Guts
Fuck high drop curbstones
and onrushing traffic,
and time lapsing lights
and darkening skies.
Fuck furious drivers
and speed and time,
and dead end straight streets
and sweating necks tied.
Fuck unmentioned wells
and ungripping hands
and danced unromantic
well thought out words
Fuck georgian buildings
and double-glazed windows
and beautiful girls,
and dust unquaking.
Fuck cold hands aching
and souls lost searching,
and crying, not feeling
but crying.
Fuck forgotten moments
and haunting frames,
and well preserved falsehoods
and being alone.
Fuck drunken labouring
and sad street fights
and no shattered bones
and no broken organ
Fuck colourless punches
and worn down guts
and being afraid,
and unbelieving.
Watching the wheels of
all us turning, down
and not, and all us
hoping, along the path
and drifting stream
vicious clouds of
all that brings
and all that doesn’t see.
And the wheels they will spin on, an how long, and forever
– NJ
Mature
Old face,
New shoes,
Subterranean Homesick Blues,
You listen through a bramble of headphones on the 46A
First day
Of second chance,
Not this nervous since a Valentine dance,
The fear threatens to derail you
Bus stops,
Heart doesn’t
New shoes,
Old grace,
Dusty glasses,
Briefcase,
Diarmuid Moone,
38,
First year Arts student,
Never too late
– RG
King Django
“Django’s late”, she said,
Though he’s been late for years,
I crossed her arms, while in tears,
Because I felt our love was dead —
Such germ of abortion, but I was glad,
Sipping images of a Kubrickian sad
Flick, tricked into a cinematic guise,
Hyperflowing into a river, silent and wise.
“I’ve seen this somewhere else”
She whispered in my ear, and I nodded,
Whilst this celluloid clicked and whistled.
Her legs were wrapped around a blanket
A blanket was wrapped around her legs.
I held them both to postpone an educated death.
Django never showed up, he never did, oh no!
So why wait, anyway, for his sleep-like essence?
We undress as if to tether our more than mortal presence.
– F.B
Musings of a Love-Drunk Fool
The aftermath of any kind of romantic attachment,
reciprocated or otherwise,
is awfully similar to a hangover:
There’s the nausea,
the crippling embarrassment,
the pleas for death…
of course the severity varies.
But just like a hangover,
in your lowest moments
you swear
never ever to fall in love again.
Perhaps you’re not lying
face down on the bathroom floor,
relishing the cool sensation
of the tiles on your cheek,
muttering to yourself;
promising every deity you can think of
that you will never, ever, ever again
so much as sip a wine spritzer
(never mind drink an entire shoulder of vodka…)
But you look back on
your love-drunk self and know
that this time you’ve learned your lesson.
Invariably,
next Saturday night
brings a round of pints at the pub
and suddenly
you’re back on the bathroom floor,
cursing your stupidity.
We will never stop drinking.
We will never stop falling in love.
Because however high the pay-off,
however big the risk,
however hellish the hangover,
before the crash;
it just feels too damn good.
– AH
Streets
Crowded streets
Empty faces
Only one
Yours
– NM
