Sanctuary

Sanctuary, where the sun meets the sea
And we can sit suspended for a week
Free floating in the breeze
Just the dull thump of your pulse
And the red warmth through our eyelids
An instrument resonating life
Vibrating spectrums
Of sensation we're just ripples passing along,
Synthethesic; in the ocean, on the guagua,
On your bed on Christmas day with Jim Morrison
And one year from now feeling it all again
All the same moment exploding and reforming
Curving, bending, describing a flawless whole.

Miles Davis Photograph

A Miles Davis photograph in black and white triggers Deja vu. I try to hold it like always. Even more so this time because I want to feel impotent, devoid of responsibility. I want the rails to come back underneath.Miles is set, boxed, polished. And even so in that moment he's taut, considering something out of shot, the soft focus surrounding a pefect set for his dramtic tableau, Miles is Miles. That's what I felt then and now I do again, comfortable in the inexplicable familiarity Who could begrudge me that?

poetry (November 2009)

You're like poetry
Softly spoken to the ear
Never a word wasted
Never an emotion unexcited
Happiness in being
Acceptance of a state and yet
Communication of light years of meaning
Your audience awaits another line
For it may always be the last before life turns the page.

Terms of Agreement

A new ethic, disdaining the
Mirrors and simple replicated patterns
That have held sway these months
Not pausing to swap yoke for yoke, like for like unevenly weighed
Inexpertly carried
But a lighter load carried longer, further
I've placed my trust without being asked
Invested my hope with no assurance
So why fret?
This contract is between me and the Universe.

work and wonder

One month, give or take a day
Since I last heard from you
And not a day has gone by without you in my thoughts
Sometimes I wonder and sometimes I work
Curiousity hasn't killed me yet
But give it time
The person I aspire to be
Provides for his own,
Repays his debts, takes the weight
Pays respect
Speaks with his actions and
Listens with his soul
The next month I live
Starting with the next day
I'll work harder toward being him
And wonder less if I CAN be.

Escalation

People fall through the cracks
And congregate there around the fires of their dead
Bar rooms loud and potent
Full of mingled hurt and self injury
Bravado is an insult shared
From the mighty to the pitiful
High on self possession and world weary ritual convulsions
Each lodges at her own level
Clawing for purchase and a meaning compatible with nullified cognition
Settlements and enclaves divorced
From the fearful questions of a new state
Lifestyle designed to blot it out
Agonize self consciously
But just don’t think
Lifestyle designed to blot it out
Agonize self consciously
perpetual mechanism lubricated with drink
Welcoming arms and closed minds
Suffocate the compassion in me
I consume and steep in guilt
Feel the cracks open up beneath
Before I avoid
I will escalate
Touch you this last time and raise the temperature
To burn off the solution marinating your soul

Canvas

What makes a relationship? A western one that is
The leap from a daydream to an indulgence to a loss
If only we all asked ourselves these questions harder, earlier, more honestly
Then perhaps man child bravado and coquettish facetiousness would not hold sway over our generation, stoically holding our intellect paralysed at the altar of satisfaction bound
Ripe for sacrifice
Now I'm gaining perspective and keeping pain
Should I gain coldness, cool clear detachment and analyse lust for love's sake?
If that was me and you weren't you then this moment could never be...
You spoke of perfection, you praised me to the heavens and it humbled me
Crushed me beyond repair, made me smile with a sadness these people might never imagine of me like I couldn't imagine or have believe what you feel I can provide
Were my biggest function in life to be as the canvas for your thoughts what joys of freedom I might experience; gaining colour, texture, shape, changing fundamentally losing factory stiffness dropping my blank cool flatness and becoming living art
-exhaling-
magic in new inspired forms, the children of the interplay between your ideas and intution, what more could one imagine?
What else would one live for? you spoke to me of indulgence, well indulge me
Tell me every thought or fear, share your heart's desire upon my surface, speak of god or government or family, of ugliness and beauty, I don't care,
My faith as your instrument lives to feel your words splash upon me and spread, soaking to my centre, running in the grain, mixing becoming, setting until the moment your work is finished and when it comes my faith is you will recognise the time to lay down tools and walk, leaving indulged in satisfaction, not before you leave your name in me

Scrap 2

Toxic
Etched insignia entrapped by concrete
traffic circling a bastionof thought
Green baize surface neutral with bridges and doors marked around
Disconnect in access
Violence in inequality
Plaster case wrist folded in judgement on fools not to be suffered
Many heads many feet making heavy work
Marching through the stasis days
Exploring Limbo with Hell around the corner
These flesh frames contain twenty five experiences
Twenty five souls, Twenty Five TEACHERS
Knowledge seeping, flowing, pooling on the baize and filling to the ceiling
Just one of 25, of X Billion, a student without substance, closer to unknown pleasures in the interzone a dead body and soul still.

Scrap 1

Tiring honesty
Another face, another mouthpiece for this new cowardice
The bravery projected without,
Lives in gasps in the face of inquisitions and only one
Loyalty demands, invokes, real vulnerability
And this moment it feels that it might last;
No cloaks, No Locks, No Masks
Only your love exposed to the ugly human face of me,
Unflinching

June 17th (2)

If we have to wait for the mythical sinless
This stoning will never start
Theres a tank barrel pointed at me and a bullet of hate in my heart
The earth is a commonwealth
Yet we try our utmost to tear ourselves and it apart
We laugh in tragedy and cry ourselves to death in farce
As the superstructure screams
‘play your part!’

We should write our own
Burn the crown, reject the throne
Whether a knight or a bishop
The pawns are your own
So respect the sacrifice for your honour and glory
Who pays the price?
We stay coldburnt like fire in ice
Shrouding our bodies
For purity only flames will suffice
Every inequity and every prize razed to the dirt
Ground zero
A cleansed land beyond tower blocks
Beyond mansions
Simple and fertile
A reclaimation
A rebirth

June 17th (1)

A fractured tibula
And a cracked forced smile
Bruised puckered flesh
Skirts riding up
Interlude to the orange tranquil twilight
Before rare sunlit gathering
All meat and innuendo
So we’re up to speed
But they’re not in the know
and the drip in MY vein ,
Killing me
is full of question marks not capital flow
Checkmate;
I’ve cornered myself foursquare
Moments of short attention
Mornings of bridge crossings
The daily worship
And millennial pause for thought
Creeping skin puffy corpulent
Never settled
One only has oneself to blame
One only has oneself to praise
One only has oneself to raise
Beyond the limitations
Defy expectation
And don’t help tack down the lid on the coffin they gave you
City seeps sickness in through your eyes
Machines do too
No morality
No truth
Can stop that for you
No change of address
No flight
No careful studied ignorance will find the proof
That sits in you
Im acknowledging that
Fighting back
Music on my side
Rivers flowing through me
Merging, pooling
I accept myself
I'll be just fine
These failures will not stand as markers of my guilt
Ill rise above and find a space to fill until
I feel the rumble
Beyond the walls
That calls me to battle
That calls me to prayer
Fighting for the spirit of compassion
Resisting divisions
Refuse the hate we imprison ourselves in
That kills us stone dead and leaves the illusion of living

Magic

Cultivation in the morning and throughout
Thoroughly
You have my permission to be impressed
The ride never stops it just runs right through
Leaving signatures prefaced by scripts writ in waves
Good
With joy
Living, and loving the idea of love
Trust in the universe and faith in the Northern line
Because something conspired in the mix of disappointments and glee
And put the bravery of the fool in me
Just for one evening and by the most precise random Magic
The fool was in the ascendant
Beyond reason the Lady entertained
With humility, grace and appreciation
And the Fool found a window in one world
Traced by his index
And stepped right through into another story

The lady kisses twice, brushing each cheek
and speaks ideals That put that crass world back through the window
To shame, with its rigid gray pincers.
Her voice dances a tattoo of liberty
Leaving the fool hoping he can write the continent
By the stars in bold
Creating the kingdom of magic
Where the lady becomes his queen


Now the world’s full again
With more than just options and opportunism
This story breathes out and in
Unpredictable, contracting and expanding around him
With this manifest sense of destiny
Erasing signatures, crumbling contracts
And making contact NOT contacts
Because the real fairy tale is that people matter
And in this tale tokens became priceless
Nerves become charm and a journey of journies of a hundred miles or two
Starts with the first tiny step toward the tube

Easter Sunday

I've definitely run out of things to say
Feeling the answers are continents beyond
The questions might be closer to home but joy resists the fading thrall of blood
On a day like today
And this new character is already taking its toll
He sleeps late and personally I find his ethics somewhat distasteful
Whilst I’m folding the washing I’m thinking
Of all the corners cut
Of all the red eyed slaps
The conclusion is keep going
Because you can’t beat God
So stop looking in the pews for a muse and hit the dancefloor
Hit the gallery, hit the lecture theatre but please think beyond
Divisions and great hair styles and conviction
Think into a new obsession
One with higher returns and healthcare
In a suburban castle where sprinkled stardust on the doorstep
Loses its lustre and becomes so much more cladding
Who exactly is this speaking? We put this heart and soul into each twenty four hours
Sending the right message to the person at hand
No time to not be shallow, fickle
Brutal chasing
That which makes us whole

Heart and soul heart and soul heart and tarnished soul existing
Within the echoes of greater men, in the shadow of the divine
Creating ,or some lesser activity
To pay the dues on this soul
Grinding whichever axe looks dullest turning the blade away from the light and thinking of their smiles as we swing up for the deathblow

Photorealism

The thick lens curves concave
It’s the dull blade that vents
Letting our your fears through slits that bleed light
It’s the murmur in the dark on the ceiling above
A chord struck for maximum effect

Its in the invisible clouds
It’s in your stringy saliva
It’s the living, breathing epitome of waste
A life misplaced
All things either corrupt or chaste
Nothing grey
Divisions render this world liveable
Put it in a box and walk away

Distance
Alienate
Brew the bitter drug
And Walk Away

But those vents grow to tears
That rip the fabric of our veils
And open up this space again
You hear that murmur in a new light
As the birth cry of a fresh spectrum
And all is blinding
For one second.
( Breathe In)
Bitterness ferments and exhales the sweet scent of life
Into the field of daydreams
Sunspots on my vision flick beauty across the lens
It cracks and we’re real
Exposed and walking in toward

Where’s my right mind?
Right intention
Right angles triangulating to create the space where the thought was born
Filthy and Wretched
Gasping and Crying
Clasping the air for a wisp of life
Scrubbed down, weighed, raised and taught to hate
Taught to behave like the rest of us

And the city eats people like candy floss
At the side of the road where the traffic meets
And the light falls hard on my bed tonight
As the evening envelops our bodies and hearts

Time to stop seeking refuge in material, thinking out loud for the world to hear
I wish I could be through skin and words
Translucent and empty
To be filled by you
Close to the bone but not holding firm
Moving with the spirit not the letter
Because we never laid down those laws.

And the city kills people, clear as day
In the jagged cracks where they fall in between
And the trains run late straight through my soul
Screeching to a halt where lovers part.

Stream

Principle deviation reciprocates anger
Slowly grasping that, without learning, One is dead
What IS your ideal?
And what WOULD you settle for?

Stars of David & Broken Chains beat a dull tattoo,
Red Globes rotating, hanging godess on black cotton loop
Holding interactions at bay

Greasy, heavy headed shallow sleeping underprepared
And now I'm present
Sunk depressions
Into Brown private space they stare
Passive agressive negative accession in the tower
By the spiral stair.

Prose? (January 2009)

"Do you believe in Unconditional Love?"

He asked the audience.One walked out so he turned to the other, took a moment, and repeated the question

"When I meet my brother, I don't want to be afraid. I'm not sure I believe and I won't have control"

She stretched and raised her hands to her eyes, rubbed, blinked and rubbed again, then she said

"Well, I don't know about love but I know about conditions."

Poem (18th Feb. 2009)

Blood flushed cheeks and a drained Ego
That Pinprick of realisation waited
Until the coast was clear and then opened me up to the world
The best of evenings...
Misguided ideas, cultural delights,respect
And an oh so superior inferiority complex
left to set overnight and produce a new man
So where's the mould?

January

January snow scares first time driver
Beats mix on the stereo cutting
Left to Right
Green lights all the way so far, flickering but constant
Singalling patterns of access and proferring information without reassurance
Exploring resistance,reform,revolution,retrenchment, reverence,
Subterreania.

Fragment

Beautiful technology
Spreading the love across hidden shallows
Shaded by the overhangs of our bold overtures,
Claims a very small person making bigger noise
Polluting the peaceful air of float-down calm
And they shrink a little more inside
Asking the silent question repeatedly
‘Do you believe in unconditional love?’

Two stanzas on debt

1. Somewhere between the pavement and the sky these words write themselves
In a motion of awkward asymmetry
Hanging, laid flat
Notebook cover against pillow
Whilst thin wall breeze shoot conversations waft toward the page
And I'm thinking
"I have a great line with no where to stick it"

"I hate to owe people money but it seems to be something I'm getting good at"

2. And all that rush of creative blood
Effusing my hand and heart
Was but a flutter of ladybird's wings
Pretty easily missed
Like Turin river bank moments
Finished, colourful and catalogued
Dead with a plaque
And cheap pins right through them
I think I owe words more than that
My life, however, is not yet worth giving
Accruing as it has minimal interest.

Scarves and Rainbows

"Awesome Scarf Man!"

"Cheers Mate!"

Five words, brief exchange
A
Wonderful Pink moment in a melancholy Manor House morning
Saturday, post-party
As I picked my return down the road of hermits, Shisha and doleful sad Alsations
Holding rescued mug plucked from a distant
neighbours wall
Last night I saw my best friend
For the first time in six months and we laughed until we cried
I danced mid clean up at 430AM between the sun set and oblivion
And I jumped at the spark of new connections
I can't know yet if the voltage is correct
Appropriate for the plug I hold
And in the frozen light of Finsbury park at 1130
I didn't feel so electric
But it's amazing what a little stroll and a word from a stranger can do to settle that which is in flux
Sometimes current flows, sometimes it doesn't and I'm thankful to have seen no storms
Flushed with half sleep, cold air and the promised bounty of tea sitting at the end of the road
The road becomes my rainbow and I keep following

Others (?)

Heavy load makes light work of the significant
And squeezes out The Other
Inconsequential then, the trickle of self when all the consequence I want
Is my health, his health, a cat and someone to make Mixtapes for
They're actually CDs
But what's romantic about a
mix
CD?
Ill equipped, unsure and suspicious,
Unease sneaking that I'm not good enough for her
So why waste both our time?
There's so many projects in life.
I can't apologise enough for the bad habits I'm entrenching
Naked ambition, Short Attention and a million and one referential mentions
of this
of that
of The other
Squeezing back in for a second
And all because there's certain things I never want to say
Until its to late
So I lock my truths in indefinite detention
displaced
Screaming in space
Suffocated by the vacuum
Condemned by deals made in a a back room
Off the Radar
Like a single bird in lonely flight 'cross a fractured sky
The devils in the detail
And this is a Big Picture
Big Enough for things to slip down into a fissure and never return
Like I did; fresh, clean, two lifetimes ago

Elemental

If I am to be a log on the fire of life
Let me burn bright
Transforming
As each white cinder joins the night
Glowing orange against the desert
Let me give comfort, warmth, energy, inspiration
And even as I cease to burn
And crumble back to the soil where I was born
Let me leave a powder memory mingled underfoot
It would be an honour to heat the kettle
Nestled snugly against me
Boiling the water which you use to make your tea
Drink deep and smile for me
Beneath the stars and moon we share