Faulty Escape Plan No.1, 652

There you stand in

your grey shirt

and your Sports Direct shoes

tired little writer

with nothing to lose

but the love that

you’ve found and

the books you have left

and the intimate

knowledge of a wallet

bereft

and you squint

and your scrutinise

this thing you’ve become

wearing those shoes

as though you’re

wanting to run

and run more and

keep running

and not once ever stop

lying to yourself

that you won’t ever

be caught

whilst you’re waving

your grey shirt

in bungled surrender

and Jackson Browne-alike

singing

pray for the pretender

as you know all

the while that even here

on the edge

it’s a long way down

from your oubliette ledge

it’s a long long way

from your dreams

to the floor

so don’t quit this

not yet

but still don’t shut the door. 

Silent Movie, Silent Night

He watches short silent movies every night before bed. Has to. They make him laugh exactly how he needs to laugh. They tire him out, he laughs so much. They make him dream in black & white. Dreams of pratfalling, and wearing shabby clothes, and hanging on clock-faces and washing lines, and running from dogs and from policemen and from unsatisfied employers and angry fathers.

And yet, he still dreams about getting the girl.

nightingales

No nightingales find me here,

No shadows fall, because,

quite simply,

No light shines

and I sit,

undefined,

and shapeless, even,

but strong and

given to stronger

words and dreams of

the kind they once

built empires over,

and on top of, and,

perhaps - though

I can think of no

examples now -

beneath,

those dreams like some

overhanging marble temple

roof,

Acropolis,

before those marbles

got waylaid or

calmly liberated

someplace else in

which they find

no more praise

than can exist within

the stapled glossy guide

of some museum

or other

and I sit in the

dark and the silence

and smile, and

try to tally the number of

those before me who've done the same

and held the same thoughts and

sought the same

night-bird song,

before I give

that up and

just plain enjoy the

moment, and accept

beyond those further

calculations

that it is mine alone,

and claim it, eagerly,

just by fitting it in

Sunday-night-best words.