4am and the world is unmoving,
until I step outside.
The air is warm and still and
the terracotta tiles are cool beneath my feet
Quietude absolute.
A half-moon headlight casts my shadow
A scattering of stars against a black velvet backdrop
Mars; loud, red and angry
and the owls compete for who can hoot the loudest
and I, alone, breathe the morning
and I, alone, feel the morning
and I, alone, become the morning
and I, alone, am the morning.
Black mountain against a grey marble sky
No technicolor sunrise this morning
I beat you to it
There are more than fifty shades of grey
in this sunrise.
This morning is Cagney and Sheridan in
Angels with Dirty Faces
This morning is Bogart and Bacall in
The Big Sleep
This morning is a noir dream
This morning is black and white.
Christmas passed,
the year thins to an end
and I too seek closure;
of my eyes in the darkness
(well, temporarily at least).
My thoughts flash like festive lights in no order
and my mind considers things like political parties
and grey life under the Stasi,
of free-flowing intellectualism
and cold, uncaring capitalism.
I think of flights and holidays
and rhythmic train journeys
hurrying to their destinations
where destinies await the destined.
I think about the sun
and where the winter has gone
(It will be back to bite us on the ass,
no doubt).
I think about you and me
wind-blown from the sea.
Years end
but the waves do not.
Staring at four bare walls
unavoidable, inescapable
No sound, just silence
Not even the mechanical sound
of time passing
as a welcome distraction
The silence isn’t deafening
but the thoughts are.
If they had colour
it would be grey
If they had sound
it would be a low, lost hum.
The drip, drip, drip of the leaking tap,
tightened to the full yet still…
drip, drip, drip,
like some mad aquatic clock
or a water deity’s idea of a joke
and where does all this water go?
Does it race along the tubes and pipes
only to be unceremoniously
spat out
into some shitty sewage treatment works?
Or does it instead splash happily along
those tubes and pipes
and find itself jettisoned
into a little stream,
just a trickle at first
which is then joined by others,
left to the same fate
and together they form a river
which gets faster,
noisy, rushing water tumbling over stones worn smooth
and dancing over rocks and waterfalls
and down, always down until finally,
in the distance,
there’s the sunlight’s reflection on water
and the river’s pace gathers
and drives on
then, finally, pours into the sea
where the drip, drip, drip of the leaking tap
becomes waves upon the shore.
A fingernail moon falls down the evening sky
and now the wind has dropped,
from a bluster to a breath
as the frigid night descends.
The trees, immobile in their submission,
silhouette against silhouette,
branches handing like the arms of the guilty
as the frost’s frozen fingers
freeze all they touch;
and even the church bells are subdued.
But lo!
A thousand firesides
lead like beacons in the night,
protesters’ torches in rebellion.
Cold is the winter night
but is vanquished by the hearth of home
Clock tick, ticking in the silence of the apartment
or
the apartments because there are nine in the block
and
I’m the only one awake at this time,
in
these hours where I should be elsewhere
and
not writing, or reading or dropping benzodiazepine for sleeping
and
my body aches for sleep
but
my mind tells my body to fuck off
and
get up, get going and do something
and
I’m on the sofa with a pen in one hand
and
a notebook in the other and a book by my side
and
the clock keeps ticking
and
to think that somewhere the sun is rising
and
somewhere else it’s setting on another day
as
the momentum of our forward roll takes us around
a
big ball of light and heat that keeps us here,
alive,
going nowhere except forward;
rolling, rolling
in space time, in real time,
(who’s got the time anyway?)
as
somewhere to the east of me the sun is coming up
and
somewhere to the west of me it’s going down
as
10,000 lives have just left
and
10,000 have just begun
and
we just keep on rolling. Somewhere.
Night,
split into two:
broken lines
black and white
drawn and then fade
merge
and become grey,
like the dawn;
if it ever arrives.
My eyes are heavy
and my face is sliding
like some lost Dalí canvass;
long dripping clocks
leaking slow time:
sluggish minutes
and
creeping hours
in the long dragging night.
The sax-playing Santa
sat in the shade of the subway
blowing his way through Christmas classics
and then just some classics
with no mention of Christmas;
which is good.
I could listen to him all day
or even an hour
or even 10 minutes
but I can’t;
I’ve things to do
and people to see
and places to go
and even if I don’t
I have to be doing something,
buying something,
eating something,
drinking something
and I can’t stop,
we can’t stop
because it’s Christmas
and there won’t be another one until…
well, this time next year.
Government lies and secret files
and prepare to wade through the bullshit
as it flows on down from above
There’s no responsibility in selling arms
to someone else
for them to kill someone else
and so the hands are clean
and the conscious is clear
Everyone’s friend is no one’s friend
and vice-versa
and around it goes
Sanction this and sanction that
and “they started it first”
and “my bomb’s bigger than your bomb”
as if they’re comparing their cocks
in the changing room
and there’s still room to change
but no one wants to
It’s all government lies and secret files
and the dirtiest clean hands
you’d never want to shake.
Wake up shattered
with bad news splattered
across the headlines,
the world’s deadline
as its hopes lie in tatters
with the continuation
of the transformation
of the sea into plastic
and the forest into sand
and the animals into memory
while the dollars exchange hands
and get sent offshore;
tax nicely evaded.
No answers needed
when no questions are asked.
Who needs a fucking conscience
when the blood-soaked petrodollars
slip so easily
into slimy outstretched palms?
Early Sunday morning walk,
hungover.
Squinting in the morning light
Cappuccino with a double shot of coffee
and eyes that finally open
with the hoarse caw of the crow
and the hoarse voice of the barmaid
who must smoke a packet
or spend her life shouting
above the noise of the cutlery
being put in its place
as the coffee machine whirs
and the people sit
over their Sunday morning papers
as the cappuccino goes down
and the day opens up.
The stairs crush my knees and steal my breath
and I get to the top and I ring the bell
and I enter the surgery but the waiting room
is empty except for the noise
because the window is open
and the noise from the street competes
with the radio newsreader’s urgency
to tell me the headlines and I can’t hear them
but maybe it’s a blessing because
I don’t want to hear them because
everyone has a missile pointed at someone else
and it’s always someone else’s fault
and everyone is trigger-happy
or God-fearing happy-clappy
and it’s mine versus yours anyway
and now the smell of the floor cleaner joins in with the noise
and the headlines as they vie for my senses
and it makes no sense and my knees hurt
and I can’t hear myself think
and I can’t feel myself breathe
and then the doctor comes out
and asks me how I am…
I’m here, aren’t I?
I like to feel the cool air soothe my skin
as I stand outside on the balcony
and breathe the morning air.
I like to hear the leaves in the breeze-blown trees
chitter-chatter amongst themselves
in a language I don’t understand.
I like to see the rain roll down the window
and the streams run in the gutters,
now clean and ready to start again.
I like to watch the clouds chase each other
across the sky, racing in the wind,
making shapes only I can see.
Oh, and it’s Friday.
No fun
having nothing to say
yet you could talk all day
No fun
having something to say
yet no will to say it
No fun
staring at the pen that won’t write
or the keys that won’t type
or the pages that only turn
in the late summer breeze.
The deep-water sound of someone pissing from a height at 4.30 in the morning
before the first blackbird has it in him
to wake up and start singing
and no car hums the tune of rubber on tarmac
and the night has its own sound
a no-sound
a “fuck me, well hello again, it’s you” sound
and I join in the silence,
eyes wide open and mouth closed shut
and I breathe in and I breathe out
and it doesn’t do much good and I turn over
on my side and wonder if I should read by reading light
or just get up and kiss the night
goodbye
so I say hi to my pen and paper and I want to write a story,
any story,
about the world and what goes on in it, within it
and all I end up writing, again, is my own.
Damp sheet,
summer heat
I turn my pillow
over and over
and fuck off mosquito, you bitch
(it’s the females that make you itch)
and now the early morning crows
are crowing, or cawing
while the neighbourhood is still snoring;
except me
and I’m turning
like an undecided Brexit MP
as I can’t for the life of me
cool down
so I get up
and stroll on the balcony
in my shorts
it’s just me and the crows anyway
in this summer heat.
The longest day,
the shortest night
The summer solstice.
The sun rising between two tall stones.
The Pagan rites of five thousand years,
or more.
Time keeping time
Too hot to sleep
A midsummer night’s dream,
or nightmare.
Summer sticky heat.
The sweat from a thousand pores,
or more.
The longest day,
the shortest night.
This book’s “a real page-turner”
it says so on the back cover.
It’s not though really, is it?
Thinking about it.
It doesn’t turn its pages,
I do.
Pedantic I know.
Maybe I have writer’s envy.
I can’t write a page-turner
I can’t even write a page
Lately I can’t even write
Blocked like a drain;
again.
Electric light, electric noise
The TV scream
and noise just hurts my ears
and tears my soul and
SILENCE! Please…
I can’t hear myself breathe
I can’t hear myself live
I can’t hear myself,
be myself
Ivory tinkle
bass string pull
tic, tic, tic of the cymbal
as the brush sweeps the beat
toe-tap hep-cat
blowing sax
blow Bird, blow
woodwind winding out to meet me
reviving me
like a cold water splash to my face
or the clink of ice in my whisky
The world sags like a winter willow branch
and everything is sick and poisoned
and the air is noxious
and the ground is broken
and the jaundiced sun can’t see through the haze
and the haze is man-made
a man-made haze
the end of days
but don’t worry
it’s the size of the button that counts
and there’s always oil where the buffalo once roamed
I know that haze
it’s 500 million men dancing in the fumes of the dollar, the pound, the shekel.
Don’t forget the ruble, comrade.
What’s next off the production line, Jack?
What other piece of useless shit is being bagged and boxed?
As the hordes unfurl their sleeping bags outside the flagship store
Are they fucking serious?
Is this all for real?
As the jaundiced sun looks down
and tries to see through the haze.
Hand me that bottle, Jack,
at least we can recycle it when we’re done.
January
damp and cold January
I have a cough and I cough and I splutter.
Does it matter? Does it matter?
My cough plumbs the depth of my lungs in the night like my soul plumbs the depths of despair in winter and the clouds…
…and the clouds are pigeon shit-grey and they roll in then roll over then roll away and leave me…
bathed in monochrome
and the rain…and the rain.
It’s water and I’m dancing
I drank more water than what fell to earth last autumn
so we rain-danced for a drenching soul-cleaning and yet…
it’s January
damp and cold January
let it rain, let it rain, let it rain
pour your monochrome down upon me.
That old adage about “write what you know” – I should laugh in its face and stick my fingers in its eyes.
I started this blog , as it says on the tin (well, the heading), as a pin-board for airing poems and flash-fiction first drafts and ideas. Of late, after a barren summer, I’ve hit a creative vein, with no idea why except it runs in tandem with another bout of worse-than-usual sleeplessness. I don’t want this blog to become a shrine to insomnia so things will change in 2018 (that’s two days and, possibly, two nights…).
This is this blog’s last insomniac poetic hurrah! If I couldn’t write anything else then I would stick my pen where the sun doesn’t shine. Luckily, I can and I have been (just not here, o bored and tired reader).
Have a great New Year everyone and thanks for looking in.
Chris
_______________________________
And still the treacherous night lingers on
and pulls me along with it
incapable of leaving me behind
in a dreaming world of slumber;
the fucker.
And still my words spill across the page
and takes me away for a while,
pulling me into its world
where pen and hand work in unison;
the saviour.
And still my eyes remain open
and my awakened mind rages
full of ideas that fall on paper
as my head wants to fall;
on my pillow.
and yet, and yet…
and yet I love these early hours;
the quiet, the still, the night sounds
– or early morning sounds – take your pick.
A slave to the whore of the morning
fresh on her rounds and as yet untouched,
the sheets still unblemished
and the rose cheeks of her sunrise.
Another year, another…well, year, I suppose.
Time doesn’t drift, it flies.
It flies in the face of life,
it flies in the face of all that we know
yet can do nothing about.
I’m older today than I ever was before
and I’m younger today than I ever will be again.
Time.
Catches up.
Slows down.
Speeds up.
If we’re lucky we can hitch a ride,
but we can just as well walk.
The horizon is ever before us.
Take note:
the road behind is barred
the road ahead is open
our worn-down heels will be our proof of our existence.
Time.
Mind muddled, befuddled
hours awake,
hours reading,
hours doing everything but sleeping
crawling on my knees
to the dawn queen.
Lying there in the dark
looking at every darkened shape
of every angle of every wall
and feel every stubbed toe
on every piece of furniture
lying there in the dark;
like me.
Alarm clock; you are redundant,
again. As ever.
Your services are limited
except when you tell me
how long I’ve been lying there awake.
As I crawl on my knees
to the dawn queen.
The twisting cobbled streets
slick with the damp night air
holding their sodden breath,
waiting for morning
each stone a rain-washed monument
to man’s short-lived triumph over nature:
apparently.
But watch the sprouting weed
or the green shaven-headed moss
hiding in the cracks
of frost-split stones
polished by centuries of feet.
History has taken us from the humble cobbled stone
to the cloud-reaching tower
of glass and concrete
of plastic and steel
Babel now lies in every direction
praise be the money-god. Ha!
Yet even these so-called wonders of man will fail
when nature decides to reclaim her own.
We can hope.
He went out in the streets to find love
and found instead crushed cigarette ends,
oil-filled puddles swirling with colour,
yesterday’s news blowing in the gutter,
a choking fit on exhaust fumes,
a cold foot from a hole in one shoe
and discarded chewing gum stuck to the other,
as a dented Coke can drummed along the road
and shouts came from an open window:
no love there.
He looked at cards in telephone boxes;
no love there.
He watched a police car speed through the lights;
no love there.
He heard the siren of an ambulance split the night;
no love there.
His shoulders slumped and he shook his head.
Every night it was the same.
Same street. Same sights. Same sounds. Same hate.
A teenage girl helped an elderly woman across the road
and left without stealing her bag.
He smiled.
There it was.
In the streets there was love.
He turned for home.
