that northern city

headingley mount saw my pain and frustration
my love, anger, joy and despair
at times it brought out the best in me
more often the worst

a summer spent starving
countless evenings spent laughing
and a winter spent sleeping
the days buzz and shimmer or slide and fade
but they all end the same

leeds lives in my memories
like the shadow of something bright and shining
opportunities missed
a life fully lived
sublime, ridiculous and on fire

a poem for ruth flowers

I was watching a video of this 69 year old dj
and it made me so happy I cried a little

I hope I'm still rocking at 69
though I expect I shall have found the porch by then
and the wodehouse novels
the slow tottering sleightness of it all
weighing down on my ever slowing heart

but as long as I live in a world
where I know she can exist
I can smile at my own misfortune
and tip my hat to every sunrise
from now until then
and so on
and so forth

a farewell to strings

it made an awesome racket as I dashed it on the floor
and threw the pieces into the stairwell

the guitar sighed and just generally fell
with heaviness and sadness as well

you wait all your life for a break to come
and then none come at once
so you just bumble along
waiting and waiting and waiting

all the writers are packed away
and the movers and shakers too
and every season is the same
when you long for the Dharma Bums
instead of the Portsmouth Blues

the hot empty roads of America
leaving an impression on any young heart

the day I finally realised it was so dead
and so gone

I smashed everything apart

fire and brimstone

the riots of London were a sham
at best thuggery
at worst a call for clarity and honesty
a breath thrown with intensity and anger
to the back of our necks

the kids needed new kicks and new tvs
so hit the mall with a ferocity and sick calmness
as the streets ran thick with darkness
as police beat on plastic shields to signify
under august skys a little madness came to everybody

the brakes

when you've been to the edge
right to the edge

you can feel it forever

it sticks to you like the smell of smoke
exhilarating and endless
a pattern before shapes have meaning
a fever of sorts
a bookcase of thoughts
and feeling without feeling

do you have memories that hardly seem real?
I have hundreds
faded from history
a novel that was meant to be maybe
I never kept notes

we were beat after beat but before we knew what it could mean
we hit it hard maybe harder
and lived to believe in ourselves
without caring about tomorrow even once
not even once

the dark times were darkest
the bottom was it
a flame slowly dying in a cold barren street
and a time that needs writing
of a new kind of beat
that we felt but had nothing to reference
on the road to destruction and deference

a lump in the throat
no calls to home
a spatter of lies
but no sense of loss
not til now
and it bites even now

bright new future

they smashed the revolutions of the sixties with batons and shields
in running battles on countless fields
and crushed the heart of free love
towards a greater good
where love is not free nor easy to see

a steel hand sits in washington and london
and grasps the reins tightly
atop piles of gold like a dragon of old
our pawn lifes are traded and sold
and we know
but are powerless to fight it

now a generation of youths
with no direction
feral
roam the streets in plastic suits
and violence
and you wish your kids were hippies
but it's too late

the bums lost
and all is not good or great

the reality

I had this crazy idea that maybe
All the great writing has already been done
If this universe is finite then everything in it must surely be finite

Reading Dostoevsky you know that he was the one
And we are just pretenders
Snapping at heels
Snarling for scraps