there’s moths and there’s ghosts
both benign
I hope
one or the other causes floods
water ingress
by blocking drains
or lifting roof tiles
unless
that’s just incompetence
lack of proper
maintenance
then again
maybe if I haven’t put
those ghosts to rest
or they’re hungry for what I got
its my fault
I guess
for being too focused
on all I think I’ve lost
the sea is roaring this morning
out there in the dark
the moon a massive
spotlight behind the trees
every day I stumble
over lumps in the tarmac
on inconsequential weeds
thorns catch my skin
to say
not like that you dweeb
you think I’d’ve learnt by now
nobody sees
cup hands around the flame
hope and greed
looking to smelt something
shape the need
wind whips and flows away
across the headland like wild
thoughts twisting untamable why
tiredwired rushing whatisit allfor
bloodpooling walking running, meeting, driving, trains
pause. and that’s where life could be
as the cold breathes through the cracks
coffee bubbles
I remember our London flat
frost across grass
we couldn’t access
small puffy bed like a bier in the theatre of a room
that same couch, no
one that gave us the idea
smoothcool stone flag floors
in the stepped down bathroom
a box inbetween
sections of a life
oh and how they betrayed me
and I cheated myself
so that
foxshit smell on a cold morning
twines with
the nausea of anxiety
fear-bound days
and the drinking dawning
on me that it had to go
no it couldn’t be
because now it stopped
why do those feelings return
oh the gnawing
sick
pain, you can’t just will it away
I grit my teeth
like Anne Boleyn
I’ve played, and played and spun
the magic, turned the wheel
and run
glamoured my way
please let me lay it down
without losing my head
to the executioner
I am my own
dark enemy
Photo by erin mckenna on Unsplash
feel my way into new music
like stepping barefoot through a creek
rocks and sticks to navigate
rolling surfaces
sharpsoft, edgy and water-smooth
downbeats, chords and uplift
soles alive, dangerous texture
seek the familiar
thrill different, indifferent nature
crescendo scents: mown grass and salt air
the sky is blue tissue paper
translucent, crisp
Oh take me somewhere fresh
I am so sick of
old patterns
churning on repeat
a tired reprieve
now with added anxieties!
layered like cake, like baklava
sticky and dense and nauseate
Please!
wash it all away
let me taste a thought
running like cool liquid
through one perfect new song
Photo by Tevin Trinh on Unsplash
Used to feel so easy
write it all out
like spilt ink washing
across a page
or
ants in milk
oh whatever
now there’s cats
in my periphery
snakes
along the side-walls
and that psychic wound
of being here-there
heartbreak of the expat
Returned
like misdirected mail
never quite healed
no one feels
or maybe it’s just
a private burnout thing
yet I’m far
from sanctuary
or even
sanatorium
and the fire
or is it cars swishing by
on a hot evening
far from
a busy road
a capital
a mental load
a buzz
Is that why, cuz
I don’t have ideas anymore
they’re twisted and
unoriginal
the worst
worse than snakes or cats or cars
no imagination
please-
save me
no one published
this shit
anyway
thought my stories were
just OK
and the funny thing is
the poems are
here
while stories suffer
the yearning
the keening
buffer, buffer, buffer
it never ends
-please
Save As
I’m sinking in sunlight
creeping into
the mundane
and driving on the wrong side
in my head
all over again
Photo by Dilara Yilmaz on Unsplash
I need to get into
the space beyond
that place where
thoughts splinter and smooth
float me there
past afternoons
speak to me
on fumes of gin
spin
the line
or cut me one
with your credit card
how come when
women do heroin
it’s sordid
like sweaty tattoos
knotted hair
and bitten nails
but for men
it’s tortured genius
dangerous and
dirty, sure but
no drop of ink
is spilled in vain
while
you read this here
and think
you know me
again and again
Photo by Katrin Hauf on Unsplash
I want to go back
to a beer garden in Glebe
on a sunny afternoon
where I could sit in half-sun
shadow my true self in
a cloak of booze
you knew all the pretty boys
in sleeveless tops
and the old farts
playing pool, getting sloppy
I’ll pop to the ladies
the moment’s pause
calm darkness indoors
then get more
cool green railway tiles
old wood and stained glass
that chalky pink scent
bath-bombs and lust
threads through
tunes on the decks
starting up
swells of crowd noise
we’re all getting lush
throw myself off
that sledgehammer cliff
of drinking til dusk
sometimes fly
sometimes crash
the worst when
it just goes flat
the betrayal of drink
if it doesn’t click
think I lost something there
or never found it
you know what I miss?
the obliterating wave
to shift
my set point
I want to hide
in the chaos and slide
caught up, unobserved
for I am so afraid
petrified and stuck
that the only way through
a punishing ride
Photo by Liam McKay on Unsplash
in the night
in the night I pray
no
i hold my hands in prayer position
think about the good
things, the small
things, the ordinary
things like
my kids are safe
my body is sound
i have a job
as my eyes can’t stay open
in the night
in the night he
talks
my north star
like a sea
constant, lulling, sound
at anchor
washing over me
holding true
in the night
in the night I wonder
what else?
should I do
things like – oh
the racing
relentless
uneasy
part of me that can’t rest
i’m stuck
ragged
pinned to corkboard
at best
Photo: not the aurora australis but it may flicker on the horizon here later tonight!
I will live bravely
the life I want
will not be found
between the walls
or compartments
of a salary
it is shining out there
where
the horizon meets the ocean
at the edge
of my headland
and in the corners
of imagination
I will not be defined
by what bulls, bears
and bossy men say
when they think they
know better
than me
I do not believe
the lies
of politics
office or otherwise
I will let them laugh at me
moving
into the periphery
they cannot understand
the depths of how
I think beyond, around
and through
a needle
piercing
their mundanity
her claim to fame was a well-known name
she’d fucked him as a courtesan
back in the time of Eminem
who don’t apologise
never explain
there’s no pain with
emotions ambered
in opiates
platinum cornsilk hair in plaits
china-blue eyes, red lips and latex
the perfect doll, with a past
the celluloid unease of her
tried and truly … too touché
while here, in reality
we hedge, we cheat
work our beat
never wanting to compete
sigh softly at our silly feats
and the men
invariably
fell
their tongues aslant
on heat
oh boys
why must you be
so utterly cheap
Photo by Harrison Kugler on Unsplash