Glow

Glimmering glow gliding gracefully,
Through the tomb toward the top,
Washing waywardly while wishing wistfully,
Hoping her hidden home hides here.

Living lustfully like lung looping liars,
Tormented thoughts throng through tiles,
Badgering bottomless bastards become bedfellows,
Seeking stoppage so solitude solely survives.

Dreams die deserted, defeated, destroyed,
Partial pieces patching past participations,
Clarifying concerns considered closely, constantly,
Bringing broken bails before backtracking boys.

Dream Screen

One sad thing about this life we live,
It has lived for so long before us now,
The word love is dead and gone,
Along with all the meaning it once held.

All I have ever wanted is to feel love,
From a young age, that is all I have ever hoped for,
Maybe if I was born in a different decade,
I could feel in return what comes out too often.

I want the fantasies we see on television everyday,
The job, the home, the wife, the children, everything,
My time has not yet come, and I fear it never will,
As love extends only to infatuation these days.

The film reel turns, playing back to me my birthday,
I slip into sleep and live my dreams there,
And it is no longer my birthday past I see on the screen,
But the future I wake up everyday hoping to be in.

That dream screen smiles at me without malice,
Showing me that our capacity to love has not yet died,
Only that it is ignored by most, who maybe fear its power,
And I know that once I embrace it and know people who embrace it too…

We can be anything we want to be.

The Race

Racing, always racing, looking to reach the end before the track runs out, before time suddenly stops and what seems endless in youth becomes sparing in age; snatches of it pass in front of my very eyes, within touching distance but transparent, vapour that cannot be trapped in bottles or on windows, that cannot be frozen or solidified in any way possible, like hope, belief, chance, love, hate, fear, sorrow, and all emotions big or small, major or minor, real or imaginary, like those mental diseases that many ignorant people believe are a self-serving myth, a massive attack of self-deprecation spawned from some ‘sick’ need to be appreciated, to be desired - imagine, wishing to be wanted, bemoan the human condition and its vulnerabilities, and pray never to succumb to the weakness of neediness for this, in the eyes of the ‘mentally tough’, is a cardinal sin, one punishable by being exiled, sent to live in isolation; spiralling off track in exuberant amounts of distraction and over-elaboration when the simple matter is an overwhelming need to escape this goldfish bowl of a nation with its corrupt bureaucrats and personal histories, to start anew abroad, somewhere big yet also small, a place to see and be seen, to live and be lived through, where experiences come and go daily in the people you meet and the surroundings you inhale; shaking legs show the pent up energy and frustration this suffocation is causing, fit to burst, racing toward the end without knowing when or where the starting block was, not knowing when or why the decision was made that this place, this house, this life, was too restrictive to breath properly in, or where it was the shackles were locked around the ankles, forcing the running of the race to take place in just one place, running a hole right into the same spot for the last three years as everybody else is released off the chains and out into the real world, with real ground to run into, with real lights, real sounds, real conversations, real feelings, real things they do not show us on the television anymore, out to where we can see that lies are what they are for ourselves; I just need to run my race, no matter where it takes me or how quickly it ends.

Twinge (I Do Not Want)

I can feel it again, that twinkling twinge,
That familiar feeling when someone breezes through,
Occupying your every thought, minute after minute,
Imagining all those things you could have done together,
Remembering all the things you did together,
And realising they are not the same and never will be.

One day of the week cannot come around fast enough,
The one time where we all go out together to dance,
To revel, to be with each other for a cheaper price than any other day,
Laughing, falling, paying each other’s way with money lost on the ground,
Drinking their alcohol while I drink my water,
Enjoying every moment nonetheless.

It was these nights where she came to my attention first,
Moving, smiling, not a single care, it was infectious,
A freedom I had not known for five months straight,
And that only comes fleetingly now, like a ghost returning,
Just to remind me of simpler times when my heart was bigger,
She lets me remember who I was again.

Yet I have seen her with another, not strictly together,
Not strictly apart, they are casual in their courting,
Allowing a chink of light to shine before me, breaking the omens,
Letting me have a little hope, bringing gratitude impossible to personify,
While also putting me in the way, a place I do not want to be,
While also stranding me in no-man’s land, which is where I have been this whole time.

And this brings a slight slit to this surfacing sentiment,
Torturing myself with the pain of the past, with those five months,
Always reliving the hurt, even when forgetting the person,
Building a brick wall around myself to stop it from ever happening again,
Allowing no emotion to seep out, and no one else to come in,
Permanently preventing a new lodger for a splintered house.

(the very last line and the feelings felt at the time inspired this poem - as well as a belief that being alone is better for everybody else).

Silence After the Gunshot

There’s a silence after the gunshot is fired,
We stood our ground while sitting down,
Now we’ve achieved what we most desired,
Now we fear being brought down.

Running from that bleakest of scenes,
Away from your shrilling screams,
A moment’s peace broken by bad aim,
And we become tangled in this game,
You lie there coughing up bloody phlegm,
Sirens wail, we run from them,
We didn’t want it to come to this,
Until we heard your snakelike hiss.

You sold us out to our biggest rivals,
So we sold you out to God,
And despite all your religious denials,
You begged for salvation from God.

Betrayal of the lads was a stupid move,
You really upset our movement’s groove,
A bullet to the heart was too good for you,
They want to reward us with a bullet too,
We keep running in random directions,
Far from police and gangs’ detections,
Carelessly throwing the gun away,
Thinking they wouldn’t hunt all this way.

Word comes that you've stopped breathing,
And we feel we can breath again,
A simple thought that is deceiving,
We should’ve thought again.

The time has come to flee once more,
Before they break down our hideout’s door,
Grabbing more pieces as we leave,
Our door breaks, with our time to breath,
Trail of blood follows us cross-country,
As do police and gangs, all and sundry,
Doing what they want to catch the traitorous criminals,
Using excessive force and complicated syllables.

And when I look in the hostel’s mirror,
I see a friend of death staring back,
As I look longer, things become clearer,
And I see a stranger ready to attack.

Barricaded in our €70 a night room,
Outside enemies' shadows converge and loom,
Ezekiel’s words run through my mind,
Our path is truly beset by the unkind,
Officers and gangsters bang repeatedly,
Each bang hitting me and my mentality,
I understand our wrongs and seek repentance,
Our door comes down and I feel acceptance.

There’s a silence after the gunshots are fired,
We embraced our fate while lying down,
Now we’ve achieved what we most desired,
Now we fear waking to live this down.

(I was listening to a lot of Kasabian and this happened - note to self: never write while listening to Kasabian because you are not the genius that is Serge Pizzorno).