Patrick Jones

Commemoration And Amnesia

Am I an amnesiac or a haemophilliac
Or is this a heart attack?
That burns the holes in these lips
That shelters and stings
That blankets then burns
That hurts and heals
To truth, to sadness
To the why
I devote
Of an increase in heartblood
To varnish and veneer
Against their words that smear and snarl
I commemorate
I instigate
I must not fake
The this then why if how and
Being seeing feeling learning
Crying, silenced soul of tears and fears that fall to stand
That fall to stand
And how I remember
And how I wish to forget
And how I wish to forget
And how I wish to forget
Shopping in the real world
It could be you
It could be you
What makes you different makes you beautiful
And what you want is what you get, get, get
As you suck in the headlights
Of Lithium, Prozac, Viagra, (?), Temazepam
(?), (?) nitrate, Valium, Cocaine, Propane
Novocaine, Methadone, (?) to absolve your sins
Speak on Oprah, Springer, Lake, Kilroy
The time the place
This time the place
It'll be okay
It'll be safe
So find yourself another couch babe
And you'll get through
So I bottle your mind
With verbs that find
Their place in nouns
Of laced narcotic
Underground
Character disdenied and undesigned
Of soul declined
I bottle your mind
To commemorate
The pain, the memory, the dawning
Into now
So know and how I desecrate to educate
To emancipate the chains
The eyes that split my vision
The voices that stammered my tongue
Yet now I speak
Yet now I speak
In this war of attrition
This heartraged mission
This restricted code of breaking
Breaking recognition
Am I an amnesiac or a haemophilliac
Or is this a heart attack?

Everything Must Go

once upon a time when work work meant something

once upon a time a dignity a meaning a beginning a

middle and an end and you cared about what the next

man did or thought not not now each to own and own

to each and who cares so long as we scrabble for the

crumbs and we are happy we don't care al al alone in giga

bytes and e mail messages bills biting tongues fake

crucifixion of brown envelopes afraid to put the heating

on a discipline from desperation a stuttered voice from

stapled lips the frustration adrenalin threading nowhere

left to fend let the market decide we are all consumer

durables staring at the clock staring at the light like

moths circling circling the light that kills is the light

that births forever forever circling a crucifix light i i

only only i i only want a job i can believe in and gives

me something to do and feel ok about getting up in the

morning i only want my kids to be proud of what their

mam and dad do do do i only want a job a path a piece

of sunlight i      only  

once upon the time

once          upon           a           time

Interface, Interface

like ash thrown from a speeding car 
landscape wales 
wishing whying light loving losing lost 
what atrophic billboards 
begging eyes 
such silent voices crouched underneath 
joyridden cars slashing mountainside 
petroleum twilights of redundant skies 
rain upon winterscreen senseless 
and less, unless it cleans 
until it feels, 
freeze; 

gurnosed streets epiphany 
while souls languish in noodle fucking factory 
landscape wales 
decembering dismanatling in the 
hopeful hopelessness of white t-shirt and spit; 

sunless 
we light our candles in the day 
wanna scratch a sunrise 
wanna verse a scream 
wanna feel a dignity 
instead of the need to fade way 
hey hey hey 

landscape wales 
like ash thrown from a speeding car 
I once burned 
now I curse, cold frightened, 
hit the mind corrupted tar, 

interface, interface. 

Reach

and nothing is perfection 
holes 
fill everything 
hands fasten yet minds distance; 
aloneness is the companion we cling to 
when flesh fails, 
if only only if 
repeat recite 
dissonance of a world unfit for living. 

How do we signify 
what makes contact mean 
if and wish constantly recoil into how 
and I cannot find the place for it 
it will not enter the space for it. 

the violation of the one 
is the isolation of the two 
yet the clock stutters sadness 
and time oceans along 
indifferent to the apostate of hearts 
that once bled together 
now stab each other 
nail the hope to the bandage 

can 
belonging ever belong again?

the eloquence in the screaming

still I know no
thing
all I retain all I articulate is the screaming
the frantic wrenching screaming from the faces from the throats
from the days from the pain from the love;
but within the catheter borders of the screaming
lays a dripping dying crying eloquence
a terrible vociferation of every soul that we enclose within
ourselves;
I retain
I feel a searing eloquence within
words bathed in barbed wire echoing in windowless rooms
pages in a grandfather's death drawer
leaves in a tornado vacuum,
these are the screams within
these these are the life streams bleeding from skin
for without the screaming there is
no
thing;
and if only you could know what I know
and if only I could know what
you know
we could replace the without within
there is no eloquence without screaming.
The lead mask I wear pours draughts down my throat
Delinquent thoughts are cult before they can breath in this reasoned rationed technocracy
an otherness imposed upon from outsideness
Inside I am a bayonet
I am a volcanic ulcer of expulsion
yet I go nowhere
layered by too many years
lays the stuttering voice of denial
the silent dream of action
veining my mind like cocaine
lonely as a hurricane
blinding my eyes with hatred
of myself for I am not;
inside the placid flesh
lays a needle ripping for release
feeling for the yellow core of dying beauty within;
silence-
bares the cursed child of freedom
the eloquence in the screaming
through pale corridors of routine
rituals wither sunflower sun
bending like old men at the crack of whip work;
depositing permanence of brains dripping sedition from the lead ceilings
grey above our heads
stepping on the chlorophyll and
cultivating materials to soothe the dereliction of our movements
towards the polished bathrooms red white and blue
perfection we sit
like ferns in stone waiting wanting
to sleep
just to sleep-
pouring whitewash in our mouths
the delectable drenching of our souls
by the veneer of illusion strangling the seed before the sun can caress
the latent power the lip of creation
breathing in alienation across the factory floor nation
into our minds for more
the white disease;
for more
the beetle of greed the money magic seed
of destruction and defraction; into us it comes
replacing our sad eloquence with the obscene apathy of 'Have a nice day' and 'It could be you'
'Forget it all in an instant'
smothering the screaming with the businessed smile and credit sale
seeping into the victims of the lobotomised caress
the destruction of the screaming to make the place seem cleaner
is the grin of the corporator the pen of the advertiser

BUT

Between the billboard masturbation across highway of metallic isolation
there lies the deafening screaming of the millions wiping out the diseased pages
of apathy that bleed our eloquence
with words of amnesia
that forgets the feeling with the anaesthetic dream of the lottery
and
there rises the blood of the trees
the blue of the dolphins
arise
arise hate eloquence and destroy the death dreaming
and
out there
in there
somewhere
is where
here
there
I desire to speak;
somewhere without limits and fences
sometime without tenses
I
desire
to
speak.

The Sympathy for Petals

Afraid to put the heating on, they sit with mittened hands and hot water bottles,
thinking of post war aggression and a country fit for kings
Yet still they do not hate for they are
the dignified ones,
A discipline from desperation
a stuttered voice from stapled lips
they are the bones onto which the stinking lesh clings;
The gas meter is a starving mouth gnashing at pounds coins
the ministers call it choice but what they feel are the cold bars of confinement;
A crescendo of invisible noise,
the brown envelopes arrive like tiny executioners as mother runs for cover
as the
small print
crucifies
with the language of condescension
the frustrated adrenalin flows through father's fingertips then fades into isolation;
This is how the majority live, this is 1994
huddled around like candles, clothes layered like babies,
the quiet war, whispering in the dark that is infinity,
'Oh God oh God is this the way things have to be?'
the days used to beat like cornfileds and routine held the meaning together
but now the clock drags and splutters like a dying miner as
solicitude becomes solitude;
Left to fend for themselves; let the market decide
a living death born from need ending in want
weeping out a meaning
this is the only choice the government offers;
To eat or heat to eat or heat.
And taxes, rates, rises, demands will never halt their screaming
will never understand the feelings of old people
who have worked all their lives, paid all that was asked
and more
..... the past so achingly beautiful but now
now now
afraid to put the heating on
survival survival
is the only war.

 

Torying

Pain polluted days dripping from our mouths
rivers of solitude mountains of money
images of perfection porcelain laid lips
speaking gospels of consumerism
boiling in the Novocaine reality
tongues removed by sorrow
millions of smiles beckoning understanding feigning meaning
of another another
so mighty so hegemonic so hating so desecrating so there so nowhere so hurting
we fall between indifference rejection and the whole fucking wall
we fall
the wall that drowns children before they can think
that sprays flowers with pound signs
that ignores truth in pursuit of lies
that paints perfection into living rooms
that holds guns to poets' souls
that pays £2 an hour to encourage a free market
that flys flags; sweet icons of alienation good only to be set alight
that swallows workers into corporate gashes
that stitches solitude into crematoriums
that elevates greed and money makers
that loves banks
that builds tanks
that vomits credit cards
that lashes people to poverty
turns flesh to wax
that is everywhere
that is nowhere
that bites our necks
that is the air
that I know exists
that I know slits wrists
that I know rapes wombs
that I know is here
that I know is everywhere
that I can see
that I cant see.

Pain polluted days sucking crucifix money
pledging happiness upon the altar of indifference
souls stabbed senseless by the cult of the nameless
that culls everything
that doesn't make money
pray correctly
produce
adhere
reason
consume.
What screams this silence
what atrophy throws bricks nowhere
what distance this voice
what visions blur reality
what aloneness signs catatonia
what winds of concrete winds through The City
what blood smears lips intransient
what snaps spines like fingers
causes amnesia from TV
what wires of conformity
what shores of routine
what perfect washed faces bathed in acid
what asphalt ataxia clasping religion
what unbreakable silence
what wet strangled sun;
stasis in obedience
mouth wash narcotic
what streets of white
what confusion armalite-
what anxiety stabs arteries from darkness
what suits stretch skin to rebellion
yet rebellion is only a page and existence continues enraged
clothes snag on barbed wire laws
thoughts as sentence
life as resistance
but doubt is the needle
frustration the crime
blistered cancer breath the voice
that stutters sublime
that stutters;