you're taking me over

i pretty much simplistically divide my poetry into two camps - those i'm proud of, and those i'm not. that's to say that some i'll pimp around messageboards and various incarnations of my own website, and there's the others that will languish in the darkest corners of box-files, stolen computer paper yellowing by the day. in truth however there's probably a third camp that resides somewhere between the two, and since starting this blog i've been reclassifying a number of poems because the passage of time (in many cases over 10 years) has meant that on re-reading them they seem almost new, albeit with vague almost deja-vu style memories attached to them.

the following poem falls into this new category. however it doesn't actually mean anything and isn't written about anyone in particular. the title is taken directly from a ben elton novel of the same name (although i am and was wholly aware of it's roots as a shakespeare quote, it was on finishing the book that i decided to use the name). finally, it was written to the tune of the drowners by suede, a band i was heavily into at the time.

In Any Other Eden

I could leave all this,
Travel oceans away.
But if the grass isn't greener, what then?
I have a taste for some things
Wholly unconnected
With the state I find myself living in.

Should I let you injure
My pure thoughts and deeds?
But if you won't let me love you, what then?
Make a martyr of pride
And let me sink to my knees -
I'd feel you taking my soul bit by bit.

There'll be heroes in
Any other Eden.
'til then I'll walk through the valley of shade.
Some dark grey days I'll despair,
But mostly I'll just sit there
Trying to remember when it was I lost control.


July 1994

somehow it doesn't seem as clunky viewing it again after all this time, although i don't think it could ever be 'promoted' to my top-tier. there are some lines in particular that i especially like (most notably make a martyr of pride and let me sink to my knees), and as ever there is a trademark bitterness present despite not being based on real events. i remember writing this on a train out of sheffield (possibly to liverpool but more likely to london where my then-girlfriend lived) and forcing myself to write something around a phrase i liked, but looking at it now i can't help feeling that it's a shame there's no real-life resentment attached to it, that i can't conjure up memories of some perceived past sleight and say to myself fuck you then, fuck you now...