My Words, My World

First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing

It’s the season

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

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.

Petrodollars

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?

Photo courtesy of: http://creativesci-fi.wikia.com/wiki/File:Dead_earth.jpg

Sunday morning coffee

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.

Observations from a waiting room

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?

Morning workout

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

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.

 

A drink to die for – 99-word fiction

I woke up this morning with a sentence in my head; “and fear hung in the air like a death sentence”.  I immediately wrote it down then tried to work it into something.  This is the result.

_________________________________________________________________

I’d been walking for five hours when I arrived on the outskirts of the town. Silence, total and desolate, greeted me and fear hung in the air like a death sentence. I would have called out but my throat was parched.  I walked towards the town square. No one stepped out to help me, nor did any curtain twitch.  I was alone, the fear I felt was mine.  I found a drinking fountain and stooped to drink, just as I heard the first shuffling footsteps, a sound like laughter and the ring of a sword drawn from its scabbard.

Morning story without the glory

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.

Sunrise (I wanna sleep)

“The sun’s coming up.”

“What?”

“The sun’s coming up.”

“It does that, in the morning.”

“Wanna take a look?”

“No, I want to sleep.”

“You should see it, the colours and everything.”

“Pink.  It’s bound to be pink.  Go to sleep.”

“How do you know what colour it is?”

“Because it’s always pink.  Clear sky, pink clouds, pink sunrise. Pink.”

“I’ve seen sunrises that aren’t pink.”

“I’m happy for you, really.  So, get up or go to sleep, either way I don’t care about the pink sunrise.”

“You should you know.  After all, it may be your last.”

“What?”

“Well, we don’t know, do we?”

“Well that’s a cheery fucking thought.  Thanks for that. How am I going to sleep now?”

“Just think, it could be your last sunrise and you’re missing it because you want to stay in bed and sleep.”

“So then just think, it would also be my last sleep and I’m missing it watching a bloody pink sunrise.  Go to sleep!”

Summer heat

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 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.

Page-turner

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.

Noise

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

and all that jazz

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

Sunday morning (and Sunday Morning)

Wake up, stuffed nose, can’t breathe
can’t see, light switch, where’s the light switch?

Get up, still house, silence, silence
and the clock tick-tocks the night away.

Walk around, bare feet, cold feet
need a glass of water I’m parched.

Wine and bitter mouth, that last digestive
getting festive on a Saturday, as you do.

Sunday’s here and I’m the only one to see it
and when it’s time to get up I’ll go back to bed.

Not much to do but write and read and
Lester Bangs talks to me of Lou Reed
and The Velvet Underground.

Well, at least it’s Sunday Morning.

Winter, let it go

The black night draped
in mourning
for the morning.
The first feelers of light
yet to be felt.
The first rays of the sun
yet to be raised
above the horizon,
as the long and tiresome
night drags on.

While the world outside
and me inside
wait for spring.

Life. In a nutshell

As soon as I was born
I started living
As soon as I started living
I started dying.
Life. In a nutshell.

Through the haze

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.

My pen

The morning after the night before. Which is good, it means you’ve survived. Lived to tell the tale.

My tongue licks sawdust and cries out for coffee. I agree and duly oblige. My tongue cries out again when I put the steaming cup to my lips.  I think of my plans for the coming day but nothing materialises. It seems too large a step from where I am now to where I should be later.

My mind is grey, a bit like the January day which sits heavy outside my window; even the birds are reluctant to make themselves heard over the nothing in the air. Everything is flat, except my tongue.

The day seems to be wrapped in cellophane and I am the Clingfilm Kid. Get off your horse and make a Western out of that.

I’ve no revolver but my pen works fine and that’s something to go on with.

Hats off to Raymond Chandler

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” So said Oscar Wilde.

While I hope my work isn’t mediocre, I can understand the sentiment behind the statement.  We who doff our caps at others are acknowledging something which we appreciate and would probably like to do or achieve.

I have a weakness for reading Raymond Chandler.  Every once in a while I’ll return to any one of a number of books on my shelf.  A great writer.  By all accounts a greater drinker also, but that’s neither here nor there.  I’ve always loved reading Chandler and, not so long ago, as an idea to ‘unblock’, I wrote a small, Chandleresque sketch. It only runs to 68 words but after doing so I found a new impetus to my writing.

I hope you don’t find it too mediocre…


She offered me a coffee.  I took it like a man.  Black, no sugar; like my mood.  I don’t know which discount supermarket she’d bought it from but even with hot water added it was as dry as a Saharan wind.  I managed to drink it without pulling any expression except appearing concentrated on what she was saying, which wasn’t much.  Her words flowed like an uphill stream.

Monochrome

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.

Whore of the morning

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.

Ode to one’s birthday

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.

Dawn queen

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.

Force of nature

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.

In the streets

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.

Gabbiano

Svuotare la testa
liberarsi dei pensieri
qualsiasi;
positivi, negativi,
esistono i pensieri neutrali?
Non credo
Quindi se non credo in qualcosa è un pensiero negativo?
 
Respira l’aria del mare
guarda le onde
senti il rumore
e voli come un gabbiano.
 
Voli e voli in alto
voli in alto e voli lungo,
lontano, finché puoi.
Nessuno ti può frenare;
solo te.
 
Gabbiano.  Senza gabbia.
Voli.
 

Motion

Headstrong,
falling headlong,
falling over,
a stumble,
a tumble,
forward momentum.
Look ma, no brakes!
Just my hands in front of me.

That push over the edge
that fall from the ledge
that push down the slide.

Gravitational pull
always down; unstoppable.
No skin left on my palms,
red raw and racing to ruin,
or reward:
or just racing, really,
directionless
but movement is movement, after all.

Time (oh, how it passes)

The days pass
and time is passing,
another day has passed into night.

Time ticks on. Time ticks by.
The clock strikes. The bells chime.
The sun rises. The sun sets.

Always rushing, I’m buffeted by time
like the wash of air from a speeding truck,
carving lines on my face, like sea over sand
yet what is the significance of these lines
within the grand significance of time?

Time was. Time is. Time will always be.
Time. Oh, how it passes.

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