Strangely Familiar

You never get to smell the roses

When you run at a hundred miles an hour

You never get back wasted time

Just like you’ll never have another first car

Clichés

But clichés often ring true

It was me you see

It really wasn’t you

You make me feel ten feet tall

I put you on a pedestal

I waited for you to fall.

And all these contradictions

Are doing my head in

I can’t move forward

I can’t go in reverse

Limbo is what they call it

I think

It’s funny,

All this time in one place

Makes you realize

The roses aren’t that pretty

It’s the thorns that make them pink

Where All The Veins Meet

I did something bad today
I pretended when I whispered
And used the appropriate proprioceptors,
rather inappropriately.
gave my principles the day off
And sent my conscience to the movies.
There were elaborate pyrotechnics
White doves in empty cages
One way mirrors
Shiny silver dollars
Deception, misdirection,
Red lipstick on crisp white collars.
I got what I wanted.

I'll lose sleep tonight.
Guilt eats away at the thin protection my blanky offers me.
I think tonight shall be a cold night.
Full of searching questions.
Deafening silences that scream indignity.
Black.
Incomplete and out of sync,
like the lines my troubled mind jots down.
I’ll make amends
I’ll never do it again
Until the next time.
We are all creatures of habit.
Afterall.

Release

I,
As the moon to the earth
linger in your gravity.
Always afar;
Like Aldrin watching Armstrong take those first steps.
Eclipsed by the light and obscured by the clouds
I dwell in the vacuum of this space we’ve created
In the singularity before the big bang
And the universe that was meant to be after.

Transit

This morning I took the 9:30 to the city, filled to the brim with business suits, bicycles and backpacks. And as I made my way down the aisle I saw a curiously vacant seat halfway down the compartment.
Brilliant, I thought to myself... everyones being polite and no ones planting any flags. I might as well claim it. 30 seconds of sidestepping later, I arrive at my throne only to find the words 'white power' spray painted above a swastik on it.
So I sat down.

Warchild

We roam these streets of burning rubble;
Robbed of our innocence and compensated with a rifle
Arms strong from carrying ammunition.
Bodies weak from cocaine and malnutrition.

Cease thinking of me and I will forever remain a concept.
A project for out of work actors seeking to regain recognition.
The face beside a number to call with your donation.
I kill because I am the fulcrum of evil.
I die because you ignore my existence.

Glenhuntley

On a bench under the flood-lit evening's

orange hue that makes the lines on his hands seem ...deeper

as if etched by time, and moulded stronger.

It's been a long day and its a long way home.

The upstart rides his bike in figure-eights around lampposts and billboards

no worries, no cares, no bills, no distant stares.

Its way past the time he should've been home

the whole world for the taking but it seems like he doesn't want it.

The fool.

He'd kill to go back to when he was that young, and there were new prospects on the ever widening horizon.

He has no new milestone.

He has no awakening future.

His days have been lived.

His choices made.

And its too late to make amends for a life he didn't dream of living.

The train inches into its designated platform

to take him home, to a warm cup of soup, the 11 o'clock news

and black and white memories of glory days now so empty.

Ambassador

Liver in a bottle.

Heart in a suitcase.

Lungs in a plume of smoke.

Eyes that see only the road behind.

Ears that only hear rumours of things to come.

My mind stacks them up neatly on the backseat;

and my soul chases after them naked down the street.