Lyric.

On this site a sight I see
A smile before the salty sea
With cares and sandals cast aside
Feet turned white by icy tide.

From my seat I plainly see
Concrete walls and flickering screens
Four and twenty trapped inside
With greying faces, greyer eyes.

Old cracks.

The more wine I drink
The further I get from you.

I remember that moment, stopping in my tracks and thinking
It was good, life was good
Standing in the bedroom
On the scratchy carpet.

Now: pretences.

The more wine I drink
The further I get from myself.

All these silences, ripe to be carved open
I back away and stutter
Like I haven't stuttered for years
Because I have lost something,
Almost everything.

You can only improve at something, everything
If you practise.

I am sliding backwards
Into old cracks
Sinking through the still-wet cement.

North.

Through the rain and gloom
Christmas is coming soon.
A man is cleaning the windows with a long brush.
It clacks at the frame.

No one has said anything for three hours
And we are not busy enough to ignore it.
Christmas, but not yet.
In the middle of the room
The gloom
Around the windows
Blocking out the river.

My recourse is to you
And you, and there
A mouse click and words
Images filtered by a fool's mind
Wanting to believe in something that isn't true.

The temperature has dropped
Is dropping
Things break, bills rise
An apology is not a sufficient substitute for action.
Poems tight-knit
open like flowers.
A soup bowl
A foam house
And an orange propelling pencil.

In a flash.

Somehow
There are bombs in London; thousands.
They crept through in the night
And they will reduce the city to rubble.
Evacuated, we stand on your roof, looking at the city below.
Sipping red wine in silence
Waiting.

Eleven minutes past seven, and
One

Two, three...

Orange sparks.

Five seconds for the sound to reach us:
Thunder, bangs dispersing.

Smoke - and St Paul's disappears
The Gherkin crumbles
Parliament.

Four, five, six

Seven...

Flashbulbs at a football match
Stunted fireworks

I look at you and there is a blaze in your eyes
And a smile on your lips
Eight, nine

Ten, eleven, twelve...

It becomes impossible to count
Blasts muffled by smoke
Sirens, alarms, the crash of glass on cement
Bricks roaring
A skyline flattened and replaced by clouds of
Dust.

You start to cry while smiling
We are released, clueless, aimless
Our ambitions have been blown apart
Our dreams will never be realised
Our lives as we know them are over.
We are meant to be here, but here doesn't exist anymore.

You turn to me.
"What will we do now?"
And I pop the cork on the champagne.

In the bar.

The sixth and final beer of the evening.
My mind is slowing as you speak.

Through the window in the back door I can see
A couple embracing, kissing, drawn into one another,
Drawn into one being.
And it makes me miss her, chronically,
So much that I have lost your train of thought;
So much that your train of thought is lost forever,
Dissolving into the smoke
Spilling from the mouths
Of people who talk.

I stumble, then jerk back onto the rails,
And I am saved embarrassment by boring myself to death.
But the damage is done and
I can't help but steal another glance at them:
Still holding tight;
Obsessed;
Safe...

Again I think of her as the smoke dissipates;
Again I look through the window.
I peer closer,
Closer still
And I realise with a
jolt
that the couple are nothing more than
Two coats.

Train.

The seats ache, empty chip packets sigh.
This is farewell.
The final trip of the night -
I stand to alight.
And in the window I see a fat man.

In the conversations I remain, dizzy.
The rush, the friends, the chance to be elsewhere
And whoever.
I am enchanted by a smile and the ability to understand.

I fall for you a hundred times over.

In the dark, I can be not me, and
Perhaps with false maturity,
Self-mockery,
You will notice
That I have put on a special shirt for you.

Only once have I been torn apart so voraciously that -
Even as the knife dug and turned -
I surrendered a piece of myself on the spot, in love.
I wept for the ignorance you shattered.
I begged for more.
Only once have I been destroyed by words,
And you smiled as you reeled me in.
"Am I scary?"
"Um, well, I guess... kinda"
Here's something to be scared about:
Cowardice is my king.