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I've been resistant up until now to the idea of putting any of my written stuff up on the web (at least, up on my webshite), I know I'm a shit poet and I don't need anyone else to tell me that. However, I decided that the time is ripe for new content on this web thingy, and poems it will have to be. If you have any poetry you'd like to see online, then FOR FUCK'S SAKE DON'T SEND IT TO ME. I'll only lose it or forget about it or do something stoopid with it. Take a look at these delightful sites instead, as they are much better than this one. In particular, The Rose Garden has a section for submitted poetry, and is an all round wonderful place. Some of the poetry I print here is culled from that land of joy and make-believe.
So without further ado, these are some of my terrible poems:
I was in the bar.
Chris, who has the room next to mine, came in.
There was a message. My parents said to call.
urgent.
I leave the bar, to find a phone.
I find one, put 20p in the slot and dial.
it's bad.
Whatever it is, it's bad.
That's why they said Urgent.
That's why my fingers are shaking as I dial.
Engaged.
Shit.
Wait a minute. Check my internal mail.
Dial again.
Engaged.
Go and check my email. None. None since 5:00
Phone again.
It rings.
My dad answers, stumbling his words slightly.
My grandmother, my mother's mother, has died.
Somehow I knew before he said it.
The moment Chris said there was a message for me to ring home, I knew.
I rise from my body and hear myself asking how, where, when.
I listen with detatchment, coming to the surface only when my mum says
Cancer.
Shit. I had no idea.
Absolutely no idea. No one did.
My mum only found out last night.
Cancer of the liver.
A peaceful death, though, at the age of 83.
A good life.
A good innings.
I hear myself saying things like it's good she didn't suffer much.
I hear myself talking about funeral arrangements.
I hear life going on while I'm held in a calm limbo.
I feel the beginnings of nauseea in the pit of my stomach.
After a while, I finish the conversation, and put the phone down.
I go back to the bar. Everyone's having fun. Karaoke.
I stay there, not knowing what else to do.
I email a few times in the course of the evening, not knowing what to do.
Emotion, while felt, fails to overwhelm me.
Singing helps a lot. I sing as loudly as I know how.
Walking home, I realize, I haven't cried yet.
I can only just remember the last time I cried.
I want to cry. I need to cry.
If I cry, if I knock down this fucking tower of cards it'll be OK.
And life will go on.
For fuck's sake, why can't I cry.
I want to rage against the dying of the light, but something stops me.
Maybe I'm too male.
Maybe I'm too English.
Maybe I'm too emotionally fucked up.
Maybe it's all and none of these things.
I don't know.
All I know is I'm going to miss her.
All I know is I want to cry.
My mind in limbo, void of voice's kiss,
Is shrouded in the silent flowing dark.
My sight, my touch, all there, but I'm left ragged,
I miss one sense. It's somehow like I never
Knew sound before, though not far gone the fire
Of cacophonic voices left me screaming.
I wished for silence, pleading, weeping, screaming,
So when it came I greeted with a kiss.
However, like the heat gleaned from the fire
May warm, then burn, the silence made me dark.
I've heard the sound of nothing, and I never
Wish my world of perception to be ragged.
It started - so I think, my mind turns ragged -
At times when I grew tired of the screaming
Assembly of voices that would never
Leave me to enjoy Morphia's drowsing kiss.
I fought and fought the noise 'till eyes grew dark.
I wished to plunge my senses to the fire
Of sweet oblivion - Pungent, cleansing fire! -
I got my wish, and soon the frenzied, ragged
Assemblage of sounds dulled and grew dark.
A gradient, not a cut off, to the screaming
Was all the herald to the quiet kiss.
The switch between 'Forever' and the Never.
O how could I, a mortal soul who never
Before has heard the silent, bright soul fire,
Which fills infinity, the vacuum kiss,
Know soundless all my wits would be rent ragged?
My frenzy worse for not hearing my screaming
I welcome my forthcoming, ending dark.
I see the dark, and this tells me I never
Will know again the screaming lively fire.
This life is ragged, I wish for Her kiss.
I left a note. After it was nearly all over, when the desk, the sofa, the chest of drawers, the wardrobes and everything apart from the bed had gone, I lay under my bed and thought about 14 years. 14 years which were mainly unhappy. 14 years I had at least once considered ending. 14 years of returning almost every night to this blue carpetted lagoon of comfort. no more. Nothing any more. Just empty floor, an abandonned pencil, and a sheet of paper. I found that a corner of the carpet came up slightly. Not enough to be noticed, but enough to be of use. I thought, for a while, about what this had all meant to me. About what this all meant to me. About everything. I took up pencil and wrote. 'when dealing with this room, please take time to consider that for 14 years it occupied someones dreams, despairs, hopes, everything. It meant the world to him. It was the world to him.
Baptism by fire.
Only way forward.
Hardest the first time.
I hope so, after this evening I fucking hope so.
They came on.
Them, without me.
They played.
Them without me.
I stared.
At the space where I wasn't.
Fuck it, the space where I thought I should have been.
I listened.
Not having a good time, not having a bad time, just
Listening.
Then it happened.
It wasn't the song.
I couldn't give a good goddamn about the song.
It was the thought.
Or lack of.
The fact they were still using it and hadn't told me.
The fact they didn't even feel sorry.
I couldn't stay.
I couldn't breathe
in that room filled with 'friends'.
Fresh air
-or rather empty air-
was better than being an audience.
Sometimes it's dark
Sometimes I feel mired in mundanity
Sometimes people want more than I can give
Sometimes I just want them to leave me alone
Sometimes no-one listens
sometimes I feel every hand is turned against me
Sometimes the world feels too cold
Sometimes I run out of things to say
But then I think of Her
& however dark it is, I can see
& however stuck I am in the mud, my head is in the heavens
& however much I give, she gives me the strength to go on
& I never need to be alone
& there's always a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen
& I always have somewhere to turn to
& however cold it is, I have her warmth
& all I need to say is 'I love you'
[3 figures stand onstage, around 10 feet apart, in an equilateral
triangle, point towards the audience, Figure 1 is a middle aged
man, respectable looking; figure 2 is a man in his late 20s,
slightly red in the face, figure three is a young man of around
17, thin and surly looking. All 3 face the audience (1 closest,
2 and 3 to stage laft and right respectively) and are lit as they
speak. When not speaking, or when joining in on someone's line,
characters have closed eyes, when speaking, their eyes are open.]
ALL: Everyone said it couldn't be my fault
1: I wasn't
there, you see.
My car, yes, but my son
was driving,
he needed to get across town
I was busy, and he asked me for
the keys, I felt
1&2: Duty
1: -bound to give them to him,
what else could I do? I assure you
I felt as shocked as anyone
when I heard
1&2 The car hit the wall
2: at quite high speed,
no broken bones, but it was
a close thing.
Of course, I had to stop,
poor lad was all shaken up
then again, he was driving
like he was
2&3: crazy
2: seemed in a hurry, still
no-one's blaming him, though
it should teach him a lesson he
2&3: Couldn't miss
3: the wall if I'd tried,
silly bastard was coming
straight at me
like he was playing
chicken
or something. Someone had to be
3&1: responsible
3: so I moved out of the way
but we were too close
too close
I swerved, too late.
I hit the wall, I just hope
dad doesn't kill me when
he sees that the
3&1: Car was wrecked,
1: of course, but
he was fine, thank God, good
lad, 17, but responsible, not like
the other chap, silly drunken fool, it
was my
1&2: duty
1: to say something,
I mean he could have
killed someone.
I'm just relieved the boy was
1&2: OK,
2: I'd had a few drinks,
not much
just a pint
and a chaser
for a friend's birthday,
I wouldn't drive drunk, that would be
2&3: crazy,
2: something a
damn fool would do.
If you want to cast blame somewhere
look at the boy.
Provisional license.
Shouldn't even be driving.
They wouldn't even be
talking to me if I hadn't
stopped to take a
2&3: Look,
3: I'm taking my test
Next week, I'm
A good driver, if I
Didn't feel
3&1: responsible
3: driving I
wouldn't have. I'm not stupid.
My dad trusts me,
Said it was all right.
He was the one who let me
drive.
[light on all three faces. This part spoken like a canon, with
the three voices starting at intervals, as the first voices
finishes saying 'everyone said it' the second voice begins, same
with the third one. All three voices come in for the final 'my
fault']
1: Everyone said it couldn't be my fault
2: Everyone said it couldn't be my fault
3: Everyone said it couldn't be
ALL: my fault.
Rubber-soled oxblood stamps sharp
on the wind-chill platform,
ribbonned by cold,
skin lacerated by the harsh air
(colder here than back there,
always has been)
I return.
City of broken dreams.
City of former homecomings.
City of many and few returns.
City of the green lined road
with the red mill
and the grey room
where last I saw the
faces
five faces I love
will always love
(although five were six once,
are still six at some deep level)
A room that saw much
happiness
tension
love
humour
tears (on more than one occasion
from more than one face)
cherished moments
held like fragments of an ice sculpture.
melting.
City of broken dreams.
City of wanderers.
to all 4 corners of the country
& beyond.
We- they, all come back
(I no longer)
(I now loner)
"you can never truly leave"
Who said that?
They were right anyway.
Draws you back,
no matter what far flung straw
you clutch at.
Hoping.
Wanting something more.
Always travelling from,
never to.
City of broken dreams.
City of the freeze-dried moment.
Fresh as the hour they shattered my heart.
A long time ago
but embedded
like a sword point,
broken in the heart's powerful pump
to kill years later.
Sometimes I probe it
just to feel the pain.
To remember.
To never, ever, forget what they did to me
what I did to me.
City of broken dreams
City that tells me always
live in the present
or a false future
not a past you despise.
Tells me to let the wound heal
not pick at it.
(even though the birdshot
of their leaden words
still leaks its subtle poison).
I place foot after foot
on the stonewashed streets,
quietly surprised at myself
for keeping
balance
(& not curling up into a ball
& wishing it all away again).
It is everything
(and nothing)
like I remember it to be.
Nobody looks at me
on my cold-cheeked vigil.
Tramping the pavements
of the City of broken dreams.
Returning.
click on the sign to view them.
It wasn’t much, A small dark room under a dingy sign, A half-seen face behind the counter, Surveying his domain. I never knew his name. I went there sometimes, Saturday mornings, mostly, When the weekly wealth of pocket money Burnt my hands with its urgency To be spent. I’d buy a quarter of lemon bonbons Or something like that. A small paper bag of happiness To be consumed in front of the TV Or sat in my room with my comics. He was just a face Part of the shop, like the counter Keeping us kids trapped In the glare of one inquisitive eye. But deep down, caring. I won’t lie And say I know where I was when it happened. I was a child, the memory was lost In a pile of Batman comics and school outings. All I remember is that one Saturday The door to the shop was locked. Heart attack, they said, in his sleep. Peaceful, apparently, As much as death can be. Left a son in Luton, And a daughter married to a merchant banker. Of course, it was sold, What could they do? He was too far away, She was too busy, And so the doors shut for the final time. It never reopened. The new owners converted that dark room Into a lounge, and lived there. & kids like me Flooded elsewhere for our lemon bonbons. The small shops are gone now, Hit by the tsunami of mass retail. The nearest shop Is a 24-hour garage Where the sweets are sold in plastic bags.
It’s ten minutes Into my bad time. The time when they can’t see me Shouldn’t see me I don’t want them here. Some days it’s worse. Often, I’m fine, Don’t mind them at all, I can handle their eyes And their hands touching me But sometimes Sometimes… it’salltoomuchandthey’reallaroundandi’mbeingdrawnintotheirworldanditdisgustsmeidisgustme *deep breath* and I have to lock myself away. I breathe easier on my own. People use too much air We end up breathing in Each other’s breath. Each other’s sweat. So it’s better to keep away Keep AWAY Sometimes, when I’m Low And people are too much. With any luck, it’s over soon & I’m back Witty, lucid, able to communicate. OK again. The bad time is over
Long moments have passed
with longer pauses inbetween
since last I thought about this.
Memory fades so quickly
When you want it to.
You, dark haired, confident,
Never showing your inner turmoil
Me, a young fool,
Unplucked as the flowers
That adorned that bloody stupid shirt.
I knew nothing, nothing at all,
My naïveté knew no bounds
Which was bad, in the circumstances
You knew enough, too much about some things
Which was worse, worse than nothing could ever be
I can't blame anyone
Certainly not you, certainly not me
It had to happen sometime, with someone
But I ended up with your picture
Etched into my tabula rasa
I died that day,
(the ghost of my innocence
Lives on in my cloying sense of melodrama)
Died as a child
Reborn as a fool
I look back on the boy
That I was, that I lost
Another person, from the me
Older? yes. Wiser? fat chance
Who moves in the pattern of your imprint.
What were your thoughts, unrecognised yong poet?
Young volunteer, gut full of sweetened lies,
Writing, always writing, but not writing,
Not looking at the black clouds in the skies
Where did you think you'd get to when you got there?
Our Glory? Victory? Honour? Freedom? Words.
The tissues propoganda-printed, ruptured,
Two voices, sane, insisting they be heard.
There were only two places it could take you,
Out, to be a bloody hero, instead in in.
You first tasted the second, and were taken
To the open prison of the looney bin.
When you met him, when you and he parted,
He'd left with you your anger, as a seed.
The trenched machine guns tore men's flesh to flinders,
But only your words made a man's soul bleed.
But what can I say? Eighty years on, naive.
Your words have gone beyond all I could say,
Your final hours, a tragedy in waiting.
A death, night-times before our Armistice day.
I never knew you.
Funny, that, not knowing someone
Until after it all happens.
You were one of the main causes,
One of the reasons I started fighting
And yet I never knew you.
You were a face on a leaflet
Hurriedly bubblejetted off
Handed to me by my sister.
A face, a paragraph of text.
A life
Ended.
What they did to you,
What in their negligence, and greed
And stupidity, they did to you
Was unforgiveable.
A final straw.
Enough of an injustice to get me angry.
I was not the only one.
Your story, told to passersby
Told honestly and truthfully
(Concepts that I doubt they fully comprehend)
Moves people, makes up minds,
Turns people against them.
That said, your life was worth more,
Immeasurably more than this fight.
Nothing we can do will ever make up
For what they took.
For who they took.
A woman I never knew.
I am a man cocooned by
The chattering voices and looks of society.
Forever striving to cut and cauterise,
Sweep and censor,
Rid the realm of what is 'not done'.
I am an unwilling and yet somehow
Complacent member of a society I did not
(would not)
Ask to join and to which I was thrust by
An accident (incident) of birth.
I am an outsider
Who never knew the inside except
Through the eyes of others.
One who didn't realise his comfy gutter
Was one until now.
I am the side of itself that
The acceptable face of the body politic
Hides like a birthmark.
Not wanting to acknowledge
Let alone admit my existence.
I am as I always was
But nothing like the way I used to be.
Full of changes and similarities
Like the town you last saw as a child
And return to on your 35th birthday
I am a man making spiderfeet marks
On the virgin whiteness of a foolscap sheet.
Imbuing the wood-pulp
With my thoughts, my insignia,
Marking my territory with 'I am'.
I carved our initials in the trunk of a tree
In my back garden
Not all that deep
Not all that visible
But there.
I was twelve.
("It's easy to be an outcast when you're twelve"
As the good detective said.)
Twelve and hating it,
Hating everything.
Except you, my distant, unwitting ice maiden
Your cobalt-blue eyes
And white (not blonde, white) hair, drew me in.
You never knew I loved you.
I'd rather have died than have you find out.
I wasn't the most popular kid in school
To put it mildly.
In blunter terms, I had less friends than the trenchcoat mafia
At least they had each other
All I had was me.
And you. Sort of. Not quite. Not at all
You didn't mind me, didn't really notice me,
But sometimes we chatted,
Your tongue lacked the poison barbs
Others used to tear me limb from limb.
I moved round you in ginger circles
Wanting to be closer, but terrified you'd look at me
And know.
So I tiptoed, timid, terrified,
Like a man approaching a savage beautiful creature.
For over a year
I watched you from afar.
Afraid of getting close,
Afraid af the inevitable rejection
My low self esteem spoke to me about.
I never said anything.
The crush (for crush it was) faded.
My self-created fairygold
Turning to flower petals
In the morning's cold light.
The memory of this melancholy passion
Lay, unnoticed, undisturbed,
A locked crate in a dusty boxroom,
Until, last summer,
I moved house.
My last look around, feet tramping garden grass
Surveying the domain I would lose.
And there, warped by years and weather, much like me,
Etched in the impermanent permanence of the trunk of a tree
IR + GP
Most of what I write is fairly general in audience. Actually, that's a bit of an untruth, most of what I write is targeted towards one person (often one who will never read it) but which I think bears the scrutiny of my hardest critics, the people I trust (and the people I trust to be critical of me). This poem, however, has a very specific target audience. I try to define it as this: if you hear this poem read out to you, hear me stumbling over one or two of the phrases in here, then this poem was intended for you. If we are all sat here sipping tea in the bedroom of our host, then you already know who you are and know how much you mean to me. There are others though, people gone from us (although luckily not in a terminal sense), people who have drifted, people I have drifted from. Thoughts I cast to the air like balloons in a tornado. With luck, these words will find safe landing.
Now we are
Beginning,
Putting foot before foot on our first days.
Unknown to each other
For varying amounts of time
(and varying reasons)
Some of us alone for the first time.
"Well, he doesn't really have any super powers"
I put my weight to the boards as carefully as I can
Not knowing the friends I make here
Will last me a lifetime
Just trying to be myself.
For the first time in my life
Not needing to be anyone else.
"You lost it years ago in the back of a mini metro"
I remember your face when
Confident and cocksure
We sprung this on you at the dress rehearsal.
I understand now
(having written myself)
The reasons for your anger
And what a great friend you were being
By not showing it.
Now we are
Returning.
Mother always told us
The first Christmas back home
Was the worst, the most painful.
The culture shock from our own
To home cooking
And back again, drove some of us
(at least one in particular)
Back home, breaking new friendships.
"Dog's a fruit, innit?"
Comedy, intentional this time.
Strengthening existing bonds with my left hand
(the hand I write with
Though I type this with both)
Whilst forging new ones with my right.
There are still many of you
I have yet to meet
Many who do not know they will be here.
"Happy valentine's day"
The first I had to celebrate,
(& only the second time I got a card)
The feast of saint valentine allowing us
To witness trysts spring in and out of existence.
We witness, without fully understanding,
The tryst and la tristesse,
All the time moving closer,
Circles joining with circles
With each of us at the hub.
Now we are
Growing.
The friendships we have made
Rough-hewed, splintered things
Are polished, sanded, refined.
They become - we become
Things of beauty and value
Works of art to one another.
For the first time, you made me feel
Precious.
"I do like you, just not in that way anymore"
Loss.
A period I still call
(through my ever-overdeveloped sense of melodrama)
"The worst week of my life".
The first time I wrote poetry
Without tearing it up
The first time I wrote something
That tore me up.
From loss
(Of girlfriend, grandmother and close friend)
I gained confidence; I consolidated friendship.
"I parked her by the war memorial in her usual seat"
The end of comedy.
'Serious' acting, a proper role.
Another friendship gained,
The process of my metamorphosis
Advancing moment by moment.
Last goodbyes to a few departing friends
(And some I don't know are going
Until for too late).
Now we are
Older
Although I would dispute any claims of being wiser.
There are more of us
And more of us we do not yet know.
A group dispersed, but together.
I for one have never been closer to anyone
Than I am to all of you.
"We need to talk"
Words that perform the mental equivalent
Of shredding me strip by strip.
I know what they mean.
I lose half of myself
And cut most of my ties
With a town I am no longer 'from'.
"We have seen births, marriages and deaths"
Ceremonies attached to the church.
We gather, as if in worship,
Sometimes alone, sometimes watched,
Always our own audience.
New additions increase the heat
And our circle of friends bakes
Into something almost unbreakable.
"This is hell, this is exactly as futile as it gets"
It was strange that I spoke these lines
(Even stranger than that I wrote them).
We returned (some of us)
To the delivery room,
The crucible,
The fount and source of that which we became.
I returned (as did others) as a writer.
Now we are
Writing.
An audience, almost for the first time.
An audience of each other,
The best kind.
You trust me, as I trust you,
To be honest, to tell the truth.
The wings on my pen unfurl
Tentatively, timorously,
I take to the skies, borne up by my friends.
"What's happened to us?"
Sitting on high in the director's chair
I realise I am not the timid goateed boy
Who moved his belongings into Lindley Court.
I am no longer that product of other people's scorn.
The only people I hold responsible
For my transformation are myself
And my unwitting accomplices, you.
"I love you"
I said it first.
(On March 16th 1999)
But I know we had both
Thought the words long before.
My life was here near completion.
I had love, friendship, and words.
All things I had been lost for in the past.
Now we are
Joined
By bonds none but we can see.
Linked to (but not exclusive to)
The wordsmith's forge
Where we hammer our thoughts onto paper.
This is friendship, but beyond friendship.
I see myself in your eyes, see you
In aspects of me.
"So, who is he?'
A writer, yes, an actor, certainly.
A director? Not any more.
Financially, it broke even.
Artistically, it collapsed
Under its own weight, which I
In my infinite density
Tried to bear by myself.
Next time
(If there is a next time)
I will know better,
The production having beaten some sense into me.
Now we are
Here again.
Our ranks both swelled and depleted.
Again we return to places we have been
Although the figure leading us has changed (but not
To one we follow less eagerly).
The bond that brings us all together
Has become so strong that often
We do not notice it,
Considering it as part and parcel of our lives.
"You must always think of it as romantic, it helps."
I can honestly say, that in a purely platonic way
I love every one of you.
You have brought me through so much,
Been my only firm foothold at some points,
My mote of stability and sanity.
We have sat together in the trenches
And tried not to think about the shells bursting around us.
And when we went over the top
At least we went together.
"As well as in the plotting of potentates"
Projects and plans starburst in every direction.
We are all moving, growing, exploring,
But the bond holds, invisible
To all but us, to all but the people who matter.
You.
We have done so much, together and apart
We have saved the world,
And killed archbishops.
We have fought wars
And travelled through time
Solved murders
And passed the time in hell.
All the time knowing
That were we to slip from the tightrope
There would be hands stretched out below us.
Now we are
Together.
OK, this is all so far. If you like these poems, or want to flame me into the seventh circle of hell for them, then direct your praise/poison here Thankee kind sirs.
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