For You For Me

You’ll take me with you when you leave

I know not how to say goodbye

From you I can take all the words of the world and wrap them around me like a great tapestry

You define me in every way.

My tears long to know your thoughts, they trickle down my face and yearn for your touch.

My tears are the salt of my world, they tell me I am not alone.

Your tears are the salt of my world, they tell me I am not alone.

You are inescapable just as is my imagination.

Holy is the wandering thought,

Misdirection need not be misguided, we must know our path is always extending.

We sit together and we discuss our woes, I seek to help you out of the woods, I am right I am wrong I am you ten minutes ago I am you in two years.

The next moment is here it is the same as before, it is new as before.

As constant as my heart as the sun is my love for you.

I remember you always and I carry you with me,

You gave me my smile and you took it away

Distance always brings it back.

Distance from the moment is knowledge, is air, is calm.

To find calm we must first know upset

To be upset is to rejoice in humanity.

Our fear is our condition,

Hold me and know that my limbs are also yours,

Hold me and know that the air I breathe is also yours.

I am never alone just as you are never surrounded.

Take my tongue as your own and rejoice with me in that we are the same in our ignorance and knowledge of the world in equal measure.

There are as many different versions of the world as there are people in it.

No one is one thing or another – we must embrace our transient minds and know that tomorrow I’ll still love you as I love myself.

I am always an observer, I watch you fall and be revived.

I find this world so circular that sometimes I am bored by it, it takes your touch to wake me from backward thought and raise me up again as an explorer.

Be not scared of the dark, know that no dark can reign while you are here.

Let us roll in shit together let us wash together let us know that life is lived out in greys and sepia and reds and blues, deep blues, in beautiful emerald green and under the life giving sun.

Each moment I am renewed.

Breath fills me with new questions and answers too.

The question always more human than the answer,

To be without knowledge is divine

To ask the question is divine

To be happy without an answer is divine

To bathe in a sea of troubles is divine

To fall, divine

To do ill, divine

To take solace, divine.

My image is tainted in my mind

Just as you are tainted

Never have I been a saint

Never would I want to

My journey will be my own and yours too.

In ten years you will see me and I will be the same,

While I seek change and forever will, the truth is the me that I am now is constant.

I have opened my mind to fallibility,

I am made the way I am and would not change it,

I will always roll in deep emotion

You will always see me in deep confusion

You will see me strong

You will see me wise

You will see me breath taken

You will see me caring

You will see me foolish

You will see me lazy

You will see me certain

You will see me in a summer haze

You will see me drunk

You will see me laugh

You will see me elegant

You will see me hateful

You will see me spiteful

You will see me with my fellow man in my heart

You will see me on the edge of reason

You will see me in the mirror just as I see you.

I am running a race, the finish line never in sight

I will run till I cannot run anymore

On the run I see the world in all its shades and hues

Repetition rarely gets boring

The repeat is always a different version of the truth

This is our nature.

I see man loving man

With lust or a fist or pity and glee and excitement and bewilderment and disorder

Love being a series or disordered breaths that force their way to our stomach and make us squeal.

I see the absence of love which can only be an absence of understanding

See me with the eyes of your man to your right or with the eyes of the man lying six foot under or with the eyes of the man you have not yet met but have imagined, have tailored in your mind since you were a small child.

I see death

Absence caused by nonsense

Forced absence, we shrink from foresight, from wisdom

Man cuts man so deep, so deep that we loose sight of thought and become consumed by action

Parading emotion garishly, we must

take pity on the man

scold the man

love the man

recognise the man

at times become the man

without the sight to recognise himself in his victim.

The passing of time has made my life less complicated

I am less confused by the world, the confusion I have I accept as my life

Youthful tears are never forgotten

Youthful tears are the best ones

At least the first ones that set us up for the rest of our lives.

Only so many things a man will cry for

I find a plane of understanding.

Lets go out and bathe in every inch of our humanity

Lets us celebrate the imperfection of our race

In the dancehall

I read aloud the words of great poets and I scream them into the sky, I hear not my echo but I see your face, your eyes, your breast, your feet.

Your feet that tread the same streets as mine, your eyes that see the same sun as mine.

I am tearing myself away from a thought in order to maintain my growth,

I have delved too deep in my imagination

I have lived a thousand days with you in my mind, we have held each other, once you punched me and made me bleed and I didn’t care because I was blinded by love. I loved you so blindly that I stopped loving myself. I saw myself as your aid to lean on, I asked for no consolation. In my mind we were great lovers that knew no restraint. My body ached for you, my stomach in knots. what is this thing called love? Is it not just an obsession with lust? Frailty that our humanity should demand that we fuck, should demand we find a lover, should make me forget myself, should make me see not even you but a version of you that I keep for myself. For a time I chose you, I wonder will that time ever end. The time I spent locked in imagination is time I have wasted, is it not? I have not achieved any change for myself or for you. I laugh long at my flaws, my flaws that you have helped me illustrate! I play the fool, I am a fool, a fool for you.

I sometimes spend days laughing. The world is peppered with jokes which sometimes I fail to see. The tilt of a homeless mans hat seems to invite me in, his eyes weary but merry none the less – beautiful. My cries are not so woeful now that I know the feeling will pass. And pass a feeling does just as everything in this life, absolute is a fallacy. I’m a bit of this and a bit of that. Some days more of that. Some days not. Some days I am more at the boundaries of my humanity than others, I usually remember these days well for they are days when I change, change my mind, my path, my friend, my lover, my aesthetic, my poem for the world.

What is the difference between my impulse and my measured mind?

Which is more myself?

Am I instinct or deliberation?

Of course I am a combination of the two but if I could be more one than the other what would I choose?

I am an animal

I am a scholar

I have claws and teeth

I have a library and a thirst for knowledge

I have desire

I use my words to understand my lack of inhibition

The animal knows no guilt, me in my drunken state, acrimoniously disrespecting my morals

Fighting with you fighting myself

I feel the punch you never gave me harder than the one you did, because it’s the punch I gave myself.

I slip slide under the truth and avoid its eyes, hell is not scorching but cool and grey and dank, it sees double, it falters, it letches without thought or interest, it fucks me hard and without love, it leaves me standing in a hallway staring at the floor, it stares at me, it ties up my stomach ten minutes too late, it makes jokes and teases me in the morning.

How at such a young age can I feel so without great sadness?

This transient life takes me many places, shows me many things, I feel like a cannot be shocked any more, not by my actions or yours.

The ability to be shocked is a gift, to be thrown out of joint forces us to change, continues our evolution. If I cause you rage or great joy I seek evolution but it does not come. Any surprises?

Have you any surprises?

Have you any fucking surprises?

Write me with love

Write me with hate

Write me with an arrow for my heart

Write me in

Wrote me out

The world so complicated yet so simple

Perhaps I should become a scientist if only to be immersed in confusion

Teach me of your experience,

This humanity is more complicated than I give it credit for

My earthly bones mix not too well with my ‘craving to be lofty’ mind

These thoughts must have come from you as from me,

We share this place that we call our own

We are a society

We are together

What could seclusion offer me?

What would I find?

If not you then what do I have?

I need you to tell me who I am,

Am I good or am I bad depends on you

Am I happy or am I sad depends on you

If I not know you I not know love

If I not know you I not know the beauty of the morning as it reflects in your eyes

If I not know you I be wild

Wild as the birds in the sky

Can I ever go as I please?

My mind is split and shared with everyone I have met

My mind is not in two places at once but in hundreds

Would it please me to know myself without you?

A sigh in an empty land has no hope of being heard, nor a shriek of joy at the feeling of ice cold water on your back.

I am made in the image of a creator

I long to indulge my hands

I take a strand of your hair and a strand of mine and tie them together

The different colours twinkle in the sun.

I use your hands to smooth the rough edges of my masterpiece

Our eyes keenly shave off unneeded details.

When it is done your tongue utters the name of my creation

We make love in its shadow out of reach of the sun.

I am the image of the creator

I am the hands of the creator

I am the mind of the creator

I am the soul of the creator

I am the heart of the creator

I am you. 

The Horse

Dirt on the wheels of the cart seems to mimic my grimace,

Hoofs in the mud fighting off insects and climbing away from the earth.

Down down down the road

Past the old pub, too many late nights and holes in pockets,

The horse majestic

And me in the tails of its majesty

In the eye of the horse such a wild nature

Unpredictability.

Can a man be so justifiably at one with the wind?

Still like the horse we can only move forward.

I have fear

The horse knows my fear

I am he he am I

The horse knows no constraints of morality

Still he manages to be noble.

The battering of the wind and those hoofs on the ground

The mud draws a thousand pictures on my trouser legs

The sky above me growing by the second

The horse dominant under the sky and myself beside him.

We will walk together.

Find me by the river.

Find me by the gate.

I find sleep and when I wake the horse is gone

I hear the gallop in my mind

Go go go go go go go gog og gog ogg go

The wind as time chases the horse across the field

I am chased

The horizon seems small when you are on the run

Oh to walk again so slow and find stillness

The sky need not loom but be a pool to dive into

I wonder on that horse

I wonder on the wild;

When I find him once again I will learn to ride

The wind will no longer chase me but support me into the big blue

Big blue that is in my heart that is my soul

The sun that is in my heart that is my soul

With the heart of the horse that beats beats beats so rhythmically

Then you will find me wild under that big blue

Standing walking running strong under that big blue with the heart of a horse.

I wake next to a gate I find that I know the heart of a horse

I know fear and loneliness I know pride and wisdom

I have the heart of a man.

Utopia

"You already know the truth"

You scream so fucking loud your anguish in your room,

In front of me I hear your voice chortle and lilt,

You inflame my eyes and stir my imagination.

Out the window was thrown a water balloon

Which landed square on a target who was not pleased at all,

In fact so displeased that he stayed outside my door for 3 hours

Hoping my laugher would subside and I'd come out and feel his fist to my face.

The touch I was denied that keeps me wondering till the early hours.

The gash that becomes a scab that becomes a scar 

that becomes a pattern across the face of a beautiful girl or boy.

Two strangers who never meet but walk along the same beach together

feeling the sea lap at their toes share a glance - terror, lust, inspiration.

Waking one morning to find you are no longer in love,

that life has a tinge of a different taste.

Scenes on the television showing the uprising of a nation,

the power of an idea whether the idea be understood or not,

pride or anger sweeping like a virus infecting everything.

"Never leave me"

The look of blood pouring from a wound that inspires so many other feelings,

guilt or retribution, fear or resolve.

The feeling of a lover sleeping beside you, 

the sound of their breath almost keeping you from sleep.

"You can be whoever you want to be"

Words written on a page 

and then dashed at the feelings of inadequacy that they inspire.

Arrogant boy being proud of admitting he's arrogant sticks his tongue out at my confusion.

Your sweet voice that never fails to curl my lips.

"I can't do this anymore"

My sweaty feet that stick out the bottom of the bed and chatter back at me.

the moment that is not silent 

but so profoundly without sound that it stays with you longer than any noise.

The look of a tear on the face of a friend.

The sound of a cigarette burning in the night air.

The phone call you never answer.

The fuck you or the I love you or the two fingers or the fuck that makes you change.

Edgy

Today that feeling is rising again.
Great restlessness.
My mind sees the world through the sinews of an uneasy stomach.


Makes me laugh to feel this blank,
Ripping more pages. Still Nothing.
Today inhibitions are few: they seem silly,
I'm loosing myself in an orchestrated panic.


Take off your clothes and bathe with me.
I won't be clean till you see the dirt trickle off my back,
Till the dirt is diluted and I can pick it up in my hands and taste it in my mouth.
You wont be clean till I see you wash.


This gaze is tiresome and the day becomes eerie,
The window and the view so familiar that I curse them.
A walk in the world my only hope,
avoid distraction for a Fall into distillation.

In the Garden

All the men are in the garden.
They are trading, but they are not doing business
Some of them win big.
Inside a glass house the windows are steamy and any cracks in the glass are covered
With electrical tape or cement that my father bought from the DIY shop.
Still through the cracks I peek at the garden outside and I've noticed how the plants change so much over time,
they seem not only to grow but to mutate or rather
Evolve.
In a glass house maintenance is never neglected.
In the center of this glass house there is a pedestal on which my father placed a pot,
in which my father planted the most beautiful plant
its silver leaves reflect the light of the sun and under a glass house they also get very hot.
Hot, heated, ferocious, this plant is so vicious in its beauty that I have rarely seen it.
Inside a glass house looking out
The garden has flourished this summer,
The men have been busy working, weeding,
Raking, writhing, wrestling with unruly weeds and mutinous insects.
Inside a glass house there is stillness,
A silver leaf would be heard to touch the floor if it dared,
My father is diligent, a pin will unlikely drop.
The men are in the garden and their hands are red from work
ragged fingernails and bulging veins, they mix the earth
the sun dries the mud on their palms, in the garden.
In a glass house silver leaves burn the eyes 
and In a glass house though you jump or stumble to save your sight the floor always holds you up
Then my father dons his gloves for pruning.
The door of this glass house lies open
And all the men are in the garden.

Long Stand

I stand strong
the power of the earth rises up through my body
The earth keeps me strong and I keep it strong.
I stand strong before the weak,
they do not experience my gaze for my eyes shall not meet theirs
I stand strong and my sadness sits low in my being.
Though I reach for it to feel its purity it eludes me.
I stand strong while I search.
I search and search and I search.
I remain strong.
And I remain strong.
I walked through blessed summer and autumn
I strolled
I stood strong.
And in winter I was warm.
I was strong and I was warm.
I would dip my fingers into the ice and remain warm,
Even in silent still frustration I could not feel the cold.
I'll stand strong.
Hold me.

Ode to a Dead Horse

Its eight o'clock in the morning
we've got nothin' left to drink.
We're takin' cocaine substitutes
and she's got her head in the sink.
And who would have thought
I've got two degrees?
Who would have thought
Id be sleepin' under trees?

And then you ask yourself,
was it something you chose?
Was the world you wanted stolen
from right under your nose?

Now we're into the afternoon
The mans been back,
No one really knows or really cares
if we're snorting crack
And who would have thought,
that that girl that you met,
who would have thought,
You'd never hit the back of the net?

And then you ask yourself
what would your mother say?
And then you ask yourself
Should I call it a day?

Well the sun just set again,
you ain't feelin', or looking your best.
I can see one friend in the corner
but I'm damn sure I don't know the rest.
And who would have thought
Partick could be this bad?
And who would have thought,
surrounded i could be this sad?

and then you ask yourself,

was it something you chose?

was the world you wanted stolen

from right under your nose?

You resolve to change,
just after this comedown stops hindering you,
when you no longer have to punctuate your sentences
with an inappropriate achoo!

and then you ask yourself,

was it something you chose?

was the world you wanted stolen

from right under your nose?

Like a Child

Never just an unmade bed but a sock stuck to the duvet,


beat the beat the beat in my ear running through my fingers


lost clothes and accessories of a pig farm, rotten thought with sharpened tongue and dulled wit


searing suggestion and anticipation, reach up reach. reach.


in a tree high above the ground that looks so small and useless when the sky looks so big and attainable.


power behind me licking at my back and my feet


Lost in a haze, mellow and confusing, easing pleasing


escape or awake

Into the Sun

I stare into the sun, I stare into the sun
I feel my heart raise to support my head as I stare into the sun.


Burning deep to the core. of me. into my mind and my memories,
many faces are lit up and i am confused and displaced.


My face is brightly lit, I am naked in my stasis.
An orange haze dresses my hearts desires,


each person on that road so specific to the palate,
And they too stare into the sun.


I stare into the sun, help me stare into the sun.


I fight the need to look away from the skin that slides off his face,
those bones that hold up a man become a cage before my eyes


and what release? We must stare into the sun.


I long for a taste in my mouth that points away from the sun,
But I will stare into the sun. I will stare into the sun.

ttthhhhhppppwwwwwwww

Of late my emotions have flooded the moments. At least the moments I remember. Mostly music has been the instigator. The instigator of a feeling which I long to embrace more wholly than I have done before. I listen to the music which I feel comes close to defining ecstasy or absolute freedom, music which embodies relinquishment of fear, music which penetrates the heart, the soul, the mind and that other faculty which I cannot name or aptly describe but which enriches every molecule of my physical body and each segment of my spirit.