Be All; End All release notes

Beautiful cover art by Violet Adams.

Released this month; my second book. Be All; End All is a collection of poems and it will be available from selected Suffolk book shops, myself personally or through Paypal ordering. Be All; End All has been written since the release of Swannui and Cygnus in the summer of last year. It is considerably longer, deeper and perhaps less conventional than my earlier work; often Swannui and Cygnus poems bore the mark of the eager university student seeking his tutor’s approval. I shall release it for myself if for no-one else.

Swannui and Cygnus (for sale in bookshops in Beccles) featured 23 poems, a compendium spanning several years. There were poems which I had written aged 16, sat in class in sixth form, procrastinating in an English lesson. There were poems I had written just weeks or even days before (Meander was written as I was formatting the PDF). A 9 year selection of poetry can show an evolution but also can seem muddied and inconsistent. That said, I am still proud of my first book.

Each book is £4, one copy of each can be bought together for £6.

Immaculate

We’ve all been searching for something for so long
That the reality is that we simply can’t accept anything
That’s real, as everything that is actual and material
Is by its nature, flawed with faults and far from

The ideal, the perfect, the immaculate image of
That life we dreamt of
That we were raised on, hand reared to believe
That something just a little beyond human

Existence could await us, perhaps only us
And it’s all fairy tales and folk lore
But perhaps thats all there is
There are no dragons, no hydras, no trolls

No knights, no princess
Nobody wears a white veil
We are all muddied, bloodied
Human and defective

Beauty is best left fleeting
Because she is a flickering, fluttering flash
Through your life
A bright flame that burns out far too fast

And scorches into the soul
The first cut is the deepest is
A lie I’ve heard far too many times
As the twentieth gouge slices roughly into

My aching wrist, relax and wrap it up
A tourniquet, a suture sculpting the skin
To disguise the damage of
Every little last laceration

Thanks for the mammaries, the misery, the memories
The mild amusement and the smile that slips across
These bruised and battered features
It’s not so bad, we are all alive and

Well, well isn’t that just the point
We live, we grow, we move on
And beautiful moments are only beautiful
As they are so short, sharp, sudden
Unexpected and altogether surprising
Cutting us to our cynical cores and showing
A glistening glimpse of something that we know
Deep down is the ecstasy of life

All good things in small doses
Lap it up and indulge
Savour it, savour her
Save up the saviour and store it
To save you from your sorrow

Pity Is As Pity Does

She’s happy now
So I hope that serves as
Some small comfort
As you sit sipping scrumpy

Alone in your apartment
Checking your phone for a text
From someone more interesting than
Your plan provider

If light alliteration can amuse and
Entertain then take that up as
Another pastime to help see you through
The longer you last without speaking shit
To her or anyone else can only be time well passed

Your prime, is gone like the wind
Technicolour and technically over
Or is it all a state of mind
What state is yours in right now

After one too many nights
Lapping at the teat of any of your many
Vices, metaphorical and as meaningless
As the last four years of your life

Time is short, or so they say
Youth is fleeting and wasted on the
Young, yet you could do a lot to slow it
Down, stop sliding down the slippery slope
Of slosh, drink, drunk

You are what you eat and if all that defines you
Is your seat at the bar
Your bank balance and beer belly
And the way the barmaids frown
With pity and disgust

Well, what a pity it is that it’s come to this

Rough Mouth

Let’s cut it loose,
Slow it down
Ditch it, smack it, stop it
In it’s
Fucking tracks

Is that the only muscle that works,
Connected to your mouth but not
Your brain
Running on vapors but still running on

We’re all tired of being your back up plan
So three cheers for plan C
As we sidle away and take our wet blades
To the whetstone
Waiting

For you to turn around
It doesn’t have to be like this
We’re far from perfect
All of us

But we’re trying so hard
Bless us, anoint us
Let the sarcasm wash over us
Baptised and beloved by the patronising prophets

Sometimes simply living is hard enough
With the stresses and pressures we’ve created
Our qualifications hang round our necks like
Metaphorical seabirds

Still alive, screeching and flapping
Violently against our chests
Their shit running onto our shoes
Staining the cheap leather

Yet still the laughter rings out,
Caws out, clucks out
Get the fuck out of here and leave us
All alone, every last one of us

We’re cold, we’re poor but we’re happy
Or would be if we could just focus and
Count our blessings
Without that tongue clicking, clacking
Against the roof of your rough mouth

Chanting, chiding about how we should all
Feel a little less than fulfilled
An overqualified, inexperienced and indebted generation
Saddled with expectation and
Sidelined through no fault of our own

So raise your glass to repression
Block it out, blunt the daggers
Flip the coin and grin as the regent’s silhouette
Lands, facing up

I Am Shazzamo

Lyrics to I Am Shazzamo by The Fall Of Science

There’s nothing left to say
Except the obvious, the empty
The erudite one lies and squirms

We’re searching, we’re hoping
For something to save us
There’s still nothing left

As the truth has been revealed
And the tables have been turned
This distance brings me falling to my knees again

When elegy becomes memory
Shazzamo, they’ll never know

We’re becoming sentient
Soulless machines; breathing, bleeding
Knee deep in apathy

As the truth has been revealed
And the tables have been turned
This distance brings me falling to my knees again

If it makes you smile, I would say these words to you
And if it makes you smile, I would end this life tonight

Hey emptiness, this is our salute
To every breath, to every tear
You made it real;
The beauty of loving you

You don’t have to suffer,
You don’t have to see this to the end

Ethereal

Lyrics to Ethereal by The Fall Of Science

So hold tight baby
And you’ve never been so quiet
Yours was the loudest voice at her funeral
You’ve never been this quiet

I’ve tried so many times
And failed to make you see
But I’ll be here, emptying my lungs
Until I cease to breathe

You can’t be true to me
And you’re looking at me trying
To show me sorrow
And I can’t breathe
And I cannot breathe

When every word you uttered
Stands to be a fragile lie
Then the people left behind
Will finally bare their teeth

For this life we lead through
Disbelief I will crown you the pointless fool

I guess something had to shake you to the core
Something had to squeeze a tear
From those turquoise eyes

No you can’t be true to me
And you’re looking at me trying
To show me sorrow
And I can’t breathe
And I cannot breathe

Definition

Your biology defines you
All of us, every one
It’s cold, sad and dark
But it’s a fact

You can never rise from where
You began, not truly
There are always reminders
Of frailty, weakness, mortality

Even when you break down every
Single barrier, the wall falls,
The bonds tear, there will still be
That link, that chain, binding you to

You
Yourself. That sick, twisted.
All so ordinary
Biped
Oh, so you’re bi-lingual?
Well schön für dich!
A toast to Schadenfreude

I raise a glass to my bleeding lips
You can nip, tuck, butcher
All you like

But this was never about physical form
Your scars always live, you can’t outrun
Your past, or anyone you’ve passed along
The way

Run along country boy, your reach exceeds
Your grasp, you gasp and fall from the ledge
Yet you don’t believe me, maybe all that means
Is not that the glass ceiling doesn’t exist
Just that you’ve yet to smack your clumsy
Anglo-Saxon skull against it

A Natural End

A natural death
Yet all death is natural
A beginning must have an end
The cessation of life

But it hurts
It’s agony, it’s raw
Retching and choking on emotion
If tears were claret
You’d bleed out

Expensive too
When my day comes
Give me five more decades
When my day comes then

Bury me in a box
I’d like to leave you with more
Than my cynicism
Try to read

Something cheerful
No dirge, no shit like this
Something light, but no Blake
Wordsworth perhaps or even Poe

I’ll put the fun in funeral
So dance the dance of death and
Get ripped, pissed drunk on some
Strong scrumpy for this country boy

Where Astronauts Unwind

I met her writing meta
Fiction, carefree in a cafe
Silent for a second, bar the tipper
Tapping of the spacebar

Her eyes met mine, glanced
Down then roved back and locked
On as the caps lock engaged
And screamed out HE HELD HER TIGHT

Release, lift your finger, and he released her
As she realised there was much more involved
Than the friendly smile had first suggested
It was steamy on the page and
Paige wiped steam from her glasses on the hem of her skirt

Dripping wet, drip, drop
Was that too much
Perhaps she’s cold and resistant at first
The mug was cold too, a top up please
Hot and white, just the way I like it
The meaningful look across the tables

Too much, yes, far too much
The waitress sighs but Paige chuckles
Then returns to the tipper tapping of the spacebar
As I take the space beside her

The Descent

This started as a whisper
Yet the truth will out
And even the smallest spark
Can ignite

Tinder, kindling and
A whole lot of conjecture
The flickering flame grows to an inferno
A crescendo, screaming to be heard
Above the din of what we just desire to be true

Repress it, suppress it
Sir, press it down harder or else it will
Wriggle free and wreak havoc on your bliss
Blissful ignorance when illusions are an illness
Take reality as a medicine, choke and cough it down

You can deny it all you want but
Let’s face it, facing the music has
Always been a sick thrill to you
Those beautiful faces, take it all in

As you stand before you, your shadow
Weighs heavier than your heart
But grin and bear it, bare your soul
If it ever existed or ever will

Those faces, so familiar yet
One degree removed, still they
Hold the grooves and creases of your own
The dilution is their greatest strength

They won’t understand it at the time
But when they hear those words tumble from
Your busy lips
They’ll be grateful that their
Descendents will only feel
An eighth of your stinking claret smuggling into their hearts