Held down and eaten

Our eyes met but we did not make contact.
You watched me move,
Was I trying to escape
Or was it just the last drops
Of nerve juice working their way out?

I have now become
The dinner you cannot eat,
The wine you will not drink.
Something has gone wrong
For you,
Something beyond your control.

And now you need someone to blame.
But before you do find them,
Know this of me;

I am here, this is not symbolic.
I am not a metaphor.
My situation is not representing
Anything other than what it is,
And I am this and this only;
Further from home
Than you can comprehend
And losing the light fast.

Do not judge them for this.
Do not lay blame for this
At the feet of one race.

We look to others and say how
Barbaric they are
Compared to us.
This is all we ever think
Of those we know nothing of.

Slight and dashed

Stood still, as if waiting,
We notice the first rays of summer sun
Carried across the branches of trees,
And the backs of birds,
And offered up gently
To our eyes.

And in this, oh calmest of lights,
I am there again,
Sitting gently still in your past,
And yet, where are you for me?

The echoes of children laughing
Are sewn into memory.
Each stitch a new, bright color,
They are swimming, dancing,
And more brave than they will ever know.

With the passing of times comes fear,
But alongside it comes love,
Maturing as we do.

Upwards, away from what makes us afraid.
Take flight, and with the hummingbirds,
Make music of our fear,
And let this sun carry the tune
As we carry its light on our backs.

Kissing the danger way

If only I'd known you back then,
That would have been a good night
We would have had a good night.
I would not have been drunk..

Sat here now
The outside has never felt so small
Intimate and
Crushing
At the same time

I am inches from you jagged smile
And your golden frown
I am watching
Silently
As you
Throw your future
Down a bottomless well
Because what else was it for?

Being with you here
Is like staring out to sea
At the dead of night
You cannot see it
But you can feel the deep staring back at you
You are blind for now
The moonlight will not hold your hand

Back here again, on this night
You turn and think
Of something other than this
But with one swift glance back
Complete with smile
Keeping the sweetened moment
Thinking on your feet

Am I suffocating?
And even if I am
Does it actually get any better anyway?

But here, with me
I can see your live
Electric mind
Raw and volcanic
And I embrace it all

But I also see
The dead tree of your
Night life
Brittle, and twisted shapeless

And you make sure I
Don't see if for long
Your fingers clasp mine
And you manipulate
Like only those can
Who have been manipulated also

In. Some. Near.

This is the hell of
The beginning
The duration
And the end
Of the night

This is the gone
The going
And the going to be...
Whatever they are going to be

The sleeplessness starts here
You distance of distances
You remover of time
Of calm
And of hope

A, chara..

It is because of you that I am here
And seeing what I am seeing
The diamonds of fire in the sky above
watched over by animals of pure beauty
Blind and charging
And more colour than flesh

There is glass between us now
making temptation a presence in the room
Damaging, and all knowing

Are you here now
Hiding behind the seats
Playing with your black hair
And with a look on your face like
A solar system grieving the death of its sun

Ripped my jacket on
That sharp tongue of yours
Get a crowbar to prize
that mouth open wide
Count the awards and wipe the brow

Stay in open spaces to protect your
Narrow nerves for eyes
That have got it all perfect
And figured over and out

Exit one exit two

I want to talk about two things - distraction, and occupation.
There is a difference between being distracted and being occupied. Distraction is temporary, pressure-free, a way of stepping out of everything. To be occupied, however, is to be immersed in something, involved in it. And yet both terms are used when discussing a means of self-removal from something, when that thing begins to get heavy and a break is needed.

In order to occupy oneself, any individual must prepare for the small amount of discipline that it will involve. To stay put and get on with something, even for the sake of leisure, being occupied with it means to make sure you stick at it.
But in order to be distracted, no amount of effort is required. Distraction is everywhere, in what we hear, see, taste and touch. And for a lot of us, distraction is our chief form of occupation when escaping from the everyday tasks life presents us.

To say that one is bored and cannot focus on one thing may be true with regards to anything that is more substantial than a television commercial or a song on the radio; but to be actually, and continually, distracted, our minds sent wandering in many different directions at once (sometimes without us even detecting the changes in direction), it is safe to say that we are occupied with distraction all our waking moments, and perhaps even in our sleep.

Distraction is in the bottle, the cigarette box, and whatever can be purchased with that credit card a few inches from your hand. It is the constantly pressed Refresh button, the endless chapter ones, never allowing anything to get too serious (or, even worse, boring).

But occupation, even if it something that you enjoy (or think that you did enjoy but no longer enjoy because you have forgotten the rewarding pleasure it brings) really can sound like work (and nobody likes that word anymore). But what's wrong with picking up the paint brush, instead of the television remote control? What's wrong with dusting off some long forgotten musical instrument instead of spending another night in an over-priced bar? Is it really so difficult to open a book and enter its world, compared to finding the most uninspiring thing to read in some colorful magazine?

It is too easy for us to lose our way in a world of relentless distraction, and it could take a will of iron to demand anything else. This could take effort, for sure, but we need to take back our interest in what interests us. This are dim times for the life of the mind. Let us take back our passion for what makes us feel alive.

The knife awaits you here

I long for you now
Cold and tropical
Dragging, moaning
You are
And should be
Only here

I know our hours
Are the same length
Not even time
Has the same old placebo effect anymore
It's just hunger
Hours of hunger
Hunger of hours

We have both seen
The life of the eye
We have commented, unshamedly
On what can turn fire to life
We spoke of it

And I think this is all we need
I think this is what it adds up to
Stripped to the ribcage
Exposure of hunger
Surviving on what we need

Last chance for a slow dance

darkness for eyes
Piercing yet empty and silent
Your hair looks smaller
If that's possible
When you wear it up

But when you let it cascade
Down your neck
I am stunned and muted

The moment of your boredom
My secret weapon
That I cleary have no control over
And can fire any time

The boredom enters you
And the distance
Becomes instant and terrible miles
like travelling
At the speed of nothing

Good Winter

With precision, this time
Monstrous, meticulous, and blind.
I see in numbers,
Think in equations,
And sometimes walk in straight lines.

Work within the parameters,
calculated,
Disinfected love.
Clear it all of germs, of contamination,
Of all outside bodies.

The filth on your fingers,
You push it into my eyes,
And rub it into my lips.
And I just gently stroke your hair.

The dirt from your hands,
You crawl,
And make it worse.
I just watch
Whilst you become more filthy,
Shifting away from this antiseptic moment.

So much rails

Calm, like something being forgiven,
The rhythm takes away everything else,
Or at least adapts it,
Shapes it,
Making it all become as one.

Moving to the same pattern.
Surfacing what was less,
Making it the same as what is more.

And what is more,
This will all last for the duration.
Time, and the rhythm of the rails,
Consuming, gentle and parental.



This is the time for moving away,
To let go and go forth,
Battle on, towards peace of process.

Sunbeams through the clouds.
Their journey is now completed,
Here,
At the back of your eye,
And in the blood,
To be embraced, processed,
And sapped of wonder.

The sun is sometimes there on the journey,
But always there at the destination.
Home or not home,
The sun is waiting.

Sometimes above the ether,
Sometimes in a room.
Other times in the excitement
Of the mind, it finds a home and makes use.




The noise is causal.
The noise of the people around, sitting and staring,
Is inevitable.

But the rails are the chariot to the new.
They have taken this journey so many times,
Trust is not wasted on them.
They know the outcome,
They know the need that drives people to them.

And conversely they understand the dullness that represents their
Use for a return.
And they swap their now-dead neon
For another voice.
They are ignored.

Over the rhythm and pace,
They let be heard;
Come back not
To the discipline, the pillars of learning.
Come back not
To these brutes, and their amber-lit numbness.
Come back not
To the hope of a place, a position on a map.

Come back to me.