an answer

What was it like?
It was like the translucent edges of my
outlined existence
gained focus and depth
drawing it out of the softness of your hips

it was like my fingers slid across you with
no resistance
re-writing the textures of my palm with
careful, attentive points of light

it was like my chest was strong and
I wasn't so thin
as merciful breaths of air crawled in through
your window

it was like smooth, wooden blocks
grabbed the hands of every clock around us
and twisted them into spirals of nothing and
not needing to be

it was like the air in my lungs was made of
the air in your lungs

But what was it really?
It was real
It was real

untitled, in walthamstow

It's fifteen oh five and the sky above is twisting through
focused alleys
pressured walls of tight, rolling air
breathing down life from the leaking fissure of
endless
edgeless
wonder

it's fifteen oh five and Shawn is strumming his guitar upstairs
maybe he uses it's strings to cut himself loose from the
thin lines of humanity that keeps him tethered to
people like me
trying to understand what it's like
I can't, I'm just a little american shit
blasting florescent grey waves of store-bought nihilism
through the plaster ceiling that lays beneath his feet

if only it was cold,
if only I had lived longer and seen the truth of the world
too busy basking in the light of my youth and store-bought wisdom
if only I didn't watch the clock in these moments of
store-bought faith

It's fifteen fourteen and I'm stuck between keys
trying to justify my puppet arms and my kept fingers
licking blue blood from the wounds across my pride

I'm so bad at keeping the time, I just needed to keep it here
here beneath him
ignoring his thick, brutal sadness, as it floods out his window, and through these
store bought ceilings

and his voice
when he sings
he just... gives up

It's fifteen seventeen and
I'm lost between these store-bought keys
dreaming store bought things

and his voice,
nah, he made that himself
and the world made it with him

Poetry cafe number 5

I wasn't in times square in 99', waiting without patience for the coming apocalypse

I wasn't in berlin in 89', waiting without patience for the dropping of barriers

I wasn't in manchester in 79', waiting without patience for absolutely nothing to happen again

I wasn't in frisco in 69', waiting without patience for the world to wake up

but I was in south west london in 09', waiting without patience for the pills to show up

laying across figurative sofas in longing poses of communal affirmation

huffing painted lines of blue haze and white, dissociative inquiry

hurling myself away from the light in every effort to forget the blinding colours of a weakened reality

and I don't mean to romanticise it

it's just that I wasn't there for any other moment in time, only my own.

And I was here in twenty eleven, spelling out numbers into electronic symbolism

waiting for you to come through the door when I know you won't

but if you did, you'd be slightly darkened by the spanish sun, and your eyes would squint to avoid the burning sensation brought on by too much exposure to my complimentary tongue

so I wait, in this place that I am

praising it for its wood floors and white bricked sentience

as it heaves, waiting with patience for the coming together of minds

do I overestimate my place in the world?

I am a branch, hanging down into the river,

wishing that I might just break off and float away, free from my connections to this

complex tree

and, are you a strong current? Or another branch? Or does it matter as much as the simple fact that I wish you would walk through that door, and smile and make me feel a connection to the rest of this tree

You weren't there in Boston, in 04'. waiting without patience for freedom from internalized voodoo. The truth is, neither was I.

I was just across the river, not even noticing how sober I was

not even realising that I'd never met you before

So I wait,

in this place that I am

praising it for its wooden books and plastic chairs

giving in to the acceptability of it all and

waiting without patience, for the moment when I know for sure

you won't pass through that door

I may, I might, I must just write

to justify my being here, to validate my breath among you

what if my fingers seized and my lasting impression fluttered away like

so many fallen leaves, crunched together on the floor of oblivion

cleared away by the passing of time

blended into the deep, raw wound of humanity

I wish I had TV to distract me, or drugs to calm my existential dread

I wish I had a way, and a reason to justify my empty head

I wish I didn't wish for any of this

I wasn't waiting without patience, huffing, hurling, laying into reality with harsh narratives of the specificity of time, crossing rivers of fallen leaves, swimming through the wound of humanity and

I wish

I wish

I wish I didn't wish for any of this

about taking my time

I'm not rushing

rushing

rushing rushing

to write this

using incorrect inflection on page

and symbols in memory

on smooth, blood pumping muscles

de-ionised chemical

compounds sending

waveless vibrations of

love through the

overstated all and

everything of being

I'm not rushing

rushing

rushing rushing

even though my letters

are scribbled and slanted

lacking stable relationships

with the carbon-less whispers of beauty

that run between

the textures of your

irises

and oh god,

for we are all god

and you are

and oh god

if I could understand the depths

and hold my breath

and just

dive into them

I'm not rushing

rushing

rushing rushing

to link word with

feeling

fleeting glimpses of

formative bone structures

brilliant spark, or

solar flare of

multi-optional intangibility

do you understand

how little we need to

understand

or am I rambling, overflowing

with multi-layered absurdities,

confusing for the sake of it

avoiding fucking obscenities

so I'm not rushing

rushing

rushing rushing

I'm just writing

and we are all

just

here

The chorus of empty head

I don't know
I don't care
I've got an empty head
I'm not I'm not I'm not
I've got an empty head
I can't I won't I don't
I've got an empty head
I am I am I am although
I've got an empty head
the necessary isn't but
I've got an empty head
the flawlessness of nothing
I've got an empty head
I'm full of it I'm full of shit
I've got an empty head
I'm also all the things I am
I've got an empty head
I'm breathing and I'm living
but I've got an empty head
I'm near enough to see it
but I've got an empty head
but but whatever, but whatever
got an empty head
I've but I've got an empty what
I've got an empty head
I'm sounds and things I've got to bring
I've got an empty head
I'm nothing nothing nothing nothing
without my empty head
I'm everything I'm infinite
I've got an empty head
I've got an empty head and I'll be better when I'm dead

Poetry cafe number 4

The walls are sinking

heavy with the knowledge of past aching thoughts

deprived of their wanted burden

desperate for the cover of unknown words and

tie-dyed expressions of aching thoughts

dancing around repetitive, incestuous thoughts of

community and shared experience

do we share these walls?

Of course we do but will we see them when they are bare?

Will we walk these halls after the sun dries up,

and the hydrogen in our eyes becomes brittle and

dusted

will we seek these bricks in our minds

when they have been stripped of their meaning and

faith

are we broken without questions?

The need for a curved ending to

plastic sentences, written with haste and a need for

acceptance

bar-codes of existential prophecy,

love

the humming of bees

the crashing of stock markets and the

death of the humming of

bees

When bin laden died, I was in bed, probably jacking off

I don't remember

but when the books are burned, their ashes stored with many other unknown children

I'll remember

I'll see these empty walls in my head

and beg

and beg

for there to be words

and there will be

written in the backs of our skulls,

four, five, six,

and the seventh will be the seventh

and the hundreth, we won't even feel