Everywhere is away

Coming back came back again
Closed windows and salt drops under glass and water
Looking the horizon in the eye
Turning in my personal non-place
That dark desert highway goes through me
Under my feet, and in my mind
Where I never run out of road

It all begins with an ending
And in the end, I only ever seem to keep beginning
Either a memory or a desire
Either remembered or wished-for
Standing in the darkroom
Half-exposed dreams hanging around me, dripping
That purple sky comes back again
Standing together under its bruised caress
It’s only by being with you in my head
That I understand I left you for real

The road that never runs out took me away from you
By pulling me onto the road you watched me walk away on
And yet here we are, lanes meeting
I guess your roads don’t run out either
And as I sit under glass and water
Waiting for it to give way to the sky I’ve been dreaming of
And remembering standing under with you
Haunted by a premonition of nostalgia
We’ll be standing, just like before
And in the company of the years in between

– 20 September, 2014

After Eden

Back to school with melted barriers and vanished borders
Unpacking societies still picking their strange fruit
Sudden companions and old faces in new places
East Coast slalom, and a family circle finally squared
Barrelling through the darkness in the heartlands, following the sun and chased by the moon
24-hour reality TV streaming unplugged behind restless screens
Empty crowds and heaving solitude
Lying tired beside wingless thoughts
Transcontinental trailing roots
A secondhand pilgrim wrapped in neon and sinking into words
Tumbling two-tone scapes and chiaroscuro winds
Valleys taking the sun in their mouths as rosewater lakes taste the remains of the day
And then cameo stars released, no more upstaged by solar palettes
A sense of an ending atop elliptical hills (facing my Hiroshima sunset from across the Pacific)
Finally clocking off in the dream factory, with artifice in every edifice
A land seen from the sky and felt through the soles
Adorations and emulations, rebooted roads and the kindness of strangers
Nowhere to go but everywhere, and wherever I am, I’m always away.

19 September, 2013

On England’s pleasant pastures seen

Bye bye bourgeoisie
No more wandering lonely in the madding crowd
Sprung from the clockwork
Tick, no more tock
The wind-up key has lost its lock

Awake once more in lands beyond the sea
A return made sense of the melancholy dream
Signs, symbols, semiotics abound
I turned again, and this I found –

Play, rewind, play, rewind
Repetition, so you never forget your lines
Fixed in a picture all hoary and grey
Drink, save living for another day

Stand behind your platitudes!
Match, don’t mix your attitudes!
And remember, insincerity is married to gratitude!

And who gives a toss what was glossed in the King James?
Newspeak is our poetry, we strive for mediocrity
Down with the brain! It’s a dangerous thing –
What will happen to our codes if we begin to think?
Sure, we’ll protest, smash up a few shops
Misguided, miss the point, just go for the cops

And now reality is a commodity
Who needs responsibility?
We market ourselves
Just to join the ‘nobility’

Defiant, omniscient behind our wi-fi windows
We’ll snigger authoritatively about who’s middle-not-working
Just to re-establish and refine our place in the world
Such septic class wounds on the sceptr’d isle!

Yes, we’re slaves to the status quo
But there’s no time to think about that now
Because we’re too busy milking our clouded hills
(And the 1%, please take a bow)

Plus version 7 has just come out…
…and we’re opening a bottle of…
…and they’ve just started selling…
…and everyone’s talking about the latest…
…and…

Play, rewind, play, rewind
Repetition, so you never forget your lines…

– 29 December, 2012