I was very ill, the last five days and nights.
In the dark I turned in damp cold sheets, dragging on my sweat swamped skin,
trying to piece together some kind of peace from the crazy, sad, troubling thoughts that trickled with the fever from my head.
Oh God, I was so far gone.
I shit myself inside out,
I became insect plastic flesh and wrecked eyes,
sad weak trembling,
I tried to shave but collapsed.

Oh Marianne, I was always thinking of you
hallucinating you
you were a terror and a pleasure in my carnival of life and death
you were my woman and my betrayer,
and it was all so fucking vivid 
it's only now that I'm coming round
that I know you've been neither.

I was so sick, these past days and nights,
shivering in my bed, wrapped in thick blankets and the full heat of high summer,
shaking in disbelief and horror at all my mind could suggest
eating but not eating
sick in stomach and head but so, so sick in heart and mind
poisoned, I believe, by searching heartbreaking conspiracies.

Marianne, you were the one who came to my bedside.
You were the one who took my temperature and understood.
You were the only one who kept in touch.
I know that you don't want me
- no, I believe that, because the way you are...I don't know shit -
and I also believe this:
you are fundamentally good.
I don't want to be bitter with someone like you.
I don't want to be heartbroken over someone like you.
I don't want to get sick like this again,
even now the aching in my joints has not quite left,
and I don't have the energy anymore -
I'm just not so young anymore -
so fuck it...
tomorrow holds out a hand
and I'm going to kiss it.

last summer's rain
swills around
abandoned boots
that I pour into
cups to feed the one plant
that still remains
living
stubborn
dumb
pointless
the crack in the window
seems to carry through the air
through the fibers of my wrinkled shirt
into and under
to trickle steady
spreading
along each artery and vein
splitting
separating
and what can come apart
will come apart
this is the universal rule
upon which all things
are built
and unbuilt
yes, everything

the water poured
the green stains newly formed
upon white cuffs
I wipe my brow
smear dirt and moss
into skin
and close my eyes
and try to remember what it means,
what yesterday means,
what old means,
how it works,
the mechanics of movement
the science of before
I am terrified

passing into the corridor and falling
to knees well used to movements
of many kinds
I am nothing more than a stack of neatly
connected processors,
a bundle of wind-up organs
that make some music from time to time
on stages and in bedrooms
that never repeats so well
in memory
once before becomes the law
what a piece of work is man
what a nasty little piece of work
crumpled face to floor
now an age couldn't move me
and I am six years old hiding in the cubby hole
in this game I hide and she seeks
I am hidden under cleaned clothes and washed sheets
I hear here creep carefully past and what a great job I have done
see she never even looked
a master of camouflage
surely I'll never have a finer moment than this
and as it happens,
I never did.

There is a bed in a room in a house
it never ceases to produce the goods
There life is good
and her skin is soft
I stand in the pose of power
and things get done
things turn out well
each and every minute
each and every hour

What I need is more money
to finance my expedition
into well chartered worlds
of touch
and cut
and sweet excess

What I need is for your smile to return
and for your memory
to fade from
my mind
your moans
your tears
your dirty texts
our lies

What I need is to continue my escape
to continue my evacuation
I am the Marshall after all
so fleeing to the jungle
is the only way,
via Geneva.
I hope for ever
to rediscover Anneline

I don't want to wake up hungry anymore.

I want your taste on my tongue,
when I wake up.

When I wake up I want to feel your heat beside me,
hear you breathing,
play with your nipple
kiss your shoulder
smoke out the window with you behind my back
put on the coffee with your bite marks on my neck
drink in the current that snaps between the air
from my fingers, not touching you,
to your salty sleeping skin
when I wake up
I want you naked

I don't want to go to sleep hungry anymore.

I don't want to taste the metal
of another empty love.

in the morning I want to leave the flat

and run across the common
with nothing on my mind but ordinary errands:
do the shopping
wash the clothes
get the job
build a home
in the morning I want to leave the flat
confident in every stride
that I am no longer traveling alone.





No, that's a lie.
In the morning I want to leave you hungry
and when I leave the flat
and run across the common
I'll make plans to overcome you
to stay free and unopposed
confident in every stride
of what it takes to never feel alone.

I staggered through the party
in the middle of the scorching afternoon
babies babbling about my feet
young mothers with young fathers in the clothes of young designers
watching as I slumped

deep into a lounger
with a beer balanced beautifully,
I lounged

'What do you do?'asked a hunger wrapped in politeness.

FUCK! I felt the urge to shout.
Tear down the British bunting
smash the bottles
tip the tables.
Yeah.
I'm all enraged and horny
because I'm all alive and lonely
because all I want to do is love and fuck
all I want to do is love and fuck
all I want to do is love and fuck

and sing
and every moment that I don't do these things,
to me that's dying.

'I 'm not sure what I do'
but I do know what I want.

I do find joy in the joy of others
I do find joy in the joy of my brothers
but...the women, they're everywhere!
the real and the imagined
it's almost too much

I cannot look where light is beautiful without wishing, in some dark room within,
to devour and consume
and have a taste of everything.

I'm not your fucking gay best friend.

You know how I know?

I spoke to your gay best friend.

He told me "You're in danger of becoming her gay best friend, but, I'm her actual gay best friend."

I was angry.

But then he said "I know less than you, about how she feels."

But still, he suggested I try to crush any feelings I have for you. I can't help the feeling you had words.
You should do your own dirty work.

Then again, you're probably being sweet. Because you are sweet. And you're trying to find a way to make a soft kill. You know that only makes me like you more? Damn I've put you in an impossible situation.

But let me tell you, from my former career, there is no such thing as a soft kill. I used to make the juniors dip their fingers in the blood, just so they understood. Do you understand? If you don't confront the truth of what you've done, in the instant, you're storing up trouble for yourself.

I don't know if I'm asking for a mercy kill. I don't know. Perhaps I'm being an arsehole.



I think my pride struggles. How could I, of all people, spend this much time with a woman, and not have her?


I read that, and I realise I deserve everything I get. But still... how?

I am more than willing to be rejected by you, I would embrace it as release.
What I am not willing to endure, is your consideration and your sorrow.
Be a bastard, be a bitch, but don't be full of sorrow.

If you don't treat me mean, I'm going to fucking destroy you.

I have better things to do than to think of better things to do.

I don't have an excuse Marianne. Do I need one?
I have reasons, but surely you don't want to hear them.
I could say, it was a moment when your head was resting on your left arm,
when your left arm was resting on the rail at the river's edge
and the sun that was all over the water
was also on your light brown skin
and dark brown eyes
and a mischievous breeze was flicking strands of hair across your face.
So what is your excuse for this?

Or I could say it was your story of high school
or the story of your sister's cat, clawing at her bathroom door
or the story of your bikinis
or that you told me I'd be a good father, a good father Marianne!
What's your excuse for saying that?

But still, I'm writing out of guilt
and I'm sorry if the silence means I took a step too far
and I'm lonely if the silence means I disappointed you
and I'm remorseful if it means I forced you back
and I'm glad if it means I forced you to look at me.
Look at Me.

look at the way I look at you
how can't you?

Unless, perhaps you do
and then I'm sorry for being a child
who cannot accept not getting what he wants
who nags and nags until something breaks.
I'd rather it be your temper or your will
than your kindness or your taste.

But how many times can I show you that I'm out of control?
How many times can I show you that I'm irresponsible?
I think you are too forgiving,
or wilfully blind,
or just wiser and more patient than...

Whatever the case, Marianne
I do feel that I don't deserve you
but please, that's no excuse.
I have never been satisfied with my just desserts
and I have never been satisfied.
I think that's what I've been trying to tell you
and if I need one,
that's my excuse.

The Dogs of Freetown # 2

The rainy season has come
and the rain is bouncing off the zinc
The dogs of Freetown are soaked through
and shivering.

If anyone cares,
they don't care enough.

I know there is a museum dedicated to the memory of you
somewhere in a head in Switzerland.
I imagine there is a case where you body is on show,
with a button that when pressed sounds out your laughter,
your arguments
your moans

I imagine there are countless halls
many without light and lost in dust
with galleries of photographs and videos on loops
- you celebrating Midsummer in Upsalla
- you opening presents after dinner
- you dressing and undressing
and the two of you, falling out
and making up

Fuck.

I know there must be an archive of old letters,
of emails, of texts,
recordings of phone calls of longing, of sorrow,
of silence,
and probably of sex.

I know there is a museum dedicated to the memory of you
somewhere in a head in Switzerland,
where the workmen are knocking through the walls
and clearing out the cellars.
I hope they go about their work in earnest.

I hope they go about their work in earnest
For I wish I did not know about the monuments to you,
the statues in the Stockholm squares
the volumes of your history
in all the libraries of the world.

and I wish I was not preparing a room for you here,
within my war-born ruins,
hanging all my portraits of you
like all the other curators of your touch
like all the other fools who took your art as love

then again,
that's bollocks.

It takes discipline and a singular, driven mind to smoke as much as I do.

I'll tell you why I write things down:
To make ugly things beautiful
to hide doubts
and to look at myself in a hall of mirrors
and be sad
curious
and aroused.

The air changed today.
In the morning it was cold and carried Winter, but by the afternoon, warm and with the scent of Summer.
 Now my window is open. It's cold again, but flowers and grass and open skies and soft young skin still drifts in on a whisper of a breeze.
It's enough to fill me with desire,
and it's enough to make me foolish with power.
It's enough to bring me boldly to your ear and say 'Darling, I'm dangerous tonight.'


And I do feel dangerous. It's a feeling, I know, but I do feel dangerous.
I want to boast to you.
I want to say 'if you and I were in the same room, right now, I would devour you.'
And I wonder what might have happened, had I had this kind of air to breath when you last drew breath beside me.



For a moment he imagines telling her 'I've fought hard not to fall in love with you'
but then hearing it, he smiles and shakes his head
because he knows it isn't true
and anyway, if you have to fight you're already too late.

this wasn't love, and isn't love, and love might not be all it was once.
A longing, for sure, and one he could take all the way to desperation,
all the way to useless words like love, but why be so childish now?
Grow up.

Still, he sits beside her and as she stays sober, he falls further into drink.
Eventually, inevitably, he gives her a kind honesty - an idea of what he might feel, had he not discovered that what he feels can never be long trusted -
pouring out his temporary heart he says
'I've fought hard not to fall in love with you'
oh the weak willed little cunt
 and he doesn't pause to look,
to consider her reaction.
Perhaps this is all about him.

Further in
'I need to tell you now, in this right-here-right-now chance ,
all the ways in which I fell for you,
how it is I found you beautiful.'
Ha! Not all the ways.
And he stumbles through clumsily,
accidentally,
but somehow he sets a torch to her,
the luck so undeserved,
the prize so wasted,
she's alight
she's smiling
and he is right -
she really is quite beautiful.

The next morning he wakes up,
and can only remember a few sentences here and there.
He thinks he vaguely remembers her saying
'I feel the same way too,'
but he can't remember what she meant
because he can't remember what he said.

He receives a message saying
'I'm sorry for making a mess'
and
'You're so wonderful'
and
he doesn't know a thing.
But his head could make another fiction out of this
and make it into Love
and soon enough
he could be the great Heartbroken
or the tender Lover

Yet this time,
staring up at the grey sky of an English summer
hangover heavier than any guilt could be,
he says 'Fuck you' to himself, the bullshit Author
and sorry, to her,
(unless of course she loves him
if she writes such fictions anymore,
but like I said,
he can't remember).

I wonder what might have happened
had I been sober
had you been lying beside me on the grass
in this air, this glorious made for fucking air,
gentle, soft, licking air
that drops from the moon like manna for us desert wanderers

I imagine what would have happened
had I been sober
I'd pull you under me, on the grass
and feel your hair on the back of my hand
gentle, soft, I'd press my lips against your neck
and rise like the moon in aching splendour

probably what would have happened
had I been sober
had you been lying beside me on the grass
in this air, this accidental agreement of elements and scents and sense,
gently, softly, your tongue flicking carefully from push to pull,
you would say 'I have to go home soon'
and I would long for you
knowing that it is not love
knowing that it does not matter
knowing that I am the King of the heavens
and also,
nothing special,
nothing better


but listen,
if we don't indulge in these waking dreams
we'll never know that we're asleep
and we'll have to wait forever to wake up.


So go ahead,
call it love.

You might, as well.

And when the lights come up
he's there,
churning,
moving inside of her
breaking up and breaking away
losing pieces of himself

and he's a liability
and he's a not of courage, but of carelessness
but they call him brave all the same

and at night there is a sound
like the sound of a frightened bird of prey
and a moon scraped with smoking clouds
and God is the power in the sky
and he desecrates that sky
he desecrates that moon
he makes her moan
and he betrays her every moment
and she knows
she cries

and when he's empty and lost
and the flesh is burning
when Calaar dances for him
at him
over him
he doesn't burn the way she demands
he doesn't want the way she wants
instead,
he says
'marry me'
and she recoils

and when the lights come up it's not clear who is naked
it's not clear who was clothed
or who, on the night bus home,
was never really there
in that seat
or that seat
or in that head

there is only memory
and a God pronouncing judgement
there is no death
because
there was no life
so when the lights come up
and she's there, churning
moving inside of him
breaking up and breaking away
shrapnel pieces, slivers and seepages
it's not a loss
it's just a mixing
and a return to what always was

and if you get this,
you get my pity.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

I found that the Islamists are going to blow the shit out of something, sometime soon
in Mauritania
and then I agreed to take a look at civil society groups further south
and then I was drinking wine on the Southbank, in a sun blown by the wind
stealing laughter from a Swedish woman,
who took me to dinner,
who bought a mojito and a daiquiri and a mojito and a dry white wine,
who looked at me with love, but will never take me as a lover,
who was uncomfortable as I returned from the mens,
as a chancer tried his luck and failed,
who I walked home and said
nothing to
because there's nothing left to say
because I told her everything about her beauty yesterday.

And then at home, smoking alone on the balcony
the phone is ringing with a number from Sierra Leone
and I am pretending that I am not home,
but I am not home
and she says thank you for the compliments that you never gave, I'm sure I don't deserve them,
whatever they may have been
and I am hungry,
so hungry,
but all I do is drink

I wish I had stayed with the fire dancers in the darkness by the river Thames
I wish I had joined their laughter and pretended not to give a damn
but she was cold and walking fast,
and I am used to chances slipping past
and I am used

It's 4.40 am
I haven't slept
I'm thinking about having a cigarette.


I'm thinking I'm old
I'm thinking I want to do it all again
And better.

I've played.

I'm very good at some difficult games
but you get this way through practice
over and over
and over and over
and these are games, no matter what some men will say,
that nobody wants to play forever.

It stops being conquest and becomes something sadder,
it becomes theft
in the end, it's the player who is left with nothing.

And that's not me, not really.
I'm not even a smoker, though I've smoked for years.
You know what I mean.

I'm thinking I'm old,
but I'm young.
I'm still turned on by seeing the world naked
and I'm still mixing it with murderers
as though it's somehow more real than watching TV.
That's youth.

And now it's 5.02 and it's time for bed. Can't say I'm not equipped with all the facts.

I would like to return to your home
Close you door
and sleep

I am concocting something special here
by the light of fire
it is as old as fire itself
but I dare not call it primitive

There is nothing in the darkness, is there?
Nothing but spaces,
vapour and mosquitoes,
trails of breath and carriers of death,
nothing but nothing.

I have to ask,
where is your god?
as I come back from the dead
writing these words down by the light of embers

"Judas", the fire says.

"I don't believe you, you're a liar",
a singer in my head recalls.

If only this were fiction.

You are sifting through the photographs
and documenting our union.
You ask me if I remember the abbey
Outside Strasbourg,
Or the strewn sheets of Lausanne.

In truth, I am involved in a project of my own.
I am not a mind, I am an archive of perpetual recollection.

In answer to your question:
The things that I remember most
Are the ditches filled with wild nettles and abandoned faded children's toys,
Which have lined the paths of all my journeys,
From the Wrekin hill to Hebden Bridge,
From Sloane Square to Lynfield Mount,
From Haworth Moor to County Down
From the fevered creche to the crucifix,
And back into my hell.

Baby, I remember everything.
I remember all too well.

I hang my flesh
on that fence
as I struggle
to clamber over into field
In my field, I have become a rising star,
or so they'd have me believe
but I know myself
I am meteorite.

A woman is in my thoughts.

She is not image
or taste
but a brute of nature
secreting all the same misfortunes
that brought us animals to speak.
I do not love her,
I consume her.
And we are both consumed by
process,
a tale of sweat and blood and stars.

I would like to laugh
at the site of hanging flesh,
my old shell, loyal, but torn away at last
But I am hurting
Hurting so much
It makes the poetry this was meant to be
A lamentation.
It puts iron on my tongue,
and soil in my lungs.

I hate myself for dying.

The Dogs of Freetown # 1

I heard the dogs of Freetown howling
they howled all night
I was high in my room, frightened
they howled so long, so high



I heard the dogs of Freetown howling
there were prowlers, thieves, lurking about
I was high, naked, shivering in bed
it was so fucking hot, I was so far gone
those dogs howled so loud, so deep, so long


I heard the dogs of Freetown howling
from one dirt track to the next
I was hugging a pillow
sweating and shaking
those dogs, those limping broken dogs were singing
those dirty stinking selfless dogs

I heard the dogs of Freetown howling
while the Lebanese were in their castles
while the diplomats were up their asses
while the NGO girls were downing their glassesI heard the dogs of Freetown howling
I am told it was a warning. 

The Morning After

Waking up, there was blood all over my boxers
you broke my cock,
I'm not kidding.

As you sang in the kitchen frying eggs,
I sang Leonard Cohen and crushed a cockroach with your favourite mug.

When you told me you were growing attached and I acted with humility
I was acting
I was proud and full of myself
the breaker of hearts and the crusher of cockroaches
all with a broken cock.

eventually on the way home
on the back of a motorbike I sang "Mr Loverman"
and the rider responded "Shabba"
at that precise moment I realised
you would take another man into your bed by nightfall
and in the morning
wiping blood from your lips,
softly whisper that you were falling fast for him

I bet that wasn't even your mug.




I bet you're not even American.

But I want to thank you anyway
for all the beautiful lies
it's what happens to people our age, and it's alright
by now we all know the words to all the old songs
we've been around so many blocks,
you're not even the first to have broken my cock
and I've stolen Sunday mornings from other Catholic girls 
but still,
I do believe
you've never met someone quite like me -
that's why I don't want to hear any more from you.
I have this feeling you are reckless with the truth.

Finally, for the record,
just because I moved in you
doesn't mean I approved of you
just as I know
you disapproved so fully of me.
I know that's why you wanted me.

The Dawn

God,
I said I wouldn't come back here until I could thank you for taking her away.
Until I could say I understand why it had to be that way.

Now I'm smiling, because 'her' has been so many other women since,
with lesser degrees of melodrama,
and because you and I,
well...things changed.

I come back not because I fully understand,
but because I believe I will never fully understand
and because I'm okay with that
because I'm not after all your secrets
and I've accepted life beyond my fingers
and because I can see your touches here and there
even in the dark I feel them with my fingers
even on electric skin of damned lovers,
so
I'm just saying thank you
because things must be this way
and thank you, that I am not in charge
and I have so much
and I wouldn't be here had I not been there
and you taught me a lesson
I just didn't want to learn.

Now I confess I didn't come here to devote myself to you,
because I lost that path a long time ago.
I came here because I still need to write down
in my clumsy self-involved way
what happens
what I want
and what hurts.

And also, because life so often feels unreal now
with the things I see and the people I meet,
and because boredom feels like such a callous way to react to all this stimulation
that I need to get it out here
before someone overhears
and I am exposed.

I am still a dubious motherfucker,
a perfect nice bitter lover,
a sociable loner and a disinterested victor,
lacking entirely in true self-awareness
and burdened by an undeserved sense of my own tragic greatness
and weak because my libido is unmatched
and repulsive, because I'm a judgemental pervert
and unsatisfied,
because I will never find satisfaction, and will never stop looking 



God, you are great.
I am not.

come pick me up
I think I'll be sitting in the shower
slumped against the wall
sobbing like a
child

come pick me up

come pick me up
I think I'll be on my knees
head down
fists clenched
meaning every word
for the very
last time

come pick me up

But you can go on
and you will go on

But I do not wish to go on
I do not wish to go on
no more
no more
I wish for no more of this.
Give me change,
give me her voice
her touch,
or break me
or change me
get me out of here.

Get me out of here.

Come pick me up.

It's a strange pain
standing here in the shower
a pain of losing
of leaking
of draining away
standing here in the shower

It's a strange light
that greets these empty mornings
a strange silence of the mobile phone

whenever your absence attacks
it is the strangeness
that hurts the most

Who would have thought
your devotion would lead here
Who would have thought
the warmth could drain so quickly

It's a strange pain
I carry with me
on the tube
in the church
in my mind as I stir the tea

It's a lonely pain
that I cannot understand
your absence
I cannot understand

before God
I have accepted this pain
and I carry it in hope
that one day
you will explain
and finally the cold and cutting strangeness
will itself
drain away

"I was killing myself"
he said
shaking his head
as he stepped off the ledge
of the 9th floor

And you are a man
she said
and I looked upon her as a mother
and you are my man
she said
and I looked upon her as my woman
and your legs, she said,
I was looking at your legs
My legs? I said
How strange
Those legs could look after me,
she said
My legs? I said
How strange
But anything I have
I'd put to work for you

I dare not imagine your children
she says
Your children will be beautiful
I say
I dare not imagine our children
she says
I smile,
when did we become so old?
I ask
But she is very young,
and I know I will look back
on her trusting eyes and soft smooth skin
in fondness for the foolish talk we made
way back when
all we had to do was dream
to make a victory of everything

Don't call me your woman
she says
Until I am your woman
Unless I am your woman

Then she says
But I am your woman
and I cannot see it any other way

On the hill
the crimson is no longer blood
but the light of a rising sun
And the warmth of that new day
is felt across the ages
even in the cold
of this long winter

I breathe the fresh air of new world

as I approach the summit of the escalator
ascending from the Jubilee Line
I note the tube at Waterloo
smells like my old school canteen

My heart

I cannot help but see us there,
reflected in the eyes of Leonard Cohen

Sorry.

when the cough comes the rupture deep within
is enough to seduce, for now
she wears my football shirt
her body pressing through the thin fabric
my swift hands upon her, orchestrating body song,
this is so much more than a performance
this is creation
with artistry

I am alive



I don't believe in excuses





I typed this with one hand

She said

"I love you, I love you so much it scares me, and I never expected this"


She said

"I want you, I need you now, I need you to be here beside me now, and for all times"


She said

"you're perfect, I can't believe this is real, I never expected this, I can't stop smiling"


She said

"but you don't believe in God, and I love God, and I didn't see this coming"

and

she said

"I should have said something before, but I love you and I'm torn, but perhaps I shouldn't see you"

and

she said

"but I have to, I want to, it's just my head that's saying no, and now I can't stop crying"

and

she said

"I love you, but it can't happen, and I'm sorry for hurting you, this hurts me too"

and then

He said


"I touched you, but you touched me, and now your prints are burnt into my skin. I'll wear the brand of the gentle lover, the genteel lover, the gentile lover, and I will step into the flames of the desire that you left burning, like some back street fire of plastic bottles and rubber tyres,

Claudine says
come celebrate my birthday
come drink with me
but I decline

Claudine is hurt
it's been so long since we were together
dancing truly hungry under false light
but one by one
I shed my childish affections
and all my childish
affectations

But honestly
now,
in the aftermath,
butterflies in my belly
when I think about her,
which I so rarely do
It makes me realise how dangerous it would be
to drink with her again

So close in the same city
she is another world
I must leave at the edge of my galaxy

New light comes through my windows
and I will be free

"Down here they're all wealthier than us"

he explains

"they have some vague idea of 'the North', but they don't appreciate the economic gap."

"but we aren't held back, we're too clever for that"

he says

"The class barriers are broken by intellect and learning. You and I already have more momentum. They're half way down the road ahead, but they're at a virtual standstill. We're moving faster and faster."

"I'm not so sure"

I replied

I have an image of your body in my mind
it is very hard to forget
probably impossible
and I have a memory on my lips
of your lips

but it does not feel like it was me
it is as though another man was witness,
culprit,
lover

Whenever I have touched you,
or any other woman,
it was never real

the moment dies within itself
upon itself
and I record all for later post-mortem

This is not living
this is observation

Welcome to my observation

On the Eighth Day
You must learn to love the lines of my suit
my crisply ironed shirt
and the shine of my shoes
for I have reconfigured dignity, here,
on this leather couch,
where I once thrust though your breathless words,
my hands on your Eden waist,
my mouth on your Eden neck,
I am seated suited clean and crisp,
gentleman replaces gentle man,
and there is nothing to fear from serpents or gods
When your hair is combed and your soul is a pocket watch

You must learn to love the codes of my habit,
the figures and calculations of my bank statements and pay packages
all my economic estimations and rituals of ,
for I am no longer wild in a glass
pouring my own spirit down my own throat and singing till my throat is bloodied
No,
I am kept and coiled,
arranged to the minutest measurement,
and I am seated here on this couch of sweat and lipstick and cum,
to pronounce on beauty...

Beauty is no longer in the eye of the beholder
Beauty can no longer be seen
Beauty is can only be dreamed

I woke up
and it was morning, on the Eighth Day

Some of the boys are dead now love
they were taken under the snows of last winter
some of the boys were cold
some of them were blue in February
I took photographs
I took pulses
I took what I could before the communicatoins cut forever

some of your veins I see
some of your veins stand up on your arms
If I pricked them with a pin they should bleed bright blue
like the eyes of some of those boys

it was okay, you know
to leave them in Winter
and anyway,
here in the Summer we are not expected to look back on them

I never encounter anything that makes me feel ill
no grease on your body or scum in the tub
i do not eat
i only drink
I never consume anything I wouldn't want to paint
I fall in love all the time you know,
and I fucked in Paris for a good forty years or so
before they built the first MacDo

So you see everything rotten was covered in the snows
was buried in the cold and nobody should unturn the Winter stones,
they are markers for graves

let them nihlate

I see your perfect brown body
I see your perfect young skin and I am a Divine Lifetime away from that desolate
landscape of blue heaven and blinding white Barren

I touch you and I am touched
broken in just the right way as to be fixed
and weeping,
stronger with every tear some kind of Man you make me love,
some kind of man of hot blood never
knowing cold,
never seen in early morning frost
last breath steaming from cracked lips
never
ever

I find it strange what I've become
once so stern in love
I would not touch like this
I would not hold you so much
I would not seek your lips

I find it strange what I've become
once so diciplined and kept
now I cannot keep away from you
my arms around you
I never let you go
perhaps even I'll smother you

and then you become another, no longer Lover

but killer

are you looing back over the White Expanse?

Are you pulling back the lids on the eyes I closed

on the many fallen men rigid in the honest snows?

You heartless, heartless Beauty
that tears from me my strong young heart
and drains from me my hot young blood
my veins are blue
but empty now,
and you,
clothed and with a company of sweating eager men,
you should know that it is not okay to leave me here
with my bright blue eyes
in the Winter that has always followed
your first heated kiss

Some of the boys are dead now love

they were taken under the snows of last winter

some of the boys were cold

some of them were blue in February

I took photographs

I took pulses

I took what I could before the communicatoins cut forever

some of your veins I see

some of your veins stand up on your arms

If I pricked them with a pin they seem like they would bleed bright blue

some of those boys had pale blue eyes

and pale blond hair like straw

it was okay, you know

to leave them in Winter

and anyway,

here in the Summer we are not expected to look back on them

I never encounter anything that makes me feel ill

no grease on your body or scum in the tub

i do not eat

i only drink

I never meet anything I wouldn't want to paint

I fall in love all the time you know, love

and I fucked in Paris for a good forty years or so

before they built the first MacDo

So you see everything bad was covered in the snows

was buried in the cold and nobody should be turning any Winter stones

let it nihlate

I see your perfect brown body

I see your perfect warm skin and I am a million lifetimes away from that desolate

and beautiful landscape of blue sky and white blinding End

I touch you and I am touched

broken in just the right way as to be fixed

and weeping,

stronger with every tear some kind of Man you make me love,

some kind of man of hot blood never

touched by cold,

never seen in early morning frost

last breath vapour flying from cracked lips

never

ever

I find it strange what I've become

once so stern in love

I would not touch like this

I would not hold you so much

I would not seek your lips

I find it strange what I've become

once so diciplined and kept

now I cannot keep away from you

my arms around you

I never let you go

that perhaps even I'll smother you

I find it strange what I've become

one who never noticed anything or cared too much for anyone

but now your perfume sets me off

frenzied I must have you, hold you

I seek your lips, your eyes

oh just your presence lover,

so strange what I've become

Yes, perhaps I am drunk
and perhaps it is 3.45 am
but still,
I am clever
in my way

I have the most beautiful Indian lover
I think I could easily grow to love her
but still,
when I stop for breath,
my heart longs for Claudine

Claudine,
you fucking nightmare,
I should have slept with you again.

And then there is Grace,
who begs me for a night.

It all comes at the wrong time
but I am lucky never to be alone
a beautiful woman always in my bed
and now
this most beautiful woman
stroking my hair
telling me
I am forgiven

I am in heaven and hell

You are
by far
the most beautiful woman I have seen
naked

and without wishing to sound arrogant
that is saying something

it is saying
oh love,
you are something special

naked before me I felt privelleged
and grateful
and fully undeserving
and all of a sudden
I could not tell
if I was inside you or not

have you noticed that I do not know?
have you noticed how limp I am quickly becoming?

soon I am no longer the powerful charmer with your perfect body in his hands
but the failed lover,
limp and shamed,
thankful to the heavens to be this close to you

it did not last
an hour later
I was once more the god

but still love,
still,
you are so very beautiful
and for a moment you stunned me,
threw me off guard,
and left me weak

For this
I will always thank you

You and your lips

waiting there

like a new Zion

I sit patiently, a Stephen stoned

for the good of a God

the martyr of the office hour

but honey we both know

I'm dying to touch you

I'm dying to die for you

you and your fine black hair

you and your Asiatic eyes

you and your body of bending branches

playing as a siren before me

playing as a sailor,

it's almost too much some times

This another sweet love story,

this another romance for the year

this another woman and the same hungry man

who always wants what he cannot have,

but I have you now,

so what happens next?

Music plays,

the ladies of the court dab cheap tears and look on fondly,

we are to dance I guess,

like this,

our bodies bonded and our eyes alight

like faded aristocracy

your caste and mine

vieing for the crown of Elegance

but fuck it,

you're beautiful in rags and ashes honey,

you're beautiful sad and happy,

and when you held me,

I didn't need anything else

When you held me,

I didn't need anything else

at all

Vision
I take you to the nights of youth
salt water on our lips
beneath the stars at dead of night
dark mountain climb
I take you up crumbling path
beside the gushing stream
the fern scent dizzying our minds
so strong
no wind
and strong star light
that keeps the sleeping world subdued
our mountain here
the trickling mud and ancient breaking stone
our mountain here is Love

I lay you down
you lay me down
side by side
on Cader Idris
and god breathes between us
fills our lungs
the moths and bats and ticks and gnats
know us like the moss
because this mountain
and all its dripping stone and drenched grass
is our Love

the caves are my throat
and the breeze is my song
and the trees are your touch
and the streams are your prayers
and my sweetheart,
dear sweet young hope,
this mountain is our Love
this mountain is our soul

But in the morning,
as always,
we both come down

every day
a wine bar or a cafe
she waits for me
and I come eagerly

in a cafe on the Strand
I kiss her
her lips undoing so much pain
I kiss her
and she holds on to me
for dear life

from the cafe we walk
before the waiting London cabs
across towards the Thames
and the sun is setting
and the moon is in the sky
and we walk over Waterloo Bridge
and I am holding her still
and she is hungry too

from the station we take the Tube
on the Jubilee line I ride
with her
and a kiss goodbye
at Finchley Road
before the same old
journey home

this accidental romance made
me free
she says
"I've never been like this before, with anyone"
and I wince
there was no death of a ladies man
there was no man to die
but the boy lives on,
his melodrama in the summertime
a testament to

It is time
oh God
yes
it's time

so long coming
so close now
I could fucking cry
oh the relief is written all over me
all across my body
my voice trembles
so close to being
so free

September comes
but not just any old month
this one
that was predicted
that was planned for
that was anitcipated
this month comes
to bring in change
evolution
resurrection of an old dream
and the descent of a new Jerusalem from the clouds

The chains are falling away
the music is bursting at the seams
the alcohol flees from my blood
I am coming round

the dream fades as the sleep drops away from blinded eyes
the light now coming in so bright
i see at last,
I see
the streets of Brussels
and the streets of Paris
the streets of Montpellier and the streets of Norwich
the streets of York and the streets of London
the streets of Bradford and the streets of Ulster
the streets of all the many cities
and the hills and crumbling footpaths of the welsh moutains and the Pennine Way
the damp stone of the Slack Stop streams and the crusty mud of the Herefordshire farm
the heat of the Malvern Hills and the low throb of the Lake District motorway
the moon, in full power, tugging at the sea,
and the sun, blazing strong, pulling sweat through a grey suit in Peel Park,
the times, changed and changing,
are all becoming one

The Future is Coming
and it is so very close

Within a matter of weeks you will tell me that you love me
I know
I am a master of this trick
no matter how pretty
or seemingly beyond my league
Given time to talk, I touch,
whatever your humour, I draw your laughter,
and before you know it
you think you've met "the One"

I am the One
for everyone
so I am no good to anyone

But when your words come
I will know what to say
the correct response will form in my mouth
I will expell it
as a prophesy
"you might love me now, but give it time"

although
perhaps I could love you
give it time
we'll see

so perhaps not so free of lust
but sweetly done
you gave me courage to touch you without guilt

but the truth is
though you revealed your hidden beauty
though I played out our game accross the divine tribute of your Asian body
I hungered most for this:
that you lie beside me, sleeping
and rest your head on my chest

when you did this love,
I felt more joy than all the naked fumblings of my previous life

my previous life
the time before we ended time
for a night or so
to be beside
ourselves

Going to bed
going to bed are you son?
I love you sunshine
going to bed

getting up
then going back to bed
you go to bed sunshine
you go to bed son

but when the sun shines son
you're up
and when that sun fades son
you go to bed

going to bed again
I watch you proudly
going about things admirably
an animal kitted out with clockwork
you tick tock on the dot
right to the right spot
off you go
right back to bed son

and when you take a woman there
to that there bed of yours
I like the way you tick like a clock
bang bang bang
on the dot
your mechanical love is the very word of nature
your tick tock love is good
you follow your wholesome little design
loyal to your loins
loyal to your lines son
going back to bed
until the sun shines

I was there beside her in the morning
in the early hours
her head rested on my chest
for a while she let her guard down
I stroked her hair gently
and she did not make a sound
she was so beautiful

I was there to see her smiles
and they could have only been for me
nobody else around
she said
"pour me another drink"
so I fixed her a cocktail
then she lay down beside me
and was beautiful

I was there to see her in the office
her pride and strength turning me on so much
I stood up and said
I'll have you
and she said
"dream on"
and I did dream of her again

I was there to begin the process of
falling in love
so tedious and predictable
and she was there to make her objections
but all her objections were undone that night
when she looked shy and longingly over soft flickering candle light
into my hungry eyes
and said
"you have good taste, I'll give you that"

But I want more love,
too much
so much
I think you too will piss me off
as I deserve

My name is keyrun
my name is keeran
my name is nothing
for all these words
it is when you stand before me,
when we are face to face,
that you tremble before the power of my appetite
succumbing once again to the siren of my poison voice
elocuting beauty, the beauty of your offering to me

I want you


and so I talk to professors and diplomats
of the complexity of diminishing conflict
of the ins and outs of post-traumatic stress disorder
of the latest innovations in the psychiatric treatment of shame-related ethical disfigurement,
and my talk...my dressed up talk that walks a thousand miles away from such simple
and childish prose as this...it preaches emptiness and longing and hunger,
and you, my love,
you are now becoming the object of my distraction,
the one I am turning to
to deliver me from evil
deliver me from honesty
kiss me,

The New Girl

I think you're sweet
and I think you don't need me
I think it's the way you're not so impressed by me
that makes me so keen

so you know I try harder
and I know I've broken your defences a couple of times
and I look back now amazed and astounded
that I had you in my bed
and did not even so much as kiss you

You have made a saint out of me

My lover
my non-lover
my girl who is not at all my girl
thank god you're here, now
if you weren't
i would be wasting my time obsessing about Claudine
instead I am wasting my time obsessing about you

I doubt you will be mine
but we keep coming together over candles and wine
and your eyes keep losing their independence to mine
and I conquer you with my humour and my wit
and you conquer me with your sass and your humour and your beauty and your wit
and we fall together

but then you go home to your family
and your real life
and I go home to mine
and I amazed that I felled such a beauty
to whom I had no right

but you could be mine
and perhaps you will be mine
I think you're sweet
and you do not need me

You are just what the doctor ordered

I find that I am addicted to taking you to wine bars
I find I am addicted to listening to you talk
I find I am finding this easy
I find you attractive
and I hope you have the strength to keep me at arms length


Grace talked of dirty videos and growing old alone
Claudine asked for help in finding work
Kate came round, grieving and not moving on
I conducted no research, a shame
I could be prosecuted
but earlier, watching you drink and laugh again - you made me smile
for real


I do not want to be a man that comes from woman to woman
falling in and out of "love" too easily
wrecking beauty with my ill considered appetites

so secretly, against myself, I pray you have the strength to keep me at arms length

I dare not touch you again
though I love your beauty
my other passions subside as I am caught by the simplicity of your perfection

fine black hair
soft brown skin
big brown eyes
a withering wit
and a heart of laughter and kindness that makes my heart
laughter and kindness

I could lie beside you all night and listen to your sleepy chatter
smile at the petty spats you and your friends love to agonise over,
sound my agreement in a low hum when you suspect I am falling asleep
but never close my eyes on you
I could stroke your hair like this, and be happy, like this,
humour you and build you up, like this,
but I want to protect you

I want to protect you now from me
and see you get what you deserve
a man more noble
less prone to self-indulgence
devoted and contented
a man of worth to match you

I know that I can have you
but I dare not touch you again
I dare not ruin you
poison your life with my life
as you lie sleeping beside me

but oh god your hair, like this, over my chest
it is enough to undo all my best intentions
enough to make me vulbernable to you

but I will not make love to you
though I know you are a dream for men like me
though I know that to lie beside you cures me of my other passions
I will not use you
or love you
You would make love to me
but I would be ashamed
for I would feel animal, offering nothing more than fucking
I am the sensitive man you hunger for,
but I am also the vulgar wretch you run from
I will not let you love me
or seek my touch
I have broken my sweat over other women
and they have broken their hope over me
but we never met there innocently
without suspicions of risk

but you
you are better than this
better than me
the one thing I will do right this year
is save you from a fate
you do not even know is looming
I will not touch you again

"You feel like there's a hole in you, in your spirit, your soul..."

"Perhaps..."

"The hole, it's a god-shaped hole..."

"Sure, if god is a woman, and I have every reason to believe this is the case."

it was just to be in Africa
with your scent still on my hand
your taste on my lips
in the heat

now any form of that woman
I'll take
a woman to make me hunger
a woman to make me groan
a woman to keep me young enough
for a little while longer
a woman to really love

it was just to be in Africa
with that woman
and that strength
that I chose to wake up today
and breathe again

more power
i need more fucking power


i just fucked a beautiful woman
i don't even remember her name

still trying to hide in female flesh
still on the edge
miserable
suicidal
so sad

she had huge breasts
it seemed to help

It was a tough call sunshine,
but I think I just about preferred your suicide notes
to your love letters

as for your music,
the less said the better

16.45

I am here

typing

in the office

25

full health

fully alive

I feel aborted

robbed

broken

I want to weep

I am fighting tears back

so strange

I tend not to cry

ever

I don't know what is wrong with me

I never did

I just want to mean it, for once, when I reply

"I'm fine"

i think this is the lowest point

your lowest point, sunshine

but you won't kill yourself in the garden

let the sun shimmer in the warm trickle of your blood

and you will not run away

take the next plane

and pretend to be some other kind of person or animal

i don't know where we go from here, sunshine

beyond tonight

i know tonight you will take a bottle of whisky

drink it dry

and i know tonight you will become too sentimental

and curl up in a ball on the floor

and shake with child's crying

and i know that at that point

you will feel even more ashamed

and even less of a man

than you do now

i do not know how you will find a way to go on living

but i believe you will

i do not wish you would perform your suicide

and i only partly wish you would escape this country and cut your ties

mostly i wish we could go back in time

undo all those errors you made

take it to the start of each pretty woman

back when they were so eager

and you were so strong

back to when you did not really want any one

but I know this cannot happen

i know we are stuck with your past

with your face

and your features

and your frail trembling hands

you could start again elsewhere

and have the same sucess

but it would only come crashing down around you

once again

perhaps there is no escape

and you will go on trembling and drinking to your final days

i wish there was some way to save you, sunshine

i wish you hadn't become such a waste

but here we are

you are totally undone and angry and full of self-hate and stagnant tears

oh i love you honey, sunshine, lad,

but you're fucked

fucked

fucked

she kissed me, once
and held me close
she did not say a word
another day
she did much more
but did not make a sound

now she draws away from me
the distant sun
setting silently

and I,
as ever,
make all the noise

a voice

but I ache and i ache
and i ache
and i ache
and I want you

and i want you
or i don't want you
i don#t want you

this drink is saving me
this philtre will take me out of this enclosed space
and put me back on the mountain

i want to be on top of you in the mountain mist

i wan t to be waking holding on to you

and i don#t ache for you
i dont want you
and this drink is saving me

but sometimes the lights go on
i have to sleep through the day
and wait for them to fade again
before i can take my place back in the heavens
i am a star

fuck me if i wasnt so beleagured
i wrote about you
below you
beneath you
i cradled your head
and supportedyour broken neck
so you never knoew it was broken
and you will never know what is broken
and i would never know what was broken
if i never ached
and ic ould never fix a thing
if i never ached
but the truth is
i never fixed a thing
i

Friday I sat across from Claudine and stared
concentrating hard to see if I could abolish her hold on me
her beauty
but i went home in love a little sad
a little tinge of suicide
the usual kind
that never ends in tears
Saturday I went to the Zoo
and i saw the gorillas
and the fire eaters
and a friend tried to set me up with her sister
but I was not drunk enough to want to kiss her
and then I was carried home
and woke up alone
on the couch in her living room
so I left and it was Sunday
and then I was on the road and in Wales
before I could take my breath
I was drunk again
and full of smiles
dancing like a fool
and then i was at a wedding
and then I was on the floor of a hotel room
and then i was in a car on the back seat
and then i was on a football pitch
on monday tuesday evening
scoring the greatest goal the players had ever seen
and then i was asleep
and then i was awake today
and in an office
that no longer held Claudine
and her substitute was tormenting me
and i had a song in my head

what a child I become
because you were child like
I threw my strength away
which shows
I had no strength
I am weak for you
but it does not matter
you are no substitute for the woman I want
and maybe Tanya too
is no substitute for the woman I want
because the woman I want is God

you have longed for me
and ached for me
and finally you asked me
to love you
I said no
but you did not stop
then I saw you in a second light
my diversion
my second path
but you are no substitute
you will not be the second choice
and you are right
you are just to cross your arms and say
"I am not what you want"

but you should be careful love
because this is where the trouble starts
do not tell me that I cannot have you
this is the one thing guaranteed to
make me chase

A man is only truly broken
if he keeps his cuts and fractures truly hidden

here I am
inventing ever more dazzling cocktails
at the peak of my health
at the budding of my career
with all the world to meet
everything is fine
everything is going to be okay

You don't speak of her
you understand?

You don't mention her name.

You don't talk to me about her,
You don't ask after her,
You don't reminisce.

She is the seeping wound of this office
she is the vast empire in the East
that we abandoned
when I lost control
we hear no news
no messengers are sent to tell us of the chaos
rumours abound
but we do not whisper in these corridors
we do not write them down
she is a closed and kept secret
the doors to her are sealed
we do not talk of her
you do not speak of her
you understand?

It would break my heart.

waterloo sunset playing into my inner ear
skull bone coming away with vibrations
flashing lights in the living room
the scent of summer blowing through my clothes
scraping along the floor a tongue on my neck
lips on my shoulder blades
teeth gritted I let out a manic little laugh
bass notes threading through my bones
a naked throng in ecstasy over an old song
i pushed to the window face to face with the soil of
a window box
i cry one tear
look my first tear
and try to get my whole body out the window
"i want it down there" i explain
"i want my body smashed down there"
but hands pulling me back
the music stops
and then the couch

and then quiet
dark
a whistling in my ears

Kate came round to drop off the scrapbook that she made for me
on my 21st birthday
inside on every page
pictures of us with our friends
and messages of her undying love for me
the look in her eyes as she placed it in my hands
hurt

sitting on the balcony as the sun set
Kate asks
"have you been seeing anyone?"
this the question she always asks
so nervously and timid
the tremble of her once so confident and familiar voice
hurt

later Kate says to me as I walk her home
"I'm still in love with you"
and she looks to me to see,
as she always does,
if I will say the same
but I cannot say I love her
and I do not say I love her
"give it time" I say
and hate myself

in that sun which catches her so well
I am astounded by her beauty
and wonder how I ever ended up with such a pretty girl
and ever more amazed that here I am once again
casting her away
why do I no longer want this woman?
I ache to protect her
to stop her hurt
I long to tell her what she wants to hear
to say I want to get back together
to say there is a future and those many years were not
a waste
I ache to say this
to make her happy
but the truth is
It is over between us
and I cannot save her

It seems so unjust that I should waste her like this
or that I should move on so quickly
to other women and other pains
but she stands loyal to our time and intimacy
aching in the same old way
for the same old love
that I now feel I have betrayed

Sick of the hurt
wish I could rescue her
or that I could love her the way she dreams
sick of the good suffering for pointless love
hungry for her healing
and my healing
something blessed must someday come
surely someday
something blessed must come

I am not living victoriously
when I was dreamt up
I was Alexander the pre-Great
but do you know who I became?

I became Terminal Moraine
I became Semi-Detached

these names I used to perform in public
in secret from all who knew me
to conduct vile rituals of mortification and resurrection
to fuck and be fucked
and I sang too
drunk

so I looked for a long time at Tanya as she talked
the wind blowing her Egyptian hair in such simplesatisfying ways
the wasp intent on getting in there ahead of me
and I felt the nausea return
I felt the sickness of existing and my skin began to crawl once more
this woman, just a woman, just blood and thoughts and all of us
a flash in the sky of an old raging storm
but nothing more
I have to travel

I have to travel
in the new year I have to go to Sierra Leone
not to find myself
there is no such thing
but to lose myself
to lose the constructs I put in the way of simplicity
to lose those lies I told myself to keep me safe
and dishonest and happy

I have to go and confront a war
I have to go and confront attrocity
I have to know how empty and fragile this life is
I have to see the timid force that keeps bones and sinew together
I have to see it undone
and I have to stop being so intent on finding meaning

I have to learn to embrace even more women
to take even more naked bodies in my arms and whisper more honestly
I have to go somewhere where there is a summer and strong sun
I have to go somewhere I can breathe
I have to go somewhere else
anywhere but here
and I am taking my brother
who having returned from India
needs to leave immediately

I am not in love with anybody
I am at war

It has to be pointed out
that the Blood Mary
is the vilest of the cocktail fraternity
and should be roundly rejected
by all hard drinking existentialist
guitar toting self-indulgent heart-broken
quasi-religious semi-detached huge penised
small minded low latent inhibited genius
cretinous witty shallow philosphical unpoetical
flesh-fucking rain loving tear dwelling god fearing
terror farming saintly soulful bachelors such as
myself

it has to be pointed out
that tobasco sauce is not the fifth essence
if anything is the quintessence
it is the scent of a woman's skin
A Woman's skin
Tanya's skin

If I was a god
and once I thought I might be
I would build my world around this

Tanya
just looking at you as you talk
I want you so much
but I already came to terms with this months ago
so I look at you too with resignation
and sweet adoration
the woman too good for any man
god I love you too much
not enough
Honey here I am again,
looking after you,
protecting you,
knowing your life could be better
but saving your life as you would like it
hungering for your touch
seeing in your eyes your desire to love me
but
letting you go
letting you go again and again and again
I have become a master of letting you go love,
the greatest thing the world could ever offer
and I have learnt to give it up
over and over again

I have so many other offers
such a beautfiul woman aches to have me as her own
but I cannot allow it
cannot let it happen
because I love you
I love you, you who I cannot have

I do not care

I do love you,
perhaps too much,
but fuck
I do love you so much
I see all women as a mere tribute to you
You
the beautiful
the gone
the woman smiling here before me
as I ask after her boyfriend

Love me
no?
then just keep seeing me like this
This is enough
to keep me breathing
fuck all the others
i need no lover
just your time
once in a while

how pathetic

I Love You

Suicide is no good
suicide is shit
not worth a first
never mind a second
thought

what we need is a reset button

what I need is your money, and your naked flesh,
and your tears
only then can we begin to work out what is broken
and what is meant to be torn

stop talking
i need to kiss you

stop procrastinating
i need to relieve you

stop stopping
i am a revolution

I am a Revolution
I have come to make you come
that you may exercise these demons
that Mr Kellog may go fuck himself
that the office may become a catherdral of colour and the 8th dimension
that you, love,
will learn the Higher Truth
through the touching of your soul

I Touch Souls when i fuck
it was a trick i learnt when i became immortal
when i inverted suicide
and ended up a minor god
a whisperer in the wings
putting Hamlet off his lines
making him laugh
filling his pants with a raging lust
thats my job love,
I'm not a mere Scoundrel
I am

Tonight,
to celebrate right recognition of a righteous right un,
I will bring nearer to completion
Songs From A One Night Stand

I may record the entire thing drunk and naked in the hope the shamelessness feeds into the music

How is it sensible for you to email me all day, asking for career advice?
How is it sensible that I am moving mountains to ensure you come to work with me?
How is it sensible that we arrange to meet up again for a drink, "IN THAT SAME SAD BAR"?

It isn't sensible, but wanting you this much never was.
I am still drawn to flesh like a sex-starved teenager
but these last couple of months
the only body I could bear to touch
was yours

i tended flocks
filaments of light
explosions from the underground
terror formed beneath terra forms run terror terra born
babies
I smile at my funny little sheep

and if you do not understand
you stand to lose

what you've got to know is
it was never the words we used
it was the armies we positioned behind the scenes
it was never the vocabulary
it was the arsenal

I want you to know
that I loved your body
that my body loved your body
and my mind loved your body
that if there are hearts which men like me can claim
then my heart too
adored your body

I want you to know that I cried on your body
I wept on your body
I lived and died beside the epic honesty of your outrageous body
I was born for your body
I was martyred for your body
I could not have loved just any body

I want you to know
I never found a way to kiss your mind or soul
but through the overwhelming conquest of your generous body
I want you to know what you do not know
It could not have been just any body

You
were the loved
lover

I want you to know that it was never the art of our words
it was the hand on heart
the hand on small of my back
and your back
your breath soft breeze upon my chest
my hands the tireless tide of a restless ocean
our bodies, love,
our bodies
the timid powers of true devotion

look to the left
look to the corner
King David is downing a whisky and coke
King David is playing air-guitar
it's been such a long long time
since that golden harp, hey Dave?


that's no warning light
the flush of red that shows us his eyes
it's just another cheap rigged disco
for another cheap disco night
nobody can dance quite like David
David who was a king
the DJ plays Prince

look to the bed
look through the shadow
there is David sleeping
perhaps dreaming of the old days
uniting Judah and Israel
escaping Saul's spear
shame he didn't take off his clothes
before he crashed there,
undignified like that

"remember when we were lovers?"
David says
to his god
"do you remember when we were man and woman?
I was your bride
your church
your son
I was crying song for you my Lord
I was breaking hearts for you Oh Israel
remember honey, when I saw your young body
and I had to play that music right there
turn those thighs into strings and those breasts into hallelujahs and hosannas
so long ago! so long ago!
the dusty path from Jerusalem
lead me so far away
that I became every other man
dropped out of some cheap hotel bible
like a creased page from a soiled wank rag
dropped right into this nightclub
in London

look left
look to the corner
King David is still drinking whisky and coke
it seems he hasn't moved at all
it's the drink that makes him King
it's the drink that keeps him dreaming - still playing
harp

sad bastard

this became the only place my words meant anything
the only gap in the day when I knew exactly what to say
the only slight likeness of truth
in a dark dark room
whisky on lips
I was almost honest about you


some times I kid myself into being real
riding the tube train
reading about changing faces and crashing planes
I kid myself into being another guy
in his mid twenties
waiting for the next chance to speak
but I never have anything real to say

Tanya fades in and out now
sometimes so lightly I can't imagine it was me
that made such heavy work of longing,
sometimes she isn't on my mind
so these days,
like all days,
the world goes on
and everything changes and stays the same

I was better when I was sixteen
I was better when I sang with a real heart
I was better when I feared god
I was better when I first fell in love
I was better when I sang Famous Blue Raincoat the sixth time
I was better wearing a suit
I was better in Peel Park, where I met with heaven, and the woman I loved stood beside me on the battered old bandstand as the golden summer sun moved out of view,
as my fingers traced the words in French I had scratched with slate,
as we sang a Charles Trenet song
and my heart was countless pieces of shattered pirouetting mirror blinding as it caught the thick and dreamy dusk light,
when my heart was so young that I could almost pull off such poetic drivel
before I became a man
before I walked to a dark and cold church in the freezing fog of York's Winter streets
in the year two-thousand,
the year I lost so much
and everyone called it gain

my body made it
back from the rain drenched pity of Sloane Avenue
the fading golden skin of a thousand pretty women
being beautiful for France in South Kensington
my body made it back

back from the heat of the Chelsea garden
where I was overcome by hunger
and history
and the restlessness of doing nothing about the restlessness of doing nothing
back from the mould that crept over the coffee cups
abandoned in our abandoned kitchen in our broken home in our broken life
back from the walk in the sunset
and my perfect kisses
and your perfect tongue
and the heart breaking peals of the bells of Blackheath

back from Northern Ireland
and the room filled with wine
where I had her in the shower
and she had something else in mind
back from the parks of Belfast
where we felt the same as ever
two aching children paused
until the start of something better

back from Wales
from the streams of my baptism
where my fires were a marvel
and my songs were keen and honest
back from the damp of my nostaligic footrot
the decay of my holy Dylan impression
my transition from King David to King Cohen
and the pink lightning that lit up the sky
over two Christian soldiers
from Nottingham

back from university
back from school
back from the heat of that draining nightclub
back from the Winter of "I have no soul"
back from the Summer that still pours with rain
back from the gym where I failed again
back from the office where I fucked ourselves up
back from the bridge where you asked me to jump
back from the birth and the blood and the lust
back from Bradford and the hills and the dust
back from the silence and the sleep and the pain
back from the rift between heaven and hell
a thousand hosannas and a thousand more fucks
a tireless tennis between infinite gods
I stride out of my bedroom and into the rain
"listen, my friends, I have something to say.

My mind, it was broken and now it is lost,
but my body survived, it is back from the brink,
let no fucker stand in my way."

Here I am
quietly getting over you
what is it? 12 months since we first met?
7 months since you fell for me
4 months since I lost all control
1 month since I started to move on
well,
here I am
quietly trying to forget you

but photographs come to me
you are still around
then all the details of your beauty and the cutting hunger
strike me down
oh fuck,
when will I not want you?

London keeps me from being sober
keeps me safe and stocked with friends
but it still feels cosmetic, broken lover,
it still feels too

You took her
you stole her
you kept her for yourself
in dark rooms
in dark cities
you became her only one

you took the best one
you took the best one
you took the best creature any of us ever saw
you took her delicate hands in your hands
you led her to your bedroom
you stole her from us all
you stole her from me

we can hear you
we can hear you speaking dirty
we can hear you making all your filthy promises
you took her
our unblemished virgin lie
and you fucked her over and over again

you stole her
you took her tears
you were then when she shook in fear
you were then when she was happy not to be alone
you were then when she was happy
you made her happy
you made it
you took the best girl
the greatest woman we had ever seen
you have her
until she dies
you have her for your whole life

we are broken
i am broken
we are mourning in the wings
you took her
and we are watching
pathetic broken little things
smaller men
violent men
I will hurt you
if you put a single foot wrong

The most unattractive thing a woman can do
in my eyes
is reciprocate

this is why I need to be slapped hard

Now look
you better keep quiet
stay back in the shadows
and do not speak

Your eyes do not tell us anything at all

i wonder how many people threw themselves from this bridge

There is not enough air to breathe

Your job is literally killing you

and then when you danced with her
you took it to heart
O Hungry Heart
i beg of thee
get shitfaced on vodka
and take any girl home
fuck her till you can't remember
the name of the woman you love too much

i left a woman waiting by the tables
she passed with distinction at the Courtauld Institute of Fine Arts
she became a curator of a national gallery
i left her mid-sentence
to fall apart alone

this place should echo
but it does not

your words are inadequate
I do not call it music

you're thrown around the underground
from desk to bar you knock around
and drink your weight
and make work late
and take on more
just to save face

"I am the last President of the People's Republic"

Tanya
I am more noble than I seem
stronger,
sweeter,
less dramatic
I just want to be happy
and to break everything open
to see inside

I still wonder,
if I'd tried,
could I have broken you?

I broke instead

"so fuck you too"

fuck everything

you only sing when you're winning
or when it's raining
and lord knows
as she walked past in the short skirt
and brief breath
you could not have been more
driven

the fog
last year
was something quite peculiar

this town
last century
was something quite familiar

so I drank my self into a stupor
danced with many girls
i never learnt their names
but i learnt to navigate their bodies
most professionally

how long will it take you to get over it?
you'll never be that Holy Poet
you'll never be Leonard Cohen

and in the garden I begged for temptation to come
but no temptor came
I was alone Norwich
surrounded by love and generosity
i turned my back on everything
to make it Eden

and she had more soul than me
and has more soul than me
as hungry as a child
and I did wipe her tears
but now I cause them

she is not a ghost
she is in pain