.
My work life balance is just like yours
And I spend half my life indoors,
Sat under flickering tubular lights;
Only coming alive at nights.

An everyman
With a lifespan
And a life plan --
Neither of them working out;
Neither of them free from doubt.
I choose to write instead of shout.

Daily

I woke at six for work at six thirty --
God, these early hours hurt me.
My house-mate grabbed the shower first,
But I had no time to quench my thirst
And feed my need for caffeine.

So I stood dressing-gowned awaiting access
For ten minutes cold and tired,
Oh, for a silver spoon and to lack less
And to got to work truly inspired;
But that idea seems somehow obscene.

On my bike, down the road up the hill,
Past cars that could easily kill
An annoying cyclist on an early morning road,
How do the omens in the dark sky bode?
Is today a day for boredom like it's sometimes been?

Cleaning up, at one with the broom;
Tasting the swept muck's an intimation of doom --
And here we go once more round the room,
Backwards, forwards: shuttle on a loom.
Knitting something mute unseen.