You.

After another whole year of being
the same you that you've been
since the very moment of your birth...
you're more you than ever.

Happy New Years and the best of luck with your resolutions!

Boreas.

You force your once warm breath
into your gloved palms.
Stood there on the corner,
flickering street light above,
you attempt, with shaky hands,
to zip up your coat:
all red and green.

Your brightly coloured scarf
trails behind you into the night.
A moment later and it's lost to Boreas,
flying past a late-night-driver
whose car screeches out festive tunes
to the bruises he's sporting:
all black and blue.

The turpid winds howl as they
clutch at your heels.
Shivering ever more,
you hold onto the presents
in your hands even tighter,
scrunching up the wrapping paper:
all white and gold.

Declarations.

I've lost the ability to think in days.
I measure time only in hours and weeks,
since there's so rarely a lull
and so many don't sleep.

There's no escaping this place.
The lights are always on outside, and in,
lighting drunken avenues
from which delirious declarations
spell out the evening's sin.

Somebody, somewhere, is always awake.
You're only a text away from a glass
of whiskey shared and secrets spilled -
for everybody knows that
3 am's the time to show your cards.

You're rarely truly alone.
So many have identical weeks,
and they're always around to help
since there's so rarely a lull
and so many don't sleep.

Campus.

I drank myself into campus
looking for some bar someplace
where there are vacancies
and awful liquor cheap enough
for underfunded students
to indulge their way
into the medical centre.
A tall man with blonde hair
stopped me on the stairs
to confirm that I had just arrived
to make sure his wisdom was required
"These are the best three years
of your life, go make some friends"
was all he said in husked monotone.
Looking beyond the blonde stubble
of a face glassy and scarred
I witnessed a piaza of sober intolerance
and I have never been so glad
to not find some bar someplace.

Heat.

A bead of sweat jogs down
my damp forehead,
heading for the tip of my nose.
Where there was once "pit stains"
there now lies quarries.
The bus is tightly packed
as well as stuck behind lost
and foreign lorries.
I experience the deepest envy
I've ever known,
as outside the window
a small child holds two ice lollies.
What greed! What fiendishness!
To flaunt such a gift before us all
in this Public Pressure Cooker.
I'm not ashamed to admit the smile
that turned the corners of my lips,
when I saw those frozen poles
melt, and slide right off the sticks.

Summer.

There's a sweating, balding man in front.
It's not that I'm offended by his choice to occupy
half of the pavement by holding his elbows up
like some Wild West gunslinger;
I am offended by the fact that he does so
with a hugely knowing and chocolate glued
grin that guns down my patience.

There's a woman stood, with a pram.
The pram must remain side-on with
the pedestrian traffic so that her offspring
might watch us duck and weave;
kayaking through the heat and crowds
in this little seaside paradise which is
long overdue indifference.

There's a jovial family crossing the road.
They move at the pace of a diazepammed
slug that has just realised it really has
no place to be at all;
whilst staring, bemused, at the cars that honk
and the drivers that raise their hands in protest
"Hey! We're walking here".

There are two parents shouting nearby.
I don't know what their children did but
they were dragged to the alley beside my house
so the adults could rabidly declare their disdain;
a small hand is raised and the shouting pauses
before one of the kids urinates besides my garden,
pissing away my patience.

Cog.

A rusty, clockwork Cog rolls
from some nigh forgotten shelf
onto a carpet thick with dust.

Years of wear render its roll
uneven and unbalanced
as it traverses the living room.

It wobbles once, twice,
and then falls onto its side
as if to gaze upon the ceiling.

And this saves its eyes
from seeing the Grandfather clock
tick-tock as though the Cog was still inside.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick.

Shark.

Last night I dreamt that I angered a shark so greatly
that it willingly threw itself onto the beach:
sacrificing its life for a chance to bite me.
It thrashed and bit until there it lied;
stone-cold; still; and beady-eyed.
I decided to take a picture,
before it was swept away by the tide.
(I only realised it was a dream
when I noticed my phone had died).

Absolution.

A hundred sweating, writhing bodies
stamp their weekday laden feet
upon the tainted deck.

The felt between throbbing speakers
and hordes of lust-drunk stompers
shakes as though it may tear.

Indiscriminate forget-me-nots are
handed out with grins and hips
to those whose memory blurs.

Cups of midnight absolution
are desperately sought by
self appointed social paragons.

Pulsing lights from a ceiling unknown
pour out their golden net and catch
two hundred wide-eyed glares.

And in the darkness they may move
like fairytale monsters under cover,
but all stay still once caught.

Spotlight.

There's a wind up spotlight
shining over a midnight battleground.
Snow, several inches thick,
renders defining the terrain
entirely impossible.

The Operator works harder,
the snow becomes brighter,
but the mechanism creaks
and breaks under the strain.
The light tilts downwards
and grants the Dark its reign.

Thorn.

Round the back of a house older than ourselves,
there rests an unkempt garden.

The grass shoots upwards from the earth,
tall enough to hide away the ground
and let forgotten creatures travel undetected.
The hum of the wings of bees and wasps
synchronise, drowning out all other sound,
whilst the multitude of bird songs go unrespected.

The forever growing canopy of leaves
threatens to hide the Sun and all its light
from everything dwelling below.
The arctic wind throws the branches about,
making them them snap, whip, and bite
at the whim of a bloody beaked crow.

Vines grapple with the house itself,
getting in between mortar and brick
as they slowly tear the place down.
Trampled flowers lie besides those
who stand with stems sturdy and thick,
but with petals beaten and brown.

I don't care for grass, or trees, or the everyday flower.
The sins of each don't seem worthy of my scorn.
There's only one thing in this garden I'd like to address -
the Roses weighed down by their Thorn.

Surrender.

Both noble Rooks fell -
their fates decided by the Bishops.
The Pawns, forever driving on,
drew blood until their kind was gone.
The Knights found their graves
provided a much more stable home,
slain by the Queen who then
wore our own down to the bone.
Barricaded inside the church,
the Bishops threw incense and oil over
their once triumphant King.
His forces divided and destroyed,
he was forced to choose the last song
that only such men can sing.

Departure.

The train should have left already.

There's a woman across the aisle
breathing deeply between expletives -
a panic attack which she seeks to defeat
with a veritable verbal assault.
She files a broken nail as if she
holds her hands responsible for the delay.
"I cannot fucking believe it!
This train should have left already."

There's another man scrawling thoughts
into a notebook that only he can see.
After each phrase he raises his hand
and scratches between his nose and upper-lip.
This, combined with covert coffee sips,
satisfies his thirst for inspiration.
A quick peek over his shoulder
and his thoughts are all laid bare.
"What an assault upon the decent!
This train should have left already!"

A suited man, complete with greying stubble
and thick-framed glasses, seems entirely more composed.
The leisurely descent of each newspaper page
suggests an air of calm acceptance:
an embrace of his South Eastern fate.
The only tell I can spot,
is the rapid tapping
upon the face of his watch.
I'm not sure if he sees It as the
Sovereign of Time, or if he's tapping
out some code to Morse -
"Save. Our. Souls.
This train should have left already."

And through the window stands a woman
whose high-vis jacket draws all kind of questions.
She points to different platforms,
and confirms for one startled commuter -
"Yes, this is the right train.
Yes, I know, it should have left already."

Kings.

There stands only an easel;
a canvas; and a vase'd bouquet.
The sun had set some time ago,
but The Artist painted day.

He'd transcribed splintered wood
into a lavish carpet - "Fit For Kings".
The simple, cobwebbed windows gone -
covered by "The Finer Things".
Flowing curtains shielded rot;
and mahogany dotted the wings.
The tired floral yellows, and quiet blues,
were replaced by entwined rosen rings.
(There sits a fattened fly upon a petal,
but He ignored the flower to which it clings).
To the loaded paint brush - the power,
and to the Artist - The Kings.

Ascension.

I'll wade through the morning like
the ankle-high mire that it is.
I'll crawl beyond the craters
of the barb'd afternoon,
into the rolling hills of eventide...
where the whipping Sun dies too soon.
I won't glide upon the morning's gaze
nor relish in its attention.
I'll ignore the sweet lull of noon
and fall to those rolling hills,
where I might delight in convention.
The thick web of night will fall,
and amongst it's netting catch
a man who stood tall,
but forever defied ascension.