Vienna...
Niall and Christina...
Rosie between Croatia and Italy;
You wouldn't think she was tired to look at her.

You'd think I was dying to look at me.

Through my empty spying glass I see some phantom philosopher
Wine in his jacket; Jupiter on his back

Thundering ominous black verse and fretting his fury
Through the whiskey glass furnace
Of self importance.

(I carry heavy ordinance)

In anger; I am Atlas!

Dead sea scroll Pharisee and scribe of soirée and odyssey!
Dumbstruck visionary of Damascus!

In lamentation; I am Atlas...

Lovelorn war poet tending the lanterns in trenches of solitude!
Rabbi in a gas mask!
Shellshock celebrant of black mass!

In the stupor streets of twilight; I am Atlas...

Acolyte of Dionysus!
Who's spirit unbound
Dances - dizzy and high -
Over staggering voids
Of reason

In conversation; I am Atlas...

Theologian and soothsayer
Pillar of the world
Man of letters lost for words,
A thousand timid fates
As glinting swords
Descend upon me

In destiny; I am Damocles...

Whose body and mind are broken
'Besser laufen, als faulen'
Whose fallen on hard times

Whose rhymes and prophecies went unheard,
Whose theses and suicide notes went unread.

Whose threadbare body disinterred - six a.m. -
- disturbed - by cold fingers - shovelling -
- in the earth - above his head.

Whose hangover lingers in lay-bys
Dread speed cameras sleepless eyes
And terminal velocity.

In animosity; I am Atlas...

My very soul tastes bitterly... my blood-wracked eyes weep fevered poetry for the broken heart of the city... and my love is the city... I show my love in strange ways... tramps jerking in alleyways... seagulls eating vomit... men who cock their legs like dogs... the smell of urine at the docks...
These are all sweet nothings to me...
I write much of the country...
I've never been...
I'd find it boring...

My labours vandalised by philistines invisible
My vice intoxication-as-a-matter-of-principle
My revelations arise too little too late
My poetry criticised by cruel eyes of the magistrate
My majesty fleeting between bar and table and floor
My opponent doesn't take me seriously anymore
Greeting check with glances at watch or door
My fear the cruelty of iron topped tenements
My duty the gravity of approaching pavements
My dreams of estrangements testaments of beauty
My night terrors testaments of lonely
My words wasted utterly in uttering
My whisperings dissipated gathering breeze
My measured tones impart disease
My screams unholy puritanical rackets
My money tied up in other peoples pockets
My eyelids weighted infinite mass density
My every breath bated crystal clarity
My fever mutters mantras of mystic visions
My slumber stammers stanzas of archaic asylums
My chess set closeted cheap wine
And Einstein in my own head by closing time
My war crime warps space-time
Admitting no light
My rightful place in poetry magazines
My ends justify the means
My day dreams dark matter
My penuries flatter my ego.

Atlas told me he was a poet
Pretty bitterly
Said it's hard to be a poet
Well if it's heavy...

You should drop it.

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