Itsnotareal Town

Itsnotareal Town
was once a thriving centre
with market-bustle busy-ness
and off-season in the Winter.
A quaint and happy tourist trap.
A pleasant place to live.
But the puppet masters scrapped all that
and another role did give.
Through cuts and trims to grants and funds
and the odd outright veto.
Less transport links and fewer jobs-
it's not a place to go.
The residents all grind along
but no one seems to leave.
This is because it's an experiment
from which there's no reprieve.
The shop staff, cleaners, business suits,
The dossers on the street,
they're to-a-man nuts, they're fruity loops,
they march to a different beat.
Each living their own delusion,
some reprogrammed to believe
that where they are isn't prison,
that they're free to up and leave.
Oblivious that each drama
is an engineered attack,
so They can adjust the drugs in the water
until they no longer fight back.
And scattered among are the "care staff"
to keep a gazeful watch
and make sure that they stay on Their path
and don't just wander off.
Suspecting the truth is still better for Them;
justifying its purpose-
to round up the crazies, the para and then
to quell their rebellious murmurs.

Mango Kisses

Four words to describe what you are to me
Are: butterflies; sufficient; strong and synchronicity.
Knowing and accepting. As solid as the sea.
Scary-scared as much as I am. Ultimately free.
Knowing me and finding you makes sense in all the right ways.
But this much darkness multiplied may only leave us both crazed.
It's risky to adore you, does this way lie more pain?
but just being in your presence throws my caution to the rain.
Calming and unnerving, your subdermal inhalations
see more than I would ever show in normal situations.
I know this dreary outlook is not born but miscreated.
How did you end up like me? What miseries were fated?
I want to be myself with you, the one I always was.
You give be back my dignity, you give me back my buzz.
Knowing it's requited is a new challenge to face.
It's usually a mystery. It's usually a race.
Am I prepared for this connection?
This can't be yet more misdirection
But is madness apace?
Apace? Afoot! I've lost my words!
No more emanuensis,
but me again. I've found myself,
a clumsy, care-full priestess.
I love the smell of morning-you,
of you in cogitation.
I love the way you hold your face, your love of information.
I want to know your everything,
I want to let you know me.
But will this knowledge burn us both?
Or will it set us both free?

Diary Entry - 25th November 2007

Found a flower 29th October. A red carnation, on Claudio's way back from a baptism in Milan. Today, the 25th of November- it is still as fresh as the day we found it. At first we thought it was quite sinister. But, then Claudio realised it was so well preaerved for the simple and totally logical reason that it was frozen.
That kitchen is so cold it is a joke.
Domestic economy through the very nature of poverty- the very opposite of tragedy!

Paris 2

I relearned what it is like to be thirteen years old
And carefully ignored my heart-shaped gaping bleeding hole.
I'm free to roam the world, I'm free to up and run away.
But now there is no "to" and so I go wheree're I may.
A drifting soul, a poltergeist, a harpy, a banshee.
All terminal romantics. All terminally me.
My time of self-exile has passed
I came to mend my fractured heart.
Above its shards I stand aghast.
Detached, dejectedly.

Reformed Character

I think on lessons from regrets,
But pride and anger interject.
It's still too soon to take it back.
Despite maturity's honesty and hindsight's facts.
Knowledge is different from acceptance
and I'm blinded by my past intentions.
Malicious memories burst unbidden
To mind's forefront in crystal vision.
I squirm and squawk to off-key song
And guiltily know it. I was wrong.
How to put these things to bed,
Without time machine and kind things said.
And to seek those out to fix myself
Through closure is ego without stealth.
Moreover, they've all far moved on.
The hurt I caused is long, long gone.
Instead I carry their wounds within
And now seek virtue in place of sin.
I've imposed laws on supporating sores
From wallowing in filth with no just cause.
I've fenced my mind and gated my heart
And principled actions were a good place to start.
But self repair is reverse engineering
And I've left-handed hammers to fix the whole thing.
And I left the instrutions on a bus somewhere.
And I'm starting from a state of piss poor repair.
Challenge I like and challenged I am.
That's the best I can say.
But there's no deadlines or measures.
I just give a damn.
And I'm taking it day by day.

Lena; Jezebel; Amanda; Mail

The mass debates that circulate
On beauty, form and fuzz
Revolve, it seems, on lost esteem
And a bitchy, mean-girl buzz.
Too thin, too fat, too white, too black,
Too natural, too damn plastic.
Comments typed by trolls and beasts
Are cutting and sarcastic.
Don't know 'bout you, but I'm all appalled out.
The drama's made me weary.
There are too many things to scream about
And too few that make me cheery.
A body's a body's a body's a body.
Don't dictate forms and means.
A choice is a choice is a choice is a choice.
Mind your own behind the scenes.
Each of us have our own tastes.
It makes the world amazing.
And beauty is subjective
So stop the rants. Go raving.
Open your eyes, your mind and your heart
Let some fresh delight in.
You'll never know what you could be
Without the shameful spiting.
You get back what you give times three.
That much I know is true.
So give out love. It multiplies
And comes right on back to you.

Dreamtime

I dreamed I swam down Tynwald Street
Upon a cloud of milk.
I smiled and waved to passers-by,
to mongers of all ilk.
I front-crawled over tiny men
who ran away in fear
and rained liquorice blackcurrants
on the Pearl Girl by Vermeer.
Tethered dogs all tipped their hats
and offered me their pipes.
I laughed to see the bird ballet
in Nora Batty tights.
I stopped outside the milliner
to joke with a singing saw
but treading milk makes butter
and I fell onto the floor.
My greasy coating sparked a thought,
I jumped into the sea
and butterflew myself away
to Elysium's blossomed lea.

Three Times A Lady

Here she comes, ringing the constants.
Holding the world in her manically proprietous glare,
anticipating offence,
with perpetually raised eyebrows.
She purses her lips.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
Her world view skewed by rules and numbers.
Attempt to alter a single thing
and she will slay you.
Her disappointment is her most powerful weapon.
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
Treat her with deference
"Thank you, Miss"
Fulfill your obligations. Timely. Polite.
She rewards you by relaxing
and connecting as much as she can.
"Are they all here?"
Count them 3 times.
"Are they all here?"
Count them 3 times.
"Are they all here?"
Count them 3 times.

Watch her shuffle away,
into the chaotic and treacherous world.
"Thank you, goodbye."
"Thank you, goodbye."
"Thank you, goodbye."

Lamb Appassionata

I had another of those conversations.
The ones that start with,
"Can I just have a word?"
and end with both parties disconsolate,
discombobulated,
sad and suspicious.
To have grown in such a way;
My gnarled roots, buds snipped before blooming;
have left me with bonsai faith.
A scale model of expectations.
1: disapppointment.
I am advised to choose the path of self respect.
To embrace short term discomfort,
to drink from the goblet of a life regained.
And to do all of this before my sweetness fades.
"It's not a question of can't or won't,
but of who is willing to makes the necessary sacrifices to achieve"
Sacrifices?
My body is long gone.
I am reclaiming my mind.
Dignity and joy are not far behind.
My advisor, martyred on the road of good intentions.
Now tells me it was all long suffering mistakes.
A warning, with urgency imparted.
I will not be your lamb.

"It is better to die standing than live forever on your knees"

The Poison Toad

The poison toad squats
as a mucilaginous spite-pat
over his ever-diminishing domain.
Occasionally he lumbers in
oozing bullious wheedles
claiming favours he is not owed.
Then releases false missives
to damage the truthful.

The drought is coming, toad-man.

The drought is coming.

The Great Flood

This place is awash
and for once it's not metaphorical.
Unsympathetic observers  remark that
it's hardly a world class disaster
whilst panicked mongers barricade doors
and recreate Cnut.
It is most certainly not safe to go into the water.
The spectacle draws folk from afar,
more so than official events.
Is this just street drama
in the theatre of the absurd?

Rum Goings On

Once upon a rum soaked night
The boy with scars external
Met the girl with scars internal.
Her asbestos heart was set alight.
The scars began to fade.

They shared a quiet privacy
Public personas shed like skins
Intimate darkness lets light begin
A moment stolen in the dawn
Her tarnished soul was saved.

The first in years to know her past.
Midnight black and blue regrets
With all the memories he forgets
The die of loss is long since cast.
With sorrow this road's paved.

Once upon some rum soaked laughter
The girl with scars internal
loved the boy with scars external.
They shared a happy ever after
Brief but pure and sweetly grave.