Overdriven London

(While Being Driven Through) Overdriven London

Neon burns white concrete blue
Without consuming
Glassy rising peaks racing towards
Sheets of violet sky
and sinking crescents hanging in the spaces
Between skyscrapers
Angles and curves
Singing to the eyes
Barren branches with pointed pincers
Sparse but standing
Between rushing street lights and magniloquent maisonettes
Starless but twinkling
Too modern for nature
Historical but futuristic
London sings to the eyes
And trickles into golf courses
Detached five bedroom houses and
Empty
50 centimetre pedestrian crossings.
Reading calling

A Dissection of Guilt

Sea Mosses and A Dissection of Guilt

[All he sees in himself is
Evil
And good can coexist in the same person

He will lose his mind if he gives in to these
Obsessions
Which spring from remorse cannot be bad

His actions are the cause of other people's
Harm
That is self-inflicted is righteous]


They found a corpse
Near the hit and run-on
Lines of ink drawn to
Trace the results of the
Sin

Autopsy – Cause of death?
They cut him open and found
A heart that was basically
Good but full of pus and
Decay.

The felon and the victim
Were the same person – one
Living inside the other –
Saint forced to harbour a
Sinner

Though non-biodegradable,
His conscience had worms
From parts of him that had
Died living in it – alive but
Dead.

He was a man of the forces
Who fought across waters
To keep foreign vices at bay
So they gave him a burial at
Sea

How unfair that oceans so
clear and blue and clean
Should be burdened by the
Tiny weight of many little
Mosses.

He She (Like-God-I-Hate)

He She


She's happy –
Laughing.

He's watching –
Quiet.

Her smiling eyes squint.
Deep gusts of air shoot in, then out
As her nostrils flare and close.

His brows converge
Cramming skin above the ridge of his nose.
He strokes his chin in disbelief.

Her phone must have
A good sense of humour.
Her left hand grips tightly
and her manly fingers curl over its rectangular edges.

His phone is in his
Pocket. Waiting to ring (as a phone should).
His hands sit on his lap
And his fingers claw into his thighs.

She's sitting alone
At a round table in a cafe.
Rain drops stampede against high-tech glass
As clouds drown the sun
And twilight spills over the sky's edges.

He's sitting alone
At a round table (same cafe she's in).
Angry thoughts rain against her high-tech appendages.
'I should glass him,' he thinks
Of drowning her in her own blood.

Anticipation

Anticipation


Like the sea
Each moment holds onto
A molecule
Of the next without
Breaking
Never becoming
One
Asymmetrical thing moving with symmetry

A wave of inspiration rising –
Fizzling with a memory or hope
It carries you alive (though not itself living)
Towards a shore full of things
You can touch or hold – then it
Breaks
Under gravity's mighty pull below
And you're submerged again
Your lungs are clenching for air
Until next time
You anticipate the possibility of being alive

Her Last Friend

Her Last Friend

The sky was brimming with rich margerine light

And the pigeon walked slowly

Nodding yes to everything in its way.

It must have landed clandestinely
Because it was almost at my feet before I saw it

(Or maybe I was too clandestine for it to notice me).

Its feathers

Were fine, dark, grey filaments of rain clouds

Its feet

Were newborn earthworms with toes, nails and scales.

It was not an unusual pigeon

But it seemed so to me.

This pigeon didn't seem to know why it was here –

The wind came and it nodded yes

The dirt rose and it nodded yes

The sun burned and

Stoically, it nodded yes.

Then it pecked at the earth

And sand sprayed like water

But the ground did not yield.

It wanted a worm or some other invertebrate

Before the rain came to drive it away

And I should say that it deserved to eat

Just for being so positive.

So it pecked again

And the sand sprayed

But the ground did not yield.

It paused (as if thinking)

Tilted its head

Then pecked again.

The sand sprayed

But the ground did not yield

So it jumped and flew away.

And so did I.

Saudade

Saudade

Few things are as arresting

As clouds and the shapes they make.

Isn't it surreal how they hang

In a lazy listless lull –

Moving still

Like ponds

Moulding fancies

Like daydreams.

Visceral ephemera that almost

Look like things you wish were real –

A familiar smile

Disguised as floating lather

Or pearly impressions

Of her afro hair.

Then you reach to touch the sky and realise

That the clouds are never really there.

The Colourful Thing

The Colourful Thing

The day is filtering by unnoticed, just like days tend to. Face by face, smile by smile, nod by nod – each moment tiptoes by. The sun (tired of smiling) is slowly changing faces with the moon (tired of hiding). I'm draining away (like light does with the hours) when I see the most colourful thing I have ever seen. It is a supernova collage – a white phosphorous explosion with a rainbow stain. It forces the spectrum of visible light a little wider than possible and paints pictures the shade of fantasy. It breathes (swelling to inhale, shrinking to exhale) a dangerously delightful drug that, for a moment, forces euphoria. I sleep-sigh like I've found the answer to it all and drool-smile like I don't care I'm an addict. It feels great. I mean, it's pretty OK. It is a burning obsession – like a nucleus of daylight eating, from the centre outwards, through thin sheets of night. Soon night is consumed and all there is left is an unmysterious morning. I guess this is it. Pretty fun. It's still the best thing I've ever seen. I wonder what comes next? Is there something more interesting than the most beautiful thing I have ever seen? What is that most beautiful thing again? Why did I stop here? Oh shit, it's dark! And everyone’s gone… left me behind. I've been standing here wasting my life away… Why? I think I saw something, but I can't for the light of me remember what.