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Category: Life

What About Me?

What About Me?

Published by Adrian North on 1 June 2018

What About Me?

What about me
Living just to be
What they want me to be?
No job, no wife, no car
No life to live so far
And they just talk and cheat,
And lie and steal and bleat
About each other
The truth they smother
While this world bleeds and stutters and dies
But their lies
Stifle our cries,
Our goodbyes
To those we love
Both those above,
And those below, now and always.
No-one plays
In these streets any more
Everyone is shut behind their door
Afraid to give
Or live
Their lives.
Earth strives
To breathe
We leave
Our children
Love hidden
We face each other
Lover,
Friend, another
As strangers

09/12/2000

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When the world stops

When the world stops

Published by Adrian North on 14 May 2018

When the world stops

The coffee cup grows cold slowly in my hand
Whilst I, distracted, think on you.
Then the world surrounding me
Stops
And I lose myself in fading remembrances
My heart is warmed
And I am slowly lifted
Out of the darkness
That I have built around me
Since you left.
And when I turn back to reality
I know you are with me
Within
And I am whole.

13/07/1990

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Come the day

Come the day

Published by Adrian North on 11 May 2018

Come the day

It's ten to six in the morning
A cold, cold morning
Travel through the haze
Of half sleep
Returning to hateful wakefulness
And with it
Another day
Maps itself out
In full bloody detail
Before me

Roll off the bed
Hit the floor
Trying to wake up
Failing
Eyelids glued together
Won't come unstuck
A thousand deserts
In my mouth
Stumble to the bathroom
To shave
If I don't cut my throat first
By mistake

Brush my teeth
Up, down
Up, down
Brush
Not head

That fuzzy thing in the mirror
Is that me?
Hell, I look rabid
Maybe I am
I feel it

Dress
In what?
Something from the heap
On the floor
Something clean
Well
At least something
That doesn't smell too bad

Breakfast
Something floating
In my bowl
Oh, it's cornflakes
I think
It's so full of iron
I could rust

Go to work
Car won't start
Kick the damn thing
Sit behind the wheel
Hitting my head
On its hard rim
Start
For fuck sakes, start!

Sit behind my desk
All day
Papers pass before my eyes
Unread
Unheeded
Unwanted
Oh please let me die!

Glance at the clock
Ten more minutes
Until parole time
A bloated blurry body
Dumps more papers on my desk
'These are important' it bleats
As I try not to kill them

Finally I am finished
It is dark outside
I sit in the car praying
To the gods of starter motors
Cough, cough, whirr, BANG!
Well I guess that counts as starting
Shit! The fuel light is on

Get home, open the door
What should I eat
Whatever is in the fridge
Whatever isn't green and furry
Should I cook it?
No why bother

Sit down
In front of the TV
A talking head is asking
Whether I have had an accident at work
Hell
My whole being is an accident
Can I get compensation?

Turn the taps
Of an arthritic shower
Waiting for the water
To go from freezing
To almost lukewarm
Now where's the soap

It is way past midnight
As I hit the bed
With a sickening thump
Of head on pillow
Crawl under the sheet
And pull it tight
And hope
The nightmares don't come again

Repeat...

18/09/2000

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In the silence of summer standing
A Homecoming

A Homecoming

Published by Adrian North on 23 April 2018

A Homecoming

Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks
Confront me
A decade on
So much has changed
Behind my suburban exterior
Am I as unrecognisable
As the scene before me?
As cold, as hard, as bleak?
So much changed
Beneath the same shell
Like these houses and shops
Am I, like them,
Decaying,
Rotting from within?
Have these ten long and weary years
So etched their pain
Into the very stones of my soul
That I may never return
To what I was?
But if I could
Would I?
Have I endured the torturing winds
And tormenting rains
For nothing?
Have I watched them erode my hard exterior
And expose my raw and bloody flesh
To the tempestuous elements
Just to say
"It is right,
Right to suffer so"?
No, no I will not
But stand and shout
At my new found strength
Swept clean by those who seek to hurt
And once more return
Return to this suburbia
Unlike those around
In their safe suburban lives
A newcomer
Returning to my fathers' land
To these
Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks

13/07/1990

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What Memories Will Die
Stooped Raincoat II

Stooped Raincoat II

Published by Adrian North on 19 March 2018

Stooped Raincoat II

I sit here in my room and look out across the street
There is a light on in someone's room
Whose I'll never know, someone I know I will never meet
I'm just a stooped raincoat in the gloom

Star shine
Shine brightly
Brightly on those out there who know
Know what it means to be tired and alone
Alone without anyone
Anyone to love

I walk in the park watching prams pulling mothers
Talking to no-one, letting their children play
Passing me by, going back to their lovers
Not seeing a stooped raincoat in their way

Star shine
Shine brightly
Brightly on anyone out there who loves
Loves all those who are tired and alone
Alone without anyone
Anyone to love

I recall the one I love, how her going hurt me so
Standing there, an old suitcase in her hand
She told me she had to leave, had to go
She couldn't love a stooped raincoat so bland

Star shine
Shine brightly
Brightly down on the one whose leaving hurt me so
So much it left me tired and alone
Alone without anyone
Anyone to love

I stand alone in the city square and look round
There's nothing here except the city lights
Nothing here for me in this cold, hard town
For a lost stooped raincoat in the night

Star shine
Shine brightly
Brightly down on all those lonely people here
Here where we live so tired and alone
Alone without anyone
Anyone to love

I turn round and head back to my lifeless room
The light is off now there across the street
It doesn't matter anyway, let my pain resume
For me, a stooped raincoat incomplete

Star shine
Shine brightly
Brightly down on the life I leave behind
Behind me so tired and alone
Alone without anyone
Anyone to love

05/03/2003

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For You

For You

Published by Adrian North on 16 March 2018

For You

The radio plays
Gently in the background
Of my life.
The light throws dim shadows
Onto the dreary walls
Of my room.
It is so cold here now
Without you.
You have left an emptiness
That nothing fills.
An icy silence
Of nothing heard
Except my breathing
Harsh and halting.
The hours are long,
Time creeps past.
The hands of the clock
On the wall
Are resistant
To my will,
They are persistent
In their motionlessness.
I fill my life with boredom
And remembrances.
I warm my spiritless heart
With tales of happier days
And wait in frighted hope.
For you.

12/07/1990

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Suburban Hell

Suburban Hell

Published by Adrian North on 12 March 2018

Suburban Hell

As I stumble through this existence
I wander past
Rows of stark stone prisons
Encaging sad suburban souls
Within their lifeless, faced-brick cells.
They mete out their unhappy existences
Behind tired chintz masks
Vying with each other
In uselessness
And emptiness
Trying to be the first
To new levels of unhappiness.
They seek to pacify
Their material gods
With plastic offerings
Lain before a brushed chrome altar.
They have the same oneness of mediocrity,
Of outward decency
And inward moral gangrene.
They talk of the weather,
The news,
The garden
And inside they lust
For fornication
To the world they are virtuous
And to the universe nothing
Forever NOTHING.

13/07/1990

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There lies my heart

There lies my heart

Published by Adrian North on 5 March 2018

There lies my heart

There where the grey mountain
Holds its head against the sky
There lies my heart in joy

There where the wanton sea
Its waves against the rocks does break
There lies my heart in joy

There where the green Earth
Its face in the Sun does bare
There lies my heart in joy

There where the salt laden air
Assaults my breath
There lies my heart in joy

There where the city lights
In the sky like stars does shine
There lies my heart in joy

27/01/1988

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