Kodokushi

                Daylight vanishing

the kitchen floor needs a wash…

Ah, that’s where the butter knife got to.

I really must fix the light in the fridge

when I get a chance.

 

Was it crispbread or was it Ryvita? 

The stuff that gets stuck in the teeth and roughs up the tongue. 

 

                Moonlight enters

I reckon I can make it 

to the bathroom – if

I pace myself

when I get a chance.

 

A multi-coloured ice lolly. 

Dripping down wooden stick onto small tanned hand, in shade of Princes Park Cafeteria.

 

                Backlit

a quiet life

betrayal, exhaustion

another misstep

will I get a chance.

 

I was supposed to meet you. 

By Eros, Piccadilly and I forgot, you’d travelled up from Shrewsbury especially.

 

                Neon bounces off

Rain clouds in distance

Night temperature falls

Traffic fades

I never stood a chance. 

Darlinghurst Days #3

The growl of the gravel truck, lumbering through empty city streets. Hydraulic brakes screech in the hollow night, broken glass spits over the tarmac... Police sirens puncture the two seconds of silence... black dogs prowl the edge of tranquillity... night horrors...

Time to take the road heading north. 

Darlinghurst Days #1

The incessant throb and grind of traffic, interspersed with the jackhammer, crash of scaffold and wailing of the fluorescents clambering up & down, in to out & from street to sky. The noise, the bloody noise of motorbikes, trucks and recrimination. 

My world has got noticeably smaller, the Dog on the bed snores gently, the pile of books on the floor grows by the week. I don't read them, why should I? They will only remind me of the world as it used to be. 

Things will change though... as I refuse to go on like this.

Day in the life...

The End of Days

-- An Empire built

on a shifting tide.

Intimacy swamped

by the dark waves

of imminent night.

Fog horns sound.

-- The South Goodwin

Lightship released

from Poseidon's 

relentless grip.

No more

no more

no more.

Day in the life...

Black Flame

-- I am reconciled.

Cold nights outweigh

the diminishing days.

-- Burnt out.

Like the black flame

in my charred

heart.

Day in the life...

And that was it...

-- Looking out the 

same window,

for all these years.

Horizons swept away.

Every day -- gone!

Journeys remembered

destinations forgotten.

--- Boarding the Metro

at Quai de la Gare... 

The tang of 

burnt rubber 

and last night's 

late hour,

sweeps the length 

of the platform.

The look on her face

betrayed nothing --

except her husband.

Day in the Life...

Long Island

-- We know the route.

Down the path, alongside

the empty house.

--- Footprints in the snow.

On top of the coal bunker.

On the garage roof. 

In, through 

the landing window.

The immersion heater

left on, ever since.

The smell of fresh 

radiator paint.

---- Radio 4 on 

in the kitchen.

Night broadcasts

silent bedrooms,

the Priory.

The inevitable,

hovering ---

A shadow over

Long Island.

* Langney is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words Lang and ey for 'Long Island'.

Day in the Life... (September 2020)

Isolation

-- Communiques

are fading

in the ether,

in dawn's

evaporating

mystery.

The final

notes of

a symphony

disappearing

on the neap tide.

---- A ship

goes down

all hands on

deck -----

Love's final voyage.

Day in the Life... (September 2020)

Flame

-- A cooling zephyr.

The garden alight

with the flames of Ra.

A TR-808 fires up

--- 120 BPM

a soundclash.

Sunday sessions

moving through 

the years...

Dub dreams

bass heavy --

A Samba breezes

through the leaves.

Welcome to 

'a discoteca solitária'!

Day in the life.. (September 2020)

 Flat

-- Another year

cardboard days

full of distance,

fog, smoke and

diminished

memories.

The toaster goes 

here -- well, it

always used to.

--- the red and purple

of a child's fridge

painting. Can't throw

it away. Can't keep it.

Photos

Photos

Photos

Photos

... that I cannot revisit

Books

Books

Books

Books

... that I'll never read.

Day in the life of a... (September 2020)

A darker perspective

-- Mountain high, all time low.

Surrounded by love. 

The treachery 

of the mind.

And to think

that the best days

are so far behind us.

--- The mercurial mix

of amphetamine sulphate,

Holsten Pils, treble

vodkas --- and the girl

from accounts. 

---- Did we really have 

to aim quite so high?

-- Apollo and Artemis

got lost somewhere 

between here and 

Leicester Square.

Meanwhile Dionysus

has got the landlord

in a headlock and 

is promising 'free drinks

for all' --- 

----- Bowie on the jukebox,

silence on the other end 

of the phone.

Mountain high, all time low.

Day in the life of ... (September 2020)

Day Off

-- Hoping for a day away

from the churn and terror

of capturing these days.

We are lost. 

The humanity vortex.

--- Turn the net off.

Silence the radios.

This is all getting out of hand.

Day in the life of a Poet (September 2020)

One day Summer

-- Shingle shards
dig deep into 
tanned back.

Alone with the 
pages browned 
by age and 
the sea mist
that drifts 
along Seaside
into my
open window ----
Moonraker.
--- Time to swim
before the call
and clamour.

I miss the
solitary days
on the beach 
below the 
Holywell Beach Huts.

--- In the quiet days
at the end of 
the affair.

Day in the life of a Poet (August 2020)

--Timeframe, years
pursued by Albina
--- Fresh cut grass
heralds spring, lightness
sprinkled into a
dulled mind.
Highlife guitar
shimmering above
the sadness of the day.
---- The piles of pallets
abandoned on the hard shoulder.
Fading shadow of tears
dissolving
    on the cold shoulder.
-- A flurry of poems arrive
too late.

The Bloke Whisperer

I set up The Bloke Whisperer in 2013*, ostensibly as way to help me articulate the agony and anguish I was feeling at the time. I was suffering from depression and anxiety. They were tough times but I finally managed to learn some strategies and techniques to help me cope with the difficult situations I was finding myself in. I've worked with numerous clients and helped them to overcome their own personal challenges. I wound activity down as other priorities took place.

However, in light of recent events, I have decided to re-ignite the business, with a very positive intent to help as many people as possible to grapple with their own personal demons. If you or someone you know would like a confidential chat over a coffee then don't hesitate to reach out: here

* I am aware that another business founded in 2016 also uses The Bloke Whisperer name. 

That's cool with me, it is more important to help people rather than get het up about such trivial things. 

x

Brighter Days

As I mentioned in a recent post, a friend of mine took his own life just a few weeks ago.

It came as a shock and yet... It most probably shouldn't have. Life is tough for everyone at some stage (and of course the range of problems can be extreme) but the truth is, we should at least be able to reach out. Whether it is to friends or family or professionals. We must reach out...

That's all I wanted to say today. I'll be back soon with more meanderings, vague recollections and daft anecdotes. But in the meantime, remember - Reach out!

Bringing dark thoughts into the bright light

As I have documented elsewhere, most notably here, I have had personal brushes with depression and it even got to the stage where I contemplated taking a final and fatal route.

That has changed, it is off the table now.

The reason is twofold:
1) I have found new strategies to cope with dark days (which still come by the way) and they help to avert tumbling into a whirlpool of morbid self-reflection.
2) A friend of mine recently could not find a way out of his own particular maze and sadly ended up taking his own life. Such a desperately sad loss. But it is a loss that must have a positive legacy and it will...

More to follow.

Solace from song

With the city on fire and the impending election of the bumbling sociopath in the UK. I can't help but wonder - what is the point of carrying on. 

These are dark days indeed and it is sometimes all too hard. But there is solace and it can come from the bleakest of places...

I give you...

Black Eyed Dog

A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more
A black eyed dog knew my name
A black eyed dog knew my name
A black eyed dog
A black eyed dog.

I'm growing old and I want to go home
I'm growing old and I don't want to know
I'm growing old and I want to go home.

A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more.

Nick Drake - Black Eyed Dog

Zero Hours

Twilight Gods,
choking
on the sticky bile of anxiety
turn in too late,
get up too early
and there is no way out of the maze
the exit has grown over
if ever an exit existed
the only sound is the
Minotaur
gnawing away
at the souls
of the
underpaid
& underfed
----
the terminal
unoccupied
AI leading
us nowhere
----
Zero hours
Zero days
Zero minutes
Zero breaths.

Why I’m not ruling anything in or out...

I suspect that barely a week goes by without the topic of suicide peering over my horizon, whether it is brushing the leaves of the past from the tree of history and coming up against the music or the writing or the art of someone who chose, hopefully after much deliberation that enough was enough. 

Or whether it is simply the seemingly inevitable curve that my life is currently on. The prospect of seeing out the rest of my days surrounded by love, comfort, friends & family battles with the notion that perhaps I should be the one choosing la fecha de fallecimiento.

The stigma of suicide is still that it is a coward’s way out. However, the ever-increasing numbers of suicides suggests that being branded a coward after death counts for little when weighing up the choice to continue to live on in pain or to settle things for good.

People often suggest that there is so much to live for but that isn’t always that apparent to the person gripped by whichever strand of despair they are being slowly suffocated by. Is it really worth carrying on down the road to inevitable collapse, fuelled by alcohol or drugs, crippled by inertia and anxiety? Or is it better to just move on.

And what about the people you leave behind? Isn’t it selfish. I am not so desperate to recognize the fact that if I do decide to just stop this whole dizzy whirl that there will be people who will mourn my passing. A handful of people maybe but they will move on. They will forget the passing and hopefully remember the substance of my life and not the route out of it.

I could of course hang around and see what happens next but you see I have been here before. I made serious plans to take my own life in 2013. But I thought my action was too selfish and I owed it to my family to stay strong. But I know the truth, I am not strong. I am vulnerable and hate the way that makes me look and feel. I decided to stay around for my sons and I also decided to ‘see what happens’. What happened was my marriage collapsed, Brexit & Donald Trump too. Whilst I wouldn’t blame my sense of futility on either of the last two, neither fill my heart with anything other than bitter & twisted anguish. Nor, I must stress, do I blame my ex-wife on the marriage collapsing – that was all down to me.

Sitting at this wooden table and listening to the Lorikeets, Magpies and Myna bickering in the garden, whilst I listen to Joao Gilberto, waiting for the water to boil, everything is calm. I am making plans for the week, looking at possible gigs to go to in January 2018, applying for jobs, wondering if I should stay in Australia or to move on. I’ve got tickets for The Ashes (although that won’t offer much respite). I am looking forward to at least February. But that’s the odd thing you see. I used to look way beyond the next three months. I cannot do that anymore however hard I try.

In closing, I know that I am loved and I love. So, all is not lost.

And even if I decide to stop, nothing is lost. It will just be different.

Ax