Extract Only # 2

That which remains unspoken
That which will kill me
That which unhinges me
That which will kill you
That which is affection
That which is anger
That which is confusion
That which is fear
That which is love
That which remains unspoken
That which is pointless
That which is good
That which is empty
That which is blatant
That which is implicit
That which is envy
That which I do not speak of
That which is central
That which is love
That which is lies
That which is longing
That which is needy
That which remains unspoken.

December 1996

I am but a butterfly in a jam jar
feeding from a once lush
velvety green leaf
that now wilts and decays.

Carried along at somebody else's will I sit placidly
seemingly enjoying the ride
But inside I'm tortured and suffocating
and nobody sees.

At the sight of rolling hills punctuated
with mustard yellow umbrellared by a resonating blue sky
excitement wells within me
and Hodgkin comes to mind.

Then my spirit plummets
and I'm in the cavernous depths of despair
where the way forward is cramped, claustrophobic
dark.

All around me is the empty blackness and I am confined
by invisible constraints to this barren cocoon
All I see asleep is sleep
all I want awake is death.

Dark pictures gather in my mind now
clicking into place like the mosaics of a kaleidoscope
I close my eyes
Trusting.

Through the lamp black sleep
I visualise faint colours shifting and
the soft lustre of my golden soul becomes evident
I will not say that I lost it, my burning sun
but it was taken.

The colours behind my eyes
become more saturated
and I move across
to the freedom of the night.

Extract only

That which remains unspoken.
That which I do not speak of
That which I am afraid to tell you
That which is secret
That which is dark
That which is absent
That which is love
That which remains unspoken
That which is painful
That which is hurtful
That which is lost
That which is aching
That which is smarting
That which is bleak
That which is love
That which is denial
That which is doubt
That which is cold
That which is desperate
That which remains unspoken...

In umber reticence I slip

And slide while longing steals my words

I rock to rhythms we don’t speak

To surely bring you near to me...

Under the influence

I'm waiting on your words, just want to feel
something again. It's dark in here with no
connections, longing for the life you breathe
to me. I know you watch me quietly,
so silently it hurts. And in the dark
I dance for you, and baby everything's right.
You can get close to it, come close with me
send me a tender word or two. I'll dance
with you and we'll wipe the darkness out.


I may regret having posted this in the morning, when I'm sober...

Spring is sprung

I noticed some hawthorn in flower today, which reminded me of a 'poem' I wrote a few years ago (maybe it was a decade ago, I can't remember!):

Mayday

Spiny, skeletal trees
Budding leaves
Show sharp against
The moving sky.

Dusty-brown church
Bricks, grapple for height
Toward the light,
Which is cut
With the soars of the birds.

Beyond crumbling gravestones
A tractor in a furrowed field
awaits harvest fruit, yet concealed.
Fresh, white, thorny and rude
The may blossom
R A D I A T E S


I wrote it on 1 May 1996...

The Untying

Outside the rattling window
wind pushes through the branches like a virago
and the heavy, low sounds reverberate through the darkness

All constants have gone
All judgments are judged unclear

Rain hits the glass like a round of bullets
and a stray sycamore leaf is momentarily
splayed wide open and vulnerable

All thoughts are unravelled
All ties are untied here

The dilate of an eye

In the dilate of an eye
I want to take the future
heat it red and laugh the fire,
drown in its sensual smile.
Red rippling through me,
like the vixen through corn,
will warm me 'til I die.

'Poems' for you

A friend (yes, I've got a few!) emailed me the other day and asked to see some more pictures of what I made in Scotland. Well, I haven't got any more pictures, or things that I made. What you saw below (Narrative Self: End of the day) is more or less it, bar some drawings in a sketchbook - which are going to stay there (I have a bad relationship with my drawings at the moment: they are bad and I'm failing to change their attitude...).

But I did write some 'poems'. I use the term very loosely since I know nothing about writing poetry and just make it up as I go along (ha, ha!). I have a dim recollection of what an iambic pentameter is and could probably recognise a sonnet, but that's about it. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, but I've never shown anyone (for fear of ridicule obviously!), but today I'm going to be brave and will show you something I wrote up north. If you have an aversion to crude language move to another post now, because that's mostly what it consists of - I think I may have been unduly influenced by the vernacular in the Lumsden bar...

Close My Eyes

She had a good time fucking around and playing the field
Hanging out in clubs with her knickers down
I was the 'clever' one stuck at home
Waiting on promises of things to come
Waiting on passion that never begun
Closing my eyes and wishing for the day
When someone would hold me and put it away
Closing my eyes and dreaming of the day
When I would take it and put it away
Close my eyes and dream of the day
When I will fuck it and have it away