It’s like this with memory,
The longer you live with it
The more it burns out,
Like a star, ebbing, fading,
Collapsing into itself,
Memories like blackholes scattered
Across a pocketful of sky,
Getting smaller, but denser,
Like blindspots in your vision,
Like a cataract contracting,
Or maybe memories are like
Weights attached to the feet,
And the further you swim
From the shore,
The smaller the weights get,
Till they are the size of
Sand grains stuck to your toes,
But heavier than all the mountains
That rise from the sea,
And heavier than all of the sky
That meets the sea,
And you’re always swimming
Just below the surface,
And always swimming away,
It’s like this with memory,
While I remember the way her dress
Fell on her,
I rememember more the creases on
Her waist as the evening wore on,
The creases on her waist
Where I let a finger slide
In the valley between two folds,
Time is the distance between
Two people sleeping
In different beds, in different worlds,
Time is a longing that ends as an ache,
Time is winter,
The coldness creeping up
From the toes to the nose,
And the touch that could warm it
Is just a memory,
A smile condensed into the corner
of an upturned lip,
An eyelash on a finger tip,
Time is a wish that’s long forgotten,
But memory, it’s like this,
It’s the whole universe of her person
Packed into the molecules of her smell,
All of her presence in the fragrance
Of her neck, the crease of her elbows,
The back of her knees, the musky,
Bitter sweet scent of burnt chocolate,
All of her instance in one whiff,
It’s like this with memory,
It’s the heavy lidded tiredness
That overtakes you,
Plunging you deeper than all the dreams,
To the furthest you can be from wakefulness,
To the state just short of death,
And when you return,
You are lighter than all the balloons
In the world, and lighter than all
The secrets sold before guilt kicks in,
And if memory is like a black hole,
Like a worm hole,
Like a dense field of gravity,
That pulls you closer into its folds,
Can you arrive [PHOOP] to the other side
Where nothing has changed?
Maybe you simply remain, in a memory
Looping forever,
Your whole life a finite spool of thread,
Knotting up, and reigning tight,
The time that keeps slipping away.
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I used to think
If the city was a woman,
We’d soon be good friends,
I’d invite her to my room,
Her whole universe packed into
The plastic chair by my desk,
We’d talk about the weather,
And then about each other,
And then loves lost and won,
And she’d be sitting on my bed,
And she’d be lying on my bed,
And we’d kiss self consciously,
And explore each other’s sighs,
And she’d leave with a whisper,
And we’d talk on the phone,
And we wouldn’t apologize
For our silly white lies,
And we’d meet twice a week,
Then thrice, then more often,
And she’d move in,
And we’d cook pasta together
On a cold city night,
With Matchbox 20 playing on the
Stereo,
And we’d talk philosophy,
Debate ideologies,
And throw pillows at each other,
She’d accuse me of being pig headed,
And I’d call her stubborn,
And we’d laugh and burn the dinner,
And argue over which take away diner to
call from,
And sooner or later
There would be tears,
Because she wouldn’t just be stubborn,
She’d be a stubborn, stuck up,
Intellectual bore,
And I’d be awkward and insensitive,
And the unhappy anywhere kind of man,
And just to spite her,
I’d find another city to flirt with.
But,
The city is a guy,
And we are buds,
We meet at the pub
Have a few drinks,
Discuss girls,
Occasionally thump our chests
Like chimpanzees,
And our deepest conversations
Are never deeper than a thimble full
Of jack Daniels,
And it gets lonely sometimes,
And it feels as shallow
As slumbering puddles in back alleys,
And if this city was a woman
I really wouldn’t ditch her
For another,
Even if we had Tesco dinners every night,
Sometimes we just have to anchor somewhere,
Instead of drifting about like paper boats,
And that’s the problem-
The inability to see the vanishing point,
Where all perspectives converge,
So really,
If the city was a woman,
I’d marry her in one car honking,
Ealing Broadway stopping,
Picaddily pub hopping,
Mindless metaphor making moment.
But right now, us guys,
We just punch each on the shoulders.
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I am starting to believe
That when I pass over
My personal hell will be
Inhabited by ghosts of
Abandoned books.
Chapters bookmarked and never closed,
Pages dog-eared and forgotten,
Plots begging to be read,
Yellowing pages left in
Airport lounges,
We have unfinished business-
They’ll snarl,
Jabbing an exclamation marked pitch fork at me,
And then Ulysses abandoned on page 254,
And Moby Dick on 23,
Will drag me to the classroom
Where I once made paper planes out of
Old storybooks,
And they’ll strap me to a chair
Under the scowling portraits of
Authors on a day pass from heaven,
An unpopular book on quantum physics
That lay unopened on my shelf
Will bristle with the anger of a spinster scorned
And read page after page
Of brain bashing equations,
Backwards,
And Sigmund Freud will analyze me
And ask embarrassing questions about my mother,
And Miss Maple will uncover ugly truths
About my indiscretions with Miss February
On page 15 of Playboy, issue 12,
And weeping she’ll ask me- Why her? Why not me?
But before I can answer,
All the 24 volumes of Encyclopaedia Britanica
Will drop on my head, one after the other,
It’s not fair- I’ll cry – Who reads the whole goddamn encyclopaedia?
This is Hell – an upset poem will reply
And recite its verses over and over,
So,
To make amends,
I’ll go to the library
And read every book from A to Z,
Classics, physics, Oprah’s Club picks,
Even the oversized manual
On 350 tire treds,
Or,
Maybe I’ll just watch TV instead.
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Let’s give shape to longing,
Let’s give it some heat,
Some flesh, some meat, thighs,
Hair, breasts, toe nails with gunk,
Let’s give it an address,
A bed for the night,
Now let’s give it some love,
A touch, a caress, a kiss,
Go on, let’s give it a cigarette,
It pulls and it sighs and goes hazy
Like neon flickers,
Or reflections on wet streets,
Let’s give it a shadow,
Long for longing,
Short for tomorrow,
Let’s make it last forever,
But then when it’s morning,
Show it the door,
It pouts and it cries-
It loves you, it loves you,
But it lies,
Because
Longing only loves who isn’t there.
So belt it and whip it
And say you despise it,
Take away your gifts with a whisper,
Saying it softly, but firmly, saying-
Fuck off, naked and formless.
And then when it’s night,
Invite it back again
For seduce me booze
And pillow talk,
And if it sulks,
Forget about it,
There’s always loneliness
Around the corner,
And it’s up for a good time.
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This is how the night is,
It’s raining softly,
Some streets are awake
As you wander through them,
As you lie beside me,
Asleep,
And I wonder what dreams
Will I break into
If I just held your hand.
You sigh softly,
And the rain hears you,
And I hear you
And move my hand away.
This is how the night is,
Your fingers curled into
Little dreams,
And mine like thieves
Break into those dreams,
And I wander,
Ducking and hiding,
Searching those streets
For traces of you.
For traces of me.
(Screw the muses… I’m through with this)
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If for instance I decide to lose myself
In a cave as big as London,
Don’t find me
-find me.
Don’t follow echoes of my footsteps,
Or the smell of cigarettes,
Or the sound of breathing,
And especially not the squiggles on the walls,
Those are escaped thoughts
And will lead you astray,
In a cave as big as London,
Don’t find me
-find me,
Don’t follow the trail of pebbles,
And paper,
And peanut shells,
And a coil of thread that leads the way
To a pool as wide as the Thames,
Don’t cross over to the stalacite as
High as St. Paul’s Cathedral,
Don’t weave your way down a passage
To a hole in the wall,
About 452 yards away,
On the right,
Because you won’t find me
-find me
Sitting at a table set for two,
And if despite of all this
You still do,
Then shh…
-let’s eat.
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Walking home on Sunday night
I passed a couple at a bus stop
Loving each other
With eyes locked into eyes
And arms locked into arms,
And just as I reached them,
I heard him say,
- You know something I’ve always
Wanted to do but couldn’t do?
And though I wanted to stay
And listen,
I knew it wasn’t meant for me,
So I just made up the rest,
- I want to race an airplane on a runway
And win, till it crosses me by,
It’ll be a short race,
I want to bite the end of the cone off
And suck the whole scoop through it,
I want to make love under a streetlight
(To which I’d like to imagine she’d push
him away, but just so)
- I want to play hobo for a day, then take
All the loose change and toss it into the Thames,
Watching the tuppence plop, one by one,
I want to pretend I’m a busker playing an
Exotic instrument, when in fact I’d just be
Beating an old shoe box,
I want to read the Ulysses and get past
Page 255 for once,
I want to burn my laptop, Blackberry, iPad,
(And she would remind him he didn’t have an iPad)
- I want to own an iPad… to burn,
(Yeah right, she’d say, but how will I reach you?)
- Just call my name,
(She’d laugh- That’s silly!),
- Shh… I want to find a magic lamp and wish
That I may breathe you forever,
Breathing me,
So that’s what I thought he’d want to do
That he couldn’t do,
As for me, I wanted to call someone,
And hear her say,
- I was just thinking of you.
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There is an inherent sadness about
Supermarket sandwiches,
She has hers on the park bench
And he has his on the street,
Leaving a trail of bread crumbs
That no one ever will ever see,
Because we are eating our own
Sandwiches,
In the bus and in the by lane,
By the canal and by the bookshop,
And some trails even lead
To the toilet,
Where an empty packet marks
The floor with its own strand of graffitti:
I was here, I ate alone,
Wish you were here too.
And for 2 pounds you can flavour
Every occasion,
Roast chicken and bacon for birthdays
Spent staring at brownies in the bakery,
Smoked ham and mustard for anniversaries
While waiting for the phone to ring,
Egg cress and cheese for New year’s Eve
Watching fireworks from the window,
And a meal deal every friday night
Littered around the bed,
Crumbs read like braille because no one reads
Postcards anymore:
I am here, I ate alone,
Wish you were here too.
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There is something about faces today
Something that’s constantly changing like
Punctuation marks in a badly written poem,
There’s something about people
Walking in and walking out like
Three dots of the etcetera,
Except they are walking alone,
They are always walking alone,
Always punctuating their walk with
Gestures that bring full stops to imaginary
Conversations,
There’s something about faces today,
Squirming like doodles on the last page,
Endlessly etching the complexities of their
Kind,
Like maps that lead nowhere,
Like a crazy cartographer who can’t
Get rid of the world,
So he draws one that throws others off,
I really feel there’s something about faces today
That I can’t put my finger on,
Something about erasing lines,
And leaving behind just dust and fuzz,
And I could brush it all off,
I could turn the page, except.
How do you turn away from a window
When everyone is looking up and staring?
And those faces, silently ask, no, plead
To be acknowledged,
I exist, says a face, I am here, says another,
I live, I believe, I am the extra in a bad dream,
I’m the wrong note in a symphony.
I am the broken heel by the manhole,
I’m the cancerous fat of kebab shops
Clogging the sewer,
Look at me, a passing face says,
And I’m bound by its brittle eyes
To not look away.
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We are like worn jeans weathering,
Like the slow creasing of time,
We are like torn pockets
Spilling loose words on the street,
We are like parallel conversations
Sulking on the edge of the bed,
We are like pillows between legs
Cradling wet dreams at dawn,
Like the sun breaking in to
Moist and crusty eyes,
Like a stretch that touches
Both walls,
Like a shadow in the nightclub
Shy of the strobe,
Like a kiss on the cheek
That catches the ear by mistake,
Like one breast larger than the other,
A mind angry and wrestling
Prejudice in the dark,
We are like twiddling thumbs and
Tapping feet at the railway station,
We are like the hour lost to
Daylight saving time,
Like crosses on the calendar
Marking the years gone by
Waiting,
Waiting,
Waiting for that one day
When we’ll wear the world
Like a pair of new jeans
That fits just right.
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