Allons, oh
Let’s take a big leap;
into the unknown,
and if we die
then well, we die.
And how!
By Mark Manchester 2024
Dramatic versus Vivid Cool
Things that used to feel worthwhile,
like times
we sat and shared a wine;
like languages,
like cherryade,
like feelings stung regret for days.
Understandings,
small disputes;
about your means of ill repute.
We waited ‘til the sky turned clear,
amidst the strains of telemeres.
Until the clock came near unspun,
and stranded, lost and yet so sure;
we departed
to Original.
Mark 2023
Attention reinventors
Wind is dropped,
whistles and
fruit cake visions amongst hazy eye-lines.
Bracken, scratch, calisthenic stumble;
onwards onwards never back.
Attention reinventors,
attention masquerade.
Attention disassembled;
attention never paid.
Mark Manchester 2023
Animal spirits
We used to have a cat
when I was a child, she said;
it was a big, fat, grey thing.
It wasn’t very sympathetic.
Imagine life through the eyes
of that cat.
Mark Manchester 2023
Through the motion
Wish I had something to say;
like I didn’t spend the whole year failing.
Spirit tucked away, finished.
Mince pies and I regret everything.
Wrapping the same old presents again.
The same old presents again.
Mark Manchester 2023
Who Is The Driver?
Petrified by you;
how could anyone watch that film,
and rate it seven?
On the basis that you loved it,
connected with it deeply,
but couldn’t escape the feeling
it was evolving
past its resolution.
Mark Manchester 2023
Dominic
What are memories,
when held by only one?
A treasure chest
that no-one else will ever know.
You loved Ranma, one-two;
and you told me playing space games
“I will an-hill-ate you”
so I laughed, which felt a little cruel.
Friendship turned to teenage ways,
time parted us for real;
yet when you passed
I wasn’t sure
we ever part for good.
Mark Manchester 2023
Flags & convenience
Living in a world of no reply.
Laughed at you as you watched TV,
along with 1,200 others
frantically sending hearts.
Yet we can walk around our towns all day
and speak to no-one.
Mark Manchester 2023
No birds No birds
Caught up in a tangent fire
webbed in some cave;
step out into zero zero
parachute,
parachute.
Mark Manchester 2023
Newest Dreams
I think there was a chance once
And I think there was a way
Now all I need is an armchair
Maybe a dog
Mark Manchester 2023
End of the Era
Crescendo;
this is monotony.
Paid for talent then
sidelined
since they found none.
Disappointing,
they were hoping
for an American.
Mark Manchester 2023
Dreadenings
Rallied around these histamines
like a rash won’t cut my scene;
then notice those burn marks -
because pain won’t feel no blame.
And all extensions of poverty
are allegedly mine to claim,
staggering into the wasteland
of a future that signs those hives.
Mark Manchester 2023
Your name
Neil Gaiman!
Will not name his sourdough starter
and for my part,
I won’t be naming
my unfinished dreams.
Mark 2023
Silliness softly
All that you wanted,
all that was true.
Emptiness, longing,
riddle me through.
Catch me in starlight
cast from a tear,
impossible’s nothing,
without any fear.
I can’t get past it,
you might not move;
always in shadow
ever in gloom.
But my heart breaks
in fragments,
always the same
every time your name
slips into my brain.
What then was real,
what had value?
Only the moments
that I spent with you.
Mark 2022
Value in the market
Heavy
still and
so depressed
you cannot even read;
or think or speak
and given prompts,
can really only
rage.
Confusion
in our melody,
dreams of nuclear war.
Throw me
into recompense
and spend me,
ever more.
Mark 2022
Mysteries
Heaviness,
she wakes me
from that history.
Our heart-felt trials,
our bones on the line.
Like a cuttled spurt,
she caught me
in an open book;
what could not be translated
- my desire
to save myself
from life.
Mark 2022
Price it in
Dolphins
dying in the Black Sea;
my heart is beating faster
than you think.
There will
never be a writer
who can tell this story.
Mark 2022