conversations

Been slipping
Losing belief in my power to overcome these contradictions
Hungover, sloppy, horny
Settling for lusts not desires
For material
Not values
These conversations
Unpicking
WHAT it is we WANT
WHAT it is we MEAN
WHAT it is we BELIEVE
OUR relationships
Our community
Strengthen my resolve
To be better
To be strong
To be powerful
To celebrate tradition and create new ones
To respect Elders and Youth
To inspire
Not Least by my example
as a human being.

Opportunity (August 2010)

Wide margins made it easy to keep slipping
Until we went beyond
Now you’re stretched out in space and I’m spinning
Grasping
To hold you again like a cherished memory or maybe just a warm body
While we stayed temporary I had no intimation of loss falling upon me
Then you went and it came
Do I have any right to it?
Didn’t I get what I wanted once I pursued it?
It’s pressing on my conscience and I don’t feel like fighting it,
The notion that I deserve to suffer like this if I learn through it
The candle used to have two ends until I burnt through it.
Now its just wax
Pooling and solidifying until it cracks
Its mystifying
What drives me like a blind panic to try and take it all
Even racing through the Sabbath
Work, play, save, spend, fuck, connect, empathise
Collect,dispense, beg, bestow, borrow, lend
Go against the grain and follow the trend
Creating new life forms at worlds end
Feels like crunching gems
Underfoot whilst scrabbling at the coal face
Clawing out the earths heart under god’s gaze
These are deep days and yet somehow
Business as usual,
Crucial, brutal
Yet gentle when I move to you
Groove with you
Amongst the sleepers
Spent so much now I just feel cheaper
Breath Shallow
Thoughts Deeper
Breath Shallow
Thoughts Deeper
Breath Shall Allow Another
Attempt to transform what the last left weaker.

Bad News

One morning
That call will swallow the world around you
A brother, a sister, a parent, a niece
One morning the bad news will be yours
One morning the bad news will be me

Quenching vices, bathroom excess
To lamplit pavement beaten senseless
Blood drying on the grey concrete
Your red breath atomised
The beauty of a burning butterfly
The bad news will be me

Everything must go
So come right back here
Heaven is living
In high def projection
In the cupboard under the stairs
I am living
An infection
Bred for you to bear
So cross me
The path burnt in your flesh
A spaghetti junction of scar tissue
With a Minotaur branding
A barcode cipher never issued
And when you scan
You get trapped in between
A choral tape looping incessantly
soundtracks this hurt
Lending occasional sense
In a hollow vessel
Resonant.

One evening
That presence will define the sphere around you
A secret, a lie, something revealed
One evening the bad news will be us
One evening the bad news will be whole

adjectives

Vile she wrote
Lazy and Vile
Using Nice
Using Fun
Must try harder to find that adjective
That stops the downward digging or at the very least
Moves the epicentre of activity
Beneath this woman’s Feet
To destabilise that vigour and bring both to the same level
Uneven
Dark
Exciting
Full of glints and exploration
Hints not explanations
Right now
I’m not sure of aspirations
But she’s got me thinking of adjectives
I could stop right now
Could go back to work
But I can’t accept defective
There must be a single, descriptive,
definitive
word
To capture the moment
And make another


Later words fail and contradictory emotions dominate
This friend of a friend
This boy
This proud young man
Who won’t say where he’s been
Is he a Tool, a Weapon, a walking trigger
A victim of determined fate?
Or a killer, cold, callous, in control
I wonder if he’s ever looked a Palestinian in the eyes and pulled it
Or if he ever will have to
Whilst his country pays for it
And mine too
And this friend, of ethics and high mind
Shows him so much love
It’s hard to compute
Now I’m comparing
In the contrast of this solitude
The hypocrisy of that anger
Placed against this individual
The places I’ve been
The things I’ve benefitted from
And I would judge a soldier on his incoming
Because of where he’s from?
Because he didn’t object
What does his conscience say at night
When drink and meetings don’t overpower it.
And there’s no audience to play too, no strong pose to strike?

(money)

When I’m well fed and well sexed
I don’t wax so poetic
The pad gets neglected
Like I narrow my perspective
Or maybe just switch
Carrying misgivings
This escape could be addictive
Am I talking what im living or just talking without giving?
If I’m not writing then I must not be fighting
Still driving just not so…driven
Picking just the right message to wear
Without sharing the body beneath
Flesh gets old
Not enough to entertain
Defiant in defence of what remains
Times tides won’t wash away what this brain contains
I’ll leave a mark and keep building
Castles in the sky
Foundations reaching for the stars
Inverted
Toward
The Gods
Shaped like question marks
And forged from beats
My heart skipped
Tenuous
Exceptional
Solid flowing
When the officers of anarchy
Uphold the lawlessness
And the judges prevaricate exquisitely
Into infinity
And then
At the end of the line
She stuck fresh flowers in a tired wine bottle
With marionettes hanging
And created a home
Port and creaky floorboards
Hollow Golden Legends
Drums and thumb pianos
The summery rain
Doesn’t sound so summery
But it feels right
I’m thinking I should step outside
And touch.