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...