*…do all the things that lovers do! – 23rd January 1998

Email to TLJ

Thank you very much for meeting me in the city yesterday. Your face is so beautiful I want to wake up next to it – kiss gently on the forehead and rise and make you breakfast while you slumber longer…we talked about fantasies..mine are no longer physical (ok I could think of some if you really wanted!) I want to be with you, baby.

I Feel
I feel rejected
I must be obsessed
Must be you
I want the best
I feel heartbroken
I must be annoyed
Must be you
I’m feeling paranoid
I feel in my head
I must be true
In my arms
I feel you

You’ll be in the mountains by now I guess. I wish you’d ring me – I want to talk with you for hours into the night, watch the moon rise and fall and do all the things that lovers do! Don’t want to go home tonight – I don’t like it there. I just found out I can’t go out tomorrow cos she doesn’t want me to – she thinks St Peters is a rough area (which it may be but who cares). Of course, I could say fuck it and go anyway and I know sooner or later it will come to that and one day I will go and I won’t come back. Jeez, I’m pissed off (maybe unfairly – but I can’t help the way I feel). Anyway, I’m thinking of you as always and wishing we were together (and wanting it more each day and the more I think about it the more it seems possible to me). Did you like the last poem?

It’s bigger than love – 22nd January 1998

Email to TLJ

Sweety. I’m gone. Lost. Don’t know what to say. I feel something really special between us – bigger than me. Lost in your love last night, never mind the s-word – the whole feeling of being with you.

Happen
At last it finally happened
It was too good to be true
I’ll never forget that moment
When I whispered ‘I love you’
And I had to stand back
To see the look on your face
And I was so relieved
That it wasn’t out of place

Well, interesting to read that one back. Not sure I had fallen in love at this stage or was just getting ideas off TV! It sure was hard to say goodbye to you this afternoon at Town Hall. I’m glad we have so much fun together even if sometimes we don’t have anything to say or just crap on about nothing. Everything feels so comfortable with you – like you say comfortable silences. Of course, we have a lot of deep stuff to talk about too and I know what you mean when you say you want to tell everything – that’s how I feel too. I am completely open to you – will tell you anything, everything etc etc blah blah. Crapping on now. My heart is with you – enjoy yr weekend in the mountains – I’m wishing I was there sweetheart.

Mountaintop – 5th December 1996

From this desolate spot
I spy the fiery spikes of God
With none but the birds for company
I dream of snowmen

And looking down across this kingdom
Owned by none, shared by all
I spot a place for me to sit
Amongst the ruins of reality

Perhaps on the golden shore
Or this lonely cabin
But mostly in my heart
Where I can rest in peace

14th Oct 2024 – This was the first poem I wrote inspired by Jack Keraouc’s Alone on a Mountaintop. Click here for the second.

My New Work Ethic – 17th November 1996

It’s hard to contemplate
The complete waste of time I spend chasing the dollar
I’m so busy doing
Now I’ve no idea where I’m going

Yesterday I had to wait somewhere for a while
And I noticed a tree
A tree I knew was there
But just never saw it before

It was weird and twisted
And I realised sometimes you have to stand still
Just to see what is there
To take stock, real stock

Life is short and precious, I wish I wasn’t wasting most of it

The City Of The Dead – 6th December 1995

On the back of the city they ride
The demons attack from each side
Despair weaves its path
Through the warmest of hearts
Eating away at your very soul
Cold wings flutter about your face

Can you feel it?

Greed winds its way in
Through the thickest of skin
Til everyone is touched
And the big sell is a rollercoaster ride
Straight to hell

We’re all part of it

Death lurks each street
Searching for souls to eat
With a big wide grin across its ugly face
Along with despair
To lay good men bare

Have you had a taste?

Disease runs riot
When people lie quiet
Its foul stench forcing you to wretch

Can you taste it?

Madness takes a grip
Follows your every trip
Through the torture and torment of lies
The cries are of woe
As we watch people flow
Down and down into demise

Real Discipline – 19th October 1995

I wanted this to be the real thing
I wanted it to finally be the real discipline
The discipline
That I had been so well preparing myself for

I needed something to be real
I saw all things
I saw all people around me
Falling apart
Caving in

I needed the discipline
I asked myself how long
I was going to live this lie
How long was I going to let myself down
And blame someone else

Finally, I kicked through the wall
It was like a junky
Busting through the scar tissue
That keeps him from hitting
It was like slashing through the womb
With your teeth

Lies make me weak
It’s the lies that are killing me
The lack of discipline
I was killing myself and I didn’t even see it
I couldn’t even feel it
The dead painless days are over

10th Aug 2024 – I’m guessing that I had been reading a lot of Henry Rollins around this time and was struggling a little bit.