another empty bus at shit o'clock

ride through london backwards
and it's a city out of sight and out of time.
strangers sneeze and eyeballs dry
as doors shut open open shut shut up fuck up fuck off fuck you...
and headaches start the hangover as men talk silently outside,
never seen, never unheard again.
and the piss in my gut is painful
but i've learned to keep it in
like all those thoughts reduced to silent smiles.
i can't even see the sky, can barely feel the miles,
just apathy and exhaustion on a tuesday morning
that had just been monday night.
moving backwards to go forwards yet again.
moving forwards to head back once more. 

almost almost

the last time i was here, you were still with smiles and eyes.
and all I can think of, speeding through these country miles,
is your grimace death skull deep beneath the ground,
alone and waiting without thoughts or love.
i wandered through the same old streets,
drank cheap bad coffee in the same old haunts,
passed on your news to those you knew.

they say hello. they say goodbye.

and passing our old house as dusk approached
i tossed a stone up at your window to try to break the stillness in my heart.
all i got was broken glass and angry screams.
so i ran drunk fast into the lamplit afternoon,
remembering much younger feet on these same streets,
back when we had smiles and dreams,
and i almost almost laughed.

dear you

and we ate all the late night pizza that our teeth could swallow
and we watched all the late night shows that our eyes allowed
and we drank all the bottles that our wallets could afford (which wasn't very much back then)
and we held tight when everything so right seemed so far away.
and we ate noodles in the evening (and the morning and for lunch)
and we watched the same shows twice a day
and we laughed about the same jokes which really weren't that funny
and we stayed up later just to prove a mooted, muted point.
and we never thought to say goodbye
and we never thought to stay in touch because we always would be
and we never needed words to say just how we felt
and we never made the plans we'd planned to make
and we never took the steps they wanted us to take
and we always smiled and never growled
and we always argued, never shouted,
and we always danced to stupid songs
and we always slept in late and woke up later
and we always locked the front back door before the morning rose.
and we rarely tidied up
and we barely caught the sunrise
and we rarely took the rubbish out
and we never ever cleaned the kitchen floor.
but tonight i'm drinking bleach
and sucking tongues
and feeling young despite my age
and remembering the times when we were here together
and we ate all the late night pizza that our yellow teeth could swallow
with no thoughts of tomorrow or the next day or the last.

memories make movies

drunk in my room - and cold as well -
i hide from the moon that sits behind the curtains.
hero worship at this age was never my idea,
but still my shoulders shake - from temperature, in awe -
because you saw more than i could ever see, have ever seen, will ever be.
don't wake me up from this pathetic dream.
don't call me names that i'm unfit to be.
don't run away from everything that i failed more than you to see.
the vodka makes night darker,
makes teeth clatter in the inside breeze,
makes hidden thoughts reveal themselves too real - and then to reel.
memories make movies,
but the kind always forgotten,
like the morning after the night your parents die.
better off alone and sworn to secrecy.
cry yourself to sleep to childlike lullabies.

as empty as

on a dusty typewriter
devoid of ribbon
lacking in black
i type to write
but fail,
as much on paper as in mind.

nothing more to say
perhaps
or just no other way to say it.
see, we went through all the motions
all the trials and tribulations
of late night early morning phone calls
and an eternity of desperation -
pleading
crying
begging
faking
swearing
lying
hating
shouting
gently gently gently sobbing
into lonely palms no longer held by yours.

yet still, as centuries have passed
and generations died,
no change -
just left with nothing more
than daytime television,
memories and wine.

and so as
red and white denial breeds
red and white desire to
read and write words
that never will be seen

on a rusty typewriter
devoid of ribbon
yet never so black
i type to write
but fail,
my words as empty
as a starless winter sky
about to rain.

(2006)