So here it is. The thing I've been nagging myself about for ages. A real blog.
My aim is to keep this page updated on a regular basis with new poems, short stories and various other assorted literary curiosities for your enjoyment or derision.
To those of you already familiar with my work, you know what to expect. If you're a new reader then, welcome and I hope you've found what you've been looking for.
Given that I've made the move to this blog whilst only part way through my current project, I thought it made sense to re-post my most recent work so that the whole collection will be accessible in one place once it's completed.
Real Estate
They didn’t replace the windows
But patched them over with metal,
And the doors were good enough
Just simply boarded up.
On the lawns old cars took root
Some rusted others burnt out,
Where in the water tower’s shadow
Nothing else would grow.
Streetlight bulbs gradually fizzled
Like ideas half had whilst sleeping,
And the rancid gloom quickly became
A reason not just an excuse.
Footsteps faltered at the sound of
Cackling from an underpass,
Long-beaked birds neither flew or sung
But watched and waited hungrily.
Though that place is no longer home
The locals remain locked within,
As shadows and reflections
That refuse to fade.
Pipe Dream
At hastily rearranged desks
Teachers flick through books,
Wrinkling their noses at smells
That remind them of their youth.
Local adults display their pride
Without really knowing why,
Their lessons were no different
And they clearly didn’t learn.
Exam results are handed out
And rapidly compared,
In order to determine who will
Get useless letters after their names.
The clever ones strut away planning
How to spend future tuition funds,
Not yet knowing the consequences of
Being educated at a comprehensive.
The less excellent remain
In slightly despondent groups,
Fresh leavers not willing to voice
Suspicions that border on fears.
In time they will all become
Parents who wonder what they
Really want for their children;
Fame, fortune and success or
Just not being overly miserable
When they realise that a
Polyester, corporate uniform and
A name badge with a smiley-face
Will be the best they’ll ever get.
Hawk
He won a prize
For the photograph that hangs
In a neat metal frame above
The mantelpiece where he keeps a
Few impressive books that he’s never read.
Journalists labelled it “career defining,”
Admirers an “iconic classic,”
Whilst galleries paid fortunes to have it
“At the heart of their collections.”
But as he sits and drinks alone
He can’t quite put his finger on
What exactly it is supposed to be
That everyone claims to love.
It’s not the weeping children
Or the old man with no limbs,
And it’s not the soldiers idling
Unsure of what they’ve done.
Perhaps, it’s the shattered windows
Or the broken, leaking pipes;
Maybe it is the crumbling crater
With a tractor wrecked within it.
But no, it must be that shadow
Out in the cropless fields where
Contractors plan what not to build
Until they’ve had their share.
Like Shurpin’s gentle reminder
That patch of darkness lingers;
A thought you wish that you didn’t have
Or a nightmare that doesn’t end on waking.
Limited Stock
Outside in the delivery yard we talk
About different kinds of nothing,
Whilst hourly cups of tea mark
How little time we have left.
Even though it is still today
We already remember tomorrow,
As we each claim to be distracted by
Personal injuries and page three slags.
Office block mirrored windows reflect
Clouds from the eyes of kids
Sniffing fumes in a park and fighting
Over who is worth the least.
We grumble about the stink from
The nearby pet food factory,
And wonder if just for once this
Weekend we will not drink too much.
Every moment is treated like it’s backed
By that tune from Requiem for a Dream,
Whilst we joke about it making no difference
If we simply ceased to exist.
310159
Cold coffee makes you wince
As you fumble with your wage slip
Checking for missing overtime pay,
Although your time is so worthless
You don’t notice that it’s missing.
All the days blend into one and
Every hour spent stacking shelves
Is time lost to a waking coma,
And although hope is all you have
It only makes things worse.
The more there is to talk about
The less you have to say,
Concerning what you could or
Would or should have done if you’d
Been born into a better postcode.
Every thread you wear is a chain
That binds Far East Asian kids
To sewing machines for life,
Your clothing stealing the pride
That they will never even know.
You do not sigh so much as force
Each and every lungful of breath
As your dignity forgets itself,
And the people you would like to love
End up hating you the most.
They all know how old you are
Because of how young you try to look,
And nothing can ever truly hide the
Darkness crawling beneath your skin or
The tears forming at the corners of your eyes.
‘Meh’
The freshly mopped floor glitters
Like broken glass at the side of a road,
And I wonder if the brand of beer I buy
Will determine the kind of drunk I’ll get.
At the end of an aisle, two women talk about
Their babies, holidays and the weekend;
Both members of Shelfstackers Anonymous
Who’ve not noticed how dull their eyes are yet.
A manager adjusts his cheap polyester tie
Using his reflection in a drinks fridge to
Convince himself his paperwork is important
And that he would not be easily replaced.
Nearby a school kid, proud of his first job,
Tugs along a rollcage full of frozen meat
And does his best to think of the future whilst
Not looking his trolley-boy father in the eyes.
At the checkout I double take at a face
I remember but wish that I didn’t
Because it reminds me of all they said
I wouldn’t, but nevertheless did, become.
Flinching as thoughts of fucking flicker
Through my mind like staff announcements,
I tuck my debit card back into my wallet as
Imagined pillow-whispers become rain in the distance.
No Mixed Coin
I remember tomorrow
Was once worth the weight
Of all those yesterdays spent
Hoping today would be better.
But now even my skin counts
The shadows of hours as they pass,
And every thought is like staring at
A blank concrete wall forever.
Pulses of fluorescent light break
Like waves at the end of the world
As obese, adolescent mothers discuss
How much more benefit they deserve.
Empty lager cans tumble across
Freshly pedestrianised streets and
PCSOs stop and search themselves
Because you never can be too careful.
A child sulks outside a shop whilst
His parents rummage around a clearance sale,
And he wonders if just for the attention
He should accuse his teachers of being molesters.
In a basement office past the close of trade
A man sits hunched at his desk,
Scrolling through his emails and
Dreaming of the stars that he’ll never see.
Growth
Alone it stands on a distant hill
With limbs that quiver with whispers,
And roots plunged so far in the dirt
That Atlas has been made redundant.
It buds late with crimson crescents
That shroud themselves and fall
In elaborate spirals as if just the
Effort could make each leaf a martyr.
Blooms like sparks of cobalt flame
Cluster along the thickest branches
And with their inoffensive scent
Disguise the stench of moulding wood.
From gashes in its gnarled skin
It haemorrhages aureolin drool,
Which trickles along the bark
Like fat down a double chin.
An ambrosial feast of leaf, petal and sap
Waits for those who can leech off the tree,
But it has no way of providing or weeping
For what withers in its shade.
Voskhod
We call those kids the future
Whilst they stare at screens in a window
As if the chat show hosts can provide
Meaning for their accidental lives.
Distant sounds drown out the rush
Of blood to the head as they find
The measure of themselves vomiting
Outside the local Wetherspoons.
Entitlement makes the youngest smirk
And no one ever stops to tell them
How soon the older ones start to learn
That they are just like everyone else.
So they talk of our old ambitions
Like priests about the dead;
But what the truth has stolen from us,
Hope will never promise them.
Privilege Extended
Unfortunately, a thought occurs
And guilt compels me to take notice
Only after the fact of feeling
That I’m being throttled by time.
Such sinister densities of the mind
In the passing of a single moment,
Turn my monthly wages into
How much my life is worth.
When reading the problem pages
I find that I can only smile,
Because laughing at the suffering of others
Keeps my own from seeming worse.
Scene Selection
A child stumbles, clutching
At his own throat for breath
Whilst shapes in the distance
Struggle to redefine their reasons.
Like animals dying from the exhaustion
Of squabbling over scraps in the shadows
Men chant and scream as though rage
Had become just another slogan.
A father finds himself weeping
Whilst choking shrouds descend
And glorious promises turn to shrapnel
That shreds the skin from his skull.
Photographers turn into fortune tellers
Seeing the future written in broken glass
As a police horse drags its rider’s corpse
Down trash-strewn, abandoned streets.
A mother simply stands and watches,
Her judgement already passed
As she considers the grave
Thought that makes her go on.
Not for Individual Resale
The spider’s legs tremble
Across a gap in its web,
Like words that said when weeping
Express only the thought of feeling.
Pale and slow the sun rises
In the wake of a turning page,
As paper and ink become ash falling
On the state of things entire.
And so we seek to bargain
With what our grief has bought,
Unable or rather unwilling
To admit what is being sold.
The Gates
As the hour grew late and I stooped
In the street to tie my shoe laces,
The world turned pale at a glance
Into a painted-over shop window.
There amongst gnarled webs of pigment
Sphincter-mouthed spectres dribbled
Over fields of gossip magazine pages,
Whilst television talent show contestants
Flogged tapes of their evisceration.
Full-fleshed footballers played barefoot
On well-tended fields of burning coins,
Logos stitched into their skin to remind them
That their contracts turned their names to brands.
Kiddie fiddlers were forced to abandon
The protection of more tolerant courts,
As screeching gangs of juvenile offenders
Drowned them in vats of torn off genitalia.
Soldiers in tattered uniforms traipsed about
Following misguided orders from all sides,
As blood bubbled like magma from the ground whilst
Splinters of searing iron poured from the blasted sky.
Bankers still plying their trade, stood in howling circles
As torrents of razorblade notes flayed their skin,
Their withered souls then herded to buy back
The source of all their suffering.
Emaciated, suited shades were chained
To the cogs of gigantic designer label watches,
Or held aloft in screaming winds of execration
That mocked them with a lifetime’s worth of lies
And erased their names as fast as they were engraved.
