It wrote me- 

I can’t make any claim to musical virtuosity, vocal prowess, or poetic genius, but I think I just made the best record of my career. 

I have no idea how it happened, what I did, or how the pieces fit, but this thing just came out of me and I can almost pretend it’s not mine and I think it sounds pretty good. 

I wrote my own parts quickly- I don’t really remember the “ho...

Read and leave comments (0)

There is a river that runs through me

But I can’t see its colours shine so brightly

I keep them all so confidential

And all of the breakdowns so existential

‘Going mental’, the mind’s so fragile

Can’t it be easy like it was when we were kids?

You grow up, some days stare into the abyss

But there is nothing like true happiness

You must hold on to happiness

When ...

Read and leave comments (1)

Here's a poem I wrote to celebrate the launch of Rise! Spoken Word at The Bureau (filmed before lockdown but only just released)

Rise

May you rise like the phoenix from the ashes.

Reignite your precious embers.

Break from your constraints to dance on air.

Rise like the swelling tide, the harvest moon.

Rise like you will dare.

Rise like you're awakened from a hun...

Read and leave comments (1)

Insomnia

Read and leave comments (0)

I still see it
the light the colour
letters and numbers
and all things black
is back
a vacant hole
where heart should be
and all for naught
I swallowed whole
the empty place
I know so well
how it owns me now
the silent ache
the constant break
inside my brain
endless questions
no answers to frame.

©JM.Cole

Read and leave comments (0)

Orange blue
I think about you
infinity too
but all is lost
inside this square
I can't care
I see that sky
and I wanna die
coz I wanna fly
but try as I might
I'm tied to a rock
I carry always
the love inside
my heart denied
and I throw my soul
to the sea hoping
to half drown complete
while my brain decays
in peat I find my feet
but brown is despair
and I can't breathe
that kind...

Read and leave comments (1)

I think in yellow
the heart's a coward
black at the core
open the door
open the door
can't wait no more
gonna lay down there
on the floor
be good now
good mud
show the love
soon my love
I come above light like air
weather's heavy over there
but here
I feel back in my space
I made some mistakes
be ok
my pain smells like rain
I watch it trickle away
down the drain
reminds me
of...

Read and leave comments (0)

I'm just a lost fool,
looking to die,
looking to sleep,
looking for something
I can keep
looking for me,
looking inside
too much too soon,
too high to fly,
burns the sky,
the light it blinds
the closet is a hole
in which the soul
opens whole
look inside,
red white absorbs
the night
is always gold
when it glows.

©JM.Cole

Read and leave comments (0)

https://youtu.be/kx6C248MQeQ

On being young and foolish at the second muddiest Glastonbury Festival in history. 

Read and leave comments (0)

Time is the essence of sin
orange blue
my cloudy oblivion
a line in the dark
a cross in the sand
the only place
I ever found myself
was in a high late at night
maybe that's a lie
there was one thing
but that was different
I was different
I used to be easier
I don't like to be so black
I can't deny
the thoughts in my mind
when I think about you
almost all the time
I wonder why
I ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Burning up in the desert sun
I come undone, I want to run
but the sand slips when I lose my grip
and I sink in time blinded in the light
denying inside my heart on fire.
I get no sleep and I lose my feet
out in the deep I can’t breathe,
memory creeps
and my brain’s full of heat
drowning in the bleak,
yearning to be me,
longing to be free.
All the words inside I
can’t say
burn and bur...

Read and leave comments (2)

The water is good,
helps go back to the beginning
I remember my existence there
I went back 20 years,
time has no meaning
ticking crazy always
in the head
is the blue of my dread.
Used to have walls all tall
now nothing there
to absorb the fall.
Always thinking in rhyme
feel like I'm losing my mind
love to dive times five
1 in 9 is fine
love is sacred
double three following me
lik...

Read and leave comments (0)

One does love your spirit art 

from afar I aim my dart 

each full moon 

straight at your heart 

coz you're the fire in my veins 

with which I can't depart. 

Oh how you touch my soul 

out in the cold, 

bringing all my blue

open home, golden whole.

The chaos in my art 

never leaves me alone 

I miss being the one 

to turn you on 

sending messages 

in the d...

Read and leave comments (0)

I write you many poems 
you inspire me so deep 
my heart 
at your alter peaks 
I want nothing 
but to complete 
I'll drown myself 
out in the sea 
cause' I'll die if I can't be 

please 
give me what I need 
so I can breathe 
I'm choking on my art 
at your feet.

The moon melts to three
and my fire drowns 
inside of me.
I'll not come back, 
I can't come back 
till a sign 
you...

Read and leave comments (1)

All my words
are stuck again,
stuck like sand
inside my brain,
grey, bent
and out of shape.

I lost my way,
came back again
but not to stay,
still mourning the loss
of my mental haze.

Realising now
there’s magic in sound
though sometimes
it does make me frown
leaving me
no more a happy clown.

It sets me straight
as an arrow.
I aim for the sun
and within my guilt
I come un...

Read and leave comments (1)

Double eights, 
wait for fate, 
an epiphany, a vision,
add, take away, 
keep the faith, 
lose the hope, 
the rope.

White noise, white space, 
static grey my brain 
only myself to blame. 
Guilt bleeds to shame, 
rage stains red, pain blue, 
black rain drizzles 
puddles muddied.

Colours run to one, 
the rainbow never ends 
like the merry go round 
inside my brain,
an oncoming t...

Read and leave comments (0)

I think about your shoes
and how they sound
against the grey
and the tip tap
of the melody
takes me away.
I think about your shoes
the rhythm to and thro
the way you come
to then just go
and how that absence
leaves me so cold
separate silenced alone.
I think about the snow
and how you told me once
it ruins your soles
and how that feeling
did ache in my bones.

©JM.Cole

Read and leave comments (1)

I die inside each lonely night
I take drugs to get high
never have I
take so I don't fly 
I can't I can't 
ay ay
pie in the sky
fuck it why try
I can't get by
I never sleep
hurts to move
hurts to lose
nothing really exists
all the walls are melting
back inside my mind
I don't think
I can make it out
so many times
I asked for help
got nothing
everything broke
so I help myself
...

Read and leave comments (0)

I eat the fire I burn inside
it's my desire my funeral pyre
I see the light I am the night
I live in a capsule of time
inside my mind diamond bright
a fire flaming an ocean raging
caged in mayhem
a foggy haze cloudy grey
my brain decays a maze
of broken fractured
pathways
fickle is my being
but I'm not too blind
to see it
so I don't mind it
though sometimes
I despise it
what can o...

Read and leave comments (1)

I know I have no right to stand here

and attempt to speak for my sisters

and brothers of colour.

I stand here in awe to applaud

their strength and their courage,

their patience in the face of 

relentless abuse.

As a child I was picked on,

excluded, abused;

I was ginger with freckles.

But now I am grown,

I doubt I’ve been ever

turned down for a job

or a h...

Read and leave comments (6)

She lies awake at night,

eyes wired,

frantically reading

anything, anything,

to not think about it,

to patch up the cracks,

sew up the seams,

stuff the holes with cushions 

made of trash TV and Facebook,

while the mould seeps

down the bedroom wall,

letters lie ignored

re: default sum unpaid,

again.

So sick, sick

of hospital appointments, 

waiting in ...

Read and leave comments (0)

https://youtu.be/4wsNbaVtA9o

Common Ground

All religions can be used or misused,
misconstrued or abused.
All religions may have their mystics,
moral believers, payers of lip service
and fundamentalist terrorists.

Interpretations are as varied as humanity.
Dogma is not exclusive to religion.
Even skeptics, atheists and scientists
are not immune. It’s a human frailty,
a vulnerabilit...

Read and leave comments (4)

No !

I am not a “thick badie”

And I am definitely not a snack for you to eat me

Also I am not your “average skinny bitch”

But I will tell, no, educate you on what I am really made of:

I am made of flesh, bones, nerves, muscle, blood, cells, hairs

And all of these things cannot be measured in terms of your huge unrealistic metaphors and excuses

I am blessed ...

Read and leave comments (0)

I am my own best friend, 
me and my burning pen. 
Together alone 
through everything 
we have been,
my papermate and I 
find myself, I lose my way,  
I lose myself, I find my way, 
I come back around again 
then square I go, 
alone.

Cut the nose, spite the face, 
I got pride, I got space, 
not a number, not a mistake. 
Slave never 
a sheep black as me 
so black I am the light, 
...

Read and leave comments (0)

Lost in the summer haze 
still filtering out those greys,
still absent in waste, 
vacant in change 
rearranging my stain 
an inherent pain 
displaced 
the colour 
drips, 
drips, 
drips. 
My bones leak into my soul, 
the mud absorbs everything 
but the flow 
and the black fog 
still follows me home.

The desert can be bleak 
especially when the colour
constantly leaks
and the sa...

Read and leave comments (1)

I live on the dark side 
of the moon 
in the crescent blue. 

I live my life in reverse, 
hamster on the wheel. 
Time passes still.

An absurd 
monomaniacal obsession 
leaves me stranded 
every time, 

lost in an ocean abyss 
sinking in my sinking ship, 
sick at heart, sick of mind, 
sick of time 

passes still

on the dark side 
of the crescent moon 
I bloom in blue 
just f...

Read and leave comments (0)

3Write is a new free monthly writing event at the heart of the local community in Ashton-under-Lyne. It takes place every first Saturday at Ashton Library starting at Noon on Saturday 5th March, and is open to people of all ages and abilities.

The premise is 3 themes per session, and 3 styles of writing per session. We then 3Write. With the growing spoken word scene in Tameside (with big p...

Read and leave comments (0)

I wasn't dead,

just never alive

Turner Prize

gold medal

all for a dive.

A dyspraxic in a speedboat

as I struggled to swim

in shark infested waters

but I won't let them win.

The rewards of success

for creating a mess

an unmade bed

for an economy's left.

People can study

and some even praise

others are starstruck

Read and leave comments (1)