Carriage - I

Had I been driven,

Not by someone I nearly met,

By a phone call specifying,

A pre-arranged lack of defying,

Get in the car at whatever hour,

Going to a place I have already chosen,

My freedom in stasis, it stands frozen,

Waiting for the crack to shatter it and shower

Hundreds of pieces, hundreds of days,

Rules unbroken that have now

Wasted away, like thorny tears on my face, hour after hour -

I would have been given,

At least some vague reason,

To still be the same, after

So many seasons.

And in that car,

In that passenger seat,

In which of course, I would fasten my belt,

Strap myself to my habitual retreat,

The same safety which I've always felt,

Or rather, pretended to feel,

As there has been some ground beneath my feet,

Although it is always moving, unlike

My rooted legs, proving

That the straps are real.

I would pass by roads

Which I had already looked for,

And I would point to them,

And in that same bright baritone explore,

How I thought, that the buildings

Seemed perhaps taller,

Then realising that I had taught myself

To see that they had once been smaller,

And that there was no change,

My own construct, my home,

The contents re-arranged, at most

A timid shuffling forced on the décor,

And all this time wheels turn on the road,

And all this time heels burn on the floor,

And all this time is too much to unload,

Everything is after, but I am still before.

Quietly Close

It takes the hammers,

From the keys,

And drums a tuneless beat,

Into me.

So when I try and play,

The only sound, is the echo

Of an empty space, on 

Shaky ground.

And when my fingers let go,

The silence starts to take action,

It follows me, the sickening stroke

Of sadness, its clinging caress

Up through my arms, and 

It holds me, it hugs me to itself,

And with its wordless voice,

It sings to me, and it promises me

That I can stop, lose, and collapse

Into the recess.

And I sink into it,

And it is now everything,

The return to being speechless,

The regression in full swing, from flesh to stone

Knowing I will reach less, now deaf to the phone,

Not hearing the future's faint ring.

No more fear of fault,

Mistakes I make start to decay,

All put to a halt,

When there is nothing that I say.

And all the noiselessness, 

It can be kept away, my frightened fingers,

Where the fight once hid,

But now no courage lingers, as

They close the lid,

On the mute piano.

February

It's not that much.
It's a layer, or rather, I hope it is.
It's the blanket which is still too cold,
Too thin, yet too heavy, too cumbersome,
Too pure and yet too dirty upon the
Indifferent, weary, ground.

It's the single-sided sleeping bag,
At a time where most are
In their beds, Or at least,
Attempting to be.
Darkness is now the norm, and the
Moon in the sunlight seems to be
Something of typical modernity,
As I wrap my coat of many colours-
-Many shades of off-white-
I am broken from the gaps in the
Pavement
Gaps in the roads, potholes
I fill with expectation and not release,
The creation of real obstacles and the
Not so real breeze, my home-made
Tornado lifts me up

And it brings me down so close
Away, back right down to the pre-paid
Sounds, the pre-frayed rounds of
Cotton kisses and sudden misses,
My aim made so effortless by the foundations
Of this flaking, settling comfort.

This is my seat, the unexpected under zero,
The near impossible frozen hero, this is my feat,
I walk as if I cannot feel throughout
The air which steams in fury whenever I open
My mouth, as if my heels set fire to what is real,
The jury of falling ice leads me back
I began here, yet I must end here,
But at this time it doesn't matter,
I don't need to jump on the glossy puddle,
To know that it will shatter,
The consequence is my only friend here,
And this muddle of my thoughts,
And what I could have sworn
Was the patter of
Mild rain and nothing more,
Has torn the shame away from my door,
I mourn the games I used to play before,
In what seemed like the snow, that's what I
Thought was it's name, I must have dreamed
That new start so long ago,
From where I came, and it's too late,
It's almost spring,
But this warmth,
It doesn't mean a thing.