Train
this house is like a crowded train,
where you and I are sandwiched between
strangers with blank faces
at either carriage end.
it alights every week or so,
but no-one ever leaves.
I call to you and occasionally you to me,
every lost syllable is an organ shutting down,
strange how words seem life or death
when there's no-one there to hear them.
all it takes is for one of us
to stand our ground, walk
where our voices can be heard.
But we're too polite for that, too British.
Which one was our stop?
oh, I think we passed it years ago.
Heart Shaped Hypnotics
Stuck here in stark disquieting peace,
I wished for you to come
to witness wars on floral sheets,
explosions in the almond dam,
tragedies in coffee pots
and armistice at dawn.
To walk with me through horror,
through Sunday's uncertain fog,
fight the rain for honour
in declaring me ‘your love’.
To write our names on beaches,
cowering inside those grotesque hearts.
To have the tide come in
(is it not earlier than we thought?)
to wash away the evidence
of being here, or not.
For The Castaways
Today the seabed houses men.
Each mossy crag whose jagged eye
peaks furtively out skyward is a
coffin filled with centuries of
memories, brought to life in
spite of chopping waves. And
come nightfall they're immortalised,
for everything here is alive but us.
And they dance, in supreme blackness,
joyful for the chance to see that
nothing's changed at all.
this house is like a crowded train,
where you and I are sandwiched between
strangers with blank faces
at either carriage end.
it alights every week or so,
but no-one ever leaves.
I call to you and occasionally you to me,
every lost syllable is an organ shutting down,
strange how words seem life or death
when there's no-one there to hear them.
all it takes is for one of us
to stand our ground, walk
where our voices can be heard.
But we're too polite for that, too British.
Which one was our stop?
oh, I think we passed it years ago.
Heart Shaped Hypnotics
Stuck here in stark disquieting peace,
I wished for you to come
to witness wars on floral sheets,
explosions in the almond dam,
tragedies in coffee pots
and armistice at dawn.
To walk with me through horror,
through Sunday's uncertain fog,
fight the rain for honour
in declaring me ‘your love’.
To write our names on beaches,
cowering inside those grotesque hearts.
To have the tide come in
(is it not earlier than we thought?)
to wash away the evidence
of being here, or not.
For The Castaways
Today the seabed houses men.
Each mossy crag whose jagged eye
peaks furtively out skyward is a
coffin filled with centuries of
memories, brought to life in
spite of chopping waves. And
come nightfall they're immortalised,
for everything here is alive but us.
And they dance, in supreme blackness,
joyful for the chance to see that
nothing's changed at all.
