Abyssal

He marched all day and all night up to the top of the hill

Felt the peak of the summit, the air on his face, the sky bleeding into him as one

There was no 10,000 men

nor indeed anyone

by his side

Just the air and molecules of a thousand universes and his ancestry seeping their way

into his

soul

mind

body

Awake yet asleep

on top of the hill looking down

down at a world so far away and distant

and up at a sky so far away and distant

And the Duke, wondering why, why he feels this rush of knowing, of awareness

as if knowing the meaning of the entire universe and everything

so high up on that hill

And yet now, even with sun glancing over the horizon

as if winking at the idea of a sunset

and despite that slight chill seeping quietly into the wind with

abject discretion

He sits

high above

high.

With strong hesitation and a feeling of rumbling melancholy

seeking forgiveness but also solitude in the grey expanse of the heavens

Whiplash gravel rain beating into me

and when that stopped, well there was

wind into sand into my eyes into my burrowing away soul

grating and chafing away at the small residual part of me

clinging on in the wind

literally but also clinging on to some

semblance of sanity and reality

And the knowing I have one train only

and yet I’m stood there longing for you, looking out at

the black of sea into black of sky

and wondering how long it would be for I sighed and just melted into the water into sky into dark

into nothing

And I could hear those waves – can hear them now

beating with sheer aggression at the shore

unseen in black, maybe a glimmer of dark-blue-grey

then gone

And I felt their pull, every time the wave retreated

come with me

stay with me

An empty friend playing a trick

And eyes straining against the blackness

marvelling at the bleak beauty of it

thinking, does nobody else see this?

See it how I do?

And underneath the whoosh of the wave

I heard your voice calling me

I felt your breath

so far away I would have to stretch across oceans for you

So I packed up that yearning

put in a box with all my questions I had

looked back to the sea one more time

And saw the sea reply

it knew I would be back

I would always be back

Would you?

There once was a wish, a yearning, a feeling of certainty of need

That, now, seems quaint, naive

And perhaps it was

Perhaps it was just me seeing through crystal, assuming a romantic invitation and being

perhaps it was a copper bracelet held dear with no reason

perhaps it was the smooth feeling of an old wooden box with broken veneer

And as I look back now at

rows of bottles with my slight sad reflection

smashed on the floor into 10,000 pieces of little anger and grief

It seems strange and farway

like I was in some far-flung country with different gradient skies

and a language I don’t know that fades into the background like an exotic hot-sky whipser

And yet in the back of all this

the tick-tick-tick-tock of an ever-speeding-up clock

a gentle reminder of time past, time now and time future, counting down not up

And I see in my mind

rows of records

tapes

posters on wall

hope

love

and the grandiose plans of my youth

And when I revisit them

sometimes in vivid rich neon full-immersion memories

sometimes in dull, no-movement, no-body around heaviness

I think

of all the inbetweens

and what happened to them

as I know

some are just dust ground into the road, trampled down into nothing but tiny particles

some dissolved into the water of my life’s journey

some blown out with candles of years past – into smoke then air then nothing

and yet

and yet

yet

still some burn brightly, fused with the fight and energy I once held true and still do.

A choice is just a moment, a reflection splashing from

crystalline water with the upmost precision and dynamics

From a current unseen yet powerful, deadly, destructive

with the confidence of the ice surface breaking, snapping

luring out from underneath languorous ill feeling and resentment

And now it’s a dive upwards, fear and mocking and self-hate in one arrow, spear

headed fast towards the air, horizon, future

And angry though it is, it flies and soars with grace, with the arrogance of broken introspection

It’s a launch that can’t be undone

A decision that does not allow rethinking to be fostered

Because no matter all the doubt and will in the world

this moment has been made

it has been festering and growing with ever more detemination

since my heart gave it first beat.

Within a gradual greyscale decline

an actual continuation of

of what?

certainty?

an abstract definition of loss?

And maybe

I’m alone at sunrise

peeking at a horizon that simple isn’t mine to have

looking up at a sky I can’t own

knowing I will keep striving and

lusting for the happiness

Now fast forward and my

soul feels like a forgotten effigy

declining thoughts in an echo chamber

of decay and darkness

And the soundtrack is a symphony of my melancholic self obsessed egotistical depression

its a chequered flag of the last lap

last opportunity

before out, out, out.

theres a ripping growing tear in the sky

i could peel it further apart if I wanted to

Expose dark and

the simple inevitably the shore brings me

we sit here knowing even

in sunshine

sky azure calm airplane in distance

happier time

wonder where it’s going

somewhere distant maybe

focus back to us

smile to passerby

we are fine

everything is fine but

Separation

parting

Movie freeze frames silver

static , zoom in to pixels

become

mandelbrots

incandescent another life

time folds into scope

rays

laid in field

honey

honey?

walking through summer early dawn

rope swaying from tree

blanket swarm

where was I?

back sat on bench with you

eyes uneasily meeting

so I guess this is it?

when I look at the sky

jaded by grey clouds

The hazards my mind brings

peeling apart joy and hope like persistent stickers on glass

and I catch myself

looking up up up

trying to grab the clouds like

the cotton wool of my dreams

grasping and yelling but ultimately

Holding nothing

and opening my hand to find it was

just

an

Illusion

a trick pulled by dark conjurer

stuff of nightmares, some long

forgotten

luminal space in my soul

and as I take pencil to paper

try and express the touch of clouds

but can’t explain how I even

configure this mayhem

this one-sided sorrow of mine

giving in to this bending sky

a lack of glory

i do admit

i always was cynical

if luck was under my spell

and well, it’s not

nothing is

I had three things to remember that day

One was eyes open – look around, observe

Second was work out if this was a game or an alternative – reach out, try to peel pack my vision like it’s a curtain

The third was to decide – committed, is this something I want over with or not?

I was strung out from little to no sleep; summertime, too much energy

like the rays of the sun entered me and powered me up like electricity

or a power up in a game

and no matter how much I scurried around trying to use it up

I couldn’t

But then I also had thick grey smog cloud thoughts of death hanging over me like

a cloud

wherever

I went

Which also wouldn’t shift no matter how much I ran, walked or tried to

trick

or

decieve

the cloud

and

the rays

So at this point as the train comes in I don’t even know if

my reality is real

if this is a game

who the character is

Until one day I felt more, different

medication in me, course correction

information collation

piece by piece

But there seems to be always be

a part of me

a little part

but a tiny little shard of me

still stood on the platform, wondering

does one step ending everything

end it?

it’s sighs of orange cold horizon drop

still

it’s the ticking of one clock after than other, all competing for my melancholic self absorbed looping thoughts

it’s the neon vivid oh so real dream I had last night

had a journey through time (tick tock)

you were you but also you weren’t

like some kind of spaghetti brain mishmash construction

i was me but speeding through hyper real time, liquid molten highway

faster and faster with no urge or ability to slow down or shout to you to keep up

then I was festering behind the same brick walls and windows that keep me contained and confused

the tick tock was louder, I could feel it coursing through me

felt it in my speech and my breath

how distant you now where in space and time and distorted fading memories

i woke up in a strange daze, yeah kinda confused

wondered if I am constrained by time or if time is just a cellar door flung open by stale winds

Black-blue, so murky I couldn’t even tell you

of the colours on top and within

let alone

way way

way

way

down at the bottom

I do know I can’t judge the depth

so it worries me that I’m

thinking of down down

quick splash tumble over

bubbles out

air gone

Find some stillness at the bottom

Age old sediment, dust, rubbish

that died a lifetime ago

feels like it’s been here throughout time

just waiting for little old me to find it

to bask in it

to bathe in the melancholy and pointlessness of it all

hidden away

Fathoms below, centuries below

I can’t see the surface

not even the sun-hit shard reflection like a fucked up broken mirror

I can’t hear above

vague muffle, could be industrial, a tangent, an ending

coming through the water like an arc

the boat (ship?) above me

fast faster now like the beating of my heart

like my pulse in my blood is to my heartbeat in this water

And all I can really think about is

what was the point of this all