Mute - II

Suddenly the drizzle glows grey, and
The breeze nearly sweeps me away, off my feet
And into the street. But I hold still,
I can keep on. Look both ways,
Though I can't see past my own strong-will,
Adhesive-words taped to my tongue,
But nothing will come of it.

I challenge myself with jumping onto the pavement,
But maybe it was too hard, my new polished shoes
Are viciously attacked!
An army of apparent cleanliness,
Freshly picked from shit,
Like gun but not really, it's gum
Which is my adversary.

As I pace down the uneven concrete I can feel it.
Never right, the other one, always slightly resisting me.
And yet pulling me further down.
No matter, I can easily get myself up if I try
And forget.
But it's a white-black nagging,
A tug on my trouser leg,
A tap on my tonsil.

I turn the corner, suddenly vision!
It has come to me like a train as I lay on the tracks.
Shaking, chattering teeth, useless movement.
And I wait and I watch and I work and I want
More than I can feel on the two cold lines
Almost running through me, as if I'm a part of it,
I help this metal dragon fly,
But then I wake up, and my pillow snags on my ear,
And its like I've rediscovered another problem.

If I had not been here before, I would not
Have understood. It's all the same,
The cream-beige-brown bricks side by side.
Every so often they are spaced out,
Some obnoxious snake like creature of white runs through them
Like a stream through a mountain, fruitlessly trying to be seen.
But then the doors,
They all open so differently.
And in different colours too!
Red, green, purple, blue,
I wandered if they once opened to you.

But I am silent and I remember.

And as if each one were scared of the rain,
Now drudging it's way through my coat,
They all wear hats, made of slated skin,
Thick stone slabs that won't let anything in.
Every so often I can catch a glint,
Through one of their eyes,
A drape, or a blind, something, anything
Which makes the similarity less bland.
But then if I dismiss them,
They all feel the same by the touch of my hand.

Range - II

I can compare it, the red bricked rotting
To coarse clotting, the joining of reputation
Without consideration. Let's assume
That no-one else matters,
Rather, no-one else knows enough to matter.

If we stand at the top of our little raised mountain,
We think we can see it all. But we see so little,
But not phased we carry on,
Mixing together cultural catastrophe with unchanging
Atrocities, intellect's pet with a burning desire
To further ourselves, and on our golden island
We drift further.

Miscommunication - I

The small change, the new words.
Sent to the wrong address,
But I must confess, hearing the sound of the error
It filled my ears with such joy.
I took it in, seducing the syllables,
Made them feel as if they were right.
But soon the game was over,
I knew I was not the one,
And I said goodbye.

Mute - I

I managed to catch it; the dull sunlight's reflection,

As red turned to amber, and then that to green,

And the mass it seemed to hurry forwards,

But from where I was standing they were moving back,

But I suppose they were just following the road,

And soon they went so fast that I couldn't tell the difference:

Which was the vehicle and which was the passenger.

After a while this became boring, and I turned to 

Face where I was supposed to go, and set off,

Pacing myself, for I knew I tend not to go slow, but

To rush, as if there were an imaginary deadline swallowing it up;

The earth behind my walking feet.

From the corner of my eye, the red balloon drives past.

I was separated by metal-glass, but I could sense the agitation,

And sure enough, a few metres later and the doors opened.

A river of people became a flood as they jumped off the sinking edge,

And walked towards occupation, recreation, other things like that.

Then what once was the ark sped off, considerable 

More empty than before. But now the flood was dry,

And the path awry. To my left I could guess them,

and as I looked I was rewarded with confirmation. 

Each brick being laid, each brick the same,

Each brick was balanced, on another of it's name.

I never understood why people build more walls.

As the kerb neared me, I had to stop and wait,

My steps they started to hesitate, just in case

I couldn't see, or couldn't hear. Though I had no reason to be

So nervous. I leaped small movements across to the middle,

The best place to be. Either side was vacated,

But there was a chance.

That anything could pass me by.

Halfway

I tried so hard
But halfway through
I stopped pushing
And you didn't start pulling.

I was left with burning hands
Trying to hold onto a bare rope.
It's stopped moving, left in between
Where it was and where
It should have been.

Before I started, I thought
That maybe I could see change.
But it must have been just an obstacle.
A shadow in the way of the sunlight.
And you don't know who it belongs to.
Too many seem to have drifted past,
And now narrowing down is out of your range.

I was left with a burning heart.
But I had to bury it.
Though impossible to move apart,
As I feared all sense in you would depart,
And that you'd fly into your darkened art.

I was left with burning eyes.
Tried to unsee what was too clear for me to forget;
Past what I thought was genuine regret.
I thought it was worth something, our
Slight exchange.

I was left with a burning mouth.
Nothing seemed to ever last.
My words seemed lingering in the past.
And when I tried, tried, and tried again
My doubt in myself
It became so vast.

That I was left with an empty book.
Every page I wrote seemed transitory.
Lost in my blank glory,
I still attempted to fill in
What at first were gaps.
An incomplete reminder: memento mori
But now they have become
Most of this story.

Epistemic Epidemic

The white falling robes
The unholy eyes
When the Saviour was born
When my pages were torn
When I reached to find forgiveness
And only found scorn
My fingers were worn
As if they had tried
Ten thousand times before
But only come to one destination
That I was celestially ignored.

Could it be falsified?
We follow the same road,
But when it comes to a turn
I stand shaking, terrified
Could I not have realised?
You were burdened with happiness
As the words they started to burn
Themselves deep into my skin
They left invisible scars
That I could never fill in;
But the outline would stay
Shaping everything I yearn
A half finished tattoo
It won't let me learn.

With the blink of an eyelash
My sight, it faltered
My vision altered
I can't see through what's written
Though I know that behind
It, something lies which can blind
It, but right now you are binded.

I thought you'd be kind,
But it wasn't that simple.
You drowned out what was mine,
And made me start again.
Thou and Thine
Two more lies I take in pairs
I had to take what was theirs.
I had to tell them, they had
To be scared.

Flailing flames were enough.
As I said there was only one.
But with each new person convinced
Another rebellion had begun.
The cold stone was rough,
I thought it was right.
Thou must not - I hated.
And I have seen the light.

Apex

Though the wind still shakes me
Weary leaves they fall once more
The willows that once wept, they dance
And for the first time I can forget before.

People they pass, and people they pause,
As there are many ways that they can go,
At one point I wouldn't have had the chance,
But it's easily hard for me to know.

To my left is a door, opened yet closed,
Which would have taken me back to where I knew,
It's familiar green glows with recognition,
But the places I can go there from are few.

To my right, the red has faded.
At one time it shone bright with passion. Of that I'm sure.
And previously decisions obscure my vision
And what was once emptiness is no longer pure.

In front of me, I can see, my fears
So clearly. The vastness of the blue unknown,
Which my eyes once saw as so so far away,
Doesn't matter as my heart has grown.

In between, neither here or there,
The beautiful blankness of words still unsaid,
Maybe I'll go straight ahead.
And not care about what happened yesterday.

Range - I

The awkward touch of silence.
It abruptly rips through my comfort;
Uninvited hands on paper skin.

A lump in my throat.
Many things I thought I wouldn't say.
Uncertainty will find it's way in.

Though this time, through known faces.
I can still catch it, the split-second stare.
And me knowing you don't approve
The edgy laughs, the forced grin,
Only pushes me deeper into the fading air,
Sucked up in selfishness
As you feel the need to breathe.

APOR

Pour a daydream in a cup,
A spoon of sugar sweetens it up.
The stinging honey is abrupt,
But soon it will become a salty touch,
And your taste will vanish.

Your devotion is worn and weary,
Chocolate cold suppresses those teary
Final seconds where you nearly
Swallowed the savory truth,
The savior in segmented form,
Weakening yearly.

Now the solution is diluted
You chose to spread the pain
Into things convoluted
The tinted mirror.

Manipulate

You the thief who steals the hand
Which would have otherwise taken hers
Now she treads lost in a foreign land
Scared the ground will open up and swallow her with each step.

You the dancer who wears the mask
It's many-faced diamonds caught his eye
Not the only thing with more than one side, your task
Would have been impossible if you were to show
What lay beneath the pretty lie.

You the rose who pretends not to have thorns
But you stripped the real fragile flower of her scent
And she who was so rightfully adorned,
Believes all her virtues have been spent,
Though all of yours have been lent
To you by various forms of deception.

A stolen lyric,
There is no saving
The broken bricks
You have been craving.

September

I stood in the rain for a good half hour
As it soaked through my black fabric case
But didn't manage to make me feel it's salty touch.

Would I have preferred it?
The irksome bother, as the moisture smothers
My otherwise unfeeling skin. And though
Cold to the touch, it's warmer than a lover's.

Well, warmer than some.

Though in some respects, they are alike.
Once it starts, you think it's constant.
Reassuring, but somewhat it seems
To blur your vision.
I find myself having to look twice
To make sure I'm seeing what's right.

Though the ground is solid,
Always has been, ever step is like
Walking on thin ice. Always scared
To make a small slip
And everything comes falling down.

In the beginning, you want to
Zip yourself up. You pull
Your hood down deep over your head
Scared to reveal yourself to the incessant shedding
Of extra drops of innocence mislead.

As time passes, you think you can trust it.
The pitter-patter which never leaves.
It surrounds you with it's transparent bedding
As you begin to undress, thinking you're well concealed
Protected by what you think will always be there
But in reality more of your weakness is being revealed
And suddenly, the rain, it stops.

You're left cold, wet, and alone.
Shaking in the feeble sunlight.
Feeling so bare.

Petals - II

You see only what you want to see
Nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to be
Nothing will make you happy.
Not when I'm being me.

My youth was a brightening bloom,
A rose freshly picked. As the seeds of
The others were taken by the wind.

But sometimes I don't understand
How you didn't know there'd be thorns
Which were all I thought of,
Turning into a man.

By adolescence I was a fallen flower
My petals taken by an unwanted groping hand
Maybe then I chose to hide for hours
As my health waned and thinned.

My stem I thought was then too weak
And all I could do was bow my head
By then, I wished I had already fled
This game of chance from which I am banned.

I grew, I think, in the wrong direction
Towards the wrong sort of light.
I thought that I could choose my way
But I am not eligible to make a selection.

And then, I think I was rooted.
I had grown too used to the breaking earth.
And to my delight,
I thought I had stopped the clocks.

Suddenly I could not convey,
As my life took an unexpected turn
Or so I thought. How foolish
Of me to believe I was worthy of such perfection.

Still I yearned.
And I tried to learn, from what I had known.
But for a long time now, my eyes were dry
My vision locked inside a watertight box.

I tried to soak up all that was left.
But everything leaves.
And everything burns.

I realised.
Through loathing reflection
Through lethal rejection
Through loving disconnection.

That I have no recollection
Of what others call affection.

Tiers - I

I let it slip from my hands
It's skinniness cut through my fingers
A clean sheet, paper bones.

But there's still the heaviness
Of what it was. Though now
There are no more empty seats,
That's only because they've been
Ripped out. Pages that never were.
But if you look closely enough
You can still make out the tears
Where something once was.

Shiny glass can't hide it's transparency.
Seems unscratched, tough, but
Still it has fears,
As complacency lays undeterred.

Lot

I used to sit there, on the hill.
And look down at people below.
But still
There is so much about them I can never know.

There were books I used to read.
But every so often
The need
To look up suffocated me.
I was tired of the dulling words.
Which I had read so many times before.
The pages had turned yellow from exhaustion
And I just wanted to read no more.

And in front of me, it doesn't matter how far how far
I saw -
Such earthy eyes, as mine widened in surprise.
And to think I was at the centre
Of the gaze.

At that time I assumed
It was my book, a popular one
Which must have been the source of interest.

I could never have guessed
Otherwise.

So I held onto my fiction
My dream in paper form
My silent addiction
Torn at the binding
Yet still I'm whole.

But after a while, I did get bored.
It was almost as if
I knew the last page just from the name
I knew the last word just from the first
But still I was as disjointed as Faust unrehearsed

Oh I wished I could end my sorrows like Werther
But then I realised I'd have to look much further
For the magic lantern without light
For the shadow which shines so bright

I used to sit there on that hill
And look down on people below
And I realised that it was I who needed to shrink
And not them to grow.

Cogs - II

You are machine.
Your cogs keep on turning.
Your stomach still churning.
Your lips still burning.

You are machine.
Your smile is planned.
Your touch is sand.
You hold no hands.

You are machine.
You lie awake.
For honesty's sake.
Your sleep can't break.

You are machine.
You raise your fist.
Again, again.
Your thoughts are mist.
The rain, the rain.
You're just another number
On another list.

You are machine.
You can still feel it.
The pain.
The pain.

Random House - V

Don't fall in love with the autograph
Printed one thousand times but not the same
Nothing beats the day
When you exchanged printed names.

But now the pen has run out of ink.
And it seems all those years
They've passed in a blink.
And for once you have to stop and think.

When you were building your house
Brick by brick
The blood you bled didn't seem so thick.
As you were checking your list
Tick by tick
And you wanted to choose it all
Pick and pick
Until what once held such beautiful roses.
Is full of pricks.

Your thorns have cut open her lips
And it hurts so much to speak
Your hands have left burns on her hips
And your hold on her has left her weak.

You stripped her of her petals
And didn't let her shine
You thought that you could stop her
But she's running all the time.

Maybe not out of sight.
Not yet, anyway.
You think that she can't win the fight.
But she still fights it every day.

And in between all the broken walls
And the ripped curtains hanging loose
Someone's sitting, feeling so small
As fragile as a hanging noose.

Random House - IV

The lights they are tilted

By gloved hands

The touch is fine tuned

By those who cannot feel

Only in times of raining despair

Do they realise, but they turn away

From you and I.

And then it rains, yet unfair

From their skies falls gilded prizes

But beneath the unscratched surface

Misery lays in an infinite number of disguises.

And when the time comes

To take off those gloves.

When cold metal's lost it's flair

When the ice has lost it's glare

You can't see your hands.

No-one can hold them

Touch them.

It's as if they're not there.