Ha-ha!

I was walking
down the street
when I stopped a 
pedestrian
and asked him,

'what's the quickest way
to Jupiter?'

He paused,
looked up,
pointed.
Then he shrugged his shoulders:
he was nonplussed
and in a rush.

Five minutes later,
I stopped a woman:

'excuse me, ma'am,
what's the quickest way 
to the centre of the Earth?'

'Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha--
Oh, you're serious?'
She looked down,
raised her head,
smiled,
and laughed.

I looked
upon her
quizzically.

I went home,
shrugging with laughter,
and almost pissed myself
before I got to the toilet.

'Ha-ha-ha-ha-hahahahaha!'

Language.

Clauses,
and phrases,
and relative and demonstrative
determiners
all fall apart in my hands

as this language machine
churns through meat and bone,

pumping out the most
brittle steak you'll ever taste:
dry as red wine in the desert

or a joke told by a dead 
and bitter
comedian
in the company of giants.

Alive.

Are you even breathing?
Do you even see?
Are you left reeling
through trying to be?

You're not even living:
you're not alive.
This is not a movie plot:
you're one day gonna die.

Things don't sort themselves;
quibbles don't come out in the wash.
Problems don't iron their creases -
and your every breath is now the cost.

You have to forgive and forget
but not forget the point:
we're beings with feelings and hearts,
and we betray when we aren't joint

in mutual pursuit of truth;
in the mutual chase of the gay.
You're breathing, but open your eyes:
start living today.

Bank Holiday

I spent all day
fussing
about uploading
some poetry
onto my blog;

I went to a birthday meal
that cost 50 euros a head
and yet
I still found
reason to complain -
this old boy has life yet,
some might say.

But then the shit struck
and stuck to the fan blades:
a volcano 700 miles away
is like
a stone
stuck in our
craw;

but I'm sure profiteering
will come
before
passenger safety
soon enough.

I spent all night writing,
and went to bed
happy
but numb
and before I clocked off
I wiped myself clean
and thought of you

like the pitiful
old dog
I am.

Instrument.

I don’t think anyone
knows what it’s like
to be away from your
instrument;
no one who doesn’t play
can know.

Left strung out,
alone,
they ache to be aired;
ache to feel eager fingers.

I pine after them,
dream about them –
they’re like 
a family
I can’t bear to leave

(cold sweats in the night,
and all that –
when the winks lean more
towards rest
than sleeplessness;
but only just).

Left behind:
what if they’re forgotten
for ever?

What opportunities
for glory
might be missed?

A song is like an
encapsulation
of the universe –
every life contained within
its key.

The arrangements count
for nothing
unless life feels life,
feeds life,
and remains hungry.

If you ever think of stopping by....

If you know what’s good for yer
you’ll swat us whilst you can;
you see, we have
a nasty habit

of crashing the party
and leaving the stain
of our faeces
in the most unwelcome
of places.

We’ll take it from yer
but offer you something
you can’t refuse
beforehand

(and if not,
we’ll slowly move in on yer,
surround yer,
until you’re beaten
and you’re praying
for desolation).

So,
if you’re up there
you’d better keep an eye on us
because we’ll be up there
to join you soon
with all our civilities –

we’ll pour acid on you
whilst wearing latex gloves.

We’re gonna fuck with yer
and multiply
all over you
for to be
sustained
on your lifeblood.

(It’s not our fault:
don’t hold it against us;
the common enemy of the enemy
is itself.)

Diddums.

Future.

A utopia
a hundred years from now:

converging
on a single society,
with a single vision,
and the same destiny;

a homogenised
agglomeration
of blended faces:

featureless,
but powerful.

All cultural whims
are left behind:
goodbye, ignorance;
goodbye, bigotry.

No more religion,
no more race,
no more ‘we’ and ‘them’;
just ‘you’ and ‘I’.

A singularity is reached:
civilised beyond measure;
unknowable
as ice cubes made out of
lemon sugar-water.

Smiles,
few concerns;
automated
and regulated
automatically
and efficiently.

Do what you will,
say what you will:
look back through the years with pity
and look forwards with envy
at the still-present disgrace
of human inequities
of mind,
conscience,
and practice.

This is the future.
Does it move you
to smile?
(Or be sick?)

What do you think?
Why don’t you
fucking
feel how it feels in your mouth
and tell me about it
when sense
almost crystallises.

Stars.

I haven’t
got
an astrological
sign.

I was born in
a hospital;
although I might
have been born
under a rock.

The surgeon’s prick
probably exerted
more influence over me
than Vega
or Alpha Centauri
or Orion
or Cassiopeia
or any other
points of light
of choice –

perhaps that’s why
I feel at home
in the house
of vipers.

I’m sure Betelgeuse
and Proxima Centauri
are just aching
for your
misplaced affection.

The stars
whisper
their shifting positions
and taunt those
who undermine their beauty
with fickle,
fallacious interpretations.

There are no cherubs,
or houses of personality
for these nitwits to
feel at home in:

so choose your
bullshit quick-sharp
(and soon enough
the stink will be
like second nature).

It's a no-no.

Asking a poet
why they write
and why X has to be X

is like asking
a painter
or a surgeon
why they get up in the morning

or why a man with moderate wealth,
decent health,
and beautiful wife
continues breathing.

I'll let it slide
just this once;

but if you ever once more
ask me that
I will make sure that
no more
imbecility

can ever come out of your mouth again
to plague my sense of peace.

Dreamy.

Everything we’ve ever done
was meant to contain us,
sustain us
in
a permanent withdrawal.

No trespassing.
Welcome to Canada:

if you look to your left
you’ll see a gap between worlds
and a hole in the Earth.

Eat as much as you like
(but don’t have too much).
Enjoy yourself
(but don’t go crazy).

Are you having fun, dear?
What’s wrong?
You ought to smile more:
I can see your bones
from where I am.

Dreams
are like boats
and balloons:

they sometimes fly off,
and several people died
the other day
when theirs were dashed
on rocks
and beached:

the husks dried out,
and
one day
they’ll give others
ideas for life.

Beautiful monsters (or how it's okay to not give two shits about shit).

An organism –
a child of nature
(just like every other),

‘it’s unnatural!’
they
all scream.

No,
it’s not:

everything
we create
has been created
by a part of nature,
i.e. us,
and so
everything
is natural.

Acids,
and plastics,
and Teflon,
and polystyrene,
and everything
in between
(including things of
great beauty and
things of
caustic destruction) –

all our child-creations
become
children of nature.

Nothing
in this world
is unnatural –
but some things
don’t exist naturally.

A monster,
creating great beauty.
A monster,
slowly devouring itself.

We are nature,
and nature is within us,
and nature is without us,
and nature swirls about us;

we are doomed
to never
know
that there is
no such thing
as separateness.

Bleed.

‘I think everyone
should bleed life.’

Tentacles sensitive
to touch
retract upon
receiving of
slightest sensation.

Box up your feelings
and ship them on.

Fuck you!
(Fuck myself.)

You shouldn’t feel so sad for me;
tears don’t suit
your beautiful eyes.

Sister,
feel the magic of life
everywhere you go
because its melodies
are for you;

you should dance
like each song
was made
for your moments.
I’m sorry
I react so strongly
and withdraw so deeply,
but everything will be okay.

Standing on the cliffs
looking out,
it’s not the edge of the world:
we can go anywhere we want from here.

Totality in flux.

As you lay there,
peaceful,
I saw you smile;
the vestigial features
of your sorrow
become dust under
the weight of your happiness.

A wandering insomniac
has been put to bed
and sleeps
like an age –

in waiting of new growth.

No more dumbing down,
you lift your arms
like mountains;
swing your legs like hillocks,
with all the power of day:

you’re no longer
living vicariously
through bleached feelings.

Your head is risen
like mountain dough
necking through clouds;
you survey,
and you realise
that you are the essence
of what is:

a towering giant
of average height
and sound proportion –
creation
breathing creation;

colour erupting
in violent death;
the essence of the universe
experiencing itself;
an endless work in progress –

even in death do we dance
(along well-trod roads,
imprinted with myriad footsteps,
to the beat of the ages).

Being.

Growing
into my shape,
my shell,
day by day.
I just hope I don’t crack.

Whatever I am,
I am.
Whatever I’ll be,
I’ll be;

a being
not torn apart by being.
Feeling degrees of being –
letting each breathe.

A smile punctuates my face;
try to bleed doubt,
suffocate regret –
bury it deep
and walk without trepidation.

Guitar.

I've not played my guitar
for weeks now
and I'm seeing sweat beads,
as if picking it up
it'd seem

foreign to me,
like an old friend
cast in a new light.
But old friends
are old friends
and this old friend
sings so sweetly;

the flavour never goes -
hits me in the back of
the throat
like candied thunder.

When I pick you up,
what satisfaction.