The plan never changed
it was never revealed
suddenly, this cell was just mine

Can I still grow, can I still change?
I don't want to be my father
I don't want to live alone

Another evening in;
another night, pushing everyone away
'All I need is a little space
room enough to think a while
write some lines
a drink or two
Me; all to myself'

But the more I take, t...

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Push on...
push on...
the tide of our lives rolls on

The solid stone of now is weathering
the familiar flow
is gone

All change...
all change...
each position is rearranged

The only rock I've ever clung to
washes away
in the fierce blinking of my eye
it washes away
washes away

(Sept 2010)

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Leaves of brown and green watching
as the fire reveals a destiny for us
flames that lick their lips at the change
of solid and tangible into smoke
On a beach of melancholy teenagers
who destroy themselves for something
that they can't explain or focus on
the big picture that is still being drawn

Bottles of brown and green offering
their joyous and deceptive contents up
re...

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Freedom is...
A blank page, ruled with margins for scribbled after-thoughts
Ink in the fountain pen and some new idea to spill
A canvas, with pallet oiled and brushes ready
A quiet room, an acoustic guitar in tune
A sunrise, derelict buildings, wide lens and film ready in the camera
A garden, soil turned and green fingers
Wet sand, a new love and a sharp stick
A science textbook...

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My aimless wander finds me wanting...
My family haunts me like a ghost
around this table; spirits chat and eat
It's been much too long
since I heard those voices for real
saw the smile in my father's warm eyes
somersaulted in my mother's complete understanding
or laughed and gasped at the speed
of my sisters' lightning wit

There is a peace there
in the disorder of my fami...

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I don't understand
being beautiful, being desired
I have no experience
of anything
but...
crooked smiles
inconsequential voices
feeble frames
and frightened eyes

Frightened eyes
despise
everyone, everything
everyone and everything
Frightened eyes
consider lies
the currency of choice
to navigate the halls of hate
down which they walk everyday
At everyone th...

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The planets above winking to me
'It's now or never' they're implying
and I feel her hand brush mine
as we're walking side by side
her house is just around the corner
I'm leaving town tomorrow
so it's now or never...

Deep breath, I take
it's a deep breath
I stop my walking suddenly
she stops and turns around to me
it's now or never
I tilt my head, crack a smile
make ...

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We move slow
in time with our slipping youth
We rush, no
we're slow
to go home

and passing the coffee shops and bars
I would later make my home
I couldn't have ever known
they pass by, a blur, unseen

Her hand
held loose
in the heat
there's no need to push things
we've time...

Then one night
on a sofa in the kitchen
of my father's house
she turned, slow...

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Our sentences are short
Perfunctory statements
Serving a purpose

Our brief embrace is feeble
Lacks the backbone
The spine of years ago

Your easiness with everyone is gone
My insight into everything is gone
In this broken-down place

We built ourselves a fire
But who will be the first to admit...

Time is a ticking machine
Household tasks are an escape
Oh, wil...

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O Lord, I ain't what I aimed to be
I think I missed the target some
my seed got turned upside down
tried to grow towards the light
and grew down

O Lord, Are you listening to me
'cause I've never heard your voice in here
no conductor's baton, no steady hand
as I stumbled through this night
and grew dark

O Lord, I'm miles from where I meant to be
The Devil; he has no c...

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There is quickly surging in here
A rising stream of what has been
A thousand muses now, to write about
Their pursuit is my only want some nights

Another night of over-driven charm
Another taxi ride of careless kissing home
A thousand muses; they soon add up
Too many names, too many faces come and go

A life is lived the wrong way around
I've grown up to grow down...

...

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So then, stick by stick
tonight we tear off strip after strip
the newest feathers first
then the older twigs and vines
with each one
my heart drops
until there's nothing left
and nowhere lower
just empty branches
where our sweet home once was

Inch by inch
we pack and divide the moss
all the soft things we've collected
years of careful, loving selection
pecking them away, each and e...

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Too tired to rest
I only care
Are you out there somewhere
A glass of cheap wine
On the arm of some expensive chair

And do you...
Could you think of me sometime
Maybe... while I'm still alive

The gravity of your movements
Swells the tides of my emotions
And you'll probably never know
You draw me to ecstasy, then to lowest ebb
And you'll probably never know

You ...

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Cinema Child (2003)

I stood on the sand and watched the boats afloat
I thought of myself and thought I must look right
I'd look cinematic, brilliant, deep, mature
All the eyes were on me, because I stood out
How they'd love me

As those ships drift by, I'd be thoughtful
Roll my eyes and look at the ground
With all the girls watching my ticks and style
I was sullen, moody,...

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Why should anyone still care
why should anyone raise an eyelid
the news is old
Perhaps, eight years ago
you may have gotten
some reaction
to justify the price of ink

Still you persist
in writing them
letters to old lovers
letters they may lazily reply to
letters they may not reply to
the news is old

There's no reason now
there's no alliance
perhaps to reminis...

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All these eyes
That hold your body as you pass
They cannot help not let you go
You'd feel their iris'
Cradle your curves
If only you could know

I only see
Because I am distanced
I only know to look
Because I have glanced that way before
Nothing changes
From man to man
Maybe just gaze time
Maybe just
The height of their eye-line

A girl like you
Any girl
Wh...

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I lit a fire on the beach
Just as you were feeling beaten by the wind
We can't hear anything in this weather
But the waves and the crackling wood
You don't speak anyway
We have nothing we care to say

Our human silences amid nature's screams
Fill me with a loss so unforgettable
Our human silences amid nature's screams
Fill me with a void so inescapable

The sky goes dark and the sea sl...

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I will never learn from my affairs
They bake inside my heart but nowhere else
See, she looks to me
She may speak to me some short time
And so suddenly, so completely
It's all I feel, some love that is not real
All I can do is hang on her every movement

Yet again, I'm hopelessly hopeful for that breath
Already feeding myself on the bliss of kisses promised
But those suggesti...

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I used to hide
but my eyes would light up
when you said
you were 'going away'
I used to sigh
away the smile inside
when you'd say
'I'm going away...'

Lock our lips
then we'd part
you'd grow small, into the distance
such beloved distance

I used to go wild
when the time came around
for spacious relaxation
I'd go blind
when you went away
I took off my shirt
...

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There is new life
In the old garden
There are pretty specks of colour
Blooming strongly from the ground
And the middle-air is weightless
Blowing freely through the lane
The summer fields fold out
Through wooden window-frames
Freshly-cut grass glides lazily
Down molten tarmac roads

There is new life
In the old garden
A cigarette, a teddy-bear
Starched laundry on the ...

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The warm eye of waking day
has drifted off
now the roads are rivers
not with rain
but with the tears
crying in that wedding dress
tearing your hair out

The swell of cliche
aches in my teeth
the sea froze over
not with winter
but with the pain
of pulling off that ring
screaming your lungs out

You wore that dress for nineteen hours
you wore it too long
you wo...

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Darling, where've I been?
I've been out driving
I'm driving again
down summer lanes, at night
in the faded light
like I used to do
when I was young
back before I knew you
back before all of this, now

I've been out driving
where my mind is freed
I can think, but I don't have to
Just keep the car on the road
and along I go
the music playing loud
louder than you'd ...

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There's no such thing as a secret spot
In this small town
Where strangers are just friends of friends
News travels faster than light
And in the dark
They'd all see us as we embrace
And before we'd even kissed
Word would have blossomed across the town

These people live for gossip
These people live for scandal
I don't want to service them
And their rotten needs
(By givi...

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Think the improper thoughts
think them through
to their quivering conclusion
to nakedness and molten skin
shimmering under warm moonlight

Think those improper thoughts
about friend's lovers
about co-workers, old flames
about strangers
but please
think them about me sometimes

Thinking improper thoughts
to fill boring afternoon meetings
and lonely mornings driving
...

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I was walking with my father
Through the junkie's habitat of the park
Past the band-stand to the lake
Where we stood and watched the birds
I longed to find some words to speak to him
He stood beside me like a statue
In some stony silent prayer
I racked my brain for something true
Some sort of spoken key
To unlock the parts in him he never shows
I just wanted to see some proo...

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There exists a God in your body
a deity in you somewhere
all who look upon you, they become
detached from what they thought they knew
from what they understood before
and so begins the freefall
into a deep and glowing love for you

You are a carrier, spreading the seed
of this great ailment throughout
with each bat of each lash you do
and with each smile and short pause
...

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All of the truest moments we share
Are born out of the ghosts
That stalk our sleeping minds
All the clarity that flows in words
As they are printed on the page
Come from the darkest place we know

Now my head is like a dust bowl
A desert in the drought
There's no life to talk about
There's no light to praise or curse
I must be somewhere in the middle
Of joy and deepest p...

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I watch as you become a woman
Shedding your girlish skin before me
I stand at the bar, ordering our drinks
And I melt, as you're easier now
Confident and comfortable with everyone
Such growth since those teenage years

Carrying yourself as a woman does
You pick me up from the office
Still in your laboratory scrubs
So articulate and so composed
While I slump my twisted, wir...

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One of us will lose our head
that's what I always feared
and when the night finally broke
on us, as we clung to the road
it was obvious; the poetry of certainty
conclusive proof of our mortality
the water fell like some swelling sea
and I drowned in tears of deep disbelief

One of us was right to leave
though heaven knows which one it was
we pushed hard and for so long
w...

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Walking the tracks again
With my face to the rain
Every step I take in fear
Of that ever-nearing train

I cheated death
I cheated truth
And now there is no proof
More than what my accusers say
But they increase in number
With every single day

So they shout 'He stole'
Well, I admit
I may have borrowed some
And I may have lied
When they looked me in the eye
And ...

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Oh, we scratch
I bite, you claw
The most arresting violence I have ever known
Takes place between these sheets of ours
As you growl
As I lash out
A stream of fire
I am a violent man, tonight
I am consumed by love
And lust
By love and lust for you...

Hair is pulled
Skin gets grazed
As we beat against the wall
As this takes place between us
You murmur, drunk
Sen...

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The heat switches between the rooms
From the front of the house, to the back
And on the bed, your curled form is laid
I'm watching the sky as it cries in the street
Blowing my nose and counting the people
They all carry bags of food to their cars
Filled with treats and sweet desserts
All insults to the hunger pains in my chest

As I move to the kitchen, you stir for a second
This day is ...

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A paracetamol tablet moon hangs in the sky
Dispensing silver outlines to the structures
It helps to slowly ease my headache
In this graveyard of a city
Wrapped in the cloak of a lunar prince
Where each building is a headstone
Representing each life asleep within
This night is a cell of lonely spirits
Chasing me through hungry houses
In Cul-de-Sacs of gold and green
Ghosts of...

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