Waste

Many the ways he sought exhaustion
But his mind would never rest
And all his loved ones ran away
From his strangeness of request
He used up all his money
Buying fleas to set them free
And used his time up writing
To those he could not see

holes

i am as deep as the
wide as the
cold as the

i am as dead as a
cold as a
ruined as a

words fail as
leave falling farewells on deaf
tears tear
shreds throbbing pulsing reds
trial by
branded by
scorched by
quenched not

you left a
when you left
gaps punctuate the maps of my
like a punchcard, punch drunk, punch hard
unresolved like a huge unanswered

empty words begat empty
and hearts entwined became
strangled vines
ripping chunks when they
leaving deep scars upon our

now my life sentence is un
i cannot finish my
for the holes have become too
for me to

shadow

there's a shadow on us
all our celebrity drivel dancing
celebrated global trolley dashing
our cellophane frippery
and nylon honesty
our dizzy waltz through paradisical malls
somehow palls

when the shadow catches up
to see our jollity
the frozen smiles of fear
on news screens
our amused nonchalence
and indifference to the souls that writhed
to keep our shelves stocked
will catch us

when we're placed on the scales
no longer riding the top of the wheel
who will defend us
who will weep for us?
when we had it all
and forgot compassion
in the blur of fashion
who will cover us
but our shadow?

a cold hand rests on our shoulder
turning our hilarity stale
our heaped rewards now look sinister
when we catch a glimpse of the hungry eyes
waiting for us to fall

permission

do you know that you have permission? permission to be alive, to taste the world, to smile a big wide smile at the world. you are allowed to risk hurting yourself and others in your quest to feel alive, you are allowed to risk poverty through your generosity and injury through your recklessness. you can ruin your health and lose your shape through self abuse, you can lose your friends and step on lover's heads in your quest for ambition, because nobody will stop you, nobody is qualified to judge you, and nobody is really watching.
but now that you are free, just what do you want to be? if there is no judge but you, who do you want to be?
if there is no right and wrong, no god watching, no kharma to pay, just how would you want to live? if all your sins didn't lose you any sleep would you still have values that you believe are worth living up to? if nobody was impressed by your values would you still want them?
i am asking because so many people live on autopilot, following values which they have never truly considered, feeling guilt or fear of a god that they've never really believed in, or felt squashed by a conscience that they've never really thought about. are we good if we are good through fear? especially if we are not even certain what we are afraid of.
perhaps you have been seeking the approval of your friends or family, but have you considered how you would feel if they were no longer there to judge or approve?
if nobody was watching, would you still care?

performance

this is for you
and for you and you
thankyou

thankyou, for adding to the daily diet of drivel
for pilfering and plagiarising meaning
for reducing heart-rending emotion
into clever laughs and knowing smirks
for breaking into all our works and
pulling us down from our pedestals
making our yearnings easily repeatable
with council grants to re-emote
so we can self promote our heart strings
and play our brand of plaintive notes
for claps
and sit on your collective laps
stroking your good taste until you purr

but i am here to bite the hand that feeds
to say you! and you! and YOU!
and you will clap to see such rebeliousness and spiky bravery
like a smoker convincing himslef that the safety warnings 'aren't for me'
you'll never see that YOU! means me

the me inside your poised body
hoping to see and be seen
in this rather highbrow scene
the hidden me
only realised in dreams
the hunger fear and anger and the greed
the empty lost enormous need

poetry is decoration
the words are paint that colours bring to life
but behind the words lies the indescribable
behind the paint behind the lies

behind the entertainment lies the lurch
the jolt the jerk
when we awake and see what we really are
and what we've missed
and how huge the world
how huge the abyss
and the question
the question we can never shape into a word
that we can never form to hurl
into the dark
futile and dwarfed by the unanswerable answers that will never come

but i advise you
to clap politely
and to hope you weren't included in my scope
when i turned and broke the pact
that lives in every act.

because you and you and you
i love you all i really do
because i know without a doubt
behind our flouncing posing pouting
the human race really sucks
and every one of you like me,
are well and truly f*cked

alone

we're born alone
we die alone
and always know that ourself awaits
alone in the dark
when the talking has stopped
alone in our eyelids when distraction has gone
lying wrapped round a loved one
knowing that one day they'lll be gone
and we alone must carry on.
we get a glimpse
when our babies are born
that we're joined fast to others
and we're not alone
but we watch them outgrow us and long to leave home
we catch another who longs to hold us
and our eyes reflect the other's soul
holding closer than arms alone can touch
staring deeply hearts reaching out
knowing inside
that one day it will go
and we'll remember
that ultimately
it's a life sentence
and we're always alone

bristol sound

listen to the beat of swaying feet
that creak beneath bare trees
and hear the breath of yesterday
playing in the leaves

the tattered flags of rags
hung down scarecrow knees
the rebel sons of riot got caught,
exported to expire in toil on sunburnt fields

does it matter that the caves
that supported these proud banks
once groaned with the shackled branded and enslaved?
that the rivers of blood that shekled this trade
that built these streets with stains of red were paved?

that these docks uprooted and transplanted
entire nations to plantations
orphans, betrayed and underhanded
robbed of history and permanently rebranded?

so who inherits this dockside town
who bears it's ill-renoun and stands up in it's dock of shame

does it matter when the sun is shining
and the city looks benign
and pretty people flip flop down the streets
in chilled and breezy ease?

with every week a spectacle
to keep us entertained
content with bread and circuses,
we'll cheer the media games

we'll gaze in struck-dumb wonder,
at the crystal leisure domes
giddy with our reckless credit,
we'll buy it all if we are able
and stuff our faces till we're numb
with crumbs from the merchants' table

after all who cares, we weren't there
they're dead, it's not our problem now its theirs
their cries aren't here to stain our ears
those tears can't soil our eyes
their pain won't ruin our years
cos history's the stuff of squares

so lets chill out and party,
this banquet's hardly tasted
it's friday night so lets forget,
so lets get out, get wasted