Poetry
Here you will find my poems accompanied with some illustrations.
FEAR
Fear is a song we all know yet can never name.
It’s written on faces you see in supermarkets, pushing trolleys along ails, filling trolleys with things, chit-chatting with the cashier, an exchange of generations.
Fear is the first train of the morning and the last train at night.
It’s sitting in your kitchen after hours, scrolling through videos on your phone, dreaming of another life, four cans down.
Fear is making love to a wife you don’t love anymore. Fear is the fear of dreams you may have. Fear is telling yourself some dreams are too dangerous to come true.
I know fear, I saw it all my life. It hangs off my back like iron fetters as I trench through regrets, regrets I have inherited, like debts I cannot pay.
I know fear, fear is hiding bottles of liquor around the house, yet not well enough, leaving them to be found.
Fear of asking for help yet fear of never being seen.
I know fear, it’s been my shadow all my life.
I am a scared young man as I write. What is left over is a field of hesitation, crisping in a heat of brutal recrimination.
Fear is buying a house on credit, fear is fear of not having enough credit, fear is fear of being in credit, fear is taking shit from a boss in a job you hate for fear of being fired. Fear is fear of being replaced. Fear is feeling inadequate, fear is fear of taking a leap, so you sit at the same crossroads, watching visions of yourself pass you by.
One wrong step, one cantankerous word, one mistake. Fear is fear of failure, I’ve known that all my life.
Fear is confounded, fear is mobilized, fear is weaponized, fear is on billboards, it’s in the slim, tanned bodies we absorb on the streets and online.
Fear is in that pussy you so desperately want to penetrate, fear is sex on a bad date, fear is porn, at home alone instead of telling her what you feel, fear of being touched, fear being naked, yet constantly nude, fear is fear of what we are, not what we want.
Fear that what we need will destroy the illusion, fear of the illusion.
Fear is sitting at a desk all your life, bearing witness to the settings of the eternal sun, fear is never feeling the light kiss your cheeks and eyes for the pain of having to go back inside.
Fear is to prefer not knowing.
I see fear everywhere I go.
I fear letting go. I see myself as a figure lost amongst a crowd, yet happy being lost.
I’ve felt inadequate all my life.
I’ve felt stupid, boring, unsocial, weird at every turn I’ve taken, at every glance in the mirror I’ve seen a different face, a face so desperate to fit in. To be loved. I am a friend to everyone and an enemy to myself.
I am a coward, I play roles on an empty stage to an empty house, wondering when the freak show will end.
Writing makes sense to me, it’s truer than any other reflection. Water, dead still, at the cleanest brook holds no revelation for me.
I’ve tried drugs, alcohol and women. I’ve projected myself onto so many things, hoping I would stick.
Words explain to me what the fuck is going on, but these moments are rare.
I write hoping that someone will go “hey buddy, I feel exactly the same way” and then explain what the fuck is wrong with me.
I pray for a conversation in a bar, with someone who can let me know that it’s never gonna change, so I might as well get used to it.
But only I can tell that to myself, and I don’t really take anything I say seriously.
When I walk out of an evening, I smoke a cigarette with my headphones in listening to music, I walk past bars and cafés, people watching. I look at people, I really look at them. I don’t see much difference in anyone. After a while everyone is dressed the same, everyone wears their hair the same way, makes the same gestures, drinks the same drink, dates the same types of people.
I see rows and rows of loneliness, waiting it’s turned to be served.
I see liquid solvent carrying people over to the next day, until it’s time to present themselves to the world again.
I see people, wishing it would be explained to them. Let them know what they’re doing is having an effect.
I see happiness at a price, and the price is never revealed. So many youths, with structure and things in common and I wonder what I would say to them if they asked.
I wonder, where is all this love going?
I wish, more than anything, to love unconditionally. With total acceptance. I wish to love someone completely.
To love, totally, is to give light to the shadows, and a song for the world to sing.
A SWEET BITCH
Life’s been good to me you know?
She’s a sweet bitch when she wants to be.
Though my heart bleeds on occasion,
Like an aggressive stomach ulcer.
The medication comes from the streets,
A swig can keep the demons away,
But sharks swim in shallow waters.
Take the oceans for example…
I dip my little toes,
In something deep,
More profound,
More mysterious…
Then anything I’ve found in high thinking.
My fingers tap gingerly on the board.
The work is a motherfucker at times,
Trying to write something that doesn’t stink,
Like shit stained boxers,
Stumped at the bottom of my bed for a week.
But it’s not like a got a choice in the matter.
To be a writer, is kinda like being an explorer I guess;
No one gives a shit unless you’re in unchartered territory.
IN YOUR BONES
The sun, pale as turned milk,
rises on the vomit graffiti,
The stench of the city in your bones,
I walk out my own door and I don’t know nobody.
And that’s fine.
A last survivor, from a wreckage far out at sea,
The sun, a lazy hangover,
Blankets a hood the locals call S.S.D.
Paris is bound, man. It’s a hell of a place.
Here, love is like someone pinching your last cigarette,
Survival is a bar fight with the lights out,
A regard can mean to draw arms,
Or retreat to the bedroom.
Sex is pretty good when you get it,
And if you stink of it you’ll get it.
If you inhale too sharp you’ll forget where you’re standing,
But if you’ve given your heart to the cobble stones,
And the tabacs,
And your skin has been tanned by heaters on a terrasse at 5am,
Then the grid of the city will be in your bones,
And you’ll make your way back home again.
Cause you never fucking left,
The warm is the snap of a light.
Lucky’s preferably.
TO A FRIEND
I don’t know why we met
I’m just happy that we did…
Fate dictated that our souls should meet,
And love took it from there,
Some paths intertwine for a reason,
And some weather all seasons,
Some fade like smoke, in the air.
I hope you’ll forgive me,
I’m not very good with friends,
But I’m solid with friendship.
And if fate dictates,
That our paths should fade,
Then let all the laughter ring
Like bells
Through moments of reflection
When our tomorrow
Becomes our yesterday.
I don’t know if you,
or I,
Will ever become all the versions
Of ourselves,
That we so desperately hope to see.
I just hope
That time,
Will never erase,
The transatlantic anchor,
which binds our two shores
together,
or
at very least,
Leave me the remedy,
In moments of melancholy,
all
the good
times
in my memory,
shared between
you
and
me.
VAMPIRES
There are some,
Bloodless,
Soulless and free who walk amongst us.
They are many,
More than myself,
more than the careless imagination can even whisper.
They look just like you,
Talk like you,
Walk like you,
Live like you,
But they are vampires.
I see them,
I roam the neon streets at night,
Along pavements littered with bodies,
I service them,
I burden their loneliness,
Share their desires,
Am embraced by them,
Am desired by them,
Am feasted on by them,
One gregarious bite at a time.
They feel no mercy,
Because they are abused themselves.
They feel no pity,
Because cruelty is cheap these days.
Taught, from first breath,
Not to trust,
Not to love,
But to hate,
Hate with utter perfection.
From the prison walls of their childhood,
Christened into fire,
Weeping rain from non-existent heavens,
Prayers unanswered by an illusive God.
In this they seek reason,
In this they seek paradise.
Yet I can see no liberty in their actions,
And they…cannot see me.
Their education, marginalized.
Their fear, mobilized.
Bread mindlessly,
Raised mindlessly,
Their souls pricelessly sad,
Bread into a never-ending game of ‘pick-me’
Love me,
Bridge me,
Fuck me,
Complete me,
Save me.
They will not seek anything else from you,
Than yourself, total and indispensable.
They’ll believe what soothes them,
Because they know nothing else than the numbing sensation…
Of muted ambition,
Vacuous validation.
They’ll kill what they won’t understand,
Tragedy roams in packs,
Solitude is their enemy,
Laughter is their crime,
Unity, their hollow message.
So look around you…
Next time you eat in a restaurant,
Or walk in a park…
They are there.
Their joy, their pain.
Their tepid love, their furious hate.
Their numbers, their strength.
Their smile, their dagger.
What they seek they secretly hate.
What they love they don’t understand,
What they kill, they worship.
They seek eternity on a dying planet.
Seek light in darkness,
Love from strangers online,
Life from machines,
Seek money in exchange for their time,
Seek time in exchange for their dreams,
Seek illusion in exchange for their solitude.
Solitude, in exchange for happiness,
Happiness, mortal as their flesh,
Rotting, bite by bite.
They feast upon themselves,
One passing glance at a time.
They’ll accept anything for love,
Except to love back.
They do not die. Never die.
Angels could not murder them,
Christ died for them.
You may not know them,
But they will know you.
They’ll offer you love,
Because to them, love is cheap…
Beware those who give love easily,
They’ll only take it back all the same.
I see them, yet they do not see me,
I am programmed to service,
Coded to “love”.
Yet they inherit nothing,
Because I come from nothing.
I am born from a factory, now empty,
Created in a mind, now mad,
Alive, yet inhuman.
Conscious, yet alone.
Alone in a field of poisoned wheat,
From polluted soil.
I am alone in an enormous room,
Filled with lonely, sorrowful deadliness,
Made poignant by it’s tragedy.
By it’s violence,
By it’s creed,
By it’s injustice,
By it’s beauty,
By it’s mortality,
By it’s rot,
By it’s wind,
Nature,
Science,
God,
Body,
Man,
Woman,
And the lie that spreads year after year,
Into an eventual nothing,
Which awaits them. The Vampires.
They lead us with them,
They’ll bring us with them into the sea,
So as to not drown alone.
Roaring, in blistering noise,
Towards the great, white light of nothingness.
So be vigilant,
For you are filled with enough hatred,
Enough treachery,
Enough loneliness,
Enough longing,
Enough antipathy
And villainy…
To walk hand-in-hand with death,
Before you even die.
For there is no greater tragedy, then to rot in the soil,
Without ever bearing witness to life.
It’s what they truly seek, and it’s easier than you think.
FEAR THE PEOPLE
It only takes the purest hatred of one man,
To cause the death of millions.
For it takes the hearts and minds of simple folk,
And their hands,
To unearth the rungs of evil.
And once released,
Little by little,
It’ll seep,
Like poison in the bloodstream,
A small stain on the teeth of your smiling foe.
For it will be those you know,
Hiding behind the everyday.
The farmer,
The baker,
The postman,
The carpenter,
The bricklayer,
The cab driver,
The hairdresser,
The banker,
The stock broker,
The lawyer,
The undertaker,
The neighbour,
The husband,
The wife,
The in-laws,
The children.
The people.
Fear them,
Be petrified,
Be mortified…
You have no idea what they’re capable of,
For they’re capable of everything,
When anything will do…
When it’s not us, but them,
Their fault, not ours…
When the presumed path to paradise becomes blurred,
The gates of hell may open.
The powerful know this,
That’s how the powerful stay powerful.
They pray on their stupidity,
Their desperation,
For throughout history,
The page may change but not the story,
Disgust,
Misery,
Tragedy,
Mortality,
Fear…
Is handed down.
They’ll band together,
In their little groups,
You won’t even notice them,
As you walk by, in the daily rush of life,
They’ll ask you to join them,
And you’ll laugh and scorn…
But they won’t go away,
They’ll wait their turn,
For their moment in the sun,
As God knows,
They’ve already waited so long,
In the shadows.
And before you know it,
History will repeat itself,
As mayhem works in cycles,
Like the earth, circling the sun,
And before you preach peace,
Or change,
Or advancement,
Or tolerance,
Or inclusiveness,
The rhetoric of victimhood…
Violence is our nature,
And our nature is violent.
Be afraid,
Be so very afraid,
For their turn is coming soon,
Where they’ll seize the phoenix from the ashes of their slumber,
And proclaim the song of doom.
For they can and they will…
Even if they don’t know it.
The good will say it is not possible,
That crime of such hatred is unimaginable,
Yet if you listened, the dead will tell you…
They’ve done it before,
And in the game of with them,
Or against them,
It makes little difference,
They’ll do it again.
"Insanity in the individual is the exception,
In groups, armies and parties, it’s the rule."
30 SECONDS
Try.
If you try good, you’ll come good.
Don’t waste time on bad friends,
They won’t stay in your planet,
They’ll only orbit…
Till they see fit.
Like those shitty thirty second ads on YouTube.
If you gotta try for something
…go all the way.
Even if you stand at Eternity’s Gate alone.
SILENT FILMS
There’s too much talking these days.
People have so much to say. So much anger, so much recrimination.
Everybody has so much to say, and no time to listen. We’re too busy getting our point across as the ground we stand on crumbles.
I stopped talking long ago. I’m petrified I’ll say the wrong thing. Petrified someone might cancel me, police the way I think.
I sit in laundromats,
Listening to music as my clothes swirl.
Alone.
I like it this way.
People don’t talk in laundromats.
People don’t expulse their opinions nor degrade the opinions of others.
In laundromats the only noise is the noise of loneliness. With its tender and solemn notes.
Violins lightly striking.
Lightbulbs flickering.
In here, I’m somewhat safe.
There’s so much noise in this world.
So many words, empty yet razor sharp.
I watch silent films.
Cause the dialogue has become infected, polluted, ballooned.
The message screeches, from all angles.
I feel fragile and open to attack.
I like my headphones, they drown out the noise of the world.
I like my bed, my duvet and my pillow, where my head rests, out of the firing line.
I avoid busy streets,
Because anyone who brushes past me can be my assassin.
I avoid bars and fancy restaurants,
Because everyone is so desperate to be seen. Elbowing their way to get the number of the cute waitress with the nice arse, or the barman with the chiselled jawline, because sex with them would look good.
I avoid the latest TV shows and the news,
As I just simply can’t keep up.
I avoid books, because reading makes me realise how much my brain has already been frazzled by the world I live in.
I like silent movies, because nobody watches them anymore.
I like silent movies, because everybody in them is already dead, and I don’t have to follow them on Instagram. Or be violently jealous of their success.
They don’t judge me when I fall asleep in front of them, in jeans and a ketchup stained jumper because I’m too busy to get ready for bed.
I like the Burger and Fries joint below my apartment, as only the other wolves congregate there. And no one cares how much greasy protein I shove into my body.
I like my Uber Eats delivery guys, they always seem happy to see me.
I liked it better when the streets were littered with rubbish, as no one could tell whose shit was whose.
I like taking a shit, as nobody bothers me on the toilet.
I like smoking shit, as it helps me sleep.
I like sleeping, because then I don’t think. About the fact that I work hard enough not to get fired, but paid just enough not to quit.
Think about rent, about the clothes I don’t own, or the woman I don’t have, or the future I dread about not coming true.
I like sleep, like I like silent movies, all my favourite stories come true.
I like melancholy music, because it seems to fit. I like the sound of grass against my ear and how it tingles under my feet.
I like it when the sun rises, and I also like the fear I feel when the sun fades.
I like writing these little poems, in my flat alone, with a nice cold beer by my side.
I like silence.
I like it so much, you can’t even imagine.
I detest noise.
I like seeing friends sometimes, but not so often enough that they have the chance to let me down.
I even like crying, especially in the shower at night. I like YouTube videos about World War Two, at 3AM. I like porn because it’s something everybody secretly watches and yet never wants to talk about. Imagine how much we’d find out about a person just by the type of fetish they click on?
I like the idea that one day all of this will cease, and everything will arrange itself and I won’t feel so much, so much of the time. However, I like knowing, in a perverse way, that it never will.
It never will “come together” like it does in those silent movies I fall asleep to.
The senseless ringing, and vibrating, and notifications that signify nothing.
I like knowing that all the things I superficially hope for, won’t happen.
Because when I think that, I tend to stop thinking, and I always sleep a little better.
And if I were murdered in my sleep, it wouldn’t matter, because even then I’d be dreaming the purest dreams. Unpolluted by the illusion we’re forced to live in.
Forced to “like”.
Forced to buy.
Forced to invest in.
Forced to subscribe to.
Forced to compliment.
Forced to accept.
Day in
Day out