It seems like your voice comes only at times of sensitivity
dissonant opinion sharing -your subversive activity
“Don’t shoot the messenger -Oh…”
“I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate”
“People are evil”
-“they’re morally reprobate.”
But I tire of your distinct brand of banter
and your progressive take on the Trump banner,
regardless of what’s good and what is lost
it’ll not be your ethnicity
that pays the cost.
Isn’t that all of it,
to reach up to the sun
with fists filled with golden sand,
the hot grains fleeing through the cracked clasp,
and for the sun’s shine to be
silvered by the passing
moods of the earth.
Held at ransom by the Foxton Cartel,
Local 2 bed mansions – guilded
in wheelie bin refuse, styled beaten brick chic.
Unattainable from the past’s sepia optimism.
la vie indisponible
available part ownership, deposit
a 100% addition to the student deficit.
Discounts free
to those with finances pristine Waitrose white.
25% of your days,
for your net total years.
a scheme helping the capital
grasp at the 1%’s remnance.
To venture with an old friend
Or advance a trembling true love,
Inflate your equity
To bleed for the benevolent extortion.
Your life now only available in part-
ownership.
21.
In your eyes
I see, that those presented
as most strong, are those
most complicit in deceit.
***
22.
Who controls what we think?
Sometimes I tell myself
I do
***
23.
I’m trapped again,
stuck to your sweet voice,
your whispered honeydew words
leaving a brilliant sheen
in my bronze eyes.
***
24.
I await your lips
in water’s reprieve,
arrhythmic heart trembling
within my sleeve.
***
25.
I could have died,
left
alone
in your heart.
*****
16.
I always play to place,
in face
of the insurmountable weights,
tugging
from yesterday.
***
17.
Encased in crystal drops,
within home’s walls, I part,
donning an upturned eye,
yearning through these waters
in search of you.
***
18.
I await your lips
in water’s reprieve,
arrhythmic beats, trembling
within my sleeve.
***
19.
I freeze
to the thought of leaving;
dreading a return
to your parted presence.
***
20.
I want the world to be empty,
filled by just us two.
***
Crystal beads cascade, drained
through the freshly bleached porcelain.
I expunging the sweet souvenirs of our sleepless night.
Sober from the water and the whirring extracting fan,
Here I dry, stood, stuck at you.
no longer clouded in ecstasy.
We dance flicking invites and excuses
days stepping forward and rear,
forte e piano.
In our immediacy we erupted
to spill but sparks upon damp wood.
A trudge toward a desirable goal .
I see you only
within digital screens,
devoid of an intimacy once tasted
And I wonder, to what precisely did I grasp?
*****
Link to Part 1:
for Alina Baraz
Transient through the Urban Flora of London’s south,
I Drift atop rolling waves,
their depths rising, enveloping all
in each passing rock of the Bakerloo.
Deluged in Pretty Thoughts, serene
I Unfold words with each bars heartbeat,
poetry within each ear’s bud -caressed in my carriage,
I blossom your Jasmine words.
Half-hearted, I half-listen,
to your half-stories,
feeling half-dead,
for the whole time you’re here.
At half-one, you half-know,
I half-care, what you say,
it’s halflife, too long life,
for me to wish to stay.
This day half-cast, brings half light,
sat half lotus, thinking half-baked,
about half-truths, I half-know,
that I still repeat to myself today
Will I be half-arsed, or half-keen
today’s halftime ‘s, but daydreams
as whole-hearted, I half pray
since I’m half man, half the day…
J.C. FitzDerick 