A generation or so later.

I live on a mixed diet of caffeine and water,
and I don't know if I oughta add anything else,
vapour don't fill the gut up,
food's rough, don't taste like much.
I'm eating through paper and ply just to satisfy,
learning how to starve to survive.

have you encountered loneliness?
you may feel lucky to be left out
but you've left out the experience,
never let it out, no resistance to remember
existence is existential
and loneliness is a part of the whole.
Only, a part alone.

Words are like a salve, or an ointment,
they can be medicinal but are often simply aqua,
they cover and relieve in the moment they are applied,
but are soon absorbed and rarely retained,
I remember them,
But I still feel dry
and sore.

Perhaps, we thought, a solution to temperance,
permanence of these words,
scratched in leather, dried as ink,
a byte in a hard drive, a drop from a cloud.
But these are as easily forgotten,
And the relevance recedes in repetition.

How easily we all forgot,
The lessons we learnt from those who came before.
A generation suffers to teach the next,
But the world has changed, the lessons no longer apply.
The words that convinced the first,
to hate and to kill and to justify that,
in blaming others,
we no longer listen to them.

But instead those words transcend
No longer in long books we agree to revile,
But short moments lost in a storm of opinion,
say it enough times and it becomes the truth,
only truth is always subjective,
and often the subject is skewed,
mired and satired,
joked and spoke,
so often now that no-one listens.

So tired of the arguments that they refuse to listen to what is being said.
The cries of the weak and poor are lost and excused as knowing no better.
Why listen to someone who knows so little that they cannot listen?
A circle of blame that damages and blinds all but those stirring the pot.

We assume so often now,
assume those that don't fall in our line of thinking,
are simply seeing their own truths, so blind, blinking mad
maddening that others cannot see the truth that we speak,
in mantras, in madness, in memoriam.

How easily we all forgot,
The lessons we learnt from those who came before.
A generation suffers to teach the next,
But the world has changed, the lessons no longer apply.
The words that convinced the first,
to hate and to kill and to justify that,
in blaming others,
we no longer listen to them.

Spillage

For the words that are hardest,

Are not build by the artists,

but short and nothing sweet,

The simple sound,

of a single beat:

I hate you.

Means a thousand fists,

Beating you into a corner,

where the only retort left to find 

                         in this 

                the cataclysm of social disorder

is to fight back

or step away;

I'm sorry,

that pinches against the grain,

and makes us understand to pass the burden of pain,

That we consider ourselves

just as we consider
One another again,

Thank you.

Is grateful, and means so much more.

than words contain.
So in eyes it is gained

 (pried in a moment) before

those same spy the floor,

But,

where those eyes met,

and stare into the iris hue,

No words so simple,

Could capture the jingle,

Of an,

I 

Love

You

Nice Guys Finish Last

I managed to fall into a discussion today with a stranger whilst having a midday coffee break.
He had seen me helping a lady get all her bags onto a bus and said I was one of those "nice guys". I said "Aren't we all, in the end?"
"No." He bluntly said and continued along the lines of, "Some people don't try to be nice guys, they don't even want to be. The politicians, the marketers, the salesman. They succeed because they aren't nice people. They succeed because of nice people."

I was pretty taken aback. I can't remember the majority of our conversation but one thing he said really got to me.

"If you always give then it's easy for other people to take from you. If you stop giving you don't lose anything and you stand to gain a lot more."

I'll admit it. I was almost convinced by this argument. I'm the kind of person that will rarely say no unless I absolutely have no other choice. I try to do whatever I can to help other people, even if it means I would be less well off at the outcome, which I usually am. Either with less time, money or energy. If I stopped giving of these then, yes, I would retain what I have and still acquire more from those that were the "nice guys". It's a win-win, right?
I wondered, perhaps that if I were to be less focused on the wellbeing of others, I would instead be able to focus purely on the self. If someone considered me to be selfish for it then who cares except they themselves? I would still benefit at the end of it all..

So why maintain this persona of nice for niceness?

No, as I said, I was almost convinced; not entirely. I finally came to my conclusion only a few moments ago.

I don't help people because I have to. I don't do it for the sense of satisfaction in being the good guy. I do it because I want to be treated the same.

Okay, so there will be a lot of people who may take advantage. Many who would bleed my veins dry for themselves. Some who may not realise even that they are doing so. These people are an unfortunate reality and I can accept that.

But if I acted the same, I would be teaching others I meet that that is how society is. That's not how I want society to be, that's not the impression I want to give, that's not the world I want to live in.
 I hope that if I treat someone with respect that they would treat me the same, and expand the attitude onto others. I hope to show empathy and I want others to be empathic too.

And yet, empathy is a much bigger word than it first appears. You can put yourself in another man's shoes and say you see and feel and understand without ever having done anything of the like. Even in your mind, you can picture a person's situation but the detachment to it is still a factor. Although the solution to you may be obvious, the situation has had no affect on you because you remain behind a glass wall of imagination. Until you really are in the same room, surrounded by the same four walls, breathing the same air you cannot fathom it. It's very easy to say cheer up when you're not the one in despair. It's all too easy to let someone go when you aren't in love with them and it's a simple thing to fall asleep when your mind isn't running in circles.

Sometimes, empathy is impossible.
We cannot understand because the concept is too alien.

I want to help if I can, and where I can't I want to show that I want to.

Because sometimes all you really need is someone to just be the "nice guy".

Platform of Power

It was only after writing this piece of poetry that I really looked into the past of the Israel/Gaza border war. All in all, I can't really say which side I support in the conflict. Both of them have made poor aggressive mistakes and to be honest I think they are as bad as each other. That being said, I wrote this poem after reading several recent articles revolving around the shelling of schools and the humanitarian crisis that's occurring, or rather had been occurring in Gaza at the time. 

Man, these days nobody has time to worry about being any kind of racist,

Who even gives a damn if you're a black, a white or even Asian?

Look around, it's seems we've figured out ourselves we're all the same skin,

Besides, now we've got democrats, republicans and liberals to spill our hate in.

It's amazing, the villain seems to always get control,

Waging wars in which they never fight, at least not they themselves alone,

Instead as a head of a nation, they risk the population as a whole,

And I'm not here to point fingers, but you can see it in the death tolls,

Look up the polls, nazi Germany, 6 million Jews dead,

And in the war that ensued for their freedom 7,375,800 Germans took rounds of lead,

How many in comparison were the ones who stood behind the desks?

Who commanded this campaign of hatred, who sent the population to their deaths?

Even the top dog of the lot spent his last days safe, concealed on the back line,

And despite that it was all just his own impassioned method of divine,

He built a wall of lesser men to distance himself from his own crime,

And despite the loss of a generation of families through his lies,

Despite the sheer number of Jews and Germans tortured by his political guise,

Despite that he would allow those men in his place to sacrifice,

Still, within his creature comforts he survived the blight of war by taking his own life.

Power is a platform that lays on the backs of others strife.

And now look to Gaza, where mothers, children, fathers are left to rot,

Where another form of genocide is warming up the plot,

Where daily, those that die are not a military lot,

But the innocent and stranded in a cage waiting to be shot.

Where the water is a luxury that no man has even got,

Where the houses now are rubble, where the payloads had been dropped,

And who stands in the background ordering this horrific defiance of god?

Those same sufferers of evil, that this world pledged to and had not forgot,

I am not a racist, I am not anti Semitic, I've no time to be, I am not,

But this stinks of an similar genocide, stirred in a similar form of pot,

And I hope that those that sit beneath those higher men feel the blood in their backs begin to clot,

That they see.

Power is a platform that needs to be promptly lifted off.

Also please, check out this astounding video recording made of the rescue of a small child buried by rubble. If nothing else, this stands as a poignant reminder of the true victims in political warfare.
Post by Thông Tin Hàn Quốc.

i have a friend and he’s my backbone,

my gritted teeth and and fortitude,

and when i die i want on my headstone

a little piece of his attitude,

I have a buddy boarding stations,

playing music to the booths,

And if i had his determination,

I’d be singing similar truths,

I’m not myself, I am a culmination of all those that i meet,

i’m not a star, and i refuse to be,

i’m am myself, formed by inspirations, victories and defeat,

I’m not a star, i am a goddamn galaxy

and i owe my talent, 

to a dedicated poet i’ll never be,

i blame him for my habits,

and my willingness to openly disagree,

and i owe my freedoms,

to a star i catch in every northern sky,

and i owe my reasons,

to every artist that sings to just get by,

I’m not myself, I am a culmination of all those that i meet,

i’m not a star, and i refuse to be,

i’m am myself, formed by inspirations, victories and defeat,

I’m not a star, i am a goddamn galaxy

we are not planets, we shine brighter each and every day we believe,

we are not islands split by sea,

we hold each other up, with a silent contract of willing community,

we all become a goddamn galaxy.

sssd

I could have been the richest guy in the world,

except instead i got a job and now that's my lot,

its like im paying to stay in prison,

is it a given, that I give them, every goddamn ounce of my soul,

to reach a goal i never dreamt for,

if being free means being poor,

then give me poverty, 

if there's a line i won't need to to see it anymore

Diabetic Dreams

A fog hangs around the room with a definitive musky scent, it develops from the embers of my tobacco roll up and spreads itself in grandiose swirls around the place. I move slowly so as not to disturb their dancing and shift the curtain slightly across so as to let in a strand of sunlight. The effect was as to be expected, although the way the light shine off of those little smokey particles is always astounding. I feel like I'm in a 1950's cinema, smoke obscuring an Alfred Hitchcock picture, I see John Williams mouthing but the sound is a bubbled muffle.
 The door opens and a police officer steps in explaining his urgency to get me out of the house, something about carbon monoxide. Across from me I can see Ed J. Carlson slowly falling unconscious to a sleep we all know he never wakes from. I grab my mac and head out the door with the police officer.
 In his car he explains that he is no longer an officer of the law, but instead a contributing member of it, he tells me how his past employment left him with vertigo and a debilitating acrophobia. As he speaks I can see the road getting longer and longer as if I were not moving but instead the world moving around me.
 I blink and Maggie is standing there in the middle of the road speaking to a man, I see the words "Jealous" and "Skipper" pass her lips but again no sound utters free, another blink and I gasp for air.
 My room. The same cigarette burning through to the filter tip that all now hangs ever threateningly over the whiskey glass I often use as an ashtray. My eyes sting and my throat is a pin hole in tin foil, each breath tearing through with a sickly tasteless sensation. I drink a water bottle dry and pull up my shirt revealing my stomach. I jab a needle into it counting, "1, 2, 3, 4..".
 As I lay I listen to the silence that engulfs me, I can just hear so distant in my own head a music only I can understand, the guitars, the drums, the piano, the violas and the cellos. Somewhere a glockenspiel is driving it.

- Max
Yellow Journal, 17/12/1983

Sex, Drugs and Positivity

Lately I've started to get those strange feelings again. I'm sure I've mentioned them before. They're like little nags of nostalgia, except I would accept that the nostalgia is less nostalgic and more expectant. It's very hard to describe it frankly. Sometimes I would say it feels like I'm in a book, stuck on a particular page that I'd hate to turn in case I lost that feeling of euphoria that a particular set of sentences inspired. Other times it reminds me of sitting in a newly refurbished room, suddenly aware of all the amazing things I could do with the new space. But really, I can only describe it one way, which is unfortunate because that way is so very undescriptive to anyone who has not had the pleasure of seeing through my eyes and thinking through my mind, and that way is thus: Streetlamps and Dusk.

I feel awfully static as of late. As if however much I seem to spur myself forward, the more I am pulled back. I feel ever more impotent in the face of an exceptionally average society which only leads me to the conclusion that I should have indeed chosen to find some place to build my hermitage in the forest.

I soon remember this is England.

I really should have been born in the goddamn rainforest.

Strangely, I'm feeling startled by those of late. Before they were mentioned, I'm sure. Those little nags of the nostalgic, expectantly accepting of it's nostalgia more or less. Frankly it's hard to describe. 

The Magpie

Hidden in the heath-lands and mires of southern England, in an old forgotten wood long since trodden by human wandering, there stood an old proud oak, so ancient that, like all other things having reached an age of wisdom and patience, they flourished a mane of silver, camouflaged by the auburns and greys of autumn's flavour that permeated the woodlands, lingering on the leaves, hanging from them and weighing them to the ground.
 It was here, above the overgrowth, that there stirred a wind that lifted those lost leaves into a flourish of colour, then twice and then a third time before a sudden gust lifted the forest floor. Mice and voles scurried from the unexpected nakedness and squirrels watched careful and curious from the tree branches.
 When it all settled, it could be seen, directly beneath our great silver crowned oak, a small opening had appeared, where it's roots had become torn from the ground and pulled with it the earth, where below that earth was a lack of earth that stretched far beyond lights uncanny ability to cast itself, where below, thought one curious eye, must have been something.. Where below must still be something.. Where below, one magpie found his path lay.

London and his butterflies.

I keep them in a jar, just big enough to hold a few but small enough for my pockets. They keep fluttering, dancing, spinning in the dark. Hey whatever, I got time on my side still, I've a spirit yet to cultivate.

Slow and steady, slow and steady, slow and steady, slow and steady..

Spiders don't scare me anymore. Well, not the little ones. Everyone has their limits, you know. I wonder when the line blurs enough to cross? Regardless, I love those little bastards like I would any bird, cat, dog or fish.

And hippies? Come find me in nirvana.

What the hell am I?

So my dayjob's as a barman, yeah, you could say that.
but I'm a musician, I play guitar and shit for the sake of it. I go busking without putting out a hat.
or am i a writer? 2 blogs, a million songs, poetry coming out of my ears and too many novels half finished..
maybe I'm a philosopher, maybe I'm an artist, maybe I'm a game critic, maybe I'm a political satirist.

You know what? I'm me.

Tomorrow

Sunlight broke over the canopy of a modest woodland. With it came a breath of post-nocturnal air that brushed across the dew, lifting it to a peak where it swirled in an almost everlasting cycle of movement that slowed to a ghostly stillness and shape of a mountain before it came cascading minutely back to the surface of the meadow, littering the webs of the sleeping spiders with droplets of moisture so that it would seem to the untrained eye that they themselves still hung above the earth just as thier grand parents did in the heights of the atmosphere.

  Away from that, where the sunlight had creeped across the surface of earth, to find its way to a garden where it descended the tall hedges, snuck over a lake of grass and leapt a bush to the foot of a deck chair, whereupon it gently roused the habitant from a cold and restless fatigue.

His eyes open, he saw a sky so blue. So clear, that he scarcely believed it the same sky he had witnessed for so many years. His eyes closed, then opened, then closed once more. He took a breath and exhaled slowly. He imagined his breath rising like a stream of vapour, culminating into a small but elegant nimbus that, once disconnected from him, rose into the sky like a balloon to hang in the atmosphere. A single puff of blank across an entire ocean of blue.

Gigs, tours, libraries, wine and women..

I write this enlightened by those magic numbers. Fleet wood mac comes around on the Xbox playlists (thank you charity shopping, you have blessed me with a library of CDs and computer games). I'll be having too much fun.. Ahh but it's gone.

Sleep? The patterns thereof? Who needs either but then who could live without? Questions and rhetorical. Libertines shout my angst. Hey what's to lose when your born south of the banks of London. No time for you but enough to scrimp and save. Lets not be late for work today.

But I got a hunch, that its not over yet! Gigs heavy on the practise list, short of my temper and the horizon reeks of a crush, secret hopes and lusts and tomorrow I will learn that elusive tongues that strangles me at bay.

Je serai poète et toi poésie.
Kandaa

fuck it

i love you i love you. jamie t, back of the crown. sleeping alone, no phone, no keys, want to be, need to feel, on my mind, meet me here, never tearful, frightful cold. could be broken, could be taken.

Repost of a failed post

• Repost from yesterday night, internet is hard to come by here in suffolk. But it's all okay as it's replacement is a lush landscape of agricultural beauty. Busking is difficult to begin but the locals are extremely casual about the experiences. Big up, hahaha.

This Sleepy Town

I've seen a place,

 in those far off fields,

 where the sun sets down,

 the sky gently peels,

Away from that,

 a darkness does grow,

 lit by the lunar,

 the stars gently sowed,

The clouds soon drift,

 the abyss engulfed,

 like falling above

 and a problem solved,

For buried 'neath,

 those lonesome hazes,

 a memory stands,

 all seen, all ages.

And yet I would to question this senile place,

 of what it all was before.

Instead as I pass from this land to space,

 I need not take no more,

Somewhere beneath,

 a cavern has grown,

 of it's intention,

 I remain unknown,

The walls are black,

 it's dripping with sage,

 pumped up for above,

 to burn in this age,

To think these creatures gave us breath,

 and where they stink and rot and bile,

We percieve a tube to ravish them through,

 a grave unearthed and vile,

I see it's good,

 but there seems no sense,

 to dig up graveyards,

 build a body fence,

When the sunset,

 so enlightens me,

 that i could again,

 feel warm energy.

Up in the stars,

where we will soon be,

run all alone by,

electricity,

And all forget,

 the breeze through the trees,

 the forest and leaves,

 and the ancient aged sunset.

Koki Downs

Man that was a cool session. I don't think I've enjoyed writing so much as during that poem.

Tour's going awesome, awesome, awesome. My wallets in agony.

I'm also starting to dread the whole, coming back to a job and no house thing. let's see how semi permanent this touring business can be. Get a driving license is the next quest guys.

Speaking of legendary quests, the title was indeed a reference to the Kokiri Forests of Links grands adventures. If you didn't guess that, get back to your N64s, you slackers!

peace and harmony from Kandaa

I owed it to the establishment

I used to celebrate in my music a life of luxury, I used to condone a sense of nonchalance, and hold a disdain for a government that I had assumed only stood to repress and profit from its population.

 I fought a free education,
I bought into a drug occupation,
Held into a love complication,
And suffered a internal hallucination,

 I pushed out what I felt within,
Replaced it with a vagueness of fitting in,
I tried to banish thoughts with vitamins,
Forgot who I was and where Id been,

 I tried to market myself and soul,
Living by the backstreets wishing on the doll,
I compared the electorate to a dose of rohypnol,
Living by the moonlight singing for the new sol,

 I owed it to the establishment,
To push out what I thought should of passed in parliament,
Can't call it much of food for thought, thought of nourishment,
More a teenage angst fantasy, and middle aged harassment

 I bought into jealousy,
If it wasn't cool then it certainly wasn't me
I made sure to stay away from things like the tv,
Can't blame me for the outcome of the things I'd never tried to see,

 Well I smoked for the sake of smoking,
Much more just for looks to outweigh the pain of choking,
So that when i'm puffing down the street I'm definitely hoping,
Someone would think I'm trending Indy, don't think I'm even joking,

 I slowed it down to perfect the storm,
But when plucked with this much bitterness these strings get pretty heavy worn,
And now I look back without the emotion of the forlorn,
I can see it pretty clearly now that I stood to be the fucking pawn,

 I owed it to the establishment,
To push out what I thought should of passed in parliament,
Can't call it much of food for thought, thought of nourishment,
More a teenage angst fantasy, and middle aged harassment


 It's frustrating you can't edit the style and colour of text on the iPad version of this site. fuck you apple.
It's frustrating I had to write this twice because minimising this page on an iPad deletes the page content. FUCK YOU APPLE!!

 I'm posting this (again) because of a lovely message from a friend of mine who's blog I follow. Link to come on tabs up top. I never realised that's what pages were on blogger..

 So what's new?
 I'm going on a uk tour. A friend of mine came up with the idea because he takes his music very seriously and he going places with it, I can't say that I wasn't proud of him. Tim OT. Check him out. And if you like it follow the tour man and check his page  www.Facebook.com/timotacoustic . We're going north south and around, I can only remember Banbury festival as being booked.
Also I got a new Facebook music page, link on tabs at the top.

 Not Going Out. amazing show, watched it for aaaages before the third series eventually assembled itself. But good show!
Oh and the big bang theory.

Thank god for school friends

You Speak Poetry

That's a quote, not a title

Here's to this guy for inspiring the verses below.

So here's to Jack
He was a busker who played his strings with slack,
And he'd exhaust his mentalities when he came out in rap,
And if a passer were to pay him for sharing his crap,
He'd throw the pennies at their feet say "You can have your money back,"

So here's to Sue,
She was an artist who painted the news,
They'd report it she'd create it with stencils and glues,
And when she was finished and there was nothing else to add that was new,
                                                                               She had a model of a theory of what a human should
                                                                               do,

So here's to Dave,
He was a hero who thought of the lives that he'd save,
When he booked up and paid for his course in first aid,
But he didn't see the irony in hoping and praying,
That a kid would get knocked down in the course of his way,


So here's to Jim,
He's an alcoholic, that's him,
He doesn't care for much except his bottle of gin,
But who's to say he's wrong when he's so happy in sin,
Hell I'd ask him but he never really did much of that talking




So many faces, so many names
So many people playing different games,
It's hard to remember which side I'm on


So many faces, so many names,
So many that they all seem the same,
And yet there's no emphasis on individual opinion,




So back to Jack, three years later now he's bored of the slack,
He tightened up his strings and pulled his vocal shit back,
Now he's barely recognisable when he comes out in rap,
He doesn't want to be a rapper he wants to be a democrat,


Now back to Sue, three years later she's moved onto the blues,
Figured an artist painting music, that you can't really lose,
She'll even throw in juxtapositioning by painting in red hues,
As it's less controversial, it's all become dead news


Now back to Dave, three years later got his own kids to raise,
Gotta protect them from bad shit like drugs drinks and razor blades,
He could protect them as he's qualified in first aid,
But hows he gonna do that gotta feed with the work he slaves,


Jim, three years later, still on the gin,
But now he's hanging in the gambling halls, he figures he'll win,
But he never really does, his wallet's anorexic thin,
So he's picking up his next hit from the bottom of a council bin,

Oh James..

Oh Jaaameesss...
Where have you been?
I'm all alone here in cyberspace,
It's dark and boring here; not like what it first seemed

Are you coming back?
Where did you go?
I'll wait, check my facebook,
It's dark and boring there; not like what it first seemed

It's been so long,
You never said bye,
I'll wait watch some youtube,
It's cold and dark there not like what it first seemed,

I'm shutting down now,
My charge ran dry,
Shutting my eyes, going to sleep,
1 second, 2 second, 3 se-

Oh. You're back.

Time

So I was thinking about time and I came up with this drawing and poem
But it's wrecked now so there's no point photoing it up here so I'll just write it out

To ponder the past is to forget the future,
To plan for the future is to repress the past,
So do we ponder or plan?
When all we can change is the here and now.


We 3 Will Taunt You


"Open these gates!"
the Future cries,
threatening in its finality,
here it comes and here it dies.


"Let me free!"
the Past wails,
wriggling from its former chains,
"Give me your reasons, give me your grails!"


"I am doubtless."
The Present boasts
flaunting its immortality,
It does not change.


Not for Neither

safe

To My Young Heart

Do you remember when we first kissed?
Hidden beneath the branches?
I'd like you to know I always wished, I missed
The sweeter innocent advances,

And now it seems I'll never know,
What I lost and what I let go,
Can I get it back? I don't think so,
Back and forth in this to and fro,

Love hurt me; like I hurt you,
And I feel what you once tried to say?
I know, I didn't love, it wasn't true,
But can I apologise, finally, this day?

I love what I left behind,
Just like so many before,
But ne'er I can turn back time,
I'll always regret forever more.

Another to kiss, another to miss,
Another to remisnisce,
Another to hold, another to mold,
Another to leave me cold,

Love is a smokey haze,
To forget in a day,
I love you for loving,
But I'd hate to say.