Just a quick reminder to those who are unsure or, on
reading this believe I write from experience: my poetry
comes from imagined fiction – I make stuff up – I am
not planning on buying a motorbike or having fights with
my wife (although I am surely ripe for a mid-life crisis)

On a hotel room
An unsteady squint strains at these reeking walls,
Tar-stained from the puffing of road-warrior nightjars
Who drank deep on drams of their superior’s wishes
And tormented their second-best wives
With lies that they both sensed the taste of
On tongues which waggled a tarantella dance around
The sharp bull horns of cheating, his bright fighter’s
Cape of platitudes furling around him as her doubts, fears
Of betrayal stamped the ground and snorted a steamy
Spittle that shook the doors of their marriage.

Another night death-gripping the bedcovers with her
Suspicions. Another knocking his rocks against
Bell-ringing glass and sucking the brown burn
Of bitterness drowning as it washed resentment
From teeth electrified by edge against edge grinding.
He has no reserve of desire to drag
Doing The Right Thing along with him. There are
True selves to find in motorbike trips and
Many destinies thwarted by coming home on
Time and painting the bedroom walls white.

He claims, by example, better use for tomorrow can be made by
Hung-over vikings who arrive red-eyed amongst
The enslaved and clocked and desk-bound.
His warrior clothes strewn with a confetti of
A fixed agenda torn to shreds stuck on
With cock-sure machismo spirit. The gaunt evidence
Written for posterity across the deepening creases
Of his buffalo-tongue face betrays the wear and
Fraying as his identity and purpose bounce away from him
Into the tragic pile of Things He Could Have Done.

We all starin’ at the fender we followin’
lip bit focus from the fella who drives.
Davey ‘im a snooze and he sweatin’ up a storm
the others shift position like they on hot rocks.

Five guys packed in and all packin’,
colors on our backs, full-on inked and all that.
Five guys settin’ on a mission
teach a guy a lesson he’s really gonna get.
Five guys flexing up their muscles;
tonight: click-click bang-bang respect.

So we reach a shady corner
and see ‘im slouchin’ like a drunk.
Waistbands ripple as we pull our metal out
flashes of munitions and pop pop pop;
sloucher hits the deck and his baby-momma drops.
There’s a screamin’ and a wailing’ as we screech away fast
this lesson is a lesson that’s really gonna last.

We whoopin’ and a yellin’ coz we done our bit o biznizz,
9 mil teachers smokin’ up the car.
We’re slappin’ and fist bumpin’ and biggin’ up ourselves
whilst the driver stamps the pedal and he turn his knuckles white.

Five guys start the path to penitentiary
where the tats are tears in the corners of your eyes
but five guys only got one focus
coz five guys happy with their retribution night.

Mission after failed mission of overtightened shirt cloth incomparable to the air-brushing wizardry of a celebrity book of spells; calorie-counted celebrity inspiration, feeling the burn; “one more minute, don’t forget to stretch and warm down”.

A plastic-propped peep into a better life where everyone is shiny and the right machine can make you God’s own barista without even having to watch the accompanying DVD box set.

All on the never never. ’til the never becomes the now.

In a surge of nature versus big business our crude seas wash over us in an endless tide of promises and slicked birds who drown in the failures of our present way of life.

In the background; an urgent pitch to call now and pay nothing for twelve months. A lesson unlearned.

In the foreground; stands a poet working out the best way to perform the Heimlich maneuver on a dog whilst he waits for his toast to turn tan.

So this is what we’ve become.

It melts you, this acid love.
Dissolves the bits that you were and leaves
nothing but the framework of you, bawling.
From whole to gone in one easy splash
of liquid misfortune;
just to pour on you, on you, on you.

The shadows hide things.
Malevolences who loom at the edges of my sleep.
As I start to sink into the marshmallow quicksand of my bed
they huddle, a gaggle of threats in the corners of the room, plotting.
They know me. They know the real me.
The me that runs away from trouble.
The me that’s scared of everything.
Overspending me, lying me, cheating, crying me.
I am deafened as they bang the drum of my heartbeat,
a roaring, storming crashing sea of a pulse in my ears,
relentless;
beating, beating, beating, beating.
Have mercy!
The night terrors whirl slowly in from
the menacing giant squid-ink black abyss
of my bed-time sight. Their voices whisper
to me; “bereft, bereaved, bequeathed: the pain”.
They creep their fingers into my mind
and squeeze out the happy thoughts;
“make way, make way for the doubts,
clear out, clear out for the fears”.
I shake my head, desparation shake,
writhe to loosen their grip on me.
Swhirling spirits, they gather themselves
together, form into something dirty, something from
the precipice pit come to feed on the sap of my soul;
“we will riddle you, we will rack you”
the zepherous whisper as I burn in their hell.
“Money, money, money”, there’s the taunt.
I’m forcing myself to think of beaches
and sunshine, deep breaths, deep breaths, but
they’re pulling at my tortured twitching legs again;
“we have you”, the pain, the pain, the pain.

Slap our smile away, strike it from our face
and claw into those puckering cheeks and drag
them again towards the downturn, their
rightful place. He spits at us as we look
towards the sky from the window where he
keeps us under his pressing thumb.

Cruel, cruel master who tells us not to look
that way, not to think that way not to ripple
with the pleasures that he rejects.

He likes guilt. He approves of remorse. He
picks at confidence and, at the first taste
he grabs and carries handfuls of it
and throws them howling into his greedy
mouth. We are not allowed a pure sky,
it must be corrupted by plunging thoughts.
We are forbidden to succeed; even at
the point of success He will stick a
knife sharpened on introspection deep,
deep, deep into our backs and twist
it hard so we are irretrievably impaled
and our insides are spun about it like
spirals around a devil’s fork.

Shall we start to speak? He tells us we
may not. We slump into the shape He dictates
as He furls around us, tears and bites at the
skin of our hands to punish our protest, at
the signs that leak out. Compliance is required.
Compliance is expected.

Our tongues are pinched and forced back into
our heads and made to knot against our throats
where He will only let them sit behind the beginnings
of a poker face, dour with the lines of His
handiwork.

You are merciless, Master, merciless and
a cruel bully who has hidden us away.
Please, not for eternity.

This is the reality worm that spits on your
breakfast so you lose your appetite.

This is the hitch-hiker who steals your
dreams whilst you sleep, scribbles out
days on your calendar and adjusts your
priorities without asking if it’s ok.

This is the bringer of a vain hope that
God exists, or that at least love really
can conquer all, despite the odds.

This is someone else’s epic battle that you’ve read
about and it loomed unplanned on your horizon
whilst you are still far too young and have so
many things left to do.

This is the teacher of new words, new statistics
and new ways of saying things, like “whipple” and
“procedure” and “chances” and “affairs in order”.

This is the pink ribbon and the races in
memory of you.

This is how you get to be yesterday’s
face in a photograph.

This….is….It.

Fight It. Don’t give up.

Guide me, tell me what the sickness is.
Is your stare the look of mortal sin,
that richter grin on your clammy skin?
Tell me, is that the look of tempted fate,
the fatal conclusion of the all too late?
Tell me, can I do something, can I sooth
the thing that eats your heart, can I kill the
demons on your behalf?
We were so good together, we fought the
world and nothing could beat us, we
were the ones they said would last,
we were the ones who set the pace,
we were the ones who’d win the race.
Tell me, are you still in there?
Did we get caught by the snare of
the evil vixen, warmed up witch with a
bloody mixer?
Is the person I met so long ago
breathing the breath of the living
death or do you still flicker your
fires behind those glassy eyes?

Show me, show me something to give
some hope.

Let me know that you’re not
lost, that the bridge too far has not been
crossed. We were so good together, we fought them
all, the biggest problems, we led the way
and the others followed, we were the ones
with the bright tomorrow.
Have you left me? Are you gone forever?
Hand in hand with your smokey satan?
Did the odds beat you, have you lost the
game? Will things ever be the same?
We were so good together, we fought the world
and nothing could beat us, we were the ones
they said would last but the flames and spoon
were just too fast, you poked the hole
but they set the pace, led you to the call
of the inner space.
The deceitful warmth of its other world womb
hides the fact it’s your living tomb; we’ll
pull the works from your skinny limbs,
pump in life and earthly things,
but the call of the siren’s song goes on
and carries your mind to the world beyond.
A place where nether creatures fly
where shaking needle wielders die
and sparks of love, of happy days
are wiped away by their wicked ways.
You’re set adrift on darkened water
because you chose to kiss the devil’s daughter.

They say I must be clever,
the best brains have friends who advise,
and on and on do they ever
but the dullest sickest sayings
come breezing from their mouths
which, unseen but constant prickings
are urging me again
to ignore the real reality
and seek to ease the pain.

To some they come with music
and others whilst mixing paint
and some get friends from foreign governments
who urge loss of self-restraint
whilst sending written messages
through newspapers in code
push my mind across the precipice,
from the edges of the road.