Parkour

Spirals of sweat and skin 

Caught for infinite moments 

In winter’s last feeble light 

Like orbs of living amber.

First Sight

Most would start with your eyes

or the scar above your lips,

maybe even the particular way

pale daylight reflects off your hair.

For me it’s the way you sit

across two seats on a bus and

how your thumbs glide precisely

over the keypad of your phone.

Static

Like a finger forced into a wound

daylight creeps through the curtains

bringing with it fragments of reality

that were my childhood nightmares.

Power Cut

If I could see the future

The truth would terrify me

Because I’m not a hero

Rather I’m just a man.

No deed of mine will save

The planet or mankind and

No statue ever honours those

Who can’t remember themselves.

Wishes are a waste of breath

But I recite mine before I sleep

To dream of day that will never come

When wishes aren’t all I have left.

Another Day

You don’t look at but through yourself

Whilst wondering why you spent so much time

Staring at various kinds of XP bars in MMOs

Or commenting on your own Facebook updates

Because you’ve no one else to talk to,

And finding that you laugh at yourself

Even when you haven’t told a joke.

How quickly yesterday becomes ten years ago

Where following in your father’s footsteps

Leads nowhere except to a pauper’s grave and

Being remembered for all the things

That you could have done but didn’t do.

NQOCD

His clothes are from Burton’s and Primark

(most of those were Christmas presents),

and although he tries to act like he cares

it’s clear that he really doesn’t.

He can only get temporary part time work

and the thought of a career makes him laugh,

although it’s hard to tell if he’s just cynical

or can’t afford to work unpaid for years.

Even the air he breathes has a chip on its shoulder

which reduces his words to hollow mumblings

about pride and dignity being states of mind

he’s not yet been taught how to forget.

Fragments of teenage dreams drift round his head as

he wonders if the next sixty years are worth living,

so it’s clear that for now and fortunately forever 

he will always be not quite our class dear.

Parabellum

Blank like the pages of an unused passport

My expression gives away the news

That our future is not quite as distant

As we were told we should have wanted.

Patterned glass turns a motion sensor light

Into a supernova viewed on frame advance

Above an ocean of melted wheelie bin lids

Where we drown in an absence of hope.

It is not a lie that we tell ourselves

Just a truth that we would rather believe,

To stop our eyes putting out their fires

And our hearts cutting their own strings.