The Game

As I swam, I felt the
Current and
Tide push me back as I swept myself
Through black water and oiled rats
Burrowing deep and resurfacing again.
As I reached the edge of the ship,
Whose bow had rusted,
Whose boards were marrow-less bone,
I climbed up and into it and dropped the
Girl
on the
Deck.

Once her wounds had healed, we started fighting again.

Victorious, I threw her into the sea.

And then I jumped back in again after her.
It was
Dark,
But the moon had illuminated the sparkling green lichen
Atop the waves.
I held her close to me,
As she spluttered and coughed and I thought to myself

'Oh god, please don't die.'

I placed her prostrate atop the deck again.
Once she had regained her strength, we fought once more.
But I had to prove to myself that I was good.

I stabbed her below the sternum.
I still remember that small gasp of air she made.

Victorious, I threw her into the sea.

As I looked out towards land,
I saw that the ship was no longer moving.
We would never make it to shore,
Never ever.
It would be an eternal night.
Upon the deck.
And there upon it,
Moss had started growing.

I looked to the sea and knew that I needed her.
I dived in again and saved her, brought her back and lay her on the moss.
I resumed my fighting position down the deck
And I heard her coughing and spluttering.
I didn't know if she was going to get up.
But I prayed that she would.

For Mother #2

Oh Mother,
You're a bag of tricks going for fifty-sixth time lucky,
She says we're going east again cos we got no more west left at all.
Let's get suited and booted then,
How many guns can you fit in that handbag?
We're gonna rob that place on the corner,
Between Junction 13 and Q's tattoos,
Big scores these days,
Mother,
And for that,
I'm a trade my heart.

For Joni

My dad always used to say,
'If you can't beat em, join em.'

Ain't that right, Joni Mitchell?

Cos they've paved over most of the trees now,
They’ve put up another parking lot,
But it didn't bother me,
No sir, not a bit.

Cos I'ma forage in bins,
I'ma graze out of supermarket aisles,
I'ma take a car by the horns, tame that and ride it about.
Sod the open fields for sustenance,
I got mushrooms growing in my bathroom.
Just like the indigenous peoples of wherever,
I listen out for the faint sound
Of the SatNav to navigate this difficult
Smooth terrain.
Took us 200,000 years to re-assemble carbon atoms
Into a microwave oven.
Took me thirty seconds henceforth to get my popcorn dammit.

Made

I got uncles who never came into my room at night,
With six gold teeth for a smile,
I got a limited edition electric filofax
And a wine-optic on the fridge,
I got a gun for shooting cans,
I got a packet of tobacco making a racket in my pocket
Wondering whether it'll last me these three days,
I got sums and percentages
I got a phone that does all that, too
I got a pint of beer and rough guts,
Man, I got a boneless belt,
(If you don't know what that is, lookit up),
I got a wearable dog house
And an anti-bandit bag that shoots taxes
I got the mattress that relaxes
I got a constant reminder of who attacks us
I got Job
I got Principle
I got National Insurance Number
I got it made, man.

Man,
I got fourteen different ice cream choices
I got a peace pipe
And a terracotta roof,
I got no recollection of the names of the girls that I met at bars,
I got forty five classic cars,
I took their jobs, man,
I got a nuclear sandwich toaster
I got a solid-gold pair of laces
I got a garden golf-set
And more epithets,
A miserable coward in the boot of my car,
A teevee headed manservant
A contracted slave in nylon
Who's been getting to know my bedroom ceiling.
A gun that's for the birds outside,
And more,
An electricity and steam powered monkey torturer,
I got Needs
I got Urges
I got Prison Tattoos on my face,
Man,
I got it made.

Desire for Mia

I desired air and I breathed.

But then,
I desired water and only when I could, I drank.
I desired food and only when I could, I ate.

Desire is all I hate.

But then I desired you and I did,
I scattered my head about the place,
Reeling synonyms and particles of guesswork,
Desiring manufacture of consent.

And when I desired you, you saw that I did,
And when you came, it was like a call
From a far off mountain, we both together,
And looked good in the abyss.

Desire has gone amiss.

What happened to my sweet compulsion?
What is this end-result?
Why the finish-line?

And slowly slowly, breath intertwined,
I saw again
The learning curve,
My thoughts relieved.

That I had once desired air
I did,
And I breathed.

SaveAs

Sitting in the train that whizzes past redbrick estates and,
What peculiar creatures dwell here?
In rows
And boxes
Made of artificial stone?

But you are not outside.
You are inside, too.
Inside the train.

What peculiar creatures
Sit inside long speeding mechanical snakes?

Nue Blog address!

If anyone's ended up here, it's probably from here all the same.

But still

Go here all the same.

The Madness of King George

What is necessary, is to write
I fear I am drifting into the unnecessary realm of doughey contentment.

It should be taught
That the gaps in productivity are not
Highly organised or phallic
Or in the madness of King George's Head
They can sit in your soul
Like tiny green witches
Hunted like they are.

You all laugh
And say
You know
But what do you know?
You know nothing
And nothing begets nothing
All will circulate until we are dead.
And now that I am done with you
You may go.

6,775,235,741

What choice of words
Or mix of memory
Could be conjured upon you?
Sugar-pie,
Moon-beam,
Sweet-cheeks?
Not even predictive texting agrees with me.

Would you have me remember that your skin smells
Like play-dough?
Your brittle hair, such a glad
Contrast to your soft face.

And then you mean the world to me.

My worst quality shines through
Even now -
Emotionally stupid.
You, somehow,
A Mythical Other
You,
A sovereign sex.

I look at how we talk, how we attempt
And guess what The Other means,
We both intertwine and combine,
Become parabolic prophasis, reborn in ambiguity.

It takes a moment
Before I remember my solitude,
Or decide once more,
Unclench my fists,
Feel the hot irons of tension release.

It's not self aware. It has no self.

That love is no commodity?
And If I would do my best,
If only I always remembered
That it was my own electrical impulses
I adored?

That those best suited to love
Would choose themselves first?

And as I remember, the Earth has gone full revolution
Twenty one times already,
Whilst six billion, seven hundred and seventy five million, two hundred and thirty five thousand, seven hundred and forty one eyes stare back, into the gaze of the
Burning desolation of the sun,

Celestial bodies who coexist with each other
On a small planet,
In the middle of nowhere,
Dearest lovers, bigger still than all of it.

Learn to Return

It took me seven hours
Seven pints of watered down beer like piss
Seven grams of ecstasy

To look at the past seven days of the World,
My, small world
My personal world
Made of one nose
Two ears
Two eyes
Two hands
And too much assumption

To watch people dissemble to objective reality
Watch Fathers curse their kids
Watch Kids balk and wail in streets in their own interest
Watch myself get tattooed by people's phrases,
To wonder,
How much power I had,
Whether I was in control,
Since I could never know
The modes of operation,
When all of our beings
Are made of assumption.

We'll fight each other
In a ritual of self loathing,
Apes on a treadmill.
And I'll start muttering under my breath
Take the car out more often
And drive nowhere.

Where I'll take
Seven bottles of whiskey
Seven grams of cocaine
And take seven hours alone,
Where after constructing something
I can understand, I'll forgive it all
And learn to return.

For Mother

Oh mother, I’m a lone dog
Walking myself by the reservoir
Loyal in starvation
Ignoble in reason
Driven towards discomfort
Where sleep is for dreamers
Watching my hairy skin
Age before my eyes.

Are you Mother?
I had asked to a woman of no dissimilar
Stature
Height
And appearance.
Yes she called
And she took me away
Where I became another son
Another girl’s boy?

O mother
You have made this lone dog a girlboy unique.
How many more sleepless nights?
How many girlboys with pale lined faces will traipse
With me
Towards school today?
Consigned to lol and omg I’ll brb.
When I’m ready, when the time is right,
I’ll sleep again, I promise but the night is long yet
Mother, for a dog girlboy,
And I’ve got all these years to go.