Tell me your tale
of what it meant to venture
out in the dark
and hang with the kids who smoked
and looked cool as the whisper of ash
mixed freely
in the stilted and peach like air
and then glided towards
the beckoning heavens
as your eyes naturally found the excuse
to drift slowly downwards
and look at the black tram seam
that ran from the top of their
unpolished and ungainly shoes
to the bottom of the pencil
lined grey skirt,
Steady,
breathe deeply,
hold your nerve
and dive right in…
For whilst it was the most ungainly
entry into the wet,
shivering warmth,
I at least gave it a go
and the laughter of two
hundred, the attempt of early
humiliation was nothing, for
only having learned to swim
at ten, twenty lengths for a charity
later, diving in the deep end
held no fear and whilst failure
was the option grasped,
scoring one
point for the class,
out of sympathy,
The crack is always there,
no matter how busy I keep myself,
the yawn in the fabric
of the walls leers at me,
sneers with contempt;
it has no need to beckon me closer
for it knows I will eventually succumb
because I am always curious
of just how dark the scene is.
I could scream in the darkness
for no one truly hears
above the muffled, stifled gag
as the words catch me
in the back of the throat,
so instead I hide myself away,
I am afraid,
not of life or of opening
myself up, perhaps even to ridicule,
God knows I’ve experienced
enough of that, more than I care for,
probably less than I deserve;
I’m not scared of that for
if you’re not terrified of death
how can you truly feel alive?
I am troubled,
by all that I am,
the insanity in the letters,
the voices whispering gently
that this word not that word,
not any word
but them all, is to be captured,
I trust my eyes as much
as I trust my soul
and I will trust my soul
until the end; I will trust
it, for whilst it may lead
me astray from time to time,
it will not do it with malice
or feverish gold digging intent.
My eyes may be failing,
however I see the feminine in you,
the beauty of compassion,
of searching for the answer
in a realm which once you despised
and acted the Tomboy
for the boys to admire,
The thousand cast iron lamps
sets the scene in a Sunset Boulevard way
and the silhouette of a hundred dancers,
their skirts flying, lifted
by the whispering fog,
their hair tied back and tempting the trilby
they wear, the adjustment and nod
to femininity only seen as the
plucked flower, dead soon,
dipped in gold leaf, sits proudly, stuck fast
by a silver pin through its heart,
erect and glowing in the dampness
of the drooping Boulevard air.
The hero shakes in the clammy mist
I fill up the day so I don’t have to think
about anything but words
that appear one keystroke
at a time, but even that somehow falls
into disgrace when I consider the art
of the typewriter,
the quill with fading ink
or the press on its first run,
for all right minded people
to take solace in;
I cannot offer anything new
for by filling up the day,
by refusing to live in my head
with its stark boundaries
and all too clear regrets,
I break sweat, not for the first time
as I bang my head against thick,
blackened and bloodied bars
that hold me back,
that resist my shakedown
as they rattle in the dirt
and concrete, small creatures scuttle
around my toes, feeling the chill,
feeling the draining perspiration
that runs down from the small
of my back
and I sweat and I howl
against the only light
in the bludgeoning room,
my tomb self made,
one exit,
no idea how I found myself here
I fear for your soul, as you lurch
and stumble, in the manner of
Frankenstein’s Monster, stitched together
with bloated handcrafted hate
and led by money through the nose,
led by old school isolationism,
led by ignorance
and greed, the I want led by the I have…
I fear for your soul.
I fear for your heart, the once at least
caring side displayed by a Camelot King,
a chair-bound, three times anointed knight
and the fun loving Sax man,
all had their breakages, their misfortunes
I hear your voice in the darkness
and it reminds me of cold autumn rain
as I hitchhiked north
and saw the white threat of
angry spellbound snow
on the distant
Canadian mountain range
and I find myself crying
for the memories
your words placed in me,
as I once became the new kid in
the small Oxfordshire town,
as I was the new kid
on the highway finding temptation,
and the glory of a lift with a beautiful woman.
It is the gentle sweep, brush like,