Escalating down to Holborn, it struck:
never get the ones you want,
never want the ones you get.
I’m right tweed on wrong shoulders, old chap
(mind who you call “old”)
and in my pocket a full pack o’ smokes
but of bloody course – no light.

In morning commute we slide
off each other slick’n’smooth
like jet-black bodies of nuclear subs.
We are rust and trouble;
knowing it’s those smokes that’ll get us,
that wolves follow in our rush,
that it’s spiritual cocaine to be us;
knowing vice and knowing feast,
and death is of our troubles least,
as we’re in the belly of the beast;
knowing truth’s the Daily Mail,
and we’ll fight it tooth and nail,
knowing comfort’s scarce and frail;
knowing all this and knowing it all too well.

But yea, may the devil care! For I will still track
your bread crumb trail (as my guide light, or no light)
in dead night of towns and public houses:
“Pin(t)s an’ needles, all around!”
Weekends are live wire by the mile
that fuel the fires and the night clubs,
which are a feeding ground,
which are light to the moths
(light that’s phosphor, light that’s life!)
since surely I was built to burn
in my hunt for promises of flipside life:

smack syringes, which obsolete true love doth render,
found drowned in mojitos, buried in week-long benders,
cloaked in menthol smoke, alight in a Mayfair’s ember,
open arms sold in back alleys – for proper. legal. tender.
[upon exiting, check your smile and motives
please report all suspicious activity
even and especially that committed by yourself
please do not leave your dreams unattended at any time
and mind the gap
thank you]
With abandon, I enter the fray –
man, I don’t have a choice.

Zones 5 & 6 are out of the comfort zone
but if that’s where you are,
it’s where I’ll be too;
while drizzles onto London fall;
while Princess Di in her coffin rots;
while my Arsenal gathers dust;
while we play cat and mouse
and I’ve lost sight
of which of us is which.

I am a Legion foreigner, my eyes CCTV;
my fingerprints lay on Hyde Park’s skin
and I wrote my sins on street signs
with invisible ink.
My breath is that breeze
that shoots up the tube in our wake
and there, a thousand stops away
on a bench, she waits, for the Northern Line
and perhaps for me.

You want a magic trick? I got one.
Think of a number between one and ten.
Ok, let’s go.

…

…

…

Are you thinking your number?

…

…

The only thing left to die for is that there really are no more things left to die for.

…

(your number was seven, by the way)

Running after and away from myself,
run like lives in the balance.
Strength and worth are not just words
but two eyes that stare from the face of a stopwatch.

I am made of sweat and needs:
to breathe, to beat on, to progress, to reach –
my eyes sulfur, my joints all foam
as limbs discover the meaning of their life
is motion.

Under layers, I shed the shields –
skin turns to silver and steel.
Evolution in the machine:
my pace, my beat, my screaming feet
are a fulcrum praying not to fail.

My god on the 7th day did not rest
and Eden always lay ahead;
these paved miles are made for me
to destroy.
And under sneaker’s heel I crush the demon:
allow it life – but only in my wake.

Run like lives in the balance.

A chip on the shoulder
never to fall
a *clack* my ears waited their life
those lines drawn on your face
how hard I’d try to erase
knowing and not knowing I cannot

There’s people and you are one
who spells happiness M-A-R-L-B-O-R-O:
and what are we but nerves?

I am you and it is how it is
that is your name and this is your house
as it is my name and it is my home
each ‘n every war left waiting
in the garden
and inane ‘neath sun they lay
for their Commander’s say
“forward”

Follow codes you wrote yourself
where words – select and frail

I put on some music to time myself, drank tea for the nerves.
“This song and the next one and then I’ll go”, went the thought.
And I did as I do and got dressed.
Tied two laces made in China, turned the pants’ legs (just from the back)
so I wouldn’t step on them all the damn time.

Armani sells style, not comfort – and that’s a fact written down
on the silk sash round my neck, running down the chest
and making small talk with you – loudest in the room.

A turn of steel and leather on my wrist – cogs in a machine
that will never stop,
that will endure 500 ft of salt water, darkness and doubt
so I’ll always know I have those few minutes
(few minutes more or few minutes less)
of time to roll up the sleeves and decide they looked better rolled down.

I don’t iron my boxer briefs (since I have not, you know, completely lost the plot).
I just wear ‘em and wear ‘em well. And I mismatch my socks
because that’s how I’ll always have something to talk about,
because it makes me laugh a little more,
because fuck the rules.

A man kneels down on Uluru,
begins a walkabout:
hesitation a stranger, I now go
– $20 sneakers my barefoot stride –
to stroke ‘n string a songline,
her tracks neon light over pavements
plain to read ‘n with ochre write

A medicine man bows his head
in the badlands, dons a mask –
dances for rain so rain would come;
and with each day a wonder I go,
for the white of clouds aim my eyes’ arrow
to down the game my gods decree
worth those names which none I’ve told

Karnak’s pylon, the high priest passes
to set down his wish and world –
seeker of Ma’at, should summers endure;
nights in bars like sand in the glass,
and her laughs they weave this town’s sky
whose arc I trace to drink dry that spring
that gives birth to sacred Nile

In killing wind, old shaman sinks:
his heart the drum, the drum his heart,
sun’s eye blind, with knife of bone
draws moon of Aske on the hide –
tangled in strings, my mind’s ablaze;
all four winds they quench at her seita
through which portal, beyond I dive

Are you a handsome Spanish guy called Luis?

If you are, listen carefully:

Find a French girl, a stunning beauty

called Yvonne – and take her out for a drink,

tell her a five-minute joke,

hold her hand in the night bus,

carry her on your shoulders

in a summer parade,

‘n put your coat on her shoulders

when it starts to rain,

sing her your favorite songs

with trembling baritone

and love her like no one else ever had.

If you’re not Luis, or Spanish, or handsome…

well, do this anyway. And if you can’t find

an Yvonne, or a French girl, or a stunning beauty…

well, do this anyway.

Do all this anyway.

It’s a cloud pushing itself upwards that pushes me
out and up into the world
I was put here to teach you jedi mind tricks
and that the sky is the one perfect blue

Little boys and girls made to sit neatly in rows, told not to fidget
when fidgeting is fuel and fire and LIFE!
Big boys and girls made to sit squarely in cubicles, told to bend the rules
when they’ve learned to do things “right” no matter what

Right hand sparks a sun, left one grasps it
snuffs out the light, and now
you tell me:
What do you see? Who do you trust?
Who and what do you need?

You either tell me or I tell it to the world.

(an hour before)

Somewhere high on Ohio’s sky
when the meds ran out
and I became just Jack and Coke
with empty words but dressed so well.
Desperation in my voice,
I used my every pick-up line
on girls of your cabin crew today.
“Sir, I think you’ve had enough:
please take your seat so we can land.”
And there it went, this man’s plan
of dying drunk and free.

(an hour later)

Stood there waiting in the lights,
running from those things they say.
Now destination in my voice,
came up with new and better lines
and hurled insults in the face of France
since that was where my life touched down:
they took my name away from me,
put it in a jar to poke and play
and I just got time and duty-free.

(somewhere else, some other life ago)

I doubled my pay and standards this morning.
Carried you around in a pouch
since neither hand could hold
and neither eye would hide
how far I’d come to just go away.
So I crashed and burned there on your couch
and the one seat I want is taken now – oh well,
misery loves company
but in here it’s just little me.

(finally, here and now)

Do I feel shame? No.
At least I stood up
like chumps in the theater,
at least for a night
I was a daresayer.

Trust me like you never trust your life:
pride costs nothing.

There are two kinds of people:
the ones who are crazy
and then those who are not right in the head.