The Geranium Hotel Poems

The boys drive the cars their mother's drove They have emasculated them, hardened them Sawdust settles on the lips of the men As their hair falls from their parts and gets blown back Tradition is a venture for the economically wise Everyone knows heaven comes at a price Fashion is an art that happens when no one is watching To judge our nature is to wish we were born in a future age Lost in a desiderata amongst words unfound The problem has solutions as we know and all medicines expire In my coma I saw the way to the long, long death- in waves The abandoned clothes were left for the cramping limbs As we watched the flames strangle the feeling, we pulled glances up from the ground And all the crowd gathered to take pictures of the black night No one could have stopped the recollections of the youth We realised nothing had changed in the tenses Nothing could have stopped those birds from roosting on the ledge The marshes are drying and the houses can now be built ...

Living on a crest, I guess it is nobody's fault The red line leading me to the choking gasps Every picket in every fence could be a new letter in the alphabet A look from you could be a cigarette freshly lit The music winds down and I can smell the soap on your skin You are losing weight but it's what you like to do I have been stacking crates of beer for money, but I can't seem to do it right Every time I cut my tongue on the words I swallow I spit the blood on your garden I can hear the motors rev, they sound like the cold voices in an old folk song I want to read your letters again, I want to see your tan I want to tell you about the trees that grow in a land you will never visit A moth flew into your drink but you still drank it You saved the insect with your finger, drunk with thinning blood A ghost tried to watch you piss but it was too fat to fit through the door You tried to steal my shirt but you had a change of heart It's what you like to do ...

The absurd brothers Oily hair leaving marks on the window You know what's chic, you know when to run The Indian can't grow a beard but he can drive the bus Fingers are cold and the bath is empty You wish your mother looked like the singer You wish the summer would start The glass was smashed and it looked like ice All the shards were frosty blue The comic ink stained the concrete A ferris wheel will make your blood thick Magic came out of the fox's hole And you heard a banjo, you thought you recognised the man in glasses Are you going to apply for the job Are you going to insist that you meet the dying poet? You know you are handsome when you are polite But I think you know you can be smug And let's not forget we all reflect too much On what we all practice on So the evening will come soon, but the summer is shy I have to go too but I will leave you my folk records And I know you can store pictures of me Behind the drawers or beneath the perfume...

When you close your eyes your see snow flakes and white mice And you promise to yourself that your going to win back your mind After you lost it in a card game on a bad hand at a square table And the amber piss is warmer than the air that you breathe But the fog that lifts up around you and everyone else Smells the same and is as warm as the applause that comes to you from the orchestration pit The garden would grow if it wanted to, but all it wants is to scream into the wind The ridge is green, the stump is grey, the road has gone so you make your own Every little trip you've taken you've taken a story of an artists life to read along the way But you have never told your mother where you were going You have never paid for your ticket or the paper that you use to fuel the fire You know of little villages that the highway bypasses full of farmers and their sons Jacking off in haysheds, swimming in the dams, covering naked shoulders in clay mud You know of the men...

What sweet words can you sing to the word tonight? What hymn to the thieving boys will make them feel? A matter of ability that you ricocheted off the past And none of us saw you close your hand in the dark Will you try to hurt the darkness that closes around the strangeness? A mutation around the ground that keeps us standing Although all our names are written on the list that is pinned to the door And we see someone has drawn the curtains closed The drums are all beaten hard and the drums are all beaten rough As the boys all walk down the side with no chance of stopping The gate swings wide, the gate swings open And plans go awry, plans all back fire Dangerous words are spoken, rearranged, buried and put to sea The wind rips the sails and the destiny has no control, it takes no notice All the flowers are put in water and colouring The result of a genius plan owned by the writer and his lover We listen to the witnesses words, the same words as the poem In a voice s...

All the possibilities stand on the cloud counters shoulder A great hope to be gilded and buried by the kids on the coast We could have helped the guy who was selling the pine needles But his hands were sticky with sap and he would have covered us too He really belonged in a book of birds and mythical creatures The fun stopped when we ran out of silver coins We stopped looking forward to sundays and started looking for new habits Hearing traditional music and learning poetry written by Uranian soldiers The soft voices recorded over the beats of the piano shuffle We know of the hero who believed in Albion and wrote of summer Who signed himself out of the army before the war was over Again you mention a destination and a bridge over a beautiful river You never learnt to swim, something you are proud of You have never broken the flat water or been seen drying naked on the shore Like a daffodil drying after the storm in winter- you maintain these are passing p...

What would your therapist say if she could see you now But you don't have the money she would charge So she will stay on her side of town and you on yours Dressed in your fancy clothes that you inherited from your father There is a hole in the wall covered in the sludge of an office man A book of erotic verse was left in the cubical by the boy With illustrations by Francis Bacon painted midway through a personal war Thieves and high octaves documented for the next generation No one will remember the last decade's sirens Evil riots are turning grey beneath the sound of the rock and roll band We all have to wear jackets and masks to keep out familiarity We all smash the watches and clocks to keep out the time that we miss Drunk in the day on the premonitions of the future Every second is a worry on your shoulders, a bruise that keeps returning A moan against the wall is a planet that holds itself up on an angle The children can't see that the time to run has...

Roses bobbing on sighing winds Love games upending gutter flowers Holding heads high but buried in song Seasons crouched, uncomfortable, lost in material New days mixed with black soil Missing children fading in rhyme Deep lines lingering below the pulling tide Chapters unread telling stories of what will happen How will the mood hit you in your wisdom? How will the realisation face you in your sleep? To grasp the warmth of day means your back is turned All the creatures drag their voices out onto the street We can hear the fingers tap against the pane Do you rejoice in the echo against the evening? The bones creak and we acknowledge the old books The roads are all newly tarred and they slowly melt in the sun The heat hits us as we touch this continents shadow Didn't we chose this madness in the store? This electric red that paints our cheeks Ruby rich and full of wisdom We once knew everything of the tide, of the water We once knew of the fish that swam eas...

The hopeless energy beating blind Assassinating the jagged jawed animals Fashion shop guns and movie house girls Cannibal mothers and cubical fathers Who in the world can see the metaphor? And who in the world is the metaphor? The symbol in the circle A portrait painted in the dark The shoes are dry, the puddle's frozen Against the wall the stones collect The leeches take the blood the liquor thins In the electric light your colour is shown Leave day to the flowers and the silverware We know we are wrong We know we won't be forgiven At this time of night no one listens, everyone has gone Everyone grows old in our shadow Leaving us alone and distracted Something though sits on our shoulders Urging us to look for the church windows In which we are portrayed For the graveyards that we read about In the books of the baritone brothers Who showed us the parks And the places to go to find the empty clothes Above us I could see the sky being redesigned Belo...

there is a new law on the street everything is stalled should i listen to the violated voice? i want to be touched by the brush of madness i want to have a close call there is a buzzing in my ears like the groan of the toad the night is all music time is all mechanics magpies swoop and steal pens from poets i want to know who set the book aflame against the wall i stand punching and kissing words of men reading letters from an english boy in berlin he tells me of a time that is coming he has seen his kind in a broken mirror found in a cellar vanity cares for the cure and disease on the hand is a scar, the same place as mine following the brightness in your head to a shadow in the dark where light melts dress warm its going to get cold and bring a rock we have to break glass do you wonder like i do about the dose? about what brought on the misery? handy to know how to bring into houses and I know how it is to be kicked out of line so all the kingdom's b...

Pulling at the rope at your feet The whole mountain will stay out of reach But the connection will be uncovered And the space between will grow shorter A song composed for years combined Will not impress the ears much younger And the secret servants will clap the flame higher You have to pull that rope Do you believe in the mice that chewed the strings? Do you believe in those judgements of bravery? There are too many holes and not enough blankets So there will be shaking tonight A dark unimpressed cloud over the school of thought Poison works fast but influence is faster Grown men look down with the curiosity of birds We had our chance to die, we could have seen the mountain fall Eternity may have burnt out its wick Yet we still force ourselves to walk alone Animation still burning our blood like ice falling against our necks We wake up growling like animals, scratching at one another's flesh The only lust we still maintain is to walk and run from rock to ro...

I walked into the room while thinking of our little story I should have written it down If only on my stain covered sleeve I should have turned it into a song And whistled it to the wind You seemed to have it transcribed onto a look An expression close to criminal intent A cross between lust and hate and docile integrity It's a joke I suppose, left out to sprout in the sun There was a way I could have left Yet no way out but through that door Its like trying to understand why a smell reminds you of love Why a certain pair of eyes reminded you of night Is it cruel to give someone else Your love? It was built for You, it has Your dedication written on the title page But You shall not receive The lost mention of the peppermint grind Your eyes were so dark all I could see were the reflections of the street lamps It will be your story I carry Though I know someone else will get to hear the ending I was just the start Though I did give you courage To walk through th...

Lick your finger making it electronic, making the twin ask questions Blood on the cheek and death on the boats We call for amnesty amongst these thieves The horizon is long I can hear the voices from beyond it Lullaby the dog to sleep, no one can put their finger on the silence To think, we were once naked and hopeful The pain in your head makes you claw at the clouds The mercury has fallen lower than the state of your old life Is this the story of you or me, of music and strangers? Collars are pulled down, buttons are undone I can see the stains on your skin I can see the looks that you give to the people who are pretending The actors of today and the parents of tomorrow I stole my new name from the french poet imprisoned I'm waiting for him to die, I'm waiting to understand This is about to become, finally, real And the music stops. There is nothing but the planets falling around the sun. The silence makes me think of you sweating on the steps. You weren...

You know I could hear you sing all night long Do you want to hear that I am still in love with you? I am And I know that your sheets smell of fever And, no, I don't feel to clever Is it possible to mend this? A scratching and stained Dorian Gray Heavy with the pounding illness heavy with new clothes and a malady or love New loves for you and the last post for me Let's just make pacts and pay the prices There is a lot of decay in this duality Do you want to hear that I am shy in this regard? I am The problem is the truth, and the distance we have to go All the mumbling fools that throws your words The casual thoughts and memories strewn and thrown Did the mirror drop and break on the anniversary It tasted like sugar, those chemical dependencies If only the crimson skins hid what was written on your skin So you think you are well read? And you think you can make up a whole new world? Others have done it before you You are not the original, although I do res...

As the fever will burn the malady As the frost will scar the flower of summer As the key will be cut to fit the old door As the string will fly within the wind And our mother's will sing at our deaths And our father's will weep at the tales Friends we are now eternal, friends I can hear your songs Every one of your foot prints will stay in this sand forever Everyone of your kisses will stay fresh on my cheek And your reflections will stay upon the waves Never torn, never frayed, never faded Sing my name to the sky And sing of this day to the earth Do not forget the love that did not rescue us Do not forsake the memory of the past Every one of you will live on in the orchards As we eat the fruits and bury the seeds I can hear you weep, I can hear your sobs I can your prayers in all the different languages My friend your embrace is my daylight My friend your kiss is my medal of honour Today our names are written in lists Rolled off tongues in prayers to t...

Silent songs for the broken men Christmas tins, empty and collected All the gold in the teeth of animals Only I was able to cut the wire Marriages of mercy, five for the dollar Arguments all angry, written as an epitaph Fading into the silence I heard you walk away Problems for the future children Problems to be swept by the beach wind I can hear the chained ghosts in your basement I can hear you have your lawyers in tow All the directions have changed for the day The invited boys will change their minds Drinking scotch with stained ice cubes All nights will begin with questions All nights will begin with the sleeping awoken On your palms I read of a murder In your eyes I read of a day spent in the library I could have ignored the buzzing in my ears Though I took it as a message for my sleeping self Wipe away the stains on your shelf Forge your way through the water that hits everything And admit that everyone was telling the truth As you wade waist deep throu...