writing

up the bracket or the libertines? dpt or babyshambles? the jackals or the pute madres? the good old days or the reunion days? the arcadian dream has all fallen though or the albion sails on course? suicide in the trenches or gunga din? soft poetic lullabies and heart-shaped kisses or rock and roll excess and indie anthems? albums or sessions? ecstatic highs or spiralling lows? tragic passions that tear and bleed and fill your head with dreams and poetry or soft loves and tender embraces and learning how to love with gentleness?

the libertines are the band playing on as the ship goes down, they’re the scattering of glitter stuck to the grimy club floor, the dead-skin-dust that hangs in the sunlight, blinding bright. the libertines are songs in the shape of hearts and words in the shape of knives. they’re the friend that you’ll meet again and again and the endlessness of a three minute song. greasy chips in newspaper, ragged bunting, 2017 and everything’s off the ration. lullabies that coil up your spine and settle in the folds of your brain. songs for screaming and loving and dying. the libertines are concrete slabs smashed into crazy-paving, the dandelion lawn round the back of the off-license, the wind that sweeps litter from the streets, and the back room fag smoke smog that swirls with ghosts and whispers and hidden kisses.

mortality is my friend the mortality that lasts when the rational ends but we are clawing up the world to be nearer my friend is the unendingness of a waterfall the muddy water of a flood that sweeps away a million trinket lives washes them up jumble sale mortality in another place you would have been different? every flood is the same but the debris suspended in it sweep away mortality and fragile new grass grows mortality and the flood are my friend and they are probably mad they must be with all that in their grip still coming for me with mud and claws welcome friend//welcome flood

it's with the pain pain of the angels that we grow (apparently) and sometimes those gentle cliches sound sweet and even if sweetness is not gentle (popping candy tongue, blue stained lips like ice) at least it tempters the bitter bite (this poem is your license to eat sweets) because sometimes the pain looks gentle but bites bitter as blue ice