Spoons

I had coffee in Bar Soho
and imagined you were joining me later.
I had my usual espresso
and ordered you a capuccino so they'd come with different spoons
which I took home because I couldn't take you.

Adam

I lost my soul in the quarter mile from Foyles to Jerry's
or maybe it was Jerry's to Foyle's
and what I lost was my mind.
His name was Adam
or maybe I only call him that
because he was my first man
and he told me let's take some of this and we'll get caned.
It was the way his T-shirt stayed angel-white in the citygrub
and the way his tattoo moved but his teeth stayed still when he smiled
that pulled me across the street.
I'd never seen confidence or clarity like it
or maybe I had
and it was some wet-sheeted memory
he drew to him that sticky six o'clock
like a cloud of backflowed blood swilling round before the shot.
I would have studied at Cambridge
or maybe I wouldn't
and that was the lie I told myself
because I knew I needed guilt
and neither the junk nor the ejaculations gave me any.

I lost my life somewhere by Bar Italia
or maybe someone found it
and put it to good use
or maybe they wasted it
and now I haunt the shelves of Foyles, perpetually browsing
or maybe I'm outside Jerry's
and this absinthe in my blood is just too strong
or maybe it's not strong enough
because I can't stop thinking of Adam
or maybe I only call him that because he fell.

Empty, Spent, Beat & Blank

If this is the last time we speak I'd like there to be tears
If this is the last time we kiss I'd like there to be smears
If this is the last time we drink coffee I'd like to have four sugars
If this is the last time we share a needle I'd like it to be blunt
If this is the last time we pass out on some stranger's floor I'd like there to be cheers

If this is the last time I see you I won't blink
If this is the last time we argue I won't think
If this is the last time we read together I won't talk
If this is the last time we walk together I won't wear shoes that pinch
If this is the last time we play chicken I won't sink

If this is the last time I should turn
If this is the last time I should learn
If this is the last time I should cry
If this is the last time I should die
If this is the last time I should burn.

Awake

I woke up to a sweating sick-stained sun, locked in a lunacy of suited normals clacketing blackberries hum thrum hangover drum, happy transparent heads.

I woke up sodden, frozen, crusted with tears from dreams of desert spaces, neon electric amphetamine places, haunted keening faces, ant-crawling into undergrowth decaying nests flinging formic burial dance ejaculations at their dying queen.

I woke up homeless, skin grotesqued on John Lewis glass, caged in beige and cursed and coughed and incantated and deflated and scoffed and stoned and slashing, smashing crashing at the window for my outside home.

I woke up on the office floor sodomised by spreadsheet slutting gang-rape jargon-happy whores in shirts and ties and CK1 and stripped and mocked by flights of office angels careening heavenward-career kicks to my crotch.

I woke up staring at the eyes of Martin Luther King, the gaze of Kurt Cobain, the glaze of Janis, Jimi, Jack, the drug-drawn, the persecuted, spat on, the unvoiced, the bony-fingered, track-marked, the unwritten gospels, cracked canvas and dried-up colour-wombs.

I woke up staring at the billion unaccounted reasons not to die, slapped welts to make my cheeks too raw to turn away and cry and cursed the mornings spooling out towards the sunset, and the daily pill the act of will required to make the choice to live.

There is no more tomorrow

There is only an endless today strung out like a thousand junkies coming down the mountain cradling tablets carved with promises from their gods.

We woke up you and me, undreaming dreamers we bark out our caffeine chorus at the midnight sun

We run, fucked-up and spectacular, into the dervish hills singing flail-body ballads at the sky.

Heavy-legged triumphant we outrun the sunset,
slash our sinful eyelids,
fix on the skimming morning star horizon,
empty our birthing wail into the dawn
and wait and run and wail and wake and wait

and flash and fill with sheeting screams and answers build and burst and brightness comet-summoning shaman mummers flame the heavens burning relentless the dreaming drabness suits and skirts and office-dark nights and towerblock evening grey and paypacket veins and expectation gym kit briefcase jumpsuit duvet madness

and in the warm the wake they give we take the fireball dawn

we are awake.

Poem

The First Night I didn't Think About Killing Myself

"That razor blade looks rusty," you said. "You wanna watch it."
"What the fuck do I care?" I replied.
You looked at the skin above my wrists.
I clasped a hand over each.
I looked at the skin inside your elbow.
You looked straight back.
"This is clean," you said. "And sharp.
And you won't feel a thing."
I don't know what I did think
But I know I didn't think about killing myself
And when I woke up and looked on the ground beside me I thought
That razor blade looks rusty.