We caressed under the full bake of the glowering sun
indulgent, excessive and self-destructive whilst
we raged the angry addiction that we knew we didn't fit
we turned our backs to not hide the shrug at the ignorance at lives
of malls and laminated floors flightless
and we backed against the bullet holed confessional wall
that gets away and out of our way but in someone's way
to hold that memory as if it was our own
and saw this was not a temple of cosy disobedience
but rotting streets in outright fire of flame thrower liberation !
and this lunge to brutalize was a curse and commandment too
that required what seemed like inhuman effort
where we turned upon our torture of youthful floundering
and drank to unrepentance and to a Mediterranean standing tall
that we clamoured for change not recall
and chanted angry at Tiananmen's fall
and saw slaughtered the dreams yet took hope
that Soviet Union's desperate splinter would self-devour
and our ignoble fight in fleeing Barca's step
would even out but not when cowering in Dickensian' s own
rallying turned forgotten corners
veered and rammed
with shadows barely concealing the primal cloak
that bitter test that Victorian of all grimy lurk
that stirred amidst the plot
a caustic blur of bleach and turps
never caring how and when do we wear upon the lot.
But injury for scars? Or did we let slip the self of wars
those wandering amongst the sacramental relics
so giddy at being held responsible or contrive
for never being or become just to blot and blip
upon the grip of the blade that opens a map and drawn lines' wayward call
because what yet will how we remain yesterdays to trip or rip
an evening where social frail ends and holy grail illudes
and a brush begins with the peace that may start wars
when we collude and cross our times' swoop
that shallow of mortal gravity
and so place our wrinkled palm upon the hand brakes
when we accelerate beyond our laws
to our relief and our goodbye
reckless contrary much of shifting the lurch
crying those lies and grimacing those clocked of their perch
there's no place like this no sky to best
you're a sun-guide now to our ageing rest
that hope that we can forgive
less than we hope to be forgiven
even if that shine of sun is all strong
and our last thread to pull is not too long
that we don't unravel each of all of us ourselves
is still not in my fief to be given
places and faces' well
that ancient mine both the slope and the cliff face
to which we may all be driven
and this page can wither and customs stale the pale
grate from which we all flow
by chance or failure into our
finite variety from which we file
passed our teeth that may fall out but we may not
and be gorged in mud battles and not spare in blood
that isolated power of thought in that music of memory may be the cost
I will still pray that I parade its truth
and serenade until eyes and ears scorn
and tears not lost to expose the rancid spells
and turns the souls into these threshing of minds
that lie beneath a piled sky
the running ruin of all fears flogged old
yet can stir us all in
and build a forge upon our own glory howl
that can shake the furnace that fire all human gold