My country is in chaos.
Seats of power are exchanged,
Unelected come-down
And steep fog of uncertainty.
The poor are painting their signs,
Others lock their doors.
Tear gas spills in streets
Far from suburbia,
On the shoulder of Europe.

I struggle to sleep.
Not for tragedy
But missed calls
And lack of shelter.
For you and your
Darkened corner,
Bleak winters-
The last time
I saw you in the sun.

Petroleum fills
The lung of the sea.
Swarms gather in luscious greed,
Footfalls over concrete:
The peace sign
White poppies
And paper cranes,
Stubborn **** in the rock,
The busker with fingerless gloves;
The nightclub spilling over
Into violence.

I strain my eyes,
Not in tears
But in chemicals
And lack of vitality.
For you and your
Elusive path through life,
Over-complicated strides.
Simple, temporary medicine

That is the comfort
And not the cure.

The stars blot out,
One by one.
Each neon skylight
Fractures the night
In pink clouds.
Flowers die over the railings
Where they could not
Save his life.

I contain my breath,
Not in calm
But poisoned blood
And lack of air.
I can barely breathe
Without you here.

My country is in chaos.
Earth spins in a slow disease.
Still all I can think of is you-
Whether you are thinking of me.

You said you loved your freedom,
The iron in your chains,
Rearranged the furniture
To mimic the movement of change.

You said you held your secrets
Like a cigarette in the rain,
Close beneath the shelter
To keep alive the flame.

I know the room is empty
As you pace on through the night,
Empty bottles and bloodstains
From where you threw the fight.

I know the sky is vacant,
I know the glass is full,
I know the nights are so long
When there is no one there at all.

But you will make it through my friend.
You will greet the morning of your life.
You will sober up, you will calm down,
And everything will turn out right.

You will roll away the stone my friend.
You will wander and you will roam.
All these obstacles stood in your way
Will one day lead you home.

We are a global society
When we want oranges in the fruit bowl,
When we want out of our rut
Just long enough
To brown in a patch of Spanish sun.
We are a global society
When the Japanese car breaks down
And we are in need of a cheap fix
To keep food on the table,
Some Latvian mechanic
Who helps us find our way home.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When the zeroes run low
And there are spaces,
Foreign faces,
To which we can point
And blame.

We are a global society
With our sweat-shop chic,
American coffee chains
Selling Colombian ground beans,
Frappuccinos in plastic cups-
Made in China
And served by a Romanian barista
In Italian heels.
We are a global society
When the demand is high
And the payment is low.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When hands reach out for help
And our pockets are too shallow,
Our time, too brief
To commit to a unity
We feel is dragging us down.

We are a global society
When the football is on,
When the lager is Belgian
And the supermodel, Greek.
When we cradle that bag of Cheetos
After smoking too much ****.
We are a global society
When oppression is overt,
Caricatured in bulletin posters,
Threatening to land
Upon our own front door.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When poverty seems contagious,
When we have to clean up
Someone else’s mess,
Still we scar the Middle East
Only half-interested in an exit.

We are a global society
When we get sick,
When we borrow another doctor
For our ailing NHS.
When cities of white people burn,
We are a global society,
When Africa is divided,
We are nowhere to be seen.
Prime mover of the commonwealth
Yet we fall beneath the breadline
And living easy is so rare.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
Under the false flag
Of a golden age
We were conned to believe in.
Our nation, our island nation,
Lost amongst a sea of misinformation.

When you walked out the pub doors
On a sea of tears and last embraces,
The town stood still.
You broke my heart,
Set it back into place
So that I could feel again.

I was amongst the grown men
Turning backs on each other,
Wrangling our hair,
Pacing the floor,
Until we could not hold back
The occasion any longer.

I know when my plane comes
There will be brief handshakes,
Warm, worn smiles
Fastened from the heat
You gave so generously
To a town that grew cold
In your departure.

You taught us that kindness is enough.
Now rejoicing in private sobs,
Return of feeling for someone else.
This town we complained about,
Until you moved each man to song.

French lessons over the ashtray,
Anecdotes and private jokes
As far as the ear could hear.
I remember when the chemicals took over
And you danced in the sunglass shade
Of a darkened room.

Your energy bounced off the walls,
A pink-noise that echoed as I came down,
Nestled on my shoulder, totemic,
As I fought the speed, tried to sleep.
Beer bottles remained, the splintered ends
That serve as proof for last night’s fireworks.

You always made sure we were safe.

Our chance encounter,
Brief moments which collide,
Leaving marks,
Etching names
Onto stone that cannot wear away.
You taught me that sea of strangers
Is not a place to drown,
Just an avenue towards new land.

You could drink all the time
And it would not consume you.
Get stuck on a blue mood
And still leave your slumber,
Wide-eyed and hopeful for balance.

You left us standing in the rain
Our minds a roulette wheel,
Scattering between goodbye and farewell.
I guess I did not understand the stakes
Until you walked out of those pub doors.
I guess I had forgotten what loss meant,
Those years running from the blade of love
That cuts so finely the line
Of grief and glory.

I am bleeding here.
I am not sure when it will stop.
I am feeling again.
Thank you, friend.

Thank you.

It’s crawling up the drain pipe,
It’s crawling in your bed,
It’s coming back to remind you
Of everything you said.

It’s standing by the broken lamp
That used to light your way,
It’s filling in the empty spaces
When you’ve nothing left to say.

It’s fogging up the window,
So close you cannot breathe,
It’s watching you undress,
It’s watching you retreat-

Into your habits,
Into your sheets,
It’s waking you up
When you’re trying to sleep.

Into your whiskey,
Into your tea,
It’s spiking your food,
It’s all you can see.

It’s the rat inside the wedding cake,
It’s the rain on a perfect day,
It’s the wind that rattles everything,
Every cymbal in your brain.

It’s coming from the blind side,
It’s arriving without warning,
It’s brave and dark in the moonlight,
It’s small and fearful in the morning.

It’s Muhammed in the headlines,
It’s Jesus on the cross,
It’s the bias in the history books,
It’s the meaning that got lost.

It’s playing on your heartstrings,
A song you cannot sing,
A broken piece you cannot fix,
The calm the pills don’t bring.

Into your pockets,
Into your blood,
It’s getting to you
Much more than it should.

Into your mirror,
Into the screen,
All that you feel, all that you see
Are ever-decreasing spirals
And absent routine;

It’s pacing the halls,
It muffles your scream,
It’s holding your tongue,
It’s the mould in the crumb,
It’s the secret you keep from everyone.

It’s the reason why you stay inside,
Why walking the street,
Why leaving the house
Is like turning the tide.

It’s the jet-lag gloom
It’s the familiar ache
That weighs you down
Every time you wake.

It’s crawling up the phantom limb,
It’s the corpses in the sea,
It’s the debris that covers everything,
This constant anxiety.

The skin at the bed of her nails shone, tight.
Forever healing, windows that rattle
With the changing of her moods.
Love was a locket, an heirloom
That insisted its presence
Upon her bedside table.
She could turn out every light
And it would still be there.
Steady metronome,
Lifeless thud,
Invasive thought.

The carpet gathered artefacts from late night walks.
Bad habits clung to the walls.
No pillow talk, only muffled strings,
Failed symphonies,
Conversations three years old:
Memories that play Chinese whispers
Across the faces in the ceiling.
Irregularity of breath,
Sleep comes, clothed in Zopiclone;
A mind that never rests.

Narcosis in the morning,
Nausea over dried toast,
Sweet flamenco on the radio,
But there is nothing to calm her bones.

The red wine cast last night’s shadow,
Hollow in the eyes, first hit of daylight,
First hit of nicotine
To prove she is still alive.
Anxiety: the ball and chain,
Always dragging her behind.
Living as a ghost,
The people at the bus-stop stare,
The traffic, the signs, the passers-by,
The doldrums in the headlines,
The rain upon her window;
The heart attack and vine.

Prescription pills in the afternoon
To get her through the day,
Until she can get her fix,
Have her fill,
And finally hide away.

The high-street parade comes alive after dark,
Lanterns on the lake, the fish-bowl
Of a small town, familiar tongues that roll;
Memorised anecdotes across the ashtray,
The lipstick on her teeth.
Clumsy in victory, each stumble confined
To look as if she has walked through life
Without ever missing a stride.

There is nowhere to breathe
But in the solitude of her insanity.
She paints the walls
To the colours of her moods:

Grey in the long, long winter,
Blue in the onset of June.

Throw the window open
To bring cool air to a room
Which gathered heat
With all the thoughts
Bouncing off the closed walls.

Night. The sky, a bruised purple,
The clouds faint, infra-red.
The trees are cut-out silhouettes
Placed in the foreground of endlessness.
1.a.m. The night is still.

There is the hum of a plane in the distance,
Last train now long past earshot.
Thin blue curtains play at the breeze,
Tickle my shoulder
As I kneel at the ashtray,
The windowsill altar.

Ornaments reveal themselves
In the black gardens below.
The gnome with the broken tambourine
That kicks up in the current,
The wind chime on the Apple Tree;
The bell on the house cat’s neck.

Staring into space all night
But with this view
I do not have to strain my eyes.

Do not linger on the details
That are lost in the shadow.

Always made time for the moon.
The quiet one at parties,
Only came alive at night,
In the company of those who drink wine,
Swallow pills in the morning
To see the day through.

Room scarred with scorch marks,
Stains from drunken falls.
All those endless nights,
Dead bedsheets,
Waiting for the chemicals
To push my head underwater,
To find sleep.

Windowsill vigils,
Awake with the moon.
Kept myself alive
For these pockets of time
Where I do not need to talk.
Where I do not need to move.