Dream2

My Father hits my sister in an alternative Christmas present
My town re imagined, re mapped
The drama occurs off screen
And I inhabit the aftermath
A sibling conspicuous by her absence
And a parent puffed up despicable with self righteous excuses
Another dream with violent passages
Echoing the realities suppressed
Unbounded in the dead night heat
However aloof once thinks one may be from certain subject matter
However detached or cold
Something must seep through into one's loam foundations and poison the water supply
Yesterday I reflected onto my elder, and vice versa
Whilst the fire water scoured the inside of my head
The sex sweated out my angst and fear and nurtured new buds but that was all conscious
And when I wriggle in mosquito night Something surfaces
And familial guilt that refuses to die but instead sits lurking beneath the radar, Strikes with a vengeance,a part of me as much, if not more
Than any of this present reality
I'm taking responsibility for my happiness
but to the untrained eye that might seem similar to taking the piss
Waking or not, I'm learning lessons
Reflecting on the heart pounding horrors before
And mint tinged night in a second rate discotheque
Green European beers and barbed revelations of what I already knew but couldn't embrace as ours
We're thrown into a world but we're not alone
We carry fragile umbilical connections through which love flows
Connections that strain and sometimes snap when fists are raised and blood flows
Rushing
A flush comes right now
In retrospective empathy and shame
No answer will come from writing this
No forgiveness or resolution
But no hurt will grow either
Isn't that a beautiful numb dead end?

For Reinaldo Arenas

To dance with lethal potential
Like a bare chested capoeirista
Is that not true poetry?

Sat behind every chain store desk
Ergonomically incorrect
Lurks that spirit
Hiding behind the tired eyes of every
Faceless ballpoint bureaucrat

Spreadsheets keep the lights on
And the spirit encased
Equated
to material values
less than the price of one bulb
Discarded in the corner like an artist in solitary confinement
Smeared in their own faeces
Unable to dream
mutilated for performing the most natural of acts
to dissent

If a holy war is a conversation with god
Then the conversation must always be an argument
A single scribbled line on smuggled toilet paper holds more honour, humanity, divinity
Than a million martyred killers

So which prison should one choose?
Or is this a choice at all?
Divinity and Agency are not renowned as easy bedfellows
Perhaps the sole moment of recognition
Will come when you are already dancing, starving in the dark

Poem

Basking
Reading novels of feminity, family and theatre
With the TV upstairs a bawdy reminder of location, language, life
My mind conjures images of truly happy times
In East London Pubs
With people I love
And our true selves together
Drinks, jukeboxes and hugs
Poets, accountants, lawyers and others
All really just boys and girls released from pretence
Because bullshit walks and we sit and joke
And really really laugh like so rarely
Whichever doomed relation dominated my words
The spirit was really of platonic bonds
And I swell with pride when I think of you and the journies we are taking
And wish for decades more of this
I'm afraid that one day too soon
I'll be sat in another bar
Far from your relatives and achievements
The only one remaining, stubborn body sustaining
The weight of lonely tears uncried
I've been blessed, insulated, from much tragedy
Which means there could be so much to come
So the next time the circle closes, however many of us sit within
For me it will be the sweetest taste of freedom
To laugh just one more time with you

Friends (Today)

I could never fulfill the expectations we set together and

it's so hard when I don't know what I want from you

Sometimes to be comfortable in my own company is the biggest

present I could ask for

But when I claim my space I find myself apologising

Over and over and over again

6.04 And I'm responsible for where I'm going

The wheels I've set in motion have no one direction
a mild form of torture
Until I act

I push you and praise you and miss you when I'm gone
(When my lover is but a murky echo) but when we're close I never have enough precious time

My rants and raves and soliloquies of facile wisdom become worse in memory, beasts of my ego tearing the flesh of our clasped hands and I'm lonely thinking how much I've learnt from you

All of you

So this is my apology and this is my prayer that in our hearts we meet without the monkeys on my back tagging along

Without me dragging the void through the doorway and consuming your laughter on your living room floor

I want to win your pride with love and care not bold promises

Thank you for being you, what more could I ask?

Question

Am I a writer or just a critic in disguise?

Poem (Today0

Death Dreams
Night Cramps
Early Rise
Late Arrival
Exotic Fiend
Another Chance
Aching eyes
Adapt for survival
Sore peeling hollow sunken
CARCASS
His or Mine?
Cinematic edits stab into necks
Pistols are drawn, explode, holes smoke
In the same day life moves on
And raw rough cuts are replayed for laughs
Dull pulse still beating
Now Frames echo around, around, around
Cranium
Heartbeat seems to falter
Signals of distress and calls for aid
Ignored build Blades of eternal guilt
Into the tumor that will never remit
A document of projected emotions
Untenable.

Poem (today)

Gilding lilies
Should not be a career goal

One can break the surface
And explore the depths

Without(first) grenading the pool

Just get naked
And assume the liquid
Second Skin
Seamless, Complete
Transparent

No subterfuge, no deception
No pattern repetition
Simple pattern recognition

Transcendence

Liberating destruction
Rejection of inauthentic,
Unsustainable Reflections

And beneath the surface
Life moves slower
And somehow there's
Room to breathe

Poem (2nd November 2008)

To engrave in one's flesh
To make one's values manifest
Is to vanquish fear
This shell is not sacred
It's a tool, a device, a
Reminder of what it is,
Will be
Has been, was never
The point, the object
Merely a sufficient locus
For all these disparities to collide

Poem (2nd November 2008)

Damp hanging clothes
Insects
Gutter running outside
Sleep seducing but not succeeding
This drives me to drive through Fatigue and lethargy
To the frontier and back
Curiosity, ambition, wanderlust
Being and Time
My Experience
My Responsibility
We may only ever conjugate in the imperfect tense
So enjoy it or die
We're not rehearsing and when I regress
The clothes will be dry
The gutters empty
The insects older or past
My mind a place of possibilities, riffs and narratives
Could I lose that all to gain Freedom?

Poem (October 2008)

Not thinking aloud
Talking and then some
medicority frustrates
Wish I could terminate and be left with perfection
Exquisitely carved from the air to leave the impression
That I care And so much more
Drinking sessions
So affected
Take possession
Now bloods neglected
And as we act out these adult rituals
Our cheeks flush and billow And the air grows hotter
Watching the ceiling fan And listening to my betters
I decide again to start over and reinvent
Shed tired flesh and generate afresh
Running without moving the pose effects
An air of weary wisdom in a philanthropic instance
Of sharing
How gracious
How humble, how caring
How can they restrain themselves from
exposing all that was witheld from them so crudely?
In the time of hope and audacious facades mine is peeling
And what's behind?
The architect has long renounced the intent and design
The builders were cowboys killed in a shoot out far away
The rats in the basement and the bats in the belfrey
Have all abandoned ship
The cladding was new
The bricks borrowed
The cement old
And the heart blue
Now who would even squat this?
Regardless I've got this
And nothing more
A fool's education
A penchant for tasteless altercations
An emporer's new wardrobe
And no hope
No indication today of a brighter tommorow
Because it's dark inside and my curtains stay pulled

Poem (October 2008)

The rope around the flag pole
Lists from side to side
I breath out,
It still feels shallow
But I'm in a different frame anyway
As sight returns in blue tinged technicolor
Resolved to alter my situation
To adjust the conditions
To alter my experience of the situation I've put myself in
Even the traffic seems lighter for this resolution
I know that when my back is turned
The horns and brake lights will return
But it's a beautiful respite
This is my time, my point for meditation
This forecourt my shrine
I'll be back
Fast forward three hours
Cab passenger I'm thinking of
A Scottish Bodhisattva
And how she changed the world today
Soon i might know,
Catch a drop of enlightenment

Poem (October 2008)

The mind abides where there is no abiding
Just do
Be resolved
And you will not be perplexed
Going empty handed and empty handed
I return
I am the oppressor
And I am the solution
Beyond prejudice
Beyond Lust, Behind the edifice
Deeper than tragedy; recognising events, moments, happenings
Just for what they are
Not links in a chain but bubbles in an air stream
Infinite
Break the false connections and live
We're dead cold flesh already
Brown leaves in the breeze
Detritus of the universe
So bring the pure insight
The light beyond ages
To bear on evil ideology
On systems of control
And explode the lie that binds you.

Poem (October 2008)

Sit inside this character seven days a week
What's my motivation?
Cool insulated space
Isolated from the dreams I've been chasing
But plugged into a Million replacements
And a Million more
Two dimensional distractions that orchestrate the score
And define it with ill intent and ill execution
Blurring limitations and morphing elocution
Leaving No Trail
No wrong for retribution
Just martyrs for a culture mass producing
A 'Y' 'Three' 'K' Knowledge economy solution
And a self contaminated by spiritual pollution.

Poem (October 2008)

Attitude elated
Smoking out sedated
Mountain dwellers for the weekend
Flushed, over zealous
Competing
Cut communications
Phone lost into the ether
And a second memory lost forever
Petty arguments
Affected pretension
Condescension
Aggravates
Constant commentary grating
And it's not that I care
But there's nowhere else to be
I document it
For what purpose?
Trivial specks on the earth's surface
Invisible from atmosphere
The Angel of Death? San Miguel
Protecting the chapel
Everyone must practice here
But now she wants the Virgin out of the room
Big gesture empty
And my eyes are rolling
Our compasses are all wayward
And we're forgetting why we're afraid of ourselves
And the light within
Still we navigated homeward bound
More herbs burnt to toast the plastic sound
Finally it's just me and the pad
Teenager,
was enraged for my culture and the ignorance displayed
No longer mad but melancholy and sad for the lost potential
In these days.

Poem (October 2008)

Trading off human flesh
Elbow deep in the charnel
Smiling whilst they work
We feed off one another
A gibbering ritual
of discourse pulsating to fill the air with
signifers of liberty
signposts of righteousness
Ugly empty masques for lust
I'm choking as I lay
Blades buzzing beside
On the lies, the guilt, the realities and the ideals
The cloth quilt by which I habitually
smother my being from the elements of truth that litter our living
Discarded, unwanted
Unsightly, irregular
They constitute our essential character
And I can't get away fast enough

Strength, wisdom and charity are the common currencies
Devalued into decrepitude
I'm weak, lustful, sick, fetid and duplicitous
But my feet are on the ground
My eyes are on the heavens
I breathe deep of the elemental truth and firm my grip on the first hand hold.

Dissertation almost done. Too many words, too many anxieties.Too Too many distractions. Too much procrastination.

I Will Not Lose.

Stories

Stories
Every story excludes.
Every story is not alone.
No story is ideologically neutral.
Every story presents a hierarchy of relationships.
Every lives and breaths it's meaning in a web of other stories.
Every story legitimates a centered point of view, a worldview, or an ideology.
Every story self-deconstructs since it is embedded in changing meaning contexts.

Poem, early am September 7th

The threat of industry prompts retreat
And the golden net of family cuts deep
Pleasurable and grim, gritted with the truth of grief to come
Soon or later
Balled, uneven, quavering
Embedded in chest cavity
Distant guilt, close to home, anywhere in the world
Diplomatic invitations and procrastination
I shall carry this with me
Weightless as a leafs memory
Important as the wet lick of passion
Unsung, nothing obstructing it's pure being
These are the boundaries of my understanding
Because neither logic nor luncacy will help me here
Set me free or let me steer
I stand in one place and life moves around me
I puff pretty balls of hot air
I massage my conscience and placate myself with reason
But nothing else matters if when it matters I'm not there

Poem (December 2006)

Do not attempt to disseminate your energies to the four winds
You will be dissapated
Do not try to force your qualities into the oceans
They will be diluted to the point of translucence
Do not push to build your self around the universe
There will never be enough of you to go round
Feel the wind around you and stand firm
You may be blown away
Feel the rain caress your body
You may shiver and squelch
Reach out and touch another person and
Remember that the universe is always with us.

Poem

Luminescent, this star
radiating brilliance
In a world of dim dull daggers
oiled in the dark,
Lights a path for others;
Simply, clearly, task by task
turn by turn
always present at your shoulder
never past
never
trailing gold dust that flatters to decieve before vanishing
Feminine, holding to no hardness
In the world and of the world whilst occupying space
Bathed in the warmth of blessed being
Insights abound like lazers, comets
Ideas break the surface for feeling.

Born ageless and brave
time slows and flucuates in the prescence of the source
Tides of gravity wash over the surface and throught he heart
a poised potent force
Dense beyond measure
Dancing centred
Lifes simple pleasures
Beyond complex

So do we seek to analyse,
divide, package, leave nothing to survive,
Suck the light out of life?
Doe we leave nothing to chance like humanity isn't in the sparks of imagination
that riddle the frayed cloth of reason to create better situations
Turn back clock hands and change seasons so that the winter of my
discontent springs skyward and becomes the seed of change
floating on summer's breeze?

The answer searched for blossoms every second in the flowers of romance,
of unreason, of passionate colour, shape, intuition and feeling,
Growing toward her lights.

Poem May 2008

History! History!
Catalogue of demise
Do the waters wash clean once the city is fortified?
Cities don't love
They demand blood
Sacrifice for the concrete survivial
Falling victim to Hegel and Marx
How to avoid the mill of epochs?

We're grinding now
Coming to understand the true meaning
Wake Work Sleep Wake Work Sleep
Culture of exhaustion to suppress true feeling
The metropolis, by day a necropolis
When the tide changes it becomes a playground
And little by little
Small victory over victory
I'm consciously winning space for creativity
And squaring circles to cement solidarity
Question norms and challenge regulated normality
Dispense with formalities
and proceed direct
Lets connect and exchange stories
Narratives of humiliation and glory
Of struggle, victory or honourable defeat
Of love, of hope
Of echoing humanity
Resonant in each and every person
Expressed in new forms that envelop and dissolve borders
Walls, divisions on maps

Untidy, disruptive transgressors,
Not only do we read,
We write between the lines!

Resilience

Sacrilege
A thoughtless abomination

Alone I stand
On the frontline
Of a Bloodless war

Demeaning
Self exertion
Willpower corrupted by flaccid principle

Bloodshed
From a damaged system
Bloated after birth of a ressurection

Existing
Staring into darkness
Now living
Acknowledging darkeness in me

And how could I not appreciate beautiful people like this?

More important than words
Impact of that left unsaid

Blood and stranger unsaid for 20 years
Swimming in stasis
Cold and deaf for half a decade more

I can't wait for a fraternal dream
When the world is my family.

Memory of Climate

Glaciers
Our collective memory
Beyond ideological argument
Embodying Earth's lineage
Her timeless beauty; cool immense liths of life
Glaciers express the fallibility of human time
Changing little but learning much
Whilst generations folly and perish

Yet now jealous animals that we are
We have defaced our monuments
And life ebbs away
Depressions agitated by our conflcited worship of time
(every.second.counts.)
In defiance of our God
We assault our memories
Perhaps the remnants of communion
Were too painful for these jealous animals to endure
Without dissolving our of our selves in the waters of amnesia.

(The memory of climate stretching back millenia is carried in Ocean Waters!)

Another Poem

Its imprint left on rock and flesh,
Flat Earth thought exists;
Layered strata of side steps,
Falses metamorphoses, cloaked legacies,
Persistent, stubborn,
Inerasable,
The pavement which we tread.

Liberated Souls gaze inward
With no map to limit their wanderings,
Depth no barometer of meaning,
But if they can't pull their finger out
Then they'll walk into a lamppost.

Poem

I can feel forever
Slipping through my hands
Feverish cluttered space
Begets its own conclusion
Whilst competing tendencies bicker,
Siblings on the sofa of my life
This is reality
Without the TV
And there are no relatives anymore
Fresh alien climates await
Beyond the conflicted horizon
A passenger
I cling to my flaws
As they bear me downstream.

Note on Poems

Bit frustrated as I appear to have misplaced my current notebook. I have some other scraps flaoting around on bits of A4 and the backs of envelopes etc. I'm about to post a couple I wrote yesterday, hot offf the presses as it were.

When is there truth in the cliché of art reflecting life reflecting art? I don’t find that Life reflects Art except when it is at its most brilliant or grotesque.

Art is the transcendent communication of essential, intangible human truths. Real Life is a sideshow by comparison to one note of a beautiful symphony, or one word of the most heartfelt poem. Nietzche wanted us all to be artists of life by embracing our own elemental passions and power. Indeed it is in those rare moments of immediacy and fluid energy; whether I experience them as sexual, intellectual or spiritual, that I live, rather than just existing. Wherever I go, and whatever I do I work to create or promote that same energy. Sometimes it happens, more often than not, fleetingly or not at all. The definitive factor is that when it comes, it feels nothing like work at all. Philosophically is this because it is when we are most natural? If one pictures the Universe as a single unity, a continuum of energy so unfathomably vast that all of our consciousnesses are just elements of its whole, then can we consider a new paradigm of fulfilment beyond achievement. The reason that all of the hard work and material accumulation in the world can’t make us happy is because those models of behaviour and reward mistake peripheral accoutrements of being as being itself, rather than hollow, trivial options in artificial games. They can amuse and distract but never make one whole. This is probably all sounding dangerously religious. I see all of those structures as hollow in precisely the same fashion. They provide some people happiness some of the time whilst giving countless others the tools to ensure their own disappointment and suffering.

The one thing I perceive to always give the ‘individual’ that sense of presence to and place within the universe is paradoxically the expression of ‘self’ that is true Art is only defined in the experience of the creator or beholder (often the same person). That is why I love music and that is why I want to write.