rain

pathetic fallacy beneath desks behind eyes behind clouds and smiles where shadows lurk creatures whisper damn i'm supposed to be listening what was that sorry won't happen again role call is that what the Americans call it hyperactive manic mind bruise-eyed not-quite-adults stupid grins motivationless meanwhile i slide through glass and manmade rivers the canals are freezing is this the all time low is it these stars is it these scars that are my last that were my first blind blind blind blink away tears the rain makes me feel alive so so alive damn lost the conversation oh we're talking about rain she says it makes her miserable it makes him angry but the rain is so very beautiful reflections of water and headlights and stop saying like oh tornado here we are again some nights i am cold and thin full of skinny thoughts echoing lost songs and sighs where figures dance to the light of the moon like the fable says hurricane hearts are blown apart by the storm.

even you

clockwork heart
beating
in the night
not silent
i want my machinery to stop
click and clack into stillness
i want my heart to beat
on its own
without cogs and twirling metal
more than i've ever wanted
anything.
even you.

new year

new year
a new beginning
and I have to remember when i write the date
new start
new life -
no,
it's not a new life.
it's the same old one
transplanted into another time
and as we waited
bated breath
glasses ready to clink
for some it was already time to wake
time to live.
live well.
live happily.
live.

infinite

Every electrified particle and atom of matter 

Every casual brush of clothing, accidental 

You're there.

Every workaholic stressor with creases round his eyes 

Every unassuming comment made with darkened, laugh lined smiles 

You're there. 

I can see your face, all made of Greek letters and stormy Michelangelo pencil strikes. 

I see you. 

My dear, last night I lay in the grass and you were there in the night. I closed my eyes and you asked me, "Are you happy?" I wasn't sure. 

My dear, I caught your eye across the street and fought the crowd to find you, but when I arrived you were gone. 

My dear, I saw you across the street and waved at you, a smile on my face and electric bones. You waved back and in that moment I saw you more clearly than I ever had. You are infinite. 

wretch

Here we stand
In an era of texts and wretched selfies
Where I hide my words away
Because secrets can be stolen
And I would rather keep them hidden
From the public prying eye
Than watch as your pretty lips
Mouth goodbye to any shred of dignity
That I retained
My ideogram language
To stay sane in a down and out
Eclipsed society
And I would say
Stay away from my friends
If I had any to save
Here we go again
Kissing stars and keeping hearts
Escaping all our preconceived loneliness
Beauty forgotten but not gone
Forgotten but not silent
You never heard me leaving
And now I'm never
Coming back.

glassghost drifting

the remorseful cut is made dismissive we had a deal a compromise so on impulse I lean forward lift your shield it is heavy and tired but I must be armoured against the hiddendark in the shadows with a needle waiting there lies our secret anesthesiologist with contempt in his eyes for the bittersweet irony of our reunion while I strangle you choke choke choke on your defiance I abandon you with a blackblue face and an empty mind full of chandeliers as we push off the goodbye gondola I see your glassghost drifting delicate I no longer have faith in you dear firefly lying in that hollow grave of yours oh the irony I see it but no one else does line my eyes with extra kohl and then we're in liplock stasis passing lost lying letters between tongues like no one else ever could eyes like the aurora borealis high tide begging for justice well maybe I will give you mercy is it a sign is it an omen of silkpoison ribbons screaming their siren slaves in spiteful vice thread wind round my fingers until it goes purple and a pulse forms inside oh me oh my what a wreck what a wretch as we slip slide fall downtown to the ellipses eclipses of widowed wives who still hold the luxury of flesh through the gateway the goosegirl dances over the waves in harmony harbour machinery clicking clockwork gears humming numbers inkstitched inside eyelids to drown the hovercraft iron keyboard and as it falls there's a millisecond of silence complete stillness and then gone to the platinum disc the carbon world plastic and nylon in december winds with cigarette smoke floating through the monday rain.

white lace doilies

i played with pretty white lace doilies when i was younger, colouring in the fragments piece by piece with the occasional eureka moment of cathartic ecstasy and i think Archimedes said once that he had “got it” but i don’t know what he thought he had gotten because really no one has anything at all and there are stars stars stars with a wrong light all wrong but still singing and the crystal wine glass is full of dark red with little white lines of reflected light like i am watching raindrops plink to the ground full of hope but it is washed out of them and i want to seek you out but i don’t know who you are or what you look like or where you live i only know that you are oh so beautiful and i want you to be happy there’s a terrible knowledge sitting in my heart that tells me you’re sad and i don’t know why but it makes me cry as i look at you in all my favourite photographs like a model on the catwalk and you don’t know who you are without the heels and the makeup but i’m telling you never let anyone tell you how to live or who you are because media is hiding you away and you need not be hidden i promise you there are promises and then there are promises and this is the second kind the kind that is always kept cat-silent and the horizon isn’t really so far away you know it is only that it is always moving like a dream ahead of me and i can’t – quite – catch it – and there you see gone again like the horizon i can’t follow you wherever it is that you go when your eyes are distant and you don’t focus on me when i say your name i used to think that the moon followed the car when we wound round twisty intersections copper-snake-like and you fell asleep with lavender eyelids fluttered deep dream sleep bone tired scar tired high wired