How To Fall

Let’s talk about love, said her that December they spent on the Island. He understood immediately and wanted to reply;
the human heart has the capacity to love millions, in a universe of infinite possibilities and outcomes there can be no such thing as just one perfect soulmate.

Suddenly he saw in her eyes something many thought impossible. It was as if they never left that place where they first met; dancing to the slow music, barefoot on the silver sands of the moon lit bay.

He realised from the first moment he saw her face and she smiled at him he had fallen, and loved her since. 

In that moment he needed to say I love you and I will always love you because that was the only truth to ever matter but he saw in her eyes she already knew. 

The next day they found

We all knew the extent of Walter’s issue. He drank too much on his own, never had a bottle he couldn’t empty or bother to share.

It made him weak and this was not the type of neighbourhood to show weakness in. Not back then, now they got those fancy coffee shops and apartments no one can afford, back then packs ran the street, Wolves of men looking for breakable things.

He drove a brown Toyota pickup truck everywhere, crashed it more than once. It had a dent on the left bumper, one of the fenders was almost obliterated and he had this long rusted gash on the other side where he hit a gate post and kept going. That thing was as battered as him.

He passed out in it one time, in front of my house on Jamaica avenue, I took the twenty from his wallet and hit him in the head with it...because fuck him he was an asshole too that's why. He was so drunk he never even flinched.

A week later my cousin tried to sell me Walt’s tape deck radio. I told him I didn’t want it cause he left the bracket behind and it wouldn’t work, he sold it to some guy for parts.

He didn't know this; Walter, he was always looking for the dark bus out of here, the one to the next place that runs on the hope for something better. And when he finally caught it, it was from multiple organ failure most likely caused by tainted booze. I know where he got it from too.

There was a still up in the township next to our neighbourhood selling home-brew by the litre but you had to bring your own Jug. And the guy selling it would soon as take your shoes as your cash for payment. It was cheap but it got you fucked up.

Walter parked up by the rail tracks and sat down on a nearby storm drain to watch the sunset while he drank. I guess he just blacked out, slipped away.

The Climb

When there is nothing left to say that hasn't already been spoken.
When there is no vista that hasn't already been shown.
No words than the thousand already written.
Nor steps than the two thousand already taken.
The end has arrived
and it will be beautiful.

How The Street Found Us

We all used to smoke, the kids don’t know that. It made us feel like cowboys and we listened to the Rolling Stones when they were cool. 

Back then we were drinking too much cheap brandy, burning weed in tight rolls and wearing too many colours, but life was short and you only ran once.

And no one wrote stories about sober old men, no, our heroes lived short flights through burning crimson skies and died in lead thunderstorms.

Our mamas would call our names but we’d get as much of the streetlights as we could before we had to eat.

And the laughter it carried our souls into the African setting sun through the dust and the smoke of every hard day. Back then we counted these moments like currency and paid for every second of our short lives.

   

The Cold Distant Hope

The poet on the balcony puts the freshly lit cigarette into his mouth and drags deeply. On days like this he begs for cancer.

He remembers a young man with hope on his lily, white-washed brain, he would be one of the free, those who take on the world and win. But now look at this, living in the flat where he was born, with a failed marriage and kids who don’t even call.

He knows better now. He’s in the greater percentage of unfortunates for whom life is just the misery between getting smacked in the arse by a doctor and dying surrounded by strangers you once called family.  Fuck it he could improve the situation right now by just climbing over this rail. 

He never does, like most he prefers to die slow, so he goes back to get his fill of shitty TV, food from plastic containers, and discounted booze. And the ass-hole on the screen makes a joke and the poet laughs cause that’s what’s expected and he laughs until he cries because the whole world is fucking empty.  

The Beast That Was

We didn’t let him in but he was amidst us before the whiskey lost its bright red glow.

The type of man that saw the inside of a leather room and wrote stories on his skin.

He order venom, the bartender obliged, and paid with silver coin.

We talked like strangers until the bottle got our tongues then the beasts came out.   

He was here to take his cut of the sweet hell we found in the distance.

Gold dust and honey that melted on the naked bodies of the iniquitous.

No one was about to hand it over not without their last breathes

And when the smoke cleared

Amongst the broken glass and sunlit bullet holed corpses

The stranger made away with what we cared for most. 

A Short Story About a Girl on a Train

In a train without destination, on a day such as any, I saw her. A calm centre of swirling rush hour madness; she clung to her man, illuminated by the buzzing florescent lights.

I caught a glimpse in her eyes of something truly remarkable. It had set sail across oceans and reached out to the heavens and it came to me; men had died for this, thousands would go their whole lives without even coming close.

The train rolled through the dark city that couldn’t give a fuck and never knew the thing to save it was in her eyes, because she was in Love. The type of love that broke down, opened you up and spread like rivers of colour.

And the hearts she touched would forever be changed on that day, because they shared her joy. A joy looked upon by the envy of angels.

Living on Sandy Soil

She left the home she abode, longer than her memory, And crossed the bridges burnt by others to get to the place she needed. There she found great hardships and difficulties to overcome. There she planted her home in sandy soil And carved a life from the tree that grew. It was there she found the peace and joy she once thought only others knew.

Of The Colourless Dreams We Shared

We found hell in a beautiful place.Where the sun shines through sparkling dust. 

It made him pull the teeth from his face, I understood; that’s where the need grows and the spider lives.

As long as there was gold to be poured into our brains, setting pleasure alight in every nerve ending we owned, a million mad soldiers could march up our spines.

In the crystal darkness of a one roomed flat we lost our way searching for the first time the juju gave us colourless daydreams.

We lay in that cold wet place of such hazy agony and I knew he wouldn’t make it. I put my head on his chest to listen for his heart to stop beating and howled for his lost soul.  

I have a message for you

We as a generation will be judged by future generations, its up to us what history will say.

There is a potential for greatness but if we don't fulfill that potential we will be know as the generation who played Pokemon for two weeks one summer.

Worse yet we are letting down our children and yes every child is our child as species.

You may be religious or Atheist, rich or poor, you may be Jedi; our differences make no difference in the face of one fundamental truth.

You may or may not believe in climate change or equality for all, but You must believe in the future.

You must believe that we as a generation have a responsibility to leave this World a better place than we found it.