Latest Work

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• Love’s Young Dream

  We drove each other around our hometowns: “This

  Is the house that Jack built. This is one place we got stoned
  And stoned
  And stoned and stoned and so

  Wasted. We were always so wasted! Why was that? Why did I…
  O you too? Mad, isn’t it—wanting
  To be off our faces all the time when we were

  So young!” Showing, not telling each other—ourselves.
  Not listening
  To each other ourselves                still very much
  Children, together—in the car,
  In the dark—at each other’s

  Throats all the time, screaming, only into our
  Own voids                echoes: please see this.

  ---

• Slugs

  “And this is why I sojourn here”
  —John Keats, ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’

  I was finally leaving the woods
  When I saw, a slug
  Waving at me
  Quietly softly sweetly, then loudly
  In an odd tone, though I was one to enjoy such oddities
  Back then. I nearly
  Stood on it, the slug,
  It putting itself right at my feet, but then it repeated
  Its sweetness at me, as it seemed
  To know I enjoyed such oddities
  Back then.
  After all, I’d returned its wave!
                                                  Only it was that
  That sent me back to the woods
  And my wild for a while as the slug
  Kept me talking and sharing, which was getting me
          Lost again as I
  Did not notice the slug slowly getting
          Away from the woods, me
          More lost in its tangle of weeds that
                  The slug was freed
                  From the slug
                          With a new voice, the voice not so sweet, the slug
                                  Leaving now with their wave
                          At the end a bye
                                          This time, as they shouted
                          Back to me
          In their wild
          Wood, “No no no no no! Are you
                          Sure? Because you see, I am sure
                                                  I never did wave at you.”

  (A version of this poem was first published in The Poetry Lighthouse, January 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/poems?author=67895f97e13a9f080f97d21f) and was shortlisted for The Poetry Lighthouse Prize. It appears in The Poetry Lighthouse Anthology: Volume II, July 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/books-tpl-1/the-poetry-lighthouse-anthology-volume-ii))

  ---

• Event Horizon

  Went t’ end of all this, me.
  “Wow! Really?! What was there?”

  Nowt.
  “Nothing?”
  Nah.
  “No… things?”
  Nah.
  “No people?”
  Ha! Nah.
  “No world?”
  Nah. No planets or owt.
  “No

  Poetry?”
  Kinell! Need clip ‘round ear you do, ked!

  “What about accents? Any of those?”
  Nah. No accents or owt.

  Just bits ah that, lark,
  Homogenised southern noise.

  ---

• Sex Work Architecture

  Built me
  And they did come.

  ---

• Stock Take

  He edits his poems
  And reads them back
  And thinks to himself, “No wonder—

  No bloody wonder!—

  She didn’t put up with him
  In the clouds
  Like that.”

  ---

• Please Let Him In: It’s for All Our Sakes

  I am a very different animal today I can just about feel that;
  Though when I was at the madhouse
  Yesterday, I nearly went off again
  With all that. Again. Nearly. But right at the end—and it was tight—
  I brought myself back with a walk and a rum
  And a sad poem, and I took the poem back to the madhouse
  To try my best with the staff; but it was of no use: they would not let me in;
  They would not let them out. I tried screaming at them,
  Banging on the windows and climbing on the roof; but that too—
  No use; and I went back to my walk and rum
  And sad poem, all alone in my wildness again. A man with a hat
  Came at me then when he saw me walking along with my rum
  And poem. He assessed it (he said he was formally introduced) and he did not
  Find my poem sad, though he did say it was…
  Now what were his words?…
  “Surreal. Comic. Absurd!
  Poorly placed.”
  “Well, formal my foot,” I thought.
  “He hasn’t even acknowledged my haughty metanarrative.”

  ---

• I Dread to Think

  Vera and Jack
  Or Hughes and Plath?
  The problem is
  Both of us dread and think.

  O how I wish my head was full of pigeons
  And not poetry.

  ---

• Creepy Fox in the Style of Billy Joel

  In the middle of the night
  I go searching in your bins
  Finding empty beer cans
  And your crisp packet sins

  You must be searching for something
  In all that junk you eat
  And why lie to your friends
  About not eating meat

  In the middle of the nighttttt.

  ---

• 1720-Week Marathon Training Plan for a Beginner, Day One, Minute One

  I can’-
  We can.
  I can’t get up
  We can. We a bit open already.
  It’s too hard
  We aren’t going anywhere. We’ll get up.
  I can’t. It’s too hard. I’ll neve-
  We aren’t going anywhere.
  I can’t begin
  We a piece of shit. It’s fantastic. We own it. We’ll get up.
  I can’t
  Put our foot on the floor.
  No
  We think we consciously decide? Put our foot on the floor.
  Fuck you
  Did it though, didn’t we: put our foot down. Now, get u-
  I’m up. So what. I feel-
  Fucking rotten. Yes fucking rotten. What a rotten piece of shit we are. Glorious.
  Why do this
  It’s not us. Bad birth or something. Who cares.
  I care
  Tricked you! We knew we cared. How quick was that this time?
  I fucking hat-
  And I doff our cap to us. We brilliant and hilarious. Now, shower time.
  No
  We fucking stink. We a dirty rat. We opening up.
  No
  Look what we did though. Look what we did.
  Whatever you say next, we can go to the beginning and see we can do it. We see we’re going to win.
  I can’t make the shower. I can’t
  Our shoulders are back. We know it. We did that.
  We are winning, even if we don’t see it now. We are telling we: we win.
  I can’t-
  We a fucking rat. We going to shower eventually.
  I can’-
  We going to win eventually.
  I can-
  OK great let’s go

  ---

• Early Listening Is Key

  “But I am so self-aware
  So how could I ever hurt you?”
  Excellent thing to say.
  Held your stance just right.
  Held your forehead muscles just right.

  ---

• The Point, For Now

  Where is my voice
  If this is poetic?
  Where is my voice
  Behind dashes and edits?
  Where is my voice
  If there’s only this page?
  Where is my voice
  If I exist only staged?

  It is nowhere.
  I have made myself fictions alone.
  I am distinct from memory and matter.
  I am only the chiming of words at all times.

  This works thinly for me
  Just fine.

  And of course, I get to be anything
  You want
  On paper.

  ---

• Heavy Workout (Christmas Day)

  I would not strangle anyone
  In real life (without consent), but if I could
  Do it to one person, smushing
  All of them into the paper

  For a poem, it would be you. Get right into your neck
  I would. Proper wring it out, like

  Nails digging into your neck severing a few things even
  Chewing on what flopped out biting into the
  Tubes and veins getting covered in blood gorging
  On the brains guts bone b-

  O my god—I’m so sorry!
  It’s just the gym’s closed.

  ---

• Accusations

  “I believe it was Robert D. Hare, was it not?”
  I was on a cliff edge as they scrambled for the past.
  Fascinating insights; but Jesus Christ, faking empathy?

  All of my lovers have adored petting dogs, but do I judge?
  I’m always the other side of the street anyway, as a constant, that’s all,

  Drawing parallel lines
  Unaware—unseen—in the bushes.

  ---

• I Told My Therapist I Was…

  “‘Tant poëte que je sois, je ne suis pas aussi dupe que vous voudriez le croire, et si vous me fatiguez trop souvent de vos precieuses pleurnicheries, je vous traiterai en femme sauvage, ou je vous jetterai par la fenêtre, comme une bouteille vide.’”
  —Charles Baudelaire, ‘La Femme sauvage et la Petite-Maîtresse’

  …the only thing that existed
  She said this was a problem
  I said it was a useful fiction
  She said this was a problem

  I instrumentally conceded it was a problem in a poem
  She suggested a role-playing exercise
  I threw her out the window
  She read this poem

  I sent it to her before our first session
  She wrote me a poem
  I said it was a useful fiction
  She said to imagine people, not as naked, but as non-existent

  I said this was unethical
  She said it was a useful fiction
  I threw her out this poem
  She threw me out the window

  I added this instrumentally to a poem
  She said her non-existence was a useful fiction
  I sent this poem to myself before our first session
  She told me I was the only thing that existed

  I read out a poem
  She said this was absurd, delusional, schizophrenic
  I said this was better than actually being so
  She said, she said, “Go.”

  ---

• Near the Start After a Trip to Waitrose

  “I feel there’s something missing”
  —Squeeze, ‘Up The Junction’

  Cheers to the mirror with a beer.
  A knockdown rotisserie chicken for dinner.
  I am all of the things

  For myself now, and probably will be
  For some time to come. But if I’m being honest
  With myself, I have been

  In my own world for what seems
  Like all of time, only now
  I have the space to autotune

  My own reflection, whilst undoing
  Every past lesson.
  And so
          

  This wish bone is all mine! As are all my
  David Chase dissections

  And analytic
  Observations, judgements

  For me to deliver and assess as I see them
  Alone, this all

  Much better than being asked, “What oil would you like,
  Babe?”—argh!

  He seemed
  Undeserving of her attention

  And shopping trolley
  In the supermarket just now

  As I got my chicken, the mummy’s boy.
  But

  Somebody’s boy
  Nonetheless, wasn’t he (though too shy

  To climb in the trolley for her, weren’t you—to jump about
  For her like I would). And who am I

  To anyone
  Now that I only sit alone, drinking

  With my silent phone? But that’s right! I am the ever-so
  Ever-so good boy
          

  Waving at myself in the mirror, that’s who: “How do, big lad!”
  And I am ever-so

  Ever-so clever with it all, as I only
  Get to answer back (for now)

  As I redraft.

  ---

• Bank Holiday Shenanigans

  It’s the Sunday afternoon of the Jubilee weekend
  I’m behind the bar polishing the same glass
  The Dalai Lama walks in holding a gun to his head
  He stops in the middle of the bar, the celebrations on the TV going past
  He nods at the TV and walks to the bar
  And sits down. “Usual please, barman.” He doesn’t remove
  The gun from his head. Sylvia looks up from the corner to check.
  “No. Not yet.” She bends back down to the oven
  And waits. Dalai sits nursing his drink. A gambler walks in
  And stretches next to him. They make eye contact. They consider each other.
  “Why not,” Dalai says. The gambler runs outside. He sets himself
  On fire. A new girl is piling up empties in the back. “Another,” I shout.
  “I didn’t sign up for this.”
  The next two years are quiet. Only Sylvia
  Checking. I polish the same glass. A professor
  From the Doctorised Collective of Everything Knowable® walks in
  With seventeen suits on, his eyes narrow.
  He’s got sick on all his layers. Everyone ignores him.
  He points at me.
  “I don’t get you: that’s clean!” “Finally!” says
  Dalai. “You can take a seat now, Doc.” He’s still holding his gun. I’m still polishing
  The same glass. “That took a while!” from the back.
  “Can I take one of your jackets for you?” from me.

  ---

• Corridor

  Went in the bar
  Might have been a hotel or hospital
  A car boot sale
  Mostly silent—some artists
  A child spinning around in the corner
  Glazing at the two inches before his eyes
  Some whistles
  Some kisses and laughs
  An actor screaming from the back in practice
  Mostly floor looking but enough
  “I’m not very visual, so I just listened”
  From the front
  There was a shop
  No one mentioned the queue around it
  Each slipping past unnoticed for dinner
  Bed
  The rhythm was there—it built up
  But there was not a teacher
  Must’ve been put out

  And it grew—that was felt
  Then someone cried and left

  A man walked up open mouthed to speak
  Last minute closure as he went by
  He left the child behind revealed and deconstructed
  He smiled at each tune

  Getting himself down to a one-inch stare

  On his way to a corridor he liked

  ---

• A Putter at the Golf Range – Chained to the Green So It Can Be Used by the Public, but Not Stolen – With a Plan to Escape

  I’m having so much fun for them
  But they’ll never notice
  My long game.

  ---

• House Rules (Should Have Been Albert)

  In this house
  Before we shout
  We say, “I love you!”
  Then let it out

  On our own
  With a scream
  In a pillow.
  Then we snog.

  ---

• Opposite McDonald’s

  A lot of books—”highly addictive: don’t start” cut out on top.
  “I’m none of those things!”: my head.

  You sure? she said        across me—
  felt me—

  “Don’t read into them.”

  ---

• To Be Sung to the Tune of ‘My Favourite Things’

  Ignoring our trauma, gaslighting each other.
  Hating your girlfriend ‘cuz she’s like your mother.
  Stories we play out like puppets on strings
  Deluded in thinking we’re choosing these things.

  When my love shouts,
  When tension mounts,
  When we say, “You’re fucking mad!”

  I simply remember we don’t choose a thing, and then I don’t feel
  Sooooo bad.

  (A version of this poem was first published in my pamphlet L’etoile, October 2024. Redacted copy available here: https://ashleydunn.co.uk/letoile-redacted/)

  ---

• Train Wreck

  I once had a lover
  who stole my literature: she stormed

  out with Anna Karenina, the protagonist
  lost in her.

  ---

• A Fantastic Daydream of Personal Triumph

  Pity pity this ditty ditty
  My phone wanted “dirty dirty”
  It knows how to write bad poetry
  Using words so world don’t hurt me
  Creating—attending—new tea party
  Dreaming I’m up high like Lucy
  Lazy, really: rhymes of just “e”
  Not quite Whitman; more like Mitty

  ---

• Discreet Service at Prices You Can Afford

  “You could be an escort!
  Actually, don’t do that.
  Actually, do what you want!
  Or I could do that actually!”

  She was sliding over all the options, bouncing
  From branch to branch: “Escort me! Escort me!”

  And all I could do
  Was keep up with it: attentive, erect,

  Free.

  ---

• Poets, At Times

  I wander about
  On my own
  Because I am an adult poet. It is

  Cloudy. The mystic of my life
  Has gone. I

  Cling to the whimsical
  And Astral Weeks. I

  Drift through the park
  Trying to find…

  There’s a teenage couple kissing on a bench in the park after school!!!
  They can’t stop!!!
  They stop and look around before carrying on again!!!
  There is nothing else for them to do!!!
  It is such an urgent act for them!!!
  Their bodies hardly move!!!
  They may not even be moving their lips!!!

  It looks mechanical
  Like it always was, but it is loud and
  Electric and not cloudy and

  I want to be like him! No! Not like…
  Not like that! But…

  I want to be like her! No! Not like…
  Not like that! But…

  I want to be them
  In my school uniform
  Trapped on a bench
  Absorbed crushed broken chained to the mystic

  And whimsical

  Without any of this.

  (A version of this poem was first published as ‘Grow Up’ in A New Ulster, Issue 116, August 2022 (https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu116))

  ---

• He Didn’t Want This One

  You do not know what I am going to do.
  You have no idea where I am going

  And who I am dragging up.
  Get with my history

  Or mourn. Get with my poetry
  Or perish. Me and my

  Piped: we don’t like the semantics
  No more.

  ---

• Not Me With All These Sins, About to Cast All These Stones

  “I was lost, I was lost
  Crossed lines I shouldn’t have crossed
  …
  How long must you pay for it?”
  —Coldplay, ‘In My Place’

  These past few years I have relived everything (we once met an old couple
  In Corfu, I think it was, the “we” being me and my first girlfriend. God I was cruel to her
  (They’d worked together at Clarks shoes and had lived in the low-cost housing on the site of the factory
  In Street. They dumped so much on us that holiday! They were reliving everything too)); and

  It can be so innocuous, what comes back, though it has been a thorough,
  Thorough bombardment of memories for me, at times, and I have felt quite guilty
  (And annoyed! They simply would not be quiet! And they were on that terrace
  Every! bloody! evening! I just wanted to speak to my girlfriend

  But I couldn’t (and now, an hour or so later, at least two
  Other holidays have come back to me (along with other pettiness
  And cruelty) as I still
  Only discard my days in the sun here

  Vaguely—cowardly—as I write
  And peel away more and more vacant memories
  That seem only to highlight others)) while they
  Ruined our whole trip for us!

  (A version of this poem was first published in The Poetry Lighthouse, January 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/poems?author=67895f97e13a9f080f97d21f) and was longlisted for The Poetry Lighthouse Prize. It appears in The Poetry Lighthouse Anthology: Volume II, July 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/books-tpl-1/the-poetry-lighthouse-anthology-volume-ii))

  ---

• Apparently

  I am getting much better
  At writing and deleting
  When it is shit; which keeps

  My head out my arse—the oven.

  ---

• Outside Workshop

  “I do not know who I think I am, but I will scan it
  All first (and it better be on one page, or three
  At most, if the look of it feels worthy) and if there is a word
  I do not know I will not read it. They are making
  No effort with me, so let them stay
  Unread and skint in hysteria and compounded compounds. I am rich
  And sexed and chipped and delusional. I make up
  What I want to and I barely know
  Who I am, but it is a flying and unputdownable
  Piece of work. Hardly consistent, me, I am. Angry
  And unpoetic; unruly and unmeasurable. But at least
  I am not unnecessary and inaccessible. And I am unserious
  Too, which is what I like, unless I’m the one writing it.”

  ---

• Dance, as They Can’t Look Now

  Dance like no one is watching—
  Existing at all—
  Or pretend they all are
  To keep them watching

  And if they continue to stare
  Dance more
  Go berserk
  Make them wince

  Keep spinning
  Dance near them
  Bump into them
  Poison their quiche

  Advance further
  Get them out their seats
  Pour questions over them
  Enforce anxiety

  Provide aftercare
  Burn the dance floor
  Spit on the carpet
  Piss in the complimentary wine

  Sleep with their partner
  Show them a nameless god in your crotch
  Tickle their pet
  Burn all their books and shadow puppet a rework

  Dribble in their mouths
  Offer to touch them right, well, correctly
  Sing the wrong words and shrug
  Stand still staring at the wall

  Eat meat and reveal your favourite football team
  Ask yourself what you’re willing to do with them when you’re both furious
  Notice them sweating, hard, wet
  Spin off making them chase

  Point them back to their chair
  Reference mummy watching over them
  Suggest a slow one first
  Stare at them until they choose whose arms they’ll die in tonight—forever.

  Or pretend
          

  They are all gone—
  That you dance alone.
  That was back then; they can’t look now.
  They can’t look now at all.

  (A version of this poem was first published as ‘Dance Like It Was Back Then And It’s Gone’ in A New Ulster, Issue 116, August 2022 (https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu116))

  ---

• Aftermath of a Much Longer Title

  Baby, it went: you were baby
  no more. The shaking and sliding

  and whatever it was
  remained, that’s all.

  I can’t remember the verb—it was a wild day—
  all left on the page where it should be.

  Now, just me
  on the path without cares

  or paper; and I’m dancing
  free of you and that syntaxed

  mood, baby.

  ---

• An Abundance Of Love

  “I couldn’t ever bring myself to hate you as I’d like”
  —The Stone Roses, ‘I Am the Resurrection’

  You can stand on my toes you can
  Spit on my feet you can
  Make my mind twist you can
  Bad nice bad sweet; but you’ll get no bite
  From me
  No more. I’ll love you
  And send you the warmest, brightest,
  Kindest regards—even if
  You chewed up my heart for a sixty-third time; because you’re no sweat
  For a saviour like me: you’re small fry;
  And it’s nothing for me to love
  Love love you
  And say bye (or to revisit

  This later for edits;
  And to leave matters open
  With an abundance of love

  (A version of this poem was first published as ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again (With Love)’ in A New Ulster, Issue 116, August 2022 (https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu116))

  ---

• Was Struggling

  Everything I do
  Is not ringing you
  It’s poo
  (This too)

  ---

• Rocna

  “I fly above you, yes I do”
  —Syd Barrett, ‘Terrapin’

  Screaming at me, it was: “What are you saying?!”
  But the anchor
  Couldn’t reach
  My ceiling.

  I tried to pull it up, but it wouldn’t
  Let go; so I stayed

  With “Stupid thoughts!”
  And godly glow.

  ---

• [insert enemy here]

  “They shovel dirt in your face.
  You should thank them. And thank them again”
  —Duo Duo, ‘Looking Out From Death’

  I have not rolled around in filth
  And bore and eaten and clawed
  At horror, for your encompassing doom—which

  I now master, with both sight
  And description—to have its way with me; as I am laughing
  At you now—at you in me—and I am wailing

  And screaming in your face as you will go
  Before I do. You see that speck
  Miles away? It could take me

  Lifetimes again—and it may not be for me
  In the end; but I am getting back to that
  So I can move more words and wilderness

  And whatever it takes to pull others
  Away from you; as I know your playgrounds
  And ways, and I can disappear

  And trick too. And you will know
  Nothing about me until it’s too late.

  ---

• A Poetic Distraction

  As I glance
  Skyward
  The top of a church
  Meets
  A seagull
  Which seems to hang in the air
  On the sun-soaked nebulations of our heights
  The seagull
  Appearing
  Poised
  And ready to swoop
  And feed
  On a strewn mash of cheese and onion
  Crisps
  With a metaphor
  I didn’t measure
  With enough
  Care

  And do you ever see me walking the streets muttering to myself about you?

  ---

• I Hate Him

  Nothing walked into a writing class
  Didn’t sit down
  Gave us nothing
  Went on its merry way
  We all gave up: Jenny
  Brought in hemlock the following week (I left this note).

  ---

• Land of the Long White Cloud

  The covers end, they all go home—
  You lift my seams unseen and there’ll

  Be countless more scores, like this, that are
  Big, bad, exhausting seas but I’m
  Not alive there: how lovely for me.

  Cry away to your island now, please.
  This life is duller, but I’ll only get a poorly head.

  ---

• It Stinks (Time Takes a Cigarette)

  I keep catching planes
  And steam trains away from you, but you still
  Linger in my air, as I try
  To relight myself, after us.

  And after all my criticism
  Of your smoking, guess
  What area of the airport
  I’m putting this out in?

  ---

• Two Man in Milan

  “Who’s driving this anyway?”
  —White Lies, ‘Death’

  We bend around the road. She crosses
  The lanes. The white flash flash flash
  Does not concern her: her alien
  Style; her foreign land. I am going to mine
  Alone. I am losing alone again.
  But could this be profitable?

  I watch words on the tip of my mind’s lips
  Go by; and I hate those kinds of lines.
  But when I am bored
  And dumb, I record some,

  Because when I am more capitalistic I will sell.
  I should be
  An especially better Buddha though. But can I force…

  …What is it? This is exactly the nothing of me currently, as I am not
  Even up today

  Yet, and it all seems

  Already lively: she must not
  Have thought that, surely? Was that me?
  But fine don’t

  Turn with the road, my lover—go straight

  Through all the railings and take our wanderings
  Away so we can stop
  Wondering about…

  …Her hand on my leg, which is very
  Steadying
  Before a flight. Bravo.

  (A version of this poem was first published in The Poetry Lighthouse, January 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/poems?author=67895f97e13a9f080f97d21f))

  ---

• That Keeps Him in the Corner

  Man in the corner:
  He’s gena bore ya; or,
  Be very freaky—
  Let’s have a peek… he

  Is writing or reading or riotously sounding better
  So he can have longer tries at analysing all this before they all
  Turn around
  To look at him; or, it is in the
  Question of
  This this this
  That stops them turning—
  That keeps him in the corner a-creeping(?
  Sneaking?)
  Faking: a phoney area of the world conscious of
  Deliberate looks and bare thought.
  He looks magnificent for the century though, for sure,
  But that’s about it, I doubt.

  Still uses the cutlery witho-
  (Don’t question again);
  But unfazed, now, as he is, there’s all the,
  Who put that there?
  Who put all the lessons to learn from along the way there?
  And that’s a lot of work, that, even if he explored it all
  Unemotionally
  Without teacher, hand, band minus 3-lettered Morrisons.

  This storm rider here though—
  This viaductee—
  Is off non-metaphorically to a mirror.
  It is still him in a bar edged—
  Still etching;
  Him solo—hollow—with a lone pen for a reality drawn out;
  Him in a rhyming cap
  Staring back

  Only daring to be impenetrably alone—
  Solely so boring and freaky;
  And away from the point.

  ---

• Nahhhhh

  “Bro that is some sickkkkk, spellbound shit, man—you should tell them!”
  “O! I… I…

  I said something like “If even one person
  is still having to use even a single poem
  to get through this thing, then we’re all
  still going wrong somewhere.” But it’s just… you know…
  It’s jus-”

  “Nahhhhh, bro! What you said is some deeeeeep, eternal truth, man!
  And you should definitely tel-“

  “O! I… well… I know!
  And it’s fine… but…

  …It’s fine… but…

  …It’s just that… that I was going to say…

  that they’ll probably disregard it
  because of our voices, mate.”

  ---

• Not Quite Set

  I wish I could still lie in the lies of funding and foreigners
  And would’ve accepted the closed spectrums of materialism and mates
  But it was in solipsism that I first found dusted top—calculated crowd—
  Distracting me in my symbolic belief of whatever I needed—
  Of whatever kept me acadeemed and drunk: I fingered
  Feigned and forgot; I stayed at the edge of periodically emptied sets.
  And I continue to fine grain them with a thinner and thinner hammer
  But a hammer it still be: stop judging me.

  I don’t know what to say about it all, let alone myself now:
  Could I put my hand on their stomach without anyone flinching?
  Could I make it sound like a necessary second bullet?
  My heart beats ignorantly, but I feel

  Something different, so while I ready my hands
  A few more times my
  Words might show something more

  Only once in a while—certainly not like this—

  As I keep readying myself.

  ---

• In the Waves

  “And here I am
  Standing in your sad arrest
  Trying to do my very best”
  —Van Morrison, ‘Astral Weeks’

  Wants on a roadmap astrally placed by talk before we faced forms.
  Girl on a beach—on a beach. On my beach asleep with all red lines
  And duck feathers: I have the rock, I swear. “It is the best ever!” I swore to her.

  We didn’t fall where our child couldn’t.
  We looked from the window resistant but we slowly relented
  Resenting with them.

  I wish the band would play—I think your slips would hear that:
  A boy dying in an armchair; a long long race: “Look, girl!”
  Not enough for anyone from a closed view.

  I am going through too many fields these past two five years
  And I see him standing in yours; and you are going home to a house
  Where that movie whistles to you—I know. To that maddening, I know.

  I cannot tell you though: the looping and looping and looping
  Of your scenes; the rubbing of finger and thumb and I tricking I:
  Duck feathers; wrong flavour. Will you smoke them?

  I hope one of us doesn’t kill the other. I don’t want to finish
  The words now: I feel here. I absolutely know
  This is not what to say, only how to say it.

  Girl on a beach. Weeks ago I had the girl on a beach all my lines
  And slips and feathers—a closed window—a fast house in the clouds—
  Too small a rock on my map. But you were on mine:

  The bands played you all the time without a notice from me:
  I don’t want it to get to the slow song and this is the last album
  Of our venture, surely. It pointed to you before form, so long ago

  In a studio before us. He surely couldn’t have known: I have to be vague
  But it is going through something it must be going
  Through something as I am, “Car sick

  Only now. Not at sea alone please.
  Mapped before us in our own free field, I swear,
  I swear—please…”

  Still not here nor there—nowhere—
  But gone past.
  A boy waiting in the waves.

  ---

• Authenticity Exercise in a Workshop When You Probably Shouldn’t Be Out the House

  …And so now, try to write a piece
  That authentically represents you—one that speaks foremost
  To you—and you will slowly see that…

  Surely the sporadic nature of my words
  Makes it obvious that I broke myself and now exist in parts?
  Surely that demonstrates that I am both here and enlightened?
  And I know how to not mention that

  In the formal, indirect way, too.
  So where’s my The Power of Now? Where’s my only seeing it
  From the top of the psychiatric wards
  Up, while they get ignored?

  It is so grossly unfair and I cannot bear it.
  Of course, I do and can, as I can separate myself
  Just
  About fine. But still! (O I bloody well am

  “Still”. Bloody horizontal, I am!
  “Stop talking to yourself!”)
  “Wow! This stuff really works!

  Sorry! I didn’t mean to shout!
  (Although

  They didn’t say to write it
  In silence

  Up there. “Yeah!”) Yeah!

  Sorry again.”

  ---

• Not Quite Pixar

  “I spoke
  To a man down at the tracks
  And I ask him
  How he don’t go mad”
  —Television, ‘Marquee Moon’

  Kid—it ain’t quite Sid—it ain’t quite Woody.
  But if you can ride this out

  Ignoring their noise, penning
  Some calm and balance

  And poise: well, it can be half
  Not bad—half not good.

  Like a falling together
  Between charged and pretty

  Perhaps. A dog
  In and out a worn basket

  Captures it: homely; steady.

  (A version of this poem was first published in A New Ulster, Issue 116, August 2022 (https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu116))

  ---

• Awareness of the Space, Apparently

  …As if it’s in the middle of a meditation in the middle of a poem.
  Can’t just be looking around the room for it anymore:
  My bike of thought is too sharp. We need rhythm.
  And they won’t read it how I wrote it. Slightly removed is better,
  But what isn’t? No—that’s too sharp of a word to use: I won’t.
  This all sounds too much though—the next and the next and the next.
  But how will they know to say it like that school visitor?
  And this is your problem: it’s completely inaccessible.
  You flirt with this obtuseness and madness choosing to say it… how?
  What? She reduced to, she? They reduced to they. It flies past;
  And what is grabbed at: the middle of an “ayyyy”? Nearly halfway down now—
  There’s rhymes: you’re so predictable (I’m watching this abuse,
  Don’t worry). The arrogance he just smiled at me too: it makes reality all silly.
  And you know what’s coming now, like, a sort of a twinge
  Of a needle in the big right toe, which is now below the heel.
  And—after studying it much—what’s there? All that graft graft
  Grafting with your pen. Honestly? Really. It’s completely inaccessible,
  And you cannot hide by repeating it again, or by diverting into bars.
  And I walked past one bar; and I- (I’m not there yet, so I’ve just deleted it.
  It’s not even interesting). I’m nothing to do with this. Ask him—are you?
  (No.) Maybe I’ve started something. I need to do one about stage, performance
  And anti-realism but I won’t. (That’s too sharp. Best to…) Doesn’t make sense
  To bracket a speech interruption now though, does it. But if he’d had
  The bottle he’d have kept that to one line. Inconsistent formatting
  Per voice, too. O and if she knew what they’d…

  ---

• Good. Bad. Living. Hungry. In Love.

  But if I was truly [insert word or phrase here
  From title] I do not think
  I would write a single thing about it (but this is only me

  Now: please read my other poems).

  ---

• Talking to Salmon Trousers

  “And I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote
  And wrote and wrote and wrote.

  And I ain’t got me no money
  And I ain’t me got no boat.”

  Top bloke! Took me on his boat!

  And he slapped my back just right.
  And bought me beer all night.

  ---

• The State of Me, Love, This

  It has been 22 3 months
  And I wake up incredulous with you again
  (Like you used to, actually)
  But I’ll love you again
  By lunch
  Then they’ll be a tossing confusion
  (This is stronger when I’m hungover)
  But after a sandwich it’ll be greeting card love again: tidy and ignorant.

  Then I’ll talk to you in my head
  Or argue with
  Laugh at
  Torment you (but you’re really
  Tormenting me, aren’t you?)
  Then it’ll be that bottom-line love again
  And it’s testing and toing and froing
  And it ain’t achieving a lot
  And it ain’t poetic

  And it’s probably unhealthy (probably
  Medicalisable, too

  Along with all the rest of me—I mean

  Look at the state of this)

  (A version of this poem was first published in Roi Faineant Press, August 2022 (https://roifaineantarchive.wixsite.com/rf-arc-hive/post/the-state-of-me-love-this-by-ashley-dunn))

  ---

• Dear Mother, I Have News

  “If mama knew now
  How you turned out, you too wild
  You too wild, you too wild
  You too wild, I need you now”
  —Kanye West, ‘Wolves’

  Dear Mother, we talk and message
  But a letter in this instance must be used, for I have
  Some twisting news, and it needs presenting in print. To begin with, I am fine
  In my new city—studying, young and pretty; and I am getting

  O Mummy! I know… I know I’m only putting it off. My letter is just a means
  For something else—to only tell you something else. I saw a sight in the city today, and so
  Brilliant a sight it was! They were doing a shooting in the park. Shooting
  An advert in the park. Then some glorious being from the margins—or the
  Sky?—jumped in front of the camera and wouldn’t let them shoot the film.
  Refused to let them! So they had to stop the shoot until the police took him.
  And he told my close friend’s friend that he did it, “To even things out,” alone. That he
  Worked only alone, too, and that, “Even the rise in food critics and child poverty
  Are causally linked.” That was enough for me. I got it. I understood him.
  And so… O Mummy: be patient and loving! And so, Mummy, I have quit.
  I am no longer studying, young or pretty. I am now wild. I do not read or think.
  I jump in front of shoots and silliness—adverts and frivolousness—and this’ll be
  The life for me; and also my last letter. I hope, sincerely, Mummy… O
  Mummy! I hope that you read and read and read, but only this letter
  From me. Or just until you feel it all, too? Then read what you like.
  I’m silly to the cameras, but
  History might see things, and me, differently. And then forget me, I think?
  I hope.

  O Mummy, do you see why I used a letter
  One final time? Because please,
  Mummy—you must.

  ---

• Against Poems About Birds

  I was walking along and I saw a sparrow
  But I realised quickly that I needed a fellow
  And although that rhymes it’s still not quite clear
  What it is I need to be walking near

  ‘Cause I need a voice not a winged metaphor
  Who can say to me what this poem is for
  And of course, a proper bloke! is what I need for this
  Who can tell me straight what my one point is

  So take the “O!” off “fellow”
  And add an “a”
  And now I have my “fella”
  And he did say

  “Fucking hell, pal—stop writing poems about birds, yeah?”

  ---

• O.L.I.V.I.A.

  “I need a heart abyssal in its depth”
  —Charles Baudelaire, ‘The Ideal’

  “O” is for the “O” at the start of her name.
  “L” is for the love that will drive me insa-

  Fuck that. I can feel her rolling her eyes already.
  But “Liv”: the intoxicating bitc…

  …Bewitcher; whose eyes
  Just stopped me thinking up “IVIA.”

  ---

• Manic Rambling in Spoons 2

  Him there—across from me—with the depth and the pint
  (It is always ourselves):
  I should pull his ontology from under him with my anti-realism.
  If only I had something to hold on to though.
  But I don’t want humour and hyphens, if I can help it.
  I’d prefer
  (For the poetry, of course):
  Soft cupid;
  Doves and Fairy Liquid adverts.

  I don’t truly care for metaphysics either.
  That means “nothing” to me.
  (That’s the closest I’ve got to that!
  Decent.)

  Not a single point—that’s what it feels,
  Looks,
  Reads like if you stop chewing the fat:
  Get the memories out the body.
  While I’m at “it” (nothing, I know—yes:
  See!),
  I need to get the top and the bottom together
  (No ontology but hierarchy; all transie-);
  Formalised madness, but it’s just
  Feeling.
  Try it:
  He just so simply says to me.
  I’m nowhere near it, but there’s something in it itself—
  I’m only getting a coffee.
  (This might be the closest
  (—Furthest—)
  Someone can go; I could do with more
  Italics, brackets—consciousness-identifiers —really.)
  Honestly, someone just walked out a shop,
  Stepped blindly into my pave,
  And I bet she has to write nothing.
  Think nothing.
  Must be bliss for her:
  Lovely new nails:
  No judgement.
  I’m anti-realing her now though, too—
  Be gone!
  O auto-correct:
  Be fine?
  I wish.
  Clever mind, though, channelling it out like this.
  Nowt to do with me.
  If anything
  I have to get out the way.

  So will I go through this and then be,
  What is it,
  Reorganised—
  Reintegrated—
  In some way afterwards?
  Will I then be able to
  Poetisize
  Myself, my words, my world,
  Correctly?
  (Not sure why these ones have shoulder chips.)

  (Bold font! Great!
  I hadn’t thought of that.
  For what it’s worth, I’m just getting it out here.
  It says nothing about me—what exists, what we know,
  How to live.
  It makes me more amiable at the bar, that’s all.
  I hope you hear the different voices, too.
  Maybe talk to a freak in the street more now?
  The communication helps—brings things back together,
  Else you get this.)

  Completely inaccessible?
  Like what,
  The reason you don’t like it?
  (And it ain’t no academic reason, I’m telling ya.
  If only.)
  It’s no craft this then, no,
  I agree O so very deeply and emptily.
  More a spaceship.

  ---

• “U”

  The middle of this “O”:
  That’s where you wanna be.
  Actually, no!
  The middle of a “U”:
  That’s you;
  That’s me.
  We’ll stay open then
  But held in a gap.
  Safe, but in space,
  Like a moon
  In a lap.
  U can sit in it as nothing
  Then fly off into more.
  Into the open, open,
  Upen!
  Higher higher;
  Soar soar.
  Let it not be too defined.
  Let it stand for “Undefined”!
  An “O”: it’s just too tight
  Like a hug that’s too unkind.
  But a “U”s a good place holder
  For a poem
  Or a nothing.
  For a got
  And get going,
  Up and out
  Into

  (A version of this poem was first published in The Writers Club, August 2022 (https://greythoughts.info/clubpieces/u))

  ---

• Rats

  “And my reign as the ‘king of fools’
  Is solidified as the ‘king of rats’”
  —Varials, ‘Empire of Dirt’

  For Frankie

  I have been treated like a rat
  My whole life—my whole life!—and a feeling
  About one’s whole life
  Is one to be taken seriously, especially
  When it applies more widely, as I have met
  Many rats—many many rats; in fact
  I have met only rats
  In different suits and perfumed masks, while in our homes
  We exist as the same filthy, all of us
  So-called “different” rats.
  But where are the best rats? The real rats?
  The authentic rats? Those rats
  That reek of rat hood
  And come from no good—no love—but still
  Make the pub, those
  Rats
  Only seen as louts, who get spat on
  As soon as they leave the house. Have you ever seen
  Anything as brave
  As a dirty, beaten, authentic(!),
  Unshaved rat
  Still drinking at the bar, perfumeless
  Right under your nose? Their
  Filthiness—their gorgeousness—
  Making everyone’s skin crawl
  Underneath their feeble fur?

  I bet we all feel like rats. I bet…
  I bet we are all even rats
  Beneath it all.

  But me letting anyone treat me like their droppings
  For being a true, filthy, authentic rat?

  Fellow rats: even if you do not intentionally
  Poke my nest, I could still
  Be forced to chew through your drywalls.

  ---

• Ish

  I quit
  The docs
  And found
  A pen

  And then
  I felt
  All good
  Again.

  ---

• On Your Marks

  in your body
  on the mind
  in your words
  out the mind
  in your mind
  on the page
  in your marks
  out the mind

  in any order, in your order

  out your mind
  in the page
  out your marks
  in the world
  out your body
  in the body
  out your words
  in the bin

  all the best and worst of it
  in the bin
  all that above
  in the bin

  Now, on your marks.

  ---

• The Masonic

  Chat shit get banged
  For the tattoos only, mate
  And who’s paying for it?

  “I’m not mugging you off!
  This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”

  She’s never seen Only Fools

  “I Know Him So Wellllll”

  Slagging him right off
  Both as bad as each other, you pair

  There’s a scream from a bandit or a phone

  He’s on the bag
  He’s on the windup
  Both just about get through

  “Pussy hole: cherry bomb!”

  He slides his finger against the bandit with skill. And it’s random
  “It’s a machine. We’re cleverer!”
  He knows too much

  ---

• Limericks

  Rumpodous, pumpodous Sally
  Was always showing her belly.
  The girls shouted, “Rude!
  She’s incredibly crude!”
  But the boys just thought, “Sally—she’s naughty.”

  And then did nothing about it.

  Alex was turning his mill
  Planning a carnivalled kill:
  His ex from the circus
  Had sent him berserkous.
  Use your pen, milled Alex—be still.

  Giverny Mattel, the inverted incel,
  Equally hated and fancied her pal:
  She longed to fuck her
  For her friend was a looker!
  But Giv hadn’t faced her own mother.

  Arjun—he had a great passion:
  To take over the world with his fashion.
  But under his bed
  His drawings lay dead
  Too stuck in his head to make it happen.

  Tilly, the secretive bully,
  Found tricking her lover was funny.
  ‘Til one day he snapped—said,
  “I’ll get you back!”
  And off he went to go lick her friend’s cunny.

  Cecile lay down in the bath
  Thinking, “I know what’ll make them all laugh!”
  And she burped and she farted
  And her long legs she parted
  And she started to… O you do the math.

  Mo Mo was a gogo in the Congo: he lost his
  Mind when he won his 12th MOBO.
  Pranced and danced on his own
  Shouting, “Just leave me alone!”
  To his agent and fans, who were too slow.

  Picture Swingin—with no end “g”—blending
  Up smoothies for the boys in The Engine.
  They’d rather drink pints
  But Swingin hated fights!
  And the fruit would help their digestion.

  Sid Elaborate bought an elaborate French parrot
  Because, “With all the little people, I’ve had it!
  They moan and they trick
  And they talk awwwwwfully thick!”
  So I fed his bird carrot and killed it.

  Sonique Blush made a fuss on the bus.
  Told the driver, “Hurry up! I’m in a rush!”
  So he turned to Miss Blush
  Saying, “’Ang on a minute, love—
  I’ve got all these new roadworks to suss.”

  Debbie China’s with a builder in The Fiddler.
  She needs an “Awww”: her ex twice bonked her sister. (Awww!)
  So she’s with this lad Dean… or Danny… or Frank…
  O but she don’t care about his name: she just wants a good spank!
  And her sister? She can keep the vanilla fucker.

  Quitting therapy, Riz found a new lover,
  And they quickly got lost in one another.
  But after two months she was shouting (again)
  And off a-shagging and a-flouting (again)
  With new boys, as she’d not healed her trauma.

  Joseph said to Jesus, “Look, son—
  If I was you, I’d really reign it in.
  Masturbate. Focus on your health.
  You’re just manic: stop running your mouth! Else
  They’ll kill you. And then make up sin.”

  Sinbad was in a bin bag: he felt sad.
  He’d lost his friends: he’d been a right weird lad (apparently).
  Because he told Gus that he loved him
  And Gus said, “Fuck off, mate—I ain’t bent!”
  Get out your bag, Sinbad. I’d be glad.

  Nowhere Sir never heard a single word
  Of the other boys’ jokes, insults or slurs.
  As he knew he’d never cure
  Why they were insecure.
  Instead, he just fucked their girls forever more.

  Quite contrary, half-story Mary
  Covered her falsehoods by flashing her fairy.
  The boys were so glad: “Look, lads—
  Check out this gal’s nads!”
  Not knowing her history was scary.

  Joyless Moyles tried to foil
  Any bit of love I’d try soil.
  He’d pull up my plants, put ants
  In my pants. So I said,
  “I wish your mum had got the coil!”

  Lonely Gavin, wanking in a cabin.
  Rubbing his… lamp… like he was Aladdin.
  And you’ll never guess what shot out…
  Robin Williams—who else?!
  And Gav’s wish? For someone to love him.

  Super Charlie, what a darling, we all love him.
  He hired a car and went abroad to fetch my cousin!
  Brought her back on the rack
  When she’d had a heart attack!
  I’m not why she couldn’t sit in the car with him.

  Even before her christening
  Hatty had trouble listening.
  Her parents would rage:
  They weren’t on the same page!
  So Hatty changed her number and ditched them.

  Hakim—lost in a world of his own—
  Made it hard for himself
  To find someone to bone: trapped
  In his own words… Though truly, he didn’t have time for birds.
  For in his head he needed to roam.

  Lee Taft was a daft empath.
  I told him, “You gotta stop with all that crap!
  You need boundaries, self-care—
  Not perpetual love affairs!
  Trying to save all the women on that app.”

  Boozy Lucy, the tragic floozy. The one
  The motherless do love to see.
  She reminds them of home, of the voice
  That would moan
  Constantly, not realising their love for her was pity.

  Drishti Sanchita, my yoga teacher,
  Had changed her name from Leslie Piper.
  She practiced her dog,
  Said, “Ohmmmm!” an awful lot.
  But hadn’t once read the Bhagavad Gita.

  Clever Monkey, climbing high up in the academy
  By reading all the books in his clever tree. Until he
  Realised he had it all wrong: he’d been
  Trapped in thought for too long.
  So he climbed down to his feelings and body.

  I told him, “Hey, you! Self-deprecating performer!
  That act: you know it ain’t gonna do anything for ya.
  Instead, you should shout: “About
  Myself, there will be no doubt!”
  And after that, things can only get better.”

  Wally Woodward just couldn’t move forward.
  He’d get so far, then fall apart as he always would.
  And then one day he realised,
  “It’s in my body the blocks lie!”
  And so he shook, and then he cried, and then he could.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein sat in a pub
  Feeling duff, because, “He’s only using me
  To make himself look good! And my language games
  Were nonsense. I only wrote them because I was tense! But this
  Boy? On second thoughts—which I wouldn’t recommend
  At all: I actually quite like his stuff.”

  The boy wrote a limerick for Hinge.
  And as he recorded it, he thought, “This is cringe.”

  ---

• Get Rid of Bile Slowly

  There is an unseen, unfelt, unacknowledged gap
  In self, meaning, experience
  Produced when food is withheld
  From an organism by taking away the insides that are already there.

  The organism and its gap remain unquenched of good fruit.
  It has to negotiate, navigate, exist with bad
  Bile to fill itself
  Instead. The bad bile churns out chaos unnoticed.

  The chaos becomes self, meaning, experience—
  Love, life, truth—rejecting all that
  Threatens it
  With more chaos. More bad bile.

  But once seen—over a lifetime, generation, species—
  Organisms can methodically and relentlessly
  Make themselves sick
  To quit the bad bile leaving fresh gaps to fill as we choose.

  *

  You’re allowed the good fruit. Make space for it slowly.
  You can hold on to truth. Let yourself see it slowly.
  You can be yourself, loved and full. But first, get rid of the bad bile
  Slowly.

  (A version of this poem was first published in The Poetry Lighthouse, January 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/poems?author=67895f97e13a9f080f97d21f))

  ---

• It Gets Everywhere!

  Someone walked past me
  On their way to the bar, their beautiful scent
  From 2019

  And I am going to feel very low tomorrow

  So I am leaving this pub…

  *

  …To get an early night to make pancakes this morning! As that will cheer me up.
  But I’ve just

  Looked: no flour! I’m searching far back
  In the cupboard. And

  Ah ha! There is a handmade pot
  With a label stuck on it saying “Almond Flour”—great!

  Though…

  *

  …I did not make that pot. And that was not my beautiful handwriting.

  ---

• Silent Dreams

  you’re in your sleep and you’re talking
  and it’s loud and clear—to you—what it is but not to them
  to them here
  else there’d be hell to pay

  you’re in your sleep and it’s elaborate and X-rated
  each word they said in the past
  telling them what they needed to know
  but no no no: they ran off

  you’re in your sleep and she’s still here—
  playing with plants, jutting tempo—
  not listening to your truth. you’re with new love
  now, but you dream and talk blindly

  you’re in your sleep with your risqué
  though silent dreams. she ain’t here
  when you wake; but someone else is—feeding greens, bad strutting—
  not understanding you either

  ---

• Sid on the Ceiling

  Sid on the ceiling is stuck in such feeling
  And not very rounded but still somehow grounded.

  He said to us, “Look! Up here in this nook!”
  But we couldn’t see as perfect as he: we

  Poked him with a broom, saying, “You can’t assume
  That there in that corner is anything for ya!

  It might be a trick, for we are not thick!”
  But he said, “Don’t poke! For this is no joke—hark!:

  When you live up here, the world does appear
  With bells on and music and you’d not refuse it!

  I wish you could see. I wish… O dear me.”
  And then he went quiet, and thought in his silence:

  I don’t want to wish; they just think I’m mad.
  But they come find me when they’re feeling sad!

  But up here this high, I can change
  Their structure! I pass them
  Some joy, saying, “This here will sort ya!”

  And then they dance off, all glee
  For a week. Then it’s back to the broom
  And jabbing at me!

  They don’t see. They don’t! Except
  What I drop from the ceiling
  Or sky—from my magic pot.

  And that gets them high, which then
  Stops them
  From poking my hind! Left safe in my spot.

  *

  Sid on the ceiling is stuck in such feeling
  And not really meaning the mad things he’s mumbling,

  “Cuz he knows it all, and he’ll never fall
  Or falter on us—just sprinkle his dust.”

  ---

• The Vision (A Saviour’s Dream)

  Prancing and strutting and buck buck
  Bucking around the round pen, a white horse
  Carries The Vision us sorry directors
  Long to free.

  She screams wildly. We stare and starve
  In desperation for a chance, kick,
  Snort, brush—anything
  To keep us quite for a while: a blind chippy tea; while the dust

  Doesn’t land much on her: we keep throwing in
  New dresses and kerchiefs. One of the extras (truly
  Us lot) runs in
  To sweep up. Gets stamped on. We swoon.

  A few of them then lose interest. “She just goes ‘round
  And ‘round, mate,’ they say. Cowards. Me,
  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: we find an axe
  Instead to break the pen’s lock.

  “Don’t you boys
  Dare now!” Her father. “You really want to see that again?”
  We leave

  The stands with her fate
  All but accepted. Only
  I need dragging.

  *

  Yet here I am, not quite leaving it alone.
  And so this is gospel:

  I went back later that night, found the axe
  And smashed the lock and shot her father

  And the horse in ill temple. I then took The Vision
  Far away from her pen—from blind dirt

  To sight—and for centuries, we broke our cages
  Against each other

  Before running
  Around in our own good heavens forever.

  ---

• Misanthroped Movie Nut

  Distanced sprinkle.
  Be less thinkle.
  Must be careful:
  Travis Bickle!

  Some of the questions they ask:
  “Where do they come from?”
  That’s what you should be asking you, you
  Misanthroped movie nut, you!

  What an age for all this, too:
  Should we not go back to the woods?
  At least there it be less pressing.
  Nothing to scream and shoot about.

  ---

• Something, Nothing

  O I wanted the girl
  And the boat and pearl
  And I wanted some peace
  And a sky full of geese
  And I wanted the love
  My own touch from above
  (And if I’m honest, for her to keep her promise)

  But what would they say
  If I didn’t obey
  And what would they think
  If I tried my own ink
  And how would they act
  If I stopped with the act
  And did what I wanted—risked being faulted?

  O I rest assured
  That for sure
  They’d probably say
  Think
  Act—not do—
  Something
  Nothing

  ---

• Veiled!

  The boy—that royal epithet,
  Princely designator,
  Superbly poignant moniker
  Of entrapment—
  Is finally coming out.

  He doubly distances        in distributive pronoun
  In a separate debate        worriless.

  It was all a joke for many years—
  In many many
  Many girls—
  Until the game’s laugh bit him:
  Look back desexed and incredulous, lad.

  There was no suggestion for that:
  They don’t want it to be here.
  But it is; and that boy:
  He rode safety-capped rhythms;
  Found another word for queen, babe.

  A little like Prince, he digs away in beret (yellow)
  Giving out mixed messages and slights of biro—
  Brutus stabs in ignorance and cockiness.
  But he knows, he knows:
  Every myth is a run from that capped cop.

  Settling in feels disingenuous, but very easy:
  Rolling symbols and comedy, less tragic,
  Less Titus; and references and anything other than
  Getting to the point—the sad fictions.
  But real! Real! Veiled!

  And he plays and plays with the subconscious—
  There is no giving it another word—
  There is no hiding from it…

  …And drums and tall tales from a drinking hole, still;
  And substitutes and associations and goalposts;
  And itching and itching and just twinging behind the cheek:
  Just speak of one girl
  —One girl!—
  And strip it back with a couplet
  For all the naughtied Pans…

  A zealous fairy piper!
  A changed whistle pointing the way!

  The final aces coming out in bits.

  ---

• Early Yoga

  “The sleep was not deep, but the waking is slow”
  —Theodore Roethke, ‘The Gentle’

  ta-daaaa
  suh-nah
  and swing your arms wide and up
  and sweep forward and down
  and hang in
  uttanasana
  i drink too much
  this instructor is irritating
  bend your knees and place your hands flat either side of your feet
  my knees were bent already
  and step back into plank
  i am so good at plank
  stay here for three more breaths. what is coming up for you?
  that i am so good at plank
  and push back into
  and i am so good at adho mukha svanasana
  adho mukha svanasana: downward facing dog
  downward facing dog
  now take your right leg through your hands and land your foot
  that is very specific
  and take your right hand inside your right foot. you may need to shimmy your foot out
  this feels airy
  and you can rest your forearms down here to go deep into your glutes
  the simpsons
  and quads
  ex-girlfriends
  and groin
  everything blocked out
  and hips
  the opening in my hip brings things up
  and if you like, you can pulse in this pose going up to whatever edges you find
  ex-girlfriends are my edge. what is the time?
  every false memory is possible. this instructor is irritating and not an ex-girlfriend
  and whilst playing in the pose, do as you wish in
  i feel like some sort of reptile
  lizard pose: utthan pristhasana
  ha!
  and breathe here
  …
  …
  i wish i’d doubled over my mat as my
  knees hurt, be sure to come out of the pose and double over your mat. i have quite boney
  glutes knees legs thighs. that one ex-girlfriend had such delicious
  hips may feel at an edge here. many of us have tight
  hips are throbbing. i am drinking
  too much, remember to
  breathe and my breath are where i get confused and i think about breathing but do not breathe naturally, rhythmically, in my poses and then i cannot spell rhythmically—is it even a word?
  now move back into downward facing dog however you wish to
  i am there. i’m already there. i am one of those students
  and take your lizard pose on the other side
  breathe here
  …
  …
  the simpsons. why the simpsons? they are going to wonder why the simpsons
  they would not want to know
  that this is your practice today as
  always so many things flashing through at once how is
  your breathing, experience, mind? are you
  presence is not something i believe in presently here
  today, in the room, with your practice?
  perpetual sex works wonders for presence but that ex’s knees got me in a right pickle after a while
  …
  …
  now move back
  through downward facing dog
  and plank
  into child’s pose
  the simpsons
  flashes
  girlfriend
  breathing
  breathe
  …
  …
  memories as distractions as unpresent-ers, not exactly in front of my eyes or on my mind but they exist non-spatially and temporally but with persistent casual efficacy to take me off somewhere else and can be distracting and unpleasant at best. and this trauma bubbles out if you stretch your hips too much, but that is too much for a crowd
  …
  …
  come back to your breath
  and the distractions are sporadic
  and your body
  and unconnected
  and the mat
  but use any means to get away from what is deep and terrified and terrifying within
  and the sensations of the room. and try and stay here
  look, but stay far enough away from what is difficult
  what might be taking you away today?
  i know she is not really irritating. girlfriend’s—ex-girlfriend’s—knees are less and less present but they might be the best i’ll ever have. she was just a bond for a younger me
  balasana: child’s pose
  and why include the sanskrit at all if it only makes it hard for yourself to read?
  well, what is the simpsons reference all about?
  …
  …
  …
  …
  sometimes i am pulled about and confused. i am not in the room i drink too much i am losing track of what is happening
  and let’s stay rested here for as long as we need then
  if i am writing about what is happening and then practising reading it out to a crowd i am not present or yoga-ing

  ---

• CBT (Cocaine Before Typing)

  “Stop tripping, I’m tripping off the powder
  …
  (21st-century schizoid man)”
  —Kanye West, ‘POWER’

  My ex-girlfriend…
  She… she took my heart again
  Outside the eye hospital…

  …But now she’s nothing but a forgotten line
  That I’ve just written; so use all your truth, follow your path,
  And listen to the signs from the universe; though only to get a reader provoked. I am as honest
  As the day is long
  Until I’m making it up for someone else, spreading every inch
  Of myself across the bar for a pioneering exploration
  Of toxic masculinity, traversing over the capped peaks
  Of my gender: “I
  Can be a vulnerable, emotionally intelligent man, woman”; or,
  “I’ll pull my heart out my chest, stick it on my sleeve,
  Then spread it all over you, woman.” Then you can really spread it over them, can’t ya—gu’on then, my son!

  (I don’t know she was just walking past the eye hospital. It doesn’t really mean anything.)

  “I am the Dalai Lama with good dick.”
  Doc! By writing it down I now feel I got good dick!
  Thoughts that are challenging. My cognition’s behaving terribly!
  Though I am creating what I want.
  “But… but sometimes, Doc, I… I really feel…”
  No! No way, my son—no doubt! You want good dick, you tell yourself you got good dick.
  I got good dick. Meditate on that.

  The boy was cocky and had irritating energy—I never understood him. But such a hunk! A sight for sore eyes when we crossed paths the other day. It’d been what, four months? I’m still resentful.
  And wet.
  And fascinated by his ability to make up meaningless interjections from me. I mean, I’m obviously still in his hea-

  Stop listening to other people. Hearing other people. Your days are short and there’s no truth.
  Slick syntactic relationships to create sophisticated semantic tricks? These are redundant
  If you don’t have your own good diction.

  But I don’t half write some drivel when I’m only in second gear after a night on the gear
  Playing with lines (“Certainly don’t listen to me!”) in the kitchen
  Never sure which one to arbitrarily start
  Or end with: “My ex-girlfriend…”? Nah.

  “My pen…
  …Is nearly as mighty as my sword.”

  ---

• TRWGIM (More Than I Want To Think)

  There was a book and an album
  And a slave and a whore
  And a teacher and prophet
  And a cynic and a bore

  And they sat around thinking
  “What to do in the zoo?”
  And not one of them said
  “I believe it’s important to

  Read all these books
  And all the nonsense chatter
  So let’s prance with them
  And…” And nothing was said after.

  Because you see, they were cut off
  As there were no more things to analyse!
  Said The Red Wine God In Me
  Tonight.

  ---

• You Don’t Know What You’re Doing

  How do you want me to be? I was born
  Nowhere and typically
  Unfeeling, pretending to enjoy sunsets, wellness
  And, whilst seeking shade, plus a grazed knee: I acknowledge our curses.

  The likes of me—the like of my type—
  Will not be found again until they—the wanderers
  Of in-sickness-and-in-health stop with their
  Social graces and let us get on with our surface vocabulary.

  It is fun—and there is no guarantee for how it stirs; but
  Believe me:
  this        is        the        same
  as        the        old        centuries.
  They again (the imagined! The hidden! Ref!): they cannot stop you.

  ---

• Suffering & Awake

  He does not want the dates or the laughs
  Or the conversation or the interest or the women

  Or the sex anymore so he wishes he was her: all of this could be bad bad bad then.
  He is going to fulfil

  All her requests including that easy
  But degrading thing which he always meets

  Incredibly with bitterness so he wishes he was her: all of this would be sad
  Sad sad then. He will let them

  Pick his place again and he is supreme
  In drinks and tunes and beatings and he wishes he was her: all of this seems bad bad bad then. He does not feel

  Any of it. He wipes himself afterward.
  She rings for a week. He is suffering and awake.

  ---

• Better Put Your Quid In

  “They don’t want pinnacles they want
  Pinches and prods and just something

  Pointing about—poking at stuff—
  Giving it some bluster—shaking it up!

  At least something not in
  C major,” said

  My piano
  On non-uniform day.

  ---

• It’s the Drugs that Get in the Way, Actually

  Far out man in the space of punch-drunk nouns.
  You’ve got to give it him: he’s on something;
  And he knows the drugs are for the weak.

  Strive after everything that annoys you:
  That’s how you find your tormentors;
  And he licks his boons only after his Bada Bings.

  They’re all just learning
  To be very very serious;
  And they’re all just yearning
  To be very very mysterious—
  Bulky and pike:
  onetwo        three        four.

  He rejects labels for measured distance,
  For sudden departures:
  They’ll rip back in in no time, those streets.

  Come on: it’s glitter:
  You won’t get it out with the opposite wine:
  Keep on chugging, cats!

  What a performance—
  What a performance!
  If only it was all like this: magic and dust.
  I would well come again though, babe!
  O I most certainly would not:
          Did you not taste the sweetness?

  ---

• Etch A Sketch

  There’s all those boys again with their heroin chic
  That the magic girls want; but I want

  Those girls to be dysregulated with me. With me!
  Yet who would be jealous

  Of such phony orgasms? He would be, look—over
  Here: he’s got the Etch A Sketch

  And extremely deep lines.

  ---

• Early Wind-up

  “In dense jungle foliage, a constant, repetitive, and brief signal within a narrow frequency works best”
  —David Byrne, How Music Works

  Hello?
  Yes I’m ringing about the-
  OK yes I’ll hold

  Hello?
  Yes I’m ringing about the-
  OK yes I’ll hold

  Hello?
  Yes I’m ringing about the-
  OK yes I’ll hold

  Hello?
  Yes I’m ringing about the-
  OK yes I’ll hold

  Hello?
  Yes I’m ringing about the-
  OK yes I’ll hold

  Hello?
  Yes I’m ringing about the-
  OK yes I’ll hold

  Hello?
  Yes I’m ringing about the-
  OK yes I’ll hold

  ---

• Ode to the Beauty of Orwellian-Themed Theatrics

  I’m feeling very venomous and angry

  How dare she vote for me
  She doesn’t even know me
  She doesn’t even know who I am
  What I like
  She’s never even spoken to me
  Wouldn’t even give me the chance
  She wouldn’t even look at me

  What have I fucking done

  I would have actually taken this… if… if it had come from the other housemates
  To be honest
  Because I took it last week
  And actually
  If they’d have voted for me again this week: fair do’s
  Fucking right
  Because I moan and whinge and all the other reasons why they nominated me last week
  Erm
  But she does not know me
  And she’s just come in here
  Marched in, in her golden gown
  And fucking ousted me out
  And it’s not fair
  It’s not fair
  I don’t get it

  You lot have made a damn well good decision
  I hope you’re pleased with yourselves
  Let me out

  Can you let me out
  I’m too angry to talk
  I want to smash someone’s head in

  Who is she?
  Who is she?
  Who is she?
  Where did you find her?

  I can feel the venom pouring out of me as I breathe

  I hate her
  I tell you now

  I’m going to find it very difficult to be pleasant to it for the rest of this week
  I’m afraid
  Very difficult

  I don’t even want to look at it

  ---

• Early Psychoanalytic Poem

  O my so-
  O my boy, my child—
  My sweet, sweet ruse!
  You are better doing what you do
  There in your crib—your cot—
  For the audience shall think what they want; so why
  Hold it in (and he kicks and he kicks and he kicks
  And changes tact) when you need not mask
  The glory, the light,
  The unmasked bushel of you (scores!); and why
  Be down and insecurely fastened
  When you can fan your arms (for are you not
  Flapping now?) and not give two flyings?

  You will curb yourself, blessed one,
  Looking at all that guff, you will,
  You will; but it is not your drama
  To play out: the multiplicity of this thing
  Is freeing! Why bother to bother? The distinctive art
  Is phony, too, itself, you know; so do not pain
  Oneself for the ultimate enclosure. Still

  Covered up though, aren’t you. You psychoanalytic
  Feast you: stop hiding! I know you aren’t
  Really
  In that little bed. You know it’s never really been made (but something
  Is being so).

  ---

• Writer’s Club

  If you’re going to join Writer’s Club, you must be willing
  To silence social function. We sit around unpretending
  With pretence and tension. But you know what? Masterful aloofness
  Is us. How’d you like them pears?

  We have a few unwritten rules (honestly) and you must tolerate
  Our classless classlessness operating
  Unironically and quick
  Even if it can sound clunky right now.

  And sometimes—when we aren’t all men—
  We move startled around the room gathering ideas
  Facelessly masked: Sir (picture him) shouts, “I need another word
  For humour!” Dame (picture her): “”Synonym”?”

  ---

• Do Be Do

  He’s hung himself and
  He’s been shot and
  He’s locked himself in the cupboard.

  The same patterns and felt cycles, those progressions
  Moved through with
  Comparable compositions: the threes and the taps and the
  Coming back:
  This wasn’t going to feel this good again.

  Delete it all—everything. The floor: here; the body: oh boy:
  Like a pixie! To think they were talking
  Nonsense in the pub—desperate for poor, poor relations—
  Threatening an augmented fifth.

  There is something settling about suicide, murder,
  Voyeurism; though as long as there are textures—as long as we feel
  Significant
  And innocent, just once.

  ---

• Early Doors Before the Committee Took Charge

  “(We’ve got much to discuss)”
  —Arctic Monkeys, ‘Batphone’

  “Quem Iuppiter vult perdere, dementat prius”
  —Who knows

  I’m on one and loveless like all the best, refusing
  The tablets, the therapy, the rest. Let’s see

  What they say about that one! Let’s see
  If they trust my method—my very easy method—

  Of just, “Making things up!” (yeah right OK)
  And skating out of it with no knee pads. I could make a career out of this

  If only I will. And what they going to say about that, too? How they going to package
  “I am centuries old, here, I suppose. And I am

  Well, maybe an old grandfather clock in a wood cabin in Utah, say,
  Left to the second cousins through Aunt Gina. Not all that grand, really,

  But visually something, at least—something for the grandkids, at least!—if
  They find that necessary, that is. At least something for them to fight over!”

  And they’ll still say I should, “Get out the house!”
  And see someone. My very easy method indeed.

  ---

• Time to Leave the Capsule

  There is a tone to being in the covers surrounded by
  Mucused tissues and empty thoughts
  And empty thoughts,

  Longing for the last mother,
  Wanting sex with the next, not considering
  The causes, the sacrifices, the syllables. The sneezes the illness the sickness.

  Picture an ill child as they get it out their system
  Necessarily, silent spurts forging life for them, discovering
  The art of manipulation

  And fried egg sandwiches, it not having to be like anything
  For the poor thing but patterns
  Desperate to be stimulated: viewers—look

  At the kid, faceless and ungendered,
  Alone
  And unknown and free

  In the sticky: do you think he cares
  What this all is? Do you think he’ll consider what’s being released?
  His is a flowing out

  Of depth, for sure, but not so very big
  Or clever or bleak, for now.
  Though it might just be another lift, sunshine.

  (A version of this poem was first published in The Poetry Lighthouse, January 2025 (https://www.thepoetrylighthouse.com/poems?author=67895f97e13a9f080f97d21f))

  ---

• The Announcer Presenting to the Circus

  “Do not feel guilty for all those things
  That are needed to stop our sight: the beers, the dances,
  The bitters the books. Embrace them all, be
  Drunk on them! And may you enjoy your circus.”
  The circus clapped itself, clapped itself, taking the
  Seamless blinds of the trapeze artist

  And the juggler. The puppets and the ringmaster!

  And they clapped and clapped and clapped again
  All the way home.

  ---

• long stream!

  “I went to war last night
  With an automatic weapon, don’t nobody call a medic
  I’ma do it ’til I get it right”
  —Kendrick Lamar, ‘i’

  “You’ve broken a seal
  What will they think of me”
  —Tom Vek, ‘How Am I Meant To Know’

  just doing the next thought as it comes to him
  telling himself it’s gold, it’s gold, then it’s
  gold; if he don’t exist then nor do you then
  who can say otherwise? scream into the night
  without stopping for months or years or
  infinity, feeling it and breaking (no braking)
  touch the bottom and nothing is left then;
  then he can really go on—and they stare on

  and on; and they will say (the masses;
  millions of them; you): don’t try; that’s silly;
  you can’t do that; i’m normal; i’m normal; i
  don’t want someone that takes themselves
  too seriously; but why—but why would they
  even try that; i’m too old; i’m too young; how
  weird; how strange; i wouldn’t bother; why
  bother; i can’t be bothered; but why; but why;
  but why

  and then they’ll be dead

  but he’s broke apart—existing nowhere; and
  the concepts can just be free about all things
  and himself—and itself—with no cares for it
  when it’s just a feeling and the stanzas might
  stretch but you can use the right indent (you
  see; you see) so don’t surround yourself with
  any of that old noise from people still gorging
  and spoilt and buying into someone else’s
  structure

  (you see;
          you see)

  he that is is not his real name: he can tell fake
  truth and good stories and it’s like, what is it;
  what is it, with no separation between what’s
  here because it ain’t here; but he’s hesitating
  —he’s hesitating; so he’s still a bit here too
  much; takes a breath; you aren’t ill or manic
  or problematic—you’re listening to what you
  heard and it’s too bad—too bad—too theirs—

  ease in—add and edit later; what he did (he
  told me) is wrote “no doubt” over and over
  every night while he was screaming and
  crying and changed his number and stopped
  listening to the average toxicity and it hurt—
  bad, bad, bad; not even pain—but it was
  sense making and then poof the tablets are
  gone and he realises, “hang on; hang on,” and
  he’s writing whatever he likes

  then he feels the insecurity and hesitation
  and sees it here—in all the supposed others—
  and the reasons on top of bodies, and
  reasons on top of animals: the incongruence
  between what they want and think and do
  and say: the ingenuity and incredulity: the
  contradictions are too vast and easy: it is a
  conditional state of being and he never was—

  not going to hospital for them no more—
          no way:
                  quit your talking to them;

  and the rhythm comes to him then as a little
  pulse—like a bop—like a head nod—a thrust;
  and what’s that but uninterrupted feeling—
  who’s in control of that; he hears them still
  talking about “choice” in everything they do
  unless they need a different narrative after:
  he is too much to be around, when alive; but
  he dies? oh my god i loved his brain and miss
  him so much

  so he’s bop nod thrust and creating and you
  be doing something creative—the semi-
  colons diminish, but don’t edit the tempo lift
  —and they be pretending to be interested
  and not confused and mistaking confusion for
  bemusement but they don’t sleep and get ill
  and wonder behind beers and food and bad
  sex bodies and schopenhauerean irritability—

  o o o and he remembers, inconsistently,
  paradoxically, for he exists nowhere and has
  done metaphysically open-ended calculations
  of oz (which is nowhere too—still semis
  gone): they don’t exist, and none of it is here,
  for i have decided they do not whilst also
  deciding their mindsets, or set minds, but they
  shall not exist going forward, as i do not
  wan-

  and it is like… and it’s like… anditslike…
  annitike… there is nothing to really pull out
  that he can pull out, and no need to put it
  now, or to worry about it, because it firmly
  and concret- (he can’t have that either); it is
  like that self and that nonsense that begs for
  the coherence but bad life: it is absolutely
  nothing to worry about, and there is no form
  to any of this, to him; and he’ll bring back
  semi-colons, as every piece is not flawless,
  and he has looked, and he is judging perfectly
  and objectively; and we can do whatever we
  want; and you can really get out and tell a
  story to feel better (because that is it: feeling!
  o they get that), so you do build yourself up
  and up and up, wanting to do something,
  trying to do something, but the flat, perverse,
  humanitarian inversion surrounding you—
  don’t try; don’t speak; don’t be—baulks you;
  they stop you; but you clock that it’s one big
  ruse, finally: doctors, teachers, friends,
  lovers, writers; and you got to say—he got to
  say: they will touch every part of your body,
  and stare at you without your consent, and
  tell you not to try anything, and that you
  didn’t climb the mountain, and that such
  words are cringe, and that they really do love
  you and are there for you whilst they laugh at
  you in kitchens behind your back

  and he gives them a little bit to go on: listen
  to my different voices; listen to this noise
  (bop); here is a funny dance; i’m not serious;
  we can all die like this together—and that
  might be enough to hide their lies for them
  more—concede that gold can feel poor and
  therapeutic; that no one can count (they!
  aren’t! there!); no one can remember

  the mind (come on; come on; o i’m just
  giving in and leaving myself on my own up
  here now)—who does all the work for… us?

  we live in dissonance, and you can say and
  make whatever you want, and it can be bold
  truth or nonsense, and we have no choice
  over whether to take it in or just ignore it

  (just ignore it
          if you think you can);

  but some will still sit there and say,
          well,
                  i didn’t really enjoy
                          that at all

  ---

• Can’t Remember Writing This

  I’m going to keep running and creating
  As that seems to be the universal condition
  Let alone the human
  Let alone this human

  Absolutely obsessed with himself
  And different lines
  For no good reason
  (As if on an arrogant cloud, in hindsight)

  And there’s never enough time to go back
  Over it all, cover all the senses, misstake
  My Edits; but this is so much better
  Than flashbacks
  And drugs
  Most of the time

  Absolutely obsessed with oneself
  For good reason
  (As if on an arrogant cloud, in hindsight,
  In editing)

  ---

• Tuesday Afternoon Group

  “Teacher, teacher:
  I will not psychoanalyse the chair!
  It will not burst into flames!”
  (It could! It could!)
  Here is one hand; here are ten thousand in agreement.
  I think I understand the appeal, but we need
  To get on with our lives.

  I am late for work.
  This wasn’t meaningless, but abstract:
  Only good for the first six months of a relationship.
  We were simply different: that is enough.

  “Philosophy in a vacuum. I cannot see it selling.”

  ---

• formative

  yeah yeah write write—it’s
  writing, isn’t it—isn’t it
  good—only I think it’s
  good and important and
  verbose—do not be
  verbose—be here in the
  sex and stink—shyness is
  hidden—what do you mean—i
  mean being careful, explicit,
  direct during the formative
  antithesose. then careless
  carefree loose—unconcerned by your rhyme
  or movements

  ---

• Maybe Check on Him

  Don’t make me go back to them. I like it
  Here. I can make up whatever I want
  And that was always enough. I didn’t even care
  If anyone saw me in the grass, on the hill, at the hospital,
  And the food tasted like nothing, and the girls
  Weren’t strong around my crotch and I could just
  Buzz buzz buzz. So what if that wasn’t real:
  Have you seen anything of note
  In the papers? It doesn’t top out. It don’t
  Square off neatly. It don’t not sound too good to be
  Jarred back like
  Buck bang buck. And it ain’t so, not smooth, but,
  You know—like the wipe of a hand on a hand—
  Known lips licked and stringy indoors.
  “Is he still on his own then?
  Is everything alright?”
  Hmm. Yes and no.
  The girls are back.

  ---

• Early, Early History

  Don’t respect history at all. I read somewhere else
  And it changed. I dreamt something else
  And it got very, very weird: the boys
  Scrambled over the top and it just looked really stupid!

  And when I told a friend, all they said was, “Don’t rest
  On your books, as you’ve got to know
  When to listen to yourself.”

  He moved out of my mind as the rain came
  With four-thousand boats holed up on my shore—infinite other ways
  To set sail. But I was stuck on the same beach

  In the same story as my ancestors, and I couldn’t
  Budge my siblings. And I couldn’t remove
  The anchor. And I fear another is willing

  To repeat the same in a pointless and structureless bar
  Somewhere again. So no—I don’t respect it.

  ---

• Blog Post!

  If you read one more blog
  About how to write
  Or play or create you might just find out
  How to write
  A blog and not feel anything.

  ---

• What Are They Good For?

  I have not heard
  Any words
  That are not adaptive.

  I have not heard
  Any words—
  Any, anywhere words—
  That are not adaptive
  For the speaker. Author.

  All that space. All those papers.
  Attempts at universal order, meaning, truth,
  Identity, experience, shaming,
  Legitimacy, parenting, love,
  With no awareness
  Of the limitations
  Of our words—the adaption
  Of our whole life sentences.

  I could not, surely,
  Have just heard him say,
  “I love my wife.” I know what he does at the weekend!
  And I know
  Her book club
  On Tuesday evenings
  Does not exist (they sometimes
  Meet on Thursdays too).

  O our beautiful words!
  You make all this around us
  Look meaningful and safe. I love you!

  (A version of this poem was first published as ‘Adaptive Words, I Love You’ in A New Ulster, Issue 116, August 2022 (https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu116))

  ---

• Cry if Want To, Need To, You Will

  If it isn’t my birthday
  And I’m not doing this right in the middle of tears
  Then what was it all for?
  I hate my body missing any of it
  That the reason gets missed when you come back up
  Circle back down

  That love gets questioned
  Friends get lost
  Life falls far
  Reality leaves you
  And all you have left is yourself
  And a pen.

  I’ll take this down here though
  Wrecked, screaming, shaking
  Empty, alone, stripped
  Because I feel the links breaking
  And life keeps appearing
  More and more each time.

  But I won’t close the door completely.
  I’ll be here when you’re dying
  On the floor
  On your birthday
  When you realise dramatics don’t exist—
  When you reach your own wreck, penless.

  ---

• do not write anything concrete

  the next line should leave space        ambiguity
          movement
  and it is here that growth        truth
  being
  exist

  but don’t conclude it
  don’t put it        if you can
  the longer the better

  then capture
  small bits
  silently                in the night
  and only release
          the good stuff
  the helpful stuff

  it is sickening        maddening        conceited
                  confusing
  but it chips away        somewhere        in them        like that
  so we need to keep putting it out
  those that need
          will find and take

  there are negated rules                that can be followed
  do not use growth
  do not pose upside down
  do not sound
          serious
  so serious

  in fact        don’t even talk                at all
  if you can handle it        there could be no lines
          or space
          or growth        at all
  just lead by example        taking the flack
          until they miss you
                  get you

  or don’t

  ---

• It Is a Cliché

                                  And I do not even want to look at you right now.
  I will go to my room
  To write, and I will come back when I am ready and re-sweet on you.

  That’s better. I am rested for more sessions.
  My future children are dead for us. My own child
  Lives on instead and he is sick and hot

  From this troubled and patterned relationship
  With both of you while I pretend it’s me in charge, that someone
  Could ever be in charge as I smile

  At the puzzle of who conceived who in this triangle, for it is unfamiliar
  And lifelike and no way to be, yet I relish
  The rising and falling valleys of home that leave me soaked

  In discharge still, consenting sometimes, this feeling
  Being poetic and lonesome with you always, you who is amusing—or
  A muse—for a man who cannot cut that cord, these strings; and that is

  All better again now—accepted, weathered, cried;
  Thank you!—and I am finally growing up, making love
  For all my girls and girls like a good boy.

  ---

• Delusional Content Trying to Be Stanzaic

  O my god, flashed and splashed in dreams
  And number plates: you dash off
  For I am not quite ready to be baptized.

  The word is wrong—the world is wrong:
  You are showing us spirit, not psychosis, aren’t you?
  Stop those smiles! I… are they…? If not

  Come back, because you are true now.
  Why do you make us scream and read wrong?
  Priest, analyst, body: you have done

  What you can,
  But this is my own villainous expedition now:
  I am sure that car… that car… him… me…

  It is not abstract or popper: we are our own
  Theory of anything, and right now, that symbol
  Is beeping damage at me.

  God? Goddddd? Are you in here? Am I out there?
  Because it’s me: your son.
  The walls are coming down

  But I am a bit too much
  Of everything
  For the time being, big guy.

  ---

• Early Diss (Ghosts & Tray)

  I’ll love you always, but you won’t feel any of it,
  Will you?
  You’ll lie with others, no rhythm
  Or reason
  And neither of you will get it
  And only one of you
  Will ever come.

  The boys, the boys:
  They’ll look anything but your father.

  I’m aware it might not hit you until they hit you.
  I wanted to feel free and loved, but our games
  Were not exclusive.
  And how many rules did you change?
  Then your child’s play would act up—mine too;
  But I want a badge
  For at least feeling guilty.

  Your type: they are a debut muse.
  People leave towns for you and make it big.
  My spiritualisation will be televised, but I’m worried

  You will only have ghosts
  And tray.

  ---

• Headless

  The redundant tiler
  Comes to the king’s floor
  To petition him
  For the hand of his one daughter.

  “King! My glorious King!
  You are my Master, me
  Your servant. I am not worthy, but I am
  Without canvas.

  If I could have one night
  With your daughter, not for
  That, but for her
  To feel my warmth and work,

  She would know, and you would see,
  That my being is not done, and I could exist
  To fulfil her life
  And love her.”

  All the king’s men
  Begin to laugh in the chamber, but the king
  Hushes them.
  “You fools. You fools!

  Can you not see: he is
  The redundant tiler
  Finally, and it is he
  That my daughter seeks and loves!”

  The king leaves his throne, with
  His arms raised in the air,
  And strides over
  To the tiler.

  “King!” shouts the tiler, and, “Redundant
  Tiler!” shouts the king.
  And the king
  Drops to his knees

  And they embrace
  And cry in each other’s arms, before the king
  Breaks away
  To bellow again.

  “Guard! You—guard!” The king points
  To the nearest guard.
  “Bring me my daughter!”
  The guard

  Looks confused, but the jester
  Creeps past and taps
  The guard’s right blazer
  Pocket, the guard, relieved, putting

  His hand inside
  And pulling the king’s daughter from inside.
  But as the guard
  Walks towards the king and the tiler with the princess

  She jumps from the guard’s hand,
  And as she runs
  Out the chamber
  On her hands, the king

  Releases the tiler, shouting, “Never!
  Never!
  Guard! Kill this
  Redundant tiler

  Before I change my mind!”
  And the king
  Backs away from the tiler.
  “And so it goes,” says the

  Tiler, and the guard
  Removes his sword
  And runs it through
  The tiler’s neck.

  ---

• The Opening Italics Can Be Sung to the Tune of ‘Lord of the Dance’

  he, he, whoever he may be
  doesn’t exist metaphysically, and he cannot seem
  to decide whether he believes we should be
  where we are now        or where we are going.

  are we (we! where does he
  consistently get that from?) are we to be
  present here reading his words, or should we be
  far out        in future        without them?

  there is no separation, but he wants us
  to understand this through the very
  same        gaps?        the…        the…
  O what constants can we even find to criticise him?

  do recall, that the Buddha had everything before
  he was able to find nothing; so don’t trust any of it
  don’t go after any of it. or go after all of it?
  either way, you’ll lose? win? already have?

  you are not going to get this. none of this
  can be grasped. we cannot write the question
  let alone answer it, and at the end of the day
  it was distinct food poisoning that won.

  ---

• Someone Else’s Noise

  My fictional mother said to me—she said, “Find you a man
  That does nothing and is content with it, because then
  You can do whatever you want with your life unquestioningly, and when you change

  Your interests or are in
  A bad mood and don’t love him anymore—for remember

  My baby: it is always contingent—then it will not

  Matter, and it will allow you both to live in peace, potentially.”
  The moral I took from my fictional mother

  And sexual orientation is that we can make up
  Whatever we want that helps, and that there seems
  To be something
  About the words moving down the lines

  At the right time (it could have really
  Been the next) and that it is tough
  To experience the world absolutely as your own
  When you are transfixed in finding it
  In someone else’s noise.

  ---