Fragmented Memories.
A Dance on the Edge of Dystopia.
Your eyes try to disguise
All the pain you’ve ever felt
As your voiceless broadcasts
Clash with the asteroid belt.
If only you could see the light
That bursts through brickwork for you.
If only you could feel the warmth
That fights off the winter within you.
We dance on the edge of dystopia,
Worried about our words and wants
As shop signs and powerlines
Hang above us like dead men.
There’s a girl I know,
Her eyes try to disguise all the pain she’s ever felt
And her voiceless broadcasts clash with the asteroid belt.
She feels the warmth within her somewhere
And one day she’ll see it; the light and the love.
It’s then, and only then, that the astroids rain,
Fall like tears from cheeks, holding all of her astral answers within.
She swirls through this Orwellian dream
In her sexy black boots, tailored in defiance;
Crushing the glass left over from fires and riots,
She glides around streetlights that lie like giants across cracked roads
And duettes with stop signs pulled like teeth from the concrete.
These people, these places
Are burnt into my skin like cigarette stains.
I open a 20-pack of songs you showed me,
Chain-smoke them like you’re only a text away
And I’ll get another fix anyway.
But our cigarettes burnt out years ago
And the ashes of you are infused in these tunes.
Ashes of You
These people and these places
Are nothing but little traces of nicotine
Fuelling me, ruling me through the night.
And on the rare occasion I see a sunrise,
I grab a coffee and blast your songs
Because I was happy then.
And I can be happy now.
Phonebox
They fixed the phonebox on Royal Avenue,
The glass lay there for weeks.
But almost as quickly as everything fell apart,
It was back together again
And I found it hard to trust
If it was genuine or not,
Because there’s still shards
Between the grooves of my boots
And a scar left over on my left hand.
But it’s all grand now,
The phonebox is repaired, and the glass replaced;
It looks the same but feels two-faced, new
But untrue, a temporary fix for our addiction.
-I still wait for the hit that smashes the glass
All over again.
Wind-Rushed
Infant birds dart across open waters
And I gaze upon the river’s reflection
Wondering if one evening,
You might be cast beside me.
Do you see her in the waves?
The light just tapping the surface
Of her skin. Caressed by foam and salt,
The waves draw me toward her evermore;
Their rhythm, their pace,
Their anger, their peace.
An escape from this town,
Towered by cranes
And not just the yellow beasts,
But the tall skinny crafters,
Crafting a new generation
Of concrete complexes.
-A wind-rushed regeneration,
Built on hope and naivety.
As if what we are building
Has never been done before.
But waves of division still flow through this town,
Burrowing under streets
And disgusing beneath leaning clocktowers.
Among the wind-rushed waves
I stand, unsure of side or creed.
Uncertain of her seduction
But numbed to the bone in this cold;
I reminisce and question,
Our waves past.
The Early Hours
There’s a couple lying on the pavement,
Leaning up against a pub’s walls.
It’s half-three and the bottle
Third wheeling beside them is half full.
They’re discussing the world
And everything in between,
Using his coat as an outdoor duvet,
Here, everything seems okay
And four o’clock doesn’t exist.
It’s the early hours, where stillness
And pain combine in a weird twisted bliss,
Where the sky is hazy grey
And fades up into the abyss.
It’s hard not to reminisce
Under the streetlights and drizzle,
Hard not to surrender to the stillness;
The hum of the early hours,
Where couples crash on pavements
And lonely people stalk the streets
For the love they couldn’t find in a club.
The early hours are my peace,
No one wants or needs me there
And my mind can sink into the silence.
After Party
Recharging on an old sofa
With a blanket thrown over it.
The summer sunrise is streaming through the window,
I haven’t slept yet and everyone else here
Seems to be dealing with their regrets.
But it’s just me in this little box room,
On a stranger's sofa, thinking of you.
Thinking of all the things I should do,
I should say, before these hands decay,
Before this world gets washed away.
Empty brown bottles scatter the sunlight
As it dances about this little box room.
The argument on the floor above continues,
Fleeting words leaving invisible bruises,
But I guess that’s love in all of its ugly hues,
If that is love…
Who am I to say anyway,
I’m just a drunk guy on a stranger’s sofa,
Yearning for connection
In all of the wrong directions.
Roadkill
A fearful heart, a deer in headlights,
Dark hair pouring over bloodshot eyes.
Were you ever going to tell me?
Was I ever going to know?
You lay on that bed like roadkill,
Paralysed from the pain of this.
Pale-faced and teary-eyed,
She asked you why,
Asked you to die, to end this suffering.
Your eyes searched for warmth
In that room of ours
But everything was as dull as your pallor;
Grieving from the loss of your father.
A quick mind, a dangerous storyteller.
Brown eyes and blood-stained sheets,
Was she ever going to tell me?
Was I ever going to know?
I lay on that bed like roadkill,
Glaring at that 80’s popcorn ceiling,
Searching for any kind of meaning,
Any alternate feeling.
She asked me how, asked me why
Then outright told me to die.
My eyes hunted for love
In that little box room of ours
Fragmented Memories
Metal birds
Slice through oxygen,
Taking your breath away,
Taking you far away.
For as young as I can remember
Metal wings brought me to you,
And took me away.
Their winged edges so sharp
You wouldn’t feel a cut
But notice later, your heart
Was sliced.
Torn between two places,
Not knowing which is home
And which is fabricated.
Steel wings naively gliding along,
Until years later.
When the plane finally lands
And you get a bigger picture.
Grounded with a head still stuck
In the clouds, floating between
Fragmented memories,
Their shards punching through me;
Sea urchins and porcupines in envy,
Struggling to understand
How we took off in a big metal machine
The size of a whale,
As if my brain is under the ocean
Frantically questioning if this is real.
But it is. And metal can fly.
Proving that the weight
Of these memories
Shouldn’t be a problem to me.
-I’ll try and let them fly by.