Thursday 2 September 2010

She is like a cat in the dark, and then she is the darkness.

She stops to try and remember old routes, following the crack in the wall to where it meets the green and then she runs.
Walking alongside her you know her well but she still tries to hide. Under layers of black you begin to lose sight of her until she's gone.
Now you're lost.

We've been here before, but this time, its just me.

Monday 16 August 2010

A game of consequences

Patrick was a stocky type of a man. One with a kind face and a warm heart. He met his best friend on a boating trip back in 1986. A dropped oar turned slowly into a quiet friendship- punctuated with letters, drawings and newspaper clippings about natural marvels.
Patrick didn't make friends too easily.
He found it hard to give his heart to people, he didnt know what would be left for himself if he did. Too often did he turn back around rather then keep going, always cutting his hair instead of letting it grow.
One spring Patrick and Michael, tired of daily routines and silence decided to see some of the world. It was a simple affair, the type where you get on the bus at your doorstep and don't get off until you reach your destination.
Michael used to tell me the story at least once a week, i would listen as if it was always the first time.
A soundtrack to a holiday. For that week only it was 1969 again....
tiny hearts breaking like muffled church bells. Bread turning stale on the counter. Hands held loosely under tables. And Michael, just a child, watching his grandfather sick with cancer.
A summer spent with the curtains drawn, a summer not to be remembered fondly.
A tin of travel sweets that sat by a chair remain untouched, the sunday visits carried on. Money under carpet tiles in the dining room next to a small wooden cupboard full of condiments and freshly polished shoes by the fireplace. A long space full of somebody else's things, rooms that belonged to other people, rooms that you can't even be sure if they existed anymore.

Michael telling me stories. In Whitby, along the curve of the coast, i felt his quiet shame as his brother pushed his face into the mud. I saw his eyes, white and open against the dirt, his knees pulled up tight behind the dustbin.
I heard his mother calling him to dinner, and felt his half grown body rocking back and forth in the rain. We watched the sea pull itself back, like an intake of breath,
Michael telling me stories.

Thursday 12 August 2010

Draw a Portrait of Hayley (if she had very long hair)


Sorry it's so bad. Faces and general bodies have never been my strong point.

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Write something about home.Don't use the names of any of the places you've lived.

Playing the victim
For far too long

A gold coloured box that once made music
Now whirs and clunks and stops.

Remembering teeth,
hairpins,
dress hooks,
pins and buttons.
Laid out like bodies in a graveyard
Laid out dead in the sun
Pins in the backs of woodlice
A psychological warning ignored
Waiting always for dad to get home from work
Always waiting for dad to come home.

Sunday 1 August 2010

Write a poem about Derby. Don't use the word Derby, or any words beginning with s.


May.
Running risks and growing up fast.
Concrete benches and grassy knolls. Endless days that never turned into night.
Pointless memories.

That was the happiest time.

Home was a place to grow from and not look back. Routines to be broken and faces to forget.

I left it all on the bench we always used to go to, by the river.
I took back the necklace, it was the first.

Wednesday 28 July 2010

For Hayley

Looking longingly out of windows and sitting in our assigned positions.
This is me and this is you.

I sit and watch whilst your thread catches to build up words.
Engulfed by wool. You look content.
This is you.
Cuts and scratches on bare skin. Empty pages and tired thoughts.
This is me.

Looking forwards and never back. This can be us.







Saturday 24 July 2010

For Siobhan

The things you tried to bury
Won't sleep like you want them to.
It's an exhausting way to live,
Trees still grow when your eyes are closed
It's the hardest thing.

At night
A conversation between strangers plays out softly.
Her voice over his,
Over yours over mine
Words like tiny fists dig themselves up

It starts and it takes a little longer to fall asleep
The trees still grow in the garden

Monday 19 July 2010

New Flat Drawings




Wednesday 14 July 2010

The Tree of New Beginnings


WHAT I LEFT BEHIND

Sunday 20 June 2010

That Is All

Saturday 19 June 2010

Found

Two of us living in the same steady spaces, seamlessly moving in and out of repeating walls.
Two pairs of hands pulling at cotton, pretending we don't see the threads catch and unravel at our feet, pretending that we can hear through endless sirens.
How we work, how we don't.....
It will always be this way.

This is what happens when you keep writing stuff down.

We are not the kind of people who let go, we cling like limpets to our lives, and there is a distnace that we paw at, we draw maps to pour ourselves into.
There are places between water where we can meet.

I want an adventure.
I want to fall into the sky.
Heavy,hard,slow.

There are so many things i want to show you.
There are things I feel I should know more about, like Communist Russia and WW1,

And I guess I don’t really feel much of anything these days.

Cotton mouthed and stand-still,
I guess I don’t feel much of anything at all.

There is an endless search for shoes that don’t leak
And a resistance to most good ideas.
I think about what it is that I am leaving behind

And it isn’t much.

Friday 11 June 2010



Grey skies mute and i don't listen anymore.

Remembering always. Remembering exactly, this is harder then i said.
When you're gone and i'm gone there will be nothing more.

Remaining silent. Carry the remainder.

The final time.
I'm going to miss this.

Everything can wait. You scared?

Wednesday 2 June 2010

Moving house

A toy cat wearing your dead cat's collar
A smack in the face through water

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Thursday 29 April 2010

Monday 26 April 2010

Sunday 25 April 2010

Sunday 18 April 2010

Sunday 11 April 2010


Wednesday 31 March 2010



Meet me when the world ends
(when all this is over)



When all this is over
There will be heart shaped biscuits
A cake with your name iced on it in blue
And balloons

But
Until then
There is a black crush weighting
Something about missing someone
And a name it hurts to say

And the waiting for all this to be over

Sunday 28 March 2010

Saturday 13 March 2010

Friday 5 March 2010



Learning Spanish
Learning how to make everything alright in language




Sometimes it's hard to find words in my head. Sometimes there are no words. Just sounds.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Sunday 28 February 2010

Thursday 25 February 2010

08:35am


Tuesday 23 February 2010

Kitchen fires
Storm overhead and approaching
The waiting for Helen to call or answer
Waiting for the storm to come



Today i can't concentrate. Can't read/can't listen.

Sleeping used to come so easy.
Some days are harder then ever, i don't know why.
Sleeping/waking/walking/watching.


I just remembered.

I wait for the storm in my sleep. Remembering all the time. Remembering exactly.









Monday 22 February 2010



WHAT WE ARE LEAVING BEHIND

Tuesday 16 February 2010











Monday 15 February 2010

I won't ever leave the house again

It's worth it sometimes. This is how it should feel. This is forward.

When we say we are not afraid, we lie.


Sunday 14 February 2010

Happy 18th



Happy Birthday
You are young and you are old
And things will never feel like this again
Stop wishing you were someplace else
And stop looking for the life you dreamed you'd have by now
(in retrospect it would never have made you as happy as you imagined)

Keep making the work you want to
(it will pay off in the end)
And don't worry about the next three years
It will totally all be ok.

Things i know

Places we can go to

- Glasgow
- Manchester
- Newcastle
- Brighton
- Edinburgh

Places we can't go to

- Derby
- Leeds
- London
- Liverpool
- Nottingham
- Birmingham

Where to go and never leave

-New York
-San Francisco

Words to stop using

-Cunt
-Job
-Money
-Sex
-Passive Aggressive
-Tea/Tea bag
-Fuck
-Prick/Dick

Old news


It's always been me and you
F O R E V E R

p.s.This song is for you
(click here)

Thursday 11 February 2010


Tuesday 9 February 2010

Monday

Waking and walking
Staring and watching
Waiting and running
Remembering and diverting
Knowing and not knowing

Do you think they talk about us like we do them?


Sleeping and Upright
Shut eyes and closing
Green lights and stillness
Forgetting and following
Not knowing and knowing

Sometimes i think they can talk all they want and we'll still move in the same circles
We'll still follow the same map

Saturday 6 February 2010

cellophane rain


Late night fucking eyes averted
Thunderstorm your heart
And cut the circuit
Cut the cord

And count

Two

Three