anti-love

for each loved-up sonnet i conjure from the goodness of my heart, you'd think that there would be a contrasting hate-filled diatribe dredged up from the blackness of my soul. well you'd be right, and although i'm loathe to divulge the person or persons the following are directed towards i can honestly say (without due influence from the remaining minutes of valentine's day) that they're not about my wife...

John's Revenge

I suppose I first knew about it when
You and I (so inseparable)
Became separate then.
When the light of romance began to diminish
And my mind wandered now and again.

So, when I failed to remember a date
You had stamped on your heart,
Send a bouquet too late,
You sent scores of subtle reminders for days;
Empty bed and a mouth full of hate.

I knew then that I should have acted upon
Dying embers of love,
Relationship all but gone.
But left with a tortuous mountain to climb
I realised I'd been gone for too long.

If so inclined, I'd give our love a chance
But to try (when I'm glad) would be wrong.
So I've gone.

So long.


July 1995

okay, so i'd love to pin that one on some ex-girlfriend who wronged or 'disrespected' me, but it's nothing of the sort and was written as a kind of exercise to see if i could write a 'fuck-you' poem. i have to admit that it's one of my favourites (and was actually one of the few published in an anthology which - false modesty aside - i can't quite remember). the next one however was written about one of my first girlfriends who emotionally fucked me over. bear in mind that it was a long time ago (in the eighties in fact) and i'm over her now. just about...

The River Was Deep When I Stepped In

Trivial in your shadow
A pale imitation of what I should be,
I find myself wholly immersed
In the depths where you once left me.

Embracing my ally, icy cold,
I sink further into the inverted sky.
The chill cloaks me like my childhood blanket,
Perverse; I know that I will die.

Motionless and out of my depth
I find myself an eternal bed.
Nightmares invade my mind no more,
The worms to play inside my head

As you once played your tortuous games,
My soul (so naive) torn in two -
The river was deep when I stepped in
But never as cold as you.

November 1988

the river was deep and i can't swim...