Own

I mean… I don’t mean to complain
But I guess lately It feels like I’ve dropped in your priorities
Like an old wooden beaded bracelet
Brought from an old gypsy stall
And handed down to you by a summertime lover
Once you found a way to fit me in
No matter the outfit or the weather
But I’ve fallen down the side of the bed
And to the back of your mind
You never really paid me heed since then

That was until you caught a glimpse
Of the girls who received my bracelets in summers past
Your eyes light up, I imagine like a housewife’s
Who’s discovered their fine china has a 4 figure worth
And suddenly you act like my new necktie
As you caress the base of my shoulders
Not unlike a fox skin you shoot the offenders a dead eye stare
They can’t second guess; is she wild or tamed?
Would she ward them off in heroic defence?
Or would the murderous intent of pride overtake her senses?

If I ever questioned your devotion before
I had no doubt that I was your man now

*Written For National Poetry Month 12/30*

Recollection (Prelude)

I’ve known guilt and then I’ve KNOWN guilt
But I couldn’t even begin to put the term into human tongue
When you tap my back, in the middle of 90’s britpop chants
And you greet me holding a gargantuan tome
Containing your photographic memory
Try as you might to rekindle a recollection within me
As you recall the times we strolled down your road arm in arm
I hate to break your heart twice over but it only brings static

I couldn’t say I have the foggiest
I don’t remember being enamoured with your frame before
Walking down abandoned docks, eating white chocolate magnums
Was that with you? With the blue bow and dolly shoes?
I can’t think of a face nor a name
Did we kiss by Dr.Chippys? Did we make love after the fireworks show?
Did you ever lie to me that Ollie Sykes could sing, by the river?
My pockets are overflowing with snapshots, but nothing to connect them

I’ll just have to take your word for it
Guide me with your palms and make me recall

*Written For National Poetry Month – 11/30*

Can A Life Be Well Lived?

Deep within the recesses of tonight’s summer dream I say
“Don’t looks some glum honey it’s better this way”
As you clutch your cyan tinted suitcase
While boarding the 7:12 to London Liverpool Street
My absence in your life in but a small price to pay
To ensure you can touch the stars you lust for at night

Yet in reality: I see girls discarding away dreams and ideas
Like a pile of first drafts overflowing from a bin
All because of that funny look their boy gives them
When they dare try to make a move in his presence
That may kick him of the top dollar spot on the throne
To die so submissively it breaks my heart

And yet even in a world where I can have anything
I’ll still let you go to makes sure you can have everything

And yet when I awake at the rise of tomorrows sun
I’ll be having breakfast alone again

I don’t think a life can be well lived
At least unless lived on your own

*Written For National Poetry Month – 10/30*

The New Life

To throw away old childhood heirlooms
Those cob webbed covered conduits of nostalgia
Into the incinerator never to act as the gateway again

That’s exactly what your demanding
When you hold out your hand by the garden entrance
To pull me away from another month spent reminiscing

But what of all the loose ends?
The stories left unfinished like a figurine catalogue
My fair murderer she’ll be left wandering in the crib

Oh what concern is it of yours?
If they want to pacify themselves on old dish water
In the face of the new life

I’ve grown soft from the old life
Where once stood armour lies a one street to my heart
That’s before I consider all the new information fed to me

Different names to scream
During the tail end of the journey to the north street light
And to express gratitude to midst a flood of impulses

Different wounds to lick
When the horns sound from the capital signifying their boredom
It’s reached it’s peak before I could even get used to their pillows

Oh what concern is it of yours?
If they want to pacify themselves on week old cherryade
In the wake of the new life

*Written For National Poetry Month – 9/30*

Read the epilogue to this poem here:
http://thetartanprelude.tumblr.com/post/84360470482/the-new-life-epilogue

The Symbolism Of Silence

I think the public image of personal growth
Has been incorrectly portrayed in the confines
Of a catch up conversation between disconnected pen pals
And with it brings a very venomous drawback indeed

Oh it shows when I’m sat slouched in my chair like quicksand
Playing Glass Harmonicas with my coffee mug
Trying to pass of asking about the rotas at your work
As a deep, meaningful and interesting conversation

Like the ones we had 5 am outside the abandoned estates
Putting the world to rights, as we deconstructed and dissect
The flawed expectations of outdated mindests of all the grown ups
But now I struggle to find the words to ask how you are

The person I long to talk too they’re dead and gone
Do you agree? Do you think the same things about me?

We were lost souls in a sea of possibilities
Being barked at from every angle to breast stroke
But young lovers will always be content
With laying on their back and floating in the ocean

But now we’ve both straightened up and fallen in line
Did we lose it? The only thing that kept us nattering for hours?
Was our sense of anarchy the only thing that binded us?
Now our paths are off in opposite directions, the distance only grows

Did you forget how to give people that look in your eye
Or do you keep it on reserves just for the next one too see?

*Written For National Poetry Month – 8/30*

Our Activity

The clock strikes around 40 minutes past 4
And so comes to end another shift as the canvas
For comrades to project their insecurities onto
Being born with a flawed blueprint, it’s the perfect excuse
Oh lucky me I’m to be greeted with an offering of h2o
Delivered from the heavens above personally

I know it sounds surreal, but their was something sweet
About being greeted with the biggest smile
Clutching your brand new set for handcuffs
It brings me right back from the soaked walk home
Shall we play cops and robbers for tonight?
Get the toppings and play DIY chef in the kitchen?
Put on the body suits and go a round of play fighting?
Or take a trip to the green in just your skirt?

I was never good to expressing myself with words
I can’t think of sentence that begins to describe
How good it feels to have a life in my life
Who can forgo all sense of verbal communication
No misunderstandings, No excess of words
Any reassurance for your daily allowance
You got in excess from our bodyflow
The only time I’m understood

And now I’m stationary in my room
Gathering moss on my flesh
Even if their words were never true
And they were planning a getaway
For the next day
Just a night to partake in our little activity

*Written For National Poetry Month – 7/30*

Thick (W.I.P)

After our friends fuck off for a fag break
We find ourselves standing side to side
With our backs to the receding wallpaper
Under the second hand Maplin spotlights
It highlights the dread in your golden eyes
No matter how many times you lick those lips
You can never reach out and claim what’s rightfully yours
You can never let a good thing just be a good thing

You stare down at your feet, looking quite forlorn
You lament how they used to call you thick
The kind of girl that couldn’t solve 2 x 4
While stuck in the middle of a Casio showroom

I know you’d rather pass a kidney stone
Then to hear about how your the apple of my eye
But god every second I see you stuck in the dumps
It sucks away my spirit like strawberry milkshake

You stare down at your shoes, like I hit a trigger
You recall how they used to call you thick
The kind of girl that receives the sniggers
While stuck in the queue at the cafeteria

Please listen to the gospel that I’m shouting
Stop using what the dregs used to say
As an excuse to not shoot for what your wanting
I’m on my knees, please baby just embrace me!
I want to tickle your toes in the bathtub
Feed you strawberries by the lakeside
Trace circles on your palm during the book club
Turn you into a god when the confidence has died
Feel you hold my arm when your overcome with fright
To see you stamp your feet when I don’t pick up the slack
Kiss you on the head and make-up after a fight
Gnaw on your neck while you leave slashes on my back
Please darling I’m fucking begging you now
Just listen to tremors coming from my chest
Put aside all them nasty scowls
And just fucking accept me for everything I am

Before I start to grow callous
And my heart turns into dust

* For National Poetry Month – 6/30 *

A Pack Of Mayfair By Any Other Name

Never you dare judge a book
By it’s tatty #yolo hoodie
And two sizes too small discount jeggings
These are the teachings of mine mother
Oh Kerrinequia-Jane-Willow Faith
They always misjudge your radiance
When they hear though the grapevine
You took that bottle of cola from the cantine
And took yourself to heaven in the bushes behind smokers
And they think they somehow know you
But I know behind the scales under your eyes
The gob splattered on the streets like breadcrumbs
And screeching Charlie XCX as you walk home
Lies a heart of gold, waiting to come out
I see it when you kiss your pet staffy
When you cry after dropping your new iPhone
When you tear the hair off a bystander
For daring to eye up your mans new Reebok’s
Oh what must I do to get you sat on my lap?
On the curb outside of the corner shop
And stealing my nuggets to get some fags
Smokin’ them all before mummy gets back
Cos I hear your fella’s in the dog house
For dealing in front of Go Banana’s again
Thank the skies above, now’s my chance!
To swoop in like a seagull to a discarded bag of chips
I’ll run my fingers though your faded ruby locks
Pushing all the dandruff to the centre of your scalp
Come on babe lets put these fingers to good use
I heard they left the disabled toilets unlocked again

*For National Poetry Month – 5/30*

If That’s How You Feel

I can’t say it doesn’t hurt
When it dawns on me I’m not the first thought of the day anymore
I can feel the stress of a stress relief weighing you down
As the distance between us only grows
Even when at arm’s length from each other
When you consider; locking fingers through suburban shortcuts
In competition to scrapbook filling crawls through the neon
It doesn’t take a philosopher to propose the theory
That your eyes don’t illuminate the dance floor
When you get a little love note form me, not anymore

If that’s the way you feel
Then hey that’s how you feel
I can’t change the way you feel
There’s nothing I can do about how you feel

I’d hate to start playing the blame game, as a way to cushion the blow
I don’t wanna call you a liar or that say you were untrue
But I’ll say you had to be exaggerating just a tad
I know it’s easy to carried away with a fresh out the box muse
To liken lazy days, tying our limbs together like shoelace knots
To the celestial phenomenon that blesses our skies every millennium
I bet you thought I was just getting carried away
I only wish that were true and that I didn’t mean every word

But hey if that’s the way you feel
Then that’s just how you feel
I can’t change the way you feel
There’s nothing I can do about how you feel

I bet even if the circumstances changed
And a blossom of blanks paraded your cache
You still wouldn’t feel a thing for me
That’s just the way they all feel

*For National Poetry Month – 1/30*

And If She Doesn’t Come Back Around… (W.I.P)

It feels like i’ve been playing tiddly winks with my time
Throwing away days and days into a discarded lunchbox
Like a schoolchild killing time, bobbing at the edge of their seat
As the clock flirts with the idea of striking quarter past 3
Just waiting for that rumoured telegram from your end
To signify your return to our beloved rock
Ideas of dipping our feet in the riverbed
While gorging on pre-planned ham sandwiches
Parade my mind like everyday’s a new Mardi Gras
Made to heighten the anticipation of tasting your mouth

Oh gem stoned eyed lady, I understand the confusion
But don’t let my solitude deceive you now
I’m less a wolf on patrol at the park gates, waiting to be fed
I’m more akin to an aktia, waiting for its master on the porch
I can see you position your hands on the bar
With the precision of an open heart surgeon
Like rooks on a chessboard, ready to claim the king
But I feel I must remind, I’m loyal to my queen
Ready to get down on my knees the very moment
That she decides to grace the streets again

But this time next week, if you see me alley bound
Like a lost pup left out in the pouring rain
Lacking the usual collar, now with no one to call my own
You’re welcome to give me shelter
Take me in your arms and take me home
And while you’re at it, take away all the grief
That comes with being abandoned on the doorstep
It takes a heart of pure gold to take in a mutt like me

Oh emerald gazed woman, I’d of tried to make you smile earlier
But I could never betray her, who showed me silver lined mornings
In a sea of gray tainted days, I could never break the heart
Of a saint who never asked for it, but in light of these events
An empty inbox, and a reservoir of unspent affection
Maybe I’ll take you up on that drink